The Meaning of Dajjāl

Another major sign is the Dajjāl. There is a passage worth reading here, written in the last century but taken out of classical Arabic books, about the Antichrist.

The word in Arabic is from dajjala. It means to smear a camel with tar — in other words, covering the whole body with tar, smearing the part that is mangy or scabby. So it has the idea of hiding illness or sickness, covering it over, covering it over with a black pitch. To lie. To conceal truth with falsehood, concealing the truth. He enchanted or fascinated — so the idea that the Antichrist is an enchanter or a fascinator, that people are fascinated by him. He compressed; he traversed the regions or tracts of the earth or land.

Now, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that the Dajjāl would enter every city on the planet. When they asked him what his speed would be like, he said: like a wind that leaves a cloud in its trail. It literally means like a wind that leaves a cloud in its trail. And in another tradition he said that he would ride a white donkey made of iron, the span between whose two ears was forty cubits — baghlatun min ḥadīd, the hadith says.

And then it says: to confuse, to mix things. Having one eye.