Hadith

In Sunni tradition, Abu Huraira reported that the Islamic prophet Muhammad said:^[2]

The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: "Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah!, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!" – But the tree Gharqad will not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.

Narrations that mention the Gharqad tree are:

• Sahih Muslim, 41:2922 (quoted above)
• Sahih Muslim 41:6984
• Sahih Muslim 41:6985
• Sunan ibn Majah, 36:152

Narrations that do not mention the Gharqad tree, rather, only mention stones talking or also trees talking, are:

• Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:56:791
• Sahih Al-Bukhari 4:52:177
• Sahih Muslim 41:6981
• Sahih Muslim 41:6982
• Sahih Muslim 41:6983
• Another narration.^[specify][9]

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 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 consisted 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 him unless it is a Gharqad tree, because it is "their tree".^[10][11]

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.^[12][13]

According to one Sunni interpretation, Dajjal's army will not consist only of evil Jews, but also of evil Christians and evil Muslims believing Dajjal is a god, fighting as soldiers and not as civilians.^[10] This specific interpretation was criticized for not referring to Jews alone, while the author noted that "No one disputes that this relates to future events and not to our time".^[14]

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, Qadhi described this text as referring to an end times war which is "a fight between good and evil"^[15] and that the text is "predictive and not prescriptive".^[15]

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.

Fundamentalism around the concept

According to Freyer Stowasser,^[21] modernist, deconstructionist approach to the apocalyptic hadith remains largely unacceptable to the traditionalists among the Sunni clerical establishment.

The narratives on the Dajjal's end time reign and ultimate defeat were unreliable because of: questionable origin and transmitters, weak chains of hadith authentication, internal contradictions on this topic within the hadith corpus as a whole (that invalidate all of its parts), and the fact that these narratives contradict the Qur'anic text.

Possible use in antisemitic incitement

The Gharqad narrations are often quoted alongside faulty generalizations to cause incitement against Jews^[22] such as that all Jews anywhere, anytime are "Killers of prophets", "greedy", "arrogant" or "Enemies of god" and alike ("Enemies of humanity before they are enemies of Muslims"^[22]), without considering that people of Jewish ancestry have free will to choose a religion or irreligion, may not practice Judaism (rather, another religion or no religion, without self definition as "enemies" of anything), or without an accuser's attempt to understand various different and conflicting Israelite or Jewish perspectives (Pharisees, Sadducees, Rabbanites, Karaites, Reforms and others) on religious issues, or without considering peaceful interpretations of scripture or tolerance, as common in cases of incitement^[22] caused by extremist radicals, most often fueled by political conflicts.^[22][23]

Belief that Israelis are planting gharqads

Some Sunni Islamists who strongly advocate for the destruction of Israel have sprung a myth asserting that Israeli Jews are planting millions of gharqad trees all over Israel in preparation for a dire war,^[7][8] although this is evidently false as forests planted by Israeli authorities are typically made of pine and cypress, with around 240 million such trees planted.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]} Olive trees are planted to a lesser extent, but none of the Lycium or Nitraria are cultivated.^[32]