Mohammed Hijab – Stunning Biblical Prophesy
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses various myths and legends related to the fourth legate's dream of a dazzling statue. The image is described, including wings and horns, chest and arms, head, feet, legs, and legs, and represented in various forms. The fourth legate's prophecy describes a lion and bear, which is a lion and a bear, and is related to the Medes. The image is also discussed, including the rise of Islam and the importance of the beast image. The transcript provides insight into various legends and legends related to the fourth legate's prophecy.
AI: Summary ©
Daniel is one of the most extraordinary
prophets in the old testament.
Exiled to Babylon by the tyrant King Nebuchadnezzar,
God bestowed upon Daniel wisdom and granted him
dreams and apocalyptic
visions of things to come.
In this video, we are going to examine
some of Daniel's astonishing prophecies
that all point to the coming of the
prophet Muhammad
upon whom be peace.
Daniel chapter 2 informs us about a dream
that greatly disturbed the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar.
Your majesty looked, and there before you stood
an enormous dazzling statue.
The head of the statue was made of
pure gold.
Its chest and arms of silver. Its belly
and thighs of bronze.
Its legs of iron. Its feet partly of
iron and partly of baked clay.
Here we are informed that the Babylonian king,
Nebuchadnezzar,
dreamt of a dazzling statue
comprised of the materials of gold, silver, bronze,
iron, and clay.
Daniel interpreted the dream as follows.
Your majesty,
you are that head of gold. After you,
another kingdom will arise inferior to yours.
Next, a 3rd kingdom, one of bronze, will
rule the whole earth.
Finally, there will be a 4th kingdom, strong
as iron. As iron breaks things to pieces,
so it will crush and break all the
others.
Just as the feet and toes were partly
of baked clay and partly of iron, so
this will be a divided kingdom. This kingdom
will be partly strong and partly brittle.
According to Daniel, the different sections of the
statue
represented 4 successive kingdoms who would rule on
earth.
Daniel explicitly tells us that the first of
these kingdoms
represented by the statues head of gold is
Babylon, the kingdom which was in power during
his day.
The identities
of the 2nd and third kingdoms are revealed
in a later vision in Daniel chapter 8.
In the 3rd year of King Belshazzar's
reign, I, Daniel, had a vision.
There before me was a ram with 2
horns.
No animal could stand against it. Suddenly, a
goat with a prominent horn came toward the
2 horned ram and charged at it in
great rage.
The ram was powerless to stand against it.
The goat became very great, but at the
height of its power, the large horn was
broken off and in its place, 4 prominent
horns grew up.
The prophecy goes on to inform us that
the ram with 2 horns
symbolizes
a combined kingdom consisting of Medo Persians.
The 2 horned ram that you saw represents
the kings of Media who
historically
who historically united under Cyrus the Great.
So where in the sequence of kingdoms does
the Medo Persian Empire fit?
The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah answered this question
for us because they informed us that Babylon
would be defeated by the Medes.
See, I will stir up against them, the
Medes. Babylon,
the jewel of kingdoms, will be overthrown by
God.
The Lord has stirred up the kings of
the Medes because his purpose is to destroy
Babylon.
Historically,
King Belshazzar,
who we have been told was in power
at the time of Daniel's vision of the
2 horned ram, was the last Babylonian
ruler.
In the year 539
BCE,
he was defeated by Cyrus the Great who
commanded the Medo Persian Empire.
Thus, we can conclude
that the Medo Persian Empire is the 2nd
kingdom in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream. The kingdom that is depicted as the
statue's silver chest and arms and is said
to defeat Babylon.
What about the symbol of the goat as
the animal that will defeat the 2 horned
ram with the goat's prominent horn then splitting
into 4 smaller horns?
Daniel chapter 8 informs us that the goat
represents the Greeks.
The shaggy goat is the king of Greece,
and the large horn between its eyes is
the first king. The four horns that replaced
the one that was broken off
represent 4 kingdoms that will emerge from his
nation but will not have the same power.
Historically,
Alexander the Great was king of the ancient
Greek kingdom of Macedon.
He overthrew the Medo Persians
and created a vast empire, the likes of
which the world had never seen.
He died suddenly in the year 3 23
BCE
with his empire descending into chaos,
eventually splitting up into 4 stable but weaker
power blocks.
We can see that Alexander the Great
perfectly fits Daniel's vision of the goat with
a prominent horn that splits into 4 horns.
So far, it has been demonstrated
how the golden head represents Babylon. The chest
and arms of silver represents the Medo Persians,
and that the belly and thighs of bronze
represents the Macedonians.
We will now switch focus back to Nebuchadnezzar's
dream in Daniel chapter 2.
What about the remaining portion of the statue,
which is said to have legs of iron
with feet partly of iron and partly of
baked clay.
Daniel interpreted this 4th kingdom to be strong
as iron. As iron breaks things to pieces,
so it will crush and break all the
others.
We can see that the 4th kingdom is
described as being far stronger than those kingdoms
which come before it.
Historically,
the emergence of the Roman Empire perfectly matches
this description.
The Romans annihilated
the Macedonian
Empire,
dissolving their territory into Roman provinces.
The Roman Empire went from strength to strength,
eventually ruling over vast parts of the world
more than any other empire before it.
Daniel also mentioned that this 4th kingdom will
be a divided kingdom, partly strong and partly
brittle.
Again, this perfectly describes the Roman Empire.
By the end of 4th century CE, it
had split into 2 with the western part
ruling from Ravenna and the eastern part ruling
from Constantinople.
Although it was weakened,
both halves of the Roman Empire
continued to be among the strongest powers in
the world.
In summary, we have now identified
all 4 kingdoms
symbolized by the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream, Babylon,
the Medo Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire, and
the Roman Empire.
This brings us onto the final part of
Nebuchadnezzar's
dream. While you were watching, a rock was
cut out, but not by human hands. It
struck the statue,
then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the
silver, and the gold were all broken to
pieces.
But the rock that struck the statue became
a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
Daniel interprets this portion of the dream as
follows.
In the time of those kings, the God
of heaven will set up a kingdom that
will never be destroyed. It will crush all
those kingdoms,
but it will itself endure forever.
We can see that the rock in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream is interpreted by Daniel to be a
5th kingdom.
Note the key characteristics of this coming kingdom.
1st, it is said that God of heaven
will set it up.
2nd, it will become a huge mountain that
fills the whole earth.
3rd, the kingdoms which preceded it will be
crushed.
Historically, it is only Islam which fulfills all
these characteristics
of the rock. The 7th century CE
saw the emergence of Islam as a force
to be reckoned with.
In the words of Daniel,
Islam crushed and brought to an end the
world empires at the time, including the mighty
Romans and Persians.
The early Muslims defeated them in war, capturing
many of their lands, which remain under Muslim
rule to this day.
The Islamic empire spread rapidly and went on
to become one of the largest that the
world had ever seen. Unlike the idolatrous
empires that came before it, prophet Muhammad
and his companions
were godly in character,
preaching monotheism
and implementing the law of God as divinely
revealed in the Quran.
Note how Daniel relates the kingdoms to one
another.
He spoke of 5 consecutive kingdoms, which would
emerge one after the other beginning with Babylon
and ending with God's kingdom.
In all of history,
there is no series of events which fits
Daniel's sequence
other than the emergence of the kingdoms of
Babylon,
the Medo Persians,
Macedonia,
Rome, and Islam.
Critics may cite the fact that Jewish commentators
have traditionally associated
Islam not with God's kingdom, but rather the
4th evil kingdom.
One of the ways they do this is
by merging Rome into the 3rd kingdom to
create a combined
Macedonian Roman Empire.
However, such interpretations
are highly problematic
because there is nothing in the prophecy which
indicates
that the 3rd kingdom is a joint empire.
It's important to note that not a single
Jewish commentator
prior to the advent of Islam
interpreted the 4th kingdom to be the rise
of an Ishmaelite empire.
Professor John j Collins,
a leading expert on Daniel,
acknowledges
that rabbis distorted
its interpretation
after the rise of Islam.
The prevailing interpretation
identified the kingdoms as Babylon,
Media Persia, Greece, and Rome.
Eventually, the sequence was adapted to take account
of the new developments,
specifically the rise of Islam.
It's apparent that Jewish commentators
only started to link the 4th evil kingdom
to Ishmael
after the advent of Islam and its subsequent
establishment as a world power. As they knew,
the implication was that Islam is the foretold
kingdom of
God. This is made clear in Jewish writings
just prior to the advent of Islam, where
5th century rabbis who were living under the
oppressive Roman Empire
were anticipating
the imminent arrival of a salvific figure who
would defeat the 4th kingdom Rome and usher
in the messianic age.
Rabbis wrote in the Babylonian Talmud,
those empires subjugated the Jewish people with regard
to Rome and Persia. Their kingship extends until
the coming of the messiah.
A final point worth mentioning is that the
early Muslims were fully aware of such prophecies
in Daniel.
For
example,
a leading expert on Jewish scriptures and also
a direct student of famous companions such as
ibn Abbas,
said the following.
Nebuchadnezzar
saw a dream that there will be a
statue with a head of gold.
Daniel said that you are the head of
the statue that you saw. As for the
storm that will come down, that will fill
the heavens and the earth, that is about
the prophet who will come at the end
of times.
The next prophecy we are going to examine
can be found in Daniel chapter 7 which
informs us that Daniel
experienced a terrifying dream of 4 beasts.
The first was like a lion, and it
had the wings of an eagle.
Then a second beast, which looked like a
bear. It was raised up on one of
its sides, and it had 3 ribs in
its mouth.
Then another beast. One that looked like a
leopard. It had 4 wings like a bird
and 4 heads.
After that, a 4th beast, terrifying and frightening
and very powerful. It had large iron teeth.
It was different from all the former beasts,
and it had 10 horns.
Daniel interpreted the 4 beasts to represent the
emergence of 4 kings.
The 4 great beasts are 4 kings that
will rise from the earth.
As shall now be seen, these 4 beasts
symbolize the same 4 kingdoms depicted in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream about the statue which we covered previously.
Here, Daniel described the first beast as a
lion with the wings of an eagle.
Prophet Jeremiah
identified this kingdom when he forewarned of Jerusalem's
impending destruction.
A lion has come out of his lair.
A destroyer of nations has set out. His
horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us. We are ruined.
Note Jeremiah's prophecy, which characterized
Jerusalem's destroyer as a ferocious lion, swifter than
an eagle, which mirrors Daniel's symbolism of the
first beast.
Historically,
this points to Babylon as shortly after Jeremiah's
prophecy, King Nebuchadnezzar
laid waste to Jerusalem
and took the Israelites to Babylon in captivity.
With regards to the second beast, Daniel described
it as a bear raised up on one
of its sides.
This mirrors the imagery of the ram with
one horn longer than the other that we
discussed earlier.
Recall that Daniel specifically associated the 2 horned
ram with the Medo Persians.
Daniel's mention of the 3 ribs in the
bear's mouth also relates to the Medo Persians
from a historical perspective who at the height
of their power had an empire which spanned
3 continents,
Asia, Africa and Europe.
Regarding the 3rd beast, Daniel described it as
a leopard with 4 heads and 4 wings.
This description mirrors the imagery of the goat
that we discussed earlier.
Recall that Daniel specifically associated the goat with
the Greeks.
Like the goat's prominent horn that Daniel mentioned
would split into 4 smaller horns, the mention
of the leopard's 4 heads and 4 wings
also historically mirrors the Macedonian Empire, which we've
seen split into 4 smaller power blocks after
the death of Alexander the Great.
We now come to the 4th and final
beast, which Daniel described as having iron teeth
and 10 horns.
This description
mirrors the imagery of the 4th kingdom from
Nebuchadnezzar's
dream with the iron teeth matching the statue's
iron legs and the 10 horns matching the
statue's 10 toes.
All of these parallels between the 4th beast
and the 4th kingdom indicate that both are
talking about the same entity which we previously
concluded was the Roman Empire.
Rabbis also understood this 4th beast to represent
the Roman Empire.
For example, they wrote in the Babylonian Talmud,
as it is written in the book of
Daniel with regard to the 4th empire,
this empire that will devour the earth is
the wicked Roman Empire.
In summary, we can see that the 4
kingdoms
symbolized as beasts in Daniel's dream are the
same 4 kingdoms in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream about the statue.
Why does the book of Daniel repeat the
same prophecy using 2 different dreams with different
symbolism in each? Their symbolism differs because of
the recipients of of the dreams.
Nebuchadnezzar
visualized the kingdoms as a dazzling statue
made of precious metals.
This could be a reflection of his disbelief
as a pagan king.
By contrast, Daniel visualized the kingdoms as terrifying
beasts.
As a prophet,
he understood the true vicious and ugly reality
of the kingdoms because of his God given
spiritual insight.
Coming back to Daniel's dream, he goes on
to describe the 4th beast, Rome, in more
detail.
The 10 horns are 10 kings who will
come from this kingdom.
After them, another king will arise. He will
subdue 3 kings. He will speak against the
most high and oppress his holy people
and change the set times and the laws.
The holy people will be delivered into his
hands for a time,
times, and half a time.
But the court will sit, and his power
will be taken away and completely destroyed forever.
Then the power of all the kingdoms under
heaven will be handed over to the holy
people of the most high.
As we are going to see, there is
only one Roman ruler in history who fulfilled
all of these details,
Constantine the Great.
At the end of the 3rd century CE,
the Roman Empire had a form of government
where power was divided among 4 individuals.
During this time,
Constantine was a military commander in Rome's armed
forces who served under his father, Emperor Constantius
the first.
Constantine
rose to power upon the death of his
father.
Soon after his ascension,
a series of civil wars broke out among
the 4 rulers with Constantine
emerging triumphant over his 3 rivals
and ending up as the sole ruler of
the Roman Empire
in the year 324
CE.
This is a fulfillment
of Daniel's prophecy that the prominent king will
defeat 3 other kings.
Constantine
inherited a Roman Empire which was religiously divided
with Christians holding varying theological beliefs about the
nature of Jesus.
In the year 325
CE,
Constantine
convened the Council of Nicaea in the hope
that he could unite Christians by coming up
with a universally acceptable definition
of the nature of Jesus.
According to historians,
it was Constantine
himself who proposed the most controversial clause in
the Nicene Creed
known as homoousios.
That is the concept that Jesus shares the
same substance as God the father.
From a Jewish perspective,
Constantine's council of Nicaea
was an act of blasphemy as it attributed
supreme divinity to a human being.
So Constantine,
when viewed through the monotheistic
lens of the old testament,
can absolutely be described as a fulfillment of
Daniel's prophecy
that the prominent king will speak against God.
Constantine
was not just a catalyst for theological changes,
he was also responsible
for changes to ritualistic
aspects of religion.
For example, he officially established
a Sunday Sabbath in Roman law, which stands
in opposition to the Saturday Sabbath of the
old testament.
Hence, Constantine
is also a fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy that
the prominent king will change the set times
and laws of God.
The Roman Empire's fortunes
radically changed in the 7th century with the
advent of Islam.
The early Muslims
militarily
defeated the Roman Empire, capturing many of their
lands.
Significantly,
Constantine's imperial palace, which was built in the
capital city of Constantinople,
a Greek word meaning the city of Constantine,
was also captured by the Muslims.
For nearly a millennium,
Constantinople
was the jewel of the Roman Empire being
the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.
The city fell to the Muslim Ottoman Empire
and remains under Muslim control to the present
day, now being known as Istanbul.
Hence, the advent of Islam is a perfect
fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy that the prominent king's
court and power will be taken away.
Daniel even goes on to provide us with
an exact timeline as to when God's kingdom
would emerge.
Daniel foretold that God's people will be oppressed
by the prominent king for a duration of
time described as a time, times,
and half a time.
With regards to the mention of times,
how should this be interpreted?
The word used in the prophecy for times
is the Aramaic plural form Idanin,
which generally means 2 or more units of
time.
The majority of interpreters,
however,
understand it in the dual sense,
IE 2 units of time.
A bible commentary on this prophecy informs us
the plural word
times can only designate the simple plural
I e
two times used in the dual sense.
Now, Daniel does not define how long a
unit of time is.
However, if we classify
1 unit of time to be a century
and if we go with the majority interpretation
of times to be 2 units of time,
then Daniel gives us a calculation
of 350
years as follows.
1 century,
plus 2 centuries,
plus half a century.
Remarkably,
this timeline
also points to the rise of Islam.
It just so happens that 350
years is the exact span of time from
the birth of Constantine
in the year 2 72
CE to the year of the Hijra in
6 22 CE.
The Hijra is a monumental
milestone
marking the start of the Islamic calendar and
the year in which prophet Muhammad upon whom
be peace fled Meccan persecution
and set up the 1st Muslim state in
the city of Medina.
We can see that the advent of Islam
perfectly fulfills
Daniel's timeline for when God's kingdom would emerge.
Such calculations
are standard methods employed by rabbis when interpreting
scripture.
For example,
rabbi Ben Abrahamson
used similar calculations
based on other prophecies in Daniel and he
also arrived at the year 622ce,
which is when he says the true warrior
messiah was foretold to emerge in Arabia.
Daniel had prophecy that
490
years had passed until this year, 622
CE.
Now would come the true warrior messiah.
Although rare,
even in Arabia,
parents hoping that their child
might be this messiah
might name him after Daniel, Ish Hamudot,
man of delights,
Muhammad.
In summary,
the prophecy of the 4 beasts in Daniel
chapter 7 has been analyzed in great detail.
We have seen that the 4 beasts
represent the same 4 kingdoms
from Nebuchadnezzar's
dream about the statue in Daniel chapter 2.
We have also seen that the kingdom of
God, which is said to save holy people
from the oppression of the 4th beast, is
the same kingdom
symbolized as the divine rock, which was foretold
to smash the statue to pieces in Daniel
chapter 2.
Upon analyzing
Daniel's sequence of these kingdoms
and correlating them with real world events, we
must conclude that in all of history, these
prophecies can refer to none other than the
advent of Muhammad's prophethood and the rise of
Islam as a world power.
Now the biggest objection that a Christian will
raise is that Daniel is not prophesying about
Muhammad, but rather Jesus Christ.
In response, there are serious issues with Jesus
as the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies.
Firstly,
the new testament teaches that Jesus was humiliated,
tortured, and executed by the 4th beast, Rome,
which completely contradicts the prophecies in Daniel 27,
which we have seen describe the emergence of
a messianic figure who will be powerful and
have dominion on earth,
symbolized as the divine rock who will smash
the other kingdoms and save God's holy people
from the oppression of the 4th beast, Rome.
Secondly,
recall that Daniel foretold that the coming messianic
figure will emerge after Constantine
and usher in God's kingdom on earth.
Jesus was born in the 1st century CE,
which is several centuries before Constantine.
So Jesus violates the chronology set out in
Daniel.
The renowned
Christian biblical eschatologist,
Joel Richardson,
fully acknowledges
the historical problem that Islam poses to Christians
when interpreting Daniel's prophecies.
But you have the the historical problem of
Islam.
Several 100 years after Jesus, Islam arose,
and it
actually better fulfills the biblical criteria
than the first coming of Jesus because Islam
conquered Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece, and it was
the entity responsible for the final collapse of
Rome.
We can see that the only way Christians
can shoehorn Jesus
into Daniel's prophecies
is by ignoring the facts of history.
It is clear that when we let Daniel
speak for itself and factor in history as
it actually unfolded,
the only conclusion one can reach is that
Islam is the fulfillment
of Daniel's foretold kingdom of God here on
Earth.
For more information
on biblical prophecies about the coming of Muhammad
upon whom be peace, please download your free
copy of the book, Abraham Fulfilled,
at the link below.