Seeroos

An interesting article about the Anti-Christ (al-Masih al-Dajjal)'s identity and appearance from an Ahmadi Muslim perspective: http://theartofmisinformation.wordpr.../the-dajjal-2/

I have heard many things but what do the Baha'is believe the Dajjal is?

arthra

There have been a few figures designated as "anti-Christ" in the context of Baha'i history... usually they are people in high authority who are unprincipled and have a deep animosity for the Cause of God or someone who by duplicity and influence has poisoned a mind of an innocent..

We do not believe in Anti-Christ in the sense the Christians do. Anyone who violently and determinedly sought to oppose the Manifestation could be called an "anti-Christ," such as the Vazir in the Báb's day, Haji Mirza Aqasi.

(Shoghi Effendi, High Endeavours - Messages to Alaska, p. 69)

'Siyyid Muhammad', Muhammad-i-Isfahani, the Anti-Christ of the Bahá'í Revelation

(Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah v 4, p. 434)

This Siyyid Muhammad was in his opposition to Baha'u'llah and in his perfidy and duplicity in influencing the younger half-brother Mirza Yahya of Baha'u'llah was considered the anti-christ of the revelation of Baha'u'llah.

The following essay is the opinion of a Baha'i and gives in more detail some of the reasons these figures were so designated:

Muhammad Shah was so posioned by Haji Mirza Aqasi that he often bragged that his tutor could perform miricles and would bid others to observe him. Haji himself was a sufi, a strange cooincidence being that the fortold Dajjal would be a kafir,"unbeleiver". Gobineau goes on to state that the vezir and the Shah cared little about the holy imams and only payed little respect to Ali because of his history with Persian culture and heritage. So one could prove according to the Shi'a traditions that Haji Mirza Aqasi was the Anit-Christ, satan and Dajjal, he fuffilled prophecy in the worst of ways.

Seyyid Muhammad'i Isphani was a Babi. Mirza Yahya position is somewhat unique, he is not refered to as the aformentioned characters at all, The Guardian simply says he was the Arch-Breaker of the Covenant of The Bab. However, Isphani was the "Anti-Christ of the BAHAI REVELATION". Note the differences in sequence, The Babi revelation had its Anti-Christ and now Baha'u'llah and His revelation has its own "opponent(s)". Mirza Yahya was a feeble and easily persuaded character, and surely not a born leader, he was a coward. Isphani influenced him to go against Baha'u'llah. If there was no Aqasi, or Isphani, this 20yr old goes as far as to say that the whole world would be Baha'i by now.

The Dajjal and Anti-Christ manifested in the Bahai age

Seeroos

could you apply this to some of the Ahadith in this regard? id just like to see how

arthra

I was going to also suggest that what made Haji Mirza Aqasi and Siyyid Muhammad mentioned above "Dajjal" or anti-Christ was their opposition to the Manifestation of God. In the case of Haji Mirza Aqasi who was a minister of Muhammad Shah it was influencing the Shah not to meet with the Bab and in the case of Siyyid Muhammad it was influencing Mirza Yahya to oppose Baha'u'llah.

So we Baha'is see this in the historical context of the Revelation of the Bab and Baha'u'llah.

So that's generally how we see the concept. Someone who was opposing the new Manifestation of God.

Hadiths are not generally cited among us Baha'is however you will find references to Hadiths in the Writings. We do have what we call "pilgrim notes" which are what people wrote down when they were on pilgrimage and heard from say the Guardian or Abdul-Baha and while interesting they do not carry any real authority as we use only what was authentically written by say the Baha'u'llah, the Bab, Abdul-Baha or the Guardian..

So unlike Muslims who depend a great deal for say legal structure or various doctrines or maybe beliefs on Hadith traditions we Baha'is generally do not use them... the only Hadiths we accept would be say those cited by the Messenger of God and only in that context.

You may be aware that in Muslim history there were hundreds of thousands of Hadiths that accumulated over time and of these only a portion was collected later by the few known collectors such as Sahih Muslim or Bukhari. We don't have this problem in the Baha'i Faith.

Seeroos

we hold a similar view in fact. i quote myself from the article:

"The Promised Messiahas explains that as Allah is al-Ism al-‘Azam (Greatest Name) of God, al-Masih al-Dajjal is also the Greatest Name of Shaytan (Satan). Therefore the reason behind the name Masih before the name Dajjal (the Great Deceiver) is that at the time of the Dajjal, there would be a heavenly Messiah who would invite humanity towards truth and God’s Light, and at the same time there would be the force of Shaytan or the Dajjal inviting mankind towards misinformation and untruths by way of deception. This shows the reality behind the meaning of the Battle of Armaggedon, which means this would be a final struggle between Light and Darkness, God’s followers and Shaytan’s, Good and Evil. This concept has been established by the conduct and life of every prophet, such as Buddhaas and Jesusas being tempted by Satan but resisting it, or Lao-Tzuas’s explanation of Yin and Yang, the constant struggle between Light and Darkness, in which the struggle is called “Chaos” or Prophet Zoroasteras’s explanation of God being the force of Light (Ahura Mazda) and Satan representing darkness (Ahraman). As Lao-Tzuasexplained, this “chaos” is what is meant by Jihad (struggle) and in this day and age, the Jihad is against the Dajjal by way of the pen (intellectual arguments) which is backed up by the Sayings of the ProphetMuhammadsa himself (scroll down to near the end of this essay).

However, even though this struggle always occurs amongst humans forever, sometimes the force of darkness prevails, and that is when a Prophet is sent to the world. Thus, according to the Promised Messiahas and even the Baghamad-Gita, a Prophet appears whenever there is unrighteousness upon the world. The Promised Messiahas explained that there are eras of a thousand years each, with an era representing Light (the appearance of a Prophet) and the subsequent era representing Darkness (when the Prophet’s teachings were corrupted by his followers). Therefore amongst battles against Darkness, the Battle against Dajjal would be most important as the Prophetsa says that this is the greatest trial since the creation of man until the Day of Judgement. This is the reason behind naming the Dajjal as the Evil Messiah, which denotes the Dajjal as the antithesis and opposite force to the Heavenly Promised Messiah.

The Promised Messiahas in this regard says:

“To be so completely free from all kinds of darkness of the corporeal self, as to become soul incorporeal, is the consummation of self-purification and self-annihilation for the sake of Allah. This is the state of Messiahship (‘Iswiyyah or literally: “Jesushood”) which Allah bestows to perfection upon whomever He pleases.

And the highest stage of Dajjaliyyah, according to:

…he inclined to the earth… (Surah al-A‘raf, Chapter 7, Verse 177)

is that a person becomes progressively more and more inclined towards mundane desires till he falls into the abyss of darkness and becomes darkness itself. He acquires a natural amity with darkness and an innate antagonism to light. The existence ofDajjaliyyah, as opposed to ‘Iswiyyah, is imperative, because opposites can only be recognized by contrast.”[26]

Imam Raghibrh further accepts this view as he says:

“Masih has been named before the name Dajjal as a sign of its great power at the time as a force of evil. Also, it has been reported that the Dajjal’s right eye will not have sight but its left eye will. This means that the Dajjal will be bereft of moral qualities such as spiritual knowledge, and humility, whereas the Promised Messiah will be free of ignorance, avarice, greed and other despicable moral vices of this kind.”

The reason for the Dajjal having “Messiah” in its name could also be due to it accepting a wrong picture of Jesus, the Messiahas being the son of God, as it also states in the Qur’an in relation to the Dajjal (see section about Surah al-Kahf)."

Seeroos

but yes weve taken the Ahadith for face value what they say, but applied them as metaphors describing the Dajjal and Gog and Magog, and discovered that this means the West. and that it shall be destroyed thru exhortation and rational arguments, not killing (another hadith of the Prophet also proves this)

arthra

There is something you should realize in the Baha'i view and that is that there is no evil force in the universe..as say a "being" who is opposing God.. Evil does not have a reality by itself.

So the statement for us in your post above alluding to

"...constant struggle between Light and Darkness"

is more like the following for us:

Briefly, the intellectual realities, such as all the qualities and admirable perfections of man, are purely good, and exist. Evil is simply their nonexistence. So ignorance is the want of knowledge; error is the want of guidance; forgetfulness is the want of memory; stupidity is the want of good sense. All these things have no real existence.

In the same way, the sensible realities are absolutely good, and evil is due to their nonexistence -- that is to say, blindness is the want of sight, deafness is the want of hearing, poverty is the want of wealth, illness is the want of health, death is the want of life, and weakness is the want of strength.

Nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind -- that is, scorpions and serpents are poisonous. Are they good or evil, for they are existing beings? Yes, a scorpion is evil in relation to man; a serpent is evil in relation to man; but in relation to themselves they are not evil, for their poison is their weapon, and by their sting they defend themselves. But as the elements of their poison do not agree with our elements -- that is to say, as there is antagonism between these different elements, therefore, this antagonism is evil; but in reality as regards themselves they are good.

The epitome of this discourse is that it is possible that one thing in relation to another may be evil, and at the same time within the limits of its proper being it may not be evil. Then it is proved that there is no evil in existence; all that God created He created good. This evil is nothingness; so death is the absence of life. When man no longer receives life, he dies. Darkness is the absence of light: when there is no light, there is darkness. Light is an existing thing, but darkness is nonexistent. Wealth is an existing thing, but poverty is nonexisting.

Then it is evident that all evils return to nonexistence. Good exists; evil is nonexistent.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 261

"The reality underlying this is that the evil spirit, Satan or whatever is interpreted as evil, refers to the lower nature of man. This basic nature is symbolized in various ways. In man there are two expressions; One is the expression of nature, the other the expression of the spiritual realm. The world of nature is defective. Look at it clearly, casting aside all superstition and imagination... God has never created an evil spirit; all such ideas and nomenclature are symbols expressing the mere human or earthly nature of man. It is an essential condition of the soil of earth thorns, weeds and fruitless trees may grow from it. Relatively speaking, this is evil: it is simply the lower state and basic product of nature.

('Abdu'l-Bahá: Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 294-295, 1982 ed.)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 512)

"As to the question of evil spirits, demons and monsters, any references made to them in the Holy Books have symbolic meaning. What is currently known among the public is but sheer superstition."

(From a Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: Spiritualism and psychic Phenomena, p. 3)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 512)

Seeroos

That's what I was alluding to as well.

I never meant that darkness is a seperate entity on its own, it's just the absense of light.

And so sin is the absence of good, and Dajjal is the absence of Messiah.