e final scenes will as certainly be fulfilled.
In view of this prophecy,--that Jerusalem is yet to be made the
headquarters of the king of the north,--it becomes highly significant
that the Mohammedans regard Jerusalem as a sacred city. According to
Mohammedan tradition, Jerusalem is to play a leading part in the closing
history of that people. Hughes, in his "Dictionary of Islam," article
"Jerusalem," summarizes the teaching:
"In the last days there will be a general flight to Jerusalem."
Speaking of Jerusalem, an old Arab commentator on the Koran, Mukaddasi
(A.D. 985), said:
"As to the excellence of the city. Why, is not this to be the
place of marshaling on the day of judgment, where the gathering
together and the appointment will take place? Verily Makkah
[Mecca] and Al Madina have their superiority by reason of the
Ka'abah and the prophet,--the blessing of Allah be upon him and
his family!--but, in truth, on the day of judgment both cities
will come to Jerusalem, and the excellencies of them all will
then be united."--_Le Strange, "Palestine under the Moslems,"
p. 85._
[Illustration: MODERN JERUSALEM
"He shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the
glorious holy mountain." Dan. 11:45.]
Thus Moslem doctrinal teaching and tradition both point out Jerusalem as
the rallying place of Moslems before the end. Again and again in recent
years, as the pressure has threatened the Turkish hold on
Constantinople, the thoughts of Moslems have turned toward Jerusalem as
a possible capital. A few years ago a Seventh-day Adventist missionary
in Constantinople wrote to his home board:
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF OMAR
Situated in Jerusalem, on Mt. Moriah, the site of Solomon's Temple.]
"Within the past few months quite a company of people from the
Transcaucasus district have come to Ismid,--old
Nicodemia,--bringing all they possess with them. Some of them
possess considerable wealth. When asked if they were going to
settle in Ismid, they replied that they would settle nowhere
permanently at present. They stated that they had come to be
prepared to go with their leader when he left Constantinople to
go to Jerusalem."
Wherever the capital may first be set up following the forsaking of
Constantinople,--and Turkish authorities, we are told, have discussed a
number of possible locations in Asia Minor,--t
|