part0019

In his book Islamic Antichrist, Joel Richardson compares the Islamic version of Jesus (Isa) to the biblical False Prophet. As previously noted, his theory is that a fake Muslim Jesus who calls himself Isa will appear in the future and his real identity will be the False Prophet of Revelation 13. Richardson provides a list of four main similarities between Isa and the False Prophet. I will discuss each in the order they appear in his book.

The first similarity Richardson proposes is that Isa has a partnership with the Mahdi in the same way that the False Prophet has a partnership with the Antichrist. Since Richardson believes the Mahdi is the Antichrist, he also believes that Isa must be the False Prophet, based on the belief that Isa and the Mahdi are said to have a partnership of some kind.

In order to make the partnership of Isa and the Mahdi look anything like the Antichrist and False Prophet, Richardson and others need to convince their readers that Isa will actually be subordinate to the Mahdi in the same way the False Prophet is subordinate to the Antichrist. The problem with this idea is that, despite Islamic Antichrist theorists constantly saying Isa is subordinate to the Mahdi, many Islamic sources vehemently disagree and maintain it is actually Isa who outranks the Mahdi, not the other way around.

They have very good reasons for saying this. The first is an important doctrine in the Quran that says prophets outrank all other created beings.

In his commentary, Imam Baydawi said of this verse: “There is proof in this for their superiority over those other than them from among created things.”

Since Isa is a prophet in Islam, and the Mahdi is only an Imam and a Caliph, Isa outranks the Mahdi. This is not my opinion; it is the common understanding of the relationship between the Mahdi and Isa by the majority of Muslims. [61 ]

This should also be quite obvious from the hadiths previously discussed in this book. For example, we have seen that it is Isa who destroys the Dajjal, executes judgment on the world, defeats Gog and Magog (through prayer), and rules the world after the Mahdi serves his role. This is clearly a more exalted set of tasks when compared to the Mahdi, who fights regular wars with human enemies and achieves temporary peace and prosperity.

So what kind of arguments do Islamic Antichrist theorists like Joel Richardson make to support the Mahdi outranking Isa? They point to the hadiths that describe Isa allowing the Mahdi to pray a ritualistic prayer before the battle with the Dajjal. They claim that when Isa allows the Mahdi to pray this prayer, it is essentially the same as saying the Mahdi is of a higher rank than Isa.

“This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Jabir Ibn Abdillah al-Ansari that I heard the Messenger of Allah saying: ‘A group of my Ummah will fight for the truth until near the day of judgment when Jesus, the son of Mary, will descend, and the leader of them will ask him to lead the prayer, but Jesus declines, saying: “No, Verily, among you Allah has made leaders for others and He has bestowed his bounty upon them.”’”

A prominent Islamic theology website [62] makes the following points when discussing this hadith :

“These very narrations indicate the reason for our liege-lord `Isa’s (Allah bless him) refusal to lead prayer when offered to do so, namely to show how Allah has honored the community of Muhammad (Allah bless him and grant him peace). Thus, when requested to lead he will reply, ‘No, for some of you are leaders upon others out of Allah’s honoring this community.’” [Muslim]

Basically what is being pictured here is the Mahdi asking Isa to lead the prayer since he understood Isa’s general superiority over him, but Isa refuses on the grounds that the Mahdi is the leader of the men who are present.

It should be noted that certain sections of Shite Muslims, which constitute about 10 to 20 percent of Muslims, [63] do in fact take this passage to mean the Mahdi is superior to Isa. Because of this, I will not state too strongly what Muslims believe about the relationship between Isa and the Mahdi. However, I will say that Richardson and others who tell Christians that Muslims believe Isa is subordinate to the Mahdi are at best only talking about 20 percent of the Muslim population. As we have seen, there are good arguments to support the Sunni position, such as Isa ruling the world after the Mahdi; Isa, not the Mahdi, destroying the Dajjal and Gog-Magog; the contextual evidence that shows the Mahdi offered the prayer to Isa first; and the Quran passages which state that prophets are always superior to non-prophets.

The most important similarity that Richardson makes when talking about the “unholy partnership” is that Isa is subordinate to the Mahdi in the same way the False Prophet is subordinate to the Antichrist. If that premise is called into question—which I very much think it should be—then the rest of this theory about the supposed similarities between Isa and the False Prophet or the Mahdi and the Antichrist is on thin ice .

The next similarity between Isa and the False Prophet, suggested by Richardson, is that both are enforcers of the orders from their leader. In the case of the False Prophet, this is more or less true. The False Prophet institutes the mark of the beast system and carries out its implementation (Revelation 13:16–17). He is also the one who sets up the “image of the beast” which the world is forced to worship (Revelation 13:14–15). Finally, he is clearly doing all these things so the Antichrist, not himself, will be glorified (Revelation 13:12).

It is only when Richardson tries to show that Isa is “the Mahdi’s chief enforcer” that I must disagree. Despite the relevant section in his book being titled “The Muslim Jesus as the Mahdi’s Chief Enforcer,” he doesn’t offer a single argument to prove this. Instead he shows that Isa is an enforcer of Islam in general when he becomes the ruler of the world. For example, he cites that Isa is said to convert Christians to Islam, abolish the Jizya h tax, and judge the world with Islamic law. None of these hadiths suggest that Isa is doing this on behalf of the Mahdi. The Mahdi is said to rule for seven to nineteen years and most, if not all, of these years take place before Isa even shows up. Isa is said to rule for forty years, so it is clear that Isa does not need the Mahdi to help him rule since he is said to be doing so long after the Mahdi is dead.

Richardson’s third point is that both Isa and the False Prophet set up systems that will ultimately lead to the death of those who hold to any other religion. The False Prophet, for example, sets up the mark of the beast system. If people do not receive this mark, they will be executed. Isa, on the other hand, abolishes the Jizya tax that allows non-Muslims to live peacefully with Muslims. Although not expressly stated in the hadiths , it is presumed that this would lead to the death of non-Muslims. I submit that the similarity here is minimal and, in any case, this kind of general similarity is to be expected since the hadith writers, as we have seen, based their Isa on biblical and extra-biblical accounts of the Christian Jesus in the kingdom age. Jesus rules the earth with an “iron rod,” demands religious obedience, [64] pilgrimage, [65] and gifts. [66] He is also said to “slay the wicked” [67] during His earthly reign. If Muslims were simply basing their Isa on the biblical prophecies about Jesus in the kingdom age, such general similarities as the one Richardson proposes here are to be expected.

Richardson’s final attempt to equate Isa with the False Prophet is related to the following verse about the False Prophet in Revelation 13:11:

Richardson argues that because the False Prophet is said to have “two horns like a lamb,” the False Prophet is attempting to imitate Jesus, who is often referred to as “the Lamb.”

I believe the correct way to interpret this passage is in light of Jesus’ warnings about false prophets in Matthew 7:15, which says:

Jesus said that in the last days false prophets would come in sheep’s clothing, but would inwardly be like wolves. In this passage, it seems clear that Jesus is not using the sheep imagery to refer to Himself but to suggest that false prophets would act as though they are meek and harmless like lambs. He is essentially using the sheep imagery the same way He does in many other places in Scripture, [68] in a generic sense, to speak of people who are meek and harmless, like his church.

In Revelation 13:11 it seems that lambs are to be understood in this way (e.g. a meek person), and not a reference to Jesus because the verse goes on to contrast the False Prophet’s looking like a harmless lamb with his dragon-like speech:

This is virtually the same illustration Jesus gave in Matthew 7:15 about false prophets who dress up like sheep but are really wolves. However, in this case, a dragon is used instead of a wolf, which is probably to link the speech of the False Prophet to the satanic (dragon [69] ) doctrine he will be teaching.

The idea that the False Prophet has two horns like a lamb is, therefore, to be understood as him trying to seem like a genuine lamb (a meek and harmless person) because this is the normal number of horns a lamb will grow just after they are weaned. In other words, the concept of having two horns like a lamb is to be connected with the idea of having “sheep’s clothing.” This has been noted in many Bible commentaries, such as theologian Johann Peter Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, Volume 10 :

In addition, I draw the reader’s attention to how Jesus used the term “false prophets” in the Olivet Discourse, which almost certainly has the False Prophet of Revelation 13 in mind :

“Then, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!,’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:23–24)

In this verse Jesus is contrasting the false prophets who show “great signs” (the same Greek phrase John uses to describe the False Prophet’s signs in Revelation 13) with false christs. The fact that Jesus makes a clear distinction between these last-days false christs and false prophets makes it very unlikely that the False Prophet will also be a false christ as Richardson is suggesting. It seems clear Jesus is warning of two distinct types of last-days deceivers and not one deceiver who will be both a false christ and a false prophet.

I will once again suggest that the best way to refute an argument is to offer a more plausible explanation than the one you are attempting to refute. In the case of the False Prophet, I think I have a much better theory than the one proposed by Richardson, one that takes into account all the information the Bible offers about the False Prophet. However, since I am determined to keep my personal views out of the main body of this text, I will include my thoughts on the False Prophet in Appendix 4 .