Gharqad
According to several Sunni Islamic hadiths that describe Islamic eschatology, Gharqad is a kind of tree that would protect Jews from Muslims at the end times.
It is mentioned in these hadiths that Abu Huraira reported that the Islamic prophet Muhammad said:
It is considered likely that the gharqad tree is of the genus Lycium.
Hadiths that mention the Gharqad tree
[Sahih Muslim]
*[Sunan ibn Majah]
- .
The Hadith within broader Sunni eschatology
The Sunni Hadith collections of Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim give detailed accounts of a supernatural apocalyptic battle between Muslims and the forces of Dajjal.The Dajjal was described by Muhammad as the Great deceiver who will come during the end of time, will claim to be Allah and Jesus, perform miracles that only a god would be able to perform such as resurrection and bringing rain upon demand and will seemingly unite people in peace. In addition, it is described that the Dajjal will have physical deficiencies such as having one eye, and upon the head of The Dajjal will be written the letters 'كفر' but only the believers will be able to read these letters, whilst others will not and thus be deceived by his claims of divinity.
According to one report, the Dajjal's army will be composed of 70,000 Jews from Isfahan, all armed, and 70,000 Tatars, as well as people from Khorasan.
It is prophesied that before Judgement Day, a supernatural fire will shoot up from Hijaz that will illuminate much of the Middle East. The river Euphrates will part to reveal gold. But the biggest disaster will be when Gog and Magog are unleashed because the barrier built by Dhu al-Qarnayn will have ruptured. And the Beast of the Earth will emerge. The Mahdi will lead a Muslim army against Dajjal and his followers in an apocalyptic battle known as al-Malhamat al-Kubra. After the Second Coming of Jesus, Jesus himself will kill the Dajjal.
Sunni interpretation
Within Sunni Islam, these narrations are understood as part of Sunni eschatology's description of a great war at the end times against the forces of Dajjal which should occur after the second coming of Jesus according to Islam. Then, according to this eschatology, Jesus will lead an army of Muslims, some of whom are righteous Christians and righteous Jews converting to Islam in the eve of the battle, to fight the army of Dajjal consisting of Jews believing Dajjal is a god, and if a Jew of Dajjal's army hides behind a stone or a tree, this stone or tree will miraculously talk to Muslims to expose the Jew unless it is a Gharqad tree, because it is "their tree".According to Sunni interpretation in Ashrat al-sa’a by Yusuf al-Wabil, the Dajjal’s army will be made up of Jews, Persians, Turks, Bedouins, and women. Traditions from Bukhari’s and Ibn Maja’s hadith collections also include Persians, Turks, and Bedouins as well as Jews.
Sunni moderate writers debate the subject in eschatological terms, emphasizing that this should happen only in the end times after the second coming of Jesus in accordance with Sunni thought and should not damage current Islamic–Jewish relations.
Fayd al-Bari, a prominent Sunni commentary, explains that Jesus will only fight against those Jews who join the Dajjal's army, not all Jews around the world.
A comment by 8th century Islamic traditionalist Naim ibn Hammad states that after al-Mahdi recovers the Ark of the Covenant, most Jews will convert to Islam and join Muslims in the fight against Dajjal.
The general message of the text is often alleged as a prophecy, but it does not appear in the Quran, which Muslims believe is Allah's revelation to Muhammad.
According to Memri TV, Yasir Qadhi described this text as referring to an end times war which is "a fight between good and evil" and that the text is "predictive and not prescriptive".
Other Islamic sects
Not all Muslims accept all hadiths as reliable and may conclude somewhat different eschatology; most Shia Muslims reject Sunni hadiths as unreliable and have their own hadiths, such as The Four Books. While according to Karimov, Zaydi Shia may hold Sunni hadiths with high esteem, Zaydis have their own primary hadith traditions. While some Ibadi Muslims do not consider Sunni hadiths as reliable and rely on Tartib al-Musnad, Hoffman noted that contemporary Ibadis often approve of the standard Sunni collections.Dajani Daoudi concluded that by comprehensive review of the Quran, no such hadith would exist since it openly contradicts Islamic faith and that Muslims believe a hadith is the word of man while the Quran is the word of God. Daoudi added that "this hadith" was collected 150 years after the death of Muhammad, that the authenticity of such a hadith is disputed, and that this particular hadith has become controversial for promoting anti-Jewish sentiments among Muslims.
Critical assessment
Insignificance of the tree in Judaism
Neither Nitraria nor Lycium have any sanctity in Judaism; they are not one of the four species of Sukkot, they are not one of the Seven Species of the Land of Israel and they are not one of the incense plants of the Torah; they are also not used for Havdalah and there is no Jewish tradition of eating their fruits in Tu BiShvat.Furthermore, Lycium is mentioned in the Bible only once in a negative context in the Book of Judges, as Jotham compares his brother Avimelech, the self-proclaimed king of Shechem after he murdered his other brothers, to a Lycium, which is seen as a useless tree who can only cause harm.
Fundamentalism around the concept
Freyer Stowasser describes 19th and early 20th century views about apocalyptic hadiths of the sort introduced by Muhammad Abduh and the young, pre-Salafiist Rashid Rida:These modernist, deconstructionist approaches were unacceptable to Sunni clerical traditionalists. They have remained loyal to the more "literalist and inherited form" of apocalyptic hadiths, although they tend not to interpret them as calling for revolutionary political movements.