Compass directions in Daniel: Catty-cornered??

I now see what to me is a glaring flaw in the grounding of this article... The uprooting of the three by the Antichrist is an uprooting of three existing nations by a ruler who appears as if out of nowhere. He is not just called one of the ten but is called an eleventh ruler who belongs to the ten. Meaning there are ten rulers, then he comes, takes out three, and replaces them with him. So... whichever nation he actually springs from, three nations will be under him in the beginning, and it's only AFTER this that the eastward, southward, and toward Beulah expansion takes place.

For now at least, that makes the question of his origins a lot murkier. Iran's not excluded, but because of the Seleucid bounds and the original power center of Seleucia being more toward Syria and Iraq, not to mention Islamic hadiths of the Dajjal point right at Syria and Iraq, it seems more likely to me that the Beast will be an Iraqi or a Syrian, perhaps of one of the many ethnic minorities in either country. Also I think he will overthrow by flatteries in terms of it being a peaceful or bloodless, but unconstitutional coup... the small number of people that help him are just as likely to be a cabal of powerful men like those who helped put Saddam in power in the early 1970s, in his case, not bloodlessly and not because he flattered them. There's still useful info in here, but beware of the conclusions I initially drew.

Dan 7:8	I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Dan 8:9	And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant [land].

What does Daniel mean by uproot three horns? Horns are always symbolic of power in the Bible, of kings, rulership, countries. So when a little horn arises, this is a horn with a little power at first, or from a small people:

Dan 11:23

And after the league [made] with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

Examples of a small people in the Middle East today could include the Kurds, the Armenians, the Circassians, the Samaritans, the Assyrians, or possibly the Azerbaijanis, and I'm sure there are many others. The Arabs are certainly not a "small people" for the area, they are the largest ethnicity in the region. Therefore the Little Horn cannot be an Arab himself, though he may certainly rule over Arabs. Probably not a Persian either. This means he is a non-Arab ruler uprooting three nations.

East: 1. qedem, which means east, front, or old/ancient, and refers to the direction of the deserts of Arabia -- also said of the children of the East or the direction taken to get to Mesopotamia. 2. mizrach, which means the place of sunrise or rising (due east -- supposedly.)

South: 1. negev, which refers to the Negev desert which extends south and west of Jerusalem toward Sinai; 2. teyman meaning to the right hand (of mizrach.)

West: 1. yam, the sea or seaward, toward the Mediterranean, west and toward the northwest of Jerusalem; 2. ma 'arab, "setting place" or "sunset."

North: 1. mezareh, figuratively meaning scatterer (as north winds scatter) 2. tsaphown, the direction of darkness, place that is hidden or obscure.

Confused? It gets worse.

Daniel uses mizrach ("east") and tsaphown ("north") in 11:44, "But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him:", and then he uses mizrach again in 8:9 "little horn... to the east and to the south..." with negeb for south. For "west" Daniel uses ma 'arab, "setting place" or "sunset."

Locating mizrach seems straightforward -- just go to the sunrise -- but the kings of the North and South, that is, tsaphown and negeb, when deciphered from prophecy are the kings respectively of Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt. If you look at Israel on a map between these two nations, these nations are not oriented straight north and south on the modern compass, but are canted clockwise about 45 degrees. Syria, the "North," lays northeast of Israel -- what Daniel calls tsaphown, and Egypt, the "South," lays southwest of Israel... directly opposite Syria in the negeb direction. If we take this as a cue, the directions in clockwise order are:

mizrach = southeast (towards Arabia)

tsaphown = northeast (towards Syria)

ma 'arab = northwest (towards Greece)

negeb = southwest (towards Egypt)

Hence we find the rough he goat coming not from due west, but from the northwest, from the direction of Greece:

Dan 8:5	And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat [had] a notable horn between his eyes.
Dan 8:8	Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.
Dan 8:21	And the rough goat [is] the king of Grecia: and the great horn that [is] between his eyes [is] the first king.

If the rough he goat (who by the way is Alexander the Great of Macedonia; the four "notable ones" were his generals who split up the empire after his premature death) were just coming from due west, he could much more easily come from Libya or even Egypt than Greece. The due-west direction is all the vaguer if you consider west could be considered the direction of either Greece or Egypt especially if by overland travel. But if in fact the term ma 'arab is being precisely applied, as northwest, then it fits right in with Syria being tsaphown "northeast" and Egypt being negeb "southwest" -- via the Negev Desert. In fact, heading just slightly south of due west takes you from Jerusalem right over the Suez Canal to the end of the Nile Delta at Alexandria, Egypt. Cairo and the Pyramids of Giza are actually west-southwest of Jerusalem. If you travel overland to Greece from Jerusalem, you have to take a route that veers a bit east of north before making a westward turn in Anatolia! Admittedly I have been referring to Jerusalem for these compass directions as that is the ancestral home of Daniel's people whom the angel keeps referring to in his visions, but even if you take his locations in either Babylon or Persia as starting points, Greece still lays west- northwest of Babylon and Susa, and Egypt is west-southwest of both cities. Hence applying west to Greece and not to Egypt tells me the orientation of west, south, and north were different to the ancient Jews than they are to us today.

So if these are the compass points for Syria, Egypt, and Greece, then why not apply them throughout the book of Daniel at least? Daniel uses the same language of directions for the movements of the Little Horn as he does for the prophecies of the kings of the North and South. This means the compass as we know it must be shunted clockwise (right of north) 45 degrees to interpret Daniel correctly. We can reduce it with the King James Version or other English versions like this:

East = Southeast (toward Arabia.)

South = Southwest (toward Egypt.)

West = Northwest (toward Greece.)

North = Northeast (toward Syria.)

Translated to the Seleucid kingdom per se, occupying the countries from Turkey to Iran, gives this set of directions points:

East = towards the Persian Gulf region, Iran, Pakistan, and India

South = towards Arabia or Egypt

West = towards Europe

North = towards Russia, Central Asia (including Afghanistan) and China

Dan 11:44

But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.

The final end of the Little Horn is his fall in battle against non-Muslim powers India, China, Russia, and their allies.

Country by country in the Seleucid zone:

Toward Beulah means toward the Beautiful Land (Israel);

Italics for seas;

Bold italics for countries the Beast may not enter in Biblical prophecy (Ammon, Moab, and Edom.) Israel is not included, but is not part of the ten horns and will not be invaded until the middle of the week of years.

Turkey

East = Iraq and Syria (toward Beulah)

South = Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus

West = Greece, Macedonia, the Balkans

North = Russia

East and South count: Two, Iraq and Syria; Cyprus is already under two other nations, Turkey and Greece.

Lebanon

East = southern Syria, Jordan

South = Israel (Beulah), the Mediterranean

West = Mediterranean toward Cyprus

North = Syria

East and South count: One, Syria; Israel not to fall early.

Syria

East = Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

South = Jordan, Israel (Beulah), Lebanon, the Mediterranean

West = The Mediterranean, Turkey

North = Turkey, Iraq

East and South count: Two, Iraq and Lebanon; Israel not to fall early.

Iraq

East = Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf

South = Saudi Arabia, Jordan (toward Beulah)

West = Jordan, Syria, Turkey

North = Turkey, Iran

East and South count: Two; Iran and Kuwait.

Kuwait

East = Persian Gulf

South = Saudi Arabia

West = Iraq (toward Beulah)

North = Iraq, Iran after that.

East and South count: One, Iraq, toward Beulah.

Iran

East = Pakistan, Gulf of Oman

South = Kuwait, Iraq (toward Beulah), Persian Gulf

West = Iraq, Turkey, Caucasus states, Caspian Sea

North = Central Asian states, Afghanistan

East and South count: Three; Pakistan, Kuwait, and Iraq (which is also toward Beulah.)

Now, again, in the book of Daniel the Little Horn has to fulfill certain conditions:

Dan 7:8	I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Dan 8:9	And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant [land].

Conclusion:

One country among the six to have parts of their territories in the old Seleucid Empire, and one country only, can expand "south" (southwest) and "east" (southeast), and toward Beulah (due west) and seize three other nations who are not disqualified as parts of Edom, Moab, and Ammon by expanding in those directions. This country is large, populous, and has a number of interesting ethnic minorities, among them the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, and the Pashtuns; the dominant group is the Persians. Its name is Iran.

(All bible quotes from www.blueletterbible.org.)

Mabus and Moussavi

I need to mention here... as this article simply got out of hand in length and details... that the assumption I made about the Antichrist uprooting three nations OTHER than his homeland is likely flawed, and that may undo the entire case for Persia, Iran, and perhaps Mousavi being the Little Horn or Beast of Revelation. In addition it seems to me that unless he's blind in his right eye, speaks with a stammer, and slaps his thigh to speak properly he isn't fulfilling Islamic hadiths either...

At this point I will also mention that probably the most probable way for Mir Hosain Mousavi to fulfill these prophecies as the Beast/Little Horn/Antichrist/Mahdi/Dajjal would be for him to be sent into exile from Iran into Iraq or Syria, and then engineer or have engineered for him a coup that overthrows, most likely, Syria, Iraq, and perhaps Iran or Lebanon. Or... it may turn out to be someone else by the name of Musab or something similar thereto.

Orrr.... maybe it's this guy:  Abu Musab Al-Suri 

Who is Mir Hosain Mousavi?

Is he Mabus whom Nostradamus predicted? Is he the Little Horn? The Beast in Revelation? The Antichrist himself?

Could he be the Mahdi expected by a significant portion of those in the Islamic faith?

Let's start with the name Mabus. Nostradamus predicts a Third Beast and names him Mabus... having named the second one Hister and the first one Pau Nay Loron. Let's run through how Michel de Notre Dame used anagrams to describe the first two beasts before he describes the third.

According to the author John Hogue, in his book Nostradamus and the Antichrist:
Code Name MABUS: "Nostradamus took great pains to cloak the names of his three candidates for antichrist in coded anagrams: to protect the innocent from those in the future that might recognize themselves in his prophecies and do worse.

"THE FIRST ANTICHRIST . . . PAU NAY LORON

"Nostradamus code-named him "PAU, NAY, LORON." All in uppercase. An obvious decoding would give us three towns in southwestern France: Pau, Nay and (O)loron. The rest of the prophecy strays the subject away from three villages to describe a human being. The upper-case presentation is a literary nudge in our sides to envisage a person's name hidden in the letters spelling three towns.


"PAU NAY LORON = NAPAULON ROY [what about simply NAYPAULORON? Not close enough?]

"His name encoded is 'Napoleon King'

"NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

"An Emperor will be born near Italy, He will cost his Empire very dearly: He is less a prince than a butcher. - Nostradamus (1555)" -- from http://www.hogueprophecy.com/nostradamus/mabus.htm.

Hogue continues:

"The Second Antichrist: HIƒTER

"Nostradamus code-named the second Antichrist 'Hiƒter' -- or 'Hister' with a Gothic 's' -- after the ancient name of the River Danube, which is the Ister. Nostradamus spells it with its most arcane variant Hister as some specific hint. Again, there's a pattern to follow here. This 'Danube' finds itself a thing representing a person mentioned as Hister in five prophecies containing similar story lines. He becomes the 'Captain of Greater Germany' born in Noricum (the ancient name for Austria). He will have a 'crooked cross' as his symbol: the Swastika. The people of 'Irale' (an anagram for Israel) would be sent as captives into a great furnace by this 'Hister.' It seems Nostradamus saw the boy who grew up on the banks of the Hister (Danube) River in Linz, Austria, dreaming of concentration camps for the Jews, Nostradamus' kin, to be sent up in ash clouds.

"HIƒTER = HITLER
ADOLF HITLER" -- from http://www.hogueprophecy.com/nostradamus/mabus.htm.

And the third beast...

"THE THIRD AND FINAL ANTICHRIST... MABUS

"The Candidates for Mabus.

"The prophet forged visions into cryptic verse after sitting alone in a state of trance in nightly vigils locked away in his secret upstairs study in Salon Provence summoning what he called 'angelic emissaries from God' to his aid. In the mid-1550s, he received from them words, sounds and twilit images warning about a third and final antichrist that has yet to fully reveal himself. This man is described in a prophecy indexed 10 Q72 (Century 10, Quatrain 72) as, The king of terror. He will enter the world stage, descending from distant future skies..." -- from http://www.hogueprophecy.com/nostradamus/mabus.htm

Hogue continues, "Nostradamus gave the Third Antichrist the following code name. He's Mabus. A number of notorious contemporary figures, still living or recently dead from the Middle East can see their names spelled in the Mabus code."

I don't necessarily agree with any of the candidates Hogue proposes for Mabus, but it is interesting that he points out there are several Middle Eastern figures that supply a solution, however convoluted in some cases, for Mabus. I think, however, the solution is the same as the other two Antichrists -- it's a simple anagram for the ruler's name. Whoever Mabus is, the contents of the anagram MABUS must rearrange simply and reasonably to an approximation of the real name of that future ruler just as Pau Nay Loron did to Napoleon Roy (although maybe it really was just "NayPauLoron") and as Hister did to Hitler.

How about Islamic prophecies about the Mahdi? Is the Mahdi the Antichrist?

"Who Is Imam Mahdi?'According to the Shiite version of Islam the 12th descendant of Mohammed, known as the 12th Imam or the Mahdi, (Also known as the 'Hidden Imam') went into hiding in 941, some 1300 [sic] years ago. [Mir Hossain Mousavi was born Sept. 29, 1941. 1,000 years later, to the year if not more exactly....] At an earlier time of rising tensions, the 10th imam was forced from his home in Medina by the powerful Sunni caliph in Baghdad and was sent to live in Samarra, where he could be kept under closer supervision. Both he and his son were believed to have been poisoned by the caliphate. Fearing such persecution, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who was just a child when he became the 12th imam. Then he is said to have gone into what Shiites call occultation, a kind of suspended state from which it is believed he will return. Shiites believe he will reappear when the world has become full of oppression and tyranny. They believe that he is hidden in the Jamkaran well in Iran, [southwest of Tehran near Qum] which is a place of pilgrimage for believers who drop their requests for help into the well in the hope that the Imam will read them and come to their aid'." -- from http://www.inplainsite.org/html/imam_mahdi.html

The website InPlainSite.org continues:What Muhammed SaidThe Following quotations are alleged by various people to have been made by Muhammed. [Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)] and are considered to be authentic.

Hadhrat Abdullah bin Mas'ood (R.A.) said;

"This world will not come to an end until one person from my progeny does not rule over the Arabs, and his name will be the same as my name."

(Tirmidhi) Hadhrat Ali (R.A.) said;

"Even if only a day remains for Qiyamah to come, yet Allah will surely send a man from my family who will fill this world with such justice and fairness, just as it initially was filled with oppression." (Abu Dawood)

Abu Sa'id al-Khudari(RA) said;

Al Mahdi will be from my progeny. His forehead will be broad and his nose will be high. [A stern-faced ruler.] He will fill the world with justice and fairness at a time when the world will be filled with oppression. He will rule for seven years. (Emphasis Added) (This guy? 

Or this guy?) 

Hadhrat Abu Saeed Khudri (R.A.) said,

"Al Mahdi will be from my progeny. His forehead will be broad and his nose will be high. He will fill the world with justice and fairness at a time when the world will be filled with oppression. He will rule for seven years." (Emphasis Added)

Abu Hurairah said:

"The shall not occur until the Euphrates will disclose a mountain of gold, over which people will fight. 99 out of every hundred shall die, and every one of them shall say, 'perchance I shall be the one to succeed" (Source)

There is apparently no consensus among Muslim scholars as to the authenticity of the following quote

Abu al-Hujaf^(RA) quotes the Prophet^(SAW) saying three times:

Listen to the good news about the Mahdi! He will rise at the time when people will be faced with severe conflict and the earth will be hit by a violent quake. He will fill the earth with justice and equity as it is filled with injustice and tyranny. He will fill the hearts of his followers with devotion and will spread justice everywhere. (Bihar al-anwar, Vol. 51, P. 74)

SummaryAccording to The Universally Accepted Narrations

Be from among the family of Prophet^(SAW),
among the descendants of Fatima^(RA);
Have a broad forehead and pointed noise;
Appear in one night;
Appear just before the day of judgment;
Have same name as hazrat Muhammad^(SAW);
Escape from Madina to Makkah where people will pledge allegiance to him;Receive pledge and help of Iraqi people;
Fight in battles;Rule over the Arabs for seven years according to Sunnah;
Spread justice and equity on earth;
Eradicate tyranny and oppression;
Lead a prayer in Mekkah which Jesus^(pbuh) will follow in;NOT be the same individual as the Promised Messiah (Jesus). (Source URL is no longer valid)

Physical Description of The Imam MahdiAccording to other hadeeth:

* He will be tall
* He will be fair complexioned
* His facial features will be similar to those of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)
* His character will be exactly like that of Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam)
* His father's name will be Abdullah
* His mother's name will be Aamina
* He will speak with a slight stutter and occasionally this stutter will frustrate him causing him to hit
his hand upon his thigh.
* His age at the time of his emergence will be forty years
* He will receive Knowledge from Allah.. (Source)

Signs that Will Precede His Coming“While the people will be pledging their allegiance to Imaam Mahdi, a voice from the unseen will call out:

"This is the representative of Allah,
The Mahdi, listen to him and obey him"

This announcement which will be heard by all those present will establish his authenticity. Another sign which will indicate the authenticity of Imaam Mahdi wil be that in the Ramadhaan prior to his emergence an eclipse of the sun and moon will occur”. (Source)

End quote from http://www.inplainsite.org/html/imam_mahdi.html

There are several items to note about the Mahdi prophecies. One attention-getter is the seven years, matching the term of the Great Tribulation. Another is the age at which he first emerges.... forty years. He is to be, moreover, forty years old in a time when the Islamic calendar month of Ramadan experiences both a solar and a lunar eclipse, which happens twice within two years about every 20 years -- not too common an event, but there have been four double-eclipse Ramadans in the past three decades -- the first in 1981, the second one in 1982, the third in 2001, and the fourth in 2003, which is the most spectacular because it was two total eclipses within one month of Ramadan, a once in about two centuries event. So we might want to look for a political figure in the Middle East who rises to power at the age of 40 in one of these years following such a double eclipse Ramadan.

Mir Hosain Mousavi became Prime Minister of Iran, appointed under the Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1981 and served until 1989. Was he forty years old then?

We read that he was born on September 29, 1941. The significance of the particular day may not escape some readers who are aware of my Rosh Hashanah 2011 article or the "Pyramid date" Jesus was born in 2 BC. According to Wiki, "In August 15, 1981, as part of the restructuring of the government in Mohammad Ali Rajai's cabinet, Mousavi was appointed foreign minister.^[5] He held the post for five months until December 15, 1981, when he received the higher appointment of prime minister.^[3]"

He was therefore 40 years old when he became Prime Minister. Did his two appointments to such prominence follow the eclipses in Ramadan that year? They both did. In Ramadan of the Islamic year 1401, in 1981 AD, a partial lunar eclipse occurred on July 17, and was followed two weeks after by a total central eclipse of the sun on July 31. -- http://alhafeez.org/rashid/eclpart6.htm.

Here's a rundown of the etymology of the name Mir Hosain Mousavi, which has variant spellings due to transliteration from the Arabic script that is used for the Persian language, such as Mir Hossein Moussavi, Mir Hosayn Mousavi, and so on. In the Spanish language it could be legitimately transliterated as Mir Joséin Musabi or Mousabi since b is pronounced the same as v in Spanish. (He is also surnamed Mir Hosain Mousavi Khameneh, after the town Khameneh in which he was born, in northwest Iran.)

Mir apparently is from a Sanskrit root that according to different sources can mean "ocean," "boundary," "peace," "prosperity," and "wonderful." Hosain is from the Arabic name Hussain and apparently means "Handsome Little One" or "Handsome-y") as a diminutive form of Hasan, which means "handsome."

I have so far been unsuccessful at finding etymological roots for Mousavi, but it strongly resembles the name Musab from the Arabic, which I have also not been able to find a definition for, other than it may derive from the venerated Islamic hero, considered second only to Muhammad himself, called Mus 'ab ibn 'Umair.) The man by this name, in the years of the conquest of Arabia by the first Muslims, is worth looking at in terms of his character.... for one thing, he was often called "handsome" (hasan), was wealthy in his youth, and possessed blue eyes and a reportedly very humble character. The article linked in Wiki, apparently written favorably by a devotee, reports that he was able to convert through persuasion alone, though he was certainly capable of great military prowess and became one of Muhammad's best generals. It is also worth noting that he is reported having been killed in battle holding the battle flag upright, which at that time would have been the original simple black flag of Islam, changed to green by a caliph a couple of generations later.

Now, there is another figure in Islamic prophecies called Al Masih ad Dajjal, or "the False Messiah," who is avowedly considered the Islamic version of the Antichrist. According to a Wiki article,

"The belief is based around the events prior to the Day of Judgment around the Second Coming of Prophet Isa (Jesus), when ad-Dajjal who is blind in his right eye, shall gather an army of those he has deceived and lead them in a war against Jesus, who shall be accompanied by an army of the righteous.^[1]
"He will appear somewhere between Syria and Iraq, at which time Prophet Isa will return and the Mahdi will come, he will travel the whole world in forty days preaching his falsehood but will be unable to enter Mecca or Medina.^[2]
"Hadith attributed to Muhammad give many signs of the appearance of the Dajjal, and exhorted his followers to recite the first and last ten verses of Sura Al-Kahf, as protection from the trials and mischief of the Dajjal. It is said that he will have right eye damaged and the left will be working because knowledge acquired through the right eye can be noori (means that pertaining to light) and through the left naari (that pertaining to fire). It is also said that he will have the word kafir (means that who doesn't believe God or atheist) on his forehead."
Now onto the Bible and the Beast...

First thing I wanted to note is Matthew 24. Jesus Christ, in the 34th verse of this chapter, says "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" after giving a thumbnail description of the Great Tribulations, and the shortening of the days for the sake of the elect, which I used as a takeoff for my 2011 Rapture article in this blog. In his speech he also states that the abomination which makes desolate, as prophesied by Daniel the prophet (and obviously not referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes), will be set up in the holy place. At the very beginning of this speech Jesus also says of the Temple in his day, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Many have jumped to the conclusion that this was indeed fulfilled when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 AD, but such is not the case. The Temple Mount, the foundation of both Solomon and Ezra's Temples, and which includes the still standing Western Wall, and upon which sits the third holiest shrine of Islam, called Al Aqsa, is still in existence. For how long is a matter of heated debate these days, as the Mount is threatened by foundational instability, probably caused by the Palestinian Authority-sponsored Waqf (the caretakers of Al Aqsa) as they are undermining the Mount by removing all possible archaeological remnants of the Davidic and Hasidean eras of Israel and Judea. So we may soon see the final and total collapse of this great treasure of the ages that Jesus predicted in the same speech that he predicted the Great Tribulations.

Daniel speaks of the ruler to come as the "Little Horn," which uproots three, and does not have the honor of royalty, but obtains power by flatteries:

Dan 7:8	I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Dan 8:9	And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant [land].

Dan 11:21	And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
Dan 11:32	And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do [exploits].

The three horns spoken of are three other nations. We see that he describes where these other nations are in relation to the Little Horn, being toward "the south, the east, and towards the Beautiful Land." First let's deal with this matter of Biblical compass directions...

In the Bible compass directions are not reckoned toward the North Pole as we do in modern society. (See my blog page "Catty Cornered Directions in Daniel?") Instead, the people of Israel reckoned them in relation to and with priority on the weather and trade routes. Hence, "north" was the direction taken to get out of the country overland into Syria, via the mountain passes, or modern northeast. "West" was into the Sea, to the ports that handled most of the shipping, at Tyre and Jaffa, in the northwest. "South" was into Egypt, which is to the southwest. And "East" was the direction of the scorching hot desert wind of Arabia, to the southeast. At the risk of sourcing this inaccurately, my memory tells me I learned that much from Immanuel Velikovsky's painstaking cultural research in Ages in Chaos, but even if not, the internal evidence of Daniel satisfies me that Daniel's compass north was rotated to the right 45 degrees.

So, the expansion of the Little Horn has to take place in two distinct directions, south and east, which are our southwest and southeast, and toward the blessed land Beulah, or Beautiful, the prophet's homeland of Judah as it was then called, modern day Israel. Now, Daniel in a series of dreams narrowed down the beastly kingdoms to two in his prophetic discourse of the king of the North (Northeast) and King of the South (Southwest.) The detail of the prophecy you can go over in Daniel 11, but basically the North was the Seleucid Empire, inheriting the northeastern quadrant of Alexander's empire, and the South was the southwestern quadrant of Alexander's empire that passed to Ptolemy, king of Egypt. Now, the Seleucid region comprised the following nations and parts of nations: Eastern Turkey, northern Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and western Iran. So, if for instance the Little Horn were to arise in eastern Turkey, his expansion would be almost impossible under the terms of the prophecy, because the southwest puts him in the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe he could have Cyprus, I don't know, but that hardly seems worth the trip. Syria and Iraq are thought to be much better choices by some prophecy teachers because they have much more room to expand before turning toward Beulah, but Syria would then be invading Jordan, and Jordan is in the realm of the princes of Moab and Ammon that are exempted by:

Dan 11:41

He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many [countries] shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, [even] Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

So that eliminates Eastern Turkey and Syria. Now if Lebanon charges southwest, it too is just conquering seafloor in the Med, and southeast puts them in just a small bit of Syria before hitting the Jordanian border. So much for Lebanon. Let's try Iraq. If Iraq gets a hold of what's southeast of it, we have a repeat of recent history -- Kuwait goes under. Iran would probably find that highly objectionable, as would the Saudis, and it's not that original. The other way? Southwest of Iraq is Jordan -- forbidden territory for the Antichrist again. Let's try Kuwait. Here's the Antichrist setting up shop in Kuwait City -- boom, he goes southwest, he's heading into a wide empty desert in Saudi Arabia. Can't go there, that's right toward the old realm of Edom, southeast of Israel. He heads southeast -- and he's on the seafloor again - this time, it's the Persian Gulf.

What's left? Iran.

If we posit Iran, we have a solution to how black flags could come from Khorasan which originally encompassed not just Iran, and really more the eastern part of it, but also Afghanistan and Pakistan. So how does this scenario work? Pretty well from the prophecy and its limitations. Let's say our Beastly candidate aims southwest and southeast and overturns the countries in those directions. Southeast means Pakistan -- the Other Islamic Republic that has done so much for world peace and stability-- AHEM. With close to 200 million people, thank you very much. And perennial instability. Southwest gives us two more and guess which two. Kuwait and Iraq. Strategically brilliant, because combined with Iran that puts two thirds or more of the world's oil in the hands of Antichrist, just like that. Add the educated, numerous population masses of Pakistan and Iran, and you have an instant superpower easily rivalling China, India, and perhaps even the United States. You can read Ezekiel 38, the "Russia chapter," to appreciate the motivation for Russia (Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal or Moscow and Tobolsk) to form its future alliance with none other than Persia (Iran), Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer (Germany), and Togarmah (Turkey.) That's very nearly become an obvious reality even now, with Russia becoming ever more confrontational with the West and seeking to restore its own power base.

Now, if the Little Horn comes from Iran, the conditions of the Daniel prophecy require that he is launched from the western part of Iran. Not only that, but the Mahdi is also said to be awoken from near Qom, just southwest of Tehran, which is also within the Seleucid realm, definitely in Iran. Interestingly enough, Mir Hosain Mousavi essentially launched his 2009 presidential bid in none other than Qom after meeting with clerics there. If that is not enough, Mir Hosain Mousavi is a native of Khameneh, which gives him his final surname, and is located well within the ancient border of the Seleucid realm, in the most historic province of Iran, the northwestern province of East Azarbaijan. Interestingly enough, that also means he comes from a small people, the ethnic Azarbaijanis, who have only partial independence as Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Central Asian republic, and are a minority inside Iran.

I also wanted to deal a bit with the portrait of the Beast in Revelation and how it relates to Iran and Iraq, as well as to the etymology of Mir-Hosain Mousavi's first name. In chapter 13 the beast is described:

Rev 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, [one of the translations of Mir from the Sanskrit is SEA] having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
Rev 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, [like Alexander of Greece, a speedy and audacious conqueror] and his feet were as [the feet] of a bear, [started or "footed" in Medo-Persia] and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: [ultimately speaks or rules from Babylon or Iraq] and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death [demon prince was defeated and locked away]; and his deadly wound was healed: [he was released from detention] and all the world wondered after the beast.
Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who [is] like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? -- http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&c=13&v=1&t=KJV#1

Without reinventing the wheel of eschatology, a brief interpretation that I remember Dr. Gene Scott teaching is in order. The sand of the sea represents the people of the whole world, which number like the sand of the sea. The beast rising from the sea comes out of the Abyss, which is somewhere in the ocean physically or at least has a gateway into it somewhere on the Earth; some of us believe that to be in the former site of Atlantis, in the Atlantic Ocean. The seven heads are elaborated on by the angel visiting John:

Rev 17:09 And here [is] the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
Rev 17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, [and] the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
Rev 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
Rev 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
Rev 17:13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. -- http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&c=17&v=1&t=KJV#top

The seven mountains -- or the Seven Hills -- represent Rome, the capital of the church world which the woman represents that has soured and become apostate. However, they also represent seven "kings" or more accurately, demon princes of evil empires that have ruled on the earth or will rule, in the case of the Beast to come. Specifically these are the seven empires that oppress Israel, the Chosen People, beginning with

Egypt which held them as slaves;

the second is Assyria, which led away the Ten Tribes of Israel, or the Samaria kingdom, once ruled by Omri, to captivity at Lake Van in eastern Turkey;

the third, Babylon, represented by Daniel as the golden head and the lion which conquered Judah and Jerusalem and led away the Jews;

the fourth, Medo-Persia, represented by Daniel as the silver arms and chest, as the bear, and as the ram, where Haman tried to wipe the Jews out;

the fifth, Alexander's empire of Greece, represented by the bronze waist, the leopard, and the goat in Daniel, which Hellenized the Middle East and whose Seleucid successor Antiochus Epiphanes almost destroyed worship at the Temple with gymnasia and pagan sacrifices;

the sixth, the Roman Empire, which then existed in John's day, represented in Daniel as the legs of iron and the nondescript beast;

and the seventh, the ten toes of Daniel and the ten horns in Revelation 13, and the eighth is of the seven, meaning he ruled before. In other words this is a demon prince that is released after being imprisoned in the Abyss, wounded in the head as it were, and we can look at Alexander, the fifth of the seven, cut down by illness in his prime and with his successors fracturing the kingdom and ruling without the power that he possessed. Where did that power go? What gave Alexander that extraordinary charisma and quality of leadership?

In Daniel, this one of the ten suddenly uproots three in his rise to power over the ten, and the final passages of Daniel after 11:21 trace how he reigns, conquers, and oppresses a large portion of the world, including Israel:

Dan 11:21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
Dan 11:22 And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.
Dan 11:23 And after the league [made] with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
Dan 11:24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do [that] which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: [yea], and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
Dan 11:25 And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.
Dan 11:26 Yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow: and many shall fall down slain.
Dan 11:27 And both these kings' hearts [shall be] to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end [shall be] at the time appointed.
Dan 11:28 Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart [shall be] against the holy covenant; and he shall do [exploits], and return to his own land.
Dan 11:29 At the time appointed he shall return, and come toward the south [southwest, toward Egypt]; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter.
Dan 11:30 For the ships of Chittim [also translated Western coastlands] shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.
Dan 11:31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily [sacrifice], and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. [Note that the Third Temple must have been completed by then for this to be.]
Dan 11:32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do [exploits].
Dan 11:33 And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, [many] days.
Dan 11:34 Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
Dan 11:35 And [some] of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make [them] white, [even] to the time of the end: because [it is] yet for a time appointed.
Dan 11:36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
Dan 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
Dan 11:38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
Dan 11:39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge [and] increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.
Dan 11:40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
Dan 11:41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many [countries] shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, [even] Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.
Dan 11:42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
Dan 11:43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians [shall be] at his steps.
Dan 11:44 But tidings out of the east [southeast] and out of the north [northeast] shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
Dan 11:45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. -- http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Dan&c=11&v=1&t=KJV

But for here, the most interesting question is, where does Daniel say he will appear, and where does Revelation say he will appear? Interpreting scripture to divine this is not entirely straightforward, but it's fair to say, following the Rules of Hillel or some other systematic literary deductive analysis, that Daniel, via the interplay of the visions of the beastly kingdoms, and zeroing in on the region via chapter 11's depiction of the North (Northeast) and South (Southwest) so accurately that historicists allege that to be history after the fact... that Daniel narrows the field down to the Seleucid Empire to the northeast of Israel and places the Little Horn in that Seleucid Empire, predicting his rise to power through flatteries -- smooth deceptive talk -- his support from a small people, a minority within his country, working deceitfully, and suddenly uprooting the three other nations (chapter 7:8), predicting a series of battles between his empire and Egypt, until finally he successfully invades Israel and Egypt after Western coastland nations (Chittim) lose the gumption to stop him.

About the length of time that this all takes place: Daniel 8:11-14 gives us one number... 2,300 days for the daily sacrifice to be abolished and the sanctuary to be trodden down... there has to be a sanctuary for that 2,300 days, and daily sacrifice must have been started. That means an at least functional Temple existing for at least 6.3 years up to the end of the Tribulations. The Great Tribulations as we know from Daniel 9:27 will be a period lasting less than seven years, shortened for the sake of the elect according to Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:22. Daniel refines this further in the 12th chapter when the angel tells him:

Dan 12:11 And from the time [that] the daily [sacrifice] shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, [there shall be] a thousand two hundred and ninety [1,290] days.
Dan 12:12 Blessed [is] he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty [1,335] days.

This I take to mean that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination set up for the 1,290 days of the reign of the Little Horn in Jerusalem, setting himself up at the Temple, and blessed is he that survives and makes the next 45 days, coming after the Little Horn is ejected from or flees Jerusalem in response to the alarming news from the northeast and southeast. (I theorize that that bad news is due to invasion by heavy Chinese and Indian forces, and possibly also Russians, on the eastern marches of the Beast's empire.) This would also mean that the first 1,010 days of the 2,300 are the daily sacrifice going on, business as usual, at the Temple, under the terms of the covenant of the week of years in Dan 9:27. The bad tidings are another little signal that the Beastly empire extends out to at least Pakistan, because who else would he have such trouble with if not Pakistan's giant eastern neighbors -- India and China? Not to mention, this is the same bad luck that Alexander experienced... he was defeated in Pakistan by the Indians living there and east of there.

A note about the origins of the three Antichrists:

Napoleon: not an ethnic Frenchman, born in Corsica, an Italian-speaking island still belonging to France.

Hitler: not an ethnic German, born in Austria which was later absorbed by Germany in 1938.

Mabus.... Not ethnically Persian per se? Also, ruling the Arabs but not an Arab? Mousavi qualifies twice, an Azarbaijani, not a Persian, and an Iranian, not an Arab. Just sayin'.

By the way the word "Mahdi," or "Mehdi," means "Guide." In the German language "Mahdi" or "Guide" is the word "Führer."

Some notes on the red headed man named Abu Musab Al-Suri:

He is the leading intellectual exponent of jihadism and millenarianism combined.

Ostensibly at least he opposed the 9-11 attacks, not out of any sympathy for the West (he has none as an Al-Qaeda operative) but because such an open blatant attack would, and did provoke a massive Western response that drove Al-Qaeda further underground.

He reached the age of 40 around 1998.  His exact date of birth is not known, and this may or may not roughly correspond to a rise to higher rank in Al-Qaeda circles, but it can be said that it's after 1998 that he takes a more prominent role, settling in Afghanistan that year and publishing a 1600-page manual on jihadism titled "The Global Islamic Resistance Call" in 2004 or 2005.

He was captured in the mid 2000s by either the Pakistani security forces or by the United States, then was renditioned to Syria around 2006.

Amid the deepening civil war, Bashar Al-Assad's government released him in late 2011 to spite the Americans now shifting sympathies (if not actual support) to the rebel cause.  He is now (as of mid 2013) reportedly supporting the rebellion against Bashar.

This post is not to be regarded as complete, but I will continue to edit it as needed.