Dajjal and the Jassasah: The Astola Island Mystery
What Tamim al-Dari saw on an unnamed island, why the Prophet ﷺ shared it from the pulpit of Madinah, and what happens when we test the viral Astola Island theory against the actual hadith.
Published
14 min read
Share
Executive Summary
One afternoon in Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ called everyone to the mosque for an announcement unlike any other: a Christian convert named Tamim al-Dari had been blown off course for a month and met a chained prisoner on an island. Centuries later, viral videos claim that island is Astola in Pakistan. Let's look at the clues.
Part 1 · The Pulpit in Madinah
The Gathering in Madinah: The Testimony of Tamim al-Dari (RA)
Picture Madinah in the year 9 AH. The midday prayer has just finished, or is about to begin, when the caller cries out across the city: As-salatu jami'ah (Come gather for prayer). People drop what they are doing and hurry to the mosque. Even the women take their places in the back rows, including Fatima bint Qays (may Allah be pleased with her), who had just finished her waiting period after divorce and memorized every word of what happened next.
The Prophet ﷺ climbs the pulpit, smiling. He sits down and tells the crowd to stay right where they are. Then he says something nobody expected: he didn't call them out of fear or for a military expedition. He called them because a Christian man named Tamim al-Dari had just arrived in Madinah, accepted Islam, and told him a firsthand travel story that matched everything the Prophet ﷺ had already been warning them about the Dajjal (the False Messiah).
In Hadith scholarship, this report is famous as a rare case of riwayat al-akabir 'an al-asaghir (a senior narrating from a junior): the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself narrating an eyewitness account from one of his Companions from the pulpit. Here is the full hadith in Sahih Muslim:
Amir b. Sharahil Sha'bi Sha'b Hamdan reported that he asked Fatima, daughter of Qais and sister of ad-Dahhak b. Qais and she was the first amongst the emigrant women:Narrate to me a hadith which you had heard directly from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and there is no extra link in between them. She said: Very well, if you like, I am prepared to do that, and he said to her: Well, do It and narrate that to me. She said: I married the son of Mughira and he was a chosen young man of Quraish at that time, but he fell as a martyr in the first Jihad (fighting) on the side of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ). When I became a widow, 'Abd al-Rahman b. Auf, one amongst the group of the Companions of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), sent me the proposal of marriage. Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) also sent me such a message for his freed slave Usama b. Zaid. And it had been conveyed to me that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) had said (about Usama): He who loves me should also love Usama. When Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) talked to me (about this matter), I said: My affairs are in your hand. You may marry me to anyone whom you like. He said: You better shift now to the house of Umm Sharik, and Umm Sharik was a rich lady from amongst the Ansar. She spent generously for the cause of Allah and entertained guests very hospitably. I said: Well, I will do as you like. He said: Do not do that for Umm Sharik is a woman who is very frequently visited by guests and I do not like that your head may be uncovered or the cloth may be removed from your shank and the strangers may catch sight of them which you abhor. You better shift to the house of your cousin 'Abdullah b. 'Amr b. Umm Maktum and he is a person of the Bani Fihr branch of the Quraish, and he belonged to that tribe (to which Fatima) belonged. So I shifted to that house, and when my period of waiting was over, I heard the voice of an announcer making an announcement that the prayer would be observed in the mosque (where) congregational prayer (is observed). So I set out towards that mosque and observed prayer along with Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and I was in the row of the women which was near the row of men. When Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) had finished his prayer, he sat on the pulpit smiling and said: Every worshipper should keep sitting at his place. He then said: Do you know why I had asked you to assemble? They said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: By Allah. I have not made you assemble for exhortation or for a warning, but I have detained you here, for Tamim Dari, a Christian, who came and accepted Islam, told me something, which agrees with what I was telling, you about the Dajjal. He narrated to me that he had sailed in a ship along with thirty men of Bani Lakhm and Bani Judham and had been tossed by waves in the ocean for a month. Then these (waves) took them (near) the land within the ocean (island) at the time of sunset. They sat in a small side-boat and entered that island. There was a beast with long thick hair (and because of these) they could not distinguish his face from his back. They said: Woe to you, who can you be? Thereupon it said: I am al-Jassasa. They said: What is al-Jassasa? And it said: O people, go to this person in the monastery as he is very much eager to know about you. He (the narrator) said: When it named a person for us we were afraid of it lest it should be a devil. Then we hurriedly went on till we came to that monastery and found a well-built person there with his hands tied to his neck and having iron shackles between his two legs up to the ankles. We said: Woe be upon thee, who are you? And he said: You would soon come to know about me. but tell me who are you. We said: We are people from Arabia and we embarked upon a boat but the sea-waves had been driving us for one month and they brought as near this island. We got Into the side-boats and entered this island and here a beast met us with profusely thick hair and because of the thickness of his hair his face could not be distinguished from his back. We said: Woe be to thee, who are you? It said: I am al- Jassasa. We said: What is al-Jassasa? And it said: You go to this very person in the monastery for he is eagerly waiting for you to know about you. So we came to you in hot haste fearing that that might be the Devil. He (that chained person) said: Tell me about the date-palm trees of Baisan. We said: About what aspect of theirs do you seek information? He said: I ask you whether these trees bear fruit or not. We said: yes. Thereupon he said: I think these would not bear fruits. He said: Inform me about the lake of Tabariyya? We said: Which aspect of it do you want to know? He said: Is there water in it? They said: There is abundance of water in it. Thereupon he said: I think it would soon become dry. He again said: Inform me about the spring of Zughar. They said: Which aspect of it you want to know? He (the chained person) said: Is there water in it and does it irrigate (the land)? We said to him: Yes, there is abundance of water in it and the inhabitants (of Medina) irrigate (land) with the help of it, He said: Inform me about the unlettered Prophet; what has he done? We said: He has come out from Mecca and has settled In Yathrib (Medina). He said: Do the Arabs fight against him? We said: Yes. He said: How did he deal with them? We informed him that he had overcome those in his neighbourhood and they had submitted themselves before him. Thereupon he said to us: Has it actually happened? We said: Yes. Thereupon he said: If it is so that is better for them that they should show obedience to him. I am going to tell you about myself and I am Dajjal and would be soon permitted to get out and so I shall get out and travel in the land, and will not spare any town where I would not stay for forty nights except Mecca and Medina as these two (places) are prohibited (areas) for me and I would not make an attempt to enter any one of these two. An angel with a sword in his hand would confront me and would bar my way and there would be angels to guard every passage leading to it; then Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) striking the pulpit with the help of the end of his staff said: This implies Taiba meaning Medina. Have I not, told you an account (of the Dajjal) like this? 'The people said: Yes, and this account narrated by Tamim Dari was liked by me for it corroborates the account which I gave to you in regard to him (Dajjal) at Medina and Mecca. Behold he (Dajjal) is in the Syrian sea (Mediterranean) or the Yemen sea (Arabian sea). Nay, on the contrary, he is in the east, he is in the east, he is in the east, and he pointed with his hand towards the east. I (Fatima bint Qais) said: I preserved it in my mind (this narration from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)
تJami' at-TirmidhiHadith 2253SahihNarrated by Fatimah bint Qaisجامع الترمذيرقم ٢٢٥٣
Fatimah bint Qais narrated that Allah's Prophet(s.a.w) ascended the Minbar, he laughed, and said:"Verily, Tamim Ad-Dari narrated a story to me, and it made me happy, so I wanted to narrate it to you[what he narrated to me]. Some people among the inhabitants of Palestine traveled by boat in the sea, taking them here and there, until it cast them on an island among the islands at sea. There they found a beast, clothed with its hair flowing out. They said: 'What are you?' It said: 'I am Al-Jassasah.' They said: 'Give us some news.' It said: 'I shall not give you any news, nor do I want any of your news. But go to the furthest village, for there is someone who will give you news and seek your news.' So we went to the furthest village, and there was a man fettered with chains. He said: 'Inform me about the spring of Zughar.' We said: ' It is full and flowing.' He said: 'Inform me about Al-Buhairah.' We said,'It is full and flowing.' He said: 'Inform me about the date groves of Baysan which is between Jordan and Palestine, do they produce food?' We said: 'Yes.' He said: 'Inform me about the Prophet, has he been sent?' We said: 'Yes.' He said: 'Inform me how the people came to him.' We said: 'Quickly.' He leaped up to try and escape.' We said: 'What are you?' He said: 'I am the Dajjal.'" (The Prophet(s.a.w) said) "He will enter all of the lands except At-Taibah, and At-Taibah is Al-Madinah
Weak report (shown for comparison)▼
دSunan Abi DawudHadith 4328Da'if (weak)Narrated by Jabir ibn Abdullahسنن أبي داودرقم ٤٣٢٨
Narrated Jabir ibn Abdullah: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said one day from the pulpit: When some people were sailing in the sea, their food was finished. An island appeared to them. They went out seeking bread. They were met by the Jassasah (the Antichrist's spy). I said to AbuSalamah: What is the Jassasah? He replied: A woman trailing the hair of her skin and of her head. She said: In this castle. He then narrated the rest of the (No. 4311) tradition. He asked about the palm-trees of Baysan and the spring of Zughar. He said: He is the Antichrist. Ibn Salamah said to me: There is something more in this tradition, which I could not remember. He said: Jabir testified that it was he who was Ibn Sayyad. I said: He died. He said: Let him die. I said: He accepted Islam. He said: Let him accept Islam. I said: He entered Medina. He said: Let him enter Medina
Geographical Indicators in the Prophetic Narration
Before we look at any modern map or YouTube theory, we have to do what a good detective does: list only the hard clues actually stated in the text, without adding a single word of guesswork. When you read Fatima bint Qays's reports in Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, and Musnad Ahmad side by side, six clear clues stand out:
1 · A month at sea
فَلَعِبَ بِهِمُ الْمَوْجُ شَهْرًا
The waves tossed the ship for a month before it reached the island.
2 · A creature covered in hair
دَابَّةٌ أَهْلَبُ كَثِيرُ الشَّعَرِ
So hairy that its front could not be told from its back.
3 · It spoke
فَقَالَتْ أَنَا الْجَسَّاسَةُ
It named itself al-Jassasa and sent the men onward. The verb is feminine: "she said".
4 · A building and a village
فِي الدَّيْرِ ... أَقْصَى الْقَرْيَةِ
A dayr (monastery) in Muslim; "the far end of the village" in al-Tirmidhi.
5 · A giant in iron
أَعْظَمُ إِنْسَانٍ ... وَأَشَدُّهُ وِثَاقًا
Hands tied to his neck, iron from knees to ankles.
Not the sea of Sham, not the sea of Yemen: east, and he pointed.
What the Prophetic text leaves unspecified
What the hadith does not give: the island's name, its size, the port they sailed from, or the sea they crossed. Every attempt to find the island starts here.
Part 3 · Maritime Routes
Maritime Routes from the Levant to the Arabian Sea
Here is the puzzle that makes every careful reader pause. Tamim al-Dari and his thirty companions were Christian Arabs from the tribes of Lakhm and Judham, living in southern Palestine and Jordan. If they set sail near Gaza or Aqaba, how could a month-long storm push them to an island in the east when there was no Suez Canal in the 7th century?
Classical and modern researchers point out a simple geographical reality: the tribes of Lakhm and Judham didn't just use Mediterranean ports. Their trade routes ran straight down to Aylah (modern Aqaba/Eilat) at the top of the Red Sea, and down the Arabian coast. A ship boarding in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden and getting caught in the summer Southwest Monsoon (Kharif) gets blown straight out through Bab al-Mandab into the Arabian Sea, directly east toward the Makran coast of Balochistan.
Madinah
"The directions of the east" (illustrative)
Islands in that direction
Outside the band
Islands east of Madinah. The dashed line is due east along Madinah's latitude. Coastlines: Natural Earth 1:50m.
Island
From Madinah
Bearing
Sea
Bahrain
1,113 km
79°
Persian Gulf
Sir Bani Yas
1,315 km
88°
Persian Gulf
Qeshm
1,647 km
78°
Strait of Hormuz
Daymaniyat
1,876 km
88°
Gulf of Oman
Masirah
2,020 km
99°
Arabian Sea
Astola
2,444 km
83°
Arabian Sea
Socotra
2,007 km
129°
Gulf of Aden
Great-circle distance and starting bearing from Madinah (90° is due east), computed from the coordinates.
Test 1 · Direction
Astola passes, at 83°. So do Bahrain, Qeshm, Hormuz, Daymaniyat and others. Two islands sit closer to due east than Astola: Sir Bani Yas and Daymaniyat, both at 88°. Direction alone cannot pick one island.
Next, the voyage. Al-Tirmidhi's version says the sailors were "people of Palestine". From Palestine the only sea road east begins at Ayla (today's Aqaba) on the Red Sea, runs down to Bab al-Mandab, around southern Arabia, and up into the Arabian Sea. To Astola that is about 4,870 km by sea. A ship driven by a storm drifts at perhaps 1 to 3 knots: 1,300 to 4,000 km in thirty days.
Sea road to Astola, ~4,870 km
Farthest a month's drift reaches at 3 knots
Drift speeds are an assumption (1 to 3 knots for a storm-driven sailing ship); the hadith gives no speed.
Test 2 · A month at sea
Even at the fastest drift, a ship from Aqaba runs out of month somewhere off Oman, short of Astola. But the hadith never says they set out from Palestine. Lakhm and Judham had kin across Arabia, and a ship already in the Gulf would reach any of these islands easily. The test leans against Astola, but cannot settle it.
Last, the one building the hadith names: a dayr. Tamim was a Christian before Islam, and he called it a monastery. Here archaeology has something to say. In 1992 excavators on Sir Bani Yas, an island off Abu Dhabi, found a Christian monastery and church dated from about 600 CE and used until about 750 CE, in Tamim's own lifetime. On Kharg Island, off Iran, lies a larger monastery complex, dated by different scholars between the 7th and 9th centuries.
Island monastery found by archaeologists
Astola: no monastery found
Sir Bani Yas and Kharg: Wikipedia, with the excavation reports it cites.
Test 3 · The monastery
This does not make Sir Bani Yas or Kharg the island; no scholar says so, and neither do we. It shows that the one building the hadith names is a kind of building that really stood on islands east of Madinah in Tamim's time. On Astola, none has been found.
Navigational science vs viral internet theories
The science points to the Gulf. The internet points somewhere else: 2,444 km from Madinah, off the coast of Balochistan, to an island that sailors have feared for more than two thousand years.
The Identification with Astola Island: Origins of the Theory
About 25 kilometers off the desert coast of Pasni in Balochistan, Pakistan, sits an uninhabited, flat-topped rock rising 246 feet straight out of the Arabian Sea: Astola Island (locally called Haft Talar, the Island of Seven Hills). It is Pakistan's largest offshore island, about 6.7 km long, dry, treeless, covered in low desert scrub, and completely cut off during the rough monsoon months from June to August.
In recent years, Urdu and English researchers and documentary makers put forward a bold hypothesis: what if Astola is the island Tamim al-Dari landed on? Their argument rests on three intriguing overlaps: first, it sits in the Yemeni Sea (the Arabian Sea) to the east of Madinah and on the sea route toward Khurasan; second, ancient Greek accounts (Arrian's Indica) already described this island (Nosala) as a place of strange legends that sailors feared; and third, the island holds the ruins of an ancient Hindu temple to Kali alongside a small prayer enclosure linked to Khidr.
The Makran coast of Balochistan, Pakistan. Astola is about 25 km from the nearest shore and 35 km southeast of Pasni.
As of 2026-10-28
Pakistan's largest offshore island, about 6.7 km². Uninhabited.
A good researcher doesn't fall in love with a cool theory, they try to break it. When we compare every claim of the Astola Island hypothesis against the exact Arabic words of Sahih Muslim and modern satellite/ecological surveys of the island, here is what holds up and what falls apart:
The hadith saysThe theory says
Hair"Covered in hair"; al-Tirmidhi: "its hair spread out".✓ Kali is shown with long, loose, flowing hair.
FaceIts front could not be told from its back.✓ A wild, fearsome face that is hard to look at.
TongueA speaking creature.✓ Kali's red tongue, out of her mouth.
Gender"She said"; a weak report: "a woman".✓ Kali is a goddess.
PlaceAn island east of Madinah, with a building.✓ Astola, east of Madinah, with Kali's temple.
Five out of five on paper: but what does the Arabic actually say?
On paper, five for five. Case closed? Now read each line against the Arabic.
The Companions' Methodology: Prophetic Caution over Speculative Exploration
Gender: "she said"
Doesn't hold
In Arabic, dabba (creature) is grammatically feminine for every animal, male or female; the Quran uses it for all living things on earth (Hud 11:6). The verb "she said" follows the word, not the animal. The same sentence then switches to masculine forms: ahlab, kathir al-sha'r, "its (his) front from its (his) back". The text does not give the creature a sex. "A woman" appears only in a weak chain, and those are the words of the Successor Abu Salama.
muslim:2942a · abudawud:4328 · Quran 11:6
Face
Doesn't hold
The hadith's one detail about the head is that there was no telling front from back: no face could be made out at all. Kali's images are built around a face, with eyes and an open mouth. That is the opposite, not a match.
muslim:2942a
Tongue
Not in the hadith
Muslim, al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud: none of the three mentions a tongue, red or otherwise. The tongue enters the story only from Kali's images.
muslim:2942a · tirmidhi:2253 · abudawud:4328
Hair
Weak match
The sahih texts describe an animal covered in hair from end to end. Long hair on a figure's head is a different picture. The only overlap is the word "hair".
muslim:2942a · tirmidhi:2253
A living creature, not an image
Doesn't hold
The Jassasa came to meet the sailors, spoke to them, refused to answer their questions, and sent them on. The theory needs a temple image to have done all of this.
muslim:2942a · tirmidhi:2253
A temple for a monastery
Doesn't hold
Tamim, a former Christian, called the building a dayr, a monastery. Arab writers on Sindh and India used a different word for an idol temple, al-budd. Nothing in the wording points to a Hindu temple.
muslim:2942a
"4,000 years old"
No source found
The 2001 Ramsar sheet, the source behind most references, calls the ruins only "ancient". We found no dating study behind the 4,000-year figure.
Ramsar Information Sheet, 2001
The island itself
Doesn't hold
The hadith's island had a village and a building holding a chained giant. Astola is 6.7 km², uninhabited, with no settlement ruins reported. Fishermen camp there in season, biologists survey its turtles, it has been a protected area since 2017, and satellites image it continuously. If the answer is that the giant is hidden from sight, then the temple stops being a clue, and any island would do just as well.
Wikipedia, "Astola Island"
Direction and voyage
Weak match
Astola is east, but so are a dozen islands, two of them closer to due east. A month's drift from Palestine falls short of it. And the only building the hadith names has been found on Gulf islands, not on Astola.
6. And there is no creature on earth but that upon Allah is its provision, and He knows its place of dwelling and place of storage. All is in a clear register
Final Verdict: Why the Astola Island theory falls apart
The theory does not survive the texts. Of five "matches", the face and the gender reverse on a close reading, the tongue is not in any narration, the temple's age has no source, and the hair is a single shared word. The hadith does not name the island, and the scholars did not fix its place, so Astola cannot be ruled out as a location in absolute terms; but nothing points to it either. And Kali, a goddess worshipped by millions of Hindus today, has no connection to the Dajjal in any source. AlFitan does not make that link.
108. And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge. Thus We have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return, and He will inform them about what they used to do
قال القاضي لفظة ما هو زائدة صلة للكلام ليست بنافية والمراد إثبات أنه في جهات المشرق
"Ma huwa" is not a negation; the meaning is to affirm that he is in the directions of the east. No island is named.
Ibn Hajar, via al-Saffarini
al-Buhur al-Zakhira
شيطان موثق بسبعين حلقة في بعض جزائر اليمن ... ولعل هؤلاء مع كونهم ثقات تلقوا ذلك من بعض كتب أهل الكتاب
Some early people said the Dajjal is a devil chained "in one of the islands of Yemen". Ibn Hajar thought they, though trustworthy, may have taken it from the books of the People of the Book. Placing the island has been tried before, without settling it.
al-Qurtubi
al-Tadhkira
وروي عن عبد الله بن عمر رضي الله عنهما أن هذه الدابة هي الجساسة
Reports a view, from 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar, that the Jassasa is the Beast of the Earth of al-Naml 27:82. Classical discussion of the Jassasa is about what it is, never about any people's deity.
⚖️
Astola Island & Jassasa: Viral Theories vs. Authentic Sunnah
Sorting viral rumors from verified sources.
❌ Viral Claim #1
The Dajjal is currently chained on Pakistan's Astola Island off Balochistan.
✅ What's Actually True
Sahih Muslim never names the island. Astola's geographic distance, lack of historical settlement, and lack of Christian monastery ruins fail the textual tests, and no classical scholar identified it.
❌ Viral Claim #2
The speaking creature 'al-Jassasa' was an idol of the Hindu goddess Kali.
✅ What's Actually True
In Arabic 'dabbah' is grammatically feminine for all beasts, but the text explicitly refers to a living, hair-covered creature that walked, spoke, and refused to answer questions. It was not a sculpted temple idol.
❌ Viral Claim #3
The Companions later dispatched naval expeditions to capture or find that mysterious island.
✅ What's Actually True
Despite commanding vast naval fleets, the Companions never sought the island. They understood that prophecy is for moral preparation, and that Dajjal will appear from the eastern land of Khurasan/Isfahan.
❓
Frequently Asked Questions & Fact-Check
Key questions answered directly from authentic prophetic sources
Is the Dajjal chained on Pakistan's Astola Island?▾
No. This is an unverified internet theory. Sahih Muslim never names any specific island. Neither the sailing distance, historical records, nor archaeological remains match Astola, and no classical hadith scholar ever identified it as such.
What was the mysterious creature 'al-Jassasa'?▾
According to Tamim al-Dari's report in Sahih Muslim, it was a living creature densely covered in thick hair so that its front could not be distinguished from its back. It spoke human speech and guided the sailors. It was not a statue, idol, or deity.
Why did the Prophet ﷺ narrate Tamim al-Dari's story from the pulpit?▾
Because Tamim al-Dari (RA), upon accepting Islam, shared a firsthand travel experience that precisely mirrored what the Prophet ﷺ had already prophesied about the False Messiah. The Prophet ﷺ shared it to reinforce the believers' faith with independent eyewitness testimony.
Did the Companions ever launch a maritime expedition to find the island?▾
No, the Companions never sent ships to locate the island. They understood that until Allah decrees the appointed hour, no human effort can release or locate him, and that his emergence will occur from the East (Khurasan/Isfahan), not by sailing to an island.
Spotted a mistake?
Wrong grade, weak translation, missing source or outdated fact? Tell us; every report goes to the review queue and changes to the texts are checked by a scholar.