Is beleiving in Jesus second arrival part of eeman? A person who beleives Jesus to be dead, is he outside Islam?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

A Muslim must believe that ‘Eesa (Jesus) will descend at the end of times as per the authentic Ahaadeeth; for more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 87745 and 88216.

Nonetheless, Shaykh Al-Albaani stated in his book Silsilat Al-Ahaadeeth Adh-Dha’eefah Wal Mawdhoo’ah’, a Hadeeth which means that whoever denies the descent of ‘Eesa goes out of the fold of Islam. However, after quoting the Hadeeth, he said: "It (the Hadeeth) is false, and it was reported by Abu Bakr Al-Kalabaathi in the book ‘Miftaah Ma’aani Al-Aathaar’.” He also said: ‘‘You should know that is an obligation to believe in all what is mentioned in this Hadeeth, like the coming out of Al-Mahdi, the descent of ‘Eesa …because it was confirmed in the Quran and the Sunnah. However, there is no textual evidence that indicates that whoever denies this goes out of the fold of Islam.”

It should be mentioned that whoever believes that ‘Eesa died the day he was taken to the heavens according to the apparent meaning of the verse of Allaah (which means) {I will take you and raise you to Myself…}[Quran 3:55], without denying that he will descend, then this matter was stated by some scholars of the Salaf (righteous predecessors).

Nonetheless, most of the scholars are of the view that what is meant by {I will take you…} is sleep as mentioned by Ibn Katheer in his Tafseer.

For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 84206.