Apocalyptic tradition in Islam

A dialog from the H-Mideast-Medieval list, June 1998

Dear Colleagues,

I am interesting in the development of the apocalyptics in the Early Islam, especially in the fields close to the Christian and Jewish traditions. Is there something new after W. MADELUNG. Apocalyptic Prophesies in Hims in the Umayyad Age,=20 Journal of Semitic Studies 30 (1986) 141=97185?

Thanks in advance.

Basil Lourie
St.Petersburg Society for Byzantine and Slavic Studies

byzros@infopro.spb.su

RUSSIA 194356
St.Petersburg
pr.Engelsa 135-132
B.Lourie
Fax 7(812) 559 7777

A recent contribution is Uri Rubin's Apocalypse and authority in Islamic tradition: The emergence of the twelve leaders, Al-Qantara 18 (1997): 11-42.

Jane Dammen McAuliffe
Professor of Islamic Studies
University of Toronto

I recommend the work of David Cook. He may be reached at david bryan cook <dbcook1@midway.uchicago.edu>.

Steven Wasserstrom

Behnam Sadeghi provides a list of bibliography relevant to Basil's query. Ed.

Bashear, Suliman, Apocalyptic and Other Materials on Early Byzantine Wars, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, 1 (1991), pp. 173-207.

---, Riding Beasts on Divine Missions: an Examination of the Ass and Camel Traditions, Journal of Semitic Studies, 36 (1991), 37-75.

---, Muslim apocalypses and the hour: a case-study in traditional reinterpretation, Israel Oriental Studies, vol. 13, 1993, pp. 75-99.

Cook, Michael Allan, Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies, 1992, Number 1, pp. 23-47.

---, The Heraclian dynasty in Muslim eschatology, Al-Qantara, vol. 13, 1992, pp. 3-23.

---, An Early Islamic Apocalyptic Chronicle, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Jan. 1 1993, V. 52, N. 1, pp. 25-29.

Modarressi, Hossein, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi'ite Islam, Abu Ja'far ibn Qiba al-Razi and His Contributions to Imamite Shi'ite Thought, The Darwin Press, Inc., Princeton, 1993.

Within the past year or so Said Arjomand has published a couple of articles dealing specifically with Twelver Shi'ism. I don't remember where the first one was published: either in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies or in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. It deals in part with the crisis of succession to the 11'th Imam. (The other article was published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society.) Wasserstrom's recent book & Wadad Kadi's book _al-kaysaniyya fi al-tarikh wa al-adab_ (if I remember the title correctly) are relevant too.

Julie Meisami provides a list of bibliography relevant to Basil's query as well as a query of her own.

Ed.

There is also Suliman Bashear's Apocalyptic and Other Materials on Early Muslim-Byzantine Wars: A Review of Arabic Sources, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1991, 173-207. It contains a number of useful references as well. For comparative purposes, see Paul J. Alexander, _The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition_, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

In general this seems to be an under-researched field (unless I've missed something major somewhere -- anybody?), and most researchers have dealt with the early Islamic period and, to some extent, with the late Umayyad-early Abbasid period. I myself am chiefly interested in 3rd/9th and 4th/10th century apocalypses (and even later), which are even less well researched (Arabic and Persian). If anyone has any new info. on this subject I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Julie Meisami
Oxford

--- You wrote:
If anyone has any new info. on this subject I'd appreciate hearing about it.
--- end of quote ---

In response to Julie Meisami's query: David Cook, now a PhD student at the University of Chicago, has written an extensive monograph (printed in two volumes) on early Muslim apocalyptic, originally as a MA thesis at the Hebrew University. I believe that it is now being considered for publication.

Steve Wasserstrom

Hayretting Yucesoy provides additional bibliography and information on the impending apocalypse.

Ed.

I am currently working on messianic-apocalyptic ideology and tradition in early Abbasid history as my Ph.D dissertation at the University of Chicago. I am more particularly interested in how messianic-apocalyptic ideas affected Abbasid intellectual and socio-political life in the period extending until the reign of al-Mu`tasim. The references provided on the list I think are good starting point for further investigation, but I would like to include Aguade's phd dissertation ( oops, in German, university of Tubingen) and his article in Boletin de la associacion Espanola de Orientalistas 12 (1976), Said Arjomand's articles in IJMES 28(1996)and Journal of Religions 76 (1996), J. Bacharach's article in JAOS 113 (1993) Paul Cobb's dissertation at the University of Chicago, chapter Four and Muhammad Qasim ZAman;'s article in islamic Qyarterly 32 (1988).

I would like also to draw your attention that There will be a panel in this year MESA meeting. Three presentations will be on early islamic messianic-apocalyptic tradition and its historical significance. Myself, David and yet another University of Chicago Phd. candidate Khaled Keshk will present our papers in this panel.

Yes, indeed it is rather curious but under represented field of study.

Hayrettin Yucesoy

Many thanks to all who answered! A lot of information!

I am preparing an article on the Byzantine Empire-eschatological concept under Heraclius. This concept needs to be reconstructed for it was lost in Byzantium itself at the late VIIth century, after the end of the monothelete union.

There is some material in early Islamic traditions which I suppose may be influenced by those ideas current in Heraclius' time. Some of them are connected with Alexander the Great as a messianic or quasi-messianic figure, especially an account on his *miraj* subsisting in the Spanish Aljamiado Alexander roman. (Where his *miraj* is compared with that of Mohammed). Are there other parallels to this Aljamiado account within the Islamic traditions? Especially important: were there traditions on Alexander's visitation of Heavenly Jerusalem?

(The most close parallel to this I found -- with the help of my colleagues -- is an account in a short Ethiopian chronicle in Amharic, yet unpublished, to appear in the same periodical as the article by myself).

I shall be grateful for any ideas belonging to this field.

Also, I have a 30-years old information about two then unpublished versions of Christian Arabic History of Alexander. Are they yet unpublished and unstudied?

Basil Lourie

St.Petersburg Society for Byzantine and Slavic Studies

byzros@infopro.spb.su

RUSSIA 194356
St.Petersburg
pr.Engelsa 135-132
B.Lourie
Fax 7(812) 559 7777

Just a note on the exchange of info on the apocalyptic tradition in Islam, like usual the Zoroastrian influences have been neglected and I think they are fundamental to the understanding of apocalyptic thought in the Hellenic as well as the Islamic eras. Norman Cohn has written about this:

Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith, Yale, 1993.

......., How Time Acquired a Consummation, in Apocalyptic Theory and the Ends of the World, Ed.Malcolm Bull, Blackwell, 1995.

Mary Boyce, On the antiquity of Zoroastrian Apocalyptic, BSOAS, Vo. XLVII, 1984.

David Hellholm, Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 1979, Tubingen, 1989. The volume has many interesting articles see in particular those pertaining to Iranian influences:

Tord Olsson, The Apocalyptic Activity: The Case of the Jamasp Namag.

Geo Widenfren, Leitende Ideen und Quellen der iranischen Apokalyptik.

Andres Hultgard, Forms and Origins of Iranian Apocalypticism

Good luck

Kathryn Babayan

Dear Kathryn,

Thank you very much for your replay. In fact I am studying a concept formed under a heavy Iranian influence while the main Iranian sources available are iconographic. Cf.:

I. SHAHID. The Iranian Factor in Byzantium during the Reign of Heraclius, Dumbarton Oaks Papapers. 1972. 26. 293=97320, esp. 307=97308, and, for (a part of) the iconographical data, H.P. L'ORANGE _Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World_ Oslo etc. 1953 (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. Serie A: Forelesninger, XXIII).

I am aware of most of the publications you are pointed out with exception of those by Cohn. But I am still perplexed as regard to some issues. Namely, the dating of the Zoroastrian apocalypses -- there are two rather extremist attitudes by Mary Boyce and Ph. Gignoux and a kind of the via media by Kippenberg... Where are we now, what is the status quaestionis? I am especially interesting also in the images of Alexander the Great, Heraclius and Chosroe II Aparwez in such apocalypses -- I don't know any excepting one very unclear passage in Jamasp-namak where Benvenist saw Alexander but many others Bahram Chubin. Perhaps Benvenist was right?

In fact, the Pehlevi _Vorlage_ of the Syriac Romance of Alexander was a work where Chosroe was a quasi-messianic figure, such as we can see on his coins...

Regards.

Basil

Can anyone give me citations and/or information on the Muslim millenium mentioned by Kathryn Babayan in her communication of 18 July? I need it for a talk I'm giving on 12 September.

Thank you in advance,

Pamela G Sayre
Instuctor in History and World Religions
Henry Ford Community College
pgsayre@hotmail

There is a very rich collection of hadiths, sound and quite unsound, ascribed to the Prophet on the eschaton in James Robson's English translation of Tibrizi's Mishkat al-Masabih, Vol 1V Bk 26 (al-Fitan). I have used some and translated still others in my Themes of Islamic Civ, Ch 4, on 'The Expected Deliverer,' p194ff.

John Alden Williams
The College of William & Mary

> >From: pamela sayre <pgsayre@hotmail.com>
>
> >Can anyone give me citations and/or information on the Muslim millenium?

Which one? (Using the term loosely in the general sense of eschaton.)
>
> There is a very rich collection of hadiths, sound and quite unsound,
> ascribed to the Prophet on the eschaton in James Robson's English
> translation of Tibrizi's Mishkat al-Masabih, Vol 1V Bk 26 (al-Fitan). I
> have used some and translated still others in my Themes of Islamic Civ,
> Ch 4, on 'The Expected Deliverer,' p194ff.
>
> John Alden Williams
> The College of William & Mary

Many thanks for these refs., John, which I will check when our library opens on Monday. I am doing research on the expected eschaton of the year 400 AH and appreciate any references to this that I can get hold of.

Julie Meisami

Dear Pamela,

For a general overview see:

Enc. Islam: Articles Mahdi & Mujaddid
Enc. Iranica: Article Apocalyptics-Muslim era good luck

Kathryn Babayan