Do you think that the Islamic Mahdi will be the Antichrist and that he will fulfill Islamic prophecies?


Email Received:

Many are saying that the Islamic Mahdi will be the Antichrist. If so, it would seem that he would fulfill major Islamic prophecies for Muslims to believe that he is the one. What do you believe about this?


Ted's Response:

I know the idea that the Islamic Mahdi will be the Antichrist is becoming more widely accepted. Two people who believe this are Joel Richardson (who wrote Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah and The Islamic Antichrist) and Walid Shoebat (who co-wrote God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy, and the Bible with Joel Richardson). Incidentally, Richardson also believes that Masih ad-Dajjal will be the real Jesus. I don't really have an opinion about the latter.

I have attended talks by both men, heard them on TV, watched some of their videos, and spoken with them in person. I absolutely agree with them that radical Islam, in all probability, will be a dominant and extremely dangerous antagonist in the world at the end of the age. Some of my views about this are contained in my Endtimes commentary.

There are a couple of basic points of contention that I have with Richardson and Shoebat, though. They both believe that the Assyrian (Isaiah 10:5,12; Micah 5:5,6) and Gog (Ezekiel 38 & 39) will be the same person, with which I actually agree. However, they also believe that this same man will be the Antichrist and that the battle of Gog/Magog will be the same as the battle of Armageddon. I disagree. (See Is "the Assyrian," mentioned by Isaiah and Micah, the Antichrist?)

Although I am inclined to believe that the Assyrian and Gog will be the same person, I feel that the Antichrist will be someone else. Also, I feel that Gog will be a true, bonafide Muslim; whereas, I suspect that the Antichrist may feign an Islamic faith, giving honor to Allah merely to utilize the power of the brutal Islamic forces that will follow him. Quite possibly, the followers of each man may assert that their respective leader is the prophesied Mahdi.

In addition, I am very firm in my belief that the battle of Gog/Magog will happen on the day Jesus returns to earth (on a Yom Kippur and in conjunction with the blowing of the Seventh Trumpet), while the battle of Armageddon will take place 30 days later. I am well aware that most Christian pastors and "prophecy buffs" believe that the Gog/Magog battle will occur near the beginning of the 70th Week and that the battle of Armageddon will take place on the day of Jesus' second advent to earth.

To get a glimpse of why I have these views, you can read the Gog vs. Antichrist section (of my Final Battles commentary) and the Assyrian section (of my Beasts commentary), and also some of the selections in the Final Battles section of my Ted's Email Responses page.

Basically, I feel it is very possible that two major end-time, anti-(true)God leaders will head different factions of Islam (such as Sunnis and Shi'as) and will vie for domination over land in the Middle East, including Israel, besides engaging in conflicts with each other. Ostensibly, Muslims will follow the leader whom they feel best fulfills their respective interpretations of Islamic prophecies, about which there is significant variance and disagreement throughout Islam. For instance, some of the characteristics of Sunni's Al-Mahdi differ from Shia's Imam Mahdi.

There already are deep divisions within Islam, and Muslims are known for infighting and terrorist attacks against their own. Soon, we may see the Arab and Islamic nations in a widespread process of polarization toward extremes of Islam. Ultimately, though, a noteworthy statement by Jesus will come to pass:

Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? (Matthew 12:25,26)


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