Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

430 • MILLENNIALISMtext “Armageddon” refers to the place, rather than to the battle itself,those who believe in the millennial prophecies refer to the event asthe “battle of Armageddon.” Meanwhile the word Armageddon hasentered colloquial speech to refer to any sort of catastrophic worldwar capable of eradicating mankind, such as a total nuclear war. Therecently published diaries of President Ronald Reagan (The ReaganDiaries, ed. Douglas Brinkley, HarperCollins, 2007) revealed in theentry for 7 June 1981 that, on his learning of the Israeli air attack onIraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, President Reagan believed that the warof Armageddon might be imminent.Jewish millennialists have taken their cues from the book of Danieland other apocalyptic or apocryphal writings. The first-century Zealotsconvinced themselves that if they precipitated an all-out conflictwith Rome that God would be forced to reveal his Messiah, whowould then crush the Roman legions and reestablish a Jewish empiresimilar to that of King David or Solomon. In more recent times, Jewishreligious extremists of the Gush Emunim group plotted in theTemple Mount operation to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque on theTemple Mount in East Jerusalem to precipitate a similar confrontationwith the Arabs that would force the revelation of the Messiah.Islam also has its millennialist doctrines based on obscure versesin the Koran and certain hadith (reported sayings) of the Prophet Muhammad.Many Muslims believe that an apocalyptic final war betweengood and evil would occur, similar to the Christian millennialist beliefin the final battle of Armageddon, during which evil forces would desecratethe Muslim holy places, whereupon God would send a delivererknown as the Mahdi, whom the Twelve-Imam Shi’ites identify withtheir “Hidden Imam,” who would slay the godless forces and restorethe fortunes of the Muslims. There was also a hadith that stated thatthe Mahdi would appear at the turn of one of the centuries accordingto the Islamic lunar calendar. Thus it was not coincidental that Iran’sIslamic revolution peaked around the years 1399–1400 in the Hegiracalendar and that a Sunni Muslim claiming to be the Mahdi and hisfollowers took over the Ka’ba shrine in Mecca at the exact beginningof the year 1400 A.H. on 20 November 1978. Just as many premillennialistChristians saw the establishment of the State of Israel as one ofthe hopeful signs of the coming of the millennium, many fundamentalistMuslims interpret the existence of the State of Israel and its possessionof the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount as signs of those