Innumerable hadiths or commentaries present the end of the Antichrist, the impostor Messiah, always in connection with a redescent on earth of ‘Issa (Jesus). Among the numerous hadiths of Muslim, we read:
“Arrived at the destination [Damascus], [the Antichrist] will really appear to them. While the Muslims prepare to combat hm, there will be a call to prayer. This done, ‘Issa will return, descend, then direct the prayer. When the enemy of Allah sees him, he will begin to melt like salt melts in water; without [the decree of] Allah, he would have decomposed to the point of dying, but Allah will make him perish by the hand [of ‘Issa] and he will show them his blood on his lance.” [1]
In Damascus ‘Issa is supposed to stand on one of the minarets of the mosque of the Umayyads. Sometimes it is on the esplanade of the mosques of Jerusalem that ‘Issa is said to redescend – according to certain hadiths of Bukhari, which seem to give the most ancient version – or else he is to go from Damascus to Jerusalem. For it is there, in the valley of the Cedron next to the esplanade that, having taken the head of the armies, he is supposed to kill the Dajjal. But basing themselves on a hadith reported by al-Hakim, some commentators think he will descend on a mount called Afiq in Jordan. There exist other versions still. Sometimes these accounts make ‘Issa die 40 years after his redescent – decidedly he was better off in Heaven. There is nevertheless a constant in all these accounts: ‘Issa (Jesus) will return to judge and annihilate the Antichrist and his supporters. This affirmation is also central to the New Testament. But how can he do it, if in separating the good and the evil there is the danger that “in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them” (Matthew 13, 29)? And he must do it everywhere on earth at the same time.
The New Testament does not announce the redescent of Jesus (‘Issa) somewhere on earth, not even on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, from which he was elevated toward Heaven at the end of 40 days after his Resurrection. It announces a manifestation “on the clouds” which will impose itself visibly to all people everywhere at the same moment and which will provoke the Judgment. There will be on the one part those who will exult to see him and with them those who, even while not knowing him, will have opposed his Enemy the Antichrist. On the other part there will be those who will have sold their souls to the Antichrist. It is written:
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess 2, 8-12).
Up to a certain point, people can change, but justly, the Antichrist will oblige each one to take a radical position in good or in evil. Then, before the Truth, those who do not support it will disappear, perhaps because they will become mad (there are already some examples) or perhaps because the human brain cannot endure an absolute contradiction.
We cannot imagine this ahead of time but, the good news is that this Judgment will not be a work of men with armies and killings, nor the Dar al-Islam or “domain of the submission to God” against the Dar al-Harb or “domain of war.” Nor will it be the “world of Lights” against the “obscurantism of beliefs.” The elimination of the Antichrist, Ad-Dajjal, will be the work of Al-Massih coming on the clouds!
