Dajjál, or Antichrist, (he learns), will not be allowed to enter Jerusalem, but will stop on the eastern bank of the Jordan while the faithful remain on the western side. Then Christ, who will reappear to save the true believers, will take up three of the stones of Jerusalem, and will say as he takes up the first, “In the name of the God of Abraham;” with the second, “In the name of the God of Isaac;” and with the third, “In the name of the God of Jacob.” He will then go out at the head of the Muslims, Dajjál will flee before him, and be slain by the three stones. The victors will then proceed to a general massacre of the Jews in and around the Holy City, and every tree and every stone shall cry out and say, “I have a Jew beneath me, slay him.” Having done this the Messiah will break the crosses and kill the pigs, after which the Millenium will set in.
The last sign which is to precede the day of resurrection is that the Ka‘abeh of Mecca shall be led as a bride to the Sakhrah of Jerusalem. When the latter sees it, it will cry out, “Welcome thou Pilgrim to whom Pilgrimages are made.” No one dies until he has heard the sound of the Muezzin in Jerusalem calling to prayer.
The pilgrims to the Haram es Sheríf differ but little from those of the Holy Sepulchre. Both endure great hardships, exhibit intense devotion and ostentatious humility; and both believe that by scrupulous practice of the appointed rites and observances they are advancing a claim upon the favour of heaven which cannot be repudiated. Both delight in assuring themselves and others that it is love for the stones on which the saints have trodden which brings them there, but if their satisfaction could be analysed it would be found to consist in a sense of religious security, which a learned Muslim doctor has quaintly expressed: “The dwellers in Jerusalem are the neighbours of God; and God has no right to torment his neighbours.”
As with us in Europe, the only notices of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages are derived from the Crusaders and early pilgrims, so the various accounts of the Holy City, with the quaint stories and traditions attaching to it, with which Mohammed’s writings teem, are all due to the early warriors and pilgrims of Islam.
Of these, and their name is legion, I will select a few of the most eminent in order that the reader may form some idea of the sources from which the Arab historians have drawn their information.
The Mohammedan pilgrims to Jerusalem range themselves naturally into two great classes or periods, namely, those who “came over with the conqueror” ‘Omar, or who visited the city between the date of his conquest and the second Christian kingdom, and those who were posterior to Saladin. Of all the Mohammedan pilgrims to Jerusalem the first and most distinguished was Abu ‘Obeidah ibn el Jerráh, to whom, as has already been shown, the conquest of Jerusalem was due.
He died in the great plague at ‘Amwás, (Emmaus) A.D. 639, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and was buried in the village of Athmá, at the foot of Jehel ‘Ajlún, between Fukáris and El ‘Άdilíyeh, where his tomb is still pointed out. In this plague no less than twenty-five thousand of the Muslim soldiery perished.
Bellál ibn Rubáh, Mohammed’s own “Muezzin,” accompanied ‘Omar to Jerusalem. He was so devoutly attached to the person of the Prophet that he refused to exercise his office after Mohammed’s decease, except on the occasion of the conquest of the Holy City, when he was prevailed upon by the Caliph once more to call the people to prayers in honour of so great an occasion.
Khálid ibn el Walíd, surnamed the “Drawn Sword of God,” was also present with the victorious army of ‘Omar; he died in the year 641 A.D., and was buried, some say, at Emessa, and others, at Medínah.
‘Abúdat ibn es Sámit, the first Cádhí of Jerusalem, arrived with ‘Omar, he was buried in the Holy City, but his tomb disappeared during the Christian occupation.