This prophecy comes from hadiths, or sayings, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, a literature that is regarded as less definitive than the Quran, but is still influential in shaping Islamic doctrine. According to certain hadiths, the apocalypse will come in stages. In the first, the world will be filled with injustice, and Muslims will be oppressed. Then two saviors will arise: “the awaited one,” or Mahdi, a divinely guided caliph who will unite and empower Muslims, followed by a bygone prophet who will come back to earth to support the Mahdi and defeat evil. This prophet will not be Muhammad, as one could have expected, but Jesus, praised in the Quran as the Messiah and the “Word of God.”
Many Christians also await the Second Coming of Jesus, so this might sound to them like good news. But Islamic literature seems to suggest that Jesus will return to abolish Christianity and confirm the truth of Islam. A much-quoted hadith, to which the Dabiq headline was alluding, says, “The Son of Mary will soon descend among you as a just ruler; he will break the cross and kill the swine.” The usual interpretation of this prophecy is that when Jesus comes back, he will put an end to his own worship, symbolized by the cross, and re-establish the dietary laws that Christianity abandoned but Jews and Muslims still observe.
Not every Muslim believes such apocalyptic prophecies, most of which don’t exist in the Quran. Most of those who believe in them would also not have any sympathy for the ferocious, brutal Islamic State. Yet Islamic apocalypticism is still a powerful force. According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, half of Muslims or more in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is “imminent,” and could happen in their lifetime. The Islamic State just goes further by claiming that it is bringing the prophecies to life.
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