Mahdi, Messiahs Plus A Fast Melting Planet – OpEd
Tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes and typhoons in other parts of the world, have caused huge damage in many places recently. The United States has been hit byHurricane Milton, within two weeks of Hurricane Helene. Climate change made their impacts much worse.
Ex-president Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle the Biden administration's "green new scam" in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He vowed to boost production of fossil fuels; oil, natural gas and coal, and repeal key parts of the Biden 2022 climate law.
During his first term in office, Trump dismantled much of the groundwork laid by his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump rolled back nearly 100 different environmental rules and regulations on air pollution, carbon emissions and toxic substances.
When voters go to the polls on 5 November, they'll likely be locking in four years of vastly different climate change policy. Don't forget the summer 2024 was Planet Earth's hottest on record. Phoenix climbed over a scorching 110 degrees on 80 days in 2024 -- shattering last year's record of 55 days of temperatures over 110 degrees. Trump will make life hot, not cool.
But even more dangerous is that scientists using ice-breaking ships and underwater robots have foundthe Thwaites Glacierin Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse, spellingcatastrophefor globalsea level rise. Thwaites holds enough water to increase sea levels by more than 2 feet and its collapse could ultimately lead to an 8-10 feet of sea level rise, devastating coastal communities from Miami and London to Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands.
New heat records come amid 13 months in a row of record-breaking temperatures on Earth; not just over land,but in the oceans too. Before 2023, the record highest temperature was 16.8 °C, set in August 2016. Since mid-2023, the planet has broken that 2016 threshold 58 times.
Jews and Muslims must concentrate on the challenges facing our world. Both Islam and Judaism teach their followers to take care of the earth. Muslims and Jews also believe that humans should act as guardians and trustees (stewardshipand khalifah) off our planet, and that they will be held accountable by God for their actions.
If humans will not reduce man made carbon magnification, not even the coming of Mahdi and Messiahs may be able to overcome human unwillingness to reverse human pollution. God demands that humans fulfill their God given responsibilities.
Meanwhile, in human societies corruption heats up and self-centeredness increases. In France an estimated 216,000 children were victims of sex abuse by some 3,000 people — two-thirds of them priests —within France's Catholic Church over the past 70 years, according to a major reckoning of clerical sex abuse covered up by Catholic authorities.
The total economic losses caused by natural disasters hit an estimated $72 billion in the first half of 2022, fueled by storms and floods, Swiss reinsurance giant Swiss Re estimated. And according to a 2020 Oxfam report, the richest 10% of the global population produce half of the Earth's fossil-fuel emissions, while the poorest half contribute a mere 10%.
And for the first time in two decades, there are now more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world according to the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem Institute) at the University of Gothenburg. The democratic melting decline has taken place globally, and an increasing number of people are living in closed autocracies.
The level ofdemocracyenjoyed by the average world citizen in 2022 is back to 1986 levels. This means that 72 percent of the world's population, 5.7 billion people, now live under authoritarian rule. Liberal democracies do not automatically overcome autocracies. Democracies must be supported and defended.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam has a powerful eschatological strand. Islam anticipates the end to the world as we know it, a final historical confrontation between the forces of good and evil; after which human life will be transformed in a positive way.
Many Islamic traditions (Ahadith) say that Prophet Jesus, will return and will join forces with the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, in a battle against a false messiah, the cruel one eyed Dajjal, called Armilos in Jewish tradition. Now would be a good time for one or more Messianic figures to get to work.
What does the Muslim Mahdi do? Shortly before the Day of Judgment, when commanded by God, al-Mahdi will return to lead the forces of righteousness against the forces of evil in an apocalyptic war that would ultimately establish peace and justice on earth, according to Shia believers. "He will fill the earth with equity and justice, and will rule for seven years." (Abu Dawud)
How does the Jewish Messiah fit in with this? Most Orthodox Jews would not commit themselves to any individual as a Messiah unless he successfully rebuilds the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecy of Zachariah, "He shall build the Temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, he shall sit on the throne and rule, there shall be a priest before the throne, and peaceful counsel will exist between both of them." (6:13)
But Prophet Zechariah also envisions a future time when God helps humans establish worldwide peace. All the nations in the world then may travel to Makkah and Jerusalem to worship God in peace.
It is important for Muslims to realize that during this prophesied future Hajj Sukkot, the future city of Jerusalem (without a physically rebuilt Temple) will welcome both Jews and non-Jews, just as it did in the days when Prophet David (before King Solomon built the Temple) wrote in his Zabur: "I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let us go up to the house of the LORD...There the (12) tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord." (Psalm 122:1-4)
Orthodox Jews still pray for the ancient Temple to be rebuilt. But the more numerous Reform Jews stopped doing that two centuries ago. The place is holy; not the building, think the great majority of Jews today who are not Orthodox Jews.
And Prophet Zechariah even includes those who were previously Israel's enemies: "Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem, will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate Hajj Sukkot." (Zechariah 14:16)
Just as the Kaa'ba has always welcomed all Muslims who answer the call: "Call upon the people for Hajj. They will come to you on their bare feet, or riding any weak camel, and they come to you from every far desert. (Qur'an 22:27).
But a Muslim shrine, called The Dome of the Rock, as well as a mosque, the Masjid al-Aqsa, stand on the Temple Mount presently. The Dome of the Rock is regarded by Muslims as the third holiest site in the world. Any attempt to replace it or the Masjid al-Aqsa would provoke Muslims to a war of cataclysmic proportions.
But a three dimensional virtual reality Jewish broadcast station could be built adjacent to the Dome of the Rock some 650 feet away from the Masjid al-Aqsa provided Muslims would cooperate.
As a Reform Rabbi who believes that the world wide upheavals we see are part of the birth pains of the Messianic Age, I offer Christians and Muslims some more positive insights from the Jewish Prophets and the Rabbinic Sages.
Many millions of Jews, Christians and Muslims believe the wars of GogandMagog(Gogu-Magog in Hebrew and "Yajuj and Majuj" in Arabic) which started in the 18th to 20th centuries will come to an end in the 21st century.
It is true that human society changed more rapidly, violently and fundamentally in the last 250 years than ever before in history. Doctors saved the lives of millions. Dictators sacrificed the lives of millions. Populations are exploding in Africa and populations are declining in Europe. Technology produces both worldwide prosperity and worldwide pollution at the same time.
Should we look upon the future with optimistic hope or with fatalistic trepidation?Is the world and our society heading towards a wonder-filled new age, or toward a doomsday? Or are both occurring almost concurrently because breakdown is always a prelude to breakthrough?
Jews, whose Biblical prophets were the ones who first wrote about a future Messianic Age, recognize that the birth of a Messianic Age must be preceded by its birth-pangs. But the prophets of Israel also emphasize the glories of a future world living in peace and prosperity with justice for all.
Ancient Jewish prophecies did proclaim that there would be an end to the world as we know it.But they did not prophesy that the world will come to an end, nor did the Prophets of Israel offer an exact date for the transition.
The exact advent of the Messianic Age is not knowable because humans have free will and thus the exact time and manner of redemption cannot be determined in advance. Much depends on what we humans do.
The beginning of the Messianic Age is a time of transition from one World Age into another. How we move through this transition, either with resistance or acceptance, will determine whether the transformation will happen through cataclysmic changes or by a gradual reform of human society; which will lead to a world filled with peace, prosperity and spiritual tranquility.
The Prophets of Israel conceived redemption as a transformation of human society that would occur through the catalyst of the Jewish community.This transformation, which will take place in this world at some future time, is called the Messianic Age.
The transition to the Messianic Age is called the birth pangs of the Messiah.The birth of a redeemed Messianic world may be the result of an easy or difficult labor. If everyone would simply live according to the moral teachings of his or her religious tradition, we would ourselves have helped bring about the Messianic Age.
But, if we will not do it voluntarily, it will come about through social and political upheavals, worldwide conflicts and generation gaps and most obvious of all climate change which will affect both nature and the economy-society. The Messiah (Mahdi) refers to one or more human agents of God who help bring about a non-destruction positive transformation.
The Jewish tradition teaches that this agent of God (together with several forerunners and many disciples) will be a human being, a descendant of Prophets Abraham and David, with great qualities of national leadership similar to Prophets Moses and Mohammed.
The arrival of the Messianic Age is what's really important, not the personality of the agents who bring it about, since they are simply the instruments of God, who ultimately is the real Redeemer.
The Islamic 1400s we are now living in, is the age of the coming of Hazrat Mahdi. Prophet Jesus will also return to Earth in this century. As Prophet Micah states: "In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; and exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.
"The Torah will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we (Jews, Christians and Muslims) will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever." (Prophet Micah 4:1-5)
One of the signs of the End of Days is the arrival and defeat of Gog and Magog (Ya'juj and Ma'juj or Ajuj and Majuj). Gog and Magog appear in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Islamic Quran as individuals, tribes, countries and catastrophic acts of nature.
The Quran mentions Gog and Magog twice: "He said: "This (barrier) is a mercy from my Lord: but when the warning of my Lord comes to pass, He will reduce it to dust (and Gog and Magog—the Colonialist Empires, the Nazis, and the Communists would be released into the world); and the promise of my Lord is true." (18:98) So Gog and Magog are destructive groups like the Colonialist Empires, the Nazis, and the Communists, who near the time of the end of days will penetrate into every part of the world.
The other mention of Gog and Magog in the Quran is: "But there is a ban on a town which We have destroyed: that they (the people of the town) shall not return (to reclaim that town as their own); until Gog and Magog are let through (the barrier), and swiftly spread out in every direction." (21:95-96)
This verse refers to Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, and only reclaimed 18 centuries later as Israel's capital, following the era of the defeat of the Nazis, the Communists, and the Colonialist Empires, who had been Gog and Magog for generations.
Thus, humanity has so far passed through the most devastating era of human history. However, we have not yet reached the goal of the Messianic Age when "They (all nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken." (Prophet Micah 4:2-4)
As the Qur'an states: "'Believers, be steadfast in the cause of God and bear witness with justice. Do not let your enmity for others turn you away from justice. Deal justly; that is nearest to being God-fearing." (5:8)
This era will come about when Israelis and Palestinians make a long lasting two state partnership of peace; thus fulfilling the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: "In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.On thatdayIsrael will joina three-party alliance with Egyptand Assyria,a blessing uponthe heart.The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, "Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance."... (Isaiah 19:23-5)