Editing Islamic eschatology (section)

=== 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>