Bedouins Prophecy
A prophecy that came true in the past 15 years. This is the story of the Bedouins, the people who went from tents to skyscrapers in a single generation.
When the Prophet (ﷺ) was asked about the signs of the Final Hour, one of the signs he mentioned was "when you see the barefoot, naked, destitute shepherds competing in constructing tall buildings.”. When asked to elaborate further, the Prophet (ﷺ) said that they are from the Arabs. [1]
For anybody who is familiar with the history of the Middle East, reading this prophecy brings a very specific group to mind: the Bedouins, or Bedu. The Bedouins were the nomads of the Arabs, living simple but volatile lives. They were described as “barefoot, naked, destitute shepherds” due to their lifestyle. It is already hard enough to get by in the harsh conditions of the deserts of Arabia, let alone when you lived like the Bedouins. Amazingly, they led such lives for almost all of history, even during the Golden Ages of the Islamic empires. We have recorded accounts from as recently as the 1970s that show how volatile the Bedu lifestyle was.
For example, around the year 1945, Sir Wilfred Thesiger writes in the Arabian Sands:
“Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives.”
We also have a documentary from the 1970s on Abu Dhabi, UAE. The narrator comments that they have a “Biblical rhythm” to their lives, meaning they lived as people did 5000 years ago during Biblical times. Despite living in rags and herding animals to stay alive, the Bedouins were a major portion of the Arabian population. For example, the UAE was mostly inhabited by Bedouins just 40 years ago. [2] Now, it is littered with skyscrapers and houses the tallest building in the world.
A side by side of the Bedouins of the past and the UAE today.
“Only just over 40 years ago simple Bedouin villages existed where today’s skyscrapers stand.”
In the span of just 30 years, these Bedouin villages have become the home of the wealthiest people on Earth, who now live in skyscrapers. Competing with one another wasn’t satisfying enough though, as the Bedouins have started competing with the entire world. Opened in 2009, the Burj Khalifa is now the tallest building on Earth.
To further push the point home that they were competing with one another and the world, another competition began soon after the Burj Khalifa was built. A Saudi family has announced that they would be building a skyscraper taller than the Burj Khalifa, and it is now in progress.
A question then comes to mind, why would the Prophet (ﷺ) prophesize such a thing?
If you were someone lying to the people to try and get a following, it would make no sense to make such an unbelievable prediction. You are predicting that the Bedouins, who barely survive every passing day, will somehow become so powerful that they can waste their time and resources competing in the building of tall buildings.
In “The Forbidden Prophecies”, Abu Zakariah explains how odd such a prediction is:
“What would motivate Muhammed to even make such a prediction? If he was going to make up such a prophecy it would make more sense to relate this prophecy to the superpowers of his time: Rome, Persia, or even China who (unlike the Arabs) already had a tendency to construct extravagant buildings and palaces… [Instead,] Muhammad could have made a prediction such as “you will see the construction of tall buildings”.”
On all accounts, such a specific and unintuitive prediction can only be made by someone very confident that it will come true.
What is shocking is how precise this prophecy really is. The Prophet (ﷺ) said that the bedouins themselves would be the ones who compete with one another in building tall buildings. So, for example, it would not be their descendants who would be competing, as they would not be bedouins by that point. Yet, even with this added layer of precision, that is exactly what happened.
The book summary of Rags to Riches states:
"Born in 1948, in Abu Dhabi, the author knew dreadful poverty for years before fabulous oil wealth transformed his country forever. He grew up in the ruler's palace, barefoot like his playmates, now senior figures in the United Arab Emirates." "This is a vivid eye-witness account of the total transformation within only 30 years of a Bedouin society into a country with the world's highest per capita income.”
As if it was not enough to see that skyscrapers now stand where Bedouin villages did just 40 years ago, we even have eye-witness accounts of this transformation happening in 30 years. This means that the exact same people who lived as Bedouins in the past are now living in skyscrapers. Some of these bedouin boys even became senior figures in the UAE government, one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
It is already incredible enough that such a story is in our reality. It is not even the case that the Bedouins slowly became richer and richer over multiple generations. Rather, the Bedouins went from living volatile lives that could end at any moment, to living the lives of the wealthiest people on Earth, all in a single generation.
What is more incredible is how this was precisely prophesied 1400 years ago. The Prophet (ﷺ) stated that we would see the lowest in wealth, those who are thankful to survive a single day, compete in building tall buildings. He told us that we would see the Bedouins themselves take part in this competition, not even their descendants. For hundreds of years, people must have believed it to be impossible, and now look at our reality. We have seen the transformation of the most volatile and poor societies, the Bedu, into the wealthiest people on Earth, now competing in building skyscrapers. In a single generation.
References:
English Translation of Musnad Imam Ahmad bin Hambal Volume 3, published by Darussalam, 2012, Hadith #2924, p. 43.
