Series | Bibliotheca Trimalchionis Tertia
Volume 2 | Monograph | The End and the Other
The End and the Other
Arab-Islamic Apocalyptic Production in the Eschatological Fervour of the Late Antique Near East (7th-9th Centuries)
open access | peer reviewed- Francesco Furlan - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
Abstract
This book analyses the eschatological productions, both Christian and Muslim, written in the two centuries after the birth of Islam. In works such as the Syriac apocalypses of Pseudo-Methodius and Pseudo-Ezra the sudden expansion of Muslim troops was mainly perceived by Eastern Christians as an apocalyptic trial, a sign of the End of Time. On the Muslim side, the main eschatological collection, the Kitāb al-Fitan by Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād (d. 843), shows the existence of a vital apocalyptic production which rose in correspondence to times of internal and external strife. This work wishes to survey some of the main themes common to both of these eschatological productions (such as the apocalyptic depiction of the enemy, the development of messianic figures, the role of Jerusalem in the end-time, etc.); the use of a comparative perspective bears a fundamental theoretical contribution, by highlighting the presence of direct references between the different traditions, but also by underlining the common processes of eschatological production and development. Some final remarks deal with the contemporary use of these traditions, made by both Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, who look for a prophesied roadmap to read the current world events.
Keywords Comparative world rhetoric • Literary theory • Persian poetry • Iranian studies • Middle East studies • History of linguistics • Persian language
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-804-0 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-804-0 | ISBN (PRINT) 978-88-6969-817-0 | Published July 29, 2024 | Accepted March 6, 2024 | Submitted June 27, 2023 | Language it
Copyright © 2024 Francesco Furlan. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
