Isaac Hasson. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Volume 3, Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
Qurʾanic Appellations of the Day of the Last Judgment
The most frequently occurring terms that refer to the last judgment in the Meccan suras are, as mentioned above, “day of resurrection” (yawm al-qiyama, seventy times in Meccan and Medinan suras) and “day of judgment” (yawm al-din, thirteen times: Q 1:4; 15:35; 26:82; 37:20; 38:78; 51:12; 56:56; 70:26; 74:46; 82:15, 17, 18; 83:11; and four times without yawm, Q 51:6; 82:9; 95:7; 107:1). In the Medinan suras, the dominant terms are “the last day” (al-yawm al-akhir, twenty-six times: Q 2:8, 62, 126, 177, 228, 232, 264; 3:114; 4:38, 39, 59, 136, 162; 5:69; 9:18, 19, 29, 44, 45, 99; 24:2; 29:36; 33:21; 58:22; 60:6; 65:2) and al-akhira (115 times). This last term, however, is mostly used for “the life to come,” “the last dwelling.” Some exegetes explain this term as “the mansion of the last hour” (dar al-saʿa al-akhira, Nasafi, Tafsir, ad Q 6:32) or “the up-raising, resurrection, paradise, hell, reckoning and balance” (… al-akhira… ay al-baʿth wa-l-qiyama wa-l-janna wa-l-nar wa-l-ḥisab wa-l-mizan, Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, ad Q 2:4).
The “day of resurrection” (yawm al-qiyama) is also termed al-yawm al-akhir, “since it is the last day and there is no day after it” (Ṭabari, Tafsir, i, 271).
Many terms or locutions appear in the Qurʾan that are explained by the majority of exegetes as synonymous with yawm aldin. The following are the most important of these designations: “the hour” (al-saʿa, thirty-five times: Q 6:31, 40; 7:187; 12:107; 15:85; 16:77; 18:21, 36; 19:75; 20:15; 21:49; 22:1, 7, 55; 25:11; 30:12, 14, 55; 31:34; 33:63; 34:3; 40:46; 41:47, 50; 42:17, 18; 43:61, 66, 85; 45:27, 32; 47:18; 54:1, 46; 79:42); “dreadful day” (yawm ʿaẓim, Q 6:15; 10:15); “the day of anguish” (yawm al-ḥasra, Q 19:39); “barren day” (yawm ʿaqim, Q 22:55; “since after it there will be no night,” cf. Ṭabari, Tafsir, i, 272); “the day of the upraising” (yawm al-baʿth, Q 30:56); “the day of decision” (yawm al-faṣl, Q 37:21; 44:40; 77:13, 14, 38; 78:17); “the day of reckoning” (yawm al-ḥisab, Q 38:16, 26, 53; 40:27) and “the day when the reckoning will be established” (yawma yaqumu l-ḥisabu, Q 14:41); “the day of encounter” (yawm altalaq, Q 40:15); “the day of the imminent” (yawm al-azifa, Q 40:18) and “the imminent” (al-azifa, Q 53:57); “the day of invocation” (yawm al-tanadi, Q 40:32); “the day of gathering” (yawm al-jamʿ, Q 42:7; 64:9); “the day of the threat” (yawm al-waʿid, Q 50:20); “the day of eternity” (yawm al-khulud, Q 50:34); “the day of coming forth” (yawm al-khuruj, Q 50:42); “the terror” (al-waqiʿa, Q 56:1; 69:15); “the day of mutual fraud” (yawm al-taghabun, Q 64:9); “the indubitable” (al-ḥaqqa, Q 69:1, 2, 3; see TRUTH ); “the clatterer” (al-qariʿa, Q 69:4; 101:1, 2, 3); “the great catastrophe” (al-ṭamma al-kubra, Q 79:34); “the blast” (al-ṣakhkha, Q 80:33); “the promised day” (al-yawm al-mawʿud, Q 85:2) and “the enveloper” (al-ghashiya, Q 88:1).
Exegetes add some expressions which are said to refer to the day of the last judgment: “[fear] a day when no soul (q.v.) shall avail another” (yawman la tajzi nafsun ʿan nafsin shayʾan, Q 2:123); “the day when some faces (see FACE ) are whitened, and some faces blackened” (yawma tabyaḍḍu wujuhun wa-taswaddu wujuhun, Q 3:106); “a day wherein shall be neither bargaining nor befriending” (yawmun la bayʿun fihi wa-la khilalun, Q 14:31); “the day when their excuses shall not profit the evildoers” (yawma la yanfaʿu al-ẓalimina maʿdhiratuhum, Q 40:52), or “a day when no soul shall possess aught to succor another soul” (yawma la tamliku nafsun li-nafsin shayʾan, Q 82:19). This list is far from exhaustive. Al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), for example, gives more than one hundred names or epithets designating yawm al-qiyama (Ghazali, Iḥyaʾ, vi, 161; Firuzabadi, Baṣaʾir, v, 416-21; Ibn Kathir, Ashraṭ al-saʿa, 83-4, citing ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ishbili’s Kitab al-ʿaqiba; ʿAwaji; al-Ḥayat al-akhira, i, 45-55.
Creating a Comprehensive Vision
The qurʾanic material on the last judgment is very rich and colorful but the allusions in the holy book do not provide a comprehensive picture of all of its details. As the various phases of the day of resurrection (yawm al-qiyama) are mentioned in different suras, sometimes clearly, sometimes metaphorically, but generally without an arranged description of these phases, there was a need to reconstruct the qurʾanic vision of this theme in order to provide a complete picture. Such a task was performed by a number of Muslim authors, who drew upon one or more of the following categories to assist them in their efforts at elaborating upon the qurʾanic material: exegetical literature (taf sir), ḥadith, prophetic biography (sira), ascetic literature (zuhd), the “tales of the prophets” (qiṣaṣ al-anbiyaʾ), material of Jewish and Christian origin (israʾiliyyat), and Ṣufi writings. These genres contributed to the evolution of a new branch in the Muslim religious literature dealing with the day of resurrection (yawm al-qiyama), including its preliminary signs (ashraṭ al-saʿa, cf. Q 47:18), detailed descriptions of its events, the last judgment, the intercession (q.v.) of the prophets and then the reward or punishment of each human being according to his or her behavior on earth. This branch is generally known as ahwal yawm al-qiyama (“dreads of the day of resurrection”). One of the oldest treatises dedicated to this topic is the Kitab al-Ahwal of Ibn Abi al-Duny (d. 281/894).
Time of the last judgment
The Qurʾan has a variety of allusions to the time of the day of judgment: (a) nobody, including the Prophet, can anticipate when it is expected to happen: only God knows its exact date (Q 7:187; 31:34; 33:63; 41:47; 43:85; 79:42-4); (b) “the hour” (alsaʿa) may be very close (Q 21:1; 33:63; 42:17; 54:1; 70:6-7; it is “as a twinkling of the eye or even nearer,” ka-lamḥi l-baṣari aw huwa aqrabu, Q 16:77; cf. 54:50); (c) it will occur suddenly (baghtatan, Q 6:31; 7:187; 12:107; 22:55; 43:66; 47:18). Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) gives a very detailed list of qurʾanic verses and traditions on this matter (Ashraṭ al-saʿa, 26-35; Wensinck, Handbook, s.v. s-w-ʿ).
Signs of the hour
A number of preliminary “signs of the hour” (ashraṭ al-saʿa) are enumerated in the Qurʾan. On many occasions, and more especially in the Meccan suras, the Qurʾan denotes signs that will presage and foretell the last judgment. Most of these signs are natural catastrophes and some of them appear collectively in Q 81:1-14: the sun (q.v.) will be darkened, the stars will be thrown down, the mountains will be set moving, the pregnant camels will be neglected, the savage beasts will be mustered, the seas will be set boiling (or will overflow), the souls will be coupled (with their bodies), the buried female infant will be asked for what sin she was slain, the scrolls (q.v.; of deeds, good and bad) will be unrolled, heaven will be stripped away, hell will be set blazing and paradise will be brought near. The mountains (will fly) like “tufts of carded wool” (Q 101:5) and graves will be overturned (Q 100:9).
Later Islamic literary genres add other signs like the rising of the sun from the west; the appearance of the Antichrist (q.v.; al-masiḥ al-dajjal, or simply al-dajjal); the descent from heaven of the Messiah ʿIsa b. Maryam (see JESUS ; some reports attest that al-mahdi al-muntaẓar is ʿIsa b. Maryam; Dani, Sunan, v, 1075-80) who will fight the Antichrist, break the crosses (of the Christians) and exterminate the pigs (yaksiru or yaduqqu l-ṣalib wa-yaqtulu l-khinzir; Dani, Sunan, 239-40, 242; Ṣibṭ Ibn al-Jawzi, Mirʾat, i, 582-5; Ṣ liḥ, Qiyama, i, 71-5); the appearance of the dabba (the reptile or the beast of burden) mentioned in Q 27:82 (ʿAbd al-Razzaq, Tafsir, ii, 84; Muslim, Ṣaḥiḥ, K. al-Fitan, n. 2901; Nuʿaym b. Ḥammad, Kitab al-Fitan, 401-5). Three countries (in the east, the west and Arabia) will sink, and a fire from ʿAdan will drive humankind to the gathering place (al-maḥshar). Gog and Magog (q.v.; Yaʾjuj and Maʾjuj) will attack the entire world, but will be eliminated near Jerusalem (q.v.; Nasaʾi, Sunan, vi, 424 ad Q 27:82 gives a list of ten signs including the qurʾanic ones; Gardet, Les grands problèmes, 262, n. 6). The literature of apocalyptic portents (fitan and malaḥim, Fahd, Djafr; id., Malḥama; Bashear, Apocalyptic materials, and the literature cited there; id., Muslim apocalypses) abounds in prophecies about wars predicting the last judgment. As an aside, modern Aḥmadi tafsir regards al-dajjal as representing the missionary activities of the western Christian peoples, and Yaʾjuj and Maʾjuj as representing their materialistic and political authorities (Tafsir Surat al-Kahf, 105).
The Resurrection
In Q 39:67-75, there is a detailed description of the events of the resurrection (al-qiyama, al-baʿth, al-maʿad or al-nushur; cf. Izutsu, God, 90-4). The entire earth will be grasped by God’s hand (q.v.) and the heavens will be rolled up in his right hand. The trumpet (al-ṣur) shall be blown and all creatures, including angels, will die, except those whom God wills. Then, it shall be blown again and they will be standing and looking on: “And the earth (q.v.) shall shine with the light of its lord (q.v.), and the book (q.v.) shall be set in place, and the prophets and witnesses (al-shuhadaʾ) shall be brought, and justly the issue be decided between them, and they not wronged. Every soul shall be paid in full for what it has wrought; and God knows very well what they do. Then the unbelievers shall be driven in companies into hell until, when they have come forth, then its gates will be opened… It shall be said, ‘Enter the gates of hell, do dwell therein forever!’ … Then those that feared their lord shall be driven in companies into paradise, until, when they have come forth, and its gates are opened, and its keepers will say to them: ‘… enter in, to dwell forever’ … And you shall see the angels encircling about the throne proclaiming the praise of their lord; and justly the issue shall be decided between them.…”
Such a description raises some questions in Islamic theology (the question of anthropomorphism [q.v.; tajsim]: God’s hand, his right hand; the questions of God’s justice that arise if the identity of believers and unbelievers is known) and provokes discussions in the eschatological literature, particularly about the identity of the creatures who will be exempted from dying after the first blow of the trumpet: the angel/angels Gabriel (q.v.; Jibril), Michael (q.v.; Mikaʾ il), Israfil, “the angel of death” (malak al-mawt), or God’s throne-bearers and the fair females (al-ḥur al-ʿ in, cf. Q 44:54; 52:20; 55:72; 56:22; Nasafi, Tafsir, iv, 66), or the martyrs (al-shuhadaʾ, cf. Q 3:169: qutilu fi sabili llai), or the prophets (possibly Moses [q.v.; Musa]?) or the immortal boys (wildanun mukhalladuna, Q 56:17; 76:19); and the interval of time between the two trumpet-calls (forty days, weeks, months or years; cf. Qurṭubi, Tadhkira, i 194-201). Since the ordering of events at this stage of the judgment day is not consistent and is sometimes even contradictory, many authors tried to arrange them (Ibn Kathir, Nihaya, i, 270-373; ʿAwaji, al-Ḥaya al-akhira). Following these sources, an attempt of arrangement of these supposed events is presented below.
(a) “The blowing of the trumpet” (al-nafkh fi l-ṣur). This is attested ten times in the Qurʾan (also nuqira fi l-naqur; naqur is attested once, at Q 74:8; al-naqur = al-ṣur; Firuzabadi, Baṣaʾir, v, 113). In the Qurʿan, the identity of the blower is not revealed. In all the verses dealing with al-nafkh fu l-ṣur, the verb appears in the passive tense. Traditions relate that the archangel Israfil is appointed to this task (Ibn al-Jawzi, Tabṣira, ii, 309-11). He will stand at the eastern or western gate of Jerusalem (Aliyaʾ; Suyuṭi, Durr, v, 339) or at “the rock of Jerusalem” (ṭakhrat bayt al-maqdis, Ṭabari, Tafsir, xvi, 183) and blow. After the first blowing, generally called nafkhat al-ṭaʿq, “whosoever is in the heavens and whosoever is in the earth shall swoon (ṣaʿiqa), save those whom God wills” (Q 39:68). The exegetes explain the verb ṣaʿiqa in this context as “to die” (mata, Lisan al-ʿArab, s.v. ṣ-ʿ-q; Nasafi, Tafsir, iv, 66; this meaning is peculiar to the usage of the tribes of ʿUman, cf. Ibn ʿAbbas [attr.], al-Lugha fi l-Qurʾan, 17). There were also discussions concerning the number of times the trumpet was blown. Most exegetes mention two, the blowing of the “swooning” (nafkhat al-ṣaʿq) and that of the resurrection (nafkhat al-baʿth). Some, drawing upon Q 27:87-8, add a third blowing, “the terrifying” (nafkhat al-fazaʿ, ʿAwaji, al-Ḥayat al-akhira, i, 189-97). There are also traditions attributed to Muḥammad that he will be the first to be resurrected, but will be surprised to see Moses holding God’s throne (Bukhari, Ṣaḥiḥ, vi, 451; Muslim, Ṣaḥiḥ, iv, 1844).
(b) The returning to life. It should be noted here that some believe that al-baʿth, the “returning to life,” understood as the “resurrection of the souls and bodies” (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, iii, 206), means the “corporal rising” from the graves (al-maʿad al-jismani, Safarini, Mukhtaṣar, 387).
(c) “The gathering” (al-ḥashr). Creatures, including humankind, jinn and animals, will be gathered (Q 6:38; 42:29; 81:5). Relying on Q 7:29 and 21:104, the exegetes explain that humankind will be gathered “barefoot, naked and uncircumcised” (ḥujatan ʿuratan ghurlan). The unbelievers will be gathered to hell prone on their faces (yuḥsharuna ʿala wujuhihim, Q 25:34; cf. 17:97). Al-Bukhari (d. 256/870; Ṣaḥiḥ, vi, 137) reports that Muḥammad replied to somebody who did not understand this situation, saying: “Will not the one who made the person walk on his feet in this world, be able to make him walk on his face on the day of resurrection?”
(d) “The standing” before God (al-qiyam, al-wuqif). All creatures, including angels and jinn, have to stand (cf. Q 78:38). The unbelievers will stand in the blazing sun, finding no shade anywhere (Q 56:42-3; 77:29-31).
(e) “The survey” (al-ʿarḍ, Q 11:18; cf. 18:48; 69:18). This term is likened in many sources to “a king surveying his army or his subjects.” Al-Razi (d. 606/1210) rejects this interpretation and prefers to interpret al-ʿarḍ as “the settling of accounts with, and the interrogation” (al-muḥasaba wa-l-musaʾala, Razi, Tafsir, xxx, 110).
(f) The personal books (kutub) or sheets (ṣuḥuf, ṣaḥaʾif al-aʿ mal) containing all the acts of each person will be laid open (Q 17:13; 52:2-3; 81:10). The one “who is given his book in his right hand” will enter paradise, but “whosoever is given his book in his left hand” will roast in hell (Q 69:19-37). Some are given their books behind their backs; they will invoke their own destruction (Q 84:10-1). In some cases, God will change the evil into good deeds (Q 25:70).
(g) The balances of justice (al-mawazina al-qisṭa) will be set up (Q 21:47). “Whosoever’s scales [of good deeds] are heavy, they are the prosperous [by entering paradise] and whosoever’s scales are light, they have lost their souls [by entering hell]” (Q 7:8-9; 23:102-3; cf. 101:6-9).
(h) The creatures will bear witness against themselves (Q 6:130). Their hands, legs, ears, eyes, tongues and skins will testify against them (Q 24:24; 36:65; 41:22; 75:14). The prophets will submit testimony against their peoples (Q 5:109). Jesus will be a witness against the misguided among the People of the Book (q.v., ahl al-kitab) — the Jews who believed that they had already crucified him and the Christians who believed that he is the son of God (Q 4:159).
(i) “The investigation” (al-musaʾala). God will interrogate the messengers and the peoples to whom they were sent (Q 7:6). The messengers will be interrogated about the response they received from people to their message (Q 5:109). The investigation will also include angels (Q 34:40-1).
(j) The intercession (shafaʿa) in favor of somebody will not be accepted that day except from the one to whom God has given permission (see Q 2:254; 7:53; 10:3; 20:109; 21:28; 74:48). The exegetes make a connection between al-kawthar (Q 108:1), a river in paradise and al-ḥhawḍ, Muḥammad’s private basin outside or inside paradise, from which believers will be invited to drink. Traditions stress the superiority of Muḥammad to all other prophets since he alone has been given this privilege (ʿAwaji, al-Ḥyat al-akhira, i, 277-530). P. Casanova (Mohammed, 19-20) hypothesized that the first Muslim generation believed that Muḥammad, the last prophet, had to pre-side over the last judgment and to serve as their advocate in the presence of God. Shiʿi literature states that later the shafaʿa was bestowed on the Prophet’s descendants, the imams (Bar-Asher, Scripture and exegesis, 180-9).
(k) A bridge (ṣiraṭ) will be set up above and across hell (Q 37:22-3) from one end to the other. Ḥadith literature adds very rich descriptions of this bridge and the manner in which different kinds of people will cross it. The sinners will slope downward into hell and the believers will enter paradise.
Some details cited above led the exegetes and other Muslim scholars to accept the doctrine of predestination since the identity of sinners and believers is known before doomsday (Q 74:31). But it is at the day of judgment (yawm al-din) that the fate (q.v.) of each creature is made explicit.
Explanation of Some Eschatological Terms
Some terms dealing with the last judgment raised problems, which the exegetes and lexicographers tried to solve. One of the early Meccan suras, Q 75, is called al-Qiyama (“The Resurrection”) because the word appears in its first verse. This term is generally explained by the lexicographers as yawm al-baʿth, yaqumu fihi l-khalqu bayna yaday al-ḥayy al-qayyum, “the day of returning to life, when all the creatures will rise before the ever-living, the one who sustains.” It seems that this word, qiyama, is not Arabic. Ibn Manẓur (d. 711/1311) cites in the Lisan al-ʿArab an anonymous tradition that suggests that qiyama is a borrowing from the Syriac/Aramaic qiyamatha. Al-Suyuṭ (d. 911/1505) repeats this assertion when he speaks about al-qayyum (Itqan, 172). The “first judgment” or al-qiyama al-ṣughra is supposed to be ʿadhab al-qabr, “the torment of the grave,” also termed the punishment of al-barzakh (purgatory), which includes the interrogation of the two angels, Munkar and Nakir. Many utterances attributed to Muḥammad and cited in the canonical corpus ascribe to the Jews the first allusions to ʿadhab al-qabr (Nawawi, Sharḥ, v, 85-6).
In Arabic, the root d-y-n (din) poses some difficulties since it has three different etymologies and, in consequence, different connotations: (I) religion; (2) custom, usage (al-ʿada wa-l-shaʾan); (3) punishment, reward (al-jazaʾwa-l-mukafaʾa; cf. Lisan al-ʿArab) or judgment (Ibn ʿAbbas. .. al-din: yawm ḥisab al-khalaʾiq wa-huwa yawm al-qiyama; cf. Razi, Tafsir, i, 29). This last connotation forms the basis of interpretations like the one — attributed to Qatada (d. ca. 117/735) — that explains yawm al-din in Q 1:4 as “the day on which God will judge humankind according to their acts” (yawm yadinu llahu l-ʿibada bi-aʿmalihim, ʿAbd al-Razzaq, Tafsir, i, 37). The dominant meaning of din in Arabic is, however, “religion, religious law, custom” (Gardet, Din; id., L’Islam, 29-32). It seems that the sense “judgment” and “custom” is borrowed from the Hebraeo-Aramaic usage, which has its roots in Akkadian (dinum, “judgment,” dayyanum, “judge”). On the basis of this root, the meaning of “sentence” is presumed. The title dayyanum was given in Akkadian to a judge, king or god. The dinati, “laws,” served as direction or guidance for the judges to pass sentence on each case (Encyclopaedia biblica, s.v. mishpaṭ). In view of this etymology, it seems that M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes (Mahomet, 449-58, especially 454-5) was correct when he translated yawm al-din as “the day when God gives a direction to each human being.”
The Place of the Last Judgment
The Qurʾan does not identify explicitly the place of the last judgment. The Companions of the Prophet (q.v.; ṣaḥaba), his Followers (tabiʿun) and later exegetes tried to find hints which could help to identify the precise location. For example, Q 57:13 was explained as referring to Jerusalem (Wasiṭi, Faḍaʾil, 14-6, no. 14-7) and Q 50:41 to the rock of Jerusalem (ibid., 88-9, no. 143-5). The need for a satisfactory answer caused the Muslims to search the traditions of Judaism and Christianity, since both allotted Jerusalem a dominant role in eschatology (q.v.) and considered it as the scene of the envisioned end of days (Prawer, Christian attitudes, 314-25). In this context, it is worth remembering that, at the beginning of the second/eighth century, Jerusalem was generally recognized in Muslim circles as the third holy place in Islam (Kister, You shall only set; Neuwirth, Sacred mosque). Later, there emerged traditions of Jewish or Christian origin where the connection was made between verses of the Qurʾan pertaining to the end of days and Jerusalem: “Nawf al-Bikali [the nephew of Kaʿb al-Aḥbar] reported to the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 65-85/685-705) that in a verse of the Bible, God said to Jerusalem (bayt almaqdis): ‘There are within you six things: my residence, my judgment place, my gathering place, my paradise, my hell and my balance (inna fi kitabi llahi l-munazzal anna llaha yaqulu: fika sittu khiṣalin, fika maqami wa-ḥisabi wa-maḥshari wa-jannati wanari wa-mizani) ’” (Wasiṭi, Faḍaʾil, 23).
The Umayyad regime openly encouraged this view because it gave them legitimization to move the Muslim center of worship from Medina (q.v.), the city of the Prophet, to Syria (q.v.), which includes Jerusalem: Muʿawiya b. Abi Sufyan (d. 60/680), the first Umayyad caliph, propagated the use of the term “land of ingathering and resurrection on judgment day” (arḍ al-maḥshar wa-l-manshar) with regard to Jerusalem (Wasiṭi, Faḍaʾil, introduction, 20). At that time, the Muslims did not see any harm in absorbing Jewish and Christian traditions (Kister, Ḥaddithu ʿan bani israʾil), particularly if the traditions reinforced the words of the Qurʾan or explained unclear matters. One of the oldest sources to preserve such material is the Tafsir of Muqatil b. Sulayman (d. 150/768; here it should be noted that ʿAbdallah M. Shaḥata, the editor of the Tafsir, chose to transfer from the text to the footnotes these and other traditions extolling Jerusalem, since “most of them are israʾiliyyat” [Muqatil, Tafsir, ii, 513-5], in spite of the fact that they were included in the body of the text of three out of the four manuscripts which he had consulted for his edition). Here are some examples of such traditions: “God will set his seat on the day of the resurrection upon the land of Jerusalem”; “Jesus is destined to descend from heaven in the land of Jerusalem”; “God will destroy Gog and Magog in Jerusalem”; “The gathering of the dead and their resurrection will be in the land of Jerusalem”; “The siraṭ (the narrow bridge over Gehenna) goes forth from the land of Jerusalem to the garden of Eden and hell” (see the English translation of these traditions in the appendix of Hasson, The Muslim view of Jerusalem). But this tendency of the early Islamic tradition to absorb Jewish and Christian material brought forth a reaction. The most vigorous representative of this reaction is Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), who attacked all the traditions connecting the resurrection day with Jerusalem (see his Qaʿida).
The Last Judgment in Some Previous Religions
The Qurʾan supposes that, in genuine Judaism and Christianity, the belief in al-akhira, the resurrection and punishment or reward, formed a basic part of the message of Moses (Musa) and Jesus (ʿIsa, Q 12:101; 19:33; 20:14-6; 40:42-3). The Muslims think that the Jews, after “having perverted words from their meanings” (Q 2:75; 4:46; 5:13, 41), removed the concept of the resurrection from the Bible (ʿAwaji, al-Ḥayat al-akhira, i, 116-23). Muslim tradition connects the punishment after death in the grave (ʿadhab al-qabr) to a Jewish source (Nawawi, Sharḥ, v, 85-6). It is therefore worth reviewing similar ideas in previous religions and in Islam.
Most of the signs of the hour (ashraṭ alsaʿa) appear in the Hebrew Bible and in rabbinic literature; these are known as ḥevlei mashiyyaḥ, “the tribulations preceding the coming of the Messiah” (Grossman, Jerusalem, 295-303). Some examples of the similarities between the qurʾanic and biblical descriptions of these events are: the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37; Yaʾjuj and Maʾjuj (Q 21:96) — the biblical Gog and Magog — “will swiftly swarm from every mound”; “signs of the hour” abound in Isa 24; and Isa 27:1, but especially 27:13, “… the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the lord in the holy mount of Jerusalem,” bring to mind al-ṣur or al-naqur, particularly in view of the Muslim explanation that al-ṣur is a horn (Tirmidhi, Ṣaḥiḥ, iv, 620; Abu Dawud, ii, 537), the traditional Jewish shofar. The traditions explaining that the gathering and the last judgment must be in Jerusalem have their origin, perhaps, in this verse and in the midrashim, the homiletic interpretations of the scriptures. The blowing of the trumpet, the day of the lord, “a day of darkness and of gloominess,” the earth which shall quake, the heavens which shall tremble, and the sun and the moon which shall be dark are mentioned in Joel 2. The gathering of all the heathen will be in the valley of Jeho shaphat: “for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about” (Joel 4:12; see also Amos 5:18-20; Zeph 1; Isa 66:16, 24). To explain the prevalence of such imagery, H. Gressmann (Ursprung) claimed one century ago that there circulated, among many ancient peoples in the epoch of the prophets of Israel, prophecies about disasters (earthquakes, fires and volcanoes…) which would destroy the world and about a paradise with rivers of milk, honey and fresh water.
In the Book of Daniel 12:2, which retained a Persian influence and was very popular in the first century of Islam since many Muslims wanted to know the exact date of the last judgment, there appears the idea of the resurrection and of everlasting life for some and everlasting shame and contempt for others. S. Shaked and W. Sundermann (Eschatology) very clearly show Zoroastrian and Manichean influences on eschatological material within Second Temple Judaism, Christianity and, later, on Islam. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes (Mahomet, 405) claimed that, in the period of the emigration (q.v.; hijra) to Medina, the qurʾanic verses stopped reporting about the punishment of sinners on earth and began to mention the last judgment. While a similar sequence has been suggested for the Hebrew Bible, there is no consensus on this matter among scholars of the Qurʾan.
In the New Testament, the Revelation of John contains many elements of the resurrection, but they do not resemble the qurʾanic scheme. Gibb (Mohammedanism, 26-7) is certain that the doctrine of the last judgment in the Qurʾan was derived from Christian sources, especially from the writings of the Syriac Christian Fathers and monks. Tor Andrae, who devoted considerable attention to possible Christian antecedents (see esp. Der Ursprung des Islams und das Cristentum), finds expression of the idea that nobody can determine the date of the last hour in Mark 13:32. Only God knows about that day or hour. Finally, many last judgment scenes appear, with some modifications, in early Christian apocalypses (Maier, Staging the gaze). Although the “beast” in Hermas vision 4, which represents a coming persecution, or the “leviathan” in Isaiah 27:1, which represents evil powers, are reminiscent of the dabba in Q 27:82 which became one of the “signs of the hour” (ashraṭ alsaʿa), Annemarie Schimmel correctly asserts that “the Koranic descriptions of Judgment and Hell do not reach the fantastic descriptions of, for example, Christian apocalyptic writing.”