Editing Islamic eschatology (section)

===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"/>