The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 170
170 Essence of Islam-III of the world to judge mankind. Then all those who have not accepted him or his mother as God will be seized and cast into hell where they will stay weeping and grinding their teeth. Muslims, on the one hand, allege that Jesusas was not crucified and did not die on the cross. He was not even nailed to the cross; rather, when he was appre- hended by the Jews, an Angel of God carried him bodily to the second heaven where he abides alongside the Prophet Yahyaas or John. 142 Muslims also believe that Je- susas was a revered Prophet of God and was neither God nor the son of God. They believe that he will descend in the latter days leaning upon two angels, near a minaret in Damascus, or at some other place, and that he and the Imam Muhammad Mahdi, who will have already ap- peared from among the descendants of Hadrat Fatima, will both join forces to slaughter all those who do not immediately accept Islām. In short, the Muslims who call themselves Ahl-e-Sunnah and also Ahl-e-Hadith, who are commonly known as Wahābīs, say that the real pur- pose of the second advent of Jesusas is that, like the Ma- hadev of Hindus, he should destroy the greater part of the world. He will first warn people to become Muslims and if they resist he will put them to the sword. . . . As regards Christians, the Muslim divines assert that, when Jesusas descends from heaven, he will break all the crosses in the world and will mercilessly drown the whole world in blood. . . . Though Jesusas will himself be a Mahdī, indeed he will be the principal Mahdī, yet he will not be the Khalifa because the Khalifa must be from among the Quraish. Muhammad Mahdī will be the Khalifa. According to them, both of them will together 142 John the Baptist. [Publisher]