In the following prophecy, Muhammad ﷺ was asked about the signs of the “Last Hour” (meaning the approach of the Day of Judgement). He stated that a very specific group of people would one day compete in the construction of tall buildings: “Now, tell me of the Last Hour,” asked the man. The Prophet replied, “The one asked knows no more of it than the one asking.” “Then tell me about its signs,” said the man. The Prophet replied, “That you see barefoot, unclothed herdsmen competing in the construction of tall buildings.”
Ref: Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 63
Notice the detailed characteristics that Muhammad ﷺ provided: the barefoot, unclothed herdsmen were mentioned. When Muhammad ﷺ was asked about the identity of these people, he responded by identifying the Arabs: “It was said: ‘Who are the barefoot herdsmen?’ He [Muhammad ﷺ] answered: ‘The Arabs’”
Ref: Musnad Imam Ahmad bin Hambal Hadith 2924, graded Hasan.
We can see that Muhammad ﷺ prophesied that a very specific group from among the Arabs, the barefoot, unclothed herdsmen, would one day compete in constructing tall buildings.
In fact, this detailed description refers to a very particular type of Arab, the Bedouins. From millennium past there are two types of Arabs, city dwellers and Bedouins. The former make up the majority and live in ancient cities like Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad. In contrast, the Bedouins are nomads, they travel through the vast deserts and are constantly on the move. Even during the Golden Age of Islam when the Arabs were the richest and most learned people on earth, Bedouins remained in virtually the same state they had been for thousands of years, poor, uneducated and cut off from rest of the world.
As recently as the 1940s the English explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger was travelling through the deserts inhabited by the Bedouin and documented their condition: As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.
Ref: Sir Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands
Many early Muslim scholars and classical commentators understood Muhammad’s prophecy to be a reference to the Arab Bedouins who were known as the “people of the desert”.
The famous jurist Imam an-Nawawi (1233 – 1277 C.E.)
Said the following in his interpretation of Muhammad’s prophecy: The people of the desert and their like are people of need and poverty. (A time will come) when the world will be laid open for them until they compete with one another in (the construction of) buildings, and God knows best.
The renowned scholar Al-Qurtubi (1214 – 1273 C.E.)
Said: What is meant here is the prediction of a reversal in society whereby the people of the desert will take over the conduct of affairs and rule every region by force. They will become extremely rich and their primary concern will be to erect tall buildings and take pride in them.
Ref:
The respected scholar Ibn Hajar (1372 – 1449 C.E.)
Said of the prophecy: “What is meant by them is the people of the desert”
Ref: Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, TheApproach of Armageddon? An Islamic Perspective,
We can see that these early Muslim scholars and classical commentators, who were writing centuries ago, were consistent in their identification of the Arab Bedouins. This shows just how clear Muhammad’s description of these people was.
Today we find in the Arabian Peninsula that a particular group of Arabs, the Bedouins who used to be impoverished herders of camels and sheep until the mid-twentieth century, are now competing to build the tallest tower blocks, just as Muhammad foretold. How did this change happen seemingly overnight? How did one of the poorest people on earth, who literally wore rags, become one of the wealthiest nations on earth?
One thing made this rapid change possible, something upon which the modern world would revolve around perhaps more than any other, the discovery of “black gold”, oil. The seemingly empty deserts of the Bedouins had it in abundance. The Bedouins went from camels to Cadillacs in a generation!
Today one of the highest concentrations of tall buildings in the world is in the Arabian peninsula, specifically the areas in which Bedouin Arabs lived.
In 2012 the tallest building in the world was the Mecca Clock Tower, standing at 601 metres, this gigantic structure was built in the desert city where Muhammad ﷺ was born. Only two years after its completion, the Burj Khalifa was built in Dubai with a height of 828 metres. A short time after the Burj Khalifa was completed, a rival family in Saudi Arabia announced that they would build a taller one (1,000 metres); the Kingdom Tower.
The Bedouin Arabs of today are literally competing with each other over who can build the world’s tallest building.
What would motivate Muhammed to even make such a prediction? If he was going to make up such a prophecy it would make more sense to relate this prophecy to the superpowers of his time: Rome, Persia, or even China who (unlike the Arabs) already had a tendency to construct extravagant buildings and palaces. For example, the Hagia Sophia cathedral was built by a Roman emperor in 537 CE, the century before Muhammad ﷺ, and it remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.
Furthermore, the immense detail that Muhammad ﷺ provided in this prophecy is very revealing. Frauds, those who falsely claim to be able to predict the future, typically make their predictions general and ambiguous in nature so that they can be applied to multiple situations. The more general and ambiguous the prophecy, the greater the chance that something, somewhere, will eventually occur that bears enough of a resemblance that it will seem like the prophecy was an accurate prediction.
Muhammad ﷺ could have made a prediction such as “you will see the construction of tall buildings”. Such a prediction uses very general descriptions that are flexible enough to be applied to anyone in the world. By comparison, the prophecy that Muhammad did make is filled with lots of very specific details. He gave a clear context for the building construction, that of competition. He also identified who the builders would be, the Arab Bedouins, by describing some unique distinguishing features such as their physical appearance (“barefoot and unclothed”) and their way of life (“herdsmen”). We can see that such a prophecy contains multiple variables, each of which is very detailed and must be fulfilled in a very specific manner, which strictly limits how the event could happen.
The construction of tall buildings among the Arab Bedouins has even reached Mecca, Muhammad’s city of birth. The last few decades have seen a massive surge in building construction in Mecca. The famous Mecca Clock Tower is currently the third tallest building in the world.
In order for such construction to be possible, many of Mecca’s ancient mountains have been demolished in order to make room for the tall buildings that have sprung up. Amazingly, this is also something that Muhammad ﷺ foretold; he said that mountains will one day be moved from their places: “The Hour will not be established until mountains are moved from their places”
Ref: Al-Tabarani, Mu‘jam al-Kabir, 6857
This tremendous feat of demolishing entire mountains has only been possible in the twentieth century with the advent of technology such as explosives. Thanks to these modern technical advances, mountains can now be blasted into rubble in order to make room for massive city infrastructure such as buildings and highways. It’s important to point out that Muhammad ﷺ himself did not like Muslims to be involved in trying to unnecessarily increase in wealth.
Indeed he often warned of its dangers and how it would corrupt his nation. He did not like or promote the construction of extravagant buildings. He was a simple man who lived in a simple house and wanted other Muslims to maintain that simplicity. That is what he taught and how he lived. So, if he wanted to “will” this prophecy to become true, he would have encouraged the Arabs to build tall buildings and perhaps start off trying to do that himself! In fact the Qur’an itself discourages such behaviour: “Do you build on every height a monument? Vain is it that you do. And you make strong fortresses as if you were to live forever?”
[26:128-129].
Copied From Book: Forbidden Prophecy
