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"ḤADĪTH", AUTHORITY AND THE END OF THE WORLD: TRADITIONS IN MODERN MUSLIM APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE Author(s): DAVID COOK Reviewed work(s): Source: Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 21 (82), Nr. 1, Hadith in Modern Islam (2002), pp. 31-53 Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25817811 . Accessed: 04/02/2013 16:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Oriente Moderno. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Mon, 4 Feb 2013 16:32:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions DAVID COOK (Universityof Chicago) HADiTH, AUTHORITY AND THE END OF THE WORLD: TRADITIONS INMODERN MUSLIM APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 1.Authority and tradition: thequestions would doubt that the hadit literature in Islam is of fundamental T^ew impor JL tance for the legal and social structureof Islam. From the earliestyears of the Muslim community, this literaturehas been the focal point for the theological, intellectual and cultural battleswhich have defined Islam.At its core, a hadit is a either statementmade by the ProphetMuhammad about a given situation or one a in response to (or a question), or pseudo-biographical vignette about some action taken by him and observed by his companions. If one accepts theMuslim presentation of the hadit literature,then virtually no aspect of the Prophet's life has gone unrecorded, from the eternally significant to themost (apparently) ba nal and irrelevant.All of thismaterial has been subjected for the past 1300 years to the minute examination of Muslim generations of scholars, who have inter preted it,written tomes and tomes to explain it and comment upon it, to verify its transmission, and to harmonize its numerous inconsistencies. The authority of the hadit literaturefirst of all restsupon the person of the - - prophetMuhammad his unique and divinely protected life and words and secondly upon the reliabilityof generations ofMuslim scholars and their ability our own to transmitfrom the Prophet's immediate companions until times.Most western scholars deny that the hadit literature in the form thatwe see it today is dependent upon the ProphetMuhammad or reflectshis views (which are so var ied and mutually contradictory inside the literaturethat itwould be impossible for anybody to saywith any certaintywhat he believed on any given subject). However, Islam is a faithwhich has always stressed the ability of mutually con tradictoryviews to co-exist in harmony, and has not seen this aspect of the hadit as as literatureas a liabilitybut an asset, enabling itdoes widely differing inter pretations ofMuslim law to continue without the necessity for anathemas. as to aware During the past 150 years, Muslims have begun be ofWestern critiques of the hadit literature,and especially during the past 30 years, therehas been a marked acceptance among fundamentalist circles (which has also come to can one penetrate the largerconservative religious community) that there be only truth, and one interpretationof the truth. It is ironic, but this intolerance of one other opposing interpretationsof Islam has been of the by-products ofOri entalist research.Many fundamentalists have come to harbor some suspicion OM, xxi n.s. (lxxxii), 1,2002 This content downloaded on Mon, 4 Feb 2013 16:32:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 32 David Cook on about the hadit literature,as it is patently impossible to find a single truth the basis of it (even assuming as some do, the use of "authoritative" collections, such as that of al-Buhari, since the usual method was to recordmany mutually con For has meant a return to a tradictory traditions). some, this strictly QurDanic Islam,which would, if actually literallyadhered to, denude the faith of a great a many of itsmost distinguished (and distinguishing) traits.This reliance upon a somewhat 'Protestant'methodology would seek to find given truth in the to use some Qur3an (often times without reference traditional commentary), and parts of the hadit literaturewhich aremost closely in linewith the chosen inter a pretation and ignore the rest.For others, this attitude has lead to search for al ternativesources of authority.This last idea ishighly problematic in Islam.While no one has identifiedexactly what the sources of authorityare fornon-legal tradi tions, ithas never been customary to base a subject of crucial importance upon a or one source of authoritywhich does not include the ProphetMuhammad of as at cer his close companions the fount of the teaching. For peripheral issues, tain timesmaterial ascribed to previous prophets (such as Solomon or Jesus) has as been accepted, and sometimes that of later reveredMuslim figures has been well, for those groups in Islamwho revere them. However, to seek beyond the pale of Islam for sources of authority is ques tionable, and very bold. Never has the community of Islam previously rewarded such boldness with general acceptance. It is a sign of how deeply troubledmod ern Islam sees itself,and how desperate it is in itsfifteenth century, that an im portant set of beliefs in some cases has fallen under the sway of outside influ ences, and moreover has been accepted despite this fact. This set of beliefs is Muslim apocalyptic and the beliefs connected with the end of theworld.1 In this we paper will examine the beliefs, firstof all in theirclassical setting,and then in theirmodern interpretations.Most of the paper, however, will deal with the question of the relative authority of the two foreign influences upon Muslim apocalyptic literature: the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory,and the Biblical evan gelical apocalyptic popularized in the English speakingworld during the past 30 years. - 1 Wilferd See, e.g., Madelung, "cAbdallah b. al-Zubayr and theMahdl", Journal ofNear Eastern 40 Studies, (1981), p. 291-306; Idem, "Apocalyptic prophecies in Hims during the Umayyad Age", Journal of Semitic Studies, 41 (1986), p. 141-85; idem, "The Sufyani", Studia Suleiman Islamica, 63 (1986), p. 5-48; Bashear, "Early Muslim Apocalyptic Materials", Journal the Asiatic of Royal Society, 1991, p. 173-207; idem, "Muslim Apocalypses", Israel Oriental Studies, 13 (1993), p. 75-99; Michael Cook, "Eschatology, History and the Dating of Tradi Princeton inNear tions", Papers Eastern Studies, 1 (1992), p. 23-48; idem, "The Heraclian Dy inMuslim nasty Eschatology", al-Qantara, 13 (1992), p. 3-23; idem, "An early Islamic apoca lyptic chronicle", Journal ofNear Eastern Studies, 52 (1993), p. 25-29; Lawrence Conrad, "Por tents of the in Der and Hour", forthcoming Islam-, my "Muslim Apocalyptic and jihad\ Studies in Arabic and 20 Jerusalem Islam, (1996), p. 66-104; idem, "Moral Apocalyptic in Islam", Studia Islamica, 86 (1997), p. 37-69 among numerous studies. This content downloaded on Mon, 4 Feb 2013 16:32:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions hadit, Authority and the End of the World 33 2. Apocalyptic beliefs in Islam The basis of the authority of the apocalyptist is the assumed ability of the ProphetMuhammad (never claimed in his own lifetime) to see the entire future. - "God has lifted theworld up forme [Muhammad] I am looking at it and at as am at what will happen in it until theDay of Resurrection just I looking my - hand here a revelation2 fromGod, which He vouchsafed [tome], just as He vouchsafed it to the prophets before him."3 Another tradition reads: "...then he sun not out [Muhammad] spoke to us until the went down. He did leave any we thing fromwhat is to happen until theDay of Resurrection.. ."4 In brief, will summarize what these events are to be. as a The apocalyptic literaturethat has sprouted up result of this tradition, and theworld-view which supports it,describes theworld (from aMuslim point on of view) as it nears the final, anticipated end. It concentrates four aspects of this process. The firstof these is the phenomenal conquests of the firstcentury most (632-732), which ended with theMuslim empire controlling of the classi cal world, from France, Spain, North Africa and Sicily in thewest to Central Asia and India in the east. Only the ancient Christian empire of the Byzantines (what is now Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, and part of Italy) stood between con them and ultimate victory. So it is hardly surprising that the sub-genre of quest apocalyptic is concerned with the final, end-times fall of Constantinople and the collapse of the Byzantine empire. Other material appears, concerning theTurks, the Indians and theChinese, but thesewere peripheral to theMuslim was understanding of the nature of theirmission. When this literature firstcir was culated this understanding still dominated by the idea of the classical world of theRoman Empire and Persia. However, unlikely though itmight have been at the time, the Byzantine empire was fated to outlive that of the firstMuslim a Arabs, factwhich brought home the great disconfirmation of theirapocalyptic conquest hopes. This material continued to be useful to theMuslims as a whole in theirage-long strugglewith the Byzantines, and possibly assisted in the propa ganda of theTurks, who ultimately succeeded where theArabs failed. of literature was involved with the crea Another manifestation apocalyptic were tion (or in some cases adoption) of demonic or semi-demonic figureswho designed to test and trythe Muslim communitywith the ultimate aim of itspu rification.For while apocalyptic groups recognized the evil of their society and a railed against it at every available opportunity, they required focus for their was the the loathing.This focus, for Sunni Muslims, the figure called Daggal, Antichrist.
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