The term 'anti-Christ' does not appear in the Book of Revelation. It does appear in the Bible in the New Testament and is discussed in the Afterword of Chapter 13.
Many Christians identify the anti-Christ with the number 666.
There are many strange interpretations of the "Beast with the number 666". However, according to Shoghi Effendi, it was Mu'aviyyih who desecrated the Shine at the birthplace of Muhammad in Mecca and ordered the sacking of Medina, the burial place of the Prophet. He tried to make Damascus the Kaaba of the Islamic world. This dastardly event, foretold by Christ (in the book of Revelation 13:15 (sic) [actually 13:4-7]) more than 500 years before, occurred in 666.A.D.Ruth J. Moffett, New Keys to the Book of Revelation Chapter 13 p. 78
This may be a verbal message, and a pilgrims note to Ruth as she made many trips to talk to Shoghi Effendi to discuss the meanings of the Book of Revelation.
The number 666 has concerned many people as being identified with the Anti-Christ. Others have seen it as a measure of time, and while it does have a close connection to both Islamic times, and the Islamic calendar, there follows an explanation of how it is said to represent a name.
First, briefly, the relationship to the Islamic calendar. The Islamic calendar begins in 622 C.E., and significant events happened in the religion in the vicinity of 666 C.E., specifically with the assassination of Ali, (Muhammad's chosen successor according to the Shiites) in 661.
Secondly, in relation to the Christian calendar, if we add 666 years to the 622 date of the beginning of Islam we come to 1288 C.E. which is also a significant time, especially if one carries the date as a duration from 10 years after the Hegira.
However, taking that the date is an Islamic date, in relation to the Islamic calendar, as are other prophetic dates in the Book of Revelation, then because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar and starts from zero in 622 C.E., the year 666 on the Islamic Calendar is 1267 on the Gregorian Calendar. There are many anomalies about calendar dates. There is of course the Julian calendar and corrections that have been made in the Gregorian calendar to bring it more in attune with season (a matter controlled by the Catholic church).
The main point, however, about the number 666 is that it is said to be the number of a NAME. A curious and significant point is that the Islamic religion uses a letter to number system called Abjad to give numeric equivalences to names.
Exactly how the system works requires an understanding of Arabic. There are a couple of versions, with minor distinctions, (one being used in Spain and North Africa) but the details will be beyond anyone except an Arabic specialist.
The Abjad values and their mnemonic groupings are as follows. Short vowels have no value (except in the beginning of a word, where they are necessarily accompanied by alif/hamza). Note that hamza (') and `ayn (`) are different letters with different values, as are the letters followed by dots (which would be under-dots in printed versions of texts rendered in accord with the Romanization system used by Shoghi Effendi for Baha'i texts). The hamza and alif have the same value (i.e., a = ' = 1).
Some systems of teaching Abjad tie the categories to the seven colors of the rainbow, which has a curious significance in The Book of Revelation but is beyond what we will delve into here.
| abjad: | hawvúz | h.ut.yi | kalaman | sa`fas. |
| a/' 1 | h 5 | h. 8 | k 20 | s 60 |
| b 2 | w/v/ú 6 | t. 9 | l 30 | ` 70 |
| j 3 | z 7 | y/i 10 | m 40 | f 80 |
| d 4 | n 50 | s. 90 |
| qarashat | thakhidh | d.az.gh |
| q 100 | th 500 | d. 800 |
| r 200 | kh 600 | z. 900 |
| sh 300 | dh 700 | gh 1000 |
| t 400 |
In the maghrib (Spain and North Africa), the following variant values obtained, to wit: s.= 60, d.= 90, s= 300, z.= 800, gh= 900, sh=1000.
The characters in their original are of course Arabic characters and the English equivalents that one uses depends upon the transliteration system. Baha'i's use that designated by Shoghi Effendi with Abjad values as represented above. So now based upon the above table one can examine the number 666.
The simplest way of representing 666 would be to let each letter stand by itself. Therefore three sixes would be either 3 w's, 3 u's or 3 v's. One could then imagine that the 3W's stand for World War Three - or for that matter that name of the beast is the World Wide Web :)
However, the Book of Revelation is very specific about this matter, and says that number is not six, six, six but rather six hundred and sixty - six, and astoundingly this fits right in with the Abjad system. In fact, it is the usual way of determining the value of names in the system to be equivalent to each other - and that is to add up the value of the digits. For example the word "badi" (2-1-4-10=17) would be considered the mystical equivalent of "hahah" (5-1-5-1-5=17). The system is not quite that easy for a westerner to follow because of three factors. Vowels are not usually represented or counted except in certain circumstances as when some start a word, or where they have an aspirated sound called the hamza. Moreover, there is a distinction among the consonants depending on the associated vowels and how they are marked in the Arabic. For example note that there is "d" with a value of "4" and a "d." with a value of "800". Nevertheless, from the above explanation one can see the nature of the system although they would have to rely upon the credibility of an individual expert in the language to tell them the actual numerical value of specific words.
Some students of the Qur'an attach these mystical values to such things as the disconnected letters preceding the Surahs of the Qur'an, another subject beyond the scope of this discussion. However, from what has been said it should now be apparent that there are many words that may have the same numerical value, and are therefore sometimes used in some mystical equivalent. One can therefore look at the unique numerical equivalent of each word and say that it matches the unique numerical equivalent of certain other words. And one may take a unique numerical value and seek words that fit it. BUT one can't - by having a unique numerical value - know the one word that fits it.
Looking again at the chart - one might say 600 = kh, 60 = s, and 6 = w or v or ú, and then try to fill the vowels in between sort of like they do on the show Wheel of Fortune. However, it is NOT that simple because we are talking about the total value of the word and NOT the value of the letters in order. The number 666 could just as well be arrived at from an Arabic word having a combination of letters that have the values 200,400,40,20,2,4 or r,t,m,k,b,d in any order with the appropriate vowels interleaved in between but even then the significance of any one word might be seen in its having an equivalence to some other word.
One hears many suggestions for the interpretation of the number 666, all the way from its being an address to a date, but even if the Abjad system is the correct system for interpreting it the main mistake is in looking upon the Book of Revelation as a Book of Prophecy rather than as a Book of Proof. This latter matter is covered in the Conclusion of this book.