Encyclopedia of Islam

eschatology

  

213  J

---

with God’s creation of the universe, and all expect 

an end to human history to come at a time of 

God’s choosing. The end, according to the q

Uran

,

will arrive suddenly but will be accompanied by 

dramatic signs. At that time, the dead will be 

raised physically, and all will be judged according 

to their 

Faith

 and deeds. All Muslims believe that 

there is life after death.

The Quran has a good deal to say about 

the coming end. That humans will be called to 

account for their good and bad deeds on that 

day is affirmed repeatedly. The last day will be 

accompanied by a great trumpet blast, when “the 

mountains are lifted up and crushed with a single 

blow” (Q 69:14). Humans will be reunited with 

their bodies and will await judgment in great fear. 

The day of reckoning is usually presented as a 

matter of receiving a book with one’s accumulated 

deeds. Those to whom the book is given in the 

right hand will enter 

paradise

 (generally called the 

garden

), while the others will enter the fires of 

hell (often simply the F

ire

). Both the rewards and 

the punishments are rather graphically depicted 

in the Quran and are given substantial elaboration 

in 

hadith

 and other traditional materials.

Before the day of reckoning, however, Mus-

lims expect that several events not mentioned in 

the Quran will occur. Many traditions speak of a 

time of inversions to precede the end, in which 

“normal” social relations will be turned on their 

head: sons will not obey their fathers, slave girls 

will give birth to their own masters, and the poor 

and the weak will become leaders. While there 

is no unanimity on this point, the general thrust 

of popular Sunni eschatological belief is that the 

end times will see the rise of a deceptive leader, or 

a

ntichrist

 (Dajjal), who will be fought and van-

quished by either the m

ahdi

 or J

esUs

, ushering in a 

millennial period before the J

Udgment

 d

ay

. Being 

extra-Quranic, however, this popularly accepted 

narrative is highly contested by Muslim scholars. 

i

bn

 k

haldUn

 (d. 1406), for instance, rejected the 

entire luxuriant set of traditions that purport to 

prophecy the coming of the Mahdi, which would 

also raise doubts as to his belief in the rise of the 

Dajjal and the reappearance of Jesus.

For the Twelve-I

mam

 Shia, a belief in the 

Mahdi comes to be an article of faith and is thus 

much more central than it is for Sunnis. Accord-

ing to Shii histories, the 12th 

imam

, or descendant 

of Ali through his son Husayn, disappeared from 

view after 874 but is still present in the world 

and will return at the end of time to fill the earth 

with justice as it is filled now with corruption and 

injustice. To be a true believer, one must have this 

belief in the presence and eventual reemergence 

of the imam Mahdi. In this sense, Shii 

theology

indicates that humanity is always on the threshold 

of the millennial age.

See also 

aFterliFe

; 

creation

; 

Faith

; i

smaili

 s

hi

-

ism

; t

Welve

-i

mam

 s

hiism

.

John Iskander