The First Sign of the End

So, the idea is that time is coming to an end. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), according to his tradition, is the first sign of the end: his coming was the first sign of the end of time. That is how the Muslims view that.

According to the Muslims, all religious traditions have told about the end of time. There is a hadith in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that no prophet has come except that he told his people that time would come to an end, and that there would be certain signs. So there is, in the Christian tradition, the account of the end of time: one will hear that there will be famines and earthquakes in many places, and that you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. That is very interesting too, especially with modern CNN and all of this, which is a type of just talking about wars, and also about potential things. And then there is the book of Revelation, which deals also with the phenomenon of the end of time.

Very many Christians write about this: in Christian bookshops there are so many books on the end of time, really a lot of books. And as the millennium approaches there will be more and more of this. One can start to see it — one knows when the publishers get greedy, when they start publishing these kinds of books, because some of them are way out there. The most famous is Hal Lindsey, and he has to revive his books every ten years, because he identifies, say one year, Kissinger as the Antichrist; but Kissinger is not around any more, so he has to revive it every so often. They are literally trying to take the Bible and apply it to immediate events.

There is actually a television programme in some states with a man like a newscaster, with his wife, and, unbelievably, every event: oh, well, there is Daniel 3:14 — you see, Daniel says that this will happen, and this will happen, and there you have it. Look, is that not wonderful? The Iraqis are being bombed, just like the Bible said. It is so wonderful. It is really interesting to watch these characters. But they are out there, and people tune in and get very interested. And then the National Enquirer has its own version too, and The Globe: the end of time is coming. So it has almost become comical — the man with the placard, the end is nigh.

There really is a lot of craziness. And traditionally the Muslims have seen this in virtually every book, whether from the third, fourth, fifth or sixth century: they say, well, all the signs are there, the end is nigh. The idea being that in reality the end of time is the end of our lives. That is the ultimate end of time: that we will die. And so that is an end of time. But there is also an end of human time.

Within the tradition, the most definitive hadith about it — and also the most wonderful — is that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that if the end of time comes upon you and you are planting a tree, then finish planting it. In other words, do not become millenarians. Do not become people who run off. No: do what you are doing. Keep working. Keep doing it. If it happens, it happens, and you happen to be there when it happens. But do not let that stop you from action.