the world will hear. He will travel the world in forty days.” [^5] Some unfair people have said about this narration that it is impossible, God forbid, and have gone as far as to deny it and to declare it null. Whereas, And the knowledge of it is with God, the truth of it must be this:
[^5]:Muslim, Fitan, 110; Abū Dā’ūd, Malāhim, 14; Tirmidhī, Fitan, 59; Ibn Māja, Fitan, 33; Musnad, iv, 181.
It indicates the appearance of a person from the north who will come to lead a great current issuing forth from the godless ideas of naturalism, in the north, where the world of unbelief is at its densest, and who will be atheist. There is an instance of wisdom in this, for in the latitudes close to the North Pole the whole year is one day and one night; there are six months of night and six months of day. “One day of the Dajjal is a year” alludes to his appearance close to those latitudes. What is meant from “His second day is a month” is that passing in this direction from the north, it sometimes happens that for a month in the summer the sun does not set. This suggests that the Dajjal will emerge in the north and invade southwards towards the civilized world. By attributing the day to the Dajjal, it points to this. He comes further in this direction, and the sun does not set for a week, and so it continues until there are three hours between its rising and setting. I was in such a place while being held in Russia as a prisoner-of-war. Near to us was a place where the sun did not set for a week. They used to go there to watch it. As for the part, “When the Dajjal appears, all the world will hear of it,” the telegraph and radio have solved it. As for his travelling the world in forty days, this has been solved by the railway and aeroplane, his mounts. Deniers who formerly considered these two statements to be impossible, now see them as commonplace!
Since in another treatise I have written in some detail about Gog and Magog and the Barrier, which are among the signs of the end of the world, I refer readers to those and here only say this: there are narrations stating that the tribes known as the Manchurians and Mongols, who threw human society into chaos and were the cause of the building of the Great Wall of China, will again overturn human civilization close to Doomsday with an idea like anarchy.
Some atheists say: “Where are the tribes that perform these extraordinary acts and that will perform them?”
The Answer: A calamity like locusts appears in one season in enormous numbers, then on the change of the seasons, those numerous tribes which disrupt the country consign their reality to a few limited individuals. Then, when the time comes, at the divine command, great numbers appear from