MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Matthew 24:26-27, “‘Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; [or] ‘Look, [He is] in the inner rooms!’ do not believe [it]. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.'”

Joel Richardson: “The following picture was sent to me from a friend in Iran. It is of a small billboard set up in various cities throughout Iran by the present Iranian government. The caption reads,

“Quote from our Holy prophet, His Holiness Mohammad (God Bless Him): ‘I swear to God, for sure, Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) shall descend amidst my followers, the leader of [the] people on that day shall be his holiness (sic) [the] Mahdi. (May God expedite his revelation).’”

Try to imagine if the present United States government placed billboards across the nation informing and encouraging people with the message that Jesus will return soon. The concept is so utterly foreign to us. Please pray for the Church in Iran. Pray that the revival in Iran would only continue to grow and bear great fruit. And do not forget to pray that war with Iran can be averted.” Source – Joels Trumpet.

AFP – “KAIROUAN (AFP/EJP)—Thousands of Salafist Muslims marched on Kairouan in Central Tunisia, as part of the extremist Islamic movement’s annual assembly. The exclusively male attendees, many of whom were dressed in Afghan military uniform or waving Salafist black flags, marched through the city and raised a banner over the minaret of its mosque, the oldest in Africa.

The demonstration comes in the wake of the rejuvenated Jewish annual pilgrimage to the Tunisian island of Djerba, the continuation of which was in doubt after Israel’s National Security Council expressed fears the country’s activists were planning attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets…

Organisers of the Salafist assembly had instructed marchers to remain ‘calm’ and not to talk to reporters. Many participants however defied their request not to chant slogans, reciting ‘We are all the children of Osama (bin Laden)’ and ‘Jews, Jews, the army of Mohammed is back’.

The Salafist movement has risen to prominence since its launch in April 2011, following the popular protests that forced former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee Tunisia after 23 years in power, and which constituted the start of the Arab Spring across the Muslim world.

The revolution brought moderate Islamists to power to replace the former secular administration, but also led to the rise of extremist groups advocating the adoption of fundamentalist shariah law.

The leader of the outlawed Hizb Ettahrir party, Ridha Bel Haj told the crowd he was hopeful because of the number of participants in the country’s second annual assembly:

‘The revolution was made so that sharia could be applied’, he said…

Not all observers were willing or welcome participants, however. A group of tourists were seen leaving in disgust, while a crowd of women gathered nearby expressed their horror at the demonstration:

‘Frankly, my first reaction in seeing them was fear,’ said one of them. ‘I don’t know if they bring luck or misfortune to Tunisia, but I’m afraid of a second, religious revolution.'” Read more.

Flashback: ‘A New Cycle of Civilization’: Tunisia’s Islamists Hail Arrival of the ‘Sixth Caliphate’ – “The Islamist politician likely to become Tunisia’s first democratically elected prime minister has alarmed liberals and secularists by claiming the arrival of the ‘sixth caliphate’, a controversial term for a Muslim empire. Hamadi Jebeli, secretary-general of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which romped to victory in last month’s elections, told a rally in the city of Sousse: ‘My brothers, you are at a historic moment in a new cycle of civilisation, God willing. We are in sixth caliphate…” Read more.

In other words, this Muslim preacher is telling the Egyptian people to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate. Because he is compelled by the religion-of-no-compulsion to tell them who to vote for. Because democracy is forbidden. And there is no freedom in Islam. So voting has become a religious duty. Because buying votes would be a ‘great sin’. Except for when the Muslim Brotherhood does it. So it is imperative for every Egyptian to freely vote for a pro-Sharia candidate who will take away that forbidden freedom …

Isaiah 19:4, “‘And the Egyptians I will give Into the hand of a cruel master, And a fierce king will rule over them,’ Says the Lord, the LORD of hosts.”

By Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt Independent – “Muslim preacher Safwat Hegazy, who has been campaigning for the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsy, said it is against religion to elect a presidential candidate who wants to establish a state based on liberalism, secularism, communism or socialism.

During Friday prayers in Nagda Mosque in Nagaa Hammadi, Qena, Hegazy called on people not to elect a candidate who participated in the injustice and the corruption of the former regime or who even remained silent watching the injustice and corruption of Hosni Mubarak and his entourage.

Hegazy said voters should choose the candidate who would apply Sharia and ‘who would be living in Cairo, but would tremble in fear [of God] if asked about a hungry person in Nag Hammadi.’

He described the elections as a testimony before God and a great responsibility, and said: ‘If you choose a man who corrupted the country, you will be responsible with him for his corruption and will be held accountable with him [before God]. But if you choose a man who abides by the law of God and establishes justice, you will be rewarded with him. Everyone will be held accountable [by God] if the next president is ill-chosen, and we should not blame but ourselves.’

Hegazy stressed that participating in the elections is a religious duty and that not voting or invalidating one’s vote is against religion. He added that buying votes is a ‘great sin.’

‘We want a president who we can tell, ‘Fear God and His law and judge according to His Book.’ We want a president who will free Palestine and Jerusalem to tell the world that the law of God has returned in Egypt,’ he said.

A large number of Brotherhood members and Morsy supporters were reportedly attending the sermon, passing out campaign flyers.” Source – Egypt Independent.

When the Prophet Daniel wrote in 7:25 that Antichrist would “think to change times and laws”, it’s clear in my mind that the “laws” were a direct reference to the desired implementation and subjugation of Sharia Law upon non-Muslims. But thinking “to change times” may not have simply been referring to changing Greenwich Mean Time with “Mecca Time” or replacing the Gregorian Calendar of the West for the Hijri Calendar of Islam. It may have also been referring to something that we’re witnessing even this very day in the world of Islam: the rewriting of history …

By Daniel Pipes, National Review Online – “The year 1880 saw the publication of a book that ranks as the single most important study of Islam ever. Written in German by a young Jewish Hungarian scholar, Ignaz Goldziher, and bearing the nondescript title Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien), it argued that the hadith, the vast body of sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, lacked historical validity. Rather than provide reliable details about Mohammed’s life, the hadith, Goldziher established, emerged from debates two or three centuries later about the nature of Islam.

(This is like today’s Americans debating the Constitution’s much-disputed Second Amendment, concerning the right to bear arms, by claiming newly discovered oral transmissions going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, their quotations would inform us not what was said 225 years ago but about current views.)

Since Goldziher’s day, scholars have been actively pursuing his approach, deepening and developing it into a full-scale account of early Islamic history, one that disputes nearly every detail of Mohammed’s life as conventionally understood — born in a.d. 570, first revelation in 610, flight to Medina in 622, death in 632. But this revisionist history has remained a virtual secret among specialists. For example, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, authors of the synoptic Hagarism (Cambridge University Press, 1977), deliberately wrote obliquely, thereby hiding their message.

Now, however, two scholars have separately ended this secrecy: Tom Holland with In the Shadow of the Sword, and Robert Spencer with Did Muhammad Exist? As their titles suggest, Spencer is the bolder author, and so is my focus here.

In a well-written, sober, and clear account, he begins by demonstrating the inconsistencies and mysteries in the conventional account concerning Mohammed’s life, the Koran, and early Islam. For example, whereas the Koran insists that Mohammed did not perform miracles, the hadith ascribes him thaumaturgic powers Read more…