ISIS Looking forward to Muslim ‘Armageddon’?
The Islamic State may want Western and moderate Arab countries to send ground troops to Syria because it believes an apocalyptic battle is necessary to fulfill an end-of-days prophecy of total Muslim conquest.
This belief is expressed in an ISIS propaganda video released last week titled “Meeting at Dabiq,” which references the future location of an epic final clash between Muslims and “crusaders.”
The Syrian city of Dabiq, near Aleppo, is central to ISIS ideology. The terrorist group named a magazine after the city, and routinely refers to a future battle at Dabiq in their propaganda. They believe a massive confrontation with Western forces must take place there in order to usher in the Islamic apocalypse and ultimate conquest.
Dabiq is mentioned in the Hadith – the Islamic oral tradition that claims to quote the prophet Muhammad verbatim on numerous matters.
Abu Hureyrah, a companion of Muhammad who is perhaps the most important narrator of the Hadith, stated: “The Last Hour will not come until the Romans land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best [soldiers] of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina [to oppose them].”
This Hadith is constantly referenced by the Islamic State as “evidence” that the insurgency and resulting international intervention in Syria were predicted by Muhammad.
According to interpretations of the Hadith, “80 flags,” meaning 80 foreign countries, will come to Syria to fight against the Muslims during the final battle in Dabiq.
Breitbart Jerusalem asked Dr. Abdullah Mukat, an Islamic fundamentalist and former lecturer at the Hamas-linked Islamic University in Gaza, to explain the significance of this Hadith in Islamic State ideology.
Mukat said the Hadith claims that many Romans – meaning many Christians – will become Muslims and live in Syrian territory, with some fighting alongside their Muslim brethren during the final confrontation with the West.
“Dabiq is the border between the Muslim East and the crusading Christian West, and it is the place of the final confrontation, the clash of the judgment day,” Mukat said.
According to Mukat, among the signs attesting to the Hadith being accurate and true is that of non-Arab and non-Muslim fighters joining the ranks of the Islamic State, which, he said, recalls the Romans who joined Islam. Moreover, the preparations for as well as the participation of many countries in the fight against the Islamic State testify that the prophecy is nearing fulfillment.
Mukat stated that “the Hadith says that in face of the gathering of foreign armies in Syria, an army assembled from Islam’s finest sons will set out for Syria to fight in the Dabiq region against the infidels. There, the Muslims will win, according to the Hadith.”