Drying Up of Sea of Galilee

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

والعاقبة للمتقين

The prophecy of the drying up of Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) is established from two authentic Hadith. The first is the Hadith that describe’s Tamim al-Dari’s^RA odyssey with thirty men of the Lakhm and Judham tribes when they were shipwrecked on a mysterious island. According to that Hadith, they apparently met with the Dajjal who was bound in chains in an abandoned monastery. The Dajjal asked them to inform him about Lake Tiberias, specifically, whether or not there was still water in it, to which the men responded that it was overflowing with water in abundance. Then the Dajjal stated:

أَمَا إِنَّ مَاءَهَا يُوشِكُ أَنْ يَذْهَبَ

“Soon it will dry up” (Sahih Muslim)

The second Hadith clarifies that the drying up of Lake Tiberias will not be complete until Gog and Magog invade the Holy Land and drink the last of its water, as the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:

وَيَبْعَثُ اللَّهُ يَأْجُوجَ وَمَأْجُوجَ وَهُمْ مِنْ كُلِّ حَدَبٍ يَنْسِلُونَ فَيَمُرُّ أَوَائِلُهُمْ عَلَى بُحَيْرَةِ طَبَرِيَّةَ فَيَشْرَبُونَ مَا فِيهَا وَيَمُرُّ آخِرُهُمْ فَيَقُولُونَ لَقَدْ كَانَ بِهَذِهِ مَرَّةً مَاءٌ

“Allah will send Gog and Magog, who will swarm down from every slope. The first of them will pass by the Lake of Tiberias and will drink what is in it, and the last of them will pass it and say: ‘There was once water here.’” (Sahih Muslim)

At present, the water threshold of the Sea of Galilee is extremely low. As of 2018, Israel is entering its sixth consecutive year of drought, and the Sea of Galilee is dangerously close to the “black line”, beyond which continuous pumping of water from it will likely cause irreversible damage to the water source.

Some Muslim preachers, most prominently Imran N. Hosein, claim that since it is the Israeli Jews who are using the water from the Sea of Galilee, that is a proof to identify them with Gog and Magog. He argues that most of the Jews in the modern State of Israel are not actually descendants of the original Israelites but are instead Khazar converts to Judaism. The Khazars were a Turkic people, and as I have explained in other entries, Gog and Magog are to be primarily identified with the various Turkic nations. But majority of Jews today living in Israel, including the Ashkenazim, are not Turkic, though there may indeed have been some historic Khazar communities that were converts to Judaism and mixed with the broader Jewish community. The Israeli Jews are, for the most part, genuine descendants of the original Israelites, and are a Semitic people closely related to their Arab neighbors in the region, as genetic studies have largely confirmed. The fact that the Sea of Galilee is drying up while it is a major source of fresh drinking water for Israel is interesting, but not necessarily a proof that the modern-day Jews are Gog and Magog. The truth is that when Gog and Magog invade the Holy Land, during the “second advent” of the promised Messiah (peace be upon him), they will drink up all that remains of the Sea of Galilee, which is already quite close to drying up, so it is quite understandable how that will happen in the near future. Regarding the Khazars, they initially emerged in the mid 7^th century, when they formed a Khaganate which lasted for some three centuries. The emergence of the Khazars coincided with the emergence of Islam and the Arabs. I believe that when the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ saw in a vision that the dam of Dhu l-Qarnayn had been penetrated by Gog and Magog, greatly alarming him, this was a reference to the emergence of the Khazars. On that occasion the Prophet ﷺ said:

وَيْلٌ لِلْعَرَبِ مِنْ شَرٍّ قَدِ اقْتَرَبَ

“Woe to the Arabs from an evil that is nearly approaching them!” (Sahih al-Bukhari)

The particular mention of Arabs is meant to draw attention to the fact that it is the Arabs who will suffer the most from the invasions and attacks of Gog and Magog. Interestingly, the first Turks whom the Arabs engaged with in battle were the Khazars, in the two Arab-Khazar wars, the first of which happened during the caliphate of sayyidina Umar al-Faruq^RA. The first great devastation the Arabs and Muslims suffered at the hands of Gog and Magog was during the Mongol invasions, culminating in the sacking of Baghdad in 1258. Based on the prophecies of the holy Quran and Hadith, it is evident that the nations of Gog and Magog are about to rise again and inflict great destruction upon the Arabs and that they shall invade the Holy Land. However, they will eventually be totally exterminated due to a devastating epidemic.