The Costs of War Pre-Qiyamah
According to Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ research, 4.5 million people have been killed since 2001, most of them in Muslim countries. Over the past quarter-century, 320,405 people have been murdered in Islamic terrorist attacks. Jihadist branches are spreading death in wars that have raged for years in Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. Shiite jihad is wreaking havoc in Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and among the Palestinians. Most of these centers of violence have nothing to do with the US or Israel.
Various Christian sects have predicted throughout the tumultuous decades of the 20th century. It is true that human society changed more rapidly, violently and fundamentally in the last 250 years than ever before in history. Doctors saved the lives of millions. Dictators sacrificed the lives of millions. Populations are exploding in Africa and populations are declining in Europe. Technology produces both worldwide prosperity and worldwide pollution at the same time. Should we look upon the future with optimistic hope or with fatalistic trepidation? Is the world and our society heading towards a wonder-filled new age, or toward a doomsday? Or are both occurring almost concurrently because breakdown is always a prelude to breakthrough?
Jews, whose biblical prophets were the ones who first wrote about a future Messianic Age, recognize that the birth of a Messianic Age must be preceded by its birth-pangs. But the prophets of Israel also emphasize the glories of a future world living in peace and prosperity with justice for all. Ancient Jewish prophecies did proclaim that there would be an end to the world as we know it.
But they did not prophesy that the world will come to an end, nor did the Prophets of Israel offer an exact date for the transition. The advent of the Messianic Age is, unlike the Mayan date, not knowable because humans have free will and thus the exact time and manner of redemption cannot be determined in advance. Much depends on what we humans do.
The beginning of the Messianic Age marks a time of transition from one World Age into another. How we move through this transition, either with resistance or acceptance, will determine whether the transformation will happen through cataclysmic changes or by a gradual reform of human society; which will lead to a world filled with peace, prosperity and spiritual tranquility.
In most religious traditions, redemption is defined in terms of individual enlightenment or personal salvation. However, the Prophets of Israel conceived redemption as a transformation of human society that would occur through the catalyst of the transformation of the Jewish community. This transformation, which will take place in this world at some future time, is called the Messianic Age. The transition to the Messianic Age is called the birth pangs of the Messiah. The birth of a redeemed Messianic world may be the result of an easy or difficult labor.
If everyone would simply live according to the moral teachings of his or her religious tradition, we would ourselves bring about the Messianic Age.
But, if we will not do it voluntarily, it will come through social and political upheavals, worldwide conflicts and generation gaps. The Messiah refers to an agent of God who helps bring about this transformation. The Jewish tradition teaches that this agent of God (together with several forerunners and many disciples) will be a human being, a descendant of King David, with great qualities of national leadership similar to Prophets Moses or Mohammed. The arrival of the Messianic Age is what’s really important, not the personality of the agents who bring it about, since they are simply the instruments of God, who ultimately is the real Redeemer.
The Messianic Age is usually seen as the solution to all of humanity’s basic problems. This may be true in the long run but the vast changes the transition to the Messianic Age entails will provide challenges to society for many generations to come. For example, 2700 years ago the Prophet Isaiah predicted that someday there would be a radically new world in which Jerusalem would be fulfilled with joy for “no more shall there be in it an infant that lives only a few days.” (Isaiah 65:20)
The fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy has thus gone un-noticed and uncelebrated. But even when the events are rapid and dramatic, people rarely connect them to their Messianic significance for very long. The amazing rescue of 14,235 Ethiopian Jews in a 1991 airlift to Israel, lasting less than 40 hours, stirred and inspired people for a few weeks. Subsequently, the difficult problems the newcomers faced (similar to those of the 900,000 Soviet immigrants) occupied the Jewish media. Now both are taken for granted. The miracle has become routine. But if you had told the Jews of Ethiopia two generations ago that they would someday all fly to Israel in a giant silver bird, they could only conceive of this as a Messianic miracle.
If you had told Soviet Jews a generation ago that the Communist regime would collapse, the Soviet Empire disintegrate, and hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews would emigrate to Israel, they would have conceived it only as a Messianic dream. In our own generation therefore we have seen the dramatic fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “I will bring your offspring from the (Middle) East and gather you from the (European) West. To the North (Russia) I will say ‘give them up’ and to the South (Ethiopia) ‘do not hold them’. Bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 43:5-6) Isn’t it amazing how people adjust to living in a radically new world and forget how bad things were in the past.
In Islamic eschatology, the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi is considered the transition point or final minor sign that ushers in major signs of the Day of Judgment. While the vast majority of minor signs—such as the competition in building tall structures, widespread moral decline, loss of trust, increase in earthquakes, and the spread of ignorance—have already occurred or are currently taking place, a few specific unfulfilled or unfolding signs are traditionally cited right before his emergence.
An army carrying black flags marching from the direction of Khorasan (historical region covering parts of modern Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan) to support the Mahdi. Different Islamic scholars and traditions hold varied views on the exact count, with some stating that only a few specific physical or geopolitical signs remain, while others view many minor signs as overlapping and ongoing processes.
Qiyamah (Arabic: القيامة) means “the resurrection,” derived from the Arabic root qāma meaning “rise” or “stand up”. In Islamic theology, Yawm al-Qiyamah refers to the Day of Judgment—the final event when all human beings are resurrected and stand before Allah to account for their earthly deeds. Belief in Qiyamah is one of the core articles of faith in Islam.The Day of Reckoning: On these days, the physical universe will end, the dead will rise from their graves, and every person’s actions will be weighed on a divine scale.
Based on their faith and deeds, individuals will be assigned to their permanent abodes—either Jannah (Paradise) or Jahannam (Hell). The Quran refers to Qiyamah by several descriptive titles, including Yawm ad-Din (Day of Judgment), Yawm al-Hisab (Day of Reckoning), and “The Hour”. Chapter 75: Al-Qiyamah is the 75th chapter of the Quran, consisting of 40 verses.
The surah emphasizes the absolute certainty of the resurrection, addresses human denial or doubt about accountability, and describes the physical and moral realities of standing before the Creator. According to mainstream Islamic theology, no specific worldly events, end-times, or the arrival of Imam Mahdi are prophesied or guaranteed to occur in the year 2027.
