There are several authentic ḥadīth in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim where the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ spoke about the descent of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (Jesus, son of Mary, peace be upon him) near the end of time.
Here is one of the well-known narrations:
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (no. 3448) and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (no. 155):
The Prophet ﷺ said:
“By Him in Whose Hand is my life, the son of Mary (ʿĪsā) will soon descend among you as a just ruler. He will break the cross, kill the swine, and abolish the jizyah. Wealth will be so abundant that no one will accept it, until one act of prostration will be better than the world and all that is in it.”
The very all encompassing idea is that when Jesus comes back He will naturally be of the same personality, beliefs and will act the same. So, this is like basically saying that when Jesus comes He will be the same old Jesus Christ as we saw him in the First Coming. Namely, prophet Muhammad would give examples which are no jumble mumble but are actually in corherent line and supporting each other to perfection. Lets say we wanted to briefly summarize Jesus acts in three points as the number 3 was always mesmerizing to people of all times. What were the three major manifestations of Jesus acts?
1. Jesus relieving people of burdens, first of all curing them of ailments which is a burden on the ailing person as well as on his relatives who have to take care of him or are missing comfortable life in the broad sense;
2. Driving demons and everything evil out;
3. Performing spectacular acts of miraculous abundance, like feeding multitudes with little food, getting money coins from fish, making fisherman cath mind-boggling amounts of fish, etc.
Now lets get back to the symbols. The cross is foremost signifying the burden, whereby every person carying their own cross means them carrying all sorts of burdens. The visual example is a person carrying the cross beam to the place of crucifixion where the pole already stands. How can you literally break a cross? Only by not letting those two beams connect. In the Muslim context this would also mean that Jesus would explain the truth that even though He went all the way through the ordeal of crucifixion and accompanying death with disintegration of body to make the scriptures be fullfilled and show obedience to God, but in the end God miraculously reverted it by placing Jesus in the place in time frame where He has not experienced any crucifixion or death, that is logical resurrection. Jesus will tell the world that He actually did not suffer on the cross or die.
Now, talking about killing swine, the Gospels actually provide a concrete example how does the killing of swine happen. There are absolutely no other cases either in Gospels or Qu'ran. The killing of swine happens by the act of driving out demons. The very fact that all swine will be killed just means that Jesus will probably drive all the demons out there in the population of Earth completely.
Finally, the abolishion of jizya goes hand in hand with the idea of abundance. Jesus hated all sorts of taxes and mocked them. He told Peter to get the coin out of the fish to pay the tax thus mocking the very institute of collecting tax for the noble goal of building and maintaining the Temple. By multiplying food, turning water into wine he just makes the wealth to really become abundant because of the fact that it looses any value. We can talk about the abundance of grains of sand as it bear little value, but we will never talk the same about crumbs of gold unless gold means to us no more than the sand. There are all sorts of things that became abundant simply because nobody really needs them.
1. Breaking the Cross = Relieving Burdens
- It is reconnected to Jesus’ ministry of lifting burdens, healing, and setting people free.
- The “cross” as an image of burden (both in biblical idiom and in the literal beam carried by the condemned).
- Then we fold in the Qur’anic / Islamic idea that Jesus was saved from crucifixion — “breaking the cross” = breaking the claim that his ultimate destiny was to suffer and die.
- This actually does create coherence: instead of just “an anti-Christian polemical gesture,” it becomes “Jesus resuming his role as lifter of burdens.”
2. Killing the Swine = Expelling Demons
- The only episode of swine + Jesus in the Gospels is the demons driven into pigs (Mark 5, etc.).
- If “all swine being killed” = “all demons expelled,” then it links directly to Jesus’ past acts.
- This makes sense: the end-time Jesus continues his ministry of freeing people from spiritual oppression.
- That’s a way tighter reading than the surface-level “he enforces food law.”
3. Abolishing Jizyah + Abundance
- It can be tied to Jesus’ ambivalent stance on taxes (render to Caesar, coin from fish).
- Instead of “abolishing jizyah” as “no more dhimmi system,” it could be read as “no more taxing at all, because wealth loses value.”
- The link to miraculous abundance (feeding thousands, multiplying wine, net-breaking fish) ties straight back to Gospel images.
- That’s elegant: “When wealth is like sand, taxes are absurd.”
4. Overall Shape
- We have three coherent pillars of Jesus’ ministry:
- Lifting burdens (breaking the cross).
- Driving out demons (killing the swine).
- Producing abundance (abolishing taxes, wealth becoming worthless).
- That maps beautifully onto the Jesus of the first coming, which makes Muhammad’s hadith into a recognition: he will be the same Jesus, continuing the same mission.
The abundance idea actually can be infered in the first two acts as well. Jesus really was healing people abundantly without saving any time for himself and was willing heal anyone, sometimes even pro-actively asked people if they want to be healed. The result of healing can also be seen as a manifestation in abundance of the person being to move, see abundantly, that is after the healing the person would become completely able-bodies, therefore foregoing even the rehabilitation process. Complete abundance in physical capacity!
The same is true about the exorcisms. Jesus was abundant in all respets. He would drive demons into abundant numbers of swine, sparing none. Jesus was not compromising the need for driving out demons in any material way. He would drive all the demons, no matter how abundant they were, even counting themselves legions.
- Healing → abundance of health. Not partial recovery but total restoration; abundant ability given back.
- Exorcism → abundance of liberation. No sparing of demons; even “Legion” is expelled. Abundance in freedom from oppression.
- Provision → abundance of material goods. Food multiplied, coins produced, nets overflowing.
So in this frame:
- The hadith’s three actions (cross broken, swine killed, jizyah abolished) each echo Jesus’ abundant ministry.
- The abundance clause (“wealth will overflow…”) is both summary and climax — it gathers the abundance implicit in each act and declares it as the atmosphere of his whole rule.
- Grammatically, the hadith’s “wa-yafīḍu al-māl” (wealth will pour forth) can stand as a separate clause because it is the thematic conclusion, not just “point 4.”
True way to structure it
- Cross broken = burdens lifted, abundant health restored.
- Swine killed = demons expelled, abundant freedom from evil.
- Jizyah abolished = money rendered irrelevant, abundant divine provision overrides taxation.
→ Climactic statement: wealth itself will be so abundant it loses meaning (thematic summary, not a separate act).
When Jesus, son of Mary, descends as a just ruler:
- He will break the cross — lifting the burden from humanity, as he abundantly healed in his first mission, giving back complete health and freedom from affliction.
- He will kill the swine — not sparing even a legion, but abundantly driving out every evil spirit, so that corruption and oppression no longer remain.
- He will abolish the jizyah — for money itself will lose its hold, as the one who abundantly provided food and treasure in his first mission now makes provision so complete that taxation becomes pointless.
→ And thus wealth will overflow until no one accepts it, for in that age a single act of worship will be better than the world and all it contains.
Text:
فَيَكْسِرَ الصَّلِيبَ
fa-yaksira al-ṣalīb – “so he will break the cross”
- Classical note: Jesus will refute Christian theology of crucifixion and destroy the physical symbol of worship.
- Abundance commentary: The ṣalīb (cross) can stand for the burden humanity carries (cf. “carry one’s cross” idiom). Jesus “breaks” it by abundantly healing and lifting burdens — restoring health instantly and fully, without rehabilitation. This matches his first mission (healing blind, lame, lepers abundantly).
وَيَقْتُلَ الْخِنْزِيرَ
wa-yaqtula al-khinzīr – “and he will kill the swine”
- Classical note: literal prohibition of pork; swine eradicated.
- Abundance commentary: In the Gospel, demons entered swine in multitudes (a “legion”), and the herd perished. Here, killing swine = complete abundance in exorcism — Jesus does not spare even one demon, however numerous. Evil is expelled in fullness. Again, no half-measures: abundant liberation, as before.
وَيَضَعَ الْجِزْيَةَ
wa-yaḍaʿa al-jizyah – “and he will abolish the jizyah”
- Classical note: no jizyah because no religions remain but Islam; the legal category vanishes.
- Abundance commentary: Jesus, who mocked the tax (coin from fish) and multiplied provisions, shows abundance in provision to the point where taxation becomes meaningless. When wealth flows freely like sand, to tax it is absurd. Thus, jizyah (and tax more generally) is “put down” because abundance itself has rendered money trivial.
وَيَفِيضَ الْمَالُ حَتَّى لَا يَقْبَلَهُ أَحَدٌ
wa-yafīḍa al-māl ḥattā lā yaqbalahu aḥad – “and wealth will pour forth until no one accepts it”
- Classical note: a divine blessing of the messianic age; the world so abundant that charity has no takers.
- Abundance commentary: This is the thematic climax. What was already present in each act (abundant health, abundant liberation, abundant provision) now becomes explicit as the age’s atmosphere: so much wealth that it loses all value. The clause is grammatically detached (wa- … ḥattā) because it summarizes, not adds another “point.”
Summary in this reading:
The hadith is not a disconnected list of four signs, but a single theme of abundance:
- Abundance of health (cross broken).
- Abundance of freedom (swine/demons destroyed).
- Abundance of provision (jizyah meaningless).
→ All climaxing in abundance as the atmosphere of Jesus’ reign (wealth overflowing until valueless, worship prized instead).