Working A Mahdi-Messianic Era Or Hell’s Hot Climate Disaster – OpEd

Our planet has entered a ‘new reality’ as it hits its first climate tipping point. Humans have pushed up temperatures so far they risk triggering a series of climate ‘tipping points,’ which would bring catastrophic changes and could be irreversible on human timescales. First in a series of catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate tipping points is the widespread death of coral reefs, according to a landmark report produced by 160 scientists across the world.

As humans burn fossil fuels and ratchet up temperatures, it’s already driving more severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires. But there are even bigger impacts on the horizon. Climate change may also be pushing Earth’s crucial systems — from the Amazon rainforest to polar ice sheets — so far out of balance they collapse, sending catastrophic ripples across the planet.

In three decades of COP meetings aimed at forging global consensus on how to prevent and deal with global warming, this will go down as among the most divisive. Many countries were livid when COP30 in Brazil ended with no mention of the fossil fuels heating up the atmosphere.

A nationwide analysis has just uncovered how sprawling fossil fuel infrastructure sits very close to millions of American homes. So 46.6 million people live within about a mile of wells, refineries, pipelines, storage sites, or transport facilities. Many of these locations release pollutants that affect nearby communities, yet mid-supply-chain sites are rarely studied.

Most alarming is the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a crucial network of ocean currents. This would have catastrophic global consequences, pushing parts of the world into a deep freeze, heating up others, disrupting monsoon seasons and rising sea levels.

The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea. Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66% likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at least one whole year between now and 2027, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in May. 

A warming world is transforming some major snow falls into extreme rain over mountains instead, thus worsening both dangerous flooding like what devastated Pakistan last year, as well as long-term water shortages, a new study found. 

Using rain and snow measurements since 1950 and computer simulations for future climate, scientists calculated that for every degree Fahrenheit the world warms, extreme rainfall at higher elevation increases by 8.3% (15% for every degree Celsius), according to Mohammed Ombadi, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory hydrologist and climate scientist in the journal Nature.

Since 1992, global temperatures have increased on average almost 1.1°F (0.6°C), shattering the annual high-temperature record eight times, resulting in extreme weather disasters. Worldwide there have been nearly 8,000 climate, water and weather disasters, killing 563,735, according to the EMDAT disaster database. 

And sperm quality appears to be declining around the world, reported the BBC on the 27th of March 2023. Male infertility contributes to approximately half of all cases of infertility and affects 7% of the whole male population.

Insects pollinate more than 80% of plants and are a major source of food for thousands of vertebrate species—but insect populations are collapsing all around the globe, and they continue to be overlooked by conservation efforts.

And the rate of ground-breaking scientific discoveries and technological innovation is slowing down despite an ever-growing amount of scientific knowledge, according to an analysis of 45 million scientific research papers and patents seeking disruptive discoveries that “break away from existing ideas” and “push the whole scientific field into new territory.” according to results published in the journal Nature.

For Muslims, who especially during Ramadan despair about the terrible state of the modern world, Allah has revealed that prior scriptures were guides for the societies to which they were sent: “He has sent down the Book to you with truth, confirming what was there before it. And He sent down the Torah and the Gospel, previously, as guidance for mankind.” (Qur’an 2:3-4) 

“Allah reveals this in another verse about the Torah: “We sent down the Torah containing guidance and light, and the Prophets who had submitted themselves gave judgment by it for the Jews–as did their scholars and their rabbis–by what they had been allowed to preserve of Allah’s Book to which they were witnesses. (Qur’an 5:44) For that reason, Muslims can find in this book, the passages relating the End Times from the Torah and the Gospels as well as the Qur’an.”

“The subject of the Mahdi” has occupied an important place in the Islamic world. Hoping that Hazrat Mahdi will be instrumental in making the afflictions Muslims suffer, the intellectual systems based on denial, unfair and unjust practices, conflicts and wars pervading the world will come to an end, believers have always awaited the coming of this blessed individual in their own times.” 

“To every people [is given] a Law Giver [rasul]: when their Law Giver comes [to them] the matter will be judged between them with justice and they will not be wronged.” (Qur’an 10:47) Expanding on this verse, Shi’ite hadiths explicitly say that the Mahdi in the End of Days will judge the Jews by the shari’a of the Torah, judge Muslims by the shari’a of the Qur’an, and judge Christians by the shari’a of the Gospel. 

As a Reform Rabbi who also believes that the world wide upheavals we see are part of the birth pains of the Messianic Age, I offer Muslims some insights from the Jewish Prophets and Rabbinic Sages. Many Jews, Christians and Muslims believe the war of Gog and Magog  (Gog u-Magog in Hebrew and “Yajuj and Majuj” in Arabic) is coming in the 21st century. 

It is true that human society changed more rapidly, violently and fundamentally in the last 150 years than ever before in history. Doctors saved the lives of millions. Dictators sacrificed the lives of millions. Populations are exploding in Africa and populations are declining in Europe. Technology produces both worldwide prosperity and worldwide pollution at the same time.  

Should we look upon the future with optimistic hope or with fatalistic trepidation?  Is the world and our society heading towards a wonder-filled new age, or toward a doomsday? Or are both occurring almost concurrently because breakdown is always a prelude to breakthrough?

Jews, whose Biblical prophets were the ones who first wrote about a future Messianic Age, recognize that the birth of a Messianic Age must be preceded by its birth-pangs. But the prophets of Israel also emphasize the glories of a future world living in peace and prosperity with justice for all. 

Ancient Jewish prophecies did proclaim that there would be an end to the world as we know it. But they did not prophesy that the world will come to an end, nor did the Prophets of Israel offer an exact date for the transition. The exact advent of the Messianic Age is not knowable because humans have free will and thus the exact time and manner of redemption cannot be determined in advance. Much depends on what we humans do. 

The beginning of the Messianic Age is a time of transition from one World Age into another. How we move through this transition, either with resistance or acceptance, will determine whether the transformation will happen through cataclysmic changes or by a gradual reform of human society; which will lead to a world filled with peace, prosperity and spiritual tranquility.  

The Prophets of Israel conceived redemption as a transformation of human society that would occur through the catalyst of the Jewish community. 

This transformation, which will take place in this world at some future time, is called the Messianic Age. The transition to the Messianic Age is called the birth pangs of the Messiah. The birth of a redeemed Messianic world may be the result of an easy or difficult labor.  If everyone would simply live according to the moral teachings of his or her religious tradition, we would ourselves have helped bring about the Messianic Age.  

Always remember that God tells us that only on Judgement Day will God tell each person whose religious and theological views are really true. (Qur’an 39: 46)  “Say, “O Allah, Creator of heavens and earth, Knower of the unseen and the witnessed, You will judge between your servants concerning that over which they used to differ.” 

And the Qur’an  states: “Then to your Lord shall you return, and He will inform you of that over which you differed.” (Qur’an 6:164) As the Qur’an 32:25 states: “Indeed, your Lord will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they used to differ.”

But, if we do not do it voluntarily, it will come about through social and political upheavals, worldwide conflicts and generation gaps. The Messiah (Mahdi) refers to one or more human agents of God who help bring about this positive transformation.  

The Jewish tradition teaches that this agent of God (together with several forerunners and many disciples) will be a human being, a descendant of Prophets Abraham and David, with great qualities of national leadership similar to Prophet Moses and Prophet Mohammed. The arrival of the Messianic Age is what’s really important, not the personality of the agents who bring it about, since they are simply the instruments of God, who ultimately is the real Redeemer. 

The Islamic 1400s we are now living in, is the age of the coming of Hazrat Mahdi. Prophet Jesus  will also return to Earth in this century, Hazrat Mahdi will appear, and the moral values of Islam will rule the world. As Prophet Micah proclaims: “In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

“The Torah will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we (Jews, Christians and Muslims) will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.” (Prophet Micah 4:1-5) 

And Prophet Malachi states: “See, I will send Prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful [Judgement] day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”(Malachi 4:5-6)

One of the signs of the End of Days is the arrival and defeat of Gog and Magog (Ya’juj and Ma’juj or Ajuj and Majuj). Gog and Magog appear in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Islamic Quran as individuals, tribes, or lands.

The Quran mentions Gog and Magog twice: “He said: “This (barrier) is a mercy from my Lord: but when the warning of my Lord comes to pass, He will reduce it to dust (and Gog and Magog—the Colonialist Empires, the Nazis, and the Communists would be released into the world); and the promise of my Lord is true.” (18:98)  So Gog and Magog are destructive groups like the Colonialist Empires, the Nazis, and the Communists, who near the time of the end of days will penetrate into every part of the world.

And Prophet Ezekiel states: “God says to Gog (of the land of Magog ), “You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a mighty army. You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land.” (38:15–16)

Prophet Joel (2:20) provides further details about the demise of the northern alliance of Iran, Iraq, Syria. Lebanon and most of northern Russia. The Lord promises to repel the northern army and  have the defeated northern army face the east sea (the Dead Sea) and its rear end towards the utmost sea (the Mediterranean Sea): 

“But I will remove far from you (Israel) the northern army, (of  the northern alliance of Iran, Iraq, Syria. Lebanon and most north of all, Russia) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his rear end toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savor shall come up, because he has done great (destructive) things.” (Joel 2:20)

The other mention of Gog and Magog in the Quran is: “But there is a ban on a town which We have destroyed: that they (the people of the town) shall not return (to reclaim that town as their own); until Gog and Magog are let through (the barrier), and swiftly spread out in every direction.” (21:95-96) 

This verse refers to Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, and only reclaimed 18 1/2 centuries later as the State of Israel’s capital, during the era of the defeat of of the Nazis, the Communists, and the Colonialist Empires, who had been Gog and Magog for generations.

Thus, humanity has so far passed through the most devastating era of human history. However,  we have not yet reached the goal of the Messianic Age when “They (all nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken.” (Prophet Micah 4:2-4)

This era will come about when Israelis and Palestinians make a long lasting two state partnership peace; thus fulfilling the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. On that day Israel  will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-5)

An ancient Jewish legend predicts that when the Messiah-Mahdi comes and resurrection day occurs; the Kaab’a in holy Mecca, will go to join the Temple Mount’s Foundation Stone in holy Jerusalem, bringing with it the inhabitants of Mecca, and they shall all be joined together. 

When the Foundation Stone sees the Kaab’a approaching, it shall cry out, “Peace be to the great guest”. ( Zev Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem)