—from the Prophet ﷺ, who said:
“Three things—once they emerge—no soul’s faith will benefit it if it had not believed earlier or earned any good through its faith: the Dajjal, the Beast, and the rising of the sun from the west, from its very place of setting.” He then added, “This is a ḥasan–ṣaḥīḥ ḥadith.” (1)
Second: Jesus son of Mary will descend from the nearest heaven and kill the Dajjal, as has been mentioned and as will be detailed later. His descent is indicated in the Quran in Allah’s words:
“And for their saying, ‘We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.’ Yet they did not kill him, nor crucify him; rather, it was made to appear so to them, and those who differ about the matter are in doubt concerning it; they have no sure knowledge of it, following nothing but conjecture; and they certainly did not kill him (157). Rather, Allah raised him up to Himself, and Allah is Mighty, Wise (158). There is none of the People of the Scripture but will surely believe in him before his death, and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them.” (al-Nisāʾ 4:157-159)
We have explained in the commentary that the pronoun in “before his death” returns to Jesus himself: he will descend to earth, and the People of the Scripture—who have disagreed about him in utterly divergent ways—will then believe in him. Among them are those who, like the Christians, claim his divinity; others, namely the Jews, utter a monstrous slander, asserting that he was born of adultery; still others say he was killed, crucified, and died—among other claims. When he descends before the Day of Resurrection, each faction will see the falsity of what it had fabricated. We shall establish this shortly. Thus the Quran’s mention of the descent of the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, serves as an implicit reference to the other messiah, the false messiah—the Dajjal, the Messiah of misguidance, the very opposite of the Messiah of guidance. It is customary in Arabic to mention one of two opposites and leave the other understood.
Third: the Dajjal is not mentioned by name in the Quran out of utter contempt for him. He claimed divinity while remaining a mere human being—indeed, a deformed and contemptible one. Such a claim contradicts the majesty, greatness, and transcendence of the Lord, far exalted is He above all imperfection. In the sight of the Lord, the Dajjal’s affair is too trivial, too base, to merit explicit mention or warning in the Quran. Instead, the messengers championed the cause of their Lord (Exalted and Majestic): they clarified his affair to their nations and warned them against the deluding trials and the fleeting wonders he will display. The reports of the prophets—transmitted in succession from the master of Adam’s children, the leader of the godfearing—were sufficient; there was no need for the Quran, in comparison with Allah’s majesty, to dignify so paltry a matter. The clarification of his affair was entrusted to every noble prophet.
If you say: Pharaoh is mentioned in the Quran, even though he too claimed divinity and uttered egregious falsehood when he said, “I am your Lord, the Most High” (al-Nāziʿāt 79:24) and “O council, I know not for you any god other than myself” (al-Qaṣaṣ 28:38) — the answer is that Pharaoh’s story is over; his lie is plain to every believer and every rational person. The Dajjal’s affair, however, still lies ahead: it will occur in the future as a trial and a test for humanity. Therefore he was left unnamed in the Quran out of contempt for him and as a means of trial, for his affair and his falsehood are more obvious than to require explicit mention or formal warning. At times a thing is left unmentioned precisely because it is already perfectly clear, just as