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Sharon, Moshe, Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Interaction and Conflict,
Johannesburg: SNAP Print, 1989, p.105-155.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MESSIANIC IDEA
By Messianism, we mean that part of religious thought which deals with the
concept of the “End of Days.” This is the time when God will establish the ideal
world order. Unlike the existing world, which has a time limit and a fixed duration,
the ideal world order will come at the end of time, will not be subject to the notion of
time, and as such will be both final and eternal. In all the three religions - Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, the ideal world order is God’s order, and its timing and exact
nature will be decided by Him. Yet in all the three religions God implements the ideal
order through a divinely elected person.
This person is the Messiah. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam use the same term
to designate the Messiah, naturally with a slight variation in the pronunciation of the
original Hebrew term. In Hebrew the term is mashīyaḥ, in Arabic masīḥ and the
European languages have “Messiah” or a very similar word, according to the
particular phonetics of each language. Christianity and Islam have also other names
for the Messiah, which shall presently be discussed.
However, beyond the usage of a similar name, it is the nature and function of
the Messiah about which the three religions are in complete disagreement with each
other.
Messianism is an admission of failure. The Messianic idea is born when a
religion concedes that it did not achieve its goals in the existing reality; and so as not
to leave the believers hopeless and helpless, it envisages a world to come where, and
when unachieved goals will finally be attained in their perfect form. The exact
character of this world-to-come depends on the nature of each particular religion and
on its historical development.
Judaism originally had no Messianic ideology whatsoever. As a system of law
restricted to one people, Judaism was interested in the implementation of this law and
in its practice in this world. The most sublime idea of Judaism is that Israel should be
a holy people: “You should be holy because I, the Lord your God, am Holy” (Lev.
19:2). According to Judaism, holiness can only be achieved through practice and the
strict adherence to God’s ordinances, law, and statutes. Only living people in this
world can keep God’s commandments and strive for holiness. The God of Israel needs
his servants, the people of Israel, to glorify Him in His world. He is neither interested
in the dead nor in a world to come but in the current reality. The Psalmist makes this
point abundantly clear: God must be praised by the works of His hands: the forces of
nature as well as the living creatures, human beings included:
Praise ye Him all His angels;
Praise ye Him all His hosts;
Praise ye Him sun and moon;
Praise Him, all ye stars of light;
Praise Him ye heavens of heavens
and ye waters that are above the heavens .....
Praise the Lord from the earth.....
Fire and hail; Snow and vapor,
Stormy wind fulfilling His word;
Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars;
Beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl;
Kings of the earth, and all peoples;
Princes and all judges of the earth;
Both young men and maidens;
Old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord;
for His name alone is excellent;
His glory is above the earth and heaven;
He also exalteth the horn of His people,
The praise of all his saints;
even of the children of Israel,
a people near unto Him.
Praise ye the Lord (Psalm 148).
It is evident that the reality of this world is God’s Kingdom; this is the ideal
place where he can and should be worshipped.
“While I live I praise the Lord.
I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being” (Psalm 146:2).
And then in the clearest terms possible the Psalmist declares:
“The dead praise not the Lord,
neither any that go down into silence.
But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forever more”
(Psalm 115:17-18).
In Biblical thought, God’s Kingdom in this world is portrayed in close
connection with Israel - God’s subjects and servants. The Kingdom or kingship of the
Lord can find expression only because living Israel, in the full historical, material, and
concrete sense of the word has made God her supreme King and Lord.
“Thou hast enthroned the Lord this day to be thy God... And the Lord
hath enthroned thee to be his peculiar people” (Deuteronomy 26:17-18)
(This translation differs from the King James Version because of one key
Hebrew word “he˒emarta” translated as “avowed” but which actually means to
enthrone, to make a ruler, to regard as a lord. ) In this statement the stress is on the
word “this day.” In the Talmud, God’s emphasis on the reciprocity between His
choice of Israel to be His own holy people and Israel's choice of God to be their only
God is connected with this world. God is made there to say to Israel: “You have made
Me unto a distinct unit in the world and I shall make you unto a distinct unit in the
world as well.” (Bab. Talmud, Berakhot, 6a).
The Biblical idea of reward and punishment is also connected with this
world. The worst punishment for the individual is death and nothing beyond
that (cf., Ezekiel 18). It is precisely because the Bible does not know about
anything beyond reward and punishment in this world, that its major moral
dilemma centres on the question: Why are the wicked successful while the
righteous suffer? And the Psalmist asks:
“Lord how long shall the wicked
How long shall the wicked triumph?
How long shall they utter and speak hard things,
And all the workers of iniquity boast themselves...
They slay the widow and the stranger,
And murder the fatherless.
Yet they say the Lord shall not see...” (Psalms 94:3-7)
The whole book of Job deals with the question of God’s justice in this world.
Had the notion of the world-to-come already existed in Biblical thought, such a
problem would have been superfluous.
Both Christianity and Islam were never really bothered with the question of
the current success of the wicked and the misery of the righteous. In both these
religions, God’s final reckoning was still to come on the final Day of Judgment, when
divine justice would finally be administered. But for the biblical man this notion of
judgment in the obscure future did not really exist. If divine justice cannot be seen,
then this divine justice should be questioned as Job does bitterly:
“As God liveth, who hath taken away my right, and the Almighty
who hath vexed my soul”. (Job 27:2)
For Job, like the Psalmist, cannot understand
“Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea are mighty in
power?” (Job 21:7)
It is therefore not surprising to read the pessimistic view of Ecclesiastes:
“What profit hath a man of all his labour
Which he taketh under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3)
“That which is crooked can not be made straight; and that which is
lacking cannot be numbered (Ibid. 1:15)”.
Nature was created to exist, and in the same way that there is a repetition in
the movement of the forces of nature; the rising and setting of the sun, the blowing of
the wind and flowing of rivers, so also is there the movement of the generations of
man. “One generation passeth away and another generation cometh”. And if you
come to think of the possibility of the end of time, the end of this earth and its
replacement by “a new earth and a new heaven,” Ecclesiastes makes it clear that “the
earth abideth forever.” (Ibid. 1:4-5).
The idea that human life begins and ends only within the framework of this
world, and that life finally terminates in death after which there is nothing, is a
recurring element in the Bible and Ecclesiastes elucidates this idea as follows:
“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts. Even one
thing befalleth them: as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea they have all
breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above the beast, for all is vanity”
(Ibid. 3:19).
Ecclesiastes was not an atheist – such an idea as the non-existence of God
hardly occurred to man in ancient times. One is demanded to fear God in heaven and
to remember that God is the source of everything which is done “under the sun…”
Ecclesiastes “beheld all the works of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is
done under the sun, because though man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it;
yea further, though a wise man thinks to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it”
(Ibid. 8:17). The emphasis here, and in other Biblical passages, is on the remoteness
of God, and on man having to cope with whatever there is “under the sun.”
It is “under the sun” that one is promised reward and punishment, and these
are described in material terms: riches, health, peace, abundance:
“And it shall come to pass, if thou shall hearken diligently unto the
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which
I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above
all nations of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee and
overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed
shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground and the fruit of thy
cattle... Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in and blessed shalt thou be
when thou goest out.(Deut. 28:1-6)
And vice versa: punishment, sickness, poverty, death, destruction, war and
exile.
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of
the Lord thy God... that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake
thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city and cursed shalt thou be in the field...
Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in and cursed shalt thou be when
thou goest out… etc.( The whole list of curses, much longer than the
blessings. Ibid. 28:15-68).
To summarize: In the Hebrew Bible there is little mention of the World to
Come, the Day of Judgment and the End of Days. Israel's prophets describe, however,
a future world of peace, harmony, and reconciliation, which does not necessarily
entail a universal upheaval. Even the words of Malachi about “the coming of the great
and terrible day of the Lord” (Malachi, 3:23 = KJ 4:5) should not be understood out of
context of the certainty of the changing of the world into a better one. The closest
ideas of what might represent the End of Days appear in Daniel's visions (Daniel 7)
which represent the Exilic or post-Exilic period.
In the Biblical world of concrete reality, Messianic thought is also concrete
and well defined and has to do with the main subject of the Bible, the people of Israel.
The story of the creation forms the framework for the part played by the covenantal
people in history. History, law, prophetic messages, poetry, and wisdom in the Bible
originate from, and concentrate on Israel. The law was given to be kept by the people
of God and whatever befell them throughout history was the direct outcome of their
following or rejecting this law. The worst of all punishment for not behaving as a holy
nation was the loss of kingdom and sovereignty, followed by exile and dispersion.
It follows that the Messianic idea in Judaism is also connected with Israel. It is
as tangible as Israel's history. For the Jews, the Messiah is a real person with a
specific function. He is a member of a definite family – the offspring of the House of
David. His functions are mainly national and political, though governed by the highest
moral ideals. The Jewish Messiah guided and helped by God, will gather the exiles,
build again Israel’s sovereignty in the Land of Israel, and establish the divine rule of
Justice in Israel forever. There is nothing supernatural about this Messiah even if His
achievements could only be accomplished with God’s help. It is also evident that,
although he has a universal function, this function is not his main one. He is a human
leader of a defined origin; he comes from Israel, for Israel, and for Israel alone. The
prophetic view of this Messiah of Israel and of his times is, that once his major goal
was achieved, a new world would emerge – an ideal world of peace, justice and
happiness. However, two points should be clarified: the first is that this world of
justice and peace is not a new world but the existing world, elevated to an ideal level;
and the second is that on the universal level, the establishment of the ideal order is not
the function of Israel’s Messiah, but the responsibility of God himself. Isaiah, (and
Micah) makes this point very clear in what is probably one of the most famous
prophecies about what may be called the Messianic Age. (The expression which
Isaiah uses is “the last days.”):
“And it shall come to pass in the last days,
that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established
in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us
go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house
of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of
His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for
out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And He shall judge among the nations, and shall
rebuke many peoples; and they shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk
in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:2-5).
No human tongue could have created with such controlled eloquence and
depth of beauty, a more profound truth, a brighter hope and a more confident faith in
the future. Yet, this hopeful future for the world lies in the hands of the Creator alone.
I mentioned above that the messianic idea was born out of failure. Israel lost
her land and independence, her centre of worship and her base of normal national life.
The prophets attributed Israel’s misfortune to the moral failure of the nation’s past,
but they also made it clear that Israel can only assume its position in the scheme of
divine history through political and national redemption.
This Messianic idea of a pure national character has remained with Judaism to
this very day, although through the ages it was supplemented by some universal
elements, which originated in the post-Biblical period, relating to the resurrection and
divine Judgment at the End of Days.
The political nature of Jewish Messianism is best represented in the words of
Isaiah, who calls the Persian King, Cyrus (Koresh), “the Messiah of the Lord”
because he was responsible for the re-establishment of Israel’s nationhood after the
first exile to Babylon, and indirectly for the building of the second Temple.
“Thus saith the Lord to His Messiah, to Cyrus, whose right hand I
have held to subdue nations before him... I will go before thee... and I will
give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that
you mayest know that I, the Lord, who call thee by thy name, am the God of
Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake and Israel my elect, I have called thee by
thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me” (Isaiah
45:1-4).
In the last verse of the previous chapter, Isaiah in God’s words says:
“(The Lord) who saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall
perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built and to
the temple, Thy foundations shall be laid” (Ibid. 44:28).
The use of the term “God’s shepherd” for Cyrus as well the title “Messiah” are
natural for the prophet. He interprets the national redemption of Israel at Cyrus’s
initiative as an expression of the divine plan and the divine will, of which Cyrus, who
does not know the God of Israel, is the instrument.
The King James version of the Bible does not use in this case the term
“Messiah” for the Hebrew mashiyaḥ, but correctly translates it into the English
“anointed,” which is the exact and original Hebrew meaning of the word. The word
mashiyaḥ which received a mystical nature in its later development in Judaism and
especially in Christianity, originally meant a person or even a vessel or structure,
anointed with holy ointment (mishḥat qodesh). The anointed object was thus rendered
holy and consecrated for the divine service. The idea behind the anointment is that the
anointed person (and object) was at the same time elected by God and dedicated to
him. Thus, when Aaron and his sons were selected as priests, Moses was ordered;
“And thou shall anoint them and consecrate them, and sanctify them and they may
minister unto me in the priest’s office (my italics, MS) (Ex. 28:41).
“And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed
him to sanctify him” (Lev. 8:12).
Along these lines, the priests are “the anointed priests” and when Moses set up
the tabernacle he “anointed it and sanctified it, and all the instruments thereof, both
the altar and all the vessels thereof, and he had anointed them and sanctified them”
(Num. 7:1).
The king of Israel was also anointed and consecrated for his office. The
anointment of the king gave his office a sacred legitimacy and for this reason he was
called “the anointed king.” This is also the term by which the Jewish Messiah is
known – ha-melekh ha-mashiyaḥ – the anointed King – “the King the Messiah.” In
the tradition concerning King Saul, Samuel is ordered “and thou shalt annoint him to
be captain over my people, Israel...” (1 Sam. 9:16); and thereafter “Then Samuel took
a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him and said, is it not because the
Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance?” (1 Sam. 10:1).
However, the real anointed king of Israel and symbol of Israel's kingship for
all time, was David, the son of Jesse. His anointment consecrated him and his house
as the divinely elected leaders of Israel and thus, David’s kingdom is regarded as
eternal. Judaism believed, during the course of history, that the rule of David had
terminated but that this termination was temporary. At the end, “…there shall come
forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah
11:1), who will be the anointed king, the Messiah of Israel. Because Judaism and
Christianity grew from the same stem, they could never envisage the Messiah in
anything but Davidic terms. Although Christianity was founded on the idea of the
sonship of Jesus and of his divine nature, it could not disregard the obligation to
stress the Messiah’s lineage from the House of David. Therefore, Jesus, the earthly
Messiah, possesses a genealogy which makes him the offspring of David and as such
qualifies him to be “King of the Jews” and the anointed one of the house of David
(Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-32). In Jesus’ activities among his Jewish brethren, his
Messianic message complied with the basic Jewish concept of the Messiah’s identity.
This is why it was so simple for the compilers of the Gospels to interpret a large
number of the prophetic verses appearing in the Old Testament as applying to Jesus. It
is the Hebrew term, mashiyaḥ, Messiah, the anointed one, in its Jewish context, that
became the name, symbol, and the main designation of Jesus in all languages.
However, the European languages adopted the Greek translation Christos (Χριστὸς.
Latin Christus) which literally means “anointed.” We shall come back to the Christian
Messianic ideology later; the reference to the subject at this point was only made in
connection with the identity of the Messiah in Judaism. Talmudic and post Talmudic
literature refers to the future Messiah and the redeemer of Israel simply as the “son of
David” (ben david) and it was by this straightforward designation that he came to be
accepted by the people of Israel through the ages. A popular song, sung during or
after the Sabbath meal has the verse:
“The son of David Thy servant
Will come and deliver us
Our breath of life he is
The anointed one of the Lord.”
The Jewish idea of the existence of a divinely chosen family destined to rule
the people of God forever, also entered into Islam. But, unlike Judaism and
Christianity, Islam naturally stressed the divine election of Muḥammad’s and not
David’s family. Islam was born independently of Judaism and of Christianity, and
although influenced by them, it is distinct in every respect because of its fully
independent Arab character. The idea of a divinely chosen family, destined to rule
over the community of the believers by the grace of God, was happily incorporated
into Islam, especially into Shī˓ite Islam. However, the identity of the David’s family
could not comply with the Arab origin of Islam. The Prophet Muḥammad recognized
David as a prophet to whom the Zabūr (probably a term denoting the Psalms) was
revealed (Qur˒ān 4 :163; 17:55), and also as a ruler to whom God gave the wisdom to
judge justly (Ibid 38:26). He also had a notion of the Messianic function attributed to
the of David’s prominent family. However, the Messianic idea in the Qur˒ān together
with the term ‘messiah’ – masīḥ in Arabic – are reserved solely for Jesus and
understandably so, for this is the term by which Jesus was known by the Hebrew,
Aramaeic and Arabic speakers in the east (mashiyaḥ, mshīḥah, masīḥ). The Messianic
ideology is far less pronounced in everyday Judaism than it is in Christianity. In
Judaism the Messianic theme is an existing undercurrent, but in Christianity it is a
living credo, expressed by the usage of the originally Greek term christos (Christ) for
Jesus and for the faith itself.
We must bear in mind another factor in this context, which may have
influenced the Islamic concept of David’s family. After conquering Babylonia (Iraq),
the Muslims came into contact with an actual descendant of the House of David, who
was known as the Head of the Diaspora (Aramaic: resh galūtha). The Muslims were
extremely impressed by the reverence in which the Jews held the Head of the
Diaspora. The Shī˓ah, the Islamic party which insisted that the rule in Islam could
only be held by certain members of Muḥammad’s family, must have been influenced
by the fact that the family of another prophet, David, was ruling over the Jewish
community. Whether further influenced by the Jewish Messianic function of the “son
of David,” or not, the Shī˓ah developed its Messianic idea essentially along the same
lines. The Messiah, the godly guided one (not the anointed!) – the mahdī – is a
descendent of Muḥammad, from the offspring of his son-in-law and first cousin ˓Alī.
In some variations, Sunnite Islam shares the same Messianic idea with Shī˓īte Islam.
The major difference between the two is that whereas the mainstream in the Shī˓ah
identifies the mahdī-Messiah with a certain real and definite person, the Sunnite
tradition says only that he will be from the family of Muḥammad, he will have
Muḥammad’s name and his father will also be called by the name of Muḥammad’s
father. Sunnite Messianism thus seems to oscillate between two ideas, one which
regards Jesus as the future Messiah, and the other which attributes this function to a
member of the Prophet's family, being the chosen family, similar to the Davidic
family.
We have already seen that the Jewish Messianic idea is primarily concerned
with the political redemption of Israel. The function of the son of David will be to
renew the kingdom of David. Yet, already in the Bible, Israel’s redemption has
universal implications which were best described by Isaiah, when he connected the reestablishment of Israel on its land, with the universal knowledge of the God of Israel.
Isaiah actually describes Messianic times, when the most sublime ideal will be
attained – universal peace. Peace among nations, peace among men, peace in nature
when the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard with the kid, and the “lion
shall eat straw like the ox.” There will be no evil and no injustice because the world
will be filled with “the knowledge of God as the water cover the sea”. (Isaiah 11:110). This idea of universal peace and justice, however, was understood in Judaism as
dependent on the main function of the Messiah, the rebuilding of Israel's nationhood.
For this reason, when Maimonides defined Israel's Messianic concept he tended to
minimize its universal implications. True to his systematic and logical thinking
Maimonides wrote:
The King the Messiah will appear and will bring back the kingdom
of David as it was in the past and as this rule was at the beginning. He will
build the Temple and will gather the scattered people of Israel; and all the
laws will be reinstituted in his time, just as they were at the beginning... And
whosoever does not believe in him or does not anticipate his coming denies
not only the rest of the prophets but also denies the whole Torah and Moses
our master... And you should not think that the King-Messiah must make
wonders and miracles or create new things in the world or resurrect the dead
or similar matters. It is not so... And it should not be thought that during the
time of the Messiah the usual conduct of the world will change, or that
something new will be added to the existing creation. But the world will
continue to behave in the usual way. And that which is said in Isaiah that the
wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid is
only a parable and a riddle. The meaning of it is that the people of Israel will
live securely with the wicked of the heathen people who are likened to a wolf
and a leopard... And that all of them will return to the religion of truth, and
they will not commit anymore either robbery or destruction... and so also
other things which are mentioned in relation to the Messiah, they are only
parables... The sages said “There is nothing which differentiates the present
world from the times of Messiah but the oppression of (Israel by other)
nations... And there are sages who say that before the advent of the Messiah,
Elijah will come, but all these things and similar ones, nobody will know how
they are going to be until they actually happen. Because the issues involved
are obscure in the prophets’ works; and the sages have no certified tradition
concerning them...
The sages and the prophets, when they express their eagerness for the
Messianic times, do not do so because they want to rule over the world or
because they want to suppress the heathens, and not because they wish to be
exalted over the other nations, and not because they want to eat and drink and
enjoy themselves; but because they want to be free for the Torah and its
wisdom...” (Maimonides (Rambam) Mishne Torah, Shofṭīm, hilkhot
melakhīm, ch. 11-12).
The national, practical nature of Jewish Messianism has had great relevance in
Jewish history. The longer the expulsion lasted from the ancient land, the longer and
wider the Diaspora stretched, the deeper and more important the belief in the KingMessiah became in Jewish thought and belief. The more their general conditions
seemed hopeless, and the possibility of their achieving nationhood and sovereignty
remote, the more the Jews clung to the certainty of the eventual coming of the King Redeemer who would, with God’s help, accomplish their national aspirations to the
last detail. If one looks for one single reason for the continued existence of the Jewish
people under the most unfavorable conditions throughout history, there can hardly be
a question that it was this unique Messianic hope. It is, therefore, understandable that
when Maimonides listed the thirteen Articles of Faith for Judaism, he included the
belief in the certainty of the advent of the Messiah as one of these Articles of Faith.
Every morning throughout the ages every Jew has said: “I believe, with complete
faith, in the coming of the Messiah, and, though he tarry, I will wait daily for his
coming”. (Hertz, Daily Prayer Book p. 255) This daily waiting for the Messiah gave
the Jews unusual strength of endurance and vitality. But from time to time, especially
in periods of great suffering, persecution and slaughter, when it seemed that the cup of
sorrow was already full to its brim, adventurers and dreamers would appear on the
scene claiming Messianic power and leading the poor and desperate people to yet
another depth of disappointment and despair. Mystics would indulge in calculating the
date for the Messianic appearance, sowing false hope, and augmenting the suffering.
The false “Messiah” who caused the greatest upheaval in the Jewish world and
whose activity resulted in the worst disillusionment in modern times was Shabtai Tzvi
(1626-1678). Between 1656 and 1666, he was active as a “messiah” among the Jews
of the Ottoman Empire, arousing tremendous hope among the Jews all over Europe as
well. He called himself the anointed king and signed his letters to the various Jewish
communities as the Messiah, causing hundreds of people to dispose of their
possessions in anticipation of being gathered to the land of their Forefathers through
the miraculous working of the Messiah. After arousing such unusual hopes he ended
his career in failure and humiliation. “Given the choice by the Turkish authorities
between martyrdom and conversion, the Messiah chose in 1666 conversion to Islam,
and ended his days as minor functionary in the sultan's palace... The Shabtai Tzvi
affair had a destructive impact on the Jewish communities on the Ottoman Empire” as
well as in Europe. However, remnants of his followers continued existing for some
time, keeping alive a Messianic ideology connected with his name. (See B. Lewis,
The Jews of Islam, 146-147).
Every failure of this kind, strengthened in Judaism the power of the
established rabbinical leadership, with the understanding that in God’s good time
when the Messiah appears there will be no question as to his identity or to his true
power.
The practical, national, and political functions of the Messiah developed in the
strictly pious Jewish circles an ideology of complete political quietism. If the
redemption of Israel can be achieved only when the Messiah comes, then any Jewish
political or military action, aiming at the re-establishment of the Jewish independence
and national sovereignty, should be regarded as interference with God’s plans, even a
rebellion against Him. This is why in our own days there are quite large sections in
Orthodox Jewry who regard Zionist political activity and the establishment of the
State of Israel as a revolt against God. Moreover, in their opinion the establishment of
a man-made, modern, secular state in which the laws of the Torah are not strictly kept,
only prevents the true Messianic redemption from occurring, as if modern Israel
stands as a stumbling block between the Jewish people and the true Messianic age.
Although Maimonides describes the Messianic times as being utterly normal
and interprets the prophetic vision of the ideal world as an allegory, Jewish tradition
in the post Biblical period has gone into much detail in describing the conditions and
the circumstances surrounding the appearance of the “son of David.” It was envisaged
that the Messiah’s coming would happen either in a generation of sin or in a
generation of righteousness. (Bab. Talmud, Sanhedrin, 98a). The usual view is that
the advent of the Messiah will be preceded by times of moral deterioration, suffering,
and bloodshed.
The generation in which the son of David comes: young men will
humiliate their elders and the elders will give respect to young men;
daughters will rebel against their mothers and daughters-in-law- will rebel
against mothers-in-law: and even the leaders of the generation will be
shameless... Rabbi Isaac says: “The son of David will come only after the
whole world has become completely blasphemous.” “The son of David will
come,” another tradition says, “only when money will not be available, and
everybody will despair of redemption.” “In the generation of the advent of
the son of David, scholars will be few in number, and those who remain will
experience unhappiness, and calamities will follow one another; before the
first one ends a new one will come to pass.”(Ibid. 97a).
The necessity for the deterioration of the world before the coming of Messiah
became an accepted feature of Messianic times, not only in Judaism but also in
Christianity and Islam. Since Messianic expectation has been an easy escape from a
miserable present, misery and moral degradation acquired a value of their own in
Messianic thought and became a necessary antecedent to the advent of the Messiah.
Judaism calls pre-Messianic times ḥevle mashiyaḥ, Messiah’s pangs, or ḥevle ge˒ulla
- pangs of redemption (Ibid. 98b). Probably Judaism developed out of this belief the
idea of the appearance of two Messiahs, one the Messiah son of Joseph (ben Yosef)
and the other son of David. The dualism of Israel’s history represented in the
kingdoms of Israel and of Judah, explains the need to have two Messiahs
corresponding to the two kingdoms. The Jewish Messianic idea originating finally in
the tradition of Judah turned the first Messiah, the “son of Joseph” into the
unsuccessful Messiah who would be killed in the great war of Gog and Magog, after
which, the Messiah, son of David, would come with the final redemption.
In Christianity and in Islam, as we shall presently see, the pre-Messianic
tribulations are connected with the rule of the anti-Christ, the embodiment of evil
ruling over a world which had deteriorated to the lowest degree of evil and misery.
The anti-Christ is called in the Islamic tradition al-masīḥ ad-dajjāl, meaning “the false
Messiah” or the “impostor Messiah”, who would eventually be killed by Jesus at the
gates of Lydda (according to one tradition). All these tradition have one element in
common, that of the necessity of evil before the final victory of eternal good.
What is the connection between the Messianic times and the End of Days? As
we have already seen, the idea of the End of Days, or the Day of Judgment has no
clear pre-exilic Biblical origin. In post-exilic and post-Biblical literature, however, the
notion of the resurrection on the final Day of Judgment was developed into an article
of faith in Judaism. When Maimonides wrote the 13 articles of faith for Judaism, he
defined the thirteenth article as follows:
“I believe with perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead at
the time when it shall please the Creator, blessed be his Name and exalted be
his fame for ever and ever.” (Hertz, op. cit. p.255)
The notion of the resurrection or the quickening of the dead (Heb. teḥiyyat
hammetim) in Judaism as well as in Islam (Ar. ba˓th) is connected with that of the
Day of Judgment, “Because the man cannot receive the requital of his deeds while he
is still in a state of death, the time of resurrection must be the time for the judgment
(Heb. y m haddīn)” (Geiger, Judaism and Islam, 53-54). In the Talmud, resurrection
is a highly important principle, and the Talmudic scholars made a heroic effort of
homiletic exegesis to prove that the notion of resurrection exists in the Torah (Bab.
Talmud, 92b). They had no difficulty in finding proof for it in the Book of Daniel
where post-exilic mysticism reached an exceptionally high level of development.
Daniel's vision of the end of time attracted both Jewish and Christian “reckoners of
the End of Days,” eschatologists, (mehashshve qizzim), who tried to interpret his
cryptic language in order to calculate the time of the Messiah (or the second coming
of Christ). The passage in Daniel, in which the resurrection and the final divine
reckoning are connected with each other, is of essential importance for the sages of
the Talmud: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to
everlasting life others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2) “As for you,
go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the End of Days you will rise to
receive your allotted inheritance.” (Ibid. 12:13; Bab. Talmud Sanhedrin, 92a).
The advent of Messiah, however, is not necessarily concurrent, in Judaism,
with the Day of Judgment or the resurrection. The Messiah comes to a specific living
generation. The Talmudic tradition makes this point very clear when, by way of a
homiletic interpretation of three verses (Zechariah 9:9 and Daniel 7:13-14), it states
that the Messiah’s method of appearance depends on the generation which will exist
in his time. If the people of Israel are worthy, the Messiah will come riding on the
clouds of heavens (in accordance with Daniel's vision) and if they are unworthy, he
will come riding on a donkey (according to Zechariah's vision Bab. Talmud, Ibid,
98a). It seems that the function of the Messiah is not only to bring redemption to
Israel, but also to prepare them, and probably also the rest of the world, for the World
to Come (˓olām habbā) (Ibid. 99a) which apparently follows the Day of Judgment.
To sum up: in Judaism, the Messiah is human, he is the anointed king, a
descendant of David, chosen and guided by God, whose main function is to gather the
exiles of Israel and re-establish David’s kingdom on the firm basis of God’s laws. He
will not perform any miracles, but God will change the world in his time and turn it
into a world of peace and justice. The Messiah will come at a time of turbulence,
moral degradation, and degeneration, and will prepare the nation of Israel and the
world for the World to Come and God’s final judgment.
Unlike Judaism and Islam, messianism in Christianity is not just one
component of the religion, it is the religion itself. Christianity revolves around Christ,
it is named after Christ, and its whole theology is centred on his life and death, his
resurrection and reappearance. Although strictly speaking Messianic thought in
Christianity can be limited to the reappearance of Christ, it is impossible to
understand the notion of the reappearance without his Messianic message during his
lifetime. Because although Christianity identifies Christ with God in the mystery of
the Holy Trinity, it is impossible not to perceive that Christ in the Gospels, in the Acts
of the Apostles and in the mystery of the Revelations, has a distinct personality which
could easily lead less sophisticated minds to regard him completely separate from the
Father. For on earth, Jesus addressed himself to his Father in heaven, most probably,
in the usual Jewish metaphoric way. From this point of view, his Jewish listeners
could see nothing unusual in the fact that he referred to God as his father. Throughout
the ages the Jews refer to God in many prayers as the “Our Father in heaven, or Our
Father our King.” Jesus himself says in the Beatitudes (according the Matthew):
“Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the sons of God.”
(Matthew 5:9)
And in another place he is reported to have said: that in order “that ye may be
the sons of your Father who is in heaven” you shall love your enemy and pray for
those who persecute you. (Ibid. 5:44-45 and also Luke 6:35).
There is no question that in these words Jesus only echoes terminology used
by his fellow Jews. The special feature of Jesus’ activity among the Jews was the fact
that he presented himself as the Messiah, the son of God. But even claim such as this
would not have been considered strange to his contemporaries and definitely should
not have been regarded as blasphemous. According to Matthew, the High Priest asked
Jesus if he was “the Messiah (Christ), son of God” and Jesus answered “Thou hast
said” which for the speakers of Hebrew or Aramaic in those days would mean “Yes.”
Luke reports that he gave the Sanhedrin more or less the same answer when he was
asked a similar question (Luke 22:70). In Mark’s tradition it is reported that the
Sanhedrin asked Jesus “Art thou the Messiah (Christ), the son of the Blessed? and
Jesus said: I am” (Mark 14:61-62). Mark being the oldest of all the three Synoptic
Gospels, most probably gives the more accurate version. At any rate, the usage of
“Son of God” or “Son of the Blessed” (probably, the translation of the Hebrew
expression “The Holy Blessed be He”), would not have been understood that Jesus
meant that he was the Son of God in some physical sense. His expression in the
Jewish context would be that he regarded himself to be the Messiah, the anointed, the
son whom God elected in order to bestow on him His spirit and love. These notions
were very compatible with the way in which the Messiah was envisaged by the Jews
at the time of Jesus, before it, and after his death. Did Isaiah not speak about God’s
servant, of whom God says:
“Mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, I have put My Spirit upon
him; he shall bring forth Justice unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:1)
And even more explicitly, when the Psalmist speaks about “God and his
Messiah,” God seems to say to the latter:
“Thou art my Son. This day I have begotten thee.” (Psalms 2:7)
The usage of this language by Jesus, as Judge H. Cohen proved, could not
have been regarded in any way as a blasphemy. And if Jesus was questioned either by
the Sanhedrin or the High Priest, and answered in the way he is reported to have
answered, then he could not be condemned for blasphemy. Moreover, when Jesus
used the term “Son of Man” who will appear sitting “on the right hand of power” or
God’s power (“and coming in the clouds of heaven”) (Matthew 26:64), he was in fact
quoting Daniel 7:13, and most probably in the original Aramaic. In his book The Trial
and Death of Jesus of Nazareth, Judge H. Cohen examined the Christian tradition
about the various stages of Jesus’ trial in great detail. He shows that the story of the
Sanhedrin condemning Jesus to death on the grounds of an accusation of blasphemy is
absolutely impossible, because there was no blasphemy in any of the things Jesus
claimed or said. The Jewish law is very clear about what blasphemy or false
prophethood is, and Jesus broke no law in both cases. He never cursed God, spelling
out the Divine Name as the law demands in such a case. Likewise, he never incited
his fellow Jews to become idolaters. Since Jesus did not commit any of these crimes,
the Sanhedrin could not have sentenced him to death, or to any other punishment. The
fact that he called himself a Messiah and that the multitudes, who were suffering
under the Roman yoke in those days, followed him as the King-Messiah or the King
of the Jews was not a problem for the Sanhedrin.
On the other hand, Jesus constituted a problem for the Romans. They could
understand his activity only as preparation for a rebellion, and his claim to be the
“King of the Jews”, as a clear insult to the Emperor. This can be proved from the fact
the Romans wrote on his cross, above his head, the Latin inscription: Iesus
Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum (acronym INRI, “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”).
It was in full accordance with Roman law which demanded that the crime, for which a
criminal was convicted and sentenced to death and hanged or crucified, should be
written over the gallows or cross (titulus) (Cohen, Trial, p. 106, note 91). Since there
was no crime according to the Jewish law in Jesus calling himself Messiah,
identifying himself with the Messianic vision of the prophets and even calling himself
the son of God, it is clear that he was neither tried, nor condemned, nor sentenced to
death by the Sanhedrin. What did the Sanhedrin and the high priest want from Jesus
on the night before Passover, when the Sanhedrin was not allowed to sit in judgment
in a trial involving the death penalty? Is it possible, as Judge Cohen shows with
unusual depth of legal scholarship, that, knowing that Jesus was about to be brought
in front of Pontius Pilate the next morning and charged with attempted rebellion, the
Sanhedrin, wanted to save him? This may explain the urgency of the Sanhedrin
convening on the busy night before Passover, not in the usual hall of assembly
(lishkat haggazit) but in the house of the High Priest. This may also explain the
frustration of the High Priest and the rest of the sages when Jesus would not cooperate with them to deny his Messianic claim and to let them try and save him from
Pontius Pilate, who was one of the most vicious and bloodthirsty of all Roman
governors. Far from being the compassionate judge described in the Gospels, he was
portrayed by Philo as “a man with a hard character, who did not feel for others. Cruel,
corrupt and ruthless, he used to rob, torture and execute without trial” (Winter, On the
Trial of Jesus, 55-56). To save a fellow Jew from the hands of a cruel oppressor is
regarded as a great deed of righteousness; “You shall not be idle when the blood of
your fellow man is in danger,” is an extremely important moral law in Judaism, and
the Sanhedrin knew very well what was awaiting Jesus. Neither they, nor anybody
else minded Jesus’ strange ways, nor his Messianic ideology. In this regard he was not
alone. Times of suffering and external pressure are usually rife with dreamers and
Messiahs, people who wish to end human suffering and national humiliation
miraculously. The Judean desert, the valley of the Jordan and the caves along the
Dead Sea must have been well acquainted with these characters. The fact that Jesus
was outspoken might have been annoying, but no more that that. The Sanhedrin was
unable to save Jesus and his Messianic activity ended with his crucifixion. If Jesus
really tried to explain to Pilate the meaning of his “Kingdom” as John assures us, it
seems that Pilate was not convinced by Jesus’ arguments that “I am a king. To this
end I was born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto
the truth” nor by his saying: “My kingdom is not of this world.” As far as Pilate was
concerned, Jesus confessed to his crime of demanding kingship to himself. Unlike in
Jewish law, according to which a person cannot be condemned on the basis of his own
confession alone, according to Roman law a criminal’s confession is sufficient for
conviction (Cohen, op. cit., 111).
Jesus’ Messianic activity failed and out of this failure, as we saw in the case of
Judaism, the Christian Messianic idea was born. Unlike Judaism whose messianism,
as we have already seen, is practical and national, Christian messianism is spiritual
and universal. Since Jesus was unsuccessful the first time, the fulfillment of his task is
postponed until his second coming. Again, unlike in Judaism, where the coming of the
Messiah will not take place at the End of Days neither is it connected with the Day of
Judgment, in Christianity, Jesus’ second coming will result in the creation of a new
world and as such is part of the End of Days and the final judgment. Under the
impression of Daniel’s vision of the End of Days (Daniel 9), Christ's Second Advent
is described as being preceded by times of terrible tribulation, suffering, and misery.
In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus says to his disciples, according to Luke:
But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified; for
these things must first come to pass... Then he said unto them, Nation shall
rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And great earthquakes
shall be in different places and famines and pestilences and fearful sights and
great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:9-11 cf. Matthew 24:4-14;
Mark 13:5-13)
In the description of the tribulation which precedes the coming of the Messiah,
Judaism and Christianity share the same ideas, because they share in this case the
same source – the visions of Daniel.
A very important sign before the second advent of Christ will be the
appearance of many false and deceitful Messiahs. This general idea which Luke’s
tradition affirms in speaking of the warning which Jesus addressed to his disciples
“Take heed that ye be not deceived” (Luke 21:8), was turned, in Christian
messianism, into a very important feature of the Messianic Times. The Second
Advent of Christ became almost dependent on the appearance of the Imposter, the
Anti-Christ, whose function was to corrupt the world and bring it to the lowest degree
of misery, suffering, and moral degradation. The greater the fall is, the surer is the
redemption. The Anti-Christ, or the Beast as it is described in Revelation, 13
(identified as the “little horn” of Daniel, 7:24-26) is the instrument of Satan, the “man
of sin,” the earth’s most awful tyrant. Christian eschatology, which regards the
existence of this abomination to be essential for the final salvation, envisages his end
in the great universal battle of Armageddon. There, Christ in his majestic and glorious
descent to earth will destroy the Beast’s armies. Once this is achieved, Judgment
begins; first that of the Gentiles who will be judged according to their treatment of
Christ’s brethren, the Jewish people (Matthew 25:31-36), then follows the judgment
of Israel and the millennial reign of Christ on earth (Revelation 20:4-6), followed by
the Satanic revolt, which ends with Satan’s judgment. Only after this will the time of
the final judgment of the wicked arrive, with the destruction of the present earth and
heavens by fire, and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. This is the time
when a “new Jerusalem” will be “coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a
bride adorned for husband.” (Revelation 21:1-2)
It is not difficult to see that the Christian eschatological theory may be divided
into two parts, the one leading to the millennial rule of Christ and the second to the
eternal “Day of God.” In both parts the main elements are repeated. The millennial
rule of Christ is preceded by the universal war against the armies of the “evil one,” the
satanic representative, “The Beast,” and the final rule of God is preceded by the revolt
of Satan himself. The millennial rule of Christ is preceded by the judgment of the
Gentiles and of Israel, and the eternal rule of God is preceded by the final judgment of
the wicked. The thousand years of Christ's dominion may be compared to God’s
eternal dominion because both represent the ideal world. The main difference between
the two stages is that whereas the first, leading to the millennial rule of Christ,
represents elements which are less final, in the second all the elements of the vision
are final. The rebel in the second stage is Satan himself and the war against him is a
cosmic war whereas in the first stage the evil power is only Satan’s representative and
the war against the latter is an earthly war. The judgment in the first stage is not final
and deals only with Israel and the Gentiles, but the last judgment is final and concerns
the wicked in general; it involves the resurrection of the dead to stand for this final
judgment. In the first stage Christ rules for a fixed duration, for as long as it may be,
over the present world, whereas in the second stage God reigns forever over a new
world.
The most important feature in this eschatological vision is the part played by
Christ. Here again, as during his earthly life, Christ’s activity is independent. As
Christ, and not as God, he fights the war at Armageddon, and as Christ he judges, and
as Christ he rules for a whole millennium, and as Christ he clears the scene for the
final rule of God. The Father and Son mystery of two in one seems to fade away in
the crucial parts of Christ’s activity. The Messianic side of Jesus’ figure is so strong
that his independent role in past and future history seems to overpower the idea of his
divine unity. Incidentally, it is not surprising that during the first 500 formative years
of the Church, the emphasis on Jesus’ messianic rather than his divine nature was
quite common, especially among Christians in the east, who referred to Mary not as
the “Mother of God (theotokos), as the official credo demanded but as the “Mother of
Christ” (Christotokos). The Messianic ideology in Christianity may be summed up as
follows. During his life Jesus played the part of the Messiah in the Jewish context,
and as such, was described by the Gospels as the son of David, anointed son of God
and the King of the Jews. His failure and violent death led to the development of the
idea of his second coming to accomplish that which he had not succeeded in
achieving during his life. And since his earthly life was of a fixed duration, so also
would his future messianic function be of fixed duration. And just as during his
earthly life he prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven, so also in his future messianic
function he will precede the final Kingdom of Heaven.
***When Islam appeared on the scene, Jewish and Christian eschatology’s
were already well developed and firmly established. Islam’s eschatology and
Messianism reflect both of them. Similar to Judaism and Christianity, the IslamicMessianic idea was born out of failure and despair. The failure in Islam is related to
two issues. The first is the failure to impose God’s divine (Islamic) law on the whole
world, and the second is the failure to preserve the unity of the Islamic community
and its religious-political coherence. The second issue, the failure to preserve Islamic
unity, was nearer home and more tangible and as such, of greater significance in the
Islamic Messianic theories.
The combination of the influence of the Jewish and Christian environment and
the independent development of the Islamic polity resulted in uniform Messianic and
eschatological theories.
To begin with, Islam was born with the idea of the Day of Judgment
prominent in Muḥammad’s prophecy. Muḥammad began his prophetic message with
the description of the imminent Day of Judgment. The term which he used for this
Day was yawm ad-dīn a term which he must have borrowed from the Hebrew (yom
haddīn) without even having to translate it. Muḥammad described the Day of
Judgment in most alarming language, stressing its impending nature and the
unquestionable certainty of its immediate occurrence.
The urgency of his message was delivered in short verses which were charged
with pathos and emotion and in which he described the crumbling of the world prior
to the Judgment:
“The striking,” he cried,
“What is the striking?
And what has let thee know
What is the striking?
On the day when people shall be like moths scattered
And the mountains shall be like carded wool.”
(Qur˒ān 101:1-4).
Muḥammad proclaimed that on that day, every man will be judged according
to his deeds, and will either be rewarded or punished. In the early stages of his
prophecy, Muḥammad presented reward and punishment in the simplest terms
possible, as we have pointed out in the previous chapter. It is only later that he will
have to deal with the problem of the nature of human freedom in relation to God’s
unlimited greatness.
Although, at the beginning of his prophetic activity, Muḥammad gave the
impression that the Day of Judgment was near and impending, he was soon obliged to
make it clear that final judgment and the ultimate reward and punishment will be
sometime in the future in God’s own good time and subject to His will. Muḥammad
stressed the finality of God’s judgment in his vivid portrayal of the nature of the
divine reward and punishment: eternal hell will be the abode of the wicked forever
and everlasting paradise will be the dwelling place of the righteous for eternity. The
wicked and the unbelievers are one and the same when it comes to God’s punishment
just as the believers (namely Muslims) and righteous are identical when it comes to
God’s reward. In the case of the unbelievers, eternal hell is certain, as surely as
paradise is secure for the righteous and believers.
Verily those who have disbelieved of the People of the Book (Jews
and Christians) and the polytheists are in the fire of Gehenna to abide therein
– they are the worst of Creation. Verily, those who have believed and
wrought the works of righteousness are the best of Creation. Their
recompense is with their Lord, Gardens of Eden through which the rivers
flow, in which to abide forever.” (Ibid. 98:6-8).
In the later period of Muḥammad’s career, the same idea appears in its final
form with more profound moral depth:
Nay those who pile up evil and whose sin encompasses them will be
inmates of the Fire therein to abide. But those who have believed and
wrought the works of righteousness will be the inmates of the Garden therein
to abide.” (Ibid. 2:81-82 = Bell, 2:75-76).
The terms used by the prophet for Paradise and Hell are identical with the
Hebrew terms, and are directly derived from the Jewish tradition. Geiger has already
pointed out more than a hundred and sixty years ago, that in the Bible, the Garden of
Eden, (in Arabic: jannāt ˓adan. Ibid. 98:8 = Bell 98:7), was originally a name of a
place, a real garden of trees where the first man and the first woman lived a life of
bliss. “It is only natural that this earthly region of the Golden Age should by degrees
have come to be regarded as Paradise, in that the word itself no longer stands for the
name of a place but is applied to a state of bliss; though the Jews still held to Eden as
a locality also.” (Geiger, 33). This idea of a physical place of ideal pleasure is stressed
in the Qur’ān and is clearly and vividly described. The place were the believers and
righteous will be rewarded is “the garden of the pleasure” (jannāt an-na˓īm e.g. Q,
10:9; 22:56).
For these are Gardens of Eden with the rivers flowing beneath them
in which they (those who have believed and had done the works of
righteousness) will be adorned with bracelets of gold and wear green
garments of satin and brocade, reclining therein on the couches, a good
reward and a good place to lie in.” (Q, 18:30-31)
In addition, this Garden has a further pleasure for the men believers:
In them are (damsels) of restrained glance, whom deflowered before
them has neither man nor jinn … As if they were jacinth and coral...Wideeyed restrained in tents...Reclining upon cushions green, and carpet
beautiful…
(Full description: Q, 55:46-78).
These maidens of paradise are described as the “purified wives” of the
righteous (Q, 2:25). Later Islamic literature tells us that two names are written on their
breasts, one of the names of Allah and the name of their husband. “When the believer
enters paradise, he is welcomed by one of these beings; a large number of them are at
his disposal; he cohabits with each of them as often as he fasted days in Ramaḍān and
as often as he has performed good works besides. Yet they remain always virgins (Q,
56:36). They are equal in age with their husbands (Interpretation on Q, 38:52; 56:37)
namely 33 years” (Shorter Enc of Islam, p. 141, s.v. “ḤŪR”).
Although the word ‘Eden’ which was used to describe paradise, passed from
Hebrew to Arabic together with the meaning of pleasure and bliss, the detailed,
colourful descriptions of the joy of Eden seem to be original. The Christian name
“paradise” (from the Greek paradeisos) seldom occurs in the Qur˒ān (e.g. jannāt alfirdaws, Q, 18:107. The word itself was also known to the Jews in the double meaning
of a Garden and Paradise (Bab. Talmud, Ḥagīgah, 14b).
In the Qur˒ān, the Arabic word for Hell is jahannam. This word was also
borrowed from the Hebrew gehinnom. Similar to Eden, Geihinnom in Hebrew is the
name of an actual place. It is the name of the valley to the south of Jerusalem in which
the idol-worshipping of the Molekh used to take place during the first temple period.
The worship of the Molekh consisted of “passing the sons and daughters through the
fire” (2 Kings, 23:10). The horror of this idol-worshipping in the “valley of the son of
Hinnom” which Jeremiah describes as the place of human sacrifices “burning of their
sons and daughters in the fire” (Jeremiah 7:31), led to the usage of the name of this
valley to designate Hell. The post-Biblical literature uses this name – Gehinnom –
exclusively for Hell, and it passed from the Hebrew into Christianity in the form of
Gehenna.
The concept of Hell is not well defined in Islam. In one place in the Qur’ān
(89:22-23), Hell “is brought” at God’s command by the angels. It seems as if Hell in
this case is some kind of a monster ready to devour the wicked. This is the description
of the famous 12th century theologian and mystic, al-Gazzālī. He says that upon
hearing that God wishes to punish the guilty, the angels go to fetch hell, which allows
itself to be led by them. “It walks on four legs each of which is bound by 70,000
rings; on each of them are 70,000 demons each of which is strong enough to rend
mountains to pieces.” (Shorter Enc. of Islam, p 81 s.v. “DJAHANNAM”). In the
Qur˒ān however, this concept of hell as an animal is not dominant. Muḥammad had a
very generalized idea of a place that has seven gates (Q, 15:44); and that
Those who have disbelieved will be driven to Gehenna in troops until
when they come to it, its gates will be opened and its keepers will say to
them: ‘Did not there come to you messengers from among yourselves reciting
to you the signs of your Lord and warning you of meeting this day of
yours?’... (Q, 39:71).
Although the Qur˒ān repeats the idea that both Paradise and Hell are eternal,
there is no consistency in the idea of eternal Hell. In one place we are told that the
damned shall be cast into the fire “Therein to abide as long as the heavens and the
earth remain, except as thy Lord pleaseth” (Q, 11:107).
Beyond these fine distinctions, the Qur˒ān makes it clear that as much pleasure
there is in store for the righteous in Eden, so there is suffering and torture for the
wicked in the fire of Gehenna. These concepts of paradise and hell form an integral
part of Muḥammad’s notion of the Day of Judgment. Like Judaism and Christianity in
his time, Muḥammad conceived the idea of the judgment of men in their restored
physical forms (Q, 10:4). For this reason the Day of Judgment was also seen as the
day of resurrection, as well, or in the language of the Qur˒ān, Yawm al-qiyāmah “The
day of standing or rising” (Q, 2:85) and yawm al ba˒th - “The day of awakening.” (Q,
30:56).
Naturally, the ideas of the Last Day and the divine judgment form an integral
part of Islam's eschatology and Messianic thought. Messianic times, with which we
shall presently deal, are also the times of the End of Days. The final judgment is only
a prelude to the establishment of the ideal Islamic world. Curiously enough, when it
comes to the description of the location in which the judgment takes place, the
original source of the name of hell comes to mind. As we shall soon see, the main
Islamic tradition places the Judgment in Jerusalem and the place into which the
wicked fall on their way to Hell is the valley therein.
The Messianic notion in Islam developed in two distinctly different directions.
The one developed along Christian lines and the other evolved as original ArabIslamic with some Jewish influence. The Islamic eschatology and messianism is
further complicated by the major division of Islam into sunnī (incorrectly referred to
as “orthodox”) Islam and Shī˓īte Islam, not to mention many subdivisions and offshoots.
As far as sunnī Islam is concerned, the Messiah at the End of Days is Jesus,
the Son of Mary, who will reappear as the mahdī, God guided Redeemer. Islam’s
attitude to Jesus is a combination of Islam's rejections of anything resembling
polytheistic association with God and Jesus' special position in the Qur˒ān. He is a
prophet and the recipient of the divine revelation and a human, born as a result of a
miraculous divine intervention.
Jesus is referred to in the Qur˒ān and in Islamic literature as al-masīḥ, “the
Messiah.” The word most probably entered into Arabic from Syriac (or Ethiopic),
through the mediation of Christian Arabs. Jesus is described as al-masīḥ alone; or as
al-mashīh ibn maryam (the Messiah, son of Mary); or in full as al-Masiḥ ‘Īsā ibn
Maryam - the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary. The Qur˒ānic name for Jesus is “˓Īsā”
which is a rather strange rendition bringing to mind Esau rather than Jeshūa˓ (the
Hebrew name of Jesus). It seems that the name ˓Īsā was chosen as a pun on Mūsā
(Moses). The use of rhyming in the names of other Biblical personalities is quite
common in the Qur˒ān. Thus we find the pair of Hārūn and Qārūn for Aaron and
Korah(?), Qābīl and Hābīl for Cain and Abel, Jālūt and Ṭālūt for Goliath and Saul (!)
and Hārūt and Mārūt for the names of two angels (Q, 2:102).
According to the Qur˒ān, Mary was a virgin who conceived Jesus and gave
birth to him as a result of a creative act of God. God created Jesus by directly casting
his Word (kalimah) into Mary. This word of Allah is the word “Be” (kun), which
causes creation. The Qur’ān says: “Jesus in Allah’s eyes is in the same position as
Adam; He created him of dust then said to him “Be” and he is.” (Ibid. 2:59)
Jesus is also called “a Spirit from Allah,” for as in Adam’s creation, it was the
direct spirit of God that gave Jesus life. According to Islam, the direct divine
intervention in Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Jesus’ virgin birth does not mean
that Jesus has any divine qualities. Allah decided to create Jesus as a human being in
His own way, but this fact does not alter Jesus’ human nature. Right from its very
inception, Islam rejected any association of Jesus with God. The Islamic view is that
Jesus was the son of Mary, a human born of a human and chosen to be a prophet of
Allah and to receive from Him the “Injīl” (the Arabic word for the Gospel, Evangel).
Jesus was also a Muslim whose revelation and message was the true word of God and
was similar to that of Moses before him and Muḥammad after him. Muḥammad
regarded as blasphemy the Christian worship of Jesus as God. Appealing to the
Christians on this subject the Qur˒ān says:
O People of the Book do not go beyond bounds in your religion, and
do not say about Allah anything but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of
Mary, is only the messenger of Allah, and His Word which he cast upon
Mary, and a spirit from Him; so believe in Allah and His messengers, and do
not say: ‘Three’ refrain (it will be) better for you: Allah is only One God;
glory be to Him (far from) His having a son... The Messiah will not disdain to
be a servant of Allah, nor will the angels who stand in His presence.” (Ibid.
4:171-172).
Jesus’ special status in relation to God is emphasized by the fact that he was
aided by the Holy Spirit, which the later commentators of the Qur˒ān explain was the
angel Gabriel. There can be no doubt that the Qur˒ānic term rūḥ (spirit) is the Arabic
equivalent of the Christian term “Holy Spirit” which is the direct translation of the
Hebrew rūwaḥ ha-qodesh: “... and we gave Jesus, son of Mary, the Evidence and
aided him by the Holy Spirit...” (Q,. 2:87)
On the question of Jesus’ death the Qur˒ān is very clear. Jesus was neither
murdered nor crucified. Allah could not permit such a violent death for His
messengers. A messenger of Allah, is protected by Allah, Jesus’ crucifixion is
impossible for this reason. There was somebody who bore a resemblance to Christ
and that person was crucified but it was not Christ himself.
And for their saying: ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the
messenger of Allah’ though they did not certainly kill him and did not crucify
him, but he was counterfeited for them... Nay, Allah raised him to Himself.
(Ibid. 4:157)
It is clear that although the crucifixion was rejected, the ascension was
accepted, not only in spirit but also in the earthly body. Later Islamic tradition
describes Jesus as flying around the divine Throne like one of the angels. The
Christian concept of the ascension, namely the ascension after death, was clearly
expressed in the Qur˒ān where Jesus says: “And peace be upon me the day of my
birth, and the day of my death and the day of my being raised alive” (Q, 19:33)
Here the term used is not ascension (raf˓ ṣu˓ūd) but rather the proper word for
resurrection (ba˓th). The Qur˒ānic review of Jesus may be summarized as follows:
Jesus was born as human being, died as human being but was resurrected and
ascended in his resurrected body to God. However, in other places, when Jesus’
ascension is mentioned without his death or resurrection, Allah merely says to him:
“O Jesus, I am going to bring thy term to an end and raise thee
to Myself and purify thee from those who have disbelieved...” (Q,.
3:55).
The second coming of Jesus is only mentioned once in the Qur˒ān, in a place
where both the reading and the meaning of the text are very doubtful (Q,. 43:61).
However, this did not prevent Jesus from assuming a central Messianic role in Islam.
Tradition tells us that at the End of Days, he will appear; spear in hand, on the
mountains to the east of the Sea of Galilee. At that time the false Messiah, ad-dajjāl,
will be ruling the earth and Jesus will meet him at the gates of the city of Lydda and
kill him. Having killed the dajjāl Jesus will proceed to Jerusalem at the time of the
Morning Prayer and will pray among the rest of the Muslims according to the Islamic
law. Thereafter, he will break all the crosses and lay the synagogues and churches in
ruins. According to one tradition, by that time all the Jews and the Christians (the
“People of the Book”) will believe in him and become part of the great Islamic
community. A time of security and happiness for man will follow and Jesus will live
for 40 years and then he will die and be buried in Madīnah.
It is obvious that elements of the Christian eschatological tradition easily
found their way into the Islamic one - especially the role of Jesus in subduing the antiChrist and the fixed duration of Jesus’ rule after his second appearance. In this
particular Islamic tradition, the millennium in Christianity was turned into forty years.
Owing to the lack of an authoritative Qur˒ānic teaching, the question of Jesus’
functions at the End of Days was left to the imagination of the traditionalists. The
question was further complicated as a result of the development of the tradition
concerning the other Messianic figure in Islam, the Mahdī. The Mahdī or the divinely
guided leader of Islam and the world at the End of Days, is for all purposes an original
Islamic figure. In the abundance of traditions which deal with the Mahdī the
circumstances of his appearance and his role at the End of Days, it is impossible to
differentiate between Jesus and the Mahdī for they appear and act alike. A tradition
that put the saying “there is no Mahdī save for Jesus the son of Mary” into the
Prophet's mouth, was created for this reason. Taking this confusion into consideration,
it is important to discuss the idea of the Mahdī in the context of Islamic Messianism.
As observed above, the idea of the Muslim Mahdī was born out of frustration
and despair, in a manner similar to that of Judaism and Christianity. Setbacks came
after the great religious, military, and political successes of Islam. Every type of
setback became a theological problem because Islam regarded success as the proof of
its truth. The setbacks which Islam suffered were not only in the military fields but
mainly in its internal structure. Ideally, Islam was regarded as a unifying force: One
god, one Prophet, one Holy Book, One holy language, and one community (ummah)
led by one leader. But the reality was bitterly different. Political and social strife tore
Islam apart even before it was really established as a grand state religion. The
Muslims, who all prayed in the same direction, turned against each other with sword
in hand. The Islamic community lost its unity and succumbed to the fitnah, a word
which conveys all the burdens of internal strife and the renting apart of the Muslim
community. It was not difficult to see that disunity meant weakness, and that
weakness meant the fading away of any hope of making Islam into the sole religion of
the world. The cracks in the Islamic structure grew wider as time passed, and the hope
for the reunification of Islam and its world rule had to be postponed to the End of
Days. Then the Mahdī will appear. According to some traditions, he will bear
resemblance to Muḥammad and will even be called Muḥammad, and his father will
have the same name as that of Muḥammad’s father. The Mahdī will, therefore, be
called Muḥammad the son of ‘Abdallah. The Mahdī’s function (or if the Mahdī is
Jesus, it is Jesus’ function) is “to fill the world with justice, as it is now full of
tyranny.” Under him, Islam will achieve its goal and will become the only true
religion of the world.
This notion of the Mahdī contains the view that the Mahdī is an actual human
being whose exact identity will be known once he appears. Generally speaking, even
Sunnite Islam agrees that the Mahdī will come from the Prophet's clan or family. Here
we are on ground which can easily be Jewish, for as we have already pointed out, the
prophet’s family was portrayed as a heavenly chosen family which is destined to rule
Islam and save it. This is not dissimilar to the family of David, who was chosen to
save and to rule Israel. In essence, the Mahdī idea in Islam embodies a very strong
political element. An end to internal strife in Islam will come when the Mahdī comes.
Just as the Messiah, the Son of David, will gather the children of Israel and rule over
them in an excellent world, so will the Mahdī of the Prophet’s family assemble the
community of Islam, repair its cracks and rule over it and the world.
The universal role of the Mahdī is of great significance in view of Islam’s
universal aspirations. He will appear at the End of Time when Islam will deteriorate
to its lowest state ever. The Qur˒ān will be forgotten and places of worship will be
deserted. Man’s falling away from religion will reach such a point that the end will
come, whereupon the Mahdī will appear as the final true “renewer” (mujaddid) of
Islam. The eschatological idea of Islamic renewal is connected with the Islamic view
of human history. This is pictured in the form of a turning wheel. The highest point on
the wheel depicts the ideal generation in which Muḥammad lived and taught. This
was the time in which Islam was in its original, fresh, and purest form. After
Muḥammad’s death, the wheel of time began to turn. The highest point on the wheel
now moved downwards and Islam began to sink lower and lower, and it was bound to
reach the lowest point from which there is no way out but through the great upheaval
of the End of Days. Since the End of Days was to be preceded by unusual disasters,
calamities and suffering, Islam sought to postpone the coming of the End of Days for
as long as possible. Islam did this by envisaging the idea of “renewal” (tajdīd). This
meant that instead of reaching the End of Days, Islam could begin a new circle of life,
by renewing itself and by causing the wheel of Time to revolve to the same position in
which it was at the age of the Prophet. However, since Islam cannot achieve such a
revolution on its own, a “renewer” is always needed. This is a person who is divinely
guided, able to revitalize Islam and again make it central in men’s life and thus lift it
up from its state of degeneration. In so doing, the movement towards the End of Time
and the Day of Judgment stops, and a new circle in the life of Islam begins. The
Muslim traditionalists worked out the length of each cycle of deterioration and
renewal and fixed it at one century. The beginning of each Islamic century became the
time of Messianic expectations, and the time in which various mahdīs and mujaddids
(“renewers”) made their appearance, claiming to have been divinely guided and sent
to renew the Muslim’s religion and to save them from the horrors of the Hour. This
perpetual movement of decadence and renewal gave the Messianic notion in Islam a
perpetual nature: every one hundred years, the “Guided One” should be expected to
make his appearance until, according to the divine plan; the final “renewer” will
eventually appear to renew Islam once and for all.
The perpetual Messianism was especially developed by shī˓ite Islam. The
shī˓ah in Islam was born out of political strife in the Islamic community over the
question of who should lead Islam after the death of Muḥammad. The Shī˓ah (literally
“the party” of ˓Alī, Muḥammad’s cousin and son-in-law) demanded the leadership of
Islam for ˓Alī, whom it regarded as being the Prophet’s heir and the recipient of some
(if not all) of the Prophet’s esoteric wisdom. The mainstream of the Shī˓ah regarded
˓Alī as the first imām, the first true leader of the Islamic community after Muḥammad.
After him, the imamate (the genuine Islamic leadership according to the
Shī˓ah), passed to his direct descendants who were accepted as imāms one generation
after the other, trasmitting their “rights” and esoteric knowledge (˓ilm), from father to
son over a period of over two hundred years. The twelfth imām, who is supposed to
have “disappeared,” is the expected “Mahdī” of the Shī˓ah. He will make his
comeback (raj˓ah) to assume the true leadership of Islam. Since the twelfth imām
never died, it means that unlike the sunnīs, who await a Mahdī who can either be
Jesus or some unknown personality or both, the shī˓ites believe in the eternal
existence of the “hidden imām,” whose constant instructions are transmitted to the
believers through the intermediary of the shī˓ite religious scholars, the mujtahids.
When the time eventually comes, this hidden and expected Mahdī will make his
appearance to usher the End of Days and to finally establish his rule and the ideal
Islamic order. Other shī˓ite sects, each according to the circumstances of its own birth
and development, have other candidates from the descendants of ˓Alī for the role of
the “expected Mahdī.”
The Messianic theory in Islam is far more complex than the one in Judaism
and Christianity, probably because it had to make place for both the Jewish national
type of Messianism and the Christian universalism. If one adds the original Arab
influence, it is not difficult to see why Islamic Messianism has no one clearly defined
nature.