Who is Dajjal and how will he come to earth?

What should we do to be protected from him?

Dear Brother / Sister,

The important personalities that are stated in the accounts about the time near the end of the world are: Dajjal, Mahdi and Hazrat Jesus (Christ)... The first one is the person to destroy all of the things relating religion, belief, ethics, virtue and humanity, to inflict despotism, oppression and terror; the others are the people to struggle against him in a horrible period when Dajjal starts to inflict his actions, Mahdi and Hazrat Jesus are longed for. These spiritual saviors inflict great impacts on disbelief and become the greatest support and source strength, morale and hope for believers.

The Prophet (PBUH) mentioned both the big Dajjal and the Islam Dajjal Sufyan. Their characteristics and attributes are different. Since there were no limitations in the accounts some narrators and scholars were confused and mistook one for the other. Therefore, they are regarded as mutashabih (ambiguous) hadiths.

Dajjal

In the accounts, the emergence of Dajjal was shown as one of the most frightening happenings of the universe. Therefore, our Prophet (PBUH) informed his followers about him in particular, avoided his sedition and asked his followers to avoid it. He said,

"There is no greater incident (in another narration mischief) than Dajjal from the creation of Adam to the Last Hour."(1)

Thus, he attracted people's attention to its big destruction and terror. In another hadith, he states that Dajjal is more effective than the devil (2). The fact that not only our Prophet (PBUH) but also all of the other prophets without any exception warned their followers and wanted them to avoid him (3) indicates that the mischief of Pharaohs and Nimrods will be small compared to that of Dajjal's.

The evil of Dajjal is so great that according to what our Prophet (PBUH) informs us, when he emerges, people will have to go to the mountains out of fear and in order to be saved from his evil. (4)

Our Prophet (PBUH) found it necessary to mention Dajjal during the Farewell Sermon in Farewell Hajj, in which he summarized the essentials of Islam, as he always did and warned his followers like the other prophets because of the greatness of Dajjal's evil and mischief.(5)

Dajjal is an Arabic word derived from the root dajl. Dictionaries define Dajjal as "liar, fraud, a seditious and damned person who confuse the minds, hearts, good and bad, the right and the wrong, who hides the real face of something by gilding it, who wanders everywhere."

In a hadith, attention is attracted to his "lying and misguiding" (6) characteristics.

Dajjal is a deceiving and denying person who does frightening tricky things. The most terrible aspect of his mischief is the fact that he tries to take away people's beliefs and to destroy people's lives in this world and in the hereafter by setting up a system based on atheism. He carries out his sultanate based on atheism, immorality and lies not by himself but together with his committee that love him and with his system that he represents blasphemously and hypocritically.

Dajjal is also called al-Masih ad-Dajjal with the addition of the word “masih”. The reason why he is called masih is that one of his eyes is wiped. Masih has various definitions in the dictionaries. Some of the meanings that can be attributes for Dajjal are as follows: without eyebrows and an eye on one side of his face, congenitally imperfect, evil, ill-omened, liar, serial killer.

In a hadith, he is mentioned as "Masih al-Dalalah" "The Messiah of Misguidance". (7)

Sufyan

In a hadith, the following is stated:

"During the time near the end of the world a man will emerge and he will be called Sufyan"(8).

His nature is explained as follows: "He is a frightening hypocritical person who will emerge during the time near the end of the world, who will make Muslims undergo hard times and who will try to destroy the principles of Islam."(9)

His wonders are mentioned a lot. Attention is attracted to his commandership.(10)

While the great Dajjal focuses on atheism and fights Christianity, the Islamic Dajjal, Sufyan, will fight Islam, which is the only true religion before Allah, openly. Therefore, he is regarded as more frightening. Quitting an abrogated and falsified religion will not offend Allah as much as betraying the true, eternal and valid religion.(11)

There are widespread accounts about Dajjal

Most of the scholars say there are widespread accounts about Dajjal and it is impossible to deny it.(12) The great scholar Shawkani even wrote a book called "Explaining that the Accounts about Mahdi, Dajjal and Messiah Have Become Widespread". In this book, Shawkani states that like the hadiths about the descent of Mahdi and Hazrat Jesus, the hadiths narrated about Dajjal have become widespread.(13)

Ibn Manda says it is wajib (compulsory) to believe in the emergence of Dajjal.(14) To deny his emergence is aberration at the very least.

Are there any hadiths about Sufyan?

Definitely yes. There are a lot of them. To say that there is not arises from either ignorance or an evil purpose. When Badiuzzaman answered the claim of the prosecutor that "There are no hadiths about Sufyan" in the court, he attracted attention to this fact:

"The prosecutor who says that 'There are no hadiths about Sufyan; if there are they are fabricated' although he has not read the books of hadiths nor has read the chapters of the Quran, and although Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who memorized a million hadiths, and Imam Bukhari, who memorized five hundred thousand, did not have the courage to deny them, has broken the bonds thousands of times and committed a great error. It is a hadith but even if we assume that it is not a hadith, it is something that has been accepted by the Umma; and a number of aspects and samples of them which are completely true have appeared and been seen."(15)

There are a lot of Dajjals. There are Dajjals of each century. We learn from a hadith that the number of Dajjals will reach thirty.(16)

The Dajjals of the end of the world have a different place among them because they are more frightening. There are two of them. One of them is the great Dajjal, which emerges worldwide; the other is the Islamic Dajjal. Hazrat Ali (17) and some researchers call the latter Sufyan (18) and Hazrat Ali always talked about him. (19) Sufyan will emerge from among Muslims and deceive people.

There are a lot of sound hadiths about Dajjal in a lot of hadith books including Bukhari and Muslim. As a matter of fact, there are no discussions about Dajjal and his emergence except for his attributes and actions.

The emergence of Dajjal is definite; and likewise the arrival of Mahdi is inevitable. There is no poison without an antidote. As we cannot think of Nimrod without Hazrat Ibrahim, Pharaoh without Hazrat Moses; we cannot think Dajjal without Mahdi. If Dajjal exists, so does Mahdi.

Is it rational that Dajjal will act freely, make any destruction, material or spiritual, he wants, try to establish the wrong but there will be nobody to stand against him, to fight him, to stop his destruction and establish the truth? It is impossible to correlate it with the mind, science or religion; it is against the sunnah of Allah.

As Badiuzzaman says, "Out of His perfect mercy, every time the Muslim community has been corrupted, Almighty God has sent a reformer, or a regenerator, or a vicegerent of high standing, or a supreme spiritual pole, or a perfect guide, or blessed persons resembling a Mahdi, as a mark of His protecting the Shari‘a of Islam until eternity; they have removed the corruption, reformed the nation, and preserved Muhammad’s (UWBP) religion. Since His custom has always been thus, certainly at the time of greatest corruption at the end of time He will send a luminous person as both the greatest interpreter of the Law, and the supreme renewer, and ruler, and Mahdi, and guide, and spiritual pole, and that person will be from the Prophet’s (UWBP) Family."(20)

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(1) Muslim, Fitan: 126.
(2) Ramuzul-Ahadith, p. 518.
(3) Bukhari, Fitan: 26; Muslim, Fitan: 101.
(4) Muslim, Fitan: 125; Tirmidhi, Kitabul-Manaqib: 70.
(5) Bukhari, Kitabul-Maghazi: 64.
(6) Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, I-VI (Cairo: 1313), 5:372.
(7) al-Haytami, Majmauz-Zawaid-I-VIII (Beirut: 1403/1982), 7:348.
(8) Hakim an-Nisaburi, Abu Abdullah Muhammad, Mustadrak, I-IV (Beirut: Darul-Marifa, nd.), 4:520; Kanzul-Ummal, 14:272.
(9) Alaaddin al-Muttaqì bin Husamaddin bin Ismail al-Hindi, Kanzul-Ummal (Beirut: 1989), 11:125; Bursalı İsmail Hakkı, Ruhu'l-Beyan fî Tefsîri'l-Kur'ân, I-X (Istanbul: 1330), 8:197.
(10) Muslim, Fitan: 125.
(11) Nursi, Sözler (The Words), p. 158.
(12) al-Munavi, Faydul-Qadir (Beirut: 972), 3:537; Said Hawwa. al-Assas fis-Sunna-İslâm Akàidi. trans. M. Ahmed Varol, Orhan Aktepe et al. (Istanbul: Aksa Yayın-Pazarlama, 1992), 9:335.
(13) Siddiq Hasan Khan, al-Izaa, p. 114; Said Hawwa, al-Assas fis-Sunna, 9:335-336.
(14) Sarıtoprak, ibid., p. 67.
(15) Şuâlar, p. 360.
(16) Bukhari, Fitan: 25; Manaqib: 25; Muslim, Fitan, 84; Abu Dawud, Fitan: 1.
(17) Gazali, ibid., 1:59
(18) Barzanji, al-Ishaa fi Ashratis-Sa’ah, pp. 95-99; Mukhtasaru Tadhkiratil-Qurtubi, pp. 133-134; Şuâlar (The Rays), p. 501, 504.
(19) Şuâlar (The Rays), p. 501.
(20) Mektûbât (The Letters), p. 425

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