A Present to Kings — Page 63
( 63 ). THE STORY OF THE DAJJAL. . I shall now turn to disprove the other popular notion that since the Dajjal has not yet made his appearance, it is not still time for the Messiah to appear. I would say in reply that the Dajjal has already appeared, but people have failed to recog uise him. The meaning of the word Dajjal is, according to. Arabic lexicons, a counterfeiter. Hence the word Dajjal in the prophecy refers to such societies and organisations as are engaged day and night in giving currency to counterfeit doctrines and are doing their worst to sap the found ations of Islam. The peril from this source has now attained a magnitude of which there is no parallel in the past, because they have now spread over the world in such large numbers that there is no placo but their agent is there, whose endeavour it is to win people from straight to devious path, and it is now beyond the power of the Mussalmans to counteract their peril. The Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be on him) said that whoever wished to be saved from the peril of the. Dajjal should read the first ten and the last ten verses of. Sura-i-Kalif, and in both these places there is reference to some of the false doctrines which are now being spread throughout the world at the cost of immense labour and money. . The verses clearly show that even the Holy Prophet understood the Dajjal to mean such organisations whose ministers and preachers have now penetrated every part of the globe and have been inviting men to false beliefs, for otherwise as a means to save oneself from the peril of Dajjal, he would not have commanded the reading of these verses in which there is a refutation of these false doctrines. . It may now be clear to Your Highness that the Dajjal has already appeared and that by the peril of the Dajjal is meant nothing but the menace of those societies whose ministers are busy endeavouring in a thousand ways to win the world to their preposterous doctrines. That the Dajjal would be blind of one eye signifies that his spiritual eye would be blind, in other words, he would be altogether taken up by the world, and this is evident from facts. Such figurative meanings are not far fetched,