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He's not mentioned in the Quran, not even once, but the Hadith describes him in extraordinary detail. One eye, enormous stature, supernatural powers, and three letters written on his forehead that every Muslim will be able to read. He is the deceiving Messiah, the counterfeit savior, a figure so dangerous that every prophet in Islamic history, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus repeatedly warned their people about the same arriving threat. And according to some scholars, the conditions for his arrival have never looked more likely than right now. Today we're going through all the evidence for the dajjal who he is, how to spot him, and how you will know that he's arrived. So sit back, relax and welcome to Religion Camp. What's up people and welcome back to Religion Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from every religion from around the world, from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do in this tent every single Sundays. I try to understand what every person believes on this planet. I do it for a few reasons. One, I think the best way to connect with my fellow human being is to understand the God that they believe in. I think it is the best way to connect with a person or a culture is to know how they situate their lives. And for many people, God or their religion, even if they're not practicing, is still foundational to who they are. So by learning about other religions, I hope to become a better person. Additionally, I try to grab the things from every religious you know story, every religious book or text. And I try to take all the good things and apply it to my own life to become a better human being. And I imagine if you're subscribed to this channel or watching this video, you too also have an interest either in your own religion or another religion that you don't know that much about. And today we're talking about the Dajjal, the Muslim Antichrist, you could say. And a few things before I begin. One, I want to say thank you to you. Yeah, dude, I want to say thank you for watching this video. Every time you click or you comment or anything like that, you help the channel grow. You help keep the lights on in the tent, and you help keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Another thing I want to mention is I wasn't raised Muslim. I'm a Catholic. I'm a practicing Catholic, and I don't proclaim to be a Muslim scholar. This is just simply me trying to learn about another religion shared by a billion people on this planet. Over a billion, actually. I think it's like 1.2 or something like that. I don't even know how many, but many, many people on this planet are practicing Muslims, and this is a part of their end time eschatology. So I am doing this in good faith to try to just learn better about my muzzy brother and sisters out there, you know? And additionally, I want to give a shout out to my pal Christos for sitting on the ones and twos. He's the Greek Orthodox legend himself. He's my schismatic brother, and he sits in here every single week trying to learn about the world with me. How are you? 8.3 billion people. Whoa, wait, hold on a second. 8.3 billion what? Population of the world? No, I'm talking about how many Muslims are in the world. Come on, Christos. Good golly. I mean, 8.3 billion. We're. We're moving up 2 billion Muslims. No way. Yeah. Congrats, Muslims. You guys are. You guys are 1 4th. 1 4th. That's crazy. That's. That's pretty solid. I mean, from a Catholic to a Muslim, let me just say congrats. All right. You guys are doing good. Sorry about the Crusades. Or. I'm just saying, I mean, you know, a lot of people have been talking about these Crusades. You know what I mean? We got to do some more research on these Crusades, all right? But that's neither here nor there. Okay? Today we're here to celebrate the beauty of all religions, specifically Islam. And we're going to be looking at the story of the Dijal. Now, if you're Christian Catholic, you've probably heard of the Antichrist, the Antichristos, as they say. And this is a figure that comes sort of at the end of times, described in Revelation as well as Daniel. I can't remember exactly what other book, but there's a few references to the Antichrist as well as Antichrists. I believe in letters from Paul and basically describing as it's been known in Christian theology. We did a whole episode on this for Christian Antichrist. But just as a brief summary, basically a figure that comes down that is very enigmatic and is able to stir up the entire population, bring people to him, ultimately to lead them away from salvation of God and first and second, John and Daniel. Okay, nice. I was on there and some, you know, Thessalonians. So yeah, that's more or less the Christian perspective. But if you didn't know, if you are not Muslim, of course Muslims will know this, that Muslims have their own complex and sophisticated end times eschatology, their own story and understanding of what the end of the world will look like. And many of my Muslim friends have pointed out that they feel as though, at least their parents have said that they feel as though they might be in those times. Well, today we're going to figure all that out and we will understand who the digital is. This is, like I said, the equivalent to Christianity's Antichrist. Now before we actually go through this elusive figure and trace back the theology and the origins, there's a thing that I actually wanted to to mention that the Muslims do that I think is very interesting, that there is a practice against the Dajjal that I actually find very interesting. I think Christians perhaps should should embody this in some way, even if it's a protection from Satan or from the evil one. And every week Muslims will actually practicing Muslims often will oppose the Dajjal. So every Friday they will recite the Surah Al Kahf. And they do this because the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and just one big peace be upon him for the rest of the episode because sometimes it sidetracked me. But the Prophet said, whoever memorizes 10 verses from the beginning of Surah al Kahf will be protected from the Dajjal. Now, Surah Al kahf is the 18th chapter of the Quran and it lays out four stories. One is about young men who hide in a cave to protect their faith. Another is about a wealthy man who loses everything through arrogance the third is about Moses or Musa learning humility from a mysterious guide named Kadir. And the final is about a great king, Dhul Qarnan, who rules justly between the ends of the earth. Now, here's how this relates to the dajjal and the important thing that I think many Islamic scholars will highlight each. These four stories addresses one of four trials that the dajjal is expected to bring to humanity. And this is a trial of faith, a trial of wealth, a trial of knowledge, and a trial of power. So in other words, Surah al Kahf functions as a kind of like a spiritual guide for resisting the dajjal, not just by, you know, memorizing his face or by cultivating the qualities within yourself that, you know, make his deception ineffective. The protection here is a practice. It is a devotion to living a just life, so that whenever the dajjal appears, you will be ready. And you do this every single week as a practicing Muslim. And that's where this whole story and understanding of this theology begins with every Friday, you know, 2 billion people, you know, are actually working in this devotion against this evil one. And to understand how this came to be and how this, you know, practice against the dajjal actually started, we gotta go back before Medina, before Arabia, when this powerful name just began. So the early Muslims existed in a world that was saturated in end times. Apocalyptic thinking, Jewish traditions about, you know, the end of times, Christian theology about the Antichrist, even like, Persian ideas about, like, cosmic battles between good and evil. So the modern understanding and interpretations of the dajjal were steeped in this period where everyone is talking about the end of times. But the dajj is in many ways more sinister than all of these other traditions that we named. So the Arabic word dajjal can be used to mean like, a false prophet or an imposter. And the prophet himself reportedly said, the hour will not be established until nearly 30 Dajjals appear, each claiming to be a messenger from God. So that is small D dajals there. These are the precursors, the minor liars, all leading up to the main event, almost like how the prophets will precede the Messiah. You have the same kind of, you know, inversion where you have, you know, smaller liars that are preceding the main dajjal. And the full name of this character is this. It is the Al Masi ad dajjal, and it together means the deceiving Messiah. And this is the counterfeit savior. And. And that figure does not appear in the Quran. So the Antichrist appears by name in the Christian New Testament, like I mentioned, this cosmic evil figure. But this Islamic dajjal isn't actually in the central sacred text that is the Quran. It comes from the Hadith. Now, the Hadiths are a recorded. It's a book basically of recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. And it was gathered and authenticated by Muslim scholars in like the 8th and 9th centuries. And these holy collections contain dozens of references to the dajjal. And they're not vague. They're. They're extremely detailed and specific. So the Hadith says there was no prophet, but he has warned his people against the one eyed liar. Meaning that every single prophet from God has in some way, shape or form already warned people about the Dajjal. Noah warned, Abraham warned, Moses warned, Jesus warned. Every prophet in the chain was supposedly preparing humanity for the same arriving figure. And according to this description, he's a young man with thick curly hair, a plump ruddy face, enormous in stature, and the most famous detail of all, blind in one eye. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips? That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19,000 local agents, they help you find the coverage that fits your needs so you can spend less time worrying about insurance and more time enjoying the ride. Download the State Farm app or go online at State Farm. 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Now here's where we get into some interfaith disagreements because, you know, similar to the mark of the beast in Christian, Muslim scholars here kind of pause and they wonder, is this literal or is this symbolic? Hey guys, we're gonna take a break really quick because I Want to talk to you about gld. This is an awesome new company that we're working with that I'm actually wearing right now. Now here's the thing. You probably have the basics right. You always have, like, the shoes your go to shoes you always wear. You always got the jeans you always wear. You got that one black tee that makes your biceps pop. You know, we all got like the one fit that we feel nice in, but most dudes are missing the final piece. Talking about the Jesus piece. I'm talking about the jewelry that brings the whole fit together. Yes. And that is where GLD comes from. I actually got this crucifix right here. 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But other scholars have read it more symbolically that the letters will be perceptible, not like a tattoo on skin, but as a kind of spiritual discernment where, you know, like how your mom might be like, I have a bad feeling about that guy. It'll be kind of like that vibe. And it's important to note that both readings exist within classical scholarship. And although they disagree whether it's a literal KFR or symbolic, they do agree with on the meaning of these letters and ultimately what this feeling is. And it's communicated, who this figure is through these letters. This is a deceiver, a disbeliever, someone that is to lead the Muslims away from the Messiah. And the Hadith says, behold, he is one eyed, and your Lord is not one eyed. And this is meaningful because God sees all in perfect wholeness. And the dajjal, having only one eye, sees half. He is spiritually blind to the eternal, to the divine. And his one eye represents a total investment on the material world, the visible, what is profitable, what is carnal, not in the ways of Allah. Now, according to the hadith, the dajjal's powers are pretty significant. He will command the sky to rain, and it will rain. He will command the earth to yield crops, and it will grow. He will appear to raise the dead. He will divide a person in two and reassemble them before a crowd. He'll essentially be a counterfe miracle machine designed to make people believe he is God. And that is the theological core of the dajjal concept, the. The fitna or the trial that the dajjal brings is not military or necessarily political. It is what they would say is epistemological, meaning it forces you to ask the question, how do you know what you know? And it's about the corruption of the perception itself. And so that's what he does. And it's kind of trippy. The psy that he has on a person is. I mean, it's all consuming. And the dajjal will mess with your mind. So we know what the dajjal does and more or less where the idea originated in Muslim thought, and more or less what he looks like. But where will he come from? Well, according to tradition, he will emerge from somewhere between Syria and Iraq and he will wander the Earth for 40 days, though one of those days will feel as long as a year, another as long as a month, and another as long as a week. He will enter every city except two. The two cities are Mecca and Medina, which are guarded by angels. And then something very interesting will happen. Jesus will descend. Yes, Christians, if you didn't know this, wake up call. The Muslims love Jesus, and as he is known in Islamic tradition, Isa Isa bin Maryam in Arabic. And he's recognized in Islam both as a prophet and the true Messiah. That. So this is an important distinction that as Christians, we believe that Jesus is the son of God, as in understanding of, you know, the divinity of the Trinity, that Jesus himself is God. Whereas Muslims will say Jesus is Messiah and Jesus is a prophet, but not God himself. There is only a law that is the singular monotheistic God. Now, again, Catholics are monotheistic. We believe in this triune three in one. But that's a different story. Now, the hadith in Sahih Muslim even specifies the exact location that he will come from. A white minaret in the eastern part of Damascus. Jesus or Isa will pursue the dajjal to a place called Log, in what is now modern day Israel. And there the dajjal will, according to tradition, dissolve like salt in water. Remember, the dajjal will bring the greatest trial in human history, the trial of identifying what is truth and what is falsehood. And the imagery here of how the dajjal will be conquered is really powerful if you actually read into it. In the face of truth, in the face of what is truly important and beautiful and real and divine, that's exactly what will happen to the lies, that it will just dissolve like salt. Now, there is another hadith about the dajjal that reads almost more like a short story, and it seems to tell us more about him. Like in Like a parable, rather than in, you know, kind of a more like mystical kind of theological text. And this is what is known as the Hadith of Tamim al Dari. And this is very important because for the first time, we actually see what it might actually be like to encounter the dajjal. So the storyteller in this is Tamim al Dari, who actually was a Christian man who converted to Islam and became a companion of the Prophet. And according to the story, Tamim and about 30 other men set sail from the Arabian coast when they get caught up in a storm. And for a month, they're basically just lost at sea. And then finally, they drift to an unknown island, and on that island, they encounter a creature, a beast covered in thick hair. It's so dense that they can't even tell, like, the front from the back. And then the beast speaks to them. And it told them to go to a monastery at the center of the island. And this is where a man was going to be there waiting for them. Apparently, he wanted news of the outside world. So they went, and inside, they found the largest man any of them had ever seen. He was bound in heavy iron chains. And he asked them questions like, was the spring of Zugar still flowing? Were the palms of bison still bearing fruit? Had the Prophet of the Unlettered people emerged yet? Which is interesting questions to ask if you're a giant dude chained inside a cave. You know, you would probably ask, like, let me out. But no, this is what this giant, beastly man asked for. And when they confirmed for him that the Prophet had indeed emerged and that Arabia was following him, the chain man shook with rage. And then he told them who he was. He says to them, I am the Messiah. And he goes on to say, I will soon be permitted to leave. I will travel the earth for 40 nights. I will enter every city except Mecca and Medina. Both are forbidden to me now. The Prophet Muhammad confirmed the meaning of this story to his people. He said, basically, this is what I've been telling you about. The Dajjal is already alive, and he is waiting. He's waiting to be released. And despite the story feeling like, you know, the most, like, parabolic and something that was, you know, like a story that was told from someone going on a travel and maybe the most of any of the details about the Dajjal, it is largely why the Dajjal never felt just like a metaphor to many Muslims. To many, he's more real because, you know, they believe, based off this hadith, that, you know, there is a beast somewhere on earth right now that is just waiting now. Over time, these stories of the dajjal grew in Islamic thought as well as Islamic oral tradition. His presence became more and more looming throughout the development of the theology. And the conditions that, I guess, shape the growth actually tell us a lot about what Muslim people were facing in that specific time. So in the earliest decades of Islam, like the seventh century, the Muslim community expanded with extraordinary speed. Within just a century of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. the caliphate stretched from Spain to Central Asia. And during this time, the dajjal was more a. A distant idea, more of a theoretical concern. Until the civil wars actually began. In the 650s, the Muslim world fractured. And this was the first great rupture over who should lead the community after the Prophet Muhammad dies. And this creates the divide between the Sunni and the Shias that still persists until this day. And then, of course, after this, you have the assassinations. The third caliph, Uthman, was murdered. The fourth, Ali, was also killed. Companions of the Prophet fought each other at the Battle of Kamel. And the community that believed itself divinely guided was now in this fractured state where it was dealing with internal turmoil. Scholars argue that much of the dajjal theology and conversation actually intensified in these chaotic decades when the world that their faith had promised them didn't look like the world that they were living in. And it helped to understand why. And the dajjal really explained why. And the scholarship and the interpretation around the Dijal text became much more on the forefront, the. The present suffering. Honestly, it had a name. All of a sudden, you can actually look at it. You could say, oh, there is this evil beast that will come at the end of times. And as the tradition promised, ultimately this time of conflict will end. Now, as I mentioned before, not all Muslims will interpret the dajjal in the exact same way. And there are broadly three different approaches. The first is a very literal approach. Mainstream Sunni orthodoxy holds that the dajjal is a specific physical person. He will appear in real historical time and perform real supernatural acts and will be killed by the real Jesus. The second is symbolic. And a smaller modern current has argued that the dajjal represents a collective phenomena, like a. A system of corruption or a system of deception, rather than one singular person. And the third is what would be called, I guess, a hybrid reading. And this is held by many contemporary Muslims to this day who take the hadith seriously as a prophecy, while also drawing legitimate spiritual lessons from the dajjal's more symbolic attributes. And classical scholars tend to lean towards a literal interpretation, whereas modern thinkers will often adopt some type of, you know, hybrid or symbolic approach. But the practical impact that this has on Muslim communities is basically the same to encourage spiritual discernment regardless of which side you fall on. And the last part is what really unites all the camps. It's like, okay, you can say it's symbolic, you can hybridize, you can say that it's literal, but that doesn't change how we should behave. We should be on the lookout, we should be discerning, and we should be really, I guess, praying for clarity and wisdom in order to understand, you know, the difference. Now, there is a fascinating sentence in the Dajjal tradition that I think we should look at specifically and we should be careful because, you know, I don't want to mishandle the way that this is looked at. And there are several hadith that associate the Dajjal as having some type of Jewish following, which is, I think, important to acknowledge in the scope of, you know, I guess, geopolitics as well as understanding this end time eschatology. And the most frequently cited is in Sahih Muslim, and it describes 70,000 Jews of Isfahan following the Dajjal when he emerges. Now, as you can probably imagine, this passage has been weaponized, particularly in the 20th and the 21st century, and it's, you know, oftentimes been generalized into some type of anti Semitism. And that reading, some people have argued, has been misinterpreted and that modern Islamic institutions have blatantly said so. So the Yakin Institute, in a careful study specifically on this question, argues that these hadith are referring to a specific future group in a specific prophesied scene, not to just, you know, like Jews in general as like an ethnic or religious group and definitely not to be used as a license for hostility. So like most ancient religious topics, the Dajjal tradition is complicated and the texts are complicated and nuanced and, and flattening or generalizing either one is its own form of deception in a way that the tradition of the dajjal itself has specifically tried to warn against. So Muslim scholars attempt to treat this facet of Dajjal history with a lot of care and specificity and nuance across all the traditions. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com and the different branches of Islam mostly agree on the main things around the Dajjal. So both Sunni and Shia traditions accept the hadith descri about him, both regard him as a genuine future threat and both agree on the central narrative of this figure. Basically, that the Dajjal will emerge during a period of global tribulation, that a divinely guided figure, often called the Mahdi or the Imam Mahdi will lead the Muslim community during that time, and that Jesus descends from heaven to end the Dajjal's reign. But they do disagree on a few things, like how this victory will actually unfold and how the Dajjal will fully and actually be destroyed. So for example, in mainstream Sunni Islam, the Mahdi is a future leader descended from the Prophet's family who will appear near the end of times. And the story places Jesus as the one who strikes the killing blow on the Dajjal, with the Mahdi present and ultimately secondary in the final act. And in twelver Shia Islam, which is the majority Shia tradition dominant in modern day Iran and parts of Iraq and Lebanon, the Mahdi is way more interesting. Like there's a ton of lore that's tied in with this. Specifically, the Mahdi will be the 12th Imam. His name is Muhammad Ibn Al Hassan Al Mahdi and he was born around 869 AD when his father in the 11th Imam died in 874 AD and the story goes that something strange happened at this time, that the 12th Imam disappeared. Not, you know, died young or whereabouts unknown, just disappeared. Now the Islamic theological interpretation of this is very significant. It's said that the 12th Iman was actually hidden by God, that Allah literally came and shielded this person and that he's still alive and still watching, just concealed from the world. And that this 12th Imam is waiting. And this is called the occultation. In Arabic it's called the Gaiba, the hiddenness. And it actually happened in two stages. The first stage, known as the minor occultation, lasted from 874 to 941 A.D. and during this period the Imam was believed to be reachable and he communicated through appointed intermediaries. And four of them, one after another, was acting as a bridge between The Hidden Imam and the rest of the Shia community, people could still send questions and receive answers. And the connection continued, but it held on for, like, 200 years. And then in 941 AD the last intermediary died. And before he died, he delivered a final message. And basically he said that there would be no fifth representative and that this channel with the imam was closing. And that began the major occultation, which has now lasted, according to this belief, from 941 A.D. to right now, literally to this moment, that there's been no communication, no intermediary, no confirmed sightings. But these people that have this specific view in this sect of Islam do believe that he still has a presence and is hidden and alive, but just concealed from the rest of the population. And the belief is that he will remain this way until the end of times, when he will finally return, stand against the Dajjal, and restore justice to our broken world. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break real quick because I gotta tell you something kind of embarrassing. All right? I've been working out pretty consistently for a while. I love working out. I think it's super important. Part of my daily routine. 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I don't know why they're doing this. 50% off for life, free shipping and three free gifts@ Mengotomars.com that's Mengotomars.com for 50 off and three free gifts when you check out. It's also available on Amazon. It really worked for me. I like it. I still take it because, you know, I like natural supplements and it makes me feel good. Now when they ask where you heard about it, tell them the good people at Camp Gagnon sent you. It really helps to show more than you know. Now let's get back to it. Now, like with any type of religious topic or debate, not all Shia Muslims agree that this actually happened. And here's what many historians will tell you. So Hassan al Askari, the 11th Imam, died in 874. And after his death, there was a genuine period of confusion and dispute within the Shia community about whether he even had a surviving son. Now, according to some, there was no clear air and that that was the death and the end of the lineage of that Imam. And out of that crisis, a story emerged, and that disagreement ended up fracturing the Shia world. Some believe the line of imams ended at the sixth. Some believe that it was at the seventh. Each group has their own answer to that same complicated question. But the 12ers hold on to their answer that the 12th Imam is not gone and that he is alive and that he is hidden. And ultimately he will come back at the exact perfect ordained moment for the destruction of the Dajjal. Now, I know that can be a lot, but it is an interesting insight to understand a specific sect. Specifically, when looking at the conflicts going on in Iran, understanding the eschatological implications that some people within, you know, facets of that government might hold actually can give us a lot of insights about why or how they view the world. Now, I should mention that there is one more interpretation of the Dajjal that we're going to cover, and I saved this one for the last because it is vastly different from anything else you heard between the Sunni and the Shia perspective. And this is the Ahmadiyya version. Now, the Ahmadiyya Muslims are a much smaller group, and they read the stories of the Dajjal not as a single individual, like most Sunnis and Shia, but as a collective institution. So, for example, the colonial expansion of Western power. And in this reading, the Dajjal has already arrived, and the Dajjal came with the printing press and guns and missionary schools. And he will not be defeated by the sword at laud, but by truth and reform and spiritual renewal over time. So we have this wide diversity of interpretation around who the Dajjal is, what the Dajjal is, and how to actually defeat this figure and what these differences ultimately mean. Maybe says something about the people that believe them. And it. It kind of signals perhaps their fears or their priorities or what their communities have faced historically than maybe it does about the Dajjal or what's in the Hadiths and the actual Islamic scholarship on the topic. And it raises a lot of really interesting questions. So the Ahmadiyya version, the Ahmadiyya Muslim interpretation of the Dijjal does play a role in the way that I think people interpret the Dajjal. And similar to Christianity and the Christian understanding of the Antichrist, many people have pointed at systems. So let's go back to the 1980s really quick. And I can explain this through a story. There's an Egyptian writer named Saeed Ayub, and he argues kind of this idea. He published a wildly popular book arguing that the Dajjal was not in some distant future, but that the Dajjal was already here. And the Dajjal's name is the United States of America. And he points to United States as being this Antichrist for a few reasons. It is this secular, media saturated, materialist, capitalist global order. Now, Ayub's book became a bestseller across the Arab speaking world. As Jean Pierre Filieux documents in Apocalypse and Islam. It apparently launched an entirely new genre of apocalyptic writing that reached millions of people. People. And the truth is, the appeal of this genre didn't just come out of nowhere. I mean, it came out of generations after generation that watched the west basically take over the Arab world. And for many specifically in Iran, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the Arab defeat in the Six Day War in 1967, and what felt like to them a systematic erosion of Islamic culture and civilization. And it made sense that they felt like America was the Dajjal all. And once that framework was popularized, it was nearly unstoppable. I mean, in many ways, the rise of, like Saddam Hussein, for example, came out of the Bath Party's rejection of Western imperialism and colonization and setting up bases and military operations all through the Gulf states and the Arab world. And some even point to the one eyed symbol on the American dollar bill, literally the eye of Providence on the pyramid of the Great Seal. In the book he references and says, this is the one eye of the Dajjal. Now it's worth noting these connections are considered, I guess, fringe or conspiratorial, and they're not recognized as proof by really any major scholars in Islam. And most Muslims, the ones that you talk to or that you meet on the street don't think this. And I think it's important to highlight that because I don't want to give the wrong impression that like, oh, Muslims all hate America. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that this was a book that was popular, that came out of a specific time where a lot of people in the Middle east were frustrated by American involvement. And as a result, the book gave a very satisfying answer to the feeling that many of many people at the time had. Now, it's an interesting connection because the eye of providence is an 18th century Enlightenment era symbol used by the founders of the American Republic to gesture toward divine oversight. And it actually in many ways predates the United States itself. But the reason that these ideas spread so significantly kind of makes sense. You know, if you feel like your people and your civilization has suffered at the hands of a different country, specifically this, you know, foreign power that doesn't share a lot of, you know, the same religions or values, and the media is controlled by people who don't share your values. And when the world as it is looks nothing like the world that, you know, the faith that you love describes, it's natural to look at a pattern to help make sense of it all. And the problem here is that the tradition itself would recognize that the dajjal's divining attribute is making false things look like the truth. So whether it is the United States or something else, you know, ultimately it is the deception that is the biggest concern, and that is ultimately what the dajjal is manifesting. Now, I think it's important to look at this in the modern lens because you have, obviously, Iran calling America the Great Satan, Satan. And I think that there's a large part of that feeling that comes out of, you know, American foreign policy. But, you know, even books like this that kind of popularize these ideas about the United States. And what's interesting is that the hadith doesn't just describe the dajjal, it describes what the world will look like on the eve of his arrival. And this helps a lot of people kind of become to a much more grounded, more practical version of understanding what the dijjal is. So before the daj actually arrives, here is what will be happening in the world. There will be three years of severe drought and famine that will come immediately after he shows up. So the narration in Ibn Majah describes that the sky will withhold a third of its reign in the first year, 2/3 in the second year, and all of it in the third year. And then there will be years of deception where truth tellers are called liars, and then liars are trusted, trusted. And there will be the disappearance of religious knowledge as scholars will die without being replaced. And then there will be the normalization of public sin and the mocking of religious practices. Great buildings will compete for height, a sign that many classical scholars debated and modern readers will frequently apply to, you know, skyline architecture throughout, you know, Europe and America and the Middle east and China. You will have erratic seasons. You will have intra Muslim conflict, basically, you know, Muslims against Muslims. And then you will have the appearance of minor dajjals. And then there will be a period in which people will follow their appetites rather than their values or their principles? And a hadith recorded by Mu' Ad Aben Jabal in Abu Dawad offers something even more specific. It says this. The flourishing of Jerusalem, then the fall of Medina, then a great war, then the conquest of Constantinople, then and only then will will there be the arrival of said Dajjal. Now, classical scholars note that signs like these have appeared in some form in every age, and that depending on how liberal or conservative your interpretation is, you could kind of fit this to your worldview. And that is kind of telling about us, right? The spiritual thermometer that we have will indicate, you know, do we see the patterns or not? Not. And as a result, every generation asks, like, how close are we to these conditions? Has how far is the world gone into this ultimate deception? Now, several mainstream Islamic scholars are drawing direct lines between the prophesied pre Dajjal conditions and our contemporary environment, specifically relating to information. So the scholar Omar Suleiman, one of the most widely followed Islamic educators in the English speaking world. I follow him on Instagram. You should check him out. He has delivered multiple lectures specifically connecting the Dajjal with the rise of virtual reality or artificial intelligence, or what he calls the architecture of illusion. Now, the Dajjal's power in the hadith is primarily optical, meaning that his miracles are demonstrations that override the senses, that make the false look real. And in a world of deep fakes or like, AI generated pictures and a, like a, an algorithm or a news feed that's curated by some type of AI, that description doesn't feel that metaphorical, right? The mainstream Islamic scholarly tradition is very clear, however, that the Dajjal has not yet arrived. Social media is not the Dajjal. AI is not the Dajjal. But the conditions of his arrival, the erosion of discernment, the erosion of truth and the worship of what is visible and what is profitable, the inability to distinguish what is miraculous and divine from what is cheap and manufactured. Those conditions, many scholars will argue, are actively being assembled right before us. And based on that, many Muslims believe that his arrival might be imminent. And so every Friday, millions of Muslims recite the Surah Al Kahf, like I mentioned at the beginning. And they are not doing it because they expect the Dajjal to walk through the door that afternoon or because they believe that, you know, the United States of America is the Antichrist. They are doing it it because of maybe the opposite, because they don't know exactly when the Dajjal will show up or what Exactly. The dajjal will look like, or if they will know the day that he arrived. But they wish to be spiritually prepared, and they want to be spiritually disciplined. And above all, they want to be spiritually ready. And it is a weekly reset against these conditions that in 2026, happen to, you know, be somewhat primed for the dajjal to return. So we started this episode talking about this practice, right? Billions of people reciting this same chapter of holy Muslim scripture as protection against this figure. And now that we've gone through the entire tradition, right? The descriptions in the hadith, the chain man on the island, the signs before his arrival, where the dajjal will come from, what the dajjal will look like, and really how. How scholars will connect the Dijal to the information age that practice is now, to me, it feels a bit more striking, because this is what is so strange about the Dajjal across every interpretation, is that in many ways, the dajjal is already described as existing on earth now, just already waiting. The Hadith of Tamim Aldari doesn't say that he will one day be created by Allah or created by the iblis or by a jinn. It says that he's already here, chained and already asking questions about, you know, these palms and the spring and whether the Prophet has arrived yet. And he's been waiting, in other words, for a very long time for the right moment, the right conditions, and the right world that is completely saturated in immorality and spectacle and capital and profitability and eroded to the point that it can't even tell the difference between what is good and what is evil. Evil. And the tradition says that when those conditions are ripe, the chains will come off. So many scholars will say, you know, you should cultivate your own discernment, stay strong, hold on to what is true, know yourself, know Allah. And when everything else around you is telling you otherwise, just try to stay as grounded as possible. Because the biggest question for Muslims when it comes to the topic of the Dajjal is not, is the dajjal real? Is, it's when he's here, how will I even know? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a brief, abridged history of the eschatological end times for Muslims, specifically as they relate to the dajjal, the Muslim Antichrist. I mean, it is a fascinating thing to look at and compare with Catholicism and to try to, like, digest my own kind of understandings of the Antichrist and how it relates. And it's also interesting to know that there's like, so many different perspectives and, you know, opinions even within Muslim scholarship and, you know, just everyday practicing Muslims. And I think oftentimes Christians will see other religions as like a monolith. You know, like, oh, all Muslims believe this, but Christians, you know, we have all of our, you know, nuanced internal stuff. It's like, no, no, no. Every different religion has its own, you know, subsex that will have, you know, minor sort of, you know, theological disputes. And the topic of the Dijal is very interesting. You know, this idea of, like, it. It makes it much more clear in the hadith than it does maybe in Christianity. Whereas in Christianity it's, you know, there's references in the Bible that are a little vague and they don't really describe exactly what the Antichrist will look like or, you know, it almost seems like there's contradicting or competing kind of analyses where, like, in John you might have reference to multiple Antichrists, whereas in Revelation it's just one. And so a lot of our understanding of Christian Antichrist comes from later traditions kind of piecing these ideas together and kind of forming them over time. And in Islam, it seems like, okay, you have these hadiths that have very explicit detail, like, this is what he's going to look like. He's going to have KFR across his forehead. He'll come from this region, and when the world is like this, he will appear. And to me, I don't know if, like, for example, there's a thing in Christianity where many people try to predict when Christ will return. And it says very explicitly in the Bible, no man will know the return, and no man will know when Christ will actually come back. And that, to me, kind of gives me calm where I'm like, okay, we don't have to be so obsessed with predicting the end times or knowing when it's going to happen or trying to time it perfectly. When Jesus comes back to get my life together, it's like, you should be living in a state of constant practice and trying to make your soul right with God as regularly as possible and at all times. You know, like, don't wait for the perfect time. As St. Augustine says, a quote that I love, treat your body as if it will last forever. Treat your soul as if you will die tomorrow. It's just a bar. And it's like, I think that's honestly kind of how I try to live my life. I'm like, I try to take good care of my body. I try not to drink too much. I try not to, you know, like, stay up late. I try to, like, sleep and, you know, try to be a good steward of this thing that God gave me. But the same time I try to treat my soul as if, you know, the end is imminent. And I think that that puts us on the right path. And so if you're a Muslim, that might mean reciting, you know, chapter from the Quran that will help you stay, you know, stay on top of deception when it shows up. Because maybe you don't live in the time that the dajjal actually returns, but you know, in any time that you live, there will be fitness, there will be trials that Muslims go through. And by staying, staying true to their scripture and by praying regularly and by meditating on what that scripture means, it'll draw you closer to Allah. And same thing for Christians, that we don't know when the Antichrist returns. We don't know when Christ returns. But we do know that in our own lives we will have trials and that ultimately we should try to live the best life that we can while we're here. And for me, that just is like reading the Gospels, going through my understanding of Catholic dogma and the catechism and, and trying to live a God fearing life, a life with humility, taking care of the weak and the sick as much as I can, trying to take care of my family and ultimately lead them to heaven. So that to me is kind of what I always circle back to, trying to focus on what I can control, the things that I can actually do. Tending to my garden and in the words of Mother Teresa, love your family is one of the greatest acts of love. And the best way to change the world is just by loving the people around you as much as you, you can. And that includes my family, my friends, my Christian brothers and as well as my Muslim brothers and all the other religions out there, Jews, Hindus, everyone under the sun. I believe we're all on this planet for a reason. And I would just, you know, I try to encourage myself to try to stay connected to God and to pray regularly, you know, whether I exist and I'm alive during the end times or not. I just hope that I have done enough to enter heaven, you know, that's all we can really do. Christos, any thoughts? How about this Saeed Ayub guy saying the United States is the Antichrist? Yeah, it's not something that's totally foreign to me in the, my understanding of geopolitics. You know, like I mentioned with Saddam Hussein, so much of Saddam's, you know, Charisma and his attractiveness to the people of Iraq came out of the Baath Party's movement and sort of the Pan Arab movement to get rid of the colonial oppressors. Because you can look at, you know, American foreign policy, specifically, like, early 1900s, where it's like the west, broadly speaking, America, Great Britain, France, Belgium, were all through America. You know, like, you can think of, like, the French in Morocco, the French in Lebanon, America, and, you know, the British all through the Gulf states, whether it's, you know, the UAE or, you know, Bahrain or any of these other countries. And I can understand those people being like, hey, we don't want you here. Like, if America was being occupied by some other country and they had, you know, like, bases set up all over and they were, like, extracting oil from the US Government, I'd be like, all right, enough. You know, like. So I can understand the sentiment. I think trying to paint the dajjal as a system based off my understanding of the hadith. Seems like it's a. A little. Maybe taking a look at some liberties with the interpretation. So I understand the feeling. I don't know if I agree with the theological assessment, but again, I'm not Muslim, so maybe Muslims have a different approach. But no Muslim I know says, you know, I know some Muslims that are like, hey, American foreign policy is a nightmare. But I don't know any. Any Muslims that are like, america's the Dajjal. You know, I don't know any Muslims that are like, america's the Antichrist. But I do know a lot that are like, there's a Dajjal out there. But also, American foreign policy has, like, destroyed my mom's country. Country. And that part I'm like, yeah, I get that. So what do you guys think? I'm curious if there's anything that I missed. Again, I'm not a Muslim scholar. I, you know, never studied at a Muslim university. I'm not an imam. I'm just a regular Catholic comedian with a WI Fi connection. So if there's anything I missed, please don't hesitate to correct me. I would love to know if there's anything major, I can add an addendum to the video or in the description. If there's anything that I overlooked. If you're Muslim and you learned something, I'd love to know, did this bring you closer to your faith? Did it help you to understand why there's so much conversation around the information age and AI. And if you're not Muslim, I'm curious what your perspective on this figure of the Dajjal is if you are, you know, like Christian or Jewish or Hindu or some other type of religious philosophy. I'm curious what your perspective is. Does this resonate with your own theories and beliefs of the end times? Is it completely contradictory? Did you learn something? Did you know that Jesus is the Messiah in Islam as well? And we'll also come back at the end of time times to defeat the Dajjal as well as the. What is it? Juj and Majuj, which is another great little ripple of end times eschatology. But today's episode is just focusing on. On the Djjal. But maybe we'll do another one more broadly about Dulcarnan and Yuja Majuj or Gog and Magog as they describe it in some translations. But I'm so curious what you think. Please drop a comment. I also have great news. If you want to join the secret society, you can find us, but it's hard. It's difficult. But if you go to patreon.com camp gagnon, you might get close. Okay, you might. You might see some episodes there with no ads. You might get bonus episodes every single month. You might get a live zoom with me and the rest of the camp squad, plus the other campers to just chop it up. You might get all that just for the price of a cup of coffee. I don't know. You can check it out on your own also, if you like historical content. Kind of like how we talked about today, going through some of the Muslim history. Well, we have history camps. You can check out all the episodes we've done, trying to understand everything that's ever happened. And if you like other deep dives on the current happenings, you know, the global state of affairs, specifically through a mystical or occult or conspiratorial lens, well, you can go to Camp Gagnon. That's where I do interviews with people way smarter than me. And we try to go through everything that's going on in the world right now. And if you just rock with us here, religion camp, well, God bless you. I appreciate you so much. It's Sunday, so I hope you went to church or mosque or the temple yesterday or maybe a gurdwara or, you know, whatever you go to. I just hope that you have some type of connection with your creator. And God bless you all. I hope to see you soon. And we'll be back next Sunday with another episode. God bless and peace.