Interview with Joel Richardson

Joel Richardson is author of  The Islamic Antichrist, a book whose premise is that Islamic eschatology is sort of a mirror opposite of Christian eschatology. Joel has also written several other books but this is his ministry not his business. Joel has dedicated a lot of his time to studying Islam so that he can share the truth of the Gospel with Muslims and share what he has learned with fellow Christians.

I first met Joel at a local church where he was invited to speak about the Islamic Antichrist. I had never heard anything like this theory before and at first I thought he was completely off base with his theology about the end times because it was different than anything I’d heard before. However, since that time I’ve been following his ministry on his website Joel’s Trumpet and have found that his viewpoint definitely has merits and should not be quickly dismissed. Mainstream prophecy teachers who hold the standard dispensational views of the end times have been quick to shoot down Joel’s ideas. A bit too quick in my view. 

Last week Joel gave me an interview and I asked him a few questions about his book and ministry. I think his answers reveal a lot and are very educational.

Below are the questions I asked but Joel’s answers are paraphrased.

What inspired you to write the book?

To make the church aware of Islamic eschatology. So people can see that Muslims have been setup by their religious system to fulfill prophecies of the Bible. They have been set up to embrace anti Semitism and embrace the Antichrist.

The book is also targeted to Muslims, not just Christians. Muslims get very deep into theology and so the answers are precise and the book is worded in a way to reach Muslims. While I believe their prophecies need to be looked at I do not believe Islam is prophetic.

Who is the Mahdi?

Islam’s primary messiah figure, they believe in him as well as Jesus. By and large the majority of Muslims do believe in the coming of the Mahdi (also spelled Mehdi.) This belief is espoused by an overwhelming majority of respected Muslim scholars throughout history.

Sunnis in recent times have emphasized the coming of Jesus but Shia Muslims have emphasized the coming of the Mahdi. Over the past ten years however there has been a massive groundswell of belief in the Mahdi across sectarian lines. I have every book on the subject (about 40) and only two of those books don’t follow this direction. Some Muslims believe that Jesus and the Mahdi will be one in the same.
 

They see him as another Muslim prophet in a long line of prophets to reawaken the religion called Islam. Mohammed was the final prophet. They believe Jesus will come back to end Christianity and show that Christians had it all wrong and that the Bible was all wrong. There is a famous tradition that says Jesus will; break the cross, kill the pigs and abolish the Jizya (the Jizya is the tax that subjected people pay to exist in Islamic dominated countries.) They believe the Mahdi will remove all crosses from churches. The Mahdi will expose that Christians eat unclean food. And no longer will a dhimmi status be accepted, people of any and all other religions must convert to Islam or die. Muslims also believe the Mahdi will kill the Antichrist. They think the Antichrist will be who the Jews will follow as their messiah. They believe the Antichrist will have miraculous powers.

The Islamic version of the Antichrist is called the Dajjal. He is supposed to be one eyed or blind in one eye (speculative) according to pop culture in Islam. Islam is filled with conspiracy theories. Some see the all seeing eye and  freemasonry as an all encompassing Dajjal system. Similar to the way some conspiracy theorist view the “new world order.” There’s even a website called the Dajall New Network.

It’s my belief that Satan knows God’s plan and has had a long time to study it and theology throughout the ages. So Satan has his own plan and part of that plan is to build an army and the primary method for that army is Islam.