Abstract

This study investigates the Jewish and Christian influences in the eschatological imagery of one of Islam's major sources of tradition literature, the compendium known as Al-Jami' al-Sahid h or Sahid h Muslim. The focus will be on five main areas: the intermediate state between death and resurrection, the second advent of Jesus Christ, the Antichrist, The Last Days, and Resurrection and Heaven. The broad methodology will be to analyse the language of the Qur'an without dogmatic refraction, and then compare that document's world view against the later Hadith. If a difference is noted, Jewish and Christian literature will be examined for provenance. Given the fluidity of the Judaisms and Christianities in the Muslim lands of the first three centuries of Islam and the resultant difficulty in identifying any belief as being peculiar to a particular source, attempts will only be made at identifying concepts as generally Jewish and/or Christian, and examples will be cited to support this contention. In conclusion, after a summary of the eschatological perspectives of the Qur'an and the Hadith, an attempt will be made to identify the specific genre of eschatology imaged in the latter.