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Al-Masih ad-Dajjal

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “arabic for "the deceiver”. Today it says “antagonistic figure in islamic eschatology who will pretend to be the promised messiah and later claim to be go”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Ad- Dajjal or Degghial is, in Islamic eschatology , an evil figure who will appear on Yaum al-Qiyamah . The word is Arabic for "the deceiver." He is a counterpart to the Antichrist prophesied by Christianity . Like the Antichrist, various hadith , or traditions, are preserved about ad-Dajjal. He will be physically misshapen, and blind in one eye. He will deceive the faithful, teaching them that Heaven is Hell and vice versa. He will have the power to work miracles in order to mislead believers. He will try to put Man on God's throne. He will have the Arabic letters kaf , fa and ra ( kafir ) branded on his forehead. He will revive the dead, and claim to be a god. Some traditions of Islam relate that he will appear at Isfahan , and that he will rally Jews to his support. However, that is not necessarily a majority view. The Prophet Muhammad asked his followers to recite the first and last ten verses of Chapter 'The Cave' as protection from the Dajjal. These verses deal with the beliefs and activities of the Christian nations. He also taught his followers to pray, "O Allah! I seek refuge in Thee from the trial of the Dajjal." He also said, There is no tribulation greater than that of the Dajjal from the creation of Adam to the day of resurection. The appearance of the Dajjal will correspond with the appearance of the Imam Mahdi , who will rally the faithful on earth to oppose him. This will be followed by a Golden Age in which there are only true believers, but eventually decline will set in and Allah will lose patience with Man and the End will come for Man. This is a retelling of the Christian apocalypse where the end comes with the return of Jesus and Judgement Day . It is stated by the Ahmadiyya Movement that the Messiah came with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and will be fulfilled through his community. He is mentioned in Chapter 16 of " The Arabian Nights ": "Sinbad Voyage 1" or "First Voyage" Also to while away the time of waiting I explored a little island named Cassel, which belonged to King Mihrage, and which was supposed to be inhabited by a spirit named Deggial. Indeed, the sailors assured me that often at night the playing of timbals could be heard upon it.1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17983331.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “arabic for "the deceiver”. Today it says “antagonistic figure in islamic eschatology who will pretend to be the promised messiah and later claim to be go”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

arabic for "the deceiver

Now

antagonistic figure in islamic eschatology who will pretend to be the promised messiah and later claim to be go

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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