Re: In the discerning of truth from falsehood
Peace Sister Dushwari and Bro USResident
Please let not the constructs of language define for you what the second coming is. According to the core beliefs of Muslims it is a truth a direct prophesy with no allusions to metaphor.
Jesus (AS) is alive and is due to return and there are different reasons why this can be seen as the case.
The argument being presented here is not of how but rather of what is needed to be able to see it when it does arrive.
The very first thing is to know what we are looking for. This will require ground work. It can even be considered a duty for us today to clue up ourselves regarding the second coming. Then the raising of arguments is not performed in a vacuum.
One link I have stumbled across is the link of the beads of sweat that perspired like blood dripping from the forehead of Isa (AS) when in the Bible it talks about his prayer for his 'cup' to be taken. That he didn't want to be killed. A reference to him returning in the same state that he went. And in the hadith that his hair would be lank (oil wet) upon his arrival. It not only links the hadith with the Biblical reference to the image of Christ (AS) but also indicates that soon after this prayer was the true time when the Ascension took place, prior to the arrest on the Mount of Olives.
We need to know who we are talking about if we want to be able to recognise Isa (AS) today in this age of lies. (Propaganda machine)
Now comes the Bin Laden issue. That this 'phantom' represents all that is religious within Islam according to the magic of the media forcing the dichotomy of thoughts and beliefs. For the Muslim who is instructed to question the disbelievers do we go the extra mile and question the 'phantom's that these disbelievers have created for us? Bin Laden is their strawman, not the man, but the concept.
Just as we cannot possibly call Bin Laden a terrorist we also cannot possibly say anything else about the man. The reason being is that we do not know him. Those who claim otherwise are the people deserving of interrogation and analysis. How can they know him when the world are searching for him. But can anyone ever find a 'phantom'?
We cannot live upon a concept of Bin Laden any more than a conceptual second coming. There are things to occur that will occur before our eyes and that will be a time to wait for. Those who have lost hope find comfort in analogies that is what happened to the supporters of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, to this day they say to me .... in taunt ... "you wait for the Mahdi ... for us he has already come". But when we see the hadith manifesting before us there will be an eyebrow or two raised.
Only when people lose hope, a time when he will be least expected, is when Mahdi will be sighted and soon after Isa (AS) too will be sighted.
There is one hadith that points to the fact that these are the times or at least they are now possible. The hadith that refers to the battlefield that will be so fierce that a bird will not be able to fly from one end to other without being killed. The only way this can happen is when there are large scale weapons of mass destruction in use. Think long and hard about this hadith and there are more ... like the mountains of gold around the Euphrates. Black gold is the major reason why people are dying in that region today.
About the idea that prophets were rejected, will Isa (AS) be rejected, we are rejecting Bin Laden ... what if he is a good man? ... This is all aimless talk. If we know our hadiths regarding Isa (AS) there will be no choice in the matter people wil become Muslim upon the reach of his breath and upon the horizons of his vision. He will arive to combat the nemesis of the age, which will be lies and confusion, how better a way to do this than to bypass the process of debate and discussion? We have had long enough to discuss soon will come a time when choice will be overrun by power of miracle.
If knowing Bin Laden for being a good man is important to us, then all will be revealed in good time, possibly in the life of humanity, but most certainly in the Aakhira. If his mission if he is still alive serves a reason for us, then we need to make sure that we know him in person. If you cannot claim this then we need to be aware of those who do claim this. That their motives are not led by a concept to counteract the concepts of the West.
Bin Laden is the representative that they (enemies of Islam) have given to all who oppose their views.
The radical elements agree with them and assume him by painting Bin Laden on their T-Shirts (metaphor)
Can people see this happening???
