Iran, Greater Israel And The Temple Prophecy Nobody Is Talking About | Dr. Ali Ataie

When Netanyahu was the UN ambassador, a famous rabbi named Rabbi Mendel Schneersen. So he said to Netanyahu, "What are you doing to prepare the world? What are you doing to bring about the Messiah? Because there's only a few hours left." And Netanyahu, he referenced. I mean, the attack on Iran was just before the holiday. So he's making that connection. He's making that connection.

And the leadership in Iran, anyone who opposes the modern state of Israel, uh, is an Amalekite and they're fair game. When he said, "Remember what Amalek has done to you." So they already have the blueprints of the third temple.

There's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible.

The sacrifice of the red heifer was a necessary condition.

And you're saying it's taken place already?

It's already happened. Yeah.

It's already happened.

Yeah, it's already happened. They sacrificed one. They said it was a test run, but I don't know if I really believe that it was a test run. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't find that very convincing.

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In today's episode, we'll be unpacking the religious symbolism shaping the conflict in the world today. As the crisis unfolds between Iran and Israel, we examine how ancient scripture and end times prophecy are influencing the scenes we are witnessing today. Dr. Ali Ataie is a scholar of biblical hermeneutics whose work sits at the intersection of sacred languages, comparative theology, and comparative literature at Zaytuna College. He has guided students through Arabic, creedal theology, comparative theology, the sciences of the Quran, introduction to the Quran, and seminal ancient texts, helping bridge classical traditions with contemporary questions. He completed his MA in biblical studies at the Pacific School of Religion in 2011 before going on to earn his PhD in cultural and historical studies in religion from the Graduate Theological Union in 2016. And something that you may not know about Dr. Ali is that he's also a native Iranian, speaking Persian, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. Dr. Ali, it's an absolute honor to have you on. We're so thrilled and happy to see you. How is everything?

Everything is well. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Ali, we've been watching your videos. We've learned so much from them. Um, again, it really is an honor to have you here. How is your Ramadan? Let's start. How is your Ramadan going so far?

Alhamdulillah, everything's going well. Ramadan's a blessed time. It's a welcome interruption to the routine of life, you know, to kind of reset, refocus on what's really important. So, mashallah, everything's going well.

Mashallah.

M. I would have to say that for me, it's personally an honor to have someone from your background join this podcast. You know, often we're joined by people who are well-versed in the Islamic tradition, but then to have someone who's also well-versed in the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition, and also someone who's fluent in the languages. Um, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but you can read Aramaic.

Yeah, we can read and write. And write.

It's like a great privilege and a great honor to have someone from the Muslim background explore this world and also convey it to us. So, thank you for joining us. Great. Alhamdulillah. Thank you for having me. It's an honor for me to be here.

Alhamdulillah. Dr. Ali, I think it's important that we start at what's happening right now in the world.

We're seeing a lot of biblical symbolism being evoked in regards to the recent crisis unfolding in Iran and between Iran and Israel. Sorry. We heard that, um, Netanyahu himself, he referenced the holiday of Purim, if I'm correct, and the Amalekites in regards to the recent attacks on Iran, like they were somehow meant to be synonymous with the dates. Is this correct? And why is such symbolism being evoked?

Yeah. So, Purim is a holiday in Judaism, um, that really celebrates the rescue of, um, the Jews in ancient Persia. So, the story of Purim is detailed in the book of Esther, which is in the Hebrew Bible. Now, most historians don't believe the book of Esther is actually, uh, historical. Uh, they consider it a historical novella, which is to say it's it's it's fiction. Uh, there's no evidence that Xerxes, you know, had a Jewish wife named Esther. Herodotus doesn't mention anything like that. Uh, but nonetheless, they believe that it's that it's historically accurate. Uh, and so, um, Esther is the wife of Xerxes, the king of Persia, the fifth century B.C.E. Uh, and then, uh, Xerxes has a minister named Haman, or Hammon, right? And Haman, we're told, is an Agagite. So, what is an Agagite?

Yes, about to ask my next question.

Yeah. So, an Agagite apparently is a descendant of Agag, and Agag was the king of the Amalekites, or the king of Amalek. So, this goes all the way back to the time of Saul, the first king of Israel, uh, who was commanded by God, as it were, uh, I believe through the prophet Samuel, to massacre all of the Amalekites. So, the Amalekites were the first group. Um, and it's a little bit, uh, ambiguous who exactly they are, but apparently there was a group who attacked the Israelites while they were in Sinai, uh, during, um, their time in the Sinai, their wanderings in the wilderness. Uh, and so God commanded them to, um, make war against the Amalekites and kill them. So, at one point, Saul was told to kill all of them. For some reason, he spares Agag, the king of the Amalekites. Now, later on, he's killed, but we're told somehow that Haman, who was a minister of Xerxes in the fifth century B.C.E. in ancient Persia, is somehow a descendant of Agag. Uh, and so, uh, this is why, you know, uh, the, um, the Persian, um, uh, powers, as it were, as it were, want to wipe out all of the, all of the Israelites in, in Persia. And so, uh, Esther is able to persuade Xerxes, with another man named Mordecai, uh, not to kill all the Jews of ancient Persia. And then this is celebrated, uh, through a festival called Purim. And so, yeah, Netanyahu, he, he mentioned, uh, he referenced Purim. I mean, the, I think the attack on Iran was just before the holiday. Yeah.

I think Purim was on March 2nd or something like that, just a few, a couple of days ago, uh, actually. So, he's making that connection. He's making that connection. The leadership in Iran, anyone who opposes the modern state of Israel, uh, is an Amalekite and they're fair game. Anyone who, uh, agrees with the regime is critical of the modern state of Israel. So, that's a dog whistle. A lot of people are waking up to that dog whistle. I mean, he, he did the same thing, uh, October 29th, 2023, when he said, "Remember what Amalek has done to you."

Mhm.

Uh, and so for the uninitiated, they're thinking, well, just some weird sort of vague biblical reference, you know, whatever that means. Uh, but we know that this is actually a call to genocide, to kill men, women, and children, uh, who disagree with, um, what he considers to be, you know, his understanding of, of, of Israel. Um, so, it's quite disturbing, I would say. So, he's made reference to to Amalek twice. He did in October 2023 and once, and another time just recently.

Uh, Dr. Ali, I wanted to ask you on that topic. Like, we've recently heard that Netanyahu himself is an irreligious person, someone who doesn't necessarily practice Judaism. I think Tucker Carlson mentioned that in a recent podcast, and it wasn't debated. This man is not religious. So, why is he, um, you know, quoting scripture, um, referencing scripture in the name of, um, conducting some of the most demonic acts we've ever seen? Like, they literally just bombed a school in Iran, killing 160 schoolgirls and staff.

Why would they be quoting scripture?

Yeah, he's probably an atheist, but he has a religious base that he's trying to placate. And so, you have, you know, this Likud party. They're Kahanists. They go back to this radical rabbi who was assassinated, Meir Kahane. Uh, so Kahanism has infiltrated Netanyahu's own party. So, that's his sort of religious base. I think he's trying to placate his religious base, even though he's not, uh, religious. So, um, Meir Kahane. So, for example, um, uh, Ben-Gvir, right, who's in his, you know, close circle, um, he's a Kahanist. He used, he used to actually have a, a portrait in his office of, of Baruch Goldstein. I don't know if you're familiar with Baruch Goldstein, but he was, um, an Israeli Zionist terrorist who murdered 29 Muslims worshipping at, uh, Masjid Ibrahim Al-Khalil. It's called the, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. He opened fire.

Opened fire. Yes.

In 1994. That's Baruch Goldstein. And he, he injured hundreds more. And Ben-Gvir used to have a portrait of him in his office. And Ben-Gvir right now, uh, is in the cabinet of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose real name, by the way, is Milikowski. I mean, these, they're not really Jew, they're not really Semitic. I mean,

I would, I'm willing to wager that if you did a DNA, if he did a DNA test, you wouldn't find any Semitic blood. And he doesn't believe in God either. So, what's he doing in historical Palestine? He's a European, uh, colonist. Um, but yeah, he changed his name to Netanyahu, which means "given by God," to, you know, sort of present himself as someone who's, um, I don't know, religious or something like that, someone that his base will, uh, will, will accept. Um, but that's, I think that's the reason why he's doing it. Also, who knows? I mean, if, if the war ends, he might be, you know, put under trial or something like that for, for whatever, if he's under investigation. So, he actually benefits from a prolonged conflict, uh, right now. Uh, but definitely there are people that are in his cabinet that are close to him, uh, that see this as a, as a huge religious war, and he's benefiting from that. It's keeping him in power. So, so, for example, one of the passages that they'll quote to is Ezekiel 38 and 39. Right? This is a big topic right now, uh, among, uh, Zionist Jews as well as Zionist Christians. So, Ezekiel 38:39, uh, basically detail a future battle, often called the War of Gog and Magog, where a powerful enemy named Gog of Magog leads a coalition of nations to invade Israel, and God supernaturally, uh, intervenes and defeats Gog, um, you know, demonstrating his power and sovereignty. And the event is prophesied to occur in the latter days. And of course, the coalition against Israel, according to those passages in Ezekiel 38 and 39, includes Persia, uh, and so they're seeing, uh, Persia there as a fulfillment of what's happening right now, uh, with this conflict, current conflict.

Would that be the correlation, Gog to Judah and Maj? That that we?

George Maj, that we hear. So, would that be the, is there a correlation there?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's the same. I think it's the same. Uh, Gog and Magog is, is, and Majj. Um, and there's, it's actually, um, if you read those passages in chapter 38, chapter 38, 39 of Ezekiel, um, there, there's some correlation with, uh, with some of what we're told about Gog and Magog in the Quran, as well as, uh, in the Hadith. Um, but, uh, if you read the context of those chapters, if you read those chapters very closely, it's not talking about current Persia. It's talking about, um, some sort of, uh, Persia of the future. Um, and we're told also in the Hadith that, that an army of the Antichrist will come from Persia. Um, so, it seems, it seems like the, the current regime in Iran will fall, um, and they'll be replaced by a regime that is much more congenial towards the whole Zionist project. M. Uh, and then from there, the army of the Dajjal will, uh, will basically be raised from our perspective.

Well, I think we're going to come back to that conversation. But as Kamil was mentioning about Netanyahu, one thing that we also hear in a lot of this rhetoric that comes out is the phrase of "Greater Israel." Um, that gets used in public debate quite, quite often. Uh, sometimes, you know, meaning the West Bank, Gaza, perhaps the Golan Heights as well, and sometimes meaning a much larger map spanning, uh, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. I wanted to ask you, Dr. Ali, how mainstream is the idea of the "Greater Israel" idea within Judaism? Or is it a nationalistic, radical nationalistic view?

No, I mean, Greater Israel, that's something that's found, um, in Genesis chapter 15. I mean, what is, it's called, um, Eretz Israel, which literally means like the fullness of Israel, or something like that. Um, and, and so, what we have in terms of "between the river and the sea," that's just the tip of the iceberg. Greater Israel, according to Genesis chapter 15, and this is something that the Orthodox tradition takes very seriously. Christian Zionism takes very seriously. Mhm. Uh, is all of the land between two rivers. And, um, I mean, there's, there's a theory that the Israeli flag represents, because there's two blue lines right at the top and the bottom, and then you have the Star of David in the middle. Uh, so, there's a theory that those two blue lines represent the two rivers. These two rivers of the Nile and Euphrates. Okay. So, then Israel proper, uh, is half of Egypt, and then most of the Levant, um, including Palestine, obviously, even half of Iraq is, is, uh, is Greater Israel. Uh, so, I mean, 10 years ago, if we, if we mentioned, you know, the Greater Israel project and things like that, the Yinon Plan and things like that, I mean, these, some of these documents are public, but if we mentioned these things in public, they'd say, oh, you're, you're a, you're a conspiracy theorist, and, you know, this is all, this is just, you know, uh, we're in a tinfoil hat. But now you have, uh, Israeli establishment and authority like Netanyahu talking about these things very openly. So, in the Yinon Plan in 1982, Oded Yinon, who was part of the Israeli establishment administration, he says that a way in which we can gain Greater Israel, uh, is to sow seeds of corruption amongst the surrounding Muslim nations, kind of destabilize the region, and so that Israel, with its superior military force, can eventually sort of just take over the region. Um, and so we've seen that happen. Of course, we've heard, um, Wesley Clark, who was a general, retired now, but he was a general in America, General Wesley Clark, uh, during, uh, right during the 9/11 attack. And he said a few, a few days after the attack, he actually saw a memo, uh, while he was in the Pentagon, a memo from a senior Pentagon official that said, "We need to take out, you know, seven countries in five years." Wow. Uh, and the first country on that list, uh, was Iraq, right? Uh, and then other countries as well, Syria, Somalia, uh, Sudan, all of those countries, every single one of them except for the seventh country has gone through regime change. And of course, the seventh country on that list is Iran. So, Iran's been on the plan for a long time. It took them longer than five years, but it seems like they're actually going to do this, uh, in 2026. Um, but, yeah, the Greater Israel Project, this is something that, so they believe all of that land was promised to them, that God promised Abraham, his, his chosen seed. Um, uh, uh, but the thing that they conveniently sort of leave out is that if you read the Bible, the Old Testament, it's mentioned many, many times that God gave the land on condition. It's not unconditional. It was a two-way street that if they, uh, don't uphold the covenant of God and follow the Torah, then the land will thrust them out. And this is mentioned many, many times. And in fact, you read places like in Jeremiah 11, that the house of Judah, the house of Israel has, has abandoned, has broken my covenant. And so, traditional, traditional Orthodox Judaism, what are known as Haredi, uh, Jews, or we might just say traditional Orthodox Jews, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, almost 2,000 years, believed that their exile was divinely decreed, and they're not allowed to actually go back, uh, to the Holy Land and try to seize the land and set up a Jewish sovereignty. They're actually forbidden to do that. They have to wait until the coming of the Messiah. Mhm. But of course, the Zionists were able to kind of work their way around that understanding. Uh, and that's what we have today.

Dr. Ali, if we could perhaps frame this in some context, Greater Israel, is that framed something that needs to be established before the coming of the Messiah, or only after? And is it something that, you know, we've seen, as you stated, is kind of being orchestrated quite, uh, quickly to hasten the arrival of the Messiah? Is this something that needs to be established before the arrival of the Messiah or after?

That's the traditional understanding is that you have to wait for the Messiah. I mean, Jews can certainly live in that region, but they can't move their en masse and they can't attempt to set up any type of Jewish state or sovereignty. That's a traditional understanding for almost 2,000 years. With Zionism, and this, you know, you can trace these things back to Rabbi, um, Abraham Isaac Kook, who was early 20th century. He was the first Ashkenazi, uh, chief rabbi of, of Palestine under British mandate. So, he had this idea that, no, we can actually take steps to prepare the way of the Messiah. So, this, he called it something like "paving the way for the Messiah," or, um, "taking steps for our redemption, our messianic redemption." So, in other words, we can actually start the work of the Messiah, because they believe the, when the Messiah will come, he will actually take control of that entire land, um, and, and seize the land and set up his kingdom. Um, but apparently, he was taking too long. And so, with the onset of World War II, and then you have the Holocaust, many European rabbis, they just didn't want to wait anymore. And so, a lot of them bought into Kook's kind of revisionist ideas of, we can actually go back en masse and set up a Jewish sovereignty for our protection, and then we can sort of, you know, get the ball rolling here and sort of force the hand of the Messiah, because we're doing his job. He needs to show up at any time, and eventually, or soon, he will show up and he'll complete the job.

Uh, and so, yeah.

No, no, continue. Continue. So, that's, yeah, that's, that's basically the idea is that it's, it's basically a bid for them to, um, to return to the land en masse and set up a Jewish sovereignty without the Messiah. They have to wait for the Messiah. And there's different, um, there's different scripture verses that, uh, anti-Zionist, traditional Jews use to demonstrate their point that that Jews must stay in exile and wait patiently for the Messiah. For example, I believe in Numbers chapter 14, some of the men around Moses, they said, "We're not going to wait any longer. We're going to go to the promised land." And Moses said to them, "If you do that, you're going to go against the word of the Lord, and this will never ever be successful. It's never ever a good idea to break the exile and, and, uh, go against, uh, God and Moses, uh, en masse into the promised land. It's not going to work out for you."

Dr. Ali, I think last year we saw like the trend of the red heifer go around the world. People were speaking about, oh, this sacrifice is going to take place. Was that another one of the actions that was being used to usher in the arrival of the Messiah, to hasten his arrival?

It's actually more important than, than we think. And I, I actually mentioned the red heifer, uh, in a khutbah in December of 2022. And, uh, I got a lot of heat for it. People were calling me like, you know, you're crazy, this is all conspiracy stuff, and nobody takes these things seriously. And I said, "Okay, but, you know, it's, um, they have five of them." Yeah. So, they were actually, um, five red heifers. They're probably genetically engineered, but they have to be perfect, uh, right? And then, Yeah. They, they raised in Texas. Yeah. Of all places. Um, I mean, that kind of makes sense. John Hagee is based out of San Antonio, the biggest Christian Zionist in the world. And his organization CUFI, uh, which is really Christians United for Israel. So, so they have to have, in the namesake of, right, a cow that is perfect, no blemishes, right? Uh, so a perfectly red cow, no white or black hairs, between the age of two to three, between age two to three, has to be sacrificed. Why does it have to be sacrificed? Well, according to the Torah, um, in order for the temple to return, okay, the ashes of a perfect, uh, uh, cow, which is called a para adumah in Hebrew, the ashes have to be used to purify the vessels in the temple, uh, and the water for the purification ritual of the priests. Um, so, so that has, that's a necessary condition. It has to be there, uh, or else you can't have a temple and you can't have a priesthood. Uh, Maimonides says that nine, uh, perfectly perfect, blemish-free red heifers were sacrificed in the history of, of Israel. Um, and, uh, there hasn't been one in 2,000 years. Um, and the ashes of a single red heifer can last for hundreds and hundreds of years. Just a single red heifer. And his opinion is that the 10th red heifer would be sacrificed by the King Messiah himself. Um, but there's a difference of opinion. Uh, other rabbis say, no, it doesn't have to be the Messiah. It can be, sort of, um, a group of righteous, uh, Jews, um, who can do that. Um, and so, there were five perfectly, uh, perfect red heifers just a couple of, just a short time ago. Uh, and then I think it dwindled down to two or three or something like that. And, and then they actually, they sacrificed one of them a few months ago, I believe. Um, I mean, I have to, I kept checking with the Temple Institute in Jerusalem for updates, but they did sacrifice one of them a few months ago. Uh, and but they said it was kind of a test run. It wasn't for real. I don't know if I really believe that.

Supposed to believe that.

Yeah. You're not going to waste a perfectly good, a perfect red heifer, right? Um, and so they probably did that already, which means that they would take that basically as a sign of Tzufa, or providence, or permission from God that they can move forward, uh, with the construction of, of the third temple, uh, and to bring back the priesthood and things like that. Um, and so they already have the, you know, the blueprints of the third temple. And they have actually, they have a group of young men in their, in their teens. They're from the Levites. They're considered to be kohanim, or priests. They're ready to kind of move all of this into place, uh, right now. So, yeah, the, the sacrifice of the red heifer was a necessary condition, uh, to bring back the temple and the priesthood and all of that.

And you're saying it's taken place already?

It's already, it's already happened. Yeah.

It's already happened.

Yeah, it's already happened. They sacrificed one. They said it was a test run, but I don't know if I really believe that it was a test run. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't find that very convincing.

Dr. Ali, let's get very concrete here. In classical Jewish Messianism, why is building the temple such a central milestone?

It's a very good question. Um, so, let me give you a little bit of, of history here. I think it's important for us to understand the history of Messianism in, in Jewish tradition. So, when the Israelites were, uh, in Babylon in captivity, so here we're looking at the 6th century before the Common Era, this is called the exilic period during this time. So, they were taken. So, the, the southern kingdom of Judah was attacked in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar. And so, you have, um, the Israelites sitting in, in Babylon in captivity. During this time, Jewish, uh, prophets, Israelite prophets and seers, they began predicting that, um, a Davidic ruler, a Davidic king, would arise, and that he would, uh, somehow rebuild or restore or, uh, purify, rededicate the temple. Because, remember now, Nebuchadnezzar and his forces, they destroyed the first temple, the temple of Solomon, uh, which was built around 930 before the Common Era. That temple was destroyed by, by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century B.C.E.

Okay. So, this, this Davidic king, this Davidic ruler, he's called Mashiach Ben David, which is to say the Davidic King Messiah, the King Messiah, son of David, or just simply the Messiah. Okay. And so, you have passages in the book of Ezekiel, for example, Ezekiel 40-48, Jeremiah 23, Zechariah 6, which seem to describe this Davidic Messiah who's going to come, uh, in the future and restore or, uh, purify, rededicate, or rebuild the temple. Now, the second temple was built by a man named Zerubbabel, okay, Zerubbabel, around 520 B.C.E. And this was after a decree from Cyrus. Uh, Cyrus, um, I think is probably Darius, um, the Persian king Cyrus, who was a monotheist, uh, and who defeated the Babylonians and, and allowed the Israelites to go back to Palestine to rebuild their city. But the thing is, Zerubbabel, um, I mean, he led the construction. This is according to 1st Chronicles chapter 3, and he was a descendant of David. So, he's a Davidic, uh, builder of the temple. Uh, he was born in, in Babylon. Uh, his name actually means "born in Babylon." He was a grandson of a Jewish king named Jehoiachin. And Jehoiachin was the penultimate king of Judah, just before Zedekiah, who was the, the last Davidic king. But the thing about Zerubbabel was that he, he was never a king or a ruler. He was a Persian-appointed governor. Uh, so, I mean, the land continued to be ruled by Persia. Uh, Cyrus was really the king of Palestine at the time, and he's also called the Messiah in, in Isaiah 45:1. "The Lord said to his Messiah, his Messiah Cyrus." So, so the Jews did not see Zerubbabel as being the fulfillment of this great Davidic King Messiah. He didn't exactly fit the description. Uh, and so, if we fast forward a little bit, uh, eventually, uh, Palestine fell out of Persian hands. The Greeks, uh, conquered, uh, the region under Alexander in 332 before the Common Era. And so, um, and then after that, there was a, um, there was a revolt by a group of Jews called the Hasmoneans, the Maccabean revolt in 164 B.C.E. And so, during this time, the Israelites actually had control of Palestine. But they did not re, uh, they did not, um, they did not bring back the Davidic king. And the reason is because the Hasmoneans were not Davidic. They were Levites. They were descendants of Aaron. Uh, and then eventually, the Hasmoneans, they, the Maccabees, in other words, they had internal strife and things like that. And so, they called on a Roman general, Pompey, to be an arbitrator, which was a bad idea because when, when the general Pompey came into Palestine, he decided he's going to basically, uh, rule the land himself. And so, in 63 B.C.E., uh, Palestine became, uh, a, a Roman-occupied land. So, now we're in the first century. The Pharisees, who are the religious establishment at the time of Isaam, um, and the rest of the Jews were still expecting this Davidic King Messiah. Okay. Uh, and they expected this Messiah to restore, to purify, to cleanse, to rededicate the temple in some way. The second temple that was still standing. This is similar to an Old Testament king mentioned by Isaiah named Hezekiah. Hezekiah, who was a Davidic king, Messiah during the Assyrian period, he didn't rebuild the temple from nothing. He rededicated the temple. He cleansed the temple. He purified, uh, the temple. In fact, there are some Talmudic rabbis who consider Zedekiah to be the Messiah, like Rabbi Hel, he's quoted in the Talmud as taking that position. And so, Isaam, he cleanses the temple. In all four Gospels, you know, so he fulfills this. He is the Davidic King Messiah. And it's very interesting because if, if you read the four Gospels in the New Testament, and you read the letters of Paul, there's one thing that Jesus does that's sort of just out of character. You know, the, the Pauline, uh, Christology, um, the, uh, the description of Jesus in the four Gospels, which is highly influenced by Paul. You know, Jesus is kind of meek, and he goes willingly to his death, and he says, "Turn the other cheek, resist not evil." You know, um, this, this type of ethic, um, you know, a gentle, a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. He opened not his mouth. Things like that. But suddenly, you have this event where he comes into Jerusalem and he makes a whip and he starts whipping people and throwing them out of the temple precincts and turning over their tables and saying, you know, this is, this is a house, this, yeah, this is a house of worship. You've turned it into a den of thieves. So, this passes what's known as the historical criterion of embarrassment. This is so out of character for the Pauline Jesus to do that. Most historians believe that this is actually what he did, that this is historical, and it's mentioned in all four Gospels, and it's actually mentioned twice in the Gospel of John. So, in my mind, Isaam probably did do something like that, and this is a clear claim to be this Messiah. However, the religious establishment at that time in Palestine, they sought to kill Isaam, probably because he was stressing spiritual liberation over political liberation, and he criticized the Pharisees. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't liberate them politically, but he was taking care of, uh, his own people beforehand. So, you have this famous passage in Matthew 23, the seven woes, where he says, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, brood of vipers. You have overlooked the weightier demands of the law, justice, mercy, good faith. You are hypocrites. You know, you're like whited sepulchers. On the outside, you are clean, but on the inside, uh, you are full of death, hypocrites, brood of vipers." So, he's attacking the religious establishment of his day. And so, the Pharisees, I think they just kind of lost patience with that with him. And so, they probably attempted to force his hand, like they're doing now. The Zionists are trying to force the hand of the Messiah by going back en masse to, to historical Palestine, to historical Israel, and and starting the work of the Messiah. So, I think what the, what the Pharisees did with Isaam is that they put him in trouble with the Romans, uh, because they knew that the Romans would have zero, I mean, the Romans generally were very tolerant of different religions, but, you know, they had zero tolerance for any type of political sedition or insurrection or anything like that. And they would crucify so many Jews, so many Zealots, that Josephus said they actually ran out of lumber, they ran out of trees, uh, in Palestine. Uh, so, so they put him in a conflict, I think, with the Romans, expecting Isaam to say, "Okay, you forced me now," and he would fight, fight the Romans. In fact, some scholars believe that that Judas, right, the man who betrayed, uh, Jesus, that was his intention to kind of force Jesus to act as a political Messiah, but that was, that didn't happen. He was saved by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala took him up to the heavens and delayed Jesus's kingly role, uh, until after the coming of the universal messenger, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And as a punishment, really, God, uh, destroyed the temple. He allowed the temple to be destroyed, uh, which is essentially a sign that God was angry with the Bani Israel, and he scattered them, uh, among the nations, and now they have to wait for the Messiah. So, when the second temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., it's then when we get all of this explicit third temple language, okay? All this third temple talk is all post-70 C.E. because the Israelites at the time were saying, "Oh, you know, God must have been talking about a third temple, uh, in those prophecies," and, you know, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and so on and so forth. This is all post-70 C.E. the idea of a third temple. Uh, and so, until this day, uh, the majority of Jews, I mean, uh, the Jews, basically as a, as a group, continue to wait for this king who will build a third temple. In reality, the prophets during the exilic period were predicting a second temple, not a third temple, which came true. The second temple was built. And they also predicted a Davidic ruler, right? A Messiah, a Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2. Isaam was born in Bethlehem in the New Testament. There's also a Hadith in our tradition that he was born in Bethlehem. Uh, and this Messiah would cleanse or purify the temple, uh, and then rule from Jerusalem. So, this, this Messiah was Isaam, whom they rejected and slandered. And so, God removed him, destroyed the second temple, and postponed his messianic role as political ruler until much later. M. Uh, so, his first coming is really as a prophet Messiah. There's different types. I know it's kind of technical, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll end my spiel in a minute, I promise you. Uh, but there's different types of Mashiah, or Messiahs, that are in the Old Testament, in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Yes, there are king Messiahs. There are also prophet Messiahs. And so, his first coming was as a prophet Messiah. Okay? And a prophet Messiah essentially is the, is the true interpreter of the Torah. And that's what Isaam did in his first coming. He gave them the true interpretation, uh, of the Torah. And he gave them the Injil, which is a type of, uh, spiritual training for the Bani Israel, and he also gave them good tidings of the coming of the final prophet, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Uh, so, there's a reason for Jews today to believe in him because he was a true messenger and he was a prophet Messiah. And then he'll, he'll return towards the end of time.

Wow. I think, like, based off of your understanding, the Messiah, the awaited Messiah was Isaam, but he's obviously being rejected. So, who exactly are the Jews currently waiting for? And is that the Dajjal in Islamic doctrine?

Yeah, it seems likely that's, that's what's happening here. Um, so, the Dajjal, there's indications in our tradition that in the Islamic tradition that the Dajjal, you know, will come from the East. So, he's not Arab, right? Um, he, and there's indications that he's from Bani Israel, because there was a, a young Jewish boy in Medina named, that many of the Sahaba believed was the Dajjal, um, and so they wouldn't believe that, um, if they didn't have a reason to. So, there are indications that he himself is from a Jewish background. Certainly, his army, the 70,000 coming from Isfahan, they're from Israel as well. So, yeah, so the, the Jewish world will not accept any Messiah unless he's Jewish, right? So, that's, that's a, a sine qua non. That's like a, a really, um, important necessary condition of the Messiah in Jewish tradition for him to be, uh, for him to be from Bani Israel. Um, and so, another interesting aspect of, of Jewish Messianism that a lot of people don't know is that that Jews are actually, in the Orthodox tradition, are actually waiting for two Messiahs. There are two end-time Messiahs. Okay? So, there's the Messiah Ben Yosef, the, the Messiah, the son of Joseph. So, this is an end-time Messiah who is a descendant of Yosef from his son Ephraim, the tribe of Ephraim, which is Joseph, essentially. And he will come to the earth first, and he will actually be defeated by his enemies. And so, this is stated in the Talmud. This is stated in the Midrashim. This is part of Orthodox traditional Judaism. And there's some indications of him, like in Zechariah 12, that Orthodox authorities claim are descriptions of him. So, so the, the Josephite Messiah, he will fight Gog and Magog, and they will kill him. He'll die. He'll be martyred by Gog and Magog. What's really interesting, uh, I just, uh, perhaps I can, I can read this. There's a short passage in a book that I recommend called "Zionism: A Brief History" by Michael Brenner. It's, it's a short paragraph. I'll just read it real fast. Published in, uh, 2003. So, he says that in Semland, Serbia, Yehuda Alkalai, a rabbi born in Sievo, wrote a series of treatises for the Jews to return to Palestine. At the same time, in West Prussia, Thorne, Rabbi Zvi Kalischer was citing biblical and rabbinical texts in his "Derishat Zion," Seeking Zion, 1862, to demonstrate that the salvation of the Jews would result from human efforts and would not depend simply on divine providence in the messianic age. So, this is this idea again, Rabbi Kook would pick up on these ideas in the early 20th century, that we can get the ball rolling for the Messiah, we can, um, we can start moving back to Palestine and doing the work of the Messiah, cleansing, you know, the land and things like that, and then he'll come. So, he continues, "and would not depend simply on divine providence." I read that part. Kasher contended that the colonization of Palestine could begin at once. That's the bid right there. It is noteworthy that both rabbis, one Sephardic, Alkalai, was a Spanish Portuguese descendant, and the other Ashkenazi, Kalisher's origins were in Posen, which is Polish, who who thought and argued so traditionally were profoundly affected by current political developments. Al-Kalai regarded the traditional Jewish idea of the first temporary Messiah from the house of Joseph not as an individual, but as a kind of Jewish national collective. End quote. Okay. So, there's a strong opinion now that the Joseph, the Josephite Messiah is actually the current state of Israel. Uh, and Rabbi Tovia Singer takes this position, and that what happened on October 7th is actually the death that's considered the death of the Josephite Messiah. So, now the door is open for the more important Messiah, the Davidic Messiah, to arrive on the scene. And in Jewish eschatology, the Davidic Messiah is not defeated by his enemies. There's a few things that he'll do. One of the things that he'll do is that he will rebuild the, the temple, the third temple. As I said, I don't think there's any indication in the Hebrew Bible of the third temple. Everything in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc., is describing the second temple. Why would they skip the second temple and go straight to the third temple? So, I think that's a little bit of, um, you know, kind of interpretive, yeah, distortion, um, and kind of ad hoc exegesis, uh, to kind of contend with, you know, the destruction of the second temple, which they did not see coming. Uh, so, "Oh, it must have been talking about a third temple." Uh, the Messiah will also basically fight something called the Milhamah Adonai, which is basically like big-time wars, malachim, right? Uh, he'll purify, uh, the, um, the Greater Israel, Israel proper. Uh, he'll institute, uh, the Torah as the, the law of the entire, uh, planet, and he'll basically, basically be the king of the whole world. Uh, okay. And then he'll usher in a, um, an era of peace. Um, so, from our perspective, the, the Dajjal, right, initially, you know, he's going to, he's going to claim to be a prophet, and he's going to claim to be the Messiah. And I think a lot of what he'll do will be very convincing for many Jews around the world. But when he claims to be Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I think he'll lose a lot of support. And in fact, it seems likely that many Jews will actually defect from his ranks and believe in Isaam as the true Messiah. And I think a lot of Christians as well. So, he'll, Isaam will rectify, and the Quran says, um, um, I don't know if I quoted that right, that there will, that there will be none of the people of the book left except that they believe in Isaam, right? So, the commentators of this ayah, they say the meaning is that, yeah, initially there's going to be some tension and resistance to Isaam, uh, but he'll show convincing proofs that he's the Messiah. And especially when the Antichrist claims to be God, I mean, that's just, uh, that's a non-negotiable for at least.

Could it be too late by then after you've given him so much support and you've believed in every one of his miracles and everything?

It could very well be too late for them.

It could be. Yeah. I mean, they could be, um, convinced that he is because he's going to do certain things. Whether he has supernatural abilities, like real supernatural abilities given to him as a fitna by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or it's kind of smoke and mirrors, right? It's just kind of, or it's a, sorry, it's a type of like, you know, kind of sleight of hand, maybe just technology. It seems like he has access to some incredible technology that's going to fool a lot of people. Um, but, but the majority of Zionists, by the way, who identify as Jewish, are not religious. So, I don't, I don't think they're going to care if he claims to be God at all. You know, the, the Dajjal, he has control over resources, you know, he has control over the skies and the crops and, the seas and things like that. Uh, so I think for the majority of them, they just won't care what kind of supernatural claims he's making.

Dr. Ali, you've made, um, in some of your previous talks, you mentioned something regarding the Jewish year 6,000 and the arrival of the, the Messiah. Could you perhaps walk us through that?

Yeah. So, this is an interesting, this is found all over the, the traditional, uh, understanding of, of the Messiah, um, is a very prevalent, uh, teaching is that, you know, this, um, that this creation, uh, is, you know, 5787, something years old. Um, uh, and so, uh, the year 6,000 represents what's known as the coming of the Day of the Lord, or the Sabbath of the Lord. So, many, many traditional authorities consider that to be sort of the cutoff day of the Messiah, like the deadline of the Messiah. He has to come before the year 6,000. I think there's something like 215 years until we get to the year 6,000. But he has to come well before that because he has to do everything, you know, he has to fulfill all of the conditions. Um, and so, yeah, this is a very, very prevalent tradition, the year 6,000, what's known as the, uh, the Sabbath, the Sabbath of the Lord. And so, there's, there's a, there's a famous interaction. Uh, I actually found this on YouTube recently. I think people can find it. There's a famous interaction between, uh, a famous rabbi named, um, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, uh, who is actually believed by many, um, Chabad Lubavitch Hassidic Jews to be the Messiah. Um, and that's kind of a side note. But when Netanyahu was the UN ambassador, um, in 1994, I believe, something like that, he actually met with this rabbi, and the rabbi, they're speaking in Hebrew, and the rabbi says to him, you know, you know, there's only a few hours left in the day.

So, you know, what does that mean? Just a few hours?

Yeah, the few hours left in the day, that means on this, on this day, you know, on the, the sixth day, you know, it's like

It's like Asser time, right? So the day starts at Mreb. So when M hits, that's the seventh day, right? And that's considered the sort of Olam Haba, the world to come, and the end of the world as we know it. So he said to Netanyahu, what are you doing to prepare the world? What are you doing to bring about the Messiah? Because there's only a few hours left, right? Which is very interesting. Um, you know, uh, and so, you know, that's that, that's their belief that the Messiah will come before the before the seventh day, before the year 6000.

Dr. Ali, you also mentioned just uh, before that about the da being followed by 70,000 of uh, of the Jewish population of uh, in Israel, in robes of green or colored satin Persian uh, shawls. What's the significance of this hadith of uh, the number 70,000? Because today, approximately in the country right now, there's around 9,000 to 10,000 Jews in Iran. There isn't a significant amount of Jewish adherence there. So what's the significance of this hadith in the scale of what we're seeing today, for example?

Yeah. The hadith is, yeah. And then another version. Yeah, I'm wearing Persian shawls. Yeah, I always thought about this hadith. You know, I, for years, I've been thinking about this hadith and I'm like, 70,000 from Isfahan, it just doesn't seem likely. Um, you know, how is that even going to be possible? But we see like with what's happening right now, uh, with the current conflict, if there's regime change in Iran, I mean, this guy who's waiting in the wings, this Bahmani character, you know, he's, he's gone, he's, he's been public about, you know, if, you know, if I should go back to Iran, and I don't know how he put it, paraphrasing, if I'm placed back into power, the first thing that Iran will do,

>> Recognize Israel.

>> Recognize, uh, Israel. And so, Zionism has, um, uh, been steadily growing, I think, in Iran, even under the the current regime. Um, uh, and so, uh, I mean, you have groups of Iranians that go and they, they cluster around the grave of of Cyrus. They consider Cyrus to be like this kind of archetypal Zionist, 'cause he allowed the, uh, the, the Jews, Israelites to go back to, to Palestine. Um, which I think is, uh, a, a big mischaracterization of Cyrus, because he didn't give them autonomy in Palestine. Uh, Palestine was still under Persian rule. Uh, Palestine was still a, a Persian, uh, satrapy at the time. Uh, and he did not allow them to rule Palestine. Um, but anyway, and he might have even, the Persians might have even commissioned the, the, um, the compilation of the Torah as we know it. Uh, the five books of Moses. It was probably done by a committee that was patronized by, by Persia, but that's a different story. Uh, but if we, if we imagine what's going to happen in the future, uh, Iran kind of changing its political landscape and becoming very, uh, congenial towards the Zionist project, we can see how thousands upon thousands, uh, of, of Iranians will embrace, uh, Zionism.

>> Right?

>> Uh, and then, you know, obviously at some point follow this, this impostor Messiah.

I wanted to ask you, I know it's a bit of a subnote and I know it's kind of an oxymoron, but Christian Zionism. We've seen recently, uh, there have been reports have emerged of US military commanders have actually told the troops that a potential war with Iran is actually anointed by Jesus and is kind of part of this larger Armageddon prophecy. Um, what, why would that be? I know there's a commander there who has his own kind of like reading club about these kind of texts, but, um, if you could just walk us through that, like this use of, you know, that this is an appointed war by Jesus himself, of what we're seeing.

Yeah. So this all goes back to a scripture verse, Genesis 12:3. Right. So there's a senator in Texas named Ted Cruz, uh, who did an interview recently with Tucker Carlson. Um, well, a few months ago, I think, maybe a year ago, something like that, where he, he quoted this verse as, um, basically being his justification for being a Christian Zionist. Um, and he didn't even know where the, where the verse was in the Bible, he couldn't quote it. Yeah, Genesis 12:3. Um, and so he said it, it says something like, if you bless Israel, God will bless you. If you curse Israel, God will curse you. Uh, so it's a misquote. First of all, the text does not say Israel. In in Hebrew, uh, God speaking to Abraham, Ibrahim, who's called Abram at the time. So if you bless Abram, God will bless you, and if you curse Abram or Abraham, Ibrahim Alaihis Salam, then God will, God will curse you. So that's the first thing. The second thing, so he misquoted it. The second thing is that, uh, he's partially correct in the sense that, you know, it's implied in the text that God is talking about the descendants of Abraham, some descendants of, of Abraham or followers of Abraham in some sense. Um, uh, and, and so, um, so biblical commentators would say, "Yeah, he's talking about Israel as a people, not as some nation, and certainly not as, you know, this ethnostate that was founded by, uh, Ashkenazi atheists, uh, that are currently committing a genocide." I don't think that's what, uh, what God had in mind when he spoke those words to Abraham. Um, uh, so he's talking about Israel as a people, you know, descendants of Jacob. Um, uh, but even if it were true, I always make this point, even if it were true, let's say, yeah, that's what that's what God is saying. He's saying bless the current state of Israel, founded by, uh, you know, founded in 1948, um, etc., etc. Let's say that's what God is talking about. That verse, Genesis 12:3, uh, is countenanced by New Testament writers, especially Paul in the book of Galatians.

>> Uh,

>> And Paul is supposed to be a, I mean, he is the, basically the, the principal writer of the New Testament. Now, we may not agree with a lot of what Paul says as Muslims, and that's fine. But Christians who profess Christianity and profess to believe in the New Testament, they have to make a good faith effort,

>> To understand what the New Testament is actually teaching,

>> Uh, and stop making, basically making taqlid of their leaders that are probably being paid by God knows who, uh, to support the modern state of Israel. Uh, but Paul says in Galatians that what God would, what God meant when he spoke those words to Abraham was that he was talking about Jesus and he was talking about those who believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Right? Those are the ones that, that we should be blessing. And so in the New Testament, it's very, very clear, the chosen people are Christians who believe in Christ. Now, that might include some ethnic Jews. I mean, many Christians are ethnic Jews, but disbelieving in Jesus and still considering yourself chosen by God. This is absolutely antithetical to the New Testament, antithetical to all of the early church fathers. Nobody took this position. This is, this is a later, uh, this is a later development. Again, a bid'ah, this is a theological anathema. This is just, um, it's, it's, it's a total misreading of the New Testament. Jesus is the third temple in the New Testament. It's very, very clear. Jesus is the new temple. Um, now, I know I might not necessarily believe that. Uh, but that's the teaching of the New Testament. Uh, Jesus is the ultimate, uh, sacrifice for sin. I definitely don't believe that, but that's the teaching of the New Testament. Read Hebrews. Read Paul.

>> Uh,

>> And he's the ultimate high priest. Ultimate means the last, the last high priest, the last sacrifice in the ultimate temple. So Christian Zionists who support Israel, the modern state of Israel, who want to bring back the temple and bring back the whole sacrificial system and bring back the the priesthood, they're actually throwing Jesus away, their Jesus, the New Testament Jesus.

It's, it's completely antithetical to, to, to the, to traditional Christianity. And it's just, it's mind-boggling how that happened. But, um, I mean, it's a long story, but John Nelson Darby, we'd have to look at, you know, what happened with the PL, the Plymouth Brethren in in the UK. John Nelson Darby, he was probably the first one to come up with this idea that there's two, there's two covenants. It's called dual covenant theology. Um, that two simultaneous covenants. So the Mosaic covenant was never superseded, uh, by the Christian covenant. That's his idea. And so the Jews are still chosen by God irrespective of their, of their rejection of Isa Alaihis Salam. Um, so that, that comes from him, and this was adopted by many, many Christians, and of course, the Scofield Study Bible. There's a lot, a long history about how that Bible, um, which is not really a translation. And I mean, Scofield, he took the King James version translation and just added a few notes. But those notes turned out to be very, very influential,

>> And gave rise to this whole idea that the Mosaic covenant is still open. It was never superseded,

>> Uh, by what Jesus did, by the New Testament, and that the Jews are still the chosen people, and that Christians, uh, they have to support, um, uh, the modern state of Israel, founded by, uh, founded by Jews, um, irrespective of their disbelief in Jesus, irrespective of their disbelief in God.

I call it the con job of the millennium. It's, it's really a, it's a total, it's a total grift. I know this is a big question, Dr. Ali, so please answer within whatever capacity you have. The Israel that's mentioned, as you were saying, in in the Bible and in the Jewish scriptures, is that necessarily the same Israel that exists today? I know you talked about it roughly, but,

>> It's definitely not the same. Um, I mean, people forget that, that again, the, the land was given on a condition. This is, this is very apparent when we read the Hebrew Bible. For example, if we look at Exodus chapter 9, chapter 19, verse 5, right? Uh, this is just, just before what's known as the Covenant Code was revealed to the Israelites, right? And it says, "If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you'll be a treasure to me above all people." So on and so forth. Um, so that's called a conditional statement. And many, many times we find in the Hebrew Bible, uh, that God warns them that if you go against my covenant, then this land will thrust you out. Okay? Uh, and so, um, Israel as a nation, uh, must be founded, uh, upon upholding the covenant of God.

>> Okay.

>> The current state of Israel was not founded, uh, by such elements. It was founded by, uh, Ashkenazi, which are probably not Semitic atheists. Um, and, uh, it was, you know, founded on blood and genocide and all of these,

>> Occupation.

>> All of these horrible events, planned, uh, that are mentioned in books like the ethnic cleansing of of Palestine. Um, and so they call themselves Israel.

>> Uh,

>> But that's just sort of hijacking the name. From our perspective, uh, Israel is the name of, uh, Ya'aqov. And it doesn't mean wrestles with God. That's what that's what Genesis chapter 32 mentions. They make up this fake etymology, the story of Jacob wrestling. It says wrestling the Lord. He wrestles the Lord. He wrestles God and he's able to beat God, uh, in a wrestling match, which is very strange. Really strange incident in Genesis chapter 32. Uh, and then the angel, um, some say it's an angel, uh, but it says, you know, you've wrestled, you've struggled with man and God, and therefore you're no longer known as Jacob, but known as Israel. Most historians believe Israel or Yisrael means God prevails. It doesn't mean wrestles with God. Uh, so this story appears to be a fake etymology. It's because the Israelites at the time were trying to grapple with why God is punishing them quite often, you know, why is God fighting or grappling with us so much? And it's because they, they slip into idolatry, you know, they, uh, they violate the covenant that God made with them. Um, so Israel today has, has no bearing on biblical Israel, uh, whatsoever. Um, you know, you're just kind of hijacking the name. Uh, and it's very, very clear from the Old Testament, Jewish tradition, thousands of years, 2,000 years of Jewish tradition, that Jews are to remain in exile and await the coming of the Messiah. Uh, and then the Messiah will gather them back, uh, into the land and, and, and reconstitute the kingdom.

>> But they've already done that. They've already done that.

>> They've already done that. Yeah. So, yeah, they forced his hand. They tried to do that with Isa Alaihis Salam, uh, as well.

Wanted to ask you, Dr. Ali, um, it's kind of hard in today's kind of climate to see perhaps the link between Judaism and Islam or any significant figures, but Moses Maimonides in particular. What could you tell us about Moses Maimonides and his connection, uh, to the Islamic world?

Maimonides, probably the most, the greatest philosopher and theologian, uh, in Jewish history. He's, uh, initially, he was a bit controversial for some of his, uh, principles. He wrote this very famous, the very famous 13 principles of Jewish faith that he articulates in his Mishneh Torah. He also wrote the, wrote the Guide for the Perplexed. Uh, he actually wrote that in Judeo-Arabic. So he wrote everything in Arabic with Hebrew letters. Um, so he was highly influenced, I think, by Islamic theology, Islamic philosophy, and a lot of his 13 principles that he considers to be absolutely foundational and fundamental for every Jew to believe in. I think a lot of those things were, a lot of his principles were influenced by Islamic theology. Um, for example, he says things like, you know, any prophet who comes after Moses who says that the Torah has been abrogated or brings a new law, or that's a false prophet, and things like that. So he's kind of responding to these Islamic talking points. And he also mentions, uh, that the true Messiah will build the third temple. And again, I don't think any, I don't think any Jews in the first century at the time of Isa Alaihis Salam knew or expected that the second temple was going to be destroyed. That's a later development. Um, uh, but, um, and so, yeah, he's, he, initially, he was a bit controversial, uh, for some of his principles, but, uh, eventually, um, most, most Jews, at least in the Orthodox tradition, they, they accept him as, as an authority in, in Orthodox Judaism. And so he has these detailed principles, as I said, and one of the most detailed ones is his, his, um, description of the coming of the Messiah. And it's some of the things I mentioned earlier. He's going to rebuild the temple. He's going to fight the wars of the Lord. He's going to be from the, the seed of David. But that's the other thing that's very strange is when the second temple was destroyed in 70 of the Common Era by the Romans, the temple also housed the genealogical archives, uh, of, of the Jews. Um, and so when the temple was destroyed, those archives, those, those genealogies were also destroyed. In other words, there, there's no way any Jew today can establish that he's from David's line. The only tribe that kept their records to a certain degree are the Levites, right? The priests. And that's why they have, you know, in, so-called Israel today, they have a group of young men that that are ready to become the new priests at the third temple. But there's no way for a, a Jewish man to establish that he's from David. I don't know how Maimonides actually deals with that. Uh, maybe you just have to sort of trust this person based on other things that he'll do that he's from David's line, but it, but it's just very strange. There's no way for a Jew today to, to actually prove that. But the most important thing for Maimonides is the building of the third temple, right? So there was a, there was a Jewish leader named Simon Bar Kokhba in the middle of the second century, uh, who was endorsed as the Messiah.

>> Um,

>> This is after the second temple had been destroyed, and he actually defeated the Roman, Romans at Fort Antonia in Jerusalem, actually seized control of Jerusalem, was starting to bring back the priesthood, was minting coins, and had plans to rebuild the temple, but then he was crushed by the Emperor Hadrian. Uh, and so, uh, they rejected him as the, he was a good candidate for the Messiah, but eventually, they didn't, they didn't accept him, to be the Messiah. So the third temple is, is extremely important, in, in Orthodox Judaism. And the Christians inherited that, in the book of 2 Thessalonians, which is written by pseudo-Paul. Most historians don't believe Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians. They think it's pseudonymous, in other words, someone claiming to be Paul, in other words, it's a forgery in Paul's name. But, okay, let's just say Paul wrote it. Uh, Paul says that the man of lawlessness will be, will sit in the temple of God, okay? The man of lawlessness, which is taken to mean the Antichrist, although it doesn't say Antichrist, uh, in 2 Thessalonians, it says the man of lawlessness, which is taken by Christian exegesis and early church fathers to be the Antichrist. It says he'll sit in the temple of God. But, you know, if Paul wrote that, Paul was killed, according to Christian tradition, in '67 of the Common Era. The second temple was standing until 70 of the Common Era. So that's the second temple that Paul is talking about. The temple was still standing. It's amazing. You'll have Christians read that and say, "You see, this is evidence of a third temple." But you believe Paul wrote this. If Paul wrote this, he's writing before,

>> The destruction of the second temple.

>> I mean, maybe it's the third temple, but there's no reason to jump to a third temple when the second temple is, is already standing. Yeah. So that doesn't make a lot of sense there.

>> Um,

>> The only time the word Antichrist is used in the New Testament is in the, the first epistle of John. The first epistle of John is the only time. Not even the book of Revelation uses Antichrist. It says the, the therion, which means the beast, the beast of the sea, the beast of the earth, which Christians take to mean the Antichrist, whose number is 666, etc. But in, in first, the first epistle of John is the only time we find the, the word Antichrist. And it says something very interesting about the Antichrist. So the, uh, the community that authored first John, the Johannine community, um, they were dealing with different sort of Christian schismatics, Christians that they considered to be heretics, and also Jews that didn't believe in Jesus. So there were Christians called the Docetists who actually believed that Jesus was, uh, God, uh, but he didn't actually have a physical body. He was immaterial. He was like a phantasm, right? So there were Christians who believed that. So he didn't, he didn't really die, right? And there, of course, were Jews who rejected Jesus. So the, the author of the first epistle of John, he says, "Whoever says that Jesus did not come in the flesh, he is an Antichrist."

>> Okay.

>> So the Docetists are considered Antichrist. Those who said that Jesus was sort of just like this ghost or a phantasm. And then he says, "Whoever doesn't believe that Jesus is the Christ is an Antichrist." Which is very interesting.

>> So if you don't, if,

>> Yeah. If you don't believe Jesus is the Messiah, you are an Antichrist according to the New Testament. That's the New Testament.

>> Uh,

>> Dr. Ali, um, obviously you've very well versed in the eschatology of Judaism, eschatology of Christianity, and also eschatology of Islam. Now, many people are saying we're like in endgame. It's like the end of days. The emergence of AI has literally like thrown us into the stratosphere when it comes to technology. So how close are we, in your reading, in your like speculation? How close are we to like the emergence of the Antichrist?

No one knows, Allah, of course.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> I mean, certainly,

>> One can argue that all of the minor signs are fulfilled. You know, the, the major signs are left. I mean, the first major sign is the coming of the ultimate prophet, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. That's the first, that's the first major sign. And he said, and he put up his, his two fingers like that. So it's, I mean, if you look at the whole spectrum of human civilization, you know, the last 1400 years is just a drop in the bucket, um, when you compare it to how long Homo sapiens, if you want to use that term, have been on this earth. Whatever, if it's 100 or 200,000. Now they're saying a million years. So it's, it's, it's always been close, right? The Sahaba has always been close. And really, our, our death is our Sahaba, right? And that, that's something that we should always, you know, rather than because, you know, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, "If the end of time should come upon you and you're planting a seed, finish planting the seed, even though you'll never see the fruits of that tree." That's not the point. We just have to do what we believe is right. And our priority is always on the. But certainly, when we look around the world, it does seem like, you know, it seems like it's, it's drawing very close. The whole idea of, you know, like I said, the last, like just 10 years ago, talking about Greater Israel was just taboo, and you're crazy, and you're anti-Semitic, and things like that. I mean, they still say you're anti-anti-Semitic if you talk about Greater Israel, but it's becoming much, much more mainstream. And then what's happening with, uh, you know, these conflicts in that region, and, and so, certainly something is drawing, uh, is drawing close. Um, but, you know, um, you know, may Allah help us. You know, it's, it's the worst fitna, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, it's the worst fitna, uh, to come, and so, you know, we really don't want to be, you know, around during that time, uh, because it's, it's going to be a very, very difficult time. And, yeah, the rise of technology. That's, I mean, Dajjal, the word Dajjal literally means the deceiver.

>> Deceiver.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> He, he's going to deceive. I mean, you know, he'll issue a command to the sky, it will rain. Issue a command to the crops, it will grow crops. He has an arm that reaches the bottom of the ocean. You know, um, he'll, he'll cut a man in half and put him back together again. Uh, you know, you know, what is that about? Is it, is it this type of sort of, you know, deep fake? Or is it some sort of transhumanist, you know, technology or something like that? Is he asking the jinn, you know, to take on the appearance of dead people to fool people? Is it more sort of like, uh, supernatural, or is he using technology? Uh, I mean, even right now, I mean, there was a, there was a, um, an OpenAI, they released this app called Sora, and somebody sent me a video and I thought it was real, and it's just like,

>> We can't, we don't even know it's real anymore.

>> And so, you know, there's a beautiful dua, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,

>> You know, what's really apt for our time, you know, right?

>> That show us the truth as truth and give us the ability to follow it, and then show us the falsehood as falsehood, uh, and give us the ability to, to shun it.

>> But when we, we look around the world, I mean, yeah, it's just incredible what, you know, like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said that, you know, between the eyes of the Antichrist is written "Kafir," you know, and, uh, every, every believer will be able to read it, um, whether they're literate or illiterate. And it's just amazing in the last 20 years, a very popular type of tattoo has emerged where people get "Kafir."

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. One of the US ministers actually has a tattoo. The Department of War minister.

>> Yeah.

>> He has it on his arm. He has, um, "Deus Vult," which was the cry of the, um, the battle cry of the Crusaders. God wills it. God wills it for us to go and and kill these Muslims. And then "Kafir." It's so strange. They even have like patches now on their uniform. "Kafir." I was, I was in my parents' city, um, a few years ago, and I was behind a van, and the van had a bumper sticker that said "Kafir Mus." Armed "Kafir." And it didn't even, it didn't even translate it. It's just in Arabic. So it's becoming, you know, like, um,

>> I hate to use this example, but, uh, I guess it's an okay example because we're talking about kufur.

>> But, you know, like the golden arches of McDonald's.

>> You know,

>> You know, in McDonald's commercials, they don't even, they don't even need to say McDonald's. They just flash the golden arches, and you know exactly that it's a McDonald's commercial. So it's now like, you just see the word "Kafir," and everyone knows what it means.

>> It's just, it's just incredible. And then the one-eye symbolism is everywhere.

>> You know, just if you Google celebrities, one eye.

>> The iconography, it's everywhere. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, "I'm going to tell you something about the Antichrist that no other prophet told his people. He's one-eyed." And there's different ways of looking at that. He's literally one-eyed because he's, you know, maj, he's, he's transfigured, uh, deformed, right? So like one of his eyes is like, it's wiped away. It's deformed, right? Uh, but having one eye being myopic, like, you know, if you have one eye, you can't tell how far away things are.

>> Depth perception.

>> You lose your, yeah. So if you're a fighter, and you know, like if you're an MMA fighter, and the referee sees that one of your eyes is closed, he has to stop the fight because you can't see the punches coming. So for the Dajjal, everything is here and now. There's nothing off. There's no, uh, everything is here. And every, it's just hedonism, right? So that's one interpretation. But literally, he has one eye. We have a description of him in our tradition. He's short, he's stocky, he's muscular. He has really thick, like curly hair, right? One of his eyes is is blind. The other one looks like a floating grape. Uh, he's most likely from, he comes from the East, right? Um, so we, so we have, we have his descriptions. Uh, but it's just amazing that the one-eye symbolism. So, you know, the Prophet, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he gave us these things so that we don't lose hope, because a lot of people, they're going to become depressed. They're going, there's a lot of shubuhat. That's the other thing that the Dajjal does. He's an expert at raising shubuhat. According to the hadith, a shubha is a pseudo-verity. In other words, he's an expert at causing confusion and giving you half-truths, right? Um, uh, and so, um, we have to stay vigilant. And so like in the hadith, Jibril, you know, Jibril Alaihis Salam, he didn't stop at three questions. A lot of people think, oh, he asked him about Islam and Iman, and he asked him five questions. You know, "Tell me about the one big question." "Knows no more than a questioner." Then, "Tell me about its signs, its portents." That's the fifth question. What's the point of those signs and portents? So that Muslims at the end of time, when they're seeing all of these and types of things, these very disturbing things, you know, a genocide happening, uh, under our noses, and we can't do anything about it, and people are justifying it. You know, things like, we see all this, and all this crazy technology. Epste- Exactly, exactly. That, that we see. Oh, he told us about this. He told us about this. Yeah. The, the Epstein thing.

>> Yeah.

>> That's the other thing. It's like, again, if we talk about these things, that there's like a Jewish cabal that believes that the right, that the, the Gentiles are here to serve them. I mean, it's written in the Talmud. I mean, not every rabbi takes this position, but it is something that's part of their tradition. And Judah Halevi says, and in Kabbalah, it's called, um, umari, the book of that Jews have two souls. They have a divine soul and a beastly soul. That Gentiles only have a beastly soul, and that they're a lesser kind of human being. It's not a qualitative difference. It's a difference in species. I mean, you find these writings, uh, and we, and we find this in the Epstein files. I mean, right? The Quran says, "They are not all the same. They are not all the same. And from the people of Moses are those that guide to the truth and they're just." But there are also, they're also Jews who say, "We're not going to be held accountable for exploiting these go." "We can do whatever we want with them. They're our slaves, and we can herd them up and rule over them." And,

>> You, you find us,

>> Sending Americans to die for their wars, to die for their goals. It's crazy.

>> I, I think, just as a disclaimer, 'cause I'm sure there will be people that will come after us for this podcast, but like, is anything that we said anti-Semitic?

>> And,

>> No, of course not. Anti-Semitic. I mean, Arabs are Semitic, right? I, I can't be an anti-Semitic because, because I love Israelite and Muslim prophets.

>> Right?

>> It's, it's, it's part of our faith. It's a, it's a, it's a requisite. It's a foundational principle in our faith to love Musa Alaihis Salam, to love Harun Alaihis Salam, to love Isa Alaihis Salam. We, we pray upon the family of Ibrahim Alaihis Salam. We send blessings upon his family.

>> Book of five times.

>> Yeah.

>> And,

>> Exactly. And that's just not the Ishmaelites. Those are the Israelites as well, from his, from his progeny. Uh, so, uh, you know, this, it's just a, uh, it's a thought-stopper. It's a way to stifle discussion. It's an ad hominem attack, and it just, it doesn't hold any water. You know, there are, there are Jews, sat, the Satmar Hasidic community, that are vehemently anti-Zionist, and they're Jews.

>> Okay.

>> Are they anti-Semitic? You know, is Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, he has a huge community in New York that, that, um, condemn Zionism and accuse Zionists of hijacking, uh, the religion of Judaism. Um, is he anti-Semitic? Are the Neturei Karta, right? Another group of Orthodox Jews, are they anti-Semitic? Voice, Jewish Voices for Peace, are they anti-Semitic?

>> It just, it just, it's just a label they want to throw out, uh, that just, you know, um, it's, I think it's a desperation tactic. It's, they can't engage with the argument, so you're going to use an ad hominem attack, which is the, the worst kind of argument.

I have one last question for myself, and I'll leave it with Malik to close. Um, Doctor, I've seen you before go through the Quran and like pick out references that would otherwise go over the top of Muslims' heads, even Muslim scholars' heads, just through your ability to point out Israelite or like verses from the Bible or verses from the Torah. Um, you mentioned once, um, the Queen of Sheba, how she raised her, um, she exposed her shin, and you said that was a reference to a biblical story that many Muslims may not be aware of. Or, or if I'm correct, I wanted to ask you, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said this was the antidote, this was the remedy, this is your protection from the Dajjal. Is there anything in the Quran that the Muslim may not be aware of? Well, um, this idea of protecting yourself against antichristic ideas, that's something that we have to think about. You know, the Quran says, "This isn't, but the lesson is apt. You're going to hear a lot, a lot from the people of the book, Jews and Christians, people of the Bible, add in Kabbalah. Bible means Kabbalah. Maybe we can translate Kabbalah here as Bible. The people of the Bible, and those who associate with God, with God, a lot of harm, a lot of disturbing, depressing things. But if you are patient, so patience, perseverance, self-control, discipline, that's all part of patience. And you protect yourself from taqwa, to protect yourself. How do you protect yourself from hearing all of this white noise coming from, and from the mushrikin, is that you just don't engage with things. So I always tell Muslims, we have to limit our engagement, uh, with social media. You know, doom scrolling, going down YouTube rabbit holes, unless they're good content, obviously. But, you know,

>> Religious one path.

>> Yeah. Yeah. The, but that's the thing is the algorithm, it gets you. It throws something in. It's, it's kind of titillating, and people quote on it, and they quote-click on it, and then they go down this, this rabbit hole of shubuhat, and they're just exposing their hearts to all of these, all of these confusing things that, that different types of people are raising about our tradition, about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, about the Quran. And then they wonder, why am I so anxious? Why am I depressed? Why can't I sleep? Why can't I wake up with Fajr?

>> So to just to protect yourself, to have that balance. And so you have the youth that betook themselves to the cave, a type of isolation, right? A type of khalwa. Uh, and that's something that we have to think about as, you know, as the time of the Dajjal draws close, we have to think about just protecting our hearts and maybe taking a more isolationist approach to things.

Just mentioned, you know, we, we're trying to utilize as much as we can. So he has some questions. I've got one question that kind of, uh, uh, I know you've done a talk on this beforehand, and I know it could be a big answer, but again, in the capacity that you have. You just mentioned recently, um, you were just saying that we won't be, the adherents would be saying, we will not be accounted for our actions. So I want that led me to a question in Judaism, and I know this could vary. What is the concept of the afterlife? Do they believe in heaven or hell? Because I recall you having a conversation with one of your professors before, perhaps you could mention that to us.

>> Also, your time, we're conscious of your time.

>> That's the last question for us.

>> Okay. Yeah. That's, inshallah, I'll answer the question. Thank you so much. Um, so this is a very good question, actually. There is nothing in the entire Tanakh. By Tanakh, I mean the Old Testament. Christians call it the Old Testament, Jews call it the Tanakh. Tanakh is an acronym for Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim. Those 39 books that start at Genesis and go to Malachi. There's really nothing explicitly about an afterlife in the whole of the Tanakh. Okay? Not even in the Psalms, really, there's anything about an afterlife, which is a bit strange. Uh, so, um, there are many Jews who don't believe in an afterlife because there are many Jews who don't put a lot of stock in the Talmud, because the afterlife talk actually comes in the Talmud, the Mishna, and Gemara, right, which is more traditional Orthodoxy. So, I would say probably the majority of Jews in the world today, uh, that are even religious Jews, don't believe in an afterlife, because the Orthodox community is only about 10% uh, of the Jewish community, the religious Jewish community. We're talking traditional Orthodox and Modern Orthodox. Uh, so many Reform and Conservative Jews do not believe in an afterlife. I asked one of my teachers, uh, when I was an undergraduate, uh, he was a Conservative rabbi, and I said, "Do you believe in an afterlife?" And he said, "Me?" or something like that. Uh, and so there's, there's, there's nothing really there. Um, and so the, the understanding of many Jews who do not believe in an afterlife is that everything happens in this world,

>> Right?

>> Rewards and punishments are in this world. Uh, and so if you're doing well in this world, and you're prosperous, and, uh, you know, you have wealth, and you have influence, and you have power, then this is a sign that God loves you and God is blessing you. So they really don't have this idea, okay, maybe that's, maybe that's a type of fitna, and God is testing me with these things, you know, so that becomes dangerous. That becomes kind of a prosperity gospel type of understanding, which is a lot of, a lot of Christians, they buy into this idea.

>> Is that why it says in the Quran, they wish to live for a thousand years?

>> Yeah. And, and a lot of these AI guys, these tech guys, I mean, they come from a Jewish background, and they're, and they're really involved in this transhumanism. They're trying to get to a point where they can upload their consciousness into clouds and then download them into these robotic avatars so that they can basically become immortal. I mean, Ray Kurzweil, uh, who did a TED talk, you know, he was asked, "Do you believe in God?" and he said, "Not yet." You know, so with their technology, they're trying to play God.

>> You know,

>> So, but I will say this, Maimonides does consider it a pillar to believe in an afterlife. Okay? So Maimonides, again, who's considered, uh, one of the greatest, if not the greatest theologian and philosopher, he says it is a, a pillar of Jewish faith to believe in an afterlife. So that's the traditional Orthodox, uh, position. Uh, but it's not clear because not all Jews believe in the Talmud. Uh, and, um, there's a lot of different opinions about an afterlife, what actually happens in an afterlife. Like Maimonides' position, so even rabbis that do believe in an afterlife, they have, they have a difference of position as to what actually happens. Maimonides believes that those who lived unrighteous lives, they're never resurrected. They just stay dead, and God takes them out of existence. It's called k'ritah in in Hebrew, annihilation. And only, and only righteous people are resurrected. You know, those who are Jewish, and those who follow the Noahic laws, right? The seven laws that were given to Noah, we would, we would be considered Noahites, by the way. So we would be resurrected. But then we have different stations in the afterlife, right?

>> Sadia,

>> Sadia, another very influential 10th-century of the Common Era, uh, rabbi, uh, his position is more similar to ours, probably influenced by us, you know, that everyone is resurrected, and there's heaven, which is eternal, and there's hell, which is eternal, or, uh, for everlasting, I should say, not necessarily eternal. They're both everlasting. It's been a very profound, profound, interesting conversation. I know, as we're talking, you know, people going through heightened anxieties, but as you mentioned, as you just recalled from the Prophet, I don't know if the hour should come, keep planting that seed. Plant that. And I think that's a message we should all take, you know, to heart, and especially in the times that we're living in. Dr. Ali, thank you so much for the conversation. We've learned so much, and again, Kamal and myself, we've been trying to get on for so long, and we do apologize that it's taken us this long to get you on. But inshallah, this is not the last. And for those who are viewing this at home, please let us know if you'd like to see Dr. Ali more often on the channel. Myself and Kamal, we're already committed to the next one. We'd love to see you again. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Absolute honor, Dr. Ali. Thank you so much.

>> The honor is mine. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you so much. And forgive us for asking so many questions, but you are like an encyclopedia to knowledge. It's, it's, it's amazing to have your company for you to just answer and unpack these very difficult questions. So, thank you so much.

>> Thank you so much, brothers. We'll see you soon. Ramadan.