Before
he comes, the inhabitants of Egypt
and Sham will kill their rulers and
their commanders... (Ibn Hajar al-Haythami,
Al-Qawl al-Mukhtasar fi `Alamat al-Mahdi
al-Muntazar, p. 49)
This hadith draws attention to the fact
that the rulers of Damascus and Egypt will
be killed before the Mahdi comes.
In 1981, Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat
(1970-81) was assassinated during a military
review. Other Egyptian leaders who have
been killed include the prime ministers
Boutros Ghali (1910) and Mahmoud Nukrashy
Pasha (1948).
The
word "Sham" is not only used for Damascus,
for it also means "left" and has long been
used to refer to those countries to the
left of the Hijaz (where the cities of Makka
and Madina stand).6
Many leaders have been killed in the region,
among them former Syrian prime ministers
Salah al-Din Bitar (1920), Droubi Pasha
(1921), and Muhsin al-Barazi (1949); King
Abdullah of Jordan (1951); and the Lebanese
Phalange leader Bashir Gemayel (1982).7
NewYork
Times, September 15, 1982
(right below) Bashir Gemayel,
Ahmed Maher Pasha
