Al-Masih ad-Dajjal: The False Messiah of Islamic Eschatology

The Prophet Muhammad warned his followers in Medina during the seventh century about the imminent appearance of Al-Masih ad-Dajjal, the great impostor and false messiah who will dominate the Earth before the Day of Resurrection. According to the records of Islamic tradition, this figure is a man with curly hair, blind in his right eye, and with the word *Kafir* (disbeliever) written on his forehead, whose sole objective is to mislead humanity through illusory miracles.

Islamic eschatology teaches that the arrival of the Dajjal constitutes the greatest trial of faith (*fitnah*) that humanity will face since the creation of Adam. His appearance will unleash a period of extreme drought, famine, and social chaos, where the impostor will offer food and resources in exchange for being worshiped as a god.

The Deceiver's Advance Upon the Earth

According to the compilations of the Prophet's sayings (Hadiths), the Dajjal will emerge from an eastern region between Syria and Iraq, or from the province of Khorasan in Persia, riding a white donkey of gigantic proportions. He will travel at an astonishing speed, covering almost every city on the planet in a period of forty days, of which the first day will seem like a year, the second like a month, the third like a week, and the remaining days will pass normally.

The Dajjal will have the power to perform false miracles to deceive mankind: he will command the sky to rain and the earth to produce instant crops, and he will extract the hidden treasures of the earth, which will follow him like swarms of bees. He will carry with him the representation of a paradisiacal garden and a hellfire; however, tradition warns that his fire is actually cool water and his paradise is the fire of punishment.

Two places will be strictly forbidden to him: the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. When the Dajjal attempts to enter them, he will encounter angels guarding the entrances with unsheathed swords, which will trigger earthquakes that will expel the hypocrites from the cities to join his ranks.

The Origin of the Figure in Early Islam

The term *Dajjal* comes from a Semitic root meaning "to deceive" or "to cover with lies." Although the figure is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran, it is extensively developed in the Hadiths compiled by scholars such as Al-Bukhari and Muslim in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The consolidation of this figure in the Islamic imagination served to unite the community against the internal political and religious schisms that arose after the death of Muhammad. The Dajjal represented the personification of falsehood and social disorder, a reminder of the need to maintain orthodoxy and spiritual unity in the face of the caliphate's crises of legitimacy.

Modern Interpretations of the Single Eye

Over the centuries, the understanding of the Dajjal evolved from a strictly literal interpretation toward symbolic and sociopolitical readings. During the twentieth century, reformist thinkers and contemporary Islamic theologians proposed that the Dajjal is not a physical individual, but rather a symbol of the Western materialistic system and cultural colonialism.

Under this reading, the Dajjal's "single eye" represents the purely materialistic and scientific worldview of the modern world, which lacks the eye of spiritual vision. The miracles he performs, such as weather manipulation, the creation of artificial abundance, and rapid transport, are equated with technological development, mass media, and global capitalism—elements that seduce societies and lead them away from religious faith.

The Defeat at the Gates of Ludd

Islamic tradition asserts that the reign of the Dajjal will come to an abrupt end with the descent of the prophet Isa (Jesus) to Earth. Jesus will descend from heaven resting his hands on the shoulders of two angels by the white minaret of the mosque of Damascus.

Jesus will pursue the Dajjal throughout the region until cornering him at the gates of Ludd (a town located in the present-day coastal plain of Israel). Upon seeing Jesus, the Dajjal will begin to dissolve like salt in water, at which point Jesus will execute him with his lance, freeing humanity from the greatest deception in its history and restoring justice on Earth.