The End Times: Islam vs. the Bible, Part 6a: Revisiting the Mahdi

The End Times: Islam vs. the Bible, Part 6a: Revisiting the Mahdi
Monday, June 23, 2025 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare / The church / Thought for Today

What are we to make of Islam’s teachings about the end-times; the end-times prior to the Day of Judgment?

Several things come to mind.

First, many of the Islamic “great tribulation” events read like plagiarized Scripture, with numerous twists. From the Islamic Antichrist, the Dajjal, to Yajooj and Majooj, the extreme warfare where at least one-third of the people on the earth are killed by war, to the droughts and the way vegetation dies, to gross unrepentant immorality, similarities abound.

Two things in stand out: the Islamic Mahdi and the Islamic version of Jesus, Eesa.

Do they remind us of any individuals that Scripture speaks of when it comes to the end-times?

As a biblical antichrist, the Dajjal is kind of a sideshow. His offers are tempting, but with “disbeliever” stamped on his forehead, no Muslims will be fooled. He is also killed relatively straight away by Eesa (another biblical plagiarism).

But, what about the Mahdi? He reigns for seven years (according to most hadiths), and he spends most of those seven years warring against all remaining Christians and Jews, as well as all other non-Muslims. Indeed, Shiites insist that his coming involves much war and bloodshed; such war and bloodshed are inevitable. He sets up a one-world, global government in Jerusalem, and is responsible for creating a time of great prosperity, but prosperity under his control, prosperity strictly tied to Islam and Sharia law.

Due to his charisma, Islam maintains that many Jews, Christians, and possibly even atheists will be attracted to him: both in terms of spirituality, via his miracles, and in regards to science due to his vast knowledge (humanity will have known of two parts of knowledge, the Mahdi will reveal another twenty-five).

One of the most intriguing passages in Scripture about the Antichrist, one not often talked about, is Daniel 11:37–38 (NAU): “He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the desire of women, nor will he show regard for any other god; for he will magnify himself above them all. But instead he will honor a god of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; he will honor him with gold, silver, costly stones and treasures.”

Islam proclaims that it is Allah’s final revelation, that it replaces all that has gone before it, even the religions of the “People of the Book,” meaning Judaism and Christianity, but later expanded to include Zoroastrians, and Hindus (though pagan by definition, killing them all off proved impractical). Considering all other religions, have any worshiped fortresses like Islam? Allah requires perpetual jihad, not meaning the sanitized “personal struggle” we hear so often about in the West, but ongoing fighting against the “Dar al-Harb,” the “House of War.”

What does Scripture say about the Antichris’s actions? Among other things, he kills all the saints, sets up a one-world government, makes it impossible for people to participate in his economic system without his mark, and so forth.

One surah often quoted is 9:29, from the final chapter given by Gabriel to the Prophet: “Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute [jizya] readily, being brought low.” (Pickthall) Several other surahs as well as hadiths regarding jihad could be cited. Remember, the worst sin, shirk, that one can commit in Islam is to say Allah has partners, or has begotten a son, in other words, to insist that Jesus is God. Believing that is forbidden, unforgivable, and lands all who hold to it in the Hellfire.

God has not revealed who the Antichrist is, and the Church has speculated on that topic throughout its existence. Nero, for understandable reasons, was one of the first candidates. However, the point is this: how Islam describes the Mahdi lines up with much of what the Bible has to say about the Antichrist.

In the next post we will take a closer look at the Islamic Eesa and his actions.

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