When Islam’s Ka’ba And Solomon’s Temple Unite – OpEd

A Pew Research survey found that 39% of Americans - including 63% of Christian evangelicals - believe humanity is "living in the end times". Yet Prophet Jesus told his disciples not to be alarmed: "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that youare not alarmed, for thismust take place, but the end is not yet.Fornation will rise against nation, andkingdom against kingdom, and there will befamines and earthquakes in various places.All these are but the beginning ofthe birth pains." (Matthew 24:6-8)

The Scrolls of Abraham (Arabic: صحف إبراهيم, Ṣuḥuf Ibrāhīm are referred to by the Qur'an as the oldest of the monotheistic revelations still available: "This is in the Books of the earliest (Revelations) The Books of Abraham and Moses. (Qur'an 87:19) and "Nay, is he not acquainted with what is in the Books of Moses and of Abraham who fulfilled his (duties of) engagements?" (Qur'an 53:36)

The Book of Moses clearly refers to the Torah, and the Book of Abraham might logically refer to the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis 1:1-11:9. If the reference in Qur'an 53:36 to 'Abraham, who fulfilled his (duties of) engagements,' refers to the famous double test of Prophet Abraham and his two sons, then The Scrolls of Abraham would logically be Genesis 1:1-22:19.

Miriam, the Prophetess (Exodus 15:20), the older sister of Prophet Moses, who helped save his life in Egypt, must have told Prophet Moses to include in his Torah, the Ṣuḥuf Ibrāhīm that are referred to by the Qur'an as the oldest of the monotheistic revelations. The Qur'an also refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: "Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists." (16:120)

ProphetIsaiah (2:2) states: "In the days to come, the Mount of the Lord's House shall stand firm above the mountains and tower above the hills; and all the nations will gaze on it with joy 2:3And many peoples shall go and say: "Come, Let us go up to the Mount of the Lord to the House of the God of Jacob; that He (God) may instruct us in His ways, and that we may walk in His paths." (see also Isaiah 56:7; and 60:5-6)

The Greek word Armageddon is a transliteration of the Hebrew har məgiddô which means a mountain near Megiddo, a hilltop fortification built by King Ahab, that dominated the Plain of Jezreel. Har Magedon is the symbol of a battle in which, when the need is greatest and believers are most oppressed, God suddenly reveals His power to distressed peoples and the evil enemies are destroyed.

Armageddon is a warning of humanity's need to change to avoid Armageddon. Because temperatures in the Middle East have risen far faster thanthe world's average in the past three decades. Precipitation has been decreasing, and experts predict droughts will come with greater frequency and severity. And major wildfires in Europe are starting earlier in the year, becoming more frequent, doing more damage and getting harder to stop.

Because the summer of 2024 was the hottest in Europe's recorded history, with the continent suffering blistering heat waves and the worst drought in centuries.

Because the Arctic isheating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to this year's Arctic Report Card, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because; when the sea ice, which is white, thins or disappears, allowing dark ocean or land surfaces to absorb more heat from the sun, it release that energy back into the atmosphere.

In Africa, where 70% of livelihoods rely on nature in some form, the report showed a two-thirds fall inwildlife populations.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam has a powerful eschatological strain. It anticipates the end to the world as we know it; a final historical confrontation between good and evil (Armageddon); after which, with God's help, human life will be rewarded and transformed.

As the Qur'an states: "Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews, Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, and do righteous good deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (2:62 and 5:69) Notice that the Qur'an specifically stresses religious pluralism applies on God's judgment day.

A Pew Research Center poll found that in South and Southeast Asia 55-60% of all Muslims believe in the Madhi's imminent return; and in the Middle East and North Africa 51% do.

A hadith says that Jesus will return to a place east of Damascus and will join forces with the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, in a battle against the false messiah, the one eyed Dajjal, Armilos in Jewish tradition.

As ibn Babuya writes in Thawab ul-A'mal, "The Apostle of God said: `There will come a time for my people when there will remain nothing of the Qur'an except its outward form, and nothing of Islam except its name, and they will call themselves by this name even though they are the people furthest from it. The mosques will be full of people but they will be empty of right guidance.

"The religious leaders (Fuqaha) of that day will be the most evil religious leaders under the heavens; sedition and dissension will go out from them and to them will it return." This sounds, and indeed is, terrible. But, those who trust in God know that the night is coldest in the last hours before sunrise.

Secularists believe that these apocalyptic visions of a future (Armageddon) are absurd, although many secularists themselves fervently believe that runaway AI, genetic modification of food, and/or extreme climate change is going to doom human civilization in future generations.

The basic difference between the pessimistic, humanist secularists and the religious optimists is that those who believe in the God of Abraham also believe that God's inspiration and guidance guarantees that the spiritual forces of good, will overcome all the world's evils at the end of days; and justice, peace and religious pluralism will prevail.

Or as Prophet Micah envisions it: (4:1-5) "In the end of days the mountain of the Lord's Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

"Torah will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. God will judge between many (not all) peoples and will settle disputes among powerful nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughs, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations will walk in the name of their gods, and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever."

Prophet Ezekiel in chapter 38, predicts the war of Gog and Magog which will be a harbinger of the Messianic era. And the midrash anthologyYalkut Shimonion Leviticus 23 lists the rewards in the World to Come that the Jews will earn. One of these rewards is God's protection from the catastrophic Gog and Magog war that will destroy many people of the non-Jewish nations that will culminate in a gathering of former enemy nations at the Jerusalem Temple in harmonious and peaceful worship of God (Yalkut Shimoni on Lev. 23, paragraph 653)

Thus, the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an's final judgement is the self-destruction of violent, hate filled, religion twisted terrorism and narrow 'my way or death' philosophy (Armageddon); and the victory of kindness, love, democracy and religious pluralism.