The Greek word "Armageddon" is a transliteration of the Hebrew *har məgiddô*, which means a mountain near Megiddo—a hilltop fortification built by King Ahab that dominated the Plain of Jezreel.

Har Magedon symbolizes a battle in which, when the need is greatest and believers are most oppressed, God suddenly reveals His power to His distressed people, and the forces of evil are destroyed.

Armageddon serves as a warning of humanity’s need to change to avoid catastrophic outcomes. The devastating impacts of drug overdoses in America, rising temperatures in the Middle East, worsening droughts, wildfires in Europe, and the alarming decline in global biodiversity all point to the urgent need for action.

The summer of 2022 was the hottest in Europe's recorded history, with severe heatwaves and the worst drought in centuries. The Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, accelerating the effects of climate change. In Alaska, climate change is likely a major factor in the dramatic decline of snow crabs, with their population plummeting by 84% in just five years.

Furthermore, the WWF Living Planet Index (2022) reports a 69% decline in wildlife populations globally since 1970, with even more severe losses in biodiversity-rich regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean. In Africa, where 70% of livelihoods depend on nature, there has been a two-thirds fall in wildlife populations.

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam has a powerful eschatological vision, anticipating the end of the world as we know it—a final confrontation between good and evil (Armageddon)—after which, with God’s help, human life will be rewarded and transformed. The Qur'an emphasizes religious pluralism on God's Judgment Day: "Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews, Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous good deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (Qur'an 2:62 and 5:69).

A Pew Research Center poll found that in South and Southeast Asia, 55-60% of Muslims believe in the Mahdi’s imminent return; in the Middle East and North Africa, 51% do. A hadith states that Jesus will return and join forces with the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, in a battle against the false messiah, known as Dajjal in Islamic tradition, and Armilos in Jewish tradition. These events, according to the Hadith, will occur when Islam itself is threatened by corrupt fanatics.

As ibn Babuya writes in *Thawab ul-A'mal*: "The Apostle of God said: 'There will come a time for my people when there will remain nothing of the Qur'an except its outward form, and nothing of Islam except its name, and they will call themselves by this name even though they are the people furthest from it.

The mosques will be full of people but they will be empty of right guidance. The religious leaders of that day will be the most evil religious leaders under the heavens; sedition and dissension will go out from them and to them will it return.'"

This scenario sounds terrible, but those who trust in God know that the night is coldest in the last hours before sunrise.

Secularists might view apocalyptic visions as absurd, but even many of them believe that unchecked genetic modification or extreme climate change could doom human civilization.

The key difference between pessimistic secularists and religious optimists is that believers in the God of Abraham also trust that God's guidance ensures the triumph of spiritual forces of good over evil at the end of days, leading to justice, peace, and religious pluralism. As the Prophet Micah envisions:

“In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths. Torah will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. God will judge between many peoples and settle disputes among powerful nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughs, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations will walk in the name of their gods, and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.” (Micah 4:1-5)

Thus, the Bible and the Qur'an envision the final judgment as the self-destruction of violent, hate-filled, and narrow-minded ideologies (Armageddon) and the victory of kindness, love, democracy, and religious pluralism.

In the 19th century, Gog and Magog were the exploitative colonial empires and the industrial revolution. In the 20th century, they were the political dictatorships of Hitler’s Nazis and Stalin’s Communists. In the 21st century, Gog and Magog are the misuse of nature’s fossil fuels and anti-democratic governments.

Jesus, the son of Mary, performed many miraculous acts of healing, but he did not bring about the transformation of oppressed societies into a Messianic Age of worldwide peace and prosperity. That is the destiny of the Jewish Messiah and the Muslim Mahdi.

The Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: "Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists." (Qur'an 16:120). If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah, then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war that should always be avoided.

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that "the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other," we can help fulfill the 2,700-year-old vision of Prophet Isaiah:

“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the earth. The LORD of Hosts will bless them, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.’” (Isaiah 19:23-25).