Parallel Myths (40 page)

The Hadith

NOTE
: The Hadith is to Islam what, roughly, the Talmud is to Judaism. The Hadith is not part of the Koran, but rather a collection of oral traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.

T
he companion of the holy prophet Muhammad asked him what the signs would be of the end of the world.

The prophet told him of this terrible time, about which much is written in the Holy Koran: People will no longer study the Koran but will spend all of their time seeking material wealth, pleasure, and worldly power. There will be an epidemic in Jedda, a famine in Medina, and a plague in the holy city of Mecca. There will be earthquakes, unlike any ever seen before, throughout the entire Maghreb [North Africa]; lethal thunderstorms will strike throughout Turkey and Iran; Iraq will be the domain of murderous bandits. The peoples of the Far East will be wiped out through a succession of floods. The morality that binds societies together will be completely loosened—it will be every man for himself. At that time, the Dajjal—the Antichrist—will appear, riding on a donkey and subjecting all the peoples of the earth to his rule.

Dajjal will rule but forty days through terror and force. Then God
will send Jesus from heaven on a white horse, with a lance in his hand, to subdue Dajjal. The remnant of faithful believers will form a powerful army of God to assist Jesus in the defeat of the Dajjal. Dajjal will be defeated but not killed, until God causes the feet of Dajjal to be fixed firmly to the earth; then Jesus will administer the fatal blow.

A throne will come down from heaven and Jesus will reign over the earth for forty years of perfect peace and justice. Each of these forty years will be twenty-six months in length, rather than the usual twelve—so they will actually be like eighty-seven of our present years.

At the end of his reign, Jesus will go to Jerusalem and pray at the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, where God will take Jesus into heaven. Seven days after the arrival of the soul of Jesus in heaven, the monstrous Gog and Magog, monsters who had been imprisoned by Alexander [Iskandar] the Great, will break free, ruining civilization.

At this point God will call two angels into service. The first of these is Azrail, the angel of death. For believers, Azrail will appear as a beautiful star that calls them to their rest in a sweet, gentle voice. To the wicked, in contrast, Azrail will appear as a monster that rips their souls out of their bodies.

Another angel, Israfil, has the duty of blowing the trumpet of the last day. As all of the righteous will have been killed by the wicked at this point, all those left on earth will deserve the doom that begins with this trumpet call. Tired of the wickedness, God will tell Israfil to blow the horn and the mountains will crumble into dust. At the end of this destruction, forty years of terrible earthquakes and storms, the trumpet will sound again. At this sound, the souls of the faithful dead will search for their bodies to be reunited for the resurrection. Then, when souls and bodies are joined, the faithful will spend forty years praising Allah.

At the third blast of the trumpet, the holy prophet Muhammad will return to earth on his horse, Burak, led by a rope held by the angel Gabriel. All will then see the great scales of judgment descend from heaven. The throne of God will then be visible to all. There will be
no secrets: The secret sins of everyone, believer and unbeliever, will be known to all. These secret sins will be weighed on the left side of the scale, and all good deeds, no matter how small, will be weighed on the right. If the right outweighs the left, then the soul is saved; if the opposite is true, the soul will be damned.

But what of those whose good deeds and evil deeds balance equally? These souls may be saved on that terrible day by crying out to God for mercy. If the soul cries in sincerity, honestly sorry for its sins, a note written in God’s own hand will fall onto the right side of the scale and paradise will be opened for that soul.

The Judgment will last only one hour.

Then the righteous and wicked alike will cross the bridge into Paradise, which is as thin as a hair. The righteous will cross it with ease, even as the wicked fall down into the chasm of hell. Some will be able, with much difficulty and a heart of sincere repentence, to crawl up out of hell. These and all faithful ones will drink of the sweet waters of Muhammad’s lake and never know sorrow, thirst, hunger, or any suffering.

(Tibet, Korea, Mongolia)

I
n a future time there will be great changes in the world. The ocean will dry up partially, causing the Indian subcontinent to be larger and flatter at present. People will thus have an easier time traveling around Asia, and the subcontinent will be large enough to hold all of the world’s people. The world will suddenly be filled with abundant food. Human beings who were hostile one day will suddenly be kind to one another. There will be only three problems among human beings—hunger, elimination of waste, and growing old—sickness and war will be obsolete. But people will live to be very old indeed, not even marrying until they are 150, and living to be about 500.

There will be one ruler over all the world. Named Shankha, he will spread the Dharma of the Buddha as law throughout the world. During
his reign, the future Buddha, Maitreya, will be born. His mother will be pregnant with him for ten months and he will emerge from the womb completely clean. At his birth he will announce that this is his last birth—only Nirvana (the supreme enlightenment) awaits him. As did the first great Buddha, the Buddha Shakyamuni, or Gautama Buddha, before him, Maitreya will contemplate the nature of things and see the illusory aspect of mortal life. He will then have eighty-four thousand people following him, attending him at all times. At that time, Brahma, the Eternal God, will announce the truth of the Dharma out of heaven in his own voice.

This period will witness the end of all selfishness and illusion. Possessions will mean nothing at all. No one will be concerned about anything but achieving enlightenment. People will no longer live according to their passions, but lead a life of perfect chastity, such as monks do now. For there will be no need to produce children anymore, given the long life span. In fact, Maitreya himself will preach for over sixty thousand years in this environment of perfect harmony, after which he will leave the earth to go to his Nirvana, absolute union with God. The eternal law, the Dharma, will be in force for an additional ten thousand years, and all humans will achieve Nirvana.

All persons will be freed of every suffering and pain; all obstacles to human understanding of the Dharma will be removed. At the end of the ten thousand years, Brahma himself will teach the universal truth directly to humankind, revealing things concealed even from the Buddhas.

(Norse)

E
ver since Odin bartered his eye for a drink from Mimir’s well of wisdom, he had known of the inevitable destruction of the universe, including himself and all the gods. The beginning of the end will be marked by signs in nature. Watch the animals carefully—one
year, they will begin gathering food for the winter beginning in early spring—for they know what is coming before humans do. Winter will come that year and last for three seasons—from the autumn of one year to the beginning of the next autumn. These will be the coldest winters ever known. There will be three such winters, punctuated only by three months of thawing, before the Twilight of the Gods. Then the earth will begin to quake as never before. Earthquakes will strike in places that have never known them, causing the sea to rise up and flood the land. These earthquakes will be caused by Loki, the Evil One, breaking loose.

Loki, as you may remember, is the evil giant who is responsible for the death of Odin’s son, Baldur. As punishment, the gods chained him to a rock. As the chains grow rusty and weak, Loki will churn about to break free, causing these horrible earthquakes. For centuries, he has been seething with thoughts of revenge against the gods. When he breaks free, he will join all other enemies of the gods to invade their home, Asgard.

On earth, human beings will die by the multitudes from hunger, the cold, flooding, earthquakes, and other calamities. But, unlike before, Odin will be unable to help them.

For Odin will have to fight for his own survival. Heimdall, the sentinel of the gods, will sound blasts on his battle horn announcing the invasion of Asgard by Loki and the other foes. All creatures will hear these trumpet blasts and shake with terror.

Fenris the wolf, who had been subdued by the gods during the earliest times, will break free. The great serpent of the sea will rise up. Loki and the sons of Muspelheim, the dwarves, will ride over the rainbow and attack the gods, leaving a wake of fire that will destroy the earth. Thor the thunder god will kill the great sea serpent; in the last moments, the serpent will spit venom that slays Thor. Surtur, leader of the armies against the gods, will throw great blasts of fire on the earth that will devour anything that remains alive. The sun will no longer shine, and the stars will fall from heaven.

Odin himself will be slain, as will all the gods. Not one of their enemies will survive either. This final war will be a war without victors or vanquished, with all combatants perishing.

But with the destruction of the world completed, Alfadur (“All Father”), the great and only eternal God, the God behind the gods, will be the only one left. With his own hands he will fashion a new earth, new creatures, and a man and a woman to start the human race anew.

Pawnee

T
irawa Atius is the lord of all things and it is he alone who determines fate. At the beginning of the world, he set a large bull buffalo in the sky to the far northwest. With the passage of each year, the bull loses one hair; when all these hairs are gone, the world will end. As that hair falls, there will be widespread meteor showers, and the sun and moon will become dim.

In the beginning, Tirawa Atius appointed the North Star and the South Star to control fate. The North Star once spoke directly to the Pawnee and told them that the South Star moved just a little bit to the north with each passing year. When the South Star catches up with the North Star, then the world will end.

The command for the final destruction of the world is in the hands of the four gods of the directions. The West will issue the command that the world be destroyed and the East will obey. Then the stars in heaven will fall to the new earth and become people. The people left in this world at the time of destruction will fly high into the sky and become stars themselves.