The Qur’an warns everyone: “Guard yourselves against the (Qiyahmah-Judgment) Day on which no soul will be of help to another. No intercession will be accepted, no ransom taken, and no help will be given.” (Quran 2:48) yet Arctic Sea ice hits lowest winter level as heat hits smashes records all over Planet Earth.

Across the Maghreb and the Nile Valley, rising temperatures, erratic rainfalls, and dwindling groundwater reserves are destroying the pillars of food and water security. Once an ecological challenge that puzzled governments, has become a fast-growing fiscal crisis in which every year of delay adds more zeros to the cost of survival. And 2024 was the first year on record where global average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

The reason the planet continues to heat up is because not enough is being done to reduce Gog-Magog greenhouse gas emissions. Arising principally from burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and LNG gas), it is greenhouse gas emissions that are clogging the lower atmosphere, resulting in global warming.

For Muslims who despair about the terrible state of the modern world we have just learned that liquefied natural gas leaves a greenhouse gas footprint that is 33% worse than coal, when processing and shipping are taken into account, according to a Cornell University study. “Natural gas and shale gas are all bad for the climate. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is worse,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology.

Globally, nearly three quarters of the world’s population can expect strong and rapid changes in extreme temperatures and rainfall in the next 20 years; unless Gog-Magog greenhouse gas emissions are cut dramatically, said scientists from the Center for International Climate Research. Overall, global annual damages are estimated to be 38 trillion dollars in 2050. These damages mainly result from rising temperatures; but also from changes in rainfall and temperature variability.

So are we headed toward a Gog and Magog climate war? Various Christian sects have predicted the end of the world throughout the tumultuous 23 decades of the 19th-21st century; and in recent decades many Muslims have started believing that the Bible’s and the Quran’s war of Gog u-Magog in Hebrew, and “Yajuj and Majuj” in Arabic, will blow up in the 21st century.

A Pew Research Center poll found that in South and Southeast Asia 55-60% of all Muslims believe in the Madhi’s imminent return; and in the Middle East and North Africa 51% are believers.

As two Hadith Islamic traditions state “Among the signs of the Hour are that knowledge will be taken away, ignorance will be widespread, and wine-drinking will be widespread.” [Bukhari]. And “The Hour will not come until a man passes by a [another] man’s grave and says: Would that I was in his place.” [Bukhari].

Yajuj and Majuj are mentioned both in Qur’an and hadith. In Islam their appearance will be one of the signs of the end times. These events will transpire after........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)