The Islamic Isa and the Dajjal: The Great Inversion

Two Jesuses are coming back to this earth, and in one of the two expectations He comes to destroy the other.

That is no play on words, and it is no exaggeration. Two of the greatest religions in the world both await, emphatically, the return of Jesus. Christians expect Him; Muslims expect Him. They even name the same events: He descends from heaven, He defeats the great deceiver, He brings justice and peace upon the earth. At first glance it almost looks like a meeting point, a bridge between the faiths.

Until you read what that other Jesus comes to do.

The Isa Who Comes to Break the Cross

In the Islamic tradition Isa, Jesus, does indeed return. The traditions paint it with great precision. He descends, his hands on the wings of two angels, by a white minaret east of Damascus. He comes as a Muslim, to establish Islam. And then follows a list of deeds that takes any Christian's breath away, for it is, point for point, the dismantling of everything the gospel turns upon.

He comes to break the cross — yaksiru as-salib, says the famous tradition. The full line stands in the most authoritative collections: "the son of Mary will descend among you as a just judge; he will break the cross, kill the swine, and abolish the jizya" (layanzilanna fikumu bnu maryama hakaman muqsitan, fa-yaksiru s-saliba, wa-yaqtulu l-khinzira, wa-yada'u l-jizyata, Sahih Muslim 155a / Sahih al-Bukhari 3448 — graded sahih, of the highest rank). With his own hands he will smash the symbol of the crucifixion, everywhere, for according to Islam there never was a crucifixion; the cross is a lie that must be set right. He comes to kill the swine. And he comes to abolish the jizya, the tribute tax for the unbelievers — and understand well what that means, for it is the opposite of mildness. The jizya was the price a subjugated Christian or Jew was permitted to pay in order to stay alive. Abolish it, and there remains but one choice: Islam, or death. No third way, no ransom anymore — submission, or the sword at the throat. That is the raw edge of the sahih text itself: with the jizya struck away, the canonical script leaves no middle ground between the faith and the blade. And it is no accident that this is precisely the image with which John sees the martyrs of the end of days: "the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the Word of God" (Revelation 20:4). The beheading — the knife at the throat of whoever refuses to bow — runs like a scarlet thread through the conquest, from the sword of old to the black banners of yesterday. The Isa who comes to break the cross brings, for whoever loves the cross, no peace. He brings the knife. He reigns as a righteous Muslim ruler, he prays behind the Mahdi or at his side, and at the end of his life he dies a natural death and is buried — in a grave that, the tradition says, already lies ready beside that of Muhammad in Medina.

Read that again and let the shudder come. The Jesus that Islam awaits returns to undo precisely that which the Jesus of the Bible came to do. The true Goël came to pay the ransom on the cross; this Isa comes to shatter the cross. The true Goël rose from the grave and lives forever; this Isa returns in order to die after all and be laid in a waiting grave. It is not another version of the same Jesus. It is His mirror image — everything reversed, the sign of life cut out, and what remains comes to erase the original.

The Greatest Deception in History

And understand well: all of this is not meant for Muslims alone. Here lies the serpent in the grass that will devour whole churches. Picture the scene. A figure descends from heaven — visible, radiant, surrounded by signs — and he says: I am Jesus. I have returned, as you always hoped. And then he turns to the Christians and says: you have had it wrong all these centuries. I was never crucified. I am not God's Son. Worship the one God, submit, join the true community.

How many nominal Christians, who scarcely know their Bible and know their Lord only by hearsay, would withstand such a figure? A Jesus out of heaven, clothed in miracles, who leads worship to one God — it will convince not only the Muslim world, but throw millions of Christians into confusion and sweep them along, and probably draw the adherents of other religions into the current as well. This is precisely the time of which Jesus Himself warned emphatically: "False christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24). And Paul: God will send them "a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11). A counterfeit Jesus who tells the Christians that they were mistaken all along — there exists no more cunning deception. It is the masterstroke of the great inversion. This is the time of the great deception.

The Dajjal, the One-Eyed Deceiver

But the story has a second figure, and for this book he is no less important. For before Isa descends, another appears — the one whom he must come to kill. Islam calls him al-Masih ad-Dajjal: the False Messiah, the Great Deceiver. He is the Islamic "antichrist."

He too is described with striking detail. He is blind in one eye; between his eyes, the tradition says, the word kafir is written — unbeliever. He appears in a time of trial, and he is no feeble liar but a power: he claims divinity, he works miracles, he commands a counterfeit paradise and a counterfeit hell, he controls the rain and the food, and with that power he seduces the multitudes. He travels over the whole earth — only Mecca and Medina remain closed to him. And in many traditions he is followed in particular by the Jews. One of them is explicit and numbered: "the Dajjal will be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan, wearing cloaks" (yatba'u d-dajjala min yahudi asbahana sab'una alfan 'alayhimu t-tayalisa, Sahih Muslim 2944 — graded sahih). Here honesty is required in a way that costs something. This antisemitic strand is not only a later, modern overlay; it stands in the canonical, highest-graded text itself. I name it for exactly what it is — a text, a strand within a tradition read here as a system — and never as a judgment upon a people. To see the line clearly is not to hate anyone; it is to refuse to look away. His dominion comes to an end only when Isa descends and kills him, at the gate of Lod, not far from the present airport of Tel Aviv.

A deceiver who claims to be divine, who works miracles, who is followed by the Jews, and who is killed by "Jesus." Hold that profile. Now it is laid beside the Bible, and what then happens you will not soon forget.

The Great Inversion

All of this drives toward one final field. The tradition fixes even the place of the last battle: "the Hour will not come until the Romans land at al-A'maq or at Dabiq" (la taqumu s-sa'atu hatta yanzila r-rumu bil-a'maqi aw bi-dabiq, Sahih Muslim 2897 — graded sahih) — the al-Malhama al-Kubra, the great slaughter, against "Rome." It is the stage on which the whole inversion will be played out.

Lay the two eschatologies side by side — the biblical and the Islamic — and look at who plays which role. This is the heart of the chapter, and it is no rhetorical trick but a sober, testable observation.

In the biblical story there is a Savior: the Son of God, who came, was crucified, rose, and returns to judge and rule the world. And there is an adversary: the antichrist, the counterfeit who gives himself out as God.

In the Islamic story there are also a savior and an adversary. The savior is the Mahdi, together with the returned Isa. And the adversary, the Dajjal, is the one who calls himself divine, works miracles, and is followed by the Jews.

But now look closely at that Dajjal profile, and read it from the other side. A figure who claims to be divine — the biblical Christ says that He is God. A figure who works miracles — Christ worked miracles. A figure who is followed by the Jews — Christ came to the Jews, and the believing remnant of Israel will call upon Him at the end. A figure who returns and is confronted by "Jesus" — in the Islamic script the true, returning Christ is confronted by the Islamic Isa.

Do you see what stands here? The two stories are each other's mirror image. What the one calls the Redeemer, the other calls the Deceiver. The Christ the Bible awaits — God in the flesh, crucified, risen, returning — fits in the Islamic scheme uncannily exactly into the place of the Dajjal. And the figure that Islam awaits as redeemer — the Mahdi with his Isa who breaks the cross — is, read from the Bible, precisely the antichrist.

This is the greatest inversion ever devised. Not a denial of Christ from without, but a perfect exchange of the roles: proclaiming the real Redeemer to be the deceiver, and proclaiming the deceiver to be the redeemer. And the world will, when the two figures appear, stand before the choice of which of the two it believes.

Which Messiah, Which Deceiver?

Picture the unbearable moment. A figure appears who unites the Muslim world, who brings peace where no one could bring peace, who restores the holy place, and at whose side stands a figure who says: I am Jesus, returned. Billions will rejoice: the Awaited One has come. And when then the true Christ returns to break that dominion, the narrative will already lie ready: there is the Dajjal, the deceiver, the antichrist, who gives himself out as God and who has the Jews behind him. Do not bow to him — kill him.

Do you understand now why this book is no luxury? The world will not choose between "faith" and "unbelief." It will choose between two messiahs, who each call the other the antichrist. And in that moment it is not enough to believe in "a" Jesus, or in "peace," or in "God." The question becomes razor-sharp: which Jesus? Which savior? And how, in heaven's name, does a person then still distinguish the original from the mirror?

The Test Is the Wound

Here, thank God, is the answer. And it is so simple that a child can see it, and so deep that hell cannot counterfeit it.

You know the true Redeemer by His wounds.

For mark the one difference that decides everything. The Islamic Isa returns to break the cross — for in that story there never was a crucifixion, there are no wounds, no price was paid. But the Christ of the Bible returns with the scars still in His hands. When He first rose, He showed them: "Behold My hands and My feet [...] a spirit does not have flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39). He let Thomas lay his finger in the wound. And when He returns, the prophet says, Israel will behold Him: "They will look on Me whom they have pierced" (Zechariah 12:10). And if anyone asks about the scars in His hands, the answer runs: "Those are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of those who loved Me" (Zechariah 13:6). Even to the last vision, in the center of the throne, He stands there — "a Lamb, standing as though it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). The Risen One bears forever the marks of the price.

There lies the test, and it is infallible. The one figure comes to shatter the cross; the other comes with the wounds of the cross still in His body. The one erases the blood; the other bears it forever. And since the blood — do you remember the second chapter? — is the whole price of the redemption, that decides everything. The savior without wounds is the counterfeit. The Redeemer with the wounds is the Goël.

Let nothing else, therefore, lead you astray. Not power, for the Dajjal has power. Not miracles, for the deceiver works signs and wonders, "so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24). Not peace, for the counterfeit comes precisely with peace. All those things can be counterfeited. One thing cannot be counterfeited: the scars of a love that truly went down into death and came back out of it.

Look at the Hands

Here, then, is where this chapter brings you, and hold it fast until the day it matters.

There is coming a time when two redeemers will be proclaimed over the earth, and each of the two will call the other the antichrist. Half the world will worship the one; the other half will be in confusion. And in that deafening din you will have to do one thing, and only one thing.

Look at the hands.

The figure who unites the world and restores the holy place and says that he is the peace — look whether his hands bear the marks. They will not bear them, for he has come to break the cross, not to hang on it. And the Other, who returns on the clouds while every eye sees Him — look at His hands, and you will see the wounds, and you will know, with a certainty that no army and no miracle can take from you: this is He. This is my Goël. These are the hands that were pierced for me.

The counterfeit comes to strike the cross away. The true One comes, and bears it forever in His body — as the only credential heaven has ever issued, and which hell has never been able to counterfeit.