October | 2006 | Conservative Hall

What follows is my amplification of the explanation by ex-Muslim Simon Altaf concerning the multitude of the beast – in his book, “World War III – Unmasking the End Time Beast.”

Revelation 13: 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

The Greek text does not say “six humdred threescore and six” or “six hundred sixty-six” or even “666” – these are assumption that the three Greek letters χ Chi ξ Xi * Stigma form a translation of letters to numbers, called a gematria (just as “Roman numerals” look like letters but create numbers) .

* Follow this Wikipedia link to view the shape of stigma – it is an obsolete letter on the right hand side.

This numeric assumption has a big problem:
This curious set of letters has been translated as “666” or “661” in most English translations. However, in Sophocles’ Lexicon of Byzantine Greek, which covers late antique Greek up to 1000 AD, there is no mention of “stigma” as either a ligature or a number. The value of six is held by the Upsilon and there is certainly no need to designate an obsolete letter as a duplicate six, is there?

Let’s assume instead that John was trying to convey something else: a pictogram of the insignia on the headgear and armbands of a huge number (a multitude) of soldiers having risen up to attack Israel.

Military units incorporate standard symbols as do all militaries, such as the Middle Eastern crossed swords. Here’s two designators from the Pakistani army:

The first example is the flag of their military crest.

The flag includes the following description:

The motto of the Pakistan Army reads: “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah”. Translated into English, it means “Faith, Piety, Fight in the Way of Allah”.

(Note: while the Pakistani army crescent faces to the left, in most Islamic uses including the Pakistani flag, it faces right like the Greek letter Stigma)

This second example is also from Wikipedia.

The script for the word “Allah” looks remarkably like the letter “Xi” (see the picture at the bottom of the post).

Arabic script did not come into existence until AD 400. Arabic script would have made absolutely no sense at all to John.

“Let him who has understanding” understand the meaning of:

– Crossed swords. Arabic script ‘Allah’. A crescent moon.

as the

The symbols of the multitude rising to attack Israel.

Makes more sense, right?

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The Defence College Experience – Since those were the ‘Islamization days of positive results’, we got more than our fair share of male guest speakers whose lectures smacked of preaching from the pulpit. We also actually got Mullas as guest speakers who presentations sounded like Friday prayer sermon. My written comments to college on Mulla guest speakers were that we did not need any preaching on the religion itself and a presentation on the comparative study of religion was perhaps more appropriate.

Closing on the following note:

Daniel 9:11: Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of Eloah, because we have sinned against him.

The Hebrew word “curse” is “Allah”.