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[ by Charles Cameron — May 21st, Y2K, USS Topeka, Harold Camping ]
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I’ve been listening to Harold Camping lately, he’s been on my car radio quite a bit and I like the way he handles callers – he’s a courteous old gentleman, firm when he has to be, and very, very certain that the Bible supports his date-setting for Judgment Day just four days from now on May 21st at 6pm in whichever time-zone you happen to be in – foolish the man who straddles two time-zones on that day!

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Digression: I say that last bit, remembering that as December 31st 1999 slipped into January 1st 2000, the USS Topeka straddled the dateline, equator, hemispheres, seasons and millennia:

Its bow in one year, its stern in another, the USS Topeka marked the new millennium 400 feet beneath the International Date;line in the Pacific ocean. The Pearl Harbor-based navy submarine straddled the line, meaning that at midnight, one end was in 2000 while the other was still in 1999… The 360-foot-long sub, which was 2,100 miles from Honolulu, Hawaii, straddled the Equator at the same time, meaning it was in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Some of the 130 crewmembers were in Winter in the North, while others were in Summer in the South…

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In any case: this evening Camping mentioned that his representatives had managed to get permission to post some of his end-times billboards in Dubai of all places – see illustration above — and apparently they’d contacted an Emirate bureaucrat while his boss was away from the office, and received official permission. And although the permission was quickly rescinded, that fact in turn led to Arab news-media carrying the message into half a dozen other countries which might not otherwise have been informed. All this, Camping, age 89, assured his listeners, was the work of God, the CEO — and he spelled out just what those letters stand for: Chief Executive Officer.

What a story — this I had to verify! – and it’s true, Gulf News for April 13th carries a story titled ‘End of days’ billboards in Dubai to be removed, says official.

Dubai: A billboard advertisement claiming that May 21, 2011 will be the “judgment day” according to the Bible, and which shocked many and dismayed others, will be removed, a senior official said on Sunday.
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The large billboards put up on various busy roads of Dubai such as Al Garhoud and Al Jaffiliya, carries the sentence “the great and terrible day, who shall be able to stand”.
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Marie Sheahan, Media Representative of Family Radio, who is campaigning to put up this advertisement about judgment day, told Gulf News that she and her husband are in town from the United States to advertise and “warn people about it, regardless of nationality, religion or anything else because this will affect everybody”.

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So… I was listening to Camping on the radio this evening, fascinated as always by the interplay between Camping himself, the true believers and the doubters, when an awful racket assailed my ears – and Camping’s warning that the entire world was about to end was rudely interrupted by a more local and immediate warning that a tornado watch would be in effect just down the road in half an hour…

Oh, the irony!

Which brings up the question of when is an emergency so urgent that it can interrupt another emergency? I mean, should a tornado watch warning interrupt a warning of the end of the world? Does an ambulance have the right of way over a firetruck if they meet at an intersection?

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Camping’s book 1994? had a similar theme, but lacked mathematical rigor alas.

This time, he’s double-checked.

[ by Charles Cameron ]

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I’m taking a break from my usual Zenpundit fare this time around, and posting some poems about the ugliness and holiness I see most evenings.

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When my capacity for writing about religious violence and apocalyptic fever has abated, and I want to set my mind on pause before I go to sleep, I often watch crime-thrillers: it’s a sort of meditation for me. And because it’s a sort of meditation, I find that odd things – single shots, often the ones film-makers call “establishing shots” – catch my eye and send me into poetry mode, where what I’ve seen triggers a clearer sense of what I intuit.

The secular sacred: i

In the relative darks of early darkness
a train crosses on a raised rail above the houses
where sleeping is beginning, its
windows and windows and windows lit up
with empty interiors, here and there
a person, but windows, mainly, and their
lights passing in sequence with a rhythm like
the rhythm of breathing, of the late train.

And how to get that in poetry, how to get
what the camera sees, the slightest of slightest
parts of the daily routine, entirely secular,
where plain people have transmuted
metal to transportation system? Tta-cha,
this passing of lights, lights, lights in the night.

It goes this way: the films show me something of the scope and range of human activity, and the scope – the sheer size of numerous cities – is so huge, and the range – from the heroic, the creative and even the saintly to the crazed, the dulled, the bereft and the vicious – is so great that my sense of how wide and deep the world is gets expanded way past its limits.

And the part of me that has experienced (and continues to experience) something that I can find no words for outside the religious vocabulary — “grace” and “radiance” – the part of me that is enormously thankful now and always for the privilege of human being, of sight, friends, speech, friends, books, friends, music, travel, the internet… that part of me, precious to me, somehow must come to grips with the gritty, the grimy, the “real”.

I have no theories about heaven, no belief or creed beyond a non-verbal assent, but it’s my sense that the condition of joy we call “heaven” – much like the condition of insight we call “poetry” – reaches “down” from whatever lofty spires or Himalayas we may suppose it abides in, into the dust beneath our wheels, beneath our feet… dust that my mind, at least, could easily sweep under the carpet.

And so, watching thrillers to put my mind on pause, I have to put the films on pause to write the poems…

The secular sacred: ii

How many gravestones can a camera’s eye
pass in a single sweep, and you think
God any less able to see? The sacrament
of cinema surpasses, pushes words
into admission of strange holiness way
past the tolerances of the religious,
way and away past any sense of what sacred
might mean except only the sacred itself,

felt fully in belly and brain of the city, the
splintered, splendored city. Nor, in
these needle-strewn streets, this broken
flesh and blood, is there mercy room
beyond pity of such pettiness, the
shattered dreams — so ugly, small, so holy.

After writing those two on successive nights, I made a note for some friends…

Those two, the “secular sacred” poems, are part of something I’m working towards by watching “gritty” films most nights, and triggered in particular by helicopter long-shots of freeways intercut with goings on at street level — giving me the feeling the world is far larger (and uglier) than (my) religious imagination usually reckons, with holiness in the discarded condoms.

So I’m trying to make room conceptually for a god or emergent world or mirroring pool wide and deep enough for gritty realism in these poems…

The secular sacred: iii

Now you think of it, someone must have
wanted him to walk down those steps from
the whore’s house round the corner
into the shadow and to his car, the street
laid out just the way it happens
in the film, someone put the camera
there or the street corner, setting
up a street corner is less effort than

growing a city from scratch and gives
greater freedom, so there was some intent,
some design to his coming down
those steps at that speed and time with
that look on his face, and directors
are not necessarily lacking in street smarts.

And I’m far from sure what sort of God, mirror or emergence will emerge from all this at the end, but it’s unlikely to have curls in a beard and be supremely nice, at least not just nice…

The secular sacred iv

The fact that there’s holiness in needles
glinting in the sun and discarded condoms in
the shade, and the fact there’s often
more shade than sun, and other facts I
might mention shouldn’t dissuade us from
the glint of clinics and the shade of
discarded habits, there’s holiness there
too, in the turning around of a life, and if

grass needs to break through asphalt to
prove a metaphysical point, you can be sure
some kind of holiness is reaching up
for sky and to get our attention, which,
too, is a locus of the sacred, humming in
time with the heartbeat of world and heaven.

[ by Charles Cameron ]

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Dr. Timothy Furnish, the author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden and a keen student of both Shi’ite and Sunni Mahdism, proposed on Twitter yesterday:

Without UBL’s body (or at least pix) claims will come soon that UBL merely “occulted” (like 12th Imam), not dead, and will return.

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It might be thought that occultation (ghayba) was a Shi’ite concept, extremely unlikely to be espoused by the Sunni (and indeed Salafist) followers of bin Laden.

What exactly is meant by the term “occultation”?

Gershom Scholem in his definitive study of the Jewish heretical messiah-claimant (and eventual Muslim convert) Sabbatai Sevi quotes Elias Bickerman‘s “study of the ideas of occultation in early Christianity and in the cult of the apotheosis of the Roman emperors”, in which the hero “by the grace of God, is liberated from death at the very moment of death, and is removed to Paradise, Heaven, or a distant land where he continues to live in the body.” (Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626-1676, p. 923)

Scholem uses the term “occultation” to describe the belief of Sevi’s followers after his death in a way which illustrates comparable beliefs among both Christians and Shi’ite Muslims (p. 314):

In itself the doctrine of occultation could also point to Shi’ite Muslim influence. In the theology of the more radical Shi’ite groups the doctrine of the the occultation of the imam was widely accepted. But in the historical context of Sabbatai’s biography before his apostasy, such Shi’ite influence would seem highly improbable. The messiah — according to Sabbatai’s and Nathan’s teaching — will, then, not die, but will be translated to higher worlds. The idea would agree well with what we know of Sabbatai’s illuminations and the concomitant psychological experiences of exaltation and ascensions to the celestial lights. It is not impossible that conversations with Christians suggested to Sabbatai the very congenial idea of the messiah’s transfiguration.

And notes of this Jewish variant (p. 923):

The Sabbatian doctrine of occultation was not borrowed from other systems but — as happens more often in the history of religions — is the result of similar structures of faith.

More recently, some followers of the late Lubavitcher rebbe have proposed that he is “hidden” and will return… See, for instance:

Since the Third of Tammuz, we are no longer able to physically see the Rebbe King Moshiach. The Rebbe remains physically alive just as before, it is only to our eyes that he is concealed. Therefore, we call this a day of concealment, and many refer to this as the “last test.”
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— from the brochure “Chasidim Proclaim to the Lubavitcher Rebbe: Long Live our Master, our Teacher, our Rebbe King Moshiach Forever and Ever” as quoted by Rabbi Chaim Dov Keller

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That’s the sort of background I’d want to have, before dismissing Tim Furnish’s suggestion out of hand. The Qur’an, after all, states at 3.169:

Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord…

Having said that, it is also true that the Prophet himself treats the notion of his own return as a metaphysical “wish” rather than a realistic possibility, in the hadith attested in both Bukhari and Muslim:

I wish that I could be killed in the Path of Allah, then be brought back to life, then be killed, then be brought back to life, then be killed.

It will be instructive to watch how the narratives of bin Laden’s death and/or continuing life develop.

[ by Charles Cameron ]
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Okay, you may groan and skip quickly to the next post or perhaps read with bemused interest every time I post here about Islamic eschatology — but in either case you might have hoped that the death of bin Laden would have no apocalyptic resonance whatsoever.

Sadly enough, Anjem Choudary — co-founder with Omar Bakri Muhammad of the UK’s Islamist group al-Muhajiroun – has a press release posted on his website today titled May Allah grant Sheikh Usama Martyrdom. It begins:

The announcement this morning of the death of Sheikh Usama Bin laden has been met with joy in the United States and by other enemies of Islam and Muslims. I would like remind everyone that someone much better and much more significant then Sheikh Usama Bin laden passed away in the past, namely the Messenger Muhammad (saw) and that this never stopped the Jihad nor the spread of Islam to the East and West. Indeed the Messenger Muhammad (saw) said that the day of judgement will not come until a group of Muslims conquer the White House.

The hadith in question comes from Sahih Muslim, Book 19, On Government (Kitab Al- Imara) 4483, and reads as follows:

Narrated Jabir ibn Samurah:
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It has been narrated on the authority of Amir ibn Sa’d ibn AbuWaqqas who said: I wrote (a letter) to Jabir ibn Samurah and sent it to him through my servant, Nafi’, asking him to inform me of something he had heard from the Messenger of Allah (peace_be_upon_him). He wrote to me (in reply): I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) say on Friday, the day on which al- Aslami was stoned to death (for committing adultery): The Islamic religion will continue until the Hour has been established, or you have been ruled by twelve Caliphs, all of them being from the Quraysh. I also heard him say: A small force of the Muslims will capture the white palace, the palace of the Persian Emperor or his descendants. I also heard him say: Before the Day of Judgment there will appear (a number of) imposters. You are to guard against them. I also heard him say: When God grants wealth to any one of you, he should first spend it on himself and his family (and then give it in charity to the poor). I heard him (also) say: I shall be your forerunner at the Cistern (expecting your arrival).

I suppose I should apologize, but “until the Hour has been established” and “Before the Day of Judgment” are both clear “end times” references.

A poster on SunniForum quotes this hadith from Muslim, one of the two hadith collections regarded as most reliable and given the epithet “sahih” (authentic), and follows it with another, citing Al-Tabarani, Al-Mu’jam al-Kabeer 2.198:

Jabir b. Samura said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say on Friday evening, the day on which Ma’ez al-Aslami was stoned to death (for committing adultery): A small force of the Muslims will capture the white house. I said: Kisra? he replied Kisra.

Be it noted that while “white palace” or “white house” would both be appropriate translations of the term used, Kisra clearly refers not to the house of the US President in Washington DC, but to the palace of Khosrau (Chosroes) I of Persia in Ctesiphon (now an impressive ruin in Iraq).

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I expect I found the Anjem Choudary press piece following a lead from Aaron Zelin, and if so I owe him double thanks – because he also pointed me to this quote from a member of the Ansar Forum:

al-Qaeda are the people of the Victorious Sect, which recognizes the last of the banner to the Mahdi

The victorious sect is the one sect of Islam out of very many that holds fast to the Prophet’s teaching, see the hadith collected here. As UCLA historian Jean Rosenfeld noted in a comment on the al-Sahwa blog:

Al-Qaida took the Salafi myth of the Saved Sect and the Victorious Group and applied it to themselves. This is in line with the need for converts to see themselves as heroes carrying out a transcendent purpose.The Saved Sect was turned into an eschatological myth by bin Ladin and his compatriots. It is a group of warriors who sacrifice themselves for the Din, the Land, and the people. The members of the Sect are a vanguard and they are few. Not only are they attacked by their opponents, but fellow Muslims may persecute them. Thus, if the group remains small and is regarded as practicing fitnah and is denounced, that only validates the group’s certitude that it is the Saved Sect. Only this sect — out of “72 sects” (note: this is probably a symbolic number meaning “many”) — will attain paradise at the end time.

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A couple more clear instances of end-times associations in the (Sunni) jihadist current…

[ by Charles Cameron ]

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Glenn Beck has a new documentary coming out tonight on Mahdism and the Antichrist.

He calls it “the documentary that you will not see on mainstream television” and to get to see it, you have to be a subscriber to Beck’s Insider Extreme channel on the web. But then that fits with Beck’s emphasis right now — he doesn’t mind crying shame on the media for not carrying the documentary, but he doesn’t want unbelievers to see it either — he told his radio audience today:

Make sure you see it tonight at nine o’clock. And if I may recommend that you watch it with some friends. Invite some friends over, some like-minded people, don’t try to get any converts in. Pull up the nets, man, pull up the nets.

So okay — it won’t be on “mainstream television” but it will be seen in a million “like-minded” homes, and it will influence them, it will influence their perspective on Islam, and on the Middle East.

Here’s a description of what they can expect, drawn from Joel Rosenberg‘s blog today. Joel is the author of the apocalyptic thriller The Twelfth Imam, has seen the rough cut and will be appearing on the video, along with those he lists here:

Tonight on his website, Glenn Beck will premiere his new documentary film, “Rumors of War — Part Two.” As with Part One, I was interviewed for the film…

The documentary examines current events and trends in the Middle East and the Islamic world from various vantage points — Biblical End Times theology, Jewish End Times theology, and Islamic End Times theology. It discusses the latest threats from the Radical Islamic world to Israel, the West and our allies. It features a wide range of Jewish, Muslim and evangelical Christian authors and commentators in a balanced yet provocative and fascinating way. Among them:

• Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.
• Reza Kahlili, former CIA agent inside Iran and author of A Time To Betray
• Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind novel series
• Brigitte Gabriel, author of They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It
• Joel Richardson, author of The Islamic Antichrist
• Dr. Zudi Jasser, president of American Islamic Forum for Democracy

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The thing is, Beck doesn’t know a whole lot about these things, and his advisers get things wrong — sometimes flat out wrong, sometimes just out of proportion — too.

I aim to review Beck’s documentary along with its predecessor, and the books of Joel Richardson and Joel Rosenberg, and also take a look at some other books and articles that cover the same materials with greater scholarship and less religious special interest — notably the works of David Cook, J-P Filiu and Timothy Furnish — clear up some of this issues in which definitive corrections are in order, suggest areas where the preponderance of evidence and informed commentary leans away from Beck’s position, and raise again those urgent questions which remain.

Because from where I sit, Glenn Beck has hit on one of our blind spots — and is giving us a dangerously distorted mirror in which to view it.

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Here’s Beck talking about the upcoming documentary this morning on his radio show:

Tonight, you don’t want to miss, on Insider Extreme, something that we have been trying to tell the story for quite some time, and I have told it to you many times before, the story of the Twelfth Imam, well this is not the full story of the Twelfth Imam, this is what people Middle East believe about the Twelfth Imam, or the Mahdi as the… Sunnis? Sunnis are in Egypt, Shias are in, ah, is it Shias in Iran or is it the other way around? I think it’s S.. Shias are in Iran. One believes in the Twelfth Imam, the others believe in the Mahdi, same guy, it is the… the… you would know it as the Antichrist. It is the, it has every earmarking of the Antichrist, every single one, I mean, he makes a peace for seven years with Egypt, he viol… — I mean with Israel, he violates it, he marks people with a number, he beheads people if they don’t submit, I mean it’s all there. It’s all there. And Ahmadinejad says that he is alive and well and orchestrating the things in the Middle East.

Did you get that? He’s not sure: “is it Shias in Iran or is it the other way around?”

If Beck has been working on this documentary for a year now, let’s hope he does in fact know the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, and that he’s using the popular gag technique of pretending not to know, so his audience — who haven’t all been working on a documentary and may well not know — can feel all the more strongly “he’s one of us”. And besides, Sunni, Shia, it’s all the same, Mahdi, Twelfth Imam, no difference at all, right?

So that’s the level of required accuracy that’s tolerated here. Which side was it wanted to keep slavery? I forget now, I think it may have been the South. Belfast — now is that Catholic, or Protestant?

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And one last quick note from the same post on Joel Rosenberg’s blog:

As far as I can tell, Glenn Beck is leaving the Fox News Channel in part because Fox is opposed to him devoting so much time on his program to End Times issues, Bible prophecy, Iran’s eschatology, and the linkage of these things to left wing efforts to sow seeds of revolution and chaos. It’s too bad, really.

That’s an interesting data point.

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There will be plenty to talk about, anyway:

the new documentary, Joel Rosenberg’s thriller, which I enjoyed, Joel Richardson, with whom I correspond and whom I like, the new Mahdist video in Iran which is causing quite a stir, and may or may not be an “official” Iranian production, the vexed question — vexed in all three Abrahamic faiths — of whether you can hasten the coming of the Awaited One and if so, how, and the implications of all this both in the United States and in the Middle East, the Iranian nuclear program…

The Glenn Beck, Mahdism & Antichrist blog series, coming up.