In the Name of Allah---the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
Dajjal Vs Makkah Pact
The Strategic and Eschatological Significance of the New Muslim Defence Architecture
The Middle East is entering a period of extraordinary strategic transformation. The war involving Iran, Israel and the United States has already altered the regional balance of power, while the emergence of a new defence partnership between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye has introduced a potentially significant counterweight.
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye on 7 August 2026, declares that an armed attack against one signatory will be treated as an attack against all three. The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence, defence capabilities and military readiness.
Its geographical and symbolic setting is equally significant: the agreement was concluded in Makkah, the spiritual centre of the Muslim world.
This raises a much broader question:
Could the Makkah Pact represent the beginning of a new Muslim security architecture at precisely the moment when the Middle East is being transformed by war, fragmentation and competing ideological projects?
From an Islamic eschatological perspective, this question becomes even more intriguing because authentic hadith literature associates Isfahan with the followers of Dajjal.
The comparison should not be presented as a definitive prophecy about contemporary states. Rather, it provides a framework for considering whether the emerging alignment around Makkah could become strategically important in a future confrontation involving forces associated, directly or indirectly, with the Dajjalic fitnah.
1. The Makkah Pact: A New Strategic Centre of Gravity
The traditional security architecture of the Middle East has depended heavily upon external powers, particularly the United States and its military presence in the Gulf.
The Makkah Pact introduces a different principle: regional Muslim powers accepting collective responsibility for one another's security.
Saudi Arabia possesses enormous economic and strategic weight, controls the two holiest cities of Islam and occupies the geographical centre of the Arabian Peninsula.
Pakistan possesses one of the world's largest armed forces and is a nuclear-armed state.
Türkiye possesses a major military-industrial base, a powerful conventional military and control of strategically important territory linking Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The combination is therefore considerably more important than the military strength of any one member alone.
Recent analysis has already described the agreement as part of a wider regional realignment in which Gulf states are reassessing their dependence on external security guarantees.
The pact is officially defensive rather than an instrument for launching wars. Saudi officials have emphasized deterrence, enhanced readiness, and regional peace.
That distinction is crucial.
A credible defensive alliance can fundamentally alter the calculations of potential aggressors without itself becoming an offensive coalition. So it is a deterrence without war.
2. Why Makkah Matters
The location of the agreement is more than ceremonial.
Makkah represents the religious centre of the Muslim ummah. An agreement signed there between three major Muslim powers naturally carries a symbolic meaning that a treaty signed in an ordinary diplomatic capital would not possess.
There is therefore a potentially powerful contrast:
Makkah — the centre of tawhid and Muslim unity
versus
Isfahan — the city explicitly associated in an authentic hadith with a large group of Dajjal's followers.
This does not mean that contemporary Iran or contemporary residents of Isfahan should be identified with the Dajjal. Such an inference would go far beyond what the hadith establishes.
But the geographical symbolism is striking enough to warrant discussion.
3. What Does the Authentic Hadith Actually Say About Isfahan?
The most important evidence comes from Sahih Muslim.
Anas ibn Malik reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“The Dajjal would be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls.”
Sahih Muslim records this narration as Hadith 2944.
This hadith establishes three important points:
Dajjal will have followers from among the Jews of Isfahan (Iran).
Their number is given as seventy thousand.
They will follow Dajjal.
1. “Why Isfahan?” is a legitimate exegetical question
If the intended meaning were simply “70,000 Jews will follow Dajjal,” the specification “of Isfahan” would be unnecessary.
The Prophet ﷺ could have said that seventy thousand Jews would follow Dajjal. Instead, the narration identifies a particular geographical community:
مِنْ يَهُودِ أَصْبَهَانَ
“from the Jews of Isfahan.”
That makes geographical origin part of the prophecy.
And historically, Isfahan was not an arbitrary Persian city with no Jewish connection. It had an exceptionally old and substantial Jewish community. Encyclopaedia Iranica records traditions connecting Jewish settlement there to antiquity and notes that the district Yahudiyha (“Jewish [town]”) became an important part of Isfahan. In some reports of eschatological hadiths, Yahudiyah is mentioned instead of Isfahan.
Indeed, medieval sources reported a Jewish population of approximately 15,000 in Isfahan in the 12th century, although such historical population figures cannot be independently verified with precision.
So there is a remarkable historical correspondence:
Hadith → Isfahan specifically → a historically established Jewish population there.
That is much more interesting than simply saying that the hadith happens to mention a Persian city.
2. The “Persian shawls” may be more than decorative detail
The second part is even more intriguing.
The Arabic says:
عَلَيْهِمُ الطَّيَالِسَةُ
ʿalayhimu al-ṭayālisah.
The term ṭaylasān (طيلسان) refers to a type of cloak/shawl, or mantle, and the translation “Persian shawls” is common in English renderings because ṭaylasān was not a local Arab fabric but was originally Persian.
The important point is that the description is culturally and geographically specific.
The hadith does not merely say:
“seventy thousand Jews.”
It describes them as:
Jews of Isfahan + wearing a distinctive Persian garment.
That sounds like a description of a Persian Jewish community rather than of Jews arriving from Israel or the Western diaspora.
3. The hadith appears to envisage an Iranian/Persian Jewish community
Historically, Jews were deeply embedded in the Persian world.
Encyclopedia Iranica documents Jewish communities across Persia from antiquity onward, including Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamadan, Yazd, Kerman and numerous other centres.
Isfahan itself retained a Jewish community into the modern period. Iranica records approximately 6,000 Jews in Isfahan in 1903–04, around 10,000 in 1948, and approximately 3,000 after the establishment of the Islamic Republic; another Iranica study gives about 2,500 Jewish residents around 1970 and notes the community's distinctive Isfahani Jewish dialect.
So the prophecy's specificity is not historically inexplicable.
There really was—and historically there had been for centuries—a recognizable Jewish community of Isfahan.
4. But the number 70,000 creates an important nuance
Today's Jewish population of Isfahan is nowhere near 70,000.
Even historical estimates cited by Iranica do not normally approach that number in modern times.
Therefore, if the hadith is understood literally as describing a future group of 70,000 Jews originating from Isfahan, the prophecy appears to envisage a demographic situation different from the present one.
And that is precisely why I would not interpret the hadith as merely saying:
“There are Jews living in Isfahan today, therefore the prophecy has been fulfilled.”
Rather, the hadith could be understood as describing a future concentration or mobilization of a Jewish population associated with Isfahan.
Whether that means:
-
a future demographic increase in the region,
-
migration of Jews into the Iranian/Persian sphere,
-
descendants of an Isfahani Jewish community,
-
a broader Persian Jewish population being identified with Isfahan,
-
or something else entirely,
the hadith itself does not tell us.
5. Isfahan as Dajjal's headquarters
There is actually a more interesting possibility:
It was narrated that Abu Bakr Siddiq (May Allah be pleased with him) said:
"The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) told us: 'Dajjal will emerge in a land in the east called Khurasan, and will be followed by people with faces like hammered shields.'"
The Sunnah places the emergence of Dajjal in the eastern land of
Khurasan and specifically associates 70,000 Jews of Isfahan with his following. Contemporary Iran occupies a substantial portion of the historical Khorasan/Persian geographical sphere and contains Isfahan, the specific city named in Sahih Muslim.
This is significant because Khurasan was a much larger historical region than the modern province or city bearing any similar name. Classical Khurasan encompassed substantial parts of what are now northeastern Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and surrounding areas. Thus, we should not equate the prophetic Khurasan mechanically with the borders of today's Iranian state.
Isfahan may be significant not only because of the Persian people, but because it might be Dajjal's headquarters. The prophetic narrations do not explicitly call Isfahan Dajjal's headquarters, but their unusual concentration of geographical, demographic, and cultural detail strongly suggests that Isfahan will have a major strategic significance in Dajjal's movement. The fact that Dajjal emerges from Khurasan and that 70,000 Jews of Isfahan constitute a prominent component of his following makes it reasonable to hypothesize that Isfahan will serve as a major strategic centre of Dajjal's power.
6. And this makes the present Iranian situation more intriguing—not conclusive
The argument could then be developed cautiously:
First, an authentic/accepted hadith places Dajjal's emergence in Khurasan.
Second, Sahih Muslim identifies 70,000 Jews of Isfahan among his followers.
Third, those followers are described as wearing ṭayālisah, traditionally translated as Persian shawls.
Fourth, Khorasan and Isfahan belong to the broader historical Persian geographical world, although Khorasan was much larger than modern Iran.
Fifth, contemporary Iran consequently occupies an important part of the geographical territory associated with these prophetic narrations—but this does not mean that the modern Iranian state is itself identified by the hadith with Dajjal.
Sixth, Makkah represents the opposite pole: Dajjal's inability to enter the sacred city.
7. The really profound question
I think the question we are raising can be formulated much more powerfully:
Why would the Prophet ﷺ single out a Jewish community in an inland Persian city—rather than Jews of Palestine, Jerusalem, Arabia, Rome or the lands that would eventually become major Western centres of Jewish population?
That is genuinely worth asking.
The answer may be hidden in the future. However, we are moving towards that scenario.
We cannot assume that the demographic and political geography of the Dajjal's time will resemble today's geography.
In fact, the 70,000 figure itself warns us against doing so.
4. Isfahan and the Iranian Strategic Space
The modern significance of the hadiths becomes more intriguing when viewed against the geography of contemporary Iran.
Isfahan is one of Iran's major historical and strategic cities. It has been an important centre of Iranian civilization, industry, military infrastructure, and scientific activity.
This does not establish any prophetic identification between the present Iranian state and the Dajjal.
Nevertheless, it creates an unusual intersection between:
prophetic geography + modern geopolitics + Middle Eastern power competition.
That intersection deserves intellectual examination without turning speculation into certainty.
5. The Iran-Israel War: An Alternative Interpretation
The second major component of the thesis concerns the current Iran-Israel conflict.
The conventional interpretation is that Israel and the United States attacked Iran because of concerns involving its nuclear programme, missiles, military infrastructure, and regional capabilities.
The conflict has indeed involved attacks against Iranian military and political leadership. The IRGC leadership has suffered major losses, including the killing of senior commanders.
On the surface, the conflict appears straightforward: Israel and Iran are bitter enemies engaged in an existential struggle.
Israel portrays Iran as its greatest regional threat. Iran presents itself as the principal opponent of Israel and Zionism. For decades, both sides have invested enormous political, military, and ideological resources in establishing this image.
But what if the visible conflict does not tell the entire story?
What if the apparent confrontation between Israel and Iran conceals another strategic process—one in which the destruction of Iran's leadership, the weakening of Arab states, the disruption of Muslim energy infrastructure, and the fragmentation of the Muslim world are occurring simultaneously?
Israel and Iran publicly portray themselves as mortal enemies.
Yet the war has produced consequences that extend well beyond Israel and Iran.
Iran has attacked Arab states.
Iranian missiles and drones have struck Gulf targets.
Energy infrastructure has been damaged.
The Strait of Hormuz has been severely disrupted.
Iran-backed Houthis have threatened Saudi maritime interests through Bab al-Mandeb.
And the resulting instability has placed enormous pressure on the economies and security structures of Arab Muslim states.
A Congressional Research Service assessment states that, following the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, Tehran launched more than 6,700 missiles and drones against GCC states through May 17, while Iranian attacks caused significant damage to Gulf oil and gas infrastructure.
More recently, Iranian-backed Houthi attacks have again threatened Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea.
Thus the question arises:
Who ultimately benefits from a Middle East in which Iran and Israel appear to fight each other while Arab Muslim states suffer destruction and economic disruption?
6. The Paradox of the Iranian Proxy Network
There is well-established evidence that Iran, particularly through the IRGC/Quds Force, developed and supported an extensive network of armed partners across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, while also cultivating relationships with groups in Bahrain and elsewhere. The UK's House of Commons Library describes the Quds Force as central to this strategy, while the CFR and USIP document Iran's support for Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, the Houthis and the Assad government.
Iran's network did not remain confined to Iran's immediate borders. It developed a remarkable arc:
Iran → Iraq → Syria → Lebanon
and
Iran → Yemen → Bab al-Mandeb/Red Sea
while Iran also maintained relationships with armed groups in Bahrain and the wider Gulf environment.
The result was a strategic network surrounding the Arabian Peninsula from several directions. Iran's support for Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis is extensively documented.
Iran constructed a regional military network whose geographical expansion progressively encircled the principal Sunni Arab states and brought Iranian-aligned forces into strategic proximity with the Holy Lands. Although Tehran presented this project as resistance to Israel and American influence, Sunni observers may reasonably ask whether its cumulative effect—weakening Arab states, destabilizing their surroundings and threatening the security of the Gulf and Red Sea—has also served objectives that Israel itself would have struggled to accomplish directly.
7. Is IRGC Compromised?
The Sunni concern is not that the hadiths explicitly identify modern Iran with Dajjal; they do not. Rather, the concern arises from the striking convergence between the prophetic geography of Khurasan and Isfahan and the modern Iranian military architecture that has extended across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the wider Gulf region toward the Muslim Holy Lands. Iran has consistently presented this regional expansion as an “axis of resistance” against Israel and Western influence. Yet this creates a profound strategic paradox: an openly Israeli aggression on Arab and Muslim states would likely unite much of the Muslim world against Israel, whereas a comparable weakening carried out through an Iranian project presented as anti-Israel resistance can divide Muslims, intensify sectarian and geopolitical conflicts, and produce many of the same strategic consequences without directly exposing Israel to the same level of Muslim opposition. From this perspective, the Sunni concern is not necessarily that Iran consciously serves Israel, but that its regional strategy—or the possibility of its manipulation by deeply embedded external actors—may have enabled outcomes that are ultimately advantageous to Zionist strategic interests.
Imagine Israel itself had attempted to create a military arc destabilizing:
Iraq → Syria → Lebanon → Yemen → Gulf
It would encounter enormous resistance from the Muslim world.
But when the same strategic geography develops through an actor publicly presenting itself as the champion of Palestine and resistance to Israel, the political consequences are very different.
The most striking evidence concerns the extraordinary precision with which Israel and the United States have been able to strike Iran's senior leadership.
The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials demonstrated that Iran's security system had suffered a profound intelligence failure.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later acknowledged that the strike involved highly accurate intelligence and described serious security gaps within Iran's leadership protection system.
This raises a legitimate question:
How could the most heavily protected individuals in the Iranian state be located and eliminated with such precision?
There are several possible explanations:
- sophisticated electronic intelligence;
- satellite and signals intelligence;
- human intelligence;
- compromised security personnel;
- infiltration of Iranian institutions;
- surveillance of communications;
- combinations of all of these.
Iran itself has repeatedly blamed Israeli intelligence networks for infiltration.
If Iranian security institutions have indeed been penetrated at senior levels, then the implications are enormous.
An adversary does not necessarily need to control an entire government.
It may only need access to:
- specific commanders;
- intelligence channels;
- communications systems;
- logistics networks;
- political factions;
- decision-making circles;
- or critical human sources.
If such penetration exists, the apparent enemy relationship can remain completely genuine at the institutional level while selected operations are manipulated.
8. What Zionists Failed to Do Themselves, Iran Achieved
The Gulf is the economic heart of much of the Arab world.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain depend heavily upon energy production and maritime exports.
Iranian attacks have damaged or threatened precisely these strategic assets.
The Congressional Research Service reported that Iranian attacks caused more than $25 billion in damage to Gulf oil and gas infrastructure, according to energy analysts, with some facilities expected to remain impaired for years.
This is not merely a military conflict.
It is an assault on the economic infrastructure of the Muslim world's most important financial region.
That produces a profound strategic question:
If Israel itself had destroyed the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE on this scale, what would have been the reaction across the Muslim world?
The answer is obvious.
The political backlash would have been enormous.
But when the destruction is attributed to Iran—a so-called Muslim-majority state presenting itself as the champion of resistance—the political effect is radically different.
Consequently, when contemporary Iran becomes one of the principal strategic powers in the Middle East, while its security establishment is penetrated, its leadership is devastated, its regional networks operate across Arab lands, and a new defensive architecture emerges from Makkah, Sunni Muslims naturally have reason to examine the developments with greater vigilance.
9. The Makkah Pact as a Response to Regional Expansionism
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye represent three different but complementary pillars.
Saudi Arabia: Geography and Resources
Saudi Arabia controls the heartland of the Arabian Peninsula, possesses enormous energy resources and hosts Islam's two holiest cities.
Türkiye: Military and Geostrategic Depth
Türkiye provides a powerful conventional military, an increasingly sophisticated defence industry and access to the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Middle Eastern theatres.
Pakistan: Strategic Deterrence
Pakistan adds enormous military manpower, strategic depth and nuclear deterrence.
The three therefore provide complementary capabilities rather than merely duplicating one another.
The agreement explicitly treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all three.
That principle potentially transforms the strategic calculations of any power considering military action against one of them.
10. The Pact Could Also Protect the Muslim World's Economic Lifelines
The Middle East's security is not merely about territory.
It is about:
The ongoing conflict has demonstrated the vulnerability of these routes. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been severely disrupted, while attacks in the Red Sea have created additional risks.
A stronger Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish security relationship could therefore have consequences extending far beyond the three signatories.
It potentially provides a framework for protecting the economic arteries upon which Muslim-majority states depend.
11. Makkah Versus Isfahan: A Symbolic Contrast
The most interesting dimension of the thesis is therefore not a simplistic identification of modern Iran with Dajjal.
It is the contrast between two geographical symbols.
Makkah represents the unity of Muslims around tawhid.
Isfahan, according to Sahih Muslim, is associated with seventy thousand Jewish followers of Dajjal.
Again, the hadith does not say that every Jew of Isfahan is evil, nor does it identify modern Iran with Dajjal. Islamic theology does not permit such simplistic extrapolation.
But the juxtaposition is nevertheless striking:
A major Muslim defence agreement has emerged from Makkah at a time when the region is undergoing a profound strategic transformation, while an authentic eschatological narration identifies Isfahan as the origin of a large body of Dajjal's followers.
This does not prove an eschatological timetable.
It does, however, provide a powerful framework for reflection.
12. Dajjal's Fitnah Is Fundamentally a Test of Perception
There is another important dimension.
The Dajjal's greatest danger is not simply military power.
His fitnah involves deception, falsehood, and the manipulation of perception.
Consequently, an Islamic analysis of contemporary geopolitics should be particularly cautious about accepting every publicly presented narrative.
But this principle cuts both ways.
It means that Muslims should not automatically believe:
The believer must distinguish between:
established evidence, probable inference, and speculation.
That distinction is especially important when discussing Dajjal.
13. The Real Strategic Test for the Makkah Pact
The ultimate importance of the pact will not be determined by its symbolism.
It will be determined by whether it develops into a genuine strategic institution.
Five questions will determine its future:
1. Will military integration increase?
Joint exercises, intelligence sharing and coordinated air and missile defence would transform the pact from a political declaration into a functioning security mechanism.
2. Will additional Muslim states join?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has already indicated that Egypt could potentially join the arrangement.
If Egypt, or other major Muslim states, eventually participate, the strategic significance would increase dramatically.
3. Will the pact remain defensive?
Its credibility will be greatest if it maintains a clearly defensive doctrine.
4. Can it protect maritime routes?
The Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, Arabian Sea, and Gulf require cooperative security mechanisms.
5. Can it overcome sectarian politics?
This may be the greatest challenge.
A Muslim security architecture that becomes merely a Sunni-versus-Shia alliance would reproduce the very fragmentation that has weakened the region.
A truly strategic Muslim alliance would have to distinguish between states, governments, political ideologies and ordinary populations.
14. The Iran Question
The Makkah Pact should therefore not automatically be interpreted as an anti-Iran alliance.
The available reporting describes it primarily as a defensive arrangement and not explicitly as a coalition against Tehran.
Nevertheless, the existence of the pact inevitably changes Iran's strategic calculations.
Iran now faces the possibility that Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan could coordinate their responses to regional aggression.
At the same time, the conflict has demonstrated that Iran's military leadership can suffer severe disruption. The IRGC has already undergone major leadership changes following the deaths of senior commanders.
Thus, the regional balance is moving away from a simple Israel-Iran confrontation toward a much broader competition over the future architecture of the Middle East.
15. A Possible New Middle Eastern Equation
The emerging equation could eventually look like this:
Israel + external Western support
versus
Iran + its regional networks
while increasingly:
Saudi Arabia + Türkiye + Pakistan + potentially other Muslim states
seek to establish an independent regional security architecture.
The third pole is the most consequential development.
If it succeeds, the Middle East may gradually move from a system dominated by external security guarantees toward one in which major Muslim powers assume greater responsibility for regional defence.
That would be the deeper strategic meaning of the Makkah Pact.
16. Makkah as the Alternative
This is where the Makkah Pact becomes strategically and symbolically important.
The answer to fragmentation cannot be another proxy network.
It cannot be another ideological militia.
It cannot be another external security guarantee.
It must be collective Muslim strategic autonomy.
The Makkah Pact potentially provides the foundation for such an architecture.
Its future significance will depend upon whether it develops into:
- integrated intelligence cooperation;
- joint air defence;
- missile defence;
- maritime security;
- counterterrorism cooperation;
- defence-industrial partnerships;
- intelligence sharing;
- strategic communications;
- and eventually a broader collective-security system.
If that happens, the pact could become far more consequential than its original three-member structure suggests.
Conclusion: From Fragmentation to Collective Deterrence
The Middle East has entered a dangerous transitional period.
Iran is undergoing military and political transformation. Israel remains a dominant military power. The United States continues to possess enormous regional influence. Maritime routes are vulnerable. Arab states face competing threats. And the old regional security architecture is increasingly under pressure.
Against this background, the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is strategically significant.
Its three founding members combine:
Saudi Arabia's geography and economic power, Türkiye's military-industrial capacity, and Pakistan's strategic deterrence.
The agreement therefore has the potential to become the nucleus of a wider Muslim security architecture.
The most dangerous mistake would be to assume that the Middle East is simply witnessing a straightforward war between Iran and Israel.
The visible battlefield may be Iran versus Israel.
But the strategic battlefield is much larger.
It includes:
Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf.
The Red Sea.
Bab al-Mandeb.
Hormuz.
Arab energy infrastructure.
Muslim economic stability.
Regional political unity.
And now, potentially, a new Muslim defence architecture centred symbolically upon Makkah.
The Sunni concern is therefore not that we possess definitive proof that Iran is controlled by Israel.
We do not.
Nor do we possess definitive proof that the current war is a deliberately coordinated Israeli-Iranian operation.
We do not.
But we do possess sufficient evidence to ask uncomfortable questions.
Why was Iran's supreme leadership penetrated so deeply?
Why could Israel and the United States locate the most heavily protected Iranian leaders with extraordinary precision?
Why has Iran responded by attacking numerous Arab states and their strategic infrastructure?
Why has Hormuz become severely disrupted?
Why are Iranian-aligned forces simultaneously threatening Bab al-Mandeb?
Why does a conflict ostensibly centred upon Israel and Iran impose such enormous costs upon Arab Muslim states?
And why has all of this occurred at the very moment when Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye have chosen Makkah as the place from which to announce a new collective-defence arrangement?
These questions do not prove the eschatological interpretation.
But they do make the coincidence remarkable.
The authentic hadith tells us that Dajjal will be followed by seventy thousand Jews from Isfahan.
If the Makkah Pact ultimately develops into a genuine collective-security system for Muslim states, its greatest historical significance may be that it begins to reverse precisely the condition that has made the Muslim world vulnerable for decades: fragmentation.
And perhaps that is the deeper meaning of the emerging Makkah-centred security architecture—not that Muslims have discovered the identity of Dajjal, but that they are beginning to understand that the greatest defence against every great fitnah is not paranoia, proxy warfare or sectarian rivalry.
It is unity built upon truth, discernment and collective strength.
