This summary is an excerpt from Chapter 18 of Joel Richardson’s Study of Biblical and Islamic Eschatology. More info can be found at the article here.
“So in summary we conclude this section with a final review of the many startling similarities that exist between the biblical narrative of the last-days and the Islamic narrative of the same period.
* Bible: The Antichrist is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will that emerge in the last-days.
- Islam: The Mahdi is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will emerge in the last-days.
- Bible: the False Prophet is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days who will support the Antichrist.
- Islam: the Muslim Jesus is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days to support the Mahdi.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet together will have a powerful army that will do great damage to the earth in an effort to subdue every nation and dominate the World.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will have a powerful army that will attempt to control every nation of the earth and dominate the World.
* Bible: The False Prophet is described essentially as a dragon in lamb’s clothing.
- Islam: The Muslim Jesus literally comes bearing the name of the one that the world knows as “The Lamb of God: Jesus Christ.” Yet the Muslim Jesus comes to murder all those who do not submit to Islam.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet establish a New World Order.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus establish a New World Order.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet institute new laws for the whole earth.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus institute Islamic law all over the earth.
- Bible: The Antichrist is said to “change the times.”
- Islam: It is quite certain that if the Mahdi established Islam all over the earth, he would discontinue the use of Saturday and Sunday as the weekend or days of rest but rather Friday, the holy day of Islam. Also, he would most certainly eliminate the Gregorian calendar (A.D.), and replace it with the Islamic calendar (A. H.) as is used in every Islamic country.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will both be powerful religious leaders who will attempt to institute a universal world religion.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will institute Islam as the only religion in the earth.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will execute anyone who does not submit to their world religion.
- Islam: Likewise, the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will execute anyone who does not submit to Islam.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will specifically use beheading as the primary means of execution for non-conformists.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will use the Islamic practice of beheading for executions.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will have a specific agenda to kill as many Jews as possible.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will kill as many Jews as is possible until only a few are left hiding behind rocks and trees.
- Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will attack to conquer and seize Jerusalem.
- Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will attack to re-conquer and seize Jerusalem for Islam.
- Bible: The Antichrist will set himself up in the Jewish temple as his seat of authority.
- Islam: The Mahdi will establish the Islamic Caliphate from Jerusalem.
- Bible: The False Prophet is said to do many miracles to deceive as many as possible into supporting the Antichrist.
- Islam: The Mahdi himself is said to control the weather and the crops. His face is said to glow. We can also assume that since Jesus is viewed as having been empowered by Allah to work miracles when he was here on earth the first time, he will most likely be expected to continue to do so when he returns.
- Bible: The Antichrist is described as riding on a white horse in the Book of Revelation
- Islam: The Mahdi is described as riding on a white horse (ironically from the same verse).
- Bible: The Antichrist is said to make a peace treaty with Israel for seven years.
- Islam: The Mahdi is said to make a peace treaty through a Jew (specifically a Levite) for exactly seven years.
- Bible: Jesus the Jewish Messiah will return to defend the Jews in Israel from a military attack from a vast coalition of nations led by the Antichrist and the False Prophet.
- Islam: The Dajjal, the Islamic Antichrist will gain a great Jewish following and claim to be Jesus Christ and fight against the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus.
- Bible: The antichrist spirit specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.
- Islam: Islam doctrinally and spiritually specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.
- Bible: The primary warning of Jesus and the Apostle Paul was to warn Christians of the abundance of deceit and deception in the last-days.
- Islam: Islam is perhaps the only religion in the earth that practices deceit as one of its tools to assist its own ascendancy. It actually has a specific doctrine which allows and even calls for deception to be used to achieve its desired end.
- Bible: The specific nations pictured in the Bible as being part of the final empire of the Antichrist are all Islamic nations.
- Islam: All Muslims are commanded to give their allegiance to The Mahdi as the final Caliph and Imam (leader) of Islam.
- Bible: From the Bible and History we learn that the final Antichrist empire will be a revived version of the Empire that succeeds the Roman Empire
- Islam: The Empire that succeeded the Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Islamic Ottoman Empire
- Bible: When Antichrist emerges, there will already be some form of system in place that will be poised to receive him as a Savior and to give allegiance to him.
- Islam is already the second largest religion and will at present growth rates become the largest religion within a few decades. Islam is awaiting the coming of the Mahdi with a universal anticipation.”
Richardson has written several books describing “the Islamic Antichrist theory” (including Mideast Beast and The Islamic Antichrist)
and I think he is correct; that the upcoming Antichrist from the Christian Bible will be the end times leader of Islam. In my last full book, Antichrist 2016-2019, I explain how I can see this playing out, along with evidence pointing to a very specific timeline which matches the time frames in the Book of Daniel and places the start of the final 3.5 years of Great Tribulation in June 2016.
As I wrote long ago in an Amazon review:
Although Joel Richardson wrote “The Islamic Antichrist” before “Mideast Beast” I read them in reverse order. I assumed that whatever he had to say on the subject would be best described, with his comments updated and his arguments most refined in his most recent book. But I was so impressed with “Mideast Beast” that I decided to read this earlier book anyway, just in case it had additional insights. I was not disappointed.
I took many pages of notes (as I am still researching as I write my own book on the Antichrist) and while I can not say with certainty that every quote I noted down was new information not found in “Mideast Beast,” what I read in “The Islamic Antichrist” certainly deepened my understanding of Islamic end times expectations. Like the Christian Antichrist, the Muslims’ awaited savior, the Imam Mahdi – will ride a white horse, will have a seven year peace agreement involving Jews and Christians, will be a military, religious, and political leader, will have authority over “all” peoples, and will rule from Jerusalem (as the most revered Caliph in a restored Islamic Caliphate.)
In Christian traditions the Antichrist’s second in command is the False Prophet, who has great powers, performs miracles, and gets many to worship the Antichrist. In Islamic traditions, Jesus is the Mahdi’s second in command; and he comes to defeat the Jews (under the Dajjal, their evil anti-Mahdi) perform miracles, deny that he was crucified or the Son of God, and convert infidels from their Christian apostasy to Islam. So if end times events happen soon, Muslims will look up to their Mahdi as a savior, and Christians will likely see him as the Antichrist. Muslims will claim Jesus has descended in Damascus to convert everyone to Islam; Christians will call him the False Prophet. A leader of Jews will be viewed by Muslims as the Dajjal (the deceiver) but possibly this will be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Christians can assume that Muslims have it all wrong because Satan has arranged their religion as the final great opposition to Christ – and that Islam will be destroyed – while Muslims will hold a reversed opinion. Richardson points out that by a certain point, both religions will not see all their prophetic ducks in a row. Both cannot win the final battles and rule from Jerusalem. At least 1.5 billion people will be very disappointed either way. But he suggests that with enough prophecy fulfilled, followers of any religion will assume they had been wrong about something, and continue in their beliefs to the end regardless. My own research has led me to believe that Richardson is a genius, that his opinions are correct, and that the false religion that wars with Christians in the end times will be Islam. My research also concludes that this will be obvious by June 2016; with the end as we know it in December 2019 as described in my last book. If you are interested in timelines, look up End Times and 2019: The End of the Mayan Calendar and the Countdown to Judgment Day – or Antichrist 2016-2019: Mystery Babylon, Barack Obama & the Islamic Caliphate. If you want to understand the Antichrist and his religion, read books by Richardson.
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