The following is a short video explaining the Islamic view of the end times by Haroon Moghul.
In the video he mentions that Jesus Christ will come back to Damascus. Syrians (and perhaps others) believe he will come back to the minaret of Jesus at the Omayad Mosque. It is the minaret in the back of this picture.
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Thanks for sharing that link, Dustin.
That is indeed the orthodox position, but Islamic tradition allows for differences of opinion on secondary matters of this sort. It should be noted that as in Christianity this is very complicated (arguably more so, since the medium in which most prophecies are recorded are individual hadiths, sayings of the Prophet; hadith interpretation is in some ways more complex than even Quranic interpretation, as even if one believes them to be authentic unlike the Quran their actual wording could be imprecise owing to the fact they were handed down orally over the generations) and there are minority schools of thought that take these prophecies with varying degrees of literalness.
Not that I’m knowledgeable enough to address these questions, but there was a discussion on my blog of some of these questions that you might find interesting.
http://akramsrazor.typepad.com/islam_america/2005/11/rejecting_a_mah.html
At the moment, figurative readings are mostly found among modernist/liberal Muslims as opposed to “traditional” ones–for lack of more precise terminology–but I think that’s going to change quick. A lot of these nuances and issues are only now being discussed outside elite scholarly circles.
It’s a bit like Source Criticism in Biblical studies a century ago. The Documentary Hypothesis once shook people’s faith, but now fazes few believers.
BTW, see the comments on my link.
Also, lest I be misunderstood I should note that my comparison regarding Biblical source criticism is to Hadith not the Quran. Source criticism is much harder to do with the Quran due to its very different structure, seemingly unitary authorship, and relatively few historical references claims that can be independently evaluated in light of contemporary documentary evidence (which is still very sparse for pre-Islamic Arabia, unlike in the case of the Hebrew Bible or Christian Bible, which speak of times and places for which we often have a wealth of documentary evidence).
Sorry, yet another comment: My observation wasn’t intended in any way to counter Haroon’s presentation. There’s no question that there’s fascinating overlap between the eschatological traditions of both religions.
My main point is that the issues involved are a lot more complex than people (including many Muslims) sometimes realize, and new perspectives are slowly emerging that in some respects mirror the diversity of opinion to be found among Christian denominations.
In any case, this discussion is over my pay grade, so I’m going to shut up.
Svend,
I am very thankful for your extra comments to help us better understand the complexity of the Islamic position. No need to “shut up”.
The idea that Jesus is returning and that is part of the “Islamic view” is inaccurate. This is based on the Hadith and not the Quran. Unfortunately, many Muslims treat the Hadith as if it was canon and an extension of the Quran. After years of thought on the issue, I came to reject the Hadiths and accept only the Quran. Some would accuse me of accommodating Western thought; as if everything that comes from the West is bad.
This is a very thoughtful blog and my statements above are not intended to criticize the posting itself. http://alithoughts.wordpress.com/ (my own blog)
Hadith on the End of Times (Hatred of Jews):
“Judgment Day will come only when the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’ – except for the Gharqad tree.”
For competing views on Islam: http://www.forpeoplewhothink.org, http://www.free-minds.org/
I’m thankful for your comments. You demonstrate what Svend already said, that there is diversity of thought among Muslims. I really appreciate you adding your thoughts. Thank you.
Another website with a competing view on the Hadith: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/main.php
There certainly are a host of serious issues and concerns surrounding such hadiths–not unlike certain statements to be found in the Gospels or the writings of the Church Fathers concerning Jews –but I think to take them a straightforward expressions of anti-Semitism is not a sign of serious examination of the texts, context or the interpretative tradition from which they are drawn.
I don’t like to be critical, but you should realize that this “Quranist” movement is pretty far out there doctrinally. (Think John Shelby Spong, but less traditional.)
To throw out all *hadith* is not only completely at odds with the most basic principles of Islamic faith, it is intellectually highly dubious (not to mention arguably counterproductive). And, however you may feel about them, for the overwhelming majority of Muslims this extreme approach is an utter nonstarter.
I don’t think they deserve to be persecuted–as they are in some places (e.g., Egypt)–but I am not at all impressed by their arguments, and despite the fact that I’m quite open to critiquing hadiths and reexamining traditional interpretations of the Quran. To the contrary, I find their approach to hadith reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson’s infamous bowdlerization of the Bible based on little more than personal whims and Deist dogma as opposed to rigorous biblical scholarship or careful textual analysis. In my opinion, it’s often New Age self-indulgence and lazy thinking masquerading as reform.
The confusion between what is mainstream with what makes sense. No verse in the Quran suggests that we should accept the Hadith as canon. On the issue of history, early Muslim scholars debated the inclusion of the Hadith; it was not accepted ab initio.
No one can deny that that Hadiths contain rituals and content that are not found in the Quran. Therefore, the notion that the Hadith explains the “meaning” of the Quran is absurd. Bukhari kept only 8,000 of the hadiths out of 600,000.
One can certainly find pieces of wisdom in the Hadith. We can also find wisdom in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita. Should it therefore be labled Islamic?
I took note of your comparison to Thomas Jefferson’s take on the Bible. That is by no means the equivalent of rejecting the Hadith (unless you believe it’s equal to the Quran).
With the overreliance on the Hadiths, we will continue to see human rights trampled in the name of Islam.
An excellent article: http://forpeoplewhothink.org/Answers/Hadith_Status.html
Having said that, while I think imposing these modern political and cultural categories so cavalierly is counterproductive, I too find that hadith disturbing.
Still, there are a number of issues and questions that must be examined.
Are we confident Muhammad really said it? How reliable are its chains of transmission? Are there issues with its language that raise concerns about its authenticity? Are there historical reasons to suspect that it was fabricated by later Muslims to validate later anti-Jewish prejudices (in some cases imported from contact with Byzantine Christianity)? Medieval hadith critics were very conscious of the phenomenon of hadith forgery and created strategies for identifying them and compiled long lists of known forgers (some of whom confessed on their death beds), and new tools are available to us today. Does this statement conflict with others by Muhammad that are considered more authoritative? If we believe it to be from Muhammad, are we confident the whole statement reached us intact? Could some details of it be wrong?
Does it conflict with the Quran, either in letter or in spirit? Note that while it is naturally a sensitive matter to critique any saying attributed to the Prophet, to invoke the Quran against a hadith isn’t unusual. It’s one of the first principles of hadith criticism, and Muhammad himself instructed his followers to judge his words against the Quran. Sadly, some Muslims sometimes reverse that relationship in order to support their own agenda.)
What does it mean in the context of apocaplytpic literature (which often takes members of other religions as God’s enemies)? Where does it fit into the broader corpus of Islamic apocalyptic traditions? Is it to be taken as a literal prophecy of a future military conflict or a symbolic description of the conflict between good and evil that many religioud traditions expect to precede the end of time?
And so on. This is not a simple question. Few matters of hadith criticism are. Neither is it a choice between blind acceptance of all hadiths and their wholesale apriori rejection, either.
Personally, I’m inclined to question this hadith’s authenticity, but there are spiritually and intellectually credible ways to approach the matter and then there are kneejerk ahitorical slogans such as the above.
Sorry for all the comments.
Hi Dustin,
Thanks so much for the link love. As Svend has pointed out, quite accurately, there is a deep and rich debate in Islam on these issues, and that scholarship historically includes tremendous nuance.
Of course, I went in for a 45-min. long interview, and it was edited down to 2 minutes, so of course a lot of shades and qualifications are lost (not that I don’t deeply appreciate History Channel for caring enough to include a Muslim perspective as it is, and I get the need to produce the short clip.)
There are strong arguments for a critical approach to hadith, but Islamic scholarship as a whole has probably never seen any legitimate grounds for dismissing hadith as a whole (as that would effectively gut the religion, and I cannot visualize a whole practice of the religion without hadith). I personally do not believe that much of the end times imagery is purely figurative (I do, for example, believe that Jesus, peace be upon him, will return), but I think Svend is rightly pointing to the extent to which interpretations should not be narrowed, as too often Muslims in contemporary times do.
The great thing about Islamic tradition is the richness of debate within its parameters, and a great loss for Islam has been that modernist approaches, while contributing a lot of new ideas, have unfortunately tended to devalue the entire tradition as irrational, backwards or uninformed, preventing Muslims from realizing the great range of ideas that have been held and debated. Many people who devalue the tradition, as backwards and spurious, often have less than adequate training in the tradition and sometimes do not understand its importance, achievements and worth in the fullest senses.
This was very redundant. My apologies!
Unfortunately, Muslims have a hard time shedding the excesses of their forefathers. Why else do we see stoning people to death considered by some to be part of the Shariah?
Take note that I use the word “overreliance” in my previous comment. I think it would be ideal to use gradualism to slowly eliminate the impact of the Hadith (i.e. stoning people to death).
An excellent example on the impact of the Hadith on Islamic views is, “Zionism, the Quran, and the Hadith” by Khaleel Mohammed.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_1-2_54/ai_n15966532/
This brings up not a “kneejerk” reaction but a serious dilemma. Should Muslims avoid making peace with Israel because of certain hadiths? I ask this as someone who has lost family as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The reality is, it’s much easier to correct misuse of the Quranic verses than it is to explain away the meaning of hadiths that dilute Islam.
Svend, where we agree is that a critical examination is needed of the Hadith. I spent several years studying over the Hadiths and found it difficult to reconcile them with the Quran. I have always considered Islam to be a universal faith. When incorporating much of the Hadith, I felt as though I was practicing an “Arab religion.”
Best Regards
“Each generation continues to find the Quran relevant despite the constant increase in human knowledge. Too heavy a reliance on hadith for the interpretation of the Quran puts at risk this eternal and universal quality. Hadith-based tafsir tends to limit the meaning of the Quran to a particular historical situation, thus obscuring its universality.” – Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan
Perhaps this quotation is beyond your comprehension. Perhaps concepts in the Quran are beyond your comprehension? Please, go study Arabic.
We can agree to disagree, Ali. I must note that, as much as I respect him for his political achievements and personal courage, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan is the last person I’d turn to for credal tutelage! His musings on Islamic tradition and disastrous attempt at a biography of the Prophet have not aged well, however good his intentions were.
BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Salamu’alaykum,