Editing Islamic eschatology (section)

==Islamic eschatology in the 20th and 21st centuries==
Prior to the 20th century, Islam had "strongly emphasized the hereafter" (''ākhira'').  Desire to counter colonialism and "achieve material and technological parity with the West" turned  modern thinkers to stress this world (''dunyā''), without suggesting ''ākhira'' was less important.<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:100/>  
The focus on end times/[[Eschatology]] in Islam has tended to occur among those less exposed to scholarly learning. In the 1980s however, it again became much more popular generally.  Islamic leaders and scholars have always urged Muslim to be prepared for Judgement Day, but "the particulars of the end of the world are not a mainstream concern in Islam," according to Graeme Wood.<ref name=GWWotS2016:250>[[#GWWotS2016|Wood, ''The Way of the Strangers'', 2016]]: p.250</ref>{{#tag:ref|Smith and Haddad write, the "great majority of contemporary Muslim writers, ... choose not to discuss the afterlife at all. They are satisfied with simply affirming the reality of the day of judgment and human accountability without providing any details or interpretive discussion.<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:100/>|group="nb"}}

However, in 2012 poll conducted by the [[Pew Research Center]] found that 50% or more respondents in several [[Muslim-majority countries]] ([[Lebanon]], Turkey, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, [[Tunisia]], [[Algeria]], and [[Morocco]]) expected the [[Mahdi]] (the final redeemer according to Islam)<ref name="EI2">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Madelung |author-first=Wilferd |author-link=Wilferd Madelung |year=1986 |title=al-Mahdī |editor1-last=Bosworth |editor1-first=C. E. |editor1-link=Clifford Edmund Bosworth |editor2-last=van Donzel |editor2-first=E. J. |editor2-link=Emeri Johannes van Donzel |editor3-last=Heinrichs |editor3-first=W. P. |editor3-link=Wolfhart Heinrichs |editor4-last=Lewis |editor4-first=B. |editor5-last=Pellat |editor5-first=Ch. |editor5-link=Charles Pellat |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia of Islam#2nd edition, EI2|Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition]] |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |volume=5 |doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0618 |isbn=978-90-04-16121-4}}</ref> to return during their lifetime.<ref name="pew-Muslims-2012">{{cite web |date=9 August 2012 |title=The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity. Chapter 3: Articles of Faith |url=https://www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-3-articles-of-faith/ |access-date=13 September 2019 |website=Pew Research Center. Religion & Public Life}}</ref> The expectation is most common in Afghanistan (83%), followed by Iraq (72%), Turkey (68%), Tunisia (67%), Malaysia (62%), Pakistan (60%), Lebanon (56%), and Muslims in southern Thailand (57%).<ref name="pew-Muslims-2012"/>

Stories of end times and doomsday tend to be passed on as bedtime stories or informal talk among the lay Muslims, rather than in the Imam's Friday ''[[khutbah]]''.  "Even Muslims with low levels of knowledge have heard parts of parts of it", according to scholar Jean Pierre Filiu.{{#tag:ref|In conversation to Graeme Wood.<ref name="GWWotS2016:251">[[#GWWotS2016|Wood, ''The Way of the Strangers'', 2016]]: p.251</ref>|group="nb"}} In Islamic bookstores, their "dramatic and sensational stories of final battles between good and evil, supernatural powers, the ultimate rise of a Muslim elite," are naturally more attention getting than more orthodox/studious works on prayer, purity or the lives of exemplary Muslims.<ref name="GWWotS2016:251"/> More official Muslim sources have often either kept quiet about apocalyptic hadith or outright denied  their existence—an example being [[Nihad Awad]] of the [[Council on American-Islamic Relations]] who stated "There is no apocalyptic bloodbath in Islam."<ref name=GWWotS2016:251/>

Characters can also be used by some religious groups with some shifts; [[Said Nursi]] with the concept and meaning modifications in adapting to the time he lived in, highlights the concept of [[Sufyani]] instead of Dajjal and applies [[Abjad|numerologic methods]] to some [[Āyah]]/[[hadith]] fragments, making signs of [[Nur movement|his followers community]] as Mahdi (Collective ID; Sahs al-manawi”)<ref>Even more important is the realization of some of the difficulties and needs of the modern era, the Mahdi thought, contrary to the classical sources are defended by a “person” from the “ spiritual personal”
name is given to his community.https://isamveri.org/pdfdrg/D03701/2019_23/2019_23_DEMIRH.pdf</ref> and possible dates for apocalypse.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Apocalypse in the Teachings of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi - Risale-i Nur |url=http://risaleinur.com/studies/131-conferences/2000/3967-the-apocalypse-in-the-teachings-of-bediuzzaman-said-nursi.html |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=risaleinur.com}}</ref>

Popular Islamic pamphlets and tracts on the End Times have always been in circulation, but until around 2010 their "impact on political and theological thinking was practically nil" among Sunnis.<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:220>[[#JSISISCFB2015|Stern, ''ISIS'', "The coming final battle",  2015]]: p.220</ref> Interest in the End Times is particularly strong among jihadis and "since the mid-2000s, the apocalyptic currents in jihadism have surged."<ref name=GWWotS2016:251/> As of 2011, the belief that the end of the world is at hand and will be precipitated by an apocalyptic Great Battle has been noted as a "fast-growing belief in Muslim countries" though still a minority belief.{{#tag:ref|from blurb for {{cite book |last = Filiu |first = Jean-Pierre |translator-last = DeBevoise |translator-first = M. B. |title = Apocalypse in Islam |url = https://archive.org/details/apocalypseinisla0852fili_W3CSK |year = 2011 |publisher = University of California Press |location = Berkeley |isbn = 978-0-520-26431-1}}<ref name="blurb-UCP">{{cite book |title=Apocalypse in Islam |url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520272644/apocalypse-in-islam |publisher=University of California Press |date=January 2011 |isbn=9780520272644 |access-date=17 April 2022|last1=Filiu |first1=Jean-Pierre }}</ref>|group="nb"}}

=== Shiʿi Islam ===
According to J.-P. Filiu, the uprising of the (Shiʿi) [[Mahdi Army]] in Iraq and [[2006 Lebanon War|July 2006 war between Israel and (Shiʿi) Hizbullah]] are "at least in part" a consequence of "mounting eschatological expectations" coming from copious literature preaching that the return of the Hidden Imam was imminent; literature emanating from  the Shiʿi seminaries and scholars of holy city of [[Najaf]], Iraq, from Lebanon, and from Iran during the administration of its president [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]].<ref name=JPFAiI2011:141>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.141</ref> One Shiʿi Ayatollah, [[Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr]], revered as "[[Five Martyrs of Shia Islam|the fifth martyr]]" of Shiʿi Islam (killed by [[Saddam Hussein]]),  went to the trouble of trying to explain how the Hidden Imam could be over 1000 years old, and why the present is a propitious time for the reappearance of him.<ref name=JPFAiI2011:142-3>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.142-3</ref> Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army waged a violent struggle against the American military through 2004,  and its ranks swelled with thousands of recruits. Muqtada's political faction won seats in parliament.<ref name=JPFAiI2011:148>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.148</ref> During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency (2005-2013), he shared with Iranians his "avowed conviction" that believers must actively work for the Mahdi's reappearance, despite this bringing him "into conflict with the highest authorities of Shiism".<ref name=JPFAiI2011:151>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.151</ref>

===Popular apocalyptic literature===
"Dramatic and sensational stories" of the apocalypse first made an impact in the mid-1980s when Said Ayyub's ''Al-Masīh al-Dajjāl'' (The AntiChrist) started a whole new genre of Islamic "apocalyptic fiction"<ref name=JPFAiI2011:88/> or "millenarian speculation"<ref name=JPFAiI2011:92>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.92</ref> throughout the Arab world. The book was so successful Ayyub went on to write a half-dozen other spinoff books, inspired imitators who enjoyed even greater success (Muhammad Izzat Arif, Muhammad Isa Dawud,<ref name="JPFAiI2011:89-92">[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.89-92</ref> and Mansur AbdelHakim).<ref name=JPFAiI2011:122>[[#JISYYHIU1981|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.122</ref>

The book (and the genre) was noteworthy for rupturing the "organic link between Islamic tradition and the last days of the world",<ref name=JPFAiI2011:88>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.88</ref> using Western sources (such as [[Gustave Le Bon]] and [[William Guy Carr]]) that previously would have been ignored; and lack of  [[Sahih Bukhari]] (i.e. top quality) hadith (he does quote [[Ibn Kathir]] and some hadith "repeated at second hand"); and for an obsessively anti-Jewish point of view ("in all great transformations of thought, there is a Jewish factor, avowed and plain, or else hidden and secret",<ref name=JPFAiI2011:85>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.85</ref> "the Jews are planning the Third World War in order to eliminate the Islamic world and all opposition to Israel",<ref name=JPFAiI2011:86-87>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.86-87</ref> and cover art featuring a grotesque cartoon figure with a [[Star of David]] and large hooked nose).<ref name=JPFAiI2011:85/><ref name=JPFAiI2011:plate-1>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: plate 1</ref>

Unlike traditional popular works of Islamic eschatology that kept close to scripture and classical manuals of eschatology in describing ''al-Dajjāl'', Said Ayyub portrayed the Dajjāl as 1) the true [[Messiah in Judaism|Jewish messiah]], that Jews had been waiting for, 2) a figure who will appear or reappear not only in end times, but one who has been working throughout the history of humanity to create havoc with such diabolical success that human history is really "only a succession of nefarious maneuvers" by him.  Intermediaries of al-dajjal (according to Ayyub) include St. [[Paul the Apostle]], who (Ayyub maintains) created Christianity by distorting the true story of Jesus, the [[Constantine the Great|Emperor Constantine]] who made possible "the Crusader state in service to the Jews", the [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]], [[Napoleon]], the United States of America, [[Communism|Communist]]s, Israel, etc.  He concludes that the dajjal is hiding in Palestine (but will also "appear in Khurasan as the head of an expansionist state") and the Great Battle between Muslims and his forces will be World War III fought in the Middle East.<ref name="JPFAiI2011:83-9">[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.83-89</ref>

Later books, ''The Hidden Link between the AntiChrist, the Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, and Flying Saucers'' (1994), by Muhammad Isa Dawud, for example, move even farther away from traditional themes,  disclosing that the Anti-Christ journeyed from the Middle East to the archipelago of [[Bermuda]] in the 8th century CE to make it his home base and from whence he fomented the French Revolution and other mischief, and now sends flying saucers to patrol Egypt and prepare for his eventual triumphal return to Jerusalem.<ref name=JPFAiI2011:93-94>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.93-94</ref>

The success of the genre provoked a "counteroffensive" by pious conservatives (Abdellatif Ashur, Muhammad Bayyumi Magdi, and Muhammad Shahawi) disturbed by the liberties Said Ayyub and others had taken with Islamic doctrine.<ref name="JPFAiI2011:89-92"/>

===Jihadist references===

In the early 1980s, when [[Abdullah Azzam]], called on Muslims around the world to join the jihad in Afghanistan, he considered the fight "to be a sign that the end times were imminent".   Also around that time, popular Islamic writers, such as Said Ayyub, started blaming Islamic decline in the face of the Western world, not on lack of technology and development, but on the forces of the Dajjal.<ref name="Akyol-nyt-3-10-16">{{cite news |last1=Akyol |first1=Mustafa |title=The Problem With the Islamic Apocalypse |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/opinion/the-problem-with-the-islamic-apocalypse.html |access-date=29 January 2022 |agency=New York Times |date=3 October 2016}}</ref>

[[Al-Qaeda]] used "apocalyptic predictions in both its internal and external messaging" according to Jessica Stern, and its use of "the name [[Greater Khorasan|Khorasan]], a region that includes part of Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, and from which, it is prophesied, the Mahdi will emerge alongside an army bearing black flags", was thought to be a symbol of end times.<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:220/> But these claims were "mostly symbolic",<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:220/> and according to Wood, [[Osama bin Laden|Bin Laden]] "rarely mentioned" the [[Apocalypse]] and when he did, "he implied he would be long dead when it arrived" (a reflection of his more "elite" background according to Will McCants).<ref name=GWWotS2016:252>[[#GWWotS2016|Wood, ''The Way of the Strangers'', 2016]]: p.252</ref> According to J.-P. Filiu, out of the mass of Al-Qaeda documents seized after the fall of the Taliban, only one letter made any reference to the apocalypse.<ref name=JPFAiI2011:185>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.185</ref>

A prominent jihadist, [[Mustafa Setmariam Nasar|Abu Musʿab al-Sūri]], (called a "sophisticated strategist" and "articulate exponent of the modern [[jihad]]"),<ref name="Malise">{{cite magazine | url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21438 | title=The Rise of the Muslim Terrorists | magazine=[[New York Review of Books]] | pages=33–36, 34 | author=Malise Ruthven | date=29 May 2008 | access-date=20 January 2009 }}</ref><ref name="Reuters">{{cite news| url=https://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLA456186 | title=Al Qaeda ideologue in Syrian detention – lawyers | date=10 Jun 2009 <!-- 12:54&nbsp;pm EDT -->  | access-date=2 Sep 2009| quote=In brief remarks to Reuters, Nasar's wife, Elena Moreno, said she had also come to believe her husband was probably in Syria, following what she called recent but unofficial confirmation.| first=William| last=MacLean}}</ref>  somewhat independent and critical of Al-Qaeda, was also much more interested in end times. He wrote, "I have no doubt that we have entered into the age of battles and tribulations [''zāman al-malāhim wal-fitan'']"<ref>page 62 of the Arabic version of ''A Call to Global Islamic Resistance'' that was published via a now-defunct website in January 2005; quoted in [[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.187</ref>  He devoted the last 100 pages of his magnum opus on jihad (''A Call to Global Islamic Resistance'', made available online around 2005) to matters such as the proper chronology and location of related battles and other activities  of the [[Mahdi]], the [[Al-Masih ad-Dajjal|Antichrist]], the mountain of gold to be found in the Euphrates river, the [[Sufyani]], [[Gog and Magog]], etc.<ref name=JPFAiI2011:186-191>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.186-191</ref>

Abu Musʿab al Zarqawi, the founder of what would become the [[Islamic State]] "injected" the apocalyptic message into jihad.<ref name=GWWotS2016:252/> [[Islamic State|ISIS]] has evoked "the apocalyptic tradition much more explicitly" than earlier jihadis. [[Dabiq, Syria]] –  a town understood "in some versions" of the eschatological "narrative to be a possible location for the final apocalyptic battle" –  was captured by ISIS and made its capital. ISIS also declared its "intent to conquer [[Constantinople]]" –  Muslims conquering Constantinople being another end times prophesy.<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:220/> Interviews by the ''[[New York Times]]'',<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:222>[[#JSISISCFB2015|Stern, ''ISIS'', "The coming final battle",  2015]]: p.222</ref> and Jurgen Todenhöfer<ref name=GWWotS2016:268>[[#GWWotS2016|Wood, ''The Way of the Strangers'', 2016]]: p.268</ref> with many dozens of Muslims who had traveled to fight with Islamic State, and by Graeme Wood with Islamic State supporters elsewhere, found "messianic expectation" a strong motivator to join Islamic State.<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:222/>
;Shiʿi Islam
While Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are Sunni, Shia insurgents/militants have also been "drawn to the battlefield" by "apocalyptic belief", according to William McCants, who quotes a Shia fighter in Iraq saying, "'I was waiting for the day when I will fight in Syria. Thank God he chose me to be one of the Imam's soldiers.'"<ref name="McCants-BI-2014">{{cite web |last1=McCants |first1=William |title=The Foreign Policy Essay: The Sectarian Apocalypse |url=https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-foreign-policy-essay-the-sectarian-apocalypse/ |website=Brookings Institution |access-date=22 April 2022 |date=26 October 2014}}</ref>

Some dissident Shiʿa in Iraq, oppose not only Sunni, US and Iraqi government forces, but the Shiʿi religious hierarchy as well.  In Najaf, in late January 2007, at least 200 were killed in the [[Battle of Najaf (2007)|Battle of Najaf]],<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq19jan19,0,4037083.story?coll=la-home-center
|title = 80 killed in clashes in Iraq
|first = Alexandra
|last = Zavis
|work = Los Angeles Times
|date = 2008-01-19
}}</ref>
<ref>{{cite news
|url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011803321.html
|title = Dozens Killed in Clashes In S. Iraq: Obscure Sect Presents First Major Challenge For Area's Iraqi Forces
|first = Amit R.
|last = Paley
|newspaper = [[The Washington Post]]
|date = 2008-01-19
}}</ref><ref>[http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/fighters-for-shiite-messiah-clash-with.html Fighters for Shiite Messiah Clash with Najaf Security, 250 Dead Over 60 Dead in Baghdad, Kirkuk Violence], Informed Comment, Juan Cole</ref> when several hundred members of an armed [[Iraq]]i [[Shia|Shi'a]] [[messiah|messianic]] [[sect]] known as the [[Soldiers of Heaven]] or ''Jund As-Samāʾ''({{langx|ar|جند السماء}}), allegedly attempted to  start a "messianic insurrection" during the holy day of [[Ashura]] in the holy city of [[Najaf]];<ref name=JPFAiI2011:160>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.160</ref> planning to disguise themselves as [[pilgrims]] and kill leading Shi'a [[cleric]]s.<ref>[http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-iraqi-forces-kill-250-militants-in-najaf/2007/01/29/1169919241141.html?page=2 Page 2], US, Iraqi forces kill 250 militants in Najaf, The Age, 29 January 2007</ref> The group allegedly believed that spreading chaos would hasten the return of the [[12th Imam]]/[[Mahdi]],<ref name=depillis>{{cite web
|url = http://www.slate.com/id/2182511/
|title = Today's Papers: Kick in the Pants
|first = Lydia
|last = DePillis
|publisher = Slate
|date = 2008-01-19
}}</ref><ref name=theage-2007>[http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-iraqi-forces-kill-250-militants-in-najaf/2007/01/29/1169919241141.html "US-Iraqi Forces Kill 250 Militants in Najaf"], [[The Age]], 29 January 2007</ref><ref name=cnn-cult-2007>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080125052818/http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/29/iraq.main/index.html Cult plotted attack on Shiite clerics, Iraqis say] - [[CNN]] 29 January 2007</ref>  or alternately, that their leader, [[Dia Abdul Zahra Kadim]], was the awaited Mahdi.<ref name="Abu Zeed-2-2-2015">{{cite news |last1=Abu Zeed |first1=Adnan |title='Messengers of God' multiply amidst Iraqi chaos |url=https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2015/02/iraq-imam-shiite-messenger-disciples.html |access-date=2 June 2022 |agency=Al Monitor |date=2 February 2015}}</ref> The next year during Ashura a reported 18 officers and 53 militia members were killed in clashes between "millenarian rebels" and police,<ref name=JPFAiI2011:162>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.162</ref> the violence blamed on followers of one [[Ahmad al-Hassan]], a man claiming the [[Occultation (Islam)|Hidden Iman]] had designated him as his (the Hidden Imam's) representative (''wassi''), and who accused Ayatollahs/Shia clerics of being guilty of "aberration and treason, of occupation and tyranny".<ref name=JPFAiI2011:159>[[#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '', 2011]]: p.159</ref>

===Islamic State claims of prophecy fulfilment===
Jihadis of the [[Islamic State]] see the fulfillment of many of [[Signs of the coming of Judgement Day|the "lesser signs" of the coming of Judgement Day]] in current events. 
Its generally agreed that [[Arab–Israeli conflict#History|Israel Arab wars]] have been wars between Muslims and Jews (which were prophesied), and that moral standards have declined leading to  rampant fornication, alcohol consumption, and music listening.<ref name=GWWotS2016:249/> "A slave giving birth to her master" can happen when the child of a slave woman and the slave's owner inherits the slave after the owner's death—slavery being practiced in the [[Islamic State]] (until its defeat).<ref name=GWWotS2016:249/> An embargo of Iraq<ref name=GWWotS2016:249/> is alleged to be foretold in the hadith "Iraq would withhold its dirhams and qafiz".<ref>Sahih Muslim Book 041, Hadith Number 6923</ref> That Muslim states are being led by those who do not deserve to lead them,<ref name=buhari-6496 >{{cite web |title=Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 076, Hadith 503 |author=Bukhari |url=https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6496 |access-date=14 April 2022}}</ref> is an article of faith among jihadis and many other Muslims.  ISIS alleges that worship of the pre-Islamic deity ''al-Lat'' is being practiced by its Shia enemy [[Hezbollah]].  The naked shepherds who will build tall buildings is interpreted to refer to  Gulf State builders of skyscrapers<ref name="Globalist-2017">{{cite web |title=The Spread of Gulf State Skyscrapers |url=https://www.theglobalist.com/the-spread-of-gulf-state-skyscrapers/ |website=The Globalist |access-date=14 April 2022 |date=21 May 2017}}</ref> are "only a generation or two out of desert poverty".<ref name=GWWotS2016:249>[[#GWWotS2016|Wood, ''The Way of the Strangers'', 2016]]: p.249</ref>

But the Islamic State is also attempting to fulfill prophecies itself to hasten end times.
Zarqawi published "communiqués detailing the fulfillment of specific predictions" found in a famous book on jihad and end times called, ''A Call to a Global Islamic Resistance'' by Abu Musab al Suri.  His successor, [[Abu Omar al-Baghdadi|Al-Baghdadi]], took "the fulfillment of apocalyptic portents even more seriously".<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:224>[[#JSISISCFB2015|Stern, ''ISIS'' "The coming final battle",  2015]]: p.224</ref> 
According to Hassan Abbas,{{#tag:ref|"an expert on jihadi movements"|group="nb"}} at least part of ISIS's motivation in killing and otherwise provoking Shia is to "deliberately ... instigate a war between Sunnis and Shi'a, in the belief that a sectarian war would be a sign that the final times has arrived"; and also explains the ISIS [[Siege of Kobanî]]: "In the eschatological literature, there is reference to crisis in Syria and massacre of Kurds—this is why [[Kobanî#Syrian Civil War|Kobane]] is important."(The town of 45,000 was under siege by ISIS from September 2014 to January 2015.)<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:220-1>[[#JSISISCFB2015|Stern, ''ISIS'' "The coming final battle",  2015]]: p.220-221</ref>

Thus, "ISIS's obsession with the end of the world" helps explain its lack of interest in the "ordinary moral rules" of the temporal world, according to Jessica Stern.
If you are "participating in a cosmic war between good and evil", (and if everyone will be dead and then resurrected relatively soon anyway), pedestrian concerns about saving the lives of the innocent are of little concern.<ref name=JSISISCFB2015:224-5>[[#JSISISCFB2015|Stern, ''ISIS'' "The coming final battle",  2015]]: p224-225</ref>

=== Questions and criticism ===
Among the problems critics see with some of the concepts of, and attention given to, the eschatology of Islam, are its effect on the socio-economic health of the Muslim world, the basis of the scripture (particularly the hadith) dealing with end times, and the rational implausibility of some of the theological concepts such as resurrection of the dead.

[[Mustafa Akyol]] criticizes the current focus of the Muslim community on apocalypticism and the use of the forces of the [[Dajjal]] to explain stagnation in the Muslim world in the past two centuries vis-à-vis the West (and now East Asia). He argues that if supernatural evil is believed to be the cause of the problems of Muslims, then practical solutions such as "science, economic development and liberal democracy" will be ignored in favor of divine intervention.<ref name="Akyol-NYT-3-10-16">{{cite news |last1=Akyol |first1=v |title=The Problem With the Islamic Apocalypse |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/opinion/the-problem-with-the-islamic-apocalypse.html?auth=login-email&login=email |access-date=13 September 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=3 October 2016}}</ref><ref name="pew-Muslims-2012"/> (On the other hand, a sahih hadith reports Muhammad saying that "If the Final Hour comes while you have a shoot of a plant in your hands and it is possible to plant it before the Hour comes, you should plant it.")<ref>{{cite web |title=Al-Adab Al-Mufrad. 27 Attending to this world. Hadith 479 |url=https://sunnah.com/urn/2304770 |website=Sunnah.com |access-date=2 May 2022}}</ref>

Western scholars ([[William McCants]], Jane Smith, Yvonne Haddad, [[Jean-Pierre Filiu]]) agree that the apocalyptic narratives are strongly connected to the early jihad wars against the [[Byzantine Empire]] and civil wars against other Muslims. McCants, writes that the ''fitan'' ("tribulations") of the minor and lesser signs come from the ''fitan'' of the early Islamic civil wars ([[First Fitna]] (656–661 CE), [[Second Fitna]] (c. 680/683–c. 685/692 CE), [[Third Fitna]] (744–750/752 CE)), where Muhammad's companions ([[Sahabah]]) and successor generations ([[Tabi'un]] and [[Tabi' al-Tabi'in|Taba Tabi'in]]) fought each other for political supremacy.<ref name="McCants-BI-2014"/> "Before and after each tribulation, partisans on both sides circulated prophecies in the name of the Prophet to support their champion. With time, the context was forgotten but the prophecies remained."<ref name="McCants-BI-2014"/>  Smith and Haddad also write that "the political implications of the whole millennial idea in Islam, especially as related to the understanding of the ''mahdi'' and the rise of the 'Abbasids in the second Islamic century, are very difficult to separate from the eschatological ones."<ref name="JISYYHIU1981:70">[[Islamic eschatology#JISYYHIU1981|Smith & Haddad, ''Islamic Understanding'',  1981]]: p. 70.</ref> They also argue that it's "difficult to determine whether" Muḥammad "actually anticipated the arrival" the ''Mahdi'' as "an eschatological figure" –  despite the fact that "most of the traditions about the ''Mahdi'' are credited to  Muḥammad."<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:70/> Filiu has also stated that "the apocalyptic narrative was decisively influenced by the conflicts that filled Islam's early years, campaigns and jihad against the Byzantine Empire and recurrent civil wars among Muslims."<ref name="JPFAiI2011:28">[[Islamic eschatology#JPFAiI2011|Filiu, ''Apocalypse in Islam '',  2011]]: p. 28.</ref> Consequently, the reliability of hadith on end times has been questioned.

Skepticism of the concept of the [[resurrection]] of the dead has been part of both "the compatriots" of Muhammad and the "rational and scientifically-infused" inhabitants of the contemporary world.
<blockquote>The fact of the resurrection of the body has been of continuing importance to Muslims and has raised very particular questions in certain circles of Islamic thought, such as those reflected in the later disputations between philosophy and theology.{{#tag:ref|  See al-Ghazali's Tahafut al-falasifa, Problem XX, "Refutation of their Denial of the Resurrection of Bodies" (tr. S. A. Kamali, [1963]), in which al-Ghazali replies point by point to objections raised by Muslim philosophers to the fact of physical resurrection. This position was countered by Ibn Rushd in his Tahafut al-tahafut, in which he contends that only the soul survives the death of the physical body.|group="nb"}} It was not really a point of issue for early Islam, however, and bodily resurrection has never been seriously denied by orthodoxy. It is, as many have observed, basic to the message of God as proclaimed by Muhammad and articulated clearly by the Qur'an,{{#tag:ref| Ash'ari theology taught that the resurrection of the body is not an element of faith common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but that it was revealed in its full understanding for the first time in the Qur'an.|group="nb"}} especially in those passages in which the contemporaries of Muhammad are presented as having scoffed or raised doubts. It continues to be, ... a point of conviction for many of the contemporary interpreters of Islam to a world in which a rational and scientifically-infused populace continues to raise the same eyebrows of skepticism as did the compatriots of the Prophet.<ref name="JISYYHIU1981:163">[[#JISYYHIU1981|Smith & Haddad, ''Islamic Understanding'',  1981]]: p.163</ref></blockquote>

Early skeptics being quoted in the Quran as saying: "Are we to be returned to our former state when we have become decayed bones? They say, that would be a detrimental return!" (Q79: 10–12).<ref name="JISYYHIU1981:1">[[Islamic eschatology#JISYYHIU1981|Smith & Haddad, ''Islamic Understanding'',  1981]]: p.1.</ref>