Masood N. Khan M.D.
Someone one will have to critically evaluate the commonly believed phenomena of appearance of Mahdi, second coming of Jesus, Yajuj & Majuj, Dajjal and often discussed signs of world’s impending doom. They don’t cease to fascinate Muslims and their so called religious scholars. What is the psychology behind this fascination and how valid is the predictive significance they carry?
To think that all the narratives of religious connotation without any exception, especially the ones with a historic account, to be above critique and scrutiny, is a kind of mental slavery. It is as if a slave has submitted to his master with such devotion and loyalty that he begins to consider every opinion of his master to be absolutely right and that his own opinion could not be juxtaposed to his opinion for fear of impudence. Majority of Muslims are being chained into such mental slavery when it comes to the written documents or spoken words related to their religion and the religious personalities of the past. Such slavery we see present, not infrequently, in upholding the antiquated explanations of the verses of Quran by mullas, unquestioned authenticity awarded to all the sayings of the Prophet that have been recorded by certain compilers of Hadiths (his sayings and actions), two to three centuries later, and glorified stories about events and personalities of the past, mostly dramatized and exaggerated if not outrightly fake.
Is it not their mental slavery that Muslims have let themselves to be convinced that all the sayings of the Prophet in the so called authentic books of hadiths especially Bukhari and Muslim, are not only beyond any doubt but to question them is blasphemy ?
Any kind of slavery, more so of the intellect, is the cause and the effect simultaneously, of mental regression or low morale. People with free and vibrant mind which freely translates
into insight, critique and action, are bold to discuss and debate any opinion. On the contrary the signs and symptoms of an infirm mind are easily identifiable. In order to understand them, it is important to understand essentially two psychological phenomena that play an underlying role. Both of these phenomena are related to how human mind craves for ‘support’ and ‘hope’ when suffered with depression or low morale. Even though seeking support and harboring hope are positive traits in normal human beings, in a depressed mind devoid of self-esteem, they unfortunately happen to reflect morbidity. They serve as crutches for a sick mind rather than inducers of a positive action.
For intellectually stagnant people bereft of sprightliness and dynamism, enjoying the past becomes an addiction and thinking of a charitable future that by divine intervention will help them out, an obsession.
One should not think this, an abstract hypothesis as it may so seem. One only has to observe the social discourses of Muslims or listen to the lectures of their so called religious scholars. Little you will find in them to bring about a change or cause a moral uplift or energize them to act. Instead there is reminiscence of the past, either about some extraordinary attributes of a centuries old personality of relic importance, or a detailed description of an event that happened long ago in the lives of the companions of the Prophet, sufi saints or any other person of religious repute. They have no relevance to the present.
More than eighty percent of the content of the lectures by the religious scholars, is about a ‘feel good past’ or a divinely intervened yet unearned future reassuring them success. Muslims’ fondness with the past shows a low morale of an enslaved mind.
One could easily notice that their lectures rarely will encourage deep reflection on Quranic verses or an everlasting moral message that Prophet’s life has conveyed by practically demonstrating how to live Quran. There are no action oriented solutions to the problems of modern age. It is sad that most of these lectures are delivered to spell-bound and mindless audiences to further dope them into inaction. Often it is observed, that when a story is given about some pious personality of the past, the lecturer would allude without any hesitation, to a dialogue believed to have taken place between the husband and his wife in their private moments. One should have a child’s intelligence to not to think that this is a made up story, for how in the world that dialogue could have become so explicitly public. Even the events attributed to the Prophet are often exaggerated and dramatized, more perhaps to reinforce a school of thought or prove somebody wrong than to stimulate people to reflect and change.
Religion is obviously being used as something to lean on, but not as a program for vivacious and dynamic action. As time is passing by and the journey of Muslims on the slope of decline is becoming more virulent, the public expressions of such morbid mind are becoming rampant. They emanate frequently at the podium of the so called scholars and manifest themselves in the bizarre behavior displayed at the dead saints’ mausoleums or in front of living beings turned idols by attributing to them some presumed spiritual powers.
This is the past, and as for the future, Muslims live in a world of wishful imagination believing that certain events are going to happen in future that will help them come out successful after all. Among them are the appearance of Mahdi, second coming of Jesus and fatal defeat of an evil character called Dajjal – an Arabic word meaning ‘The Deceiver”. Yet none of these are mentioned in Quran. They are based solely upon misunderstood and unreliable Hadiths and they animate and excite Muslims and their revered scholars. The appearance of Mahdi – sombody endowed with characteristics of pious leadership – near the end times, will be followed by him taking command of an army of Muslims and fight against that of corruptors and evil-doers. In order to give this battle a divine sanction Eisa (Jesus) will come down alive from heaven, and with his own hands kill “Dajjal”, who will then be. not only the leader of the evil army but also the impersonator of Jesus. Muslims believe Jesus will come back alive as he was taken to heaven alive. Yet as aluded to above, there is no mention in Quran of either Mahdi or Dajjal or of Jesus being taken to heaven alive and his coming back alive second time. While Quran has given so many details about the life of Jesus, it doesn’t make sense that such an extraordinary event of him descending down from heaven in a living physical body, an event of extraterrestrial and cosmic proportions, is not mentioned at all. Obviously Quran is silent about these so called presumed future events because they are not going to happen.
Such are the childish and immature beliefs which serve to provide Muslims, fake moral support and a forgivable excuse for their inaction and lethargy. They assure them that good is bound to happen to them in the end, that will make them emerge victorious over all the people of other faiths. What a laughable idea!
The End of the World, a catastrophic collapse of the galaxy perhaps, has been described in Quran through a language of allegorical expressions to impress upon human beings its enormity on one hand and the transitory nature of human existence on the other. But unfortunately Muslims have developed, a whole science that deals with the so called ‘signs’ that will show up when the end of the world is close. Again, as in many other instances, these signs are based on reported sayings of the Prophet (hadiths) whose authenticity could never have been absolute. Regardless, their relevance to the present is zero. What good is it to know about the signs of world’s impending doom, when neither the end could be thwarted off nor the signs be prevented from appearing. Quran declares very categorically that the knowledge as to when the end of the world will occur, is known to none except Him, not even to the Prophet. In spite of this clear declaration Muslims needed these so called signs to enable them to indulge in vain discussions about them, of no more than time-pass importance. We can see a clear contradiction between what Quran has said and what these signs irrelevantly represent. They have been described perhaps in every age and most likely have been falsely perceived by people of that time to be already present for them. This drama has been played for centuries with no relevance and usefulness and has continued to fascinate Muslims’ immaturity.
If one stretches the imagination to the limits to get some utility out of the knowledge of these signs, they could only be taken to contain perhaps, an implied message to warn people to be conscious and introspective of the impermanence of the world that they indulgently pursue and take pride in. Yet by sheer common sense, they hold only a counterfeit value and their attribution to the Prophet without being interpreted properly is nothing but a disservice to him. In either case their relevance to the present is none. A thing that neither can be known as to when it is going to happen nor can be prevented, should not be the topic of any importance, much less of lengthy discourses and lectures.
In this connection it is appropriate perhaps, to talk about Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog), mentioned in Quran. Their story tells us that they are human beings of evil intent, encountered by a Prophet, of time immemorial, called Zul Qarnain who blocked them off by building an impenetrable wall. It is mentioned with some detail in chapter 18“The Kahf” (The Cave) of Quran and again in chapter 21 “Al Anbiya” (The Prophets), where their appearance and creating disorder close to the end of the world has been very briefly referred to. If we analyze these verses it is quite apparent that they fall under the category of allegories, what in Quranic terminology are called ‘Muthashabihath’. All such verses are meant to convey a message and not to be understood literally. The message behind the mention of Yajuj and Majuj most probably seems to be that there is a constant battle going on between evil and good in this world and that only a divinely revealed guidance through a Prophet has the means and power to overcome and subdue the evil and render it impotent. There are several allegorical verses in Quran meant to convey a ‘take-home’ message. Quran explicitly discourages giving them any particular understanding much less a literal one. Unfortunately Muslims have to build as usual, a huge edifice of superfluous and dramatized elaborations on the story of Yajuj and Majuj based upon again sayings of questionable authenticity, of the Prophet. These sayings like many others are either misunderstood or taken in the literal sense with no contextual understanding. They could even have been fabricated.
Muslims’ escapism from the challenges of today, points to a disturbing trait. It is both, a symptom and a cause of their decline. The quality of being engrossed into the past and looking forward to a future charitably thrown at them by some kind of divine intervention be it the appearance of a leader called Mahdi or the second coming of Jesus is simply pathetic. It indicates low morale and loss of self esteem.
The childish excitement and fascination with such ideas is a sign of an intellectually dull, stagnant and lazy mind. It represents a fall into decay whose origin perhaps took place centuries ago when intellectualism of the Golden Era was replaced by a mindless conservatism, literal understanding of Quran and Hadith and blind preoccupation with rituals and superficial regulations. It is such a pitiable scene to watch the herdish crowds of intellectually timid and submissive people applauding the stupidity and nonsense emanating out from the podiums and the pulpits.