The Antichrist (Dajjal) and The New World Order

And you know, if we had taken the message—there's a lot of reasons why we did not do that. But this is a good thing, inshallah. So the brother is going to say the Shahada, and so we'll just give the Shahada.

There's also a hadith that says:

"I fear more for you than the Dajjal, which is showing off." (Musnad Ahmad 23630)

Hidden shirk. So I mean, the Dajjal, from one point of view—and some aspects of the Dajjal that are important -is that the Prophet ﷺ said:

"If the Dajjal came today, the children of Medina would chase him out with their sandals."

And the Prophet ﷺ said if he came today—knowledge is taken away. He said:

"Knowledge is not seized suddenly, but it's seized by the death of the scholars and people of knowledge. And then he said, until the point where people take ignorant people as their scholars. So they ask them, and they give fatwas without knowledge. They go astray and lead others astray." (Sahih al-Bukhari 100, Sahih Muslim 2673)

The Major Signs That Haven't Come Yet

What is disheartening for me—what is disheartening? On the other hand, the time went so quickly that I didn't really get to where I wanted to go. But they—actually, they get what's happening right now, I think, for some major events. And I didn't get to those. I wanted to get to the signs that haven't come yet.

The Mahdi

And one of the signs that hasn't come yet is the Mahdi. And the Prophet ﷺ said the Muslim leader who is going to—he'll first take the Arabian Peninsula, and then he'll take Persia, and then he'll take Constantinople. And the Prophet ﷺ said that the Muslims would take Constantinople right before the Hour, when Dajjal comes. They'll take it with takbir, just saying:

"Allahu Akbar, La ilaha illa Allah, Allahu Akbar."

And to me, that's an indication that they're already Muslims. They just need to be reminded. In other words, if an army shows up, I think the Turkish people are ready to go.

Turkey as a Potential Core State

And another thing to mention about the Turks is that according to the New World Order's one of their main

ideologues, Samuel Huntington, the country they fear more than any other country in the Muslim world is Turkey. And in fact, Zbigniew Brzezinski is saying that the Europeans should allow the Turks into the Common Market. They're pushing for that because they think that, in a sense, if they give them these crumbs of Europe, that they'll forget about their Islam.

And so they're actually very worried about what they call a core state. They say that the West has core states. They have England and Germany—are their core states right now—France and England. And they say that the Muslims have no core state. They don't have a core state that represents their civilization. And that they're not really worried about Saudi Arabia because it just doesn't have what it takes to be a core state in terms of military power, population, historical precedent, and many other things. Whereas Turkey does. It has all of the qualities.

So they're actually very worried about Turkey. And this is why they're coming down hard. And the government, the military in Turkey, has been the bastion of secularism. And in recent years, there's been a really awakening amongst the Turkish people towards their roots and their greatness, because it's their natural greatness.

And the same is true of Egypt, with the exception that Egypt is such an impoverished state right now. But they're very fearful of Egypt also. Egypt is a very—the population of Egypt is massive. It's a highly educated country, but it doesn't have the power that Turkey has.

The Question of Khilafah

Some people say there's no ijma' (consensus) on the issue of re-acceptance of khilafah. Is this true? The khilafah never existed during the classical era in this form, and so there's no ijma' from our imams. And, you know, khilafah is a fard kifayah. It's supposed to be fulfilled, although unlike other fard kifayah, it's not an individual obligation on every Muslim when it's not being fulfilled.

That's al-Mawardi's opinion, and it's the opinion of the Maliki scholars that I know. And I don't know if there's any khilaf about that. There might be a khilaf, but what I was taught—my understanding is that the people who are called أهل الحل والعقد (ahl al-hall wal-'aqd) are responsible for establishing the khilafah. And those are the scholars and the notables in the community.

Three Ways to Establish Khilafah

Maliki scholars say there's basically three ways that you bring about a khilafah:

1. One is by شوری (shura) which is obviously a good way, if not the best way.

2. And the other is by an appointment of the previous khalifah, which can be by inheritance. And this is what Bani Umayyah did. Mu'awiyah took it from a khilafah, which was by shura, and he made his son Yazid khalifah. And he did it as an ijtihad. His intention was good. That's our opinion. That's the Sunni position. But the point being—

3. The other type is what they call التغلب (at-taghalub)—by force. The Muslims are, unfortunately, in that type of condition. If it does happen, they are commanded to accept it, because fighting—if he really does have power—to fight him would result in fitna, which is killing Muslims, which should be avoided in any situation, unless it's الفئة الباغية (al-fi'ah al-baghiyah)—the rebellious group.

When Will Imam Mahdi Appear?

Imam Mahdi will appear during Ramadan, where a moon—you know, people—what are people going to do if the heating—year 2000, January 1st—and the amazing thing is that it's a Saturday night, December 31st, and then everybody goes home and suddenly the heating's off in the middle of winter. So they're always talking about contingency plans. There was one of the people in parliament here saying, "We have to take this seriously and have some contingency plans in case there is."

There's going to be—something's going to happen. They just don't know the extent of it. Newsweek, January 2nd, 1997, had an article called "The Day the World Crashes," and they had worst-case scenario, best-case scenario. And even the best-case scenario, you know, there were a lot of problems. Worst-case scenario was what he said: "It'll be like Beirut or something like that." I'm sad they used that as an example.

Questions and Answers

Who Do Scholars Consider Mujaddidun?

Question: Who do the stars consider to be mujaddidun of the past 100 years?

I don't know. There's a sahih hadith:

"Indeed, Allah will send at the head of every generation somebody who renews the deen." (Sunan Abi Dawud 4291)

And some of the ulema say the مَن (man) there does not indicate that it only has to be one—that it can be more than one person.

Generally, the ulema recognize certain mujaddidun like Imam ash-Shafi'i was considered a mujaddid, Imam al- Ghazali was considered, Rabi'ah al-'Adawiyyah was considered a mujaddid, and many others throughout history.

Is the World Cup Part of the Dajjal System?

Question: Is the World Cup and other competitions part of the Dajjal system?

You know, time went so fast, but I really wanted to go through each one of the areas, and I had slides for it and everything, but I just didn't get time to do it. There are—each area of this system, which you can identify—the political, social level, educational level, medicine, all of the different—the Dajjal, there is a system here. It is Dajjalic by nature. Sports is a major part of it.

And there was a beautiful poster here they had big in England. I saw last time I was here, and there was some skinhead-type person jumping up and down, and it said, "For some people, soccer is their religion." And then on the bottom it said, "We know how you feel," and it was an advertisement for a sports channel.

And the point is, that is not hyperbole. For some people, soccer is their religion. It is a religion. And they go to it like they would go to church. Their saints are all the heroes. They want to be just like them, the soccer players. Pelé is probably at a level of prophet or something like that.

Those Who Give No Importance to Salah

Question: Some people give no importance to salah. They say we have to establish khilafah.

I haven't met any Muslim that does that personally. I haven't. I mean, there are Muslims that emphasize khilafah, and the khilafah—it's true, we're lacking the khilafah, and our enemies recognize that. If you read Samuel Huntington's book, one of the things he says is that the Muslims, since they've lost their head, even though it was a titular head, he said they have not been able to redeem any type of cohesion. And that is true.

And we do need a khilafah. There's no doubt. And that is an important element of it. I think where we'll get into differences is: what is the methodology that will bring that about? And certainly the hadith which indicate the khilafah would remain على منهاج النبوة (ala minhaj an-nubuwah) for 30 years is a sound hadith. And then it would become kings fighting for it, and then it would become tyrants, and then it would go back to the minhaj an- nubuwah.

The vast majority of scholars indicate that that would be at the time of the Mahdi. And I would not be surprised if that's very close. I think that that is going to happen, and it might happen in our lifetimes, allahu a'lam, if Allah gives us a long life.

Should We Prepare for the End or Live Normally?

Question: You said we should prepare. Should we not think like it's going to end tomorrow?

I'll tell you something. This is a really valid question, but what I would say to you, my answer to you is: you should live your life as if the hour was going to happen tomorrow. But I have to live my life believing that it could happen any time, because that will prepare me psychologically for my own last hour, for my own Y2K crash, my computer crash, when I die, when I end. Because that is a ساعة (sa'ah). Sa'ah in Arabic—there's three meanings : الساعة الصغرى (as-sa'ah as-sughra), والساعة الوسطى (was-sa'ah al-wusta), والساعة الكبرى (was-sa'ah al- kubra).

Sa'ah as-sughra is each one of our deaths, the lesser sa'ah. The middle sa'ah is our generation. In this room, within 100 years, everybody in this room will be dead. We'll all be dead. And that is a qiyamah for this generation. And then the sa'ah al-kubra is where the whole earth comes to an end.

So it is true, but I'll tell you: the Sahaba, there was a time when the Prophet ﷺ was describing the Dajjal, and they heard some rustling in the bushes, in the palm trees, and they thought it was the Dajjal. And the point that the muhaddithun say about it is the Prophet ﷺ gave them a sense of the immediacy of the hour.

And the Quran says that many times:

"The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split." (Quran 54:1)

"What will convey to you? Maybe the Hour is coming close." (Quran 42:17)

And it says that the kuffar, that they يَسْتَعْجِلُونَهَا (yastajilunaha)—they laugh about it and say, "Come on, let's see the last hour." And the mu'minun, the believers, مُشْفِقُونَ مِنْهَا (mushfiquna minha)—they're afraid of it.

So you should live your life as if it could happen any time. The Prophet ﷺ said the hour will come and people are buying and selling in the marketplaces. It just comes on them.

The Hadith of Planting the Palm Tree

And then the hadith that gives you hope is the hadith:

"If the Hour comes and in one of your hands is a palm sprout, then if he's able to finish planting it before the Hour comes, let him finish planting it." (Musnad Ahmad 12902)

So we have to get on with our lives and get on, but at the same time, we have to prepare and not be fools. And the Prophet ﷺ was somebody who kept in his house provision for a year.

One of the things Yusuf (عليه السلام) told the Egyptian was to prepare for seven years of famine. Sanctions for the Muslims if we were following the Sunnah, you know, really, sanctions wouldn't harm us.

And also, الْمُؤْمِنُ يَأْكُلُ فِي مِعَى وَاحِدٍ وَالْكَافِرُ يَأْكُلُ فِي سَبْعَةِ أَمْعَاءِ (al-mu'min ya'kulu fi mi'an wahidin wal-kafiru ya'kulu fi sab'ati am'a')—the mu'min eats from one intestine and the kafir eats from seven intestines. (Sahih al-Bukhari 5393, Sahih Muslim 2061)

The Muslims fast one month out of the year. They can deal with these types of things.

The Sanctioning of Iraq

In history—and I'll tell you something about Iraq—in Sahih Muslim, one of the signs right before the Mahdi is Iraq is sanctioned. It's in Sahih Muslim. Iraq is sanctioned. And the wheat is not able to get to it, nor any money. (Sahih Muslim 2896)

And after that, الشام (ash-Sham) or Egypt and then Syria, Sham. And then يَظْهَرُ فِيكُمْ خَلِيفَةً يَحْثُو الْمَالَ حَثْوًا (yadhharu fikum khalifah yahfthu al-mala hathwan)—then the Mahdi comes, a khalifah who the ulema interpret to be the Mahdi, and he gives and disperses wealth.

The Euphrates River Uncovering Gold

Another sign is Iraq—the Euphrates River will begin to become dry. And this is happening because Turkey now is beginning to divert the water and the water tables. And the Euphrates—it's a sign of the end of time. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 7119, Sahih Muslim 2894)

And in a riwayah (جَبَلٍ مِنْ ذَهَبٍ - jabalin min dhahab)—a whole mountain of gold. And when that gold is discovered, many people are going to kill over it. They'll kill for it to get that gold. So that hasn't happened yet.

Will Islam Prevail?

Question: In your talk, you mentioned the hadith indicated the end of the world is very close. Does that mean Islam will not prevail?

No, that's my point. I didn't get to that part, which is an important part, which is that it does prevail and that the Dajjal—which, he travels through the earth. It says in the hadith that he'll cross the ocean three times in a day, in one day:

"He crosses the ocean three times."

Like the Concorde now—you can get three flights. Every city—he doesn't go to little villages, he enters into cities. And which is part of the urbanization phenomenon now. Everybody's moving into cities and leaving—this happened all over the world, massive urbanization.

The Dajjal enters into cities. He'll enter into every city in 40 days. And they asked him—it's a sahih hadith:

(Sahih Muslim 2937)

"How fast is he on that day, O Messenger of Allah? He said: Like a wind that leaves behind condensation or a cloud."

And if you look at the modern—and then he rides a donkey that has 40 cubits between its ears. And I had a list of wingspans, and it worked out that actually the Learjet is almost exactly 40 cubits.

The Dajjal's Mountain of Grain

And then the other thing: one of the Sahaba thought that he was coming, the Dajjal, and he came to the Prophet ﷺ and he said, "Ya Rasulallah, I'm so frightened." And he said, "From what?" And he said, "The Dajjal." And he said, "Why?" And he said, "Because I heard he has a mountain of grain, and I heard that he commands the sky and it rains."

And the hadith says (هُوَ أَهْوَنُ عَلَى اللَّهِ مِنْ ذَلِكَ - huwa ahwanu 'ala Allahi min dhalika)—he's less significant for Allah than that. And the ulema interpret that to mean that he won't—it won't be like magic. He won't just point to the

sky. There'll be (أَسْبَاب - asbab), but he'll have amazing asbab, means to do that. But there'll be means that people can understand, like engineers and things like that.

Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons

Question: In light of Pakistan developing nuclear weapons, what is the Islamic position, considering the euphoria amongst the Muslims and the backlash of the non-Muslims?

You know, I think it's a sign of the times. It's unfortunate. India, according to—in India, what they're trying to do, the Americans are actually—part of their New World Order policy is to support India.

And I really actually wanted to show—it's very interesting. You can see here, this is from Huntington's thesis.

And what he's saying basically is that the next war is a civilizational war between civilizations. And what he's saying basically is that when we look at civilizations, the question is no longer "Which side are you on?" but "Who are you?"

Which is why in Oklahoma, when there was a bombing, some people—they saw some Muslim immigrant there, and they were going to attack him. He said, "No, no, I'm not one of those kinds of Muslims. Like, I drink and I..." It doesn't make any difference. They don't care. Even if you're a bad Muslim, if you're a Muslim, they don't care, I guarantee you. They don't care if you're a secular Muslim. If you have a Muslim name, particularly if you're brown, because he's very obsessed with brown people in the book.

Huntington's Clash of Civilizations Map

But anyway, you can see the West. These links here are less conflictual. So the broader the link is, the less conflictual it is with the West. And what he's saying is the West—this is the civilization that has to maintain its supremacy over the other civilizations.

Now, if you look, Japan—who Hitler called them "yellow Aryans"—it's less conflictual. And even in South Africa, they were honorary whites. People forget that. So the Japanese are in the Trilateral Commission. They're part of the whole—they're accepted as a superior race.

Orthodox Russia—less conflictual because they're Christians, even though they recognize that the Russians are very different from the Western Europeans. It's less conflictual because of Christianity. And the example of that was Bosnia. They had to support the Orthodox because at this point, it's not white anymore—it's about Muslim, Christian. And so they supported that.

Now, you can see also Hinduism. Very strange there—less conflictual. Why? Because Hinduism is the sacred cow of Western comparative religions. When they realize, when the Western people realize that in fact Sanskrit -when they realize that, they realize these are our ancestors.

And another thing about the Hindu culture is because it's a caste system, it supports many of the concepts. The word in Hindu, in Sanskrit, for caste is (वर्ण - varna), which means color. And in Hinduism, the Shudra, the

lowest caste, are the black people—the Hindu Kush, the original Dravidian peoples that were the original inhabitants that were subjugated by the colonizing Aryan or Caucasian people.

And so they see the Hindus as closer to them, oddly enough, even though they're mushrikeen—they're polytheists—and we believe in Jesus, and we believe in one God, and we believe in Abraham, all these things. They still see that they have more in common with the Hindus than they do with us. And that's an awesome thing for me.

Now, if you notice also, Hindu, very close to Orthodox. Hierarchical, all these things. And then even Japan with China, China with Russia. So they see Russia and Japan as possible allies.

Islam: Most Conflictual

Now look at Islam. All of them more conflictual with everything except China. And this is the whole thing now. You see, China has been backing the nuclear development of Pakistan. And they do it as a card—it's leverage for them against the West.

But this is why the Americans allowed the Indians to test the bomb. And then they knew, obviously—and from one point of view, even though it's just sad that this is where humanity is—from one point of view, there was a type of courage in it from the Pakistani government, because they recognized that there would be massive sanctions, and the sanctions will hit much harder in Pakistan than they will in India.

And even though I think Islam is very much opposed to nuclear weapons, if your enemy has a nuclear weapon, it would be prudent as a deterrent that you would have that. And I think there's Quranic justification for that. But again, (لَا يُعَذِّبُ بِالنَّارِ إِلَّا رَبُّ النَّارِ - la yu'adhdhibu bin-nari illa rabbun-nar)—no one can punish with fire except the Lord of fire. So we don't use fire as a way of killing people. It's prohibited in Islam. And nuclear weapons is using massive firepower.

Why Have We Been Created?

Question: Why have we been created?

"And I only created jinn and humans to worship Me."

He created you in order for you to civilize the earth, civilize yourselves. He made you (خُلَفَاء - khulafa) in the earth. All these things. But more than anything, that's why we were created. We're sentient beings. We have consciousness.

Technology Correcting Technology's Problems

Question: You mentioned innovation. What is your comment on technology correcting the problems that technology caused?

It's a vicious cycle. Technology creates—for every problem it solves, it creates 10 problems. And it keeps the engineers busy. It keeps them in jobs.

I mean, I'm not against technology. I don't think Muslims are against technology. But there is a type of technology which is Western technology that has to be recognized for what it is. It has embedded in it a social system. It's not simply pure, disembodied technology. There is a social system. It is a result of choices that these societies made based on worldviews.

The Ottoman Printing Press Example

There are many technologies. I mean, people think that the Ottoman Turks were backward because they prohibited the printing press in Ottoman culture for 400 years, even though the Europeans had it. The ulema, if you read their fatwas—their extraordinary fatwas and their insights—they actually considered it a sacrilege to smash the Quran with a press. They considered that it was haram to take the Quran and smash it like that, that it should be written with a pen, and that Allah created it with a pen.

So they were looking from a qualitative perspective, not from a quantitative perspective. And so people who are obsessed with quantity, massification, mass production, they're going to say it was a stupid idea. But for people that want quality in their cultures, it was actually a brilliant fatwa.

And I'll tell you something about the Quran: in the days when people wrote them by hand, they were cherished and honored. Now you go to a masjid and they're ripped apart, they're lying upside down. You've got to look in your own masjid, because I judge a masjid by the Qurans in the shelves. That's how I judge a masjid. The first thing I look at when I go to a masjid, I look at those Qurans, and a lot of times I'll end up just straightening them out myself.

There's no adab towards the Quran. It's just shocking that Muslims have that. It was a book that people died for. And now it's just treated like any other book, which is a result of massification, mass production.

Ya'juj and Ma'juj

Question: Could you please explain the sign of Ya'juj and Ma'juj? Are they thought to be Mongolians or Turks?

There was a point when some people thought they were Turks, and Turks became Muslim. Ya'juj wa Ma'juj—it's in the Quran:

"They come down from every high place."

And there are hadith traditions that indicate that they were put behind a wall by Dhul-Qarnayn. And some of the scholars, if you look on Idris's map, he puts Ya'juj wa Ma'juj as Russia, up in northern Russia and Mongolia and those areas.

I don't know, I really don't. I've thought about it a lot, and I don't know, because the hadiths are difficult to understand about them. But they do come—they're one of the major signs, and they come after Isa )عليه السلام(.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Question: Are we as Muslims supposed to believe Darwin's theory of evolution? If not, then how did there...?

You know, again, this is part of the trouble of the crisis of knowledge in the Muslim Ummah. Evolution as it's taught—I would say as it's taught—is kufr, because it teaches random mutation. It teaches that there are experiments by nature, and nature makes mistakes and keeps making mistakes until it gets it right, and then that right thing is a strong gene that's transmitted to offspring.

If you study evolution, it's very much against the way Muslims view the world. That does not mean that we know evolution is an observable fact in nature. Things do evolve according to niches. I mean, you can't deny that as a process. But to say that there are transitional species and these things—none of the fossil records have ever—it's all conjecture. And now they found a bipedal man that preceded Australopithecus or whatever. I mean, they're very confused in their own science.

If you look at the book called Darwin's Black Box by Behe, it's a very interesting critique by a biochemist about it from the cell's point of view.

The Mahdi

Question: Could you please explain the idea of Mahdi? Is it in the prophetic tradition?

Some Muslims did deny the Mahdi. Even Ibn Khaldun denied it. But really, it's (متواتر معنوي - mutawatir ma'nawi). There's two types of mutawatir. Mutawatir is where there's so many transmissions that it's impossible to be a lie.

You have (متواتر لفظي - mutawatir lafdi) and (معنوي - ma'nawi). Lafdi is when you have it coming in the same wording, or the same utterance every time. Like (مَنْ كَذَبَ عَلَيَّ مُتَعَمِّدًا فَلْيَتَبَوَّأْ مَقْعَدَهُ مِنَ النَّارِ - man kadhaba 'alayya muta'ammidan falyatabawwa' maq'adahu min an-nar)—whoever lies about me purposely, let him take his place in the Fire—is mutawatir lafdi. It's been transmitted in the same way by just countless numbers, over 50 Sahaba.

And so the ma'nawi means the meaning. And the ulema of hadith say about the hadith of the Mahdi: (صَحِيحُهُ غَيْرُ صَرِيحٍ وَصَرِيحُهُ غَيْرُ صَحِيحٍ - sahihuhu ghayru sarih wa sarihuhu ghayru sahih)—when it's clearly about the Mahdi, there's usually some criticism about the chain. But when it's intimated that it's the Mahdi, then it's sound.

So for instance:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 3449, Sahih Muslim 155)

"What will you be like when 'Isa, the son of Maryam, descends amongst you and your imam is from you?"

And the imam there, which is in a sahih hadith, is considered to be the Mahdi. So I would not disbelieve in the Mahdi. It's in the 'aqidah of the Muslims, and we do believe in it.

Recommended Books

Question: You were asked which books give good references. You mentioned some books. Could you please elaborate?

There are books about the end times written by Muslims. I read some books, and I think there's some really useful things in there, but again, there's always going to be problems, including with my own understanding, and somebody can criticize my understanding. So I don't really want to go into critical analysis of it.

Ibn Kathir's book is very strong, with sahih hadith. They're difficult to understand, the hadith of the end of time, which is why in the hadith it said, (إِنْ لَبِسَ عَلَيْكُمْ أَمْرٌ فَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ رَبَّكُمْ لَيْسَ بِأَعْوَرَ - in labisa 'alaykum amr fa'lamu anna rabbakum laysa bi-a'war)—if it gets too confusing, then just know that your Lord doesn't have one eye.

So that's the definitive statement. If it gets too confusing, just know He doesn't have one eye. So the Dajjal is definitely not our Lord. And there are a lot of people worshiping the dollar, because it's just a piece of paper.

Closing Remarks

So these are the times we're living in. And I think what's most important is that we recognize the urgency of the situation that we're in as Muslims. We need to unite. We need to put aside our petty differences. We need to recognize that the enemies of Islam are working day and night to undermine our deen, to undermine our faith, to corrupt our youth, to destroy our families.

And the only way that we can combat that is by returning to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, by establishing the prayer, by giving the zakat, by being kind to our families, by being good neighbors, by calling people to Islam with wisdom and beautiful preaching.

And we have to recognize that this Dajjalic system is not just a political system—it's a spiritual system. It's a system that is designed to make people forget Allah, to make people worship other than Allah, whether it's the worship of wealth, the worship of fame, the worship of power, the worship of desires.

And so our job as Muslims is to constantly remind ourselves and remind others of (لا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illa Allah)—that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is His messenger. And if we hold fast to that, if we make that the center of our lives, then no matter what happens in this world, no matter what tribulations come, no matter what tests we face, we will have the (ثبات - thabat), we will have the stability that we need to face whatever comes.

And Allah says in the Quran:

"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest."

So we ask Allah to give us thabat on His deen, to make us from those who hold fast to His rope and don't become divided, to make us from those who establish the prayer and give the zakat and enjoin the good and forbid the evil, and to protect us from the fitna of the Dajjal and from all the fitan, both the apparent and the hidden.

And the last of our supplications is: All (وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ - praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send blessings upon our master Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and grant them peace.) The Antichrist (Dajjal) and The New World Order

Introduction

This lecture builds upon a presentation given by Sheikh Hamza about three years ago at the Turnpike Lane Mosque called Dajjal and the New World Order. Tonight, Sheikh Hamza will add many more exciting and disturbing observations of the events unfolding around us. The Sheikh will also relate more hadith about the Dajjalic period.

Before we start, there are a few rules to bear in mind. Only written questions will be answered, and only sensible questions will be forwarded to Sheikh Hamza. After the lecture, Sheikh Hamza will not bring people to the stage at the end of the lecture.

Before I hand you over to Sheikh Hamza, I would like to mention that here in this building tomorrow, Saturday the 6th of June at 1:30 PM, there will be a lecture on the subject of Arabic manuscripts in America and Africa. I would urge everybody to attend this lecture tomorrow as it will prove to be enlightening and very interesting.

Sheikh Hamza begins:

Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, upon our Master and Beloved Muhammad, upon his family and his companions, and upon those who follow him. Alhamdulillah, I am here safely, and also for people coming to benefit, inshallah, with some insights.

Living in Apocalyptic Times

What I want to really do tonight—I don't have much more to say than I've already said in a lot of different talks, so there's going to be some reiterations and maybe a few clarifications. But what I would like to say is that we are living in powerful times right now. We are living in apocalyptic times in which change is happening at such a rapid rate it's unprecedented in the history of human societies. The changes that are taking place now in the world are unprecedented.

The Concept of Innovation

If you look, for instance, at the word innovation in Old English, if you see the word in Shakespeare's plays, it always has a negative connotation. Innovation was seen as something that was negative, something that was

disruptive to societies. When you innovated, you created a disequilibrium that would need to re-establish itself after a period of time.

For the Muslims, the idea of innovation tends to have a negative understanding. If we say in the Arabic language (بدعة - bid'ah), innovation, and generally it's not considered to be a (بدعة لغوية - bid'ah loghawiyah), a linguistic innovation, but rather a (بدعة شرعية - bid'ah shari'ah), an innovation that relates to the Shari'ah, that relates to Allah's laws.

The Muslims, at their scholastic level, understand the differences. But at the level of the person on the street—and this is called a (حقيقة عرفية - haqiqah urfiyah), something that is not related to a linguistic meaning nor to a Shari'ah meaning or a legal ruling, but rather a customary—in customary practice, bid'ah has a very negative connotation.

The Modern Obsession with the New

Yet this is an age in which there is constant bid'ah in Arabic, constantly. In fact, there are people who innovate, and they see that innovation is really the pinnacle of their civilization. They see that bringing new things is the ultimate achievement.

This is similar to the old story of Aladdin. A magician came by and he said, "New lamps for old lamps." He said, "Who wants an old lamp when you can have a new lamp?" And so she went out and she gave him the old lamp and got the new lamp, which was worthless. This is a story that has wisdom in it. You're often invited to something new, but the cost of that new thing is a rejection of the old way.

The Television Example

To give you an example, when television was first introduced into Western culture, people really didn't want to watch it. First of all, the screen was incredibly small, very grainy, black and white. And in fact, they said, "This thing is not going to go anywhere."

Now we have a society in which the new way of entertaining oneself has replaced actually sitting together and talking and discussing things. The new way is that they watch cathode rays flickering out in darkened rooms. In fact, this city has millions of people doing just that while you're here listening to somebody actually speak, a human being.

This is not simply in England. This is all over the world. This is a global phenomenon, and we have to realize the power that this phenomenon is taking over.

Muslims Trading Their Old Lamps

The point being is that this innovation, this constant quest for the new—and this is why in their advertising they're always saying "new and improved," constantly flashing "new and improved." This is the idea that modern man has: new lamps for old.

Now, unfortunately, the Muslims have traded their old lamps. They could get things done with them, but they stopped believing that at a certain point. And they suddenly began to say, "We need to innovate. We need to also do what the West has done in order to catch up with them."

So the time that we're living in is a time of massive and rapid change. Most peoples are in such a state of disequilibrium, whether in the West or in the East. There's just a state of disequilibrium everywhere, a state of turmoil and chaos, and it's increasing. And you will see it increase. This is part of the end-time scenario.

The Importance of Knowing the Signs of the End Times

Now, what I wanted to do tonight before I go into really the point of the lecture─I wanted to look at some of the signs of the end of time. The reason I want to do that is for a couple of reasons. One of them is because one of my teachers, Sheikh Abdur Rahman, told me that it's important that the Muslims of this age know the signs of the end of time. It is important that they know the signs of the end of time because a number of things happen in the end of time.

Confusion as a Sign

One of them is confusion. People become confused. The Prophet is reported to have said that a man will get up in the morning with his intellect and he'll go to bed in a state of bewilderment. A man will wake up in the morning with his intellect and he will go to sleep in a state of bewilderment:

(يُصْبِحُ الْمَرْءُ حَلِيمًا وَيُمْسِي حَيْرَانًا - "A person wakes up wise and goes to sleep bewildered.")

In another tradition, the Prophet said:

(مَنْ عَاشَ مِنْكُمْ فَسَيَرَى أُمُورًا عِظَامًا - "Whoever lives from amongst you will see great things, vast things.")

(يَتَفَاقَمُ شَأْنُهَا فِي صُدُورِكُمْ - "The matters of those things will be so vast when they see them, they'll seem so incredible to the people.")

And then he said to the point:

(حَتَّى يَقُولَ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضًا هَلْ ذَكَرَ هَذَا نَبِيُّنَا - "Until some of you will ask each other: 'Did our Prophet make mention of any of these things?"

Did our Prophet make mention of America? Did our Prophet make mention of the television? Did our Prophet make mention of the mass media, of public relations? Did our Prophet make mention of the fact that our cities would be bombed with impunity and the Muslims would sit by and watch it happen, and some of them would watch it happen on the news and then go back to their dinner?

Understanding Signs Like Reading Arabic Grammar

We're living in very, very powerful times, and so the importance of knowing the signs is that when you

recognize a sign—if you're educated—you know what it means, because a sign symbolizes something. That's the nature of signs: they symbolize.

For instance, in the Arabic language, you learn that in grammar you have signs. You have signs of inflection (- إعْرَاب - i'rab), you have signs that are vowellings (أَشْكَال - ashkal), and you have signs that are letters. And so when you see those signs in the Arabic script, you know what they mean.

If I see, for instance, (ضَرَبَ زَيْدٌ عَمْرًا) and I see that (زَيْدٌ) has a (ضَمَّة - dammah) and (عَمْرًا) has a (فَتْحَة - fathah) then I know that (زَيْدٌ) is (مَرْفُوعٍ - marfu). If you don't know grammar, this doesn't mean anything to you, and that's my point. If you don't know how to read signs, you can't read the Arabic language. If you don't know the signs, you will not be able to read the Arabic language. You won't know: did (زَيْدٍ) hit (عَمْرٍ) or did (عَمْرٍ) hit (زَيْدِ)

Because in the English language, we say "Zayd hit Amr"—there's a linear sequence: you have subject, verb, predicate. It's easy. In Arabic you have signs, and if you can't read those signs, you can't read the sentence. It won't make any sense. I can say (زَيْدٌ ضَرَبَهُ عَمْرًا) I can mention (زَيْدٍ) first.

The Need for Stability (Thabat)

The point being is, if you don't know how to read signs, you won't understand anything. And this is part of the age we're living in. If you don't understand the signs, you won't know what it means. And if you don't know what it means, the nature of not knowing the meaning of something is that you become confused. And the nature of confusion is that you lose your stability.

The word in Arabic for stability is (ثبات - thabat). And the Prophet ﷺ said at the end of time: Ask for (ثبات - thabat), stability on your deen.

Allah says:

"Allah will give stability to those who believe with the firm word in this world and in the next world."

So that nothing that happens will sway them from understanding the essential reality of the world, which is (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illa Allah). That's the whole message. Everything you see is saying (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illa Allah) whether you can read it or not.

Because the sentence has meaning whether the person hearing it understands it or not. A high-energy physicist can be talking to another physicist and you're sitting there—it doesn't mean anything to you. It doesn't necessarily mean that what he's saying doesn't mean anything; it's just you don't understand it. And so you're in a maqam of ignorance. Islam is a maqam of knowledge. So if the Muslims are ignorant, they're not in the maqam of Islam. They're not in the station of Islam; they've lost the station.

Three Types of Signs of the End Times

So if you look at the signs, there are certain signs. There are basically three types of signs:

1. Signs that have happened and won't happen again

2. Signs that have happened but will continue to increase in severity and clarity

3. Signs that have not manifested yet

The First Type: The Coming of the Prophet ﷺ

An example of the first type is the coming of the Prophet ﷺ himself. The Jews, in their books, Allah says, they know the messenger like they know their own children. And Abdullah Ibn Salam said even more, because we could have some doubts about our wife, but we would never doubt you.

Allah said that they know the Prophet like they know their own children. What does that mean? Your child is distinguished from other children by signs, so you can recognize him from other children. If he doesn't have those signs, you can't recognize him. If somebody did plastic surgery on him and brought him in, you'd have a hard time—you might still be able to, but you'd have a hard time because the signs have been taken away.

So they knew that he was coming. They had it in their books. The Christians knew that he was coming. They had it in their books.

Ancient Manuscripts Hidden from Muslims

It's very interesting, the time we're living in. In 1948, they discovered the Nag Hammadi library. And the sad thing about it: they discovered it in a Muslim land, and yet we allowed people who were not from the Muslim tradition to take those treasures. They were treasures—they were 1st century, 2nd century, 3rd century Christian manuscripts, some of the earliest apocryphal texts. And they took them, and some of it was released and others weren't.

The same happened again not much later in the Cave of Qumran. A Bedouin Jordanian wanted to get shade in a cave, and he went up and he found some jugs. He broke one of them, and inside there was a copper scroll. Here's a man—again, no signs, he can't read, he doesn't know how to read—but he thinks sometimes, "This could be worth something." So he took it into town and sold it to an Armenian, a Christian Armenian, who then sold it to Christian researchers.

Those scriptures still have not been released in their entirety to the world. In fact, the Book of Isaiah, which is one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, is hermetically sealed in the Rockefeller Museum in Tel Aviv. They won't even let researchers look at it. It's not to be opened for 150 years or something. The Catholics and the Israeli government began to actually work together suppressing the material.

You have to ask: what do they want to suppress in the material? And this isn't conspiracy theory—this is fact that researchers within the archaeological community have documented. "Let us see the manuscript, we want to see them." "Can't do that." "Why not?" "We're still looking at them." What are they afraid of that is in there? Seriously, people have to think about this. What are they afraid of that is in there?

Signs in the Books of the Jews and Christians

Now, the fact that the Jews had tribes living in Medina was clear proof that they knew that there was a prophet coming to that place. Salman al-Farisi was told by a monk in Syria that there would be a prophet at the end of time that would show up in Yathrib, and it's in the books, and he would have such-and-such signs.

The emperor, when he sent Ad-Dihyah to the Prophet ﷺ, asked him: "See if he reads the letter, see if he mentions the night and the day, see if there's anything between his shoulder blades." And that man became a Muslim in the time of Muawiyah, who reports that, and the Sahaba witnessed that. They witnessed the questions that were posed to him by the emperor.

So the Prophet ﷺ was the first sign of the beginning of the end. And then the Prophet ﷺ said that the next sign would be six things. The next sign would be the opening of Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem).

Jerusalem: A Place of Three Traditions

Now, Bayt al-Maqdis is a very important place because it's the place in which the three traditions have something in common. The Christians see it as the place in which Jesus will establish—according to the evangelicals (you'll get different opinions about this)—they see it as the new Jerusalem that will be established as a capital for the millennial period of Christ. This is the modern evangelical belief. It's a 19th-century belief; it's a bid'ah in their tradition. The Catholics did not believe that; they thought it was metaphorically interpreted.

The Fastest Growing Religions

We always say that Muslims are the fastest-growing religion. We're the fastest-reproducing religion, seriously. We're the fastest-reproducing religion, and there's something to be said for that. But we are not the fastest-growing religion in terms of conversion.

The fastest-growing religion in terms of conversion is Pentecostal Christianity. They got 50 million conversions in South America alone. The South Americans were Catholic. They have worked very seriously, and there's a very strong link between the Israeli government and Pentecostal Christians. The Pentecostals in the United States support them.

One of the very interesting things about the Pentecostals is that they have television stations and radio stations 24 hours a day talking about this. The Jews announced two years ago that the Red Heifer was born. You know what this stuff means? The Red Heifer, because they believe that a Red Heifer would be born in Palestine right

before the coming of the Messiah. Now they can clone it for all we know. Scripture said they could work it out, and so we don't know. They're claiming that it was born.

Christian Support of the Jews

The Christian support of the Jews in America is extraordinary. In classical Christianity, the Jews were seen as a curse because they rejected the covenant, the New Covenant. That's why it's called the New Testament—the Old Testament, the New Testament. They rejected the covenant, and for that reason, they lose their special status as God's chosen people. This was the traditional Catholic and Orthodox view.

But with the Protestant Reformation and the rise of new interpretations of the Bible, you got the evangelicals beginning to say, "No, in fact, the Jews are still the chosen people, and not only that, the Messiah would come, he would establish his state in Israel, the Jews would be redeemed by their acceptance of him the second time around, not the first time." And so this is the modern version.

Missionary Activity in Muslim Lands

These people are very active, and the Muslims are asleep. Because they're active in the Muslim lands, they have missionaries that go as nurses, as doctors to the heartland of the Muslims, pretending not to be missionaries.

And I know this with corroborated evidence—I have no doubt about this. They have conversions in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, Turkey, Iran. Wherever you find weakness amongst the Muslims, they have conversions. And this is unprecedented, because the Muslims traditionally did not convert to other religions.

American Religious Freedom Act

Now another thing that people should be aware of is that the Americans now have a law in the Senate which is the "Freedom of Religion Act." It's a global act that says the Americans will sanction any country that does not allow a person to apostatize from his religion to another religion. That country will be sanctioned if they do not allow churches to be built on their territory. This is right now; this is going on in America. There's a movement because the Christians are very strong in America.

If you watch too much TV, you'll get a very distorted view of America. People forget about Middle America, the Bible Belt. But on the coasts—they're pagan. Sun, moon, goddesses, sprites, witches. I could go on and on. They've got everything: yogurt—I think they probably have a temple for yogurt, avocado sandwiches.

And if you go to New York, it's also—they don't believe; they're just secular. Their religion is cynicism, and they promote it actively. In a sitcom called "Seinfeld," this was the religion of cynicism being broadcast to millions of people, learning the religion of cynicism: making fun of other people, laughing at people's misfortunes. This is taught across the land. There are many ways across the land.

The Six Signs and Two Deaths

So the second type of sign... Anyway, the six signs: and then two deaths, two deaths that will take you. There's

two deaths, and there's different interpretations about that. Many of our scholars say that it's Umar and Uthman, the death of Umar and Uthman. Others say it was plagues that afflicted certain places.

There's no doubt that Umar's death was predicted, not only by the Prophet ﷺ when he was on Jabal Uhud and the mountain began to shake, and he said, "Be still, for on you is a Prophet and two martyrs," because Uthman and Umar were on it then. But the Jews also knew, because Ka'b al-Ahbar, who was a Jewish scholar before he became a Muslim—he wasn't a Sahabi, and he was an advisor to Sayyidina Umar—he told Umar, "Your description is in the Torah, and you'll be killed in such and such a way." So Umar himself, Ibn al-Khattab, was in the books of the Jews, which shouldn't surprise people.

The Fitna of the Romans

And then you would have, after the opening of Constantinople and then the two deaths (one and two), so that's four. And then you would have the fitna of the Romans. There would be a fitna and a riwayah, a hudna (truce), that took place between you and the Romans.

The Prophet ﷺ said that the Romans would come to you with 80 flags, and under each flag would be 12,000 soldiers. Eighty flags, and under each flag would be 12,000 soldiers. Now, the Romans don't have 80 countries, but it says "under 80 flags," so it's like an umbrella. And this is a clear indication of the United Nations or something similar to it. If you do that multiplication, you'll find it's close to one million soldiers under the authority of the Romans, which are the Europeans.

When you read "Rome," you understand it to be the Europeans: the Anglo-Saxons, the Italians, the Spanish. These are the Romans, the light-skinned people. They're also called الروم (ar-Rum) in the hadith.

The Prophet ﷺ told us that that would happen. And he also said that the malhamah would take place after that. The malhamah is a huge battle that takes place in the desert. Some say that it's what the Christians refer to as Armageddon, but there will be a malhamah there.

The Second Type of Signs: Continuing and Increasing

Now, the third type—well, the second type—is one that happens and continues to increase, and you will see that. For instance, in women's clothing, the Prophet ﷺ said:

"Two types of people from the Fire, I haven't seen them yet."

And then he spoke about the police. According to Muhammad Habibullah in his commentary, he said that men who have whips, and they hit people everywhere they go. In the morning they're in anger, and these are people who support tyrants and beat people down, like we're seeing now in many places on the earth.

Women Clothed Yet Naked

The second type of people were women. Now, in the traditional hadith commentaries, if you read them, they

usually said, "They have clothes in this world but no clothes in the next world," because they couldn't understand—in logic it doesn't work: how can you be dressed and naked at the same time? And this is pre-spandex logic. This is logic before we know how people can be dressed and naked at the same time.

So the Prophet ﷺ said there would be women who were:

"Clothed yet naked, inclined and causing others to incline."

They wore their hair like the humps of camels—not the Arabian camel, but the camel with hair all over the place. Picture Tina Turner and you'll get the picture.

Now, the sad thing about it is, now we've got Khadijahs and Fatimahs imitating this. In the Muslim lands, the land of the Muslims where modesty is the characteristic of this deen. That's the sign of the deen. If you don't have modesty, you don't have the sign by which this deen is recognized, because every deen has a sign.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Every deen has a characteristic, and the characteristic of my deen is modesty (haya)."

If you do not have modesty, then you don't have an abortion of the Prophet's deen. So a woman who loses that means that she lost modesty. And this is why the Prophet ﷺ said it's a sign. The fact that she is dressed like that is not what takes her to the Hellfire—that is only a sign of what takes her to the Hellfire. What takes her to the Hellfire is a loss of iman that has resulted in the manifestation of the sign. So that is a sign for people.

A Warning to Women

That's why our women have to wake up. They have to wake up, really. The women have to wake up and recognize that if they are manifesting the sign of being كَاسِيَاتٌ عَارِيَاتٌ مَائِلَاتٌ مُمِيلَاتٌ the Prophet ﷺ said:

"These women won't find the scent of Paradise, and its scent can be found from a distance of 500 years."

Now, women not wearing proper clothing was a sign that scholars have been complaining about since the first century. But if they were alive now, they would have to pass out. They wouldn't have a frame of reference. Seriously, there is no frame of reference. So the later people are only completing the sign. It continues to increase until, by the end of time, the Prophet ﷺ said that a man will have relations with a woman on the side of the road. He would just move her out of the way—sexual orgies and things like donkeys. This is in the hadith.

Imitation and Other Signs

And this is all from blind imitation. One of the signs at the end of time about this also is men taking their women from behind, which is haram according to the Prophet ﷺ. But he said that people do it from his ummah. And this was something alien to the Muslims, but because of the widespread pornography—the Muslims are

A Comprehensive Hadith of the End Times

And I wanted to read one hadith which sums up many of them very well, which is related by a great muhaddith, At-Tabarani, in which he said that the Prophet ﷺ said it's related on Ibn Abbas, and there's another chain. In the sanad, there's some criticism:

(Source Name)

that the Prophet said: 'From the signs of the end of time (or the Hour) is the loss of prayers."

The Loss of Prayer

Now I'll tell you something about that hadith. Imam Yusuf al-Bahani in his Idha'ah says: The loss of prayer does not simply mean that people stop praying. It means even those who pray—their prayers are unaccepted because they don't know anything about the prayer. They don't know how to rectify themselves if they make a mistake. They can't distinguish between sunan and fara'id. They have no knowledge of their prayer. They don't do their wudu properly. They pray at the improper time, which is one of the signs of the end of time: that people lose the understanding of how the times were determined by the prayer and pray outside of time.

Sayyidina Umar, in the Muwatta of Imam Malik, said he wrote a letter to his governors: "The most important of all affairs is the prayer. Whoever guards it has guarded his deen, and whoever is negligent about it will be more so about everything else in his life."

So a person who leaves the prayer has no tawfiq from Allah. A person negligent about the prayer—and this is something that we've forgotten.

Following Passions (Shahawat)

And then he said:

"And following the shahawat (passions)."

And in a riwayah, it says تَنَوُّعُ الشَّهَوَاتِ that passions would become diversified. People would have diverse passions. And what that means is that towards the end of time, modern man—this is modern man, this is the modern consumer.

If you look, this is actually taken out of a magazine that is not meant to be seen by the public—it's meant for the consumer industry to see. It's called Ad Week. It's for people working in advertisements. They sell people—that's their commodity. They sell people.

Marketing and Anchoring

So if you look at this: "Country music, 225 of America's leading brands, top of mind with consumers." This is called "anchoring" in their language. "Today, more and more, top-of-mind. Get into the hands and hearts of your customers, and you'll be sold on it too. The Country Music Association makes it easy. We'll put you in touch with the people you need to learn more."

And this is what they do. So they have Motel 6, Tom Bodett with his country music guitar: "Come on down to Motel 6." And then there I am I heard that maybe 10 years ago. It's anchored, and this is what they do. They anchor in your mind. So they want you to remember things, and the best way to anchor things is by association. This is what they want, and this is what's happened to modern man. Everything is association.

The scary and frightening thing to me is I don't know if everybody in this room will recognize the vast majority of those symbols. But people will recognize them. This is the shahawat. In the old days, you go to America—and I don't know, it's probably the same here now—the Americans bought the whole world Starbucks to get people addicted. They measured the coffee addiction levels, and they got into fine science, very fine science, to get people drinking it. So this is what they're doing. People just follow their passion. That's all. They just follow their passion.

Treacherous Rulers and Wazirs

"And the rulers would betray their ummah."

"And their wazirs (ministers) would be bad people, yes-men."

And what not. Salman said, "Ya Rasulallah?" He can't believe that he's living in the heart of the prophetic phenomenon. He can't believe what he's being told. I mean, he can believe it because it's from the Prophet ﷺ, but he needs to hear it again. It's disbelief.

"He said: Yes Salman. In those days, a truthful man would be considered a liar, and a liar would be considered truthful."

"And a person given a trust would be treacherous, and a person who was trustworthy would be considered treacherous."

And in those days, lying would be like an occupation, or it could also be like a witticism—comedians and liars.

Zakat Seen as a Fine

"And zakat would be considered a fine."

It would be considered something that was a fine. And I heard somebody the other day asking me about zakat. I said, "No, it's not another bill." Zakat purifies your wealth. It will make the wealth pure. If you don't give out the zakat, it's the same as constipation. It's the same as constipation. Mumsik in Arabic means the one who's withholding the zakat, and it means a constipated one. Zakat is like the فَضْلَةُ الْمَالِ it's like the filth of the wealth. You have to get it out in order to purify yourself from it. So it's not another tax.

The Humiliation of the Believer

And then he said:

"The most humiliated person in those days amongst the people would be a believer."

His heart will melt in his center just like" يَذُوبُ قَلْبُهُ فِي جَوْفِهِ كَمَا يَذُوبُ الْمِلْحُ فِي الْمَاءِ مِمَّا يَرَى مِنْ حَوْلِهِ مِمَّا لَا يَسْتَطِيعُ أَنْ يُغَيِّرَ salt melts in water because of the wrongs he sees around him and he's unable to change them."

And in a riwayah Hudhayfah )رضي الله عنه( said:

"There's coming a time when people will be given a choice between being impotent, incapacitated, unable to do anything, or being immoral."

People listening said اللَّهُمَّ قَبْحِ الْعَجْزَ "May Allah make impotence ugly." And he said اللَّهُمَّ قَبِّحْتَ أَنْتَ "May Allah make you ugly." In other words, if you're given a choice, be incapacitated and don't be immoral.

Acid Rain and Children Filled with Rage

And then he said:

"The rain will come down and it will burn."

Sulfuric rain—pay attention, look it up yourselves.

"And children will be filled with rage."

In America now, American children have been killing people for a long time, but only recently, nice middle-class white boys have been killing people, and then it makes headlines. But in the inner city, there's been killing going on for a long time. Now, in the schools, they have in many inner-city schools in the United States—they have now a gun search before they go in. Seriously, it's a gun search before they go in. Children bringing guns to school, shooting other children. This has been going on this year, unprecedented.

He's saying children are filled with rage. They're not raised by their parents—they're raised by the television. I saw a BBC documentary about a Jewish community, and the man asked about television. A Jewish Rabbi, Orthodox Jews, said, "We don't allow television in our community." And the man asked him why. He said,

"Because it's like having an open sewer in your living room. And who wants an open sewer in your living room?" But what it's polluting is the mind itself. It's polluting the mind itself.

The eye, the ear—you are responsible for guarding your heart. The entrances into the heart are the eyes and the ears. If you watch that foulness, you're filling your heart with that foulness, and then it will manifest.

Jihad Seen as Corruption

"And jihad would be seen as plunder."

Which is related to jihad, which is وَالْمَالُ ذُخْرًا "And wealth would be only amongst the elite, the rich people." And this is happening. Wealth is increasingly going into a smaller and smaller number of people all over the world.

Sodomy and Moral Decay

"O Salman, in those days a man will be content with another man as a mate, and women with women."

And in one riwayah, there will be heavenly bodies that come out of the sky and pound the heads of a people who legitimize sodomy:

"Heavenly bodies will descend from the sky and strike the heads of a people who legitimize sodomy."

This is an age in which sodomy is being legitimized condemned by all civilizations. This is an age when it's being legitimized. And somebody said to me, "It's something that monkeys do, you know," because I said it's an unnatural thing. He said, "No, it's in nature, it's with monkeys." They don't know about maskh (transmogrification).

The opinion of Qadi al-Fakhr ibn al-Arabi is that the monkeys continue to mate. There's a hadith that indicates that they stopped that the maskh (لَا يَتَنَالُ - la yatanasal), that people that were transmogrified into apes did not have offspring. But Qadi al-Fakhr in his tafsir said, "The indication—he knew the hadith—and actually said there's a strong indication that they do." And he mentioned several stories indicating that.

Women Riding on Saddles

And then he said also, in another riwayah, not this one, it says when men and women would get married, they would marry in nikah, which has become legitimized in several states in America. A man and a man can now be married in a church, two men, and two women.

And then he said you would see women riding on saddles. Now, this seems very strange, but I'll tell you something about this hadith. I was reading a book written by a non-Muslim author about the feminist movement, and they said that one of the most important social acts in England for the feminists was to begin to ride bicycles. It was an act of social protest because it was seen as something unbecoming of a woman to ride a bicycle in public. And it was something that women—they started wearing these bloomers, and they went out on these bicycles. And this was—the book, one of the things they were indicating, was this actually had a massive impact on the beginning of throwing off of traditional morality concerning women.

Now, there's another hadith also that says towards the end of time, not in this one, that men would ride with their women sitting next to them on that which are like bucket seats. They were high saddles that were used by rich people. But if you saw them now, it's like a bucket seat. But the point of the hadith is that he would have his wife next to him, and they would come right up to the doors of the masjid. And he would go and pray, and the woman would have nothing on her head. And he said those people were cursed.

And the Quran, Allah says that horses and mules and donkeys—that you could ride them.

Belittling the Sunnah

And another one says he will be righteous towards his friend and cruel towards his parents. And he will belittle the Sunnah. He will belittle the Sunnah. And now the Sunnah is muhtaqarah in the Muslim world. The Sunnah is seen as something insignificant. And now they have what they call Quranists—people that just say that they should follow the Quran and no hadith.

And people say, "Why isn't the Dajjal mentioned in the Quran?" And one of the reasons the Dajjal is not mentioned in the Quran, according to some of the scholars, is that it will be a fitna for people that leave the hadith. Because the Prophet ﷺ said that he was given the Quran and the like of it, which is the Sunnah. And mutawatir hadith is qat'i. If you don't believe in the mutawatir, it's the same as disbelieving in the Quran. And if you reject the entirety of the Sunnah of ahad (singular transmission—which doesn't mean singular one-on-one, but not reaching the level of tawatur or absolute certainty), it's the same as rejecting the tawatur.

Decorated Mosques and Divided Hearts

And then he says you'll see the mosques being built like churches and synagogues, and you'll see the minarets being high, and you'll see many lines, ranks in the masjid, but the hearts will hate each other. So you see people in there, and the tongues are all different in their opinions.

The deen of one of those people will just be on the tongue—it's like lip service, it's just on his tongue, it's lafzi, it's not in his heart. If he gets things, he's happy and grateful. But if he doesn't, he shows ingratitude.

Pedophilia and Corruption

"And young boys will be propositioned like virgins are propositioned

to men.

And this is massive now—pedophilia. This is massive. It's all over the United States—pedophilia, unbelievable these things. And they'll be made proposals to them just like women are proposed.

In the United States, there's a task force in the FBI that searches the internet for people making proposals to young boys. It's on the internet now. Pedophiles search the internet for young boys, and then they try to get them to come meet them.

Men Wearing Gold and Silver

You'll see the males of my ummah wearing jewelry of gold and silver—not rings, but necklaces and bracelets.

A People from the East and West

Listen very closely. In those days, there will come a people—there will come a people at the end of time from both the east and the west, and they will have power over my ummah. So woe to the weak of my ummah that follow them. Woe to them.

And if you reflect on that hadith, it becomes clear that people that come from the east and the west—by the order of language, the only place that falls in the east and the west now is America. Because in America, you go to Japan—many businessmen go to the Middle East by way of Singapore, Japan, these places. So they actually go by the east. And they also go from New York by the west. So they go both directions by the order of people -one people come from the east and the west at the same time.

And if you look on a world map, it's very clear that in traditional understanding, Morocco was called the furthest west, and Egypt was the furthest east. And they didn't have any idea of something beyond that until America was discovered. And now we have something that falls between the east and the west. What's west of America is the east, and what's east of America is the west.

Additional Lesser Signs

Now, those are the lesser signs, and there are many, many more.

People will walk in the marketplaces with their thighs fully exposed, wearing shorts. There are hadiths: a man's thigh will speak to him. And the Arabs—one of the meanings in Arabic—the Arabs used something to describe something connected to it. Many people now carry their phones on their thighs. They carry their beepers on their thighs.

The Prophet said, "The strap of his sandal." But (شِرَاكُ النَّعْلِ - shirak an-nal) is also this is shirak an-na'l. In the Arabic language, if you say it this much, it means shirak an-na'l. Shukr is this much. Shirak an-na'l is this much. And people who tell somebody to call them, they make this sign like that. They go like that. That's shirak an-na'l, like that.

And also, if you look at the phone itself, it's in the shape of a thong of a sandal, getting thinner and thinner.

Allah doesn't mean that that's the meaning of the hadith, because it could very well be that somebody will—and there already are phones made out of shoes. In America, you can buy shoe phones. Literally, I'm telling you, you can buy a phone in the design of a shoe in the stores for people that like to diversify their design.

The Dajjal: System and Individual

Now, some things about the Dajjal. Well, I'm going to do the slides now. Maybe the lights could go down.

One of the meanings in Arabic of Dajjal—and I'm a Sunni Muslim, and I believe in the dhahir of the hadith. I don't like to make interpretation. I mean, I don't have the authority to do that. But I believe in the dhahir of the hadith, and so I don't think that the Dajjal in its ultimate manifestation is a system, although I think that there is a Dajjalic system. In other words, there is a human being who is the Dajjal, but there's also a system and there's a land of the Dajjal, and I'll show that in a second.

The Meaning of Dajjal

This was a magazine called Life Magazine. It's a very popular magazine in America, and it was a series of pictures and statements about religious people. And I want to show you the nature of their Dajjal, because Dajjal in Arabic comes from the root word that means to apply pitch or tar. And it's very interesting that in America, we have a colloquialism. I don't know if they use it here, but they say "the pitch man." And the reason they use that colloquialism is because pitch men, medicine men, used to sell tar to treat all your ailments when they discovered oil. In fact, Rockefeller was a pitch man originally. He used to sell tar. And so they used "the pitch man" as a con man, a confidence man.

Media Manipulation of Religious Images

So if you look at this: this is a Hindu, and it looks like he's standing on water. Oh, nice face, beautiful man. They don't tell you that he probably drinks urine and worships—seriously worships—idols and things like that.

And then here, the Japanese Shintoism. You can see high-tech, very clean, and there he is in his traditional robe, indicating psychologically to the viewer that here is the blending—Japan's successful blending of the traditional with the modern. Japanese culture has been successful in maintaining their tradition and yet becoming fully modernized. Again, they don't tell you that they worship ancestors. That's the religion.

The next one looks like a Muslim there, but the Pope is shown here—a very devotional person.

This is the Church of England, 56-year-old Archbishop of Canterbury. Very nice, beautiful robes. He's on the straight and narrow, obviously going to paradise, no doubt.

And then the next one: Martin Luther. He's on top of the world, on a cloud. It looks like a heavenly scene. He just needs wings and a harp.

Very interesting character—the Dalai Lama. He just was attacked in America for not allowing American Tibetan Buddhists to worship a certain idol that they were worshiping. Not that he—he worshiped several idols every morning. He said in an article, but he said he used to worship this idol in his early years, and then he realized it was a devil. And so he stopped worshiping it. Well, maybe you'll find out later that the other ones are devils as well. This is the nature of learning. But he prohibited his followers, and so the Americans said, "Freedom of religion! We should be allowed to worship even devilish idols."

So you can see him there. The Dalai Lama, when he was young, growing up in the monastery in Tibet, he was addicted to Western movies. And I don't know, but I have this inkling of a suspicion that he watched Lionel Barrymore in a very famous film called David Copperfield, where he plays a character named Uriah Heep, because he imitates that character when he talks and does his thing. And I was just wondering it might be a joke, his own personal joke on people. He's actually a very witty person.

But the point is, here he is—Buddhism, this natural religion. The Americans love Buddhism now, but they fail to tell you that the Tibetan Buddhists, when they were in power, outlawed the bicycle, completely against any progress, or quote-unquote progress. But the point is, the Americans are so dead set on making everybody follow their way, but here they raise him up to almost a godlike status in America, really. The intellectuals, movie stars, all those people.

And here we have the great scholarly tradition of the Jewish people. Here's a rabbi reading his Torah, probably, or Talmud. And he's under an olive tree, and it's in the Holy Land. Beautiful scene. I don't know where the hat came from. It doesn't look very Middle Eastern to me, but there he is anyway.

The Muslim Representation

And here we have the Muslims. It's very interesting, you know. I mean, if you look at that, you know, it's unbelievable. So you look at the psychological impact of that. You see somebody reading those back and seeing all those religions, the men of God. And then here, at Al-Azhar, in the oldest university in the world—they could have put that on there. There's a lot of things they could have done. They took him out to a garbage dump and said, "We want to get a picture of you here."

In America, the sophistication of their propaganda techniques—he just said, "Let's get several pictures." They took them to different places, but that's the one they picked. And that's my point. This is what they do.

Now, that man they don't show. That's my teacher, Mawlana Abdullah. I had the honor of studying with him.

The Founding Fathers and Freemasonry

Now, Master Mason. This is the founding father of America, George Washington. You can see the one eye on his robe there. Over there is the G. And this is in the National Archives. He was a Master Mason, 33rd degree. You can see the G there, which some people misleadingly think stands for God. It doesn't. It stands for geometry.

And what they believe: we will gain mastery over nature because God's mastery is determined by the fact that He knows the measurement of everything. That's why they call God "the Great Architect." So they say, "We can measure." And this is why modern Western man set out—and you can read the book The Measure of Reality, a recent book which is about this topic of the measuring of the West.

The Great Seal of the United States

And then this is the Great Seal of the United States. It has two sides. This is one side. You can see, first of all, the Star of David up there, which is composed of 13 stars. But it makes up the Star of David. And then you can see the eagle, shielded—always protected. Those are the vital points, because everything else is feathers. But the vital points are protected. So this idea of America protecting their vital interests, protecting their vital points.

And then you can see here is the symbol of peace, which is the olive branch, symbolizing peace in the hand or the talon of this bird. And the bird is looking towards the direction of the peace, which means that anyone that cooperates with us, we'll give them peace. But if you look against us, then we give you war. And this is what they have to—really, this is not—I'm not making this up. This is what they said, all this stuff.

The All-Seeing Eye and the Pyramid

And then the most intriguing thing. The Prophet said that every prophet has warned their people against the Dajjal. But I will tell you something about the Dajjal that nobody has told anyone about: he has one eye.

And this is very interesting, because one of the words for Dajjal means one eye with an eyebrow. And if you look at the pyramid here, the pyramid is three-dimensional. It's represented as three-dimensional. But the eye is represented as two-dimensional, which is the nature of monoptic vision. You only can see out of one eye. You don't have depth perception. The ophthalmologist will tell you that. If you don't have two eyes, you lose depth perception. And so this is what—the one eye has no depth perception.

But this they believe is the eye of God. That's what they call it: the all-seeing eye of God. They made God one-eyed. And you can see the eye is suspended above the pyramid because the Dajjal cannot come until the pyramid, the social structure, is complete. The system is put in place for his coming. And the system is secularism. You have to eliminate religion from the realm of governance, from the realm of social behavior.

And on the bottom, you have in Roman numerals 1776. Now, the Americans use—the age of reason is 21, which is the sum of the digits of 1776. And they actually believe that 1776 is symbolic, because they really believe—over here it says, "He's pleased with our program," or "what we're doing." "He's pleased with us."

They believe that the age of reason had arrived, that human beings, in the founding of America as a secular state, eliminating religion from politics, was a sign that man was coming to the age of reason. So they actually believe in this. This is all in their books if you read where this stuff comes from.

And then Novus Ordo Seclorum—bad Latin, but it basically means "a new worldly order." Seclorum in Latin means the world, an order of the world, a new world order. It also means a secular order. Secular means worldly.

Prophetic Description of Nations Devouring the Ummah

Now, this is very interesting, because when I first saw this, I immediately said Sadaqa Rasulullah, because the Prophet said:

(Sunan Abi Dawud 4297)

"There's coming a time when the nations will call upon one another to attack you like people call each other to eat from a plate of food."

"They said: 'O Messenger of Allah, is it because we're few in number?' He said: 'No, you're many.'"

Here's the Third World—much of it is Muslim, what they call the Third World. And here's a non-Muslim woman, Maria Gavarone, who's seeing it in that image. And our Prophet said this 1,400 years ago. Here's a woman now in America seeing that the way America and her allies—the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, that's all the G7 and all these—seeing it like eating from a plate.

Now, another example of that. This was done in 1896 by an Englishman. And here's the Ottoman Empire. And again, he's showing the nations coming on it like people come to a feast. Again, clear. They're seeing what our Prophet foretold 1,400 years ago. They see it with their own eyes, and there are Muslims that really are unaware of this stuff.

Images from the Gulf War

Christmas cheer from Saudi Arabia. "The tradition continues as Bob Hope visits the brave men and women serving in Operation Desert Shield. It's the show that made the headlines." Which one is the show? The Desert Shield or Bob Hope? You don't know.

And there you have it: Angelina, Christina, Dolores Hope, Johnny Bench, the Pointer Sisters. This is on the Arabian Peninsula, a land that was purified by the Messenger of Allah and his companions. And here you have the lowest of the low there to give Christmas cheer.

That's what they want. That's all they want. A picture says a thousand words. I don't have to make any comments on that. This was taken out of Newsweek after the Americans "saved the day."

And if you don't do that, that's what happens. That's an Iraqi soldier. That's what they did, and that's why they're kissing the flag. That's what happened to their Muslim brother. Inshallah, that's a shaheed right there. He even looks like a shaheed. Look at this guy. He looks like he's saying "shaheed."

The World Wide Web as the Spider's Web

There it is: World Wide Web. Allah says:

"The example of those who take protecting friends other than Allah is like the spider who takes a house. And surely the weakest of houses is the house of the spider."

Here's an advertisement for the net: "The cheapest way to attract new customers." The customers are flies. And what are flies attracted to? Filth. Because that's what they're selling. And that's what it is.

And the word in Arabic (دُجَّة - dujah) or (دَجَّال - dajjalah), is a group of people spreading feces all over the world. You can look it up in the dictionary. It's not slander. Look it up. I'm not making this up—spreading feces all over the world, dung everywhere.

And another one: dujjah is a group of people selling goods. And so here they are. That's their spider's web, which I'm going to talk about.

The Y2K Computer Crisis

It's very interesting. Let's look at the spider's web. In Tech Week, because I live right near Silicon Valley there. Tech Week, May 4th, 1998: "Doomsday Fears About Y2K. Some experts say we're in denial about how dangerous the millennial bug really is."

This is not a crazy magazine. This is a software engineer's magazine in the Silicon Valley. "New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and a dozen other cities are going to resemble Beirut in January 2000. That's why I moved out of New York City to rural New Mexico a couple of months ago. The government of the U.S. as we currently know it will fall on 1-1-2000, period." That's from computer programming gurus.

More conservative Y2K experts—there's a growing alarm in the computer programming circles about what is seen as the abysmal failure, out of hubris or greed or both, of American business and government to take the Y2K crisis seriously enough. Small but significant numbers of concerned citizens, Tech Week has learned, are beginning to act on those ominous predictions and are heading for shelter and self-defense, stockpiling supplies, hunkering down, and preparing for what they see as an apocalypse fostered by our total reliance on technology.

If you translate it into Arabic: (تَوَكَّلٌ مُطْلَقٌ عَلَى التِّكْنُولُوجِيَا - tawakkul mutlaq 'ala at-tiknulogiya)—absolute dependence on technology, a flawed system.

Critical Sectors Not Y2K Compliant

"None of the mission-critical sectors in the United States are even close to being Y2K compliant, say the experts. Not the 9,000 electric utility plants, not the 11,000 banks, not the telecommunications companies, and certainly not U.S. governments, which are way behind in their Y2K fixes."

The April 28th FCC chairman, William Kenner, told the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation he was concerned that the year 2000 problem had the potential of disrupting communications services worldwide. "Every sector of the communications industry—broadcast, cable, radio, satellite, wireline, and wireless telephone—could be affected."

And then here, the IRS, speaking also before the Senate, the IRS commissioner, in the Wall Street Journal on April 22nd, said, "Twenty-one months from now, if there are 90 million taxpayers who don't fix the century-date problem, we will have a situation scarier than the average disaster movie you might see on Sunday night."

Signs to Look For

I think the point of that is—and then here he says, "Signs to look for: CEOs who start abandoning their companies. Then the Y2K programmers will realize they're on a death march, culminating in the Great Geek Migration. Programmers will have to decide, 'How long do I stay and make the big bucks?'"

Then here, financial consultant Gary North responds: "In Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, where 80% of the world's code is, it can all be solved if American programmers just stay on the job in large cities and if the COBOL Fairy shows up on time. That's why it's naive to believe that Y2K will be fixed. Y2K is a systemic problem that cannot be solved. Why stay on the deck of a sinking ship if you can get off?"

Now, other signs, other dates that are important: August 22nd, 1999—GPS global positioning system rollover, reset to zero. All the planes that use the GPS system rollover because they were done by the Navy with 1,054 weeks, which ends in 1999, August 22nd.

Now, I really don't know for certain, but the point is, they're very concerned about this problem. They're concerned about it in England as well. Some of them say that it's just a time bomb ticking away, because they've already done simulated testing of several of the electrical companies in America, and the infrastructure is too vast for them to deal with the issue in time. When they click it over to zero-zero, they get a crash of the system. Also, the nuclear plants—they're very concerned about that.

The Fragility of the System

This is just an indication for us of how weak and flimsy this system is, because just if this is true—I don't know it is, and I'm not saying it is. I asked 30 software engineers the other night in California, and they had differing opinions. Some of them said, "It's too big, we can't deal with it, the system's going to crash." Others said, "We'll just have to wait and see, we don't really know what's going to happen." But nobody said, "No, no, no, there's no problem whatsoever."

There is a problem. The year 2000 bug is a serious bug, and I think it's interesting that they call it a bug. And Allah says:

"Indeed, Allah is not ashamed to use even the least thing in His creation as a metaphor."

And (بَعُوضَة - ba'udah) is a bug in the Arabic. It's a bug. I mean, Allah can use—here is a whole system that they are worrying, at the theoretical level, can be brought down by two bytes. If you know computer language, two bytes. There are two bytes in there. They didn't put 19 bytes so they can flip over to 2000. To save space, they put 2 instead of 4. And so dates read 1-1-62, 1-1-63, 1-1-64, 1-1-65. When you get to 1999, it flips over.

And in America, it's already starting to happen. People that are over 100 have been getting kindergarten calls to go to school, like one lady who's 104, and she got a notice to report to kindergarten. So seriously, it's a problem.

Worst-Case Scenario

Now, I'll just give you a scenario here. The worst-case scenario—I know that in the UK, I think 16% of their companies are Y2K compliant right now. But in America, less than 10% of the banks are. And the system is massive.

I called personally one of the largest banks in America, Bank of America, and I asked them if they were Y2K compliant, and he said yes. And I said, "Can you give me something in writing?" And he said, "Hold on." He came back five minutes later, and he said, "I just spoke with the supervisor, and they said we're going online and we don't have anything in writing as of yet."

Right now, I don't find it incredulous to see a run on the banks when people start realizing, if they don't solve this problem in 1999—people actually start saying, "Hey, let's get our money out of the bank." Well, there goes the calm, because there is no money in the bank. There's no money in the bank. Don't think there's any money in the bank. The whole banking system is based on nobody pulling their money out—it's just small increments. If everybody makes a run on the bank, they have to close the banks. If they close the banks, there's a crisis. And it's a crisis of confidence. That's where the crisis lies. It's not that they couldn't just print up the money—nobody trusts them anymore. And so there's a very potential crisis here very soon in these societies.

Allah's War on Riba

And all I can say is that Allah has waged His war on riba. In the Quran, He announced war only on riba:

"Then be warned of war from Allah and His Messenger."

And this is what happened to the Ummah. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 3456, Sahih Muslim 2669)

"There's coming a time that you'll follow the ways of the Jews and the Christians, hand span by hand span, arm length by arm length, to the point where if they go down a lizard's hole, you will go down it too."

Al-Qadi Iyad said that it means imitating their ways, their dress, the way they eat, the way they live. And so this was the beginning of the loss of a Muslim identity and a desire to look like the conqueror.

The Colonized Mentality

And this is something Albert Memmi, in his book The Colonizer and the Colonized, said: what happens to the colonized mentality is "to be becomes to be like." In other words, we want to be like those who colonized us because they see in them a power, and they think that by imitating them they'll get that power.

More Signs of the End Times

Children Disobeying Parents

They're demanding from their parents, giving them orders, telling them what to do, which is a very common phenomenon you see now in grocery stores and things like that. Children literally dictating to their parents things. And also, just gross rebellion against the parents.

But also it indicates, according to Ibn Rashid al-Muhammadi, a gross disequilibrium in the societies. In other words, everything's turned upside down. The noble people become the low people. The low people become the high people. Everything is just disequilibrium.

Shepherds Building Tall Buildings

But then he said that you will see (ٱلْحُفَاةُ ٱلْعُرَاةُ رِعَآءُ ٱلشَّآءِ يَتَطَاوَلُونَ فِى ٱلْبُنْيَٰنِ - al-hufat al-'urat ri'a ash-sha yatatawaluna fi al-bunyan)—the naked, the destitute, the shepherds and the camel herders will begin to build tall buildings. And they said, "Who were they?" And he said, "The Arabs." (Sahih al-Bukhari 50, Sahih Muslim 8)

Now, this is Abu Dhabi in 1962. And this is the same exact location in 1970. No, this is 1966. And this is 1981. Same place.

Now, the point being, this was how Abu Dhabi was for centuries. And then suddenly, in our lifetime, you're seeing (يَتَطَاوَلُونَ فِي الْبُنْيَانِ - yatatawaluna fi al-bunyan). And I personally was in a car near a building—there were stories being added onto it, an old building. And I said, "What's happening there?" And he said, "So-and-so built a building, and then another sheikh came and built one taller than his, and he got mad, so he's adding layers onto it to make it taller than the other one."

And (يَتَطَاوَلُونَ - yatatawaluna) means to vie in making tall buildings. But another meaning of it in Ibn Manzur's Lisan al-Arab is to tear down and rebuild, tear down and rebuild, again and again. And this you can see going on all over, all over the world. There's constant—they build roads, then they're too small, they tear them down, build them again. They build buildings, population goes up, they have to tear them down. It's going on all over—airports being renovated.

The Earth Becomes Like the Sky

Now, this is, I think, a very interesting picture. It's a satellite photograph of Europe. You can see Italy there. This is looking from the sky down at the earth.

Now, what struck me about this picture was that the earth has become like the sky, which is one of the signs at the end of time—that Allah says that the earth would become, would have adornment, it would have (زِينَة - zinah). When the earth is ornamented and gets its zinah:

"And its people think that they have power over the earth."

Allah said He will—His affair will come. And when it comes, there's no warning. Allah says:

"Our command comes to it by night or by day."

Depending on where you are on the earth—some places it would be night, some places it would be day. And so this is—I think that's a really interesting sign.

The Stars Put Out

The other sign is that it says in the Quran:

"When the stars are put out."

And this was something that happened in the world before. Now, the stars are no longer seen at night. They've been put out by these lights themselves. So the night sky is no longer visible. In fact, astronomers have complained about this.

What Should Muslims Be Doing?

So now, what time is it? We've been going a long time. So it's a long discussion. But what I wanted to do was look at what we should be doing as Muslims given this scenario.

Differences Among Muslims (Ikhtilaf)

The first thing I want to mention is that we have what's called a lot of (اخْتِلَاف - ikhtilaf) now—differences of opinions. And I've looked at the different (اخْتِلَافَات - ikhtilifat). And I think they can be summed down to some basic differences.

Following Madhahib vs. Going Directly to Sources

One of the dominant differences amongst practicing Muslims is the difference between those who believe that we should be following traditional scholars' interpretations of the Quran and those who feel, "No, we have to go directly to the source texts themselves." This is a source of ikhtilaf.

Positive Effects of the Anti-Madhab Movement

From the positive effects is that they have forced people to examine their own understanding closer, to look at dalil (proofs), to think about the Quran and the hadith. And while there's a danger in lay scholarship, where they can do that without any wisdom—that's the danger that lies—but nonetheless, it's even forced scholars to have to begin to write their books using proofs and things. So there's some positive things about that. And there's been a reinvigoration in other aspects that have resulted from that.

Negative Effects: Takfir and Tabdi'

On the other hand—I'm doing this, you know, it's like—I don't want to offend anybody. This is just putting things out from my own personal experience. On the other hand, one of the dangers and the sad things is that there's been a lot of attacking and (تكفير - takfir) and (تفسيق - tafsiq) and (تبديع - tabdi') of people—of saying this person's a (فاسق - fasiq) or (مبتدع - mubtadi').

And one of the things that the ulema said is that every group always calls groups that disagree with them (مبتدع - mubtadi'). It's well known in hadith methodology. So whenever a person was accused of being a mubtadi', the hadith scholars would actually have to look and make sure that it just wasn't people that didn't like them that were saying that.

So one has to understand that. How that can be resolved, I think generally the resolution comes as people's knowledge broadens from both points of view.

The Example of Du'a After Jumu'ah

You have ignorant people who follow madhhab who become obstinate about their own position. For instance, there are many people—Hanafi madhhab, Wahhabi people say that the du'a after the khutbah is a (بدعة - bid'ah).

And then you have people—this just happened recently in California. There was an argument because the imam didn't do the du'a after. He was a guest imam. And there were some people who were Hanafi and said, "Do the du'a." And then somebody got upset: "It's a bid'ah, don't do it."

And again, this is a common occurrence in our masjids. What I would say about that: the most important thing is that our Ummah has many different understandings, and many of them are valid. And if the Ummah disagrees on a matter at a scholastic level, and the disagreement is recognized as a valid disagreement, it is prohibited to condemn it. It is prohibited to condemn it.

The Maliki scholars consider it a (مكروه بدعة - makruh bid'ah) to do the du'a after the prayer. The Hanafi and the Shafi'i scholars consider it to be permissible. Because of that difference of opinion, even the Malikis would say you can't condemn the du'a. It's not (حرام - haram). And the makruh is not condemned. You can encourage somebody to leave the makruh, but you cannot condemn them and attack them for doing the makruh, because there is no punishment attached to it.

Need for Broader Understanding

So people have to be aware of that. We need to gain a broader understanding of our teachings and become more tolerant of each other at both levels. Those who are following madhhab need to recognize that we are in an age where there is a lot of confusion, there is a lot of misunderstanding, but there are many sincere people struggling to find what the truth is. We need to be patient with each other.

Those who are not following madhhab have to recognize also that the people who follow madhhab are following an unbroken chain of tradition in this Ummah for the last 1,200 years. We have no scholars in the history of Sunni Islam that do not have one of the four imams after their name, including Ibn Taymiyyah al-Hanbali, al-Jawzi al-Hanbali, Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali. In their books, Ibn Taymiyyah says in his fatawa many times (قَالَ إِمَامُنَا - qala imamuna)—"Our imam," meaning Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

And then also Imam Ahmad himself said:

مِنْ قِلَّةِ عِلْمِ الْمَرْءِ أَنْ يُقَلِّدَ غَيْرَهُ فِي دِينِهِ "From the small amount of knowledge a man has is that he imitates another man in his religion."

And that is used often as a proof against people who aren't following the imam. If they don't have enough knowledge—if you are a mujtahid, then you must follow the Quran and the Sunnah without recourse to the opinions of men. If you have not reached the level of mujtahid, then you fall under the category in the Quran:

فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ "Ask the people of knowledge if you yourselves don't know." (Quran 16:43)

The Issue of Tasawwuf

The next difference that we find very common is between the Sufis—broad strokes, we don't really have real Sufis—and so it's now become a moot point. You get people fighting whether you should celebrate Mawlid, whether you shouldn't celebrate Mawlid, and Tasawwuf.

Anybody who does a serious study of Islam has to recognize that Tasawwuf as a science is one of the sciences of Islam. If you get into tariqah and following sheikhs and these types of things, I think you're going to get into

differences of opinions amongst people and get into a lot of ikhtilaf.

But there should be no ikhtilaf over the question of Tasawwuf that is based on the Quran and the Sunnah. And this is the Tasawwuf of Imam al-Junayd, who said, "Our science, Tasawwuf, is completely embedded in the Book and the Sunnah." So anything you see that is not in accordance with the Book and the Sunnah, we don't accept it.

Recognizing Innovations While Being Careful

Now, I think it's also important to recognize that in many Muslim countries, there have been many innovations at places. There's no doubt about that. And it would be both naive and irresponsible to deny that. If you go in the Muslim world and look, you'll find people who quote-unquote say that they're Sufiyya that really—the masters of the science of Tasawwuf like Imam an-Nawawi, who wrote a book on it called Bustan al-'Arifin, or Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, who wrote Madarij as-Salikin, or Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, or many of the great teachers and practitioners—Imam al-Qushayri and others—would completely reject those things.

Sidi Ahmed Zarruq, who was a reformer within the science, condemns many of the things. But again, one has to be very careful of condemning things that one doesn't understand, because Musa (عليه السلام) was rebuked by al-Khidr because he condemned things that he did not understand. And there could be things that you don't understand that really, because you don't understand it, and when they're explained to you, they make sense.

So if you see something, it's important to ask, "What exactly do you mean by that?" And there are many statements within the books of Tasawwuf that the outward of them is very strange. But if you look at what the people who commented on them said, the explanations become clearer. And there are other things that have to be rejected outright that are in the books of Tasawwuf. And there are many weak hadiths that have been pointed out and other things.

So that's an issue. But again (الْمُجْمَعُ عَلَيْهِ - al-mujma' 'alayh)—let's condemn only what is agreed upon to condemn.

Harakiyoon vs. La-Harakiyoon

And then another problem in ikhtilaf is (الحركيون - al-harakiyoon) versus (اللاحركيون - al-la-harakiyoon)—people of harakah, people who want to see social change, who recognize that Islam is a vehicle for social change, and other people within the Ummah who condemn the idea of changing things through harakah or movement-based type things.

And in this category, you get many, many groups. The source from which these groups arise is an impulse that is rooted in the desire to change the social conditions. Whether the methodology is correct is something that is up for debate. That's where the debate arises. But the source and the desire for change is rooted in the Muslims. Muslims want change. We are not content with the social conditions.

And there have been different methodologies: Jama'at-e-Islami in Pakistan, Tablighi Jama'ah in India and other places. These were methodologies that were set up to try to change certain social conditions.

The Danger of the Us-Them Mentality

One has to recognize, I think, first and foremost, that there are many sincere people working within those organizations that believe in Islam, that want to see Islam becoming once again defined. And so again, the people within those groups also have to recognize the inherent dangers of any types of groups.

What happens—the most common sickness of any group is what's called the us-them phenomenon. If you enter into a group, whether it's a Sufi tariqah or a political movement or any type of group, you can easily fall into a group mentality when you have an in-group and an out-group. The in-group is on the right path, and the out-group is on the wrong path.

The trouble comes when you have a minority movement in Islam that defines itself as the in-group and defines not only the other Muslims but the kuffar as well as the out-group. So there are Muslims that get alienated by that. So if you're not part of the party or not following the party line, then you're not with the program. And if you're not with the program, you're not really dedicated to Islam. And this is often revealed in the way people speak, and it's a danger.

People that say, "Do you go out (في سبيل الله - fisabilillah)?" And the idea is one type of going out fi sabilillah, when (سُبُلُ اللَّهِ كَثِيرَةٌ - subulullah kathirah)—like Imam Malik said, there are many ways to go out in the path of Allah. But there are some people that think there's one way, and that becomes a danger and leads to division and splitting amongst the Muslims.

Other Sources of Division

Another very powerful source of ikhtilaf amongst the Muslims is those who have the name of Islam by birth but they really don't have a commitment to Islam, as opposed to those who have the name of Islam, whether by birth or conversion, and yet they have a commitment to Islam. That commitment varies. For some, it's limited. For others, it's their whole life commitment. This is their life.

This is a big problem. This is a source of major division in the Muslim world now—people who are secularized, who no longer see, or they think that the rules of Islam are no longer valid and things like this. And you fall into often really either kufr or right on the edge of kufr in situations like that. And I don't see a resolution for that type of problem.

Another one is between the elect of the Muslims, whether it's governance or wealth, and the impoverished Muslims, and also the disempowered and disenfranchised Muslims. This is a great source of conflict in our communities. So there are conflicts in the Muslim world. And again, that can only be solved by the reinstitution of zakat as a practice in which the poor people get their rights from the wealthy people, and by the humility of

the wealthy people towards the poor people, and by the lack of envy and resentment within the poor people towards the rich people. So these are deep spiritual crises that need to be looked at.

Arab vs. Ajami

Another source of conflict is between the Arab and the (عجمي - 'ajami). The Arabs as a people have their own inter-Muslim warfare going on. In other words, the Arabs as a people have divisions and splits, and there's a lot of nationalism. But there's a greater issue here, which is the trouble between—in masjids—the Pakistani and the Arab masjid, which is common. I don't know about here, but in America it becomes a common problem.

So the Pakistanis who are often like, "We do it this way back home." And the Arabs who say, "No, we do it this way back home." And then the convert is left just scratching his head. He's not a Hanafi or a Shafi'i or nothing. He's just a convert to Islam.

So understand the sociological background to these things. So this is a big conflict. And we have a unique opportunity as immigrants and converts in the West at bridging gaps that are incredibly important. In other words, we need to really practice and not simply give lip service to the fact that Islam does unite people. Brotherhood—believers are brothers.

We have family members who are Arab, who are Pakistani, who are Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Turkic, American, English, French, German—every place on the earth, Nigerian—the whole spectrum. And Allah made us a family. And we have to respect that. And we have to respect those kinship bonds of iman.

The True Family is the Family of Iman

And I'll tell you an amazing—I mean, you probably know this, but I think it's an amazing secret: the moment that your parents die, if they die in disbelief, you are not allowed in Shari'ah—bonds of blood are meaningless. And as we're lowered down in our grave, our brothers and our sisters are the brothers and sisters of iman. Those are the people that you will be raised up with as a family. It's not the people that you might have been directly related to by blood. And yet there was no iman to bind you, because the blood bonds are earthly. Just as we came from the earth, we go back to the earth. But the bonds of iman are eternal. And that's really an important thing to remember.

Recognizing Different Sociological Backgrounds

So the Arab and the 'ajami have to recognize you're dealing with different sociological backgrounds. The Prophet ﷺ gave people their due. He did not treat the Bedouin like he treated the Hadari Arabs, because he recognized they had a different sociological makeup. They grew up in a different environment.

The Bedouin Arabs used to yank him, yank his coat. He would smile at them. If a Hadari Arab did that, it would be completely unacceptable. But he recognized there was a harshness in the desert Arabs. And yet he was still gentle with them.

We have to recognize some of our brothers have harshness in them. Some of us—and it comes to all of us. And if I become harsh, then I need my brothers to give me some reflection, but in a way of (نصيحة - nasiha) a way of encouraging me to change, not in a way of attacking. And one of the things you often find in masjids is the raising of voices, the fighting. And this is one of the signs of the end of time: raising the voices in the masjid.

Stereotypes and Finding the Sadiqeen

And then you have Arab nationalism, which is a big problem. And we need to get out of the stereotypical attacks: "All Palestinians are like that, Egyptians are all like that, Yemenis are like this." This stereotypical—there's always truth in stereotypes. But if it becomes the way in which you look at people, you do not allow for the possibility of seeing the (صادقين - sadiqeen) from that people.

And Sidi Ahmed Zarruq said, "Every group of people has bad qualities. And if you meet a man from that people who is free of those bad qualities, know that you're with a sadiq." And the point is, is that you want to seek out the sadiqeen. And if it's an Egyptian sadiq, he will be free from those qualities in the Egyptian society that are not good qualities. If he's an American sadiq, it'll be the same. If he's a Yemeni sadiq, it'll be the same. But you have to recognize every community has their righteous people. And for the faults of the Muslims, we should try our best to lower our eyes.

The Time for Unity

There are obviously many sub-types that go into that, but I really—we need, given the time that we're living in -the Ummah has to start coming together. Imam as-Suyuti, Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani—all said that this Ummah would come to a close by the end of the 15th century. We're in 1500-over—1530 by the birth point and 1419 by the migration point, the Hijrah. And really, the signs are very clear.

We Must Unite

And we need to unite as an Ummah. We have a great deal of enemies, and we have to stop making enemies of ourselves. And we need to really begin to excuse each other and take this to heart. If everybody in this auditorium did that, you would be a transforming element in your own communities. But this is based on (مجاهدة - mujahadah) within our own self. We have to struggle against our own self.

We have to begin to unite on broad-based principles. We have to begin to overlook. At this stage in the game, if the house is burning down and the man's handing you a bucket, you don't say, "Are you Hanafi or Shafi'i?" You take the bucket and you pass it down the line. And Islam is on fire, and we need to put out the fire and get our house in shape. Really, we need to put our house in shape. And every brick we're trying to—so we need to work together instead of each other taking the brick of another and throwing it down, and recognizing that Islam is a universal tradition. It encompasses many, many views and viewpoints.

The Prophet ﷺ Taught Tolerance

And our Prophet ﷺ taught tolerance, and he taught different ways of viewing things. And the other thing that I would say is, in many ways, the West is being given to us. It's being given to us. The Prophet ﷺ in Mecca—the only thing that he wanted was to be able to speak freely. In these countries, we can still speak. We can go out and talk to people. We can call people to Islam.

But if we're calling them to that rubbish bin in the picture, it's just not a very appealing picture. I mean, we should be calling them to those other pictures—the straight and narrow, the beautiful, natural (فطرة - fitrah), nature of Islam. And if we do that, people will respond.

Individual Responsibility Against the Dajjal

So my plea to myself and to all of us is really, as individuals, to make a commitment. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim 2937)

"If the Dajjal comes while I'm among you, I will protect you. But if I'm gone and he comes, each one of you must protect himself."

And we have to protect ourselves against the divide-and-conquer mentality of the dominant cultures that are opposing us and attacking us.

Shahada Ceremony

I'll put up all the other stuff that I want to do─I think the time is about a quarter past nine, if I'm correct. We have somebody who would like to take Shahada, I believe. Whoever it is who would like to take Shahada, brother, to be, inshallah.

Who wants to say Shahada? Someone is leaving Hinduism and embracing Islam and doing that. So this is the blessing of Islam. Wallahi, this is a proof of the message of Islam. And you know, this is—India and Pakistan are dropping atomic bombs, dropping atomic bombs now. And the truth is that all of the crises-it has nothing to do with religion. It's all just hubris and pride and arrogance. And that's what it's about.

And you know, if we had taken the message—there's a lot of reasons why