The Grave and The
Second Advent of Jesus Christ
The following is an
excerpt from Allama Ibn
Yusuf Khaleel Al-Corentini's
Master of Arts thesis in Religion. The chapters below are the Introduction, The
Grave, and The Second Advent of Jesus Christ. Other chapters in the thesis
include Al-Masih Al-Dajjal,
The Time of Turmoil and War, Resurrection and Heaven, and Summary and
Conclusion.
Only the hadith of Sahih Muslim (denoted throughout as SM) were evaluated for this
research paper. This thesis was submitted in 1997, and since then, the author
has, on the basis of research, been working on a revised version. The updated
thesis will be published in its entirety by one of the academic publishers.
*
* *
Chapter 1 – Introduction
The
Qur'an, like the Bible which it claims to confirm, has a well-developed
eschatology. But if it never tires of hammering away at the inevitability of
the Resurrection and the recompense to follow in the afterlife, it says nothing
or little indeed of the interim between death and resurrection, intercession,
and conditions that will presage the last things. This lacuna has instead been
filled by Islam's most important source after the Qur'an – the tradition
literature known as Hadith.
The
development and recognition of such a literature is not something unique to
Islam. Any religion, as it extends beyond its initial area of formation and
becomes more of a Gemeinde-Religiosität
(communal religion), is influenced and enhanced by political developments,
customs and traditions of the new peoples that enter its fold. Typical examples
are the development of the Persian and Greek elements in Judaism and the
distinctive Greco-Roman flavoring in Christianity. This
"bureaucratization" – to use the term coined by Weber for the transformation of tradition into
canonical recognition under the aegis of the ruling party (Weber 1995:224-226)
– occurred in Islam within its first
three centuries, when its seats of
learning were at Damascus and Baghdad.
Even
though there were several other precedent religious traditions upon which to
structure these new developments, much of the hadith came from Jewish and Christian material. This can be seen as
a natural result of the Qur'anic advice, for on two
occasions that document exhorts the
Muslims to ask the "People of Remembrance" (ahl al-dhikr) about the affairs that went on
in the past (16:43, 21:7). This is an obvious reference to the Jews and
Christians, albeit more indicative of the former, since the term is apparently
derived from the Hebrew zakhor
(remember), used in an imperative form in Deut. 25:17, 32:7, Isa. 44:21, Micah
6:5, etc.
Early
hadith literature also encouraged the
Muslims to "report from the Children of Israel, and there is nothing
objectionable in that" (Kister,
1980:215-239). After Muhammad's death,
when the Muslims of the first three centuries were confronted with matters upon
which the Qur'an was silent, they quite often relied on the perceptions of
their socially constructed universe, having access to Judeo-Christian material
from within Islam through converts, and from without through the centers of
Christian and Jewish learning in Syria and Babylonia, the successive seats of
the caliphate.
In this thesis, I intend to examine some of the eschatological
narrations in the collection of hadith
known as Al-Jami’ al-Sahih
(The Authentic Compendium) or Sahih Muslim, for
such Jewish and Christian source material. My selection of Al-Jami’ al-Sahih is not based on any
uniqueness of the work except that it is
seen by the vast majority of Muslims as being one of the only two absolutely
authentic collections of hadith. All
of the narrations which I propose to examine are to be found in many of the
other collections of hadith in both
the Sunni and Shia schools of thought. Considering the stipulated length and
time of this research, and that the Religionwissenschaft world is generally acquainted with Sahih Muslim, I do not see the need for any
exhaustive discourse on the work meriting a separate chapter. I will therefore
provide certain details in the remainder of this introduction which will be
structured under the following sub-headings:
-Significance of the Study
-Jewish and Christian Material in Islamic Traditions
-Muslim and his compendium
-Methodology of Investigation
Significance of the
Study
Traditional
Muslim research on Jewish and Christian influences on hadith does not meet the standards of Western scholarship since
none of the numerous works I have examined provide any supporting provenance.
Western scholarship on the same subject, pioneered by Geiger's 1834 thesis (Was hat Mohammed as dem
Judenthume auf-genommen?) is generally
rejected by the Muslim 'ulama since it is assumed that Westerners who criticize
the hadith have not had the benefit
of classical training and are not aware of the finer points of certain hadith sciences. This thesis will be
unique in that, to the best of my knowledge, it will be the first time that a
major hadith collection is being
examined for Jewish and Christian influences by someone with training in both
traditional Islamic and Western sciences.
The
scope of this research will be restricted to investigating the use of Jewish
and Christian material in the formation of tradition and doctrine. In focusing
on a primarily historical analysis however, I examine the claim made by some Islamicists that the Qur'anic
world view is different in many respects from the worldviews of later Islamic
thought (McDonough, 1955:3). By thus attempting to disentangle the earlier Qur'anic teachings from the later hadith, I hope to partially fulfill what Fazlur
Rahman designated as "a desideratum of the first
order" (1979:67).
Jewish and Christian
Material in Islamic Tradition
I
have already pointed out that the Muslims in the early centuries found
legitimization from within the Qur'an and the hadith for relating Judeo-Christian lore. This genre of narrations
was known as "Isra'iliyat",
and there is considerable evidence of the use of such material on the formation
of early Islamic thought. Nabia Abbot places the
major influence from the Jewish area of beliefs, and states that because of
this, the Islamic traditions came to resemble the Mishna
more than any other sacred literature of the People of the Book (1957: 2.8).
Initially
Isra'iliyat,
as the term suggests, was given to any story or event transmitted from an
Israelite source – Israelite here derived from the other name of Jacob, and the implication being that the material came from
his descendants – the children of Israel (el-Dhahabi,
1970: 586). As with any other narrations, they were classified into one of
three main classifications:
"true", "false"
or "weak" – the first two terms being clear in their
indication, and the last showing that a narration could, if supported by other
proofs, be deemed acceptable (Yunus:1970:574).
It
seems apparent that the Muslims began to imbibe the Judeo-Christian lore on
such a large scale that a counter-hadith
was made to negate the license given by "Relate from the Children of
Israel and there is no objection in that." Instead of the former
permission given by him, the Prophet is now made to reject the Jewish
narrations as shown in the following hadith:
Umar said to the
Prophet: We hear several tales from the Jews which we like; may we write them
some of them down? Whereupon the Prophet replied: Do you wish to rush to
perdition as did the Jews and Christians? I have brought you white and clean
hadiths." (Goldziher,
1971:2.131).
If
there had been an early period of symbiosis between the Muslims and the other
People of the Book, this relationship deteriorated, and soon the term Isra'iliyat evolved to indicate any material that was
regarded as folkloric from a non-Muslim source, and then to anything that was
considered seditious to Islamic belief (Kubaisi,
1994:48). Since Isra'iliyat has acquired a pejorative
connotation, and since such terminology has no place in objective research, I
prefer to use the neutral "Jewish and Christian influences"; this too
is because my examination for probable sources will not only be in the
folklore, but in the canonical scriptures as well.
Muslim and His
Compendium
The
scholars report that Muslim b. al-Hajjaj b. Muslim
al-Qushayri died in 261/875. They are not sure of his
date of birth, however, and tentatively put it at 206/821 (SSM 1.31). He
travelled to all the major centers of learning and studied under the most
renowned scholars of his day, including Ahmad b. Hanbal,
Ishaq b. Rahawaih, and al-Bukhari (ibid. 1.27ff.). He is one of the few scholars to
be considered an authority on ‘ilm al-‘ilal and wrote a book
on the subject. His most famous work, however, is al-Jami’ al-Sahih,
also known as Sahih Muslim.
The
work, along with that of al-Bukhari, is considered as one of the two truly
authentic sets of hadith (pl. ahadith), and it
is said the Muslim scholars are in total agreement that whatever is in the two
is absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt (Malakhatir,
1994:85).
This
claim, despite its wide acceptance, does not stand up to investigation. As
shown by Hassan ‘Abd al-Manan
(1997:169ff.) several of the most prominent scholars found faults in the work,
among them al-Daraqutni, Abu'l
Fadl b. Shuhaid, al-Hakim,
al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and ibn
Hazm.
There
is very little difference between Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari. Muslim we are told, accepted a hadith chain as complete if it could be
established that the narrators could have met each other, whereas al-Bukhari insisted on proof of their actually having met (SSM
1:47). In terms of arrangement, Muslim preferred to put each hadith and its different chains under a
specific heading, while al-Bukhari could relate the
same hadith in several different
parts of his collection (ibid.).
The
majority of opinion seems to favor al-Bukhari as the
better of the two, but Ibn Khaldun
reports that the Maghribi scholars preferred Muslim
(1958:2.459). This is because his work is free from admixtures of material that
is not sound, and because throughout he adheres to his established criteria of
authenticity, whereas al-Bukhari occasionally lapsed
in this regard (ibid.).
Imam
Muslim claimed to have analyzed 300000 ahadith before selecting, according to strict criteria for
authenticity, 7571 of them. This count represents the different chains of
transmission, and so if the same text is transmitted by two different chains,
it counts as two ahadith.
Counting the texts alone there are 3033 ahadith (al-Salah, 1987:101n), and in some of the later
editions, the numbering follows this pattern. This is the system that will be
used in my thesis. The reference text will be the five volume edition published
in 1987 by ‘Izz al-Din Publishers in Beirut, with
notes and corrigenda by Musa Shahin al-Ashin and Ahmad ‘Umar Hashim.
The
eschatological hadith are not all in
one chapter, but are scattered throughout the collection. Since many of them
are lengthy and contain material to which we will have to refer on several
occasions, we identify them by number in the course of our research, and then
narrate them in full in an appendix. Each number shall be preceded by 'SM' to
avoid confusion between the ahadith of our source text and any other hadith or quotation that we may make. Qur'anic verses shall generally be prefixed by a 'Q' unless
there is some other indication that the quote is from the Qur'an.
Methodology
Several
considerations need be taken into account when formulating a methodology. It
may be argued that there were other sources for Islamic traditions (Rahman, 1979:85-99), or that Jewish and Christian elements
themselves reflect the development of foreign ideas within Judaism and
Christianity, and that the ultimate origin of a tradition may therefore be from
outside the fold of those two religions. In view of the Qur'anic
verses and hadith mentioned earlier,
I contend that this research is concerned only with immediate
influences, and if they represent filtration of earlier beliefs, they
nonetheless came into Islam under the mantle of Judeo-Christian tradition. This
research too will seek distinctive aspects of Judeo-Christian tradition,
thereby avoiding the aspect of doubtful provenance.
Establishing
whether a hadith is of Qur'anic or Judeo-Christian origin is not always an easy
task. Islam's moral and spiritual outlook is similar if not the same, and to
ascribe a Jewish and/or Christian source to a hadith simply on the premise that the former antedates the latter
is open to challenge. For this reason, I shall not examine material that may
present this difficulty. Rather, on each of the topics to be covered, I have
selected hadith which I will compare
against the Qur'an to establish either a contrast between the two or the Qur'an
not dealing with the subject. Since the Qur'an declares that it has not left out anything needed for religious
guidance (6:38, 16:89), this maximalistic claim
provides an argumentum e silentio against certain hadith, and I shall refer to the argument by this name during the
course of this research.
Once
a hadith, by the above methods is
proven to be disharmonious with the Qur'an, the next step will be to examine
the Jewish and Christian sources for a possible provenance. Among the sources I
will consider are The Bible, Pseudepigrapha and
Apocrypha, the Babylonian Talmud and the Midrashim. There is no need to provide
proof of the first three antedating the Qur'an. The Babylonian Talmud was
redacted in the first half of the sixth century (Lightstone,
1988:10), and therefore also predates the Qur'an and hadith. Other Midrashim will be dated as they are referenced.
Since
most Qur'an translations are influenced by the dogmatic positions of the
various translators, I shall use my own translations throughout unless where
specified. Having thus elucidated the area of research and methodology, I have
structured the thesis as outlined at the beginning of this document.
Chapter 2 – The Grave
The
overwhelming amount – if not all – of the hadith
data on death, the grave and the interim between death and resurrection is
remarkably similar to the Hibbut ha-Kever and Intermediate
State of Jewish and Christian lore. In this chapter, we will examine the
subject that S.G.F. Brandon notes was "probably the strangest and the most
notable development of Muslim faith and practice"(1967:147). The lack of
harmony between the Qur'an and Hadith
on the subject led him to opine that the latter "certainly presupposes a
view of the condition of death which differs from that which Muhammad appears
to have held…” (ibid.). Several names have been given
to this genre of Muslim writings – among them ahwal al-Qabr (the conditions in the grave)
and adhab al-Qabr
(punishment of the grave).
The Qur'anic View of Death
Every
soul, we are told in Q3:185, must taste of death. The
death is seen by the Qur'an as a barrier that does not allow any possibility of
return to the world of the living until the day when all the souls will be
resurrected: "… behind them is a barrier (barzakh) until the day when they are
resurrected."(Q23:100) The later muhadithun gradually added to the concept of the word barzakh until it
came to be understood as simultaneously the time and place wherein every
individual must wait between death and resurrection (Smith & Haddad,
1981:8). This development is evidenced by there being no references to barzakh in the
canonical traditions (Eklund, 1941:22), even though,
as noted earlier, they contain a vast amount of material on the intermediate
state.
The
probable authenticity of the hadith
about barzakh
can only be established if it can be proven that death (Mawt) – according to the Qur'an – is a
condition wherein there is some form of consciousness and perception.
Therefore, we will examine the usage of this word, which with its derivative
forms, occurs 165 times throughout the Qur'an ('Abd
al-Baqi, 1982: 678-80). The following verses are
examples from which we can attempt to form our answer:
How can you reject
Allah seeing that you were dead, and He gave you
life, then He will cause you to die, and will bring you again to life, and to
Him will you return. (2:28)
Thou bringeth the living out of the dead, and the dead out of
the living… (3:27)
The human says: What!
When I am dead, shall I be raised up alive? (19:66)
They say: When we die
and become dust and bones, shall we be resurrected? (23:82; 37:16; 56:47)
Truly you cannot make
the dead hear… (27:80, 30:52)
Nor are the living
equal with the dead. Allah can make those whom He wishes listen. But you cannot
make those who are in the graves hear. (35:22)
Even if We did send unto them angels, and the dead did speak unto
them… they are not the ones to believe. (6:111)
Those who listen to
be sure will accept; As to the dead, Allah will
resurrect them; then will they be returned to Him. (6:36)
Do they not see that
Allah who created the heavens and the earth and never tired from their creation
is able to give life to the dead? Indeed, He has power over all things. (46:33)
These are things
dead, lifeless. They have no perception of when they will be raised up. (16:21)
Can the person who
was dead, to whom We gave life and a light whereby
s/he can walk among human beings be like the person who is in the depths of
darkness, from which s/he can never come out? (6:122)
Say: It is Allah who
gives you life and gives you death, then He will
gather you together for the Day of Judgment about which there is no doubt.
(45:26)
Then on the Day of
Judgment will you be resurrected. (23:16)
From
the above verses, a singular unequivocal image manifests itself: death is the
opposite of life; the dead, devoid of perception, cannot speak, nor can they
hear. They have no understanding of what is happening around them since they
are in the depths of darkness. Only with the resurrection on the Day of
Judgment will they be returned to consciousness and life to receive their
recompense.
This
view of the Qur'an then is not unlike the predominant conception of death in
some of the earlier books of the Tanakh, as is shown
from:
The dead in Sheol are remembered no more, they are cut off from God's
hand. (Ps. 88:5)
They lie in dark
places, in the deep, their thoughts perish. The dead praise not the Lord,
neither any that go down into silence. The grave cannot praise Thee, death
cannot celebrate Thee, they that go down into the pit, cannot hope for thy truth.
(Isa. 38:18)
As
far as the punishment to come, the Qur'an is also quite specific that any
postmortem chastisement will only occur after resurrection and reckoning. This
is evidenced by the following verses:
And let me not be in
disgrace on the day when they will be resurrected, the day when neither wealth
nor progeny will prevail, but only the person who has come to Allah with a
sound heart. To the righteous the Gardens will be brought, and to the
evildoers, the fire will be made to appear. (26:87-91)
When the sun is
folded up, and the stars fall, and the mountains vanish… when the scrolls are
laid open, when the world on high is unveiled, when the blazing fire is kindled
to its fullest, and when the garden is brought near, then each soul shall know
what it has brought forward. (81:1-14)
The
dead then have no awareness whatsoever, nor is any questioning directed towards
them while they are in the graves, for everything is in abeyance until the
final collective resurrection when dreadful cosmological imbalances will occur,
and judgment and sentencing will take effect. Martyrs, however, enjoy a special
status with their Lord, and because of their consciousness – albeit on a
different dimension – are not regarded as dead. This is clearly shown from the
following verses:
Do not say of those
who are slain in the path of Allah that they are dead; nay, they are alive but
you cannot perceive this. (2:154)
Think not of those
who are slain in the path of Allah as dead; Nay, they
live finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord. (3:169)
Two
verses of the Qur'an describe the state of the persons at death, when the
angels take the lives of the righteous and the evildoers. Of the former, the
Qur'an describes the situation as one of tranquility, wherein the dying persons
are told: "Peace be
on you! Enter the garden because of the good that you did in the
world"(16:32). Since the emphasis throughout the Qur'an is that the
entry to Paradise does not occur until after the resurrection, the meaning of
verse 16:32 is simply to express that the believer greets death, or is greeted
by the angels in a manner truly indicative of the Lord's pleasure, and that the
experience of death is not a fearful one.
For
the rejecters of faith, however, the situation is quite the opposite:
If Thou couldst see when the angels take the souls of the
unbelievers; they smite their faces and their backs saying: Taste the penalty
of the blazing fire. (Q8:50)
Since
the casting into the fire will not occur until after the final judgment, the
meaning of the verse is to indicate that the unbeliever dies in a state of
terror, knowing that s/he did not do good deeds to warrant entry into Heaven,
and that now there is no opportunity to return and change things. The immediate
feeling is tantamount to a hellish torment, and from the verse it would appear
that at the actual experience of leaving the world of the living, there is some
sort of punishment inflicted – pain that can only be felt by the living, for
since the dead cannot hear, speak, or otherwise perceive, there would be no
point in the angels administering any immediate postmortem castigation.
Several
of the traditionists, in an effort to find scriptural vouchsafement
for their narrations, cited Qur'anic verses that
apparently contradict what we have just proven. Smith and Haddad identify these
verses as: 6:93, 71:25, 40:46, 8:52, 9:102, 14:32, 25:21, 32:21, 40:11, 47:29,
and 52:47 (1981: 32, 208). We shall limit our examination to the first three,
since only by the most forced and transparent eisegesis
can the others be construed as substantiating the traditionist argument.
Verse 6:93:
Who is more wicked that the one who invents a lie against Allah, or
says that "I have received inspiration" when he has received none, or
one who says: "I can reveal the like of what Allah has revealed." If
you could see how the wicked do fare at the flood of confusion at death! The
angels stretch forth their hands saying: "Get yourselves
out of this (predicament). This day you shall receive your reward – a penalty of shame, for you used to tell lies against Allah, and
scornfully to reject His signs."
In
translating the above verse, Yusuf Ali (YA:319f.), basing his translation on
the dogmatic refraction of the traditional exegeses, has opted for the
translation of "Akhriju
anfusakum" as "Yield up your
souls" instead of my rendering of "Get yourselves out of this
(predicament)." The angels, however, take the souls of the humans (Q8:50);
the latter have no choice in the matter. Ordering the humans to give up their souls
therefore, is meaningless if taken in concord with the theme and language of
the Qur'an.
The
penalty of shame indicated in the verse is quite different to the punishment of
the fire they are supposed to undergo in Hell. The earlier part of the verse tells
us that these people claimed divine properties by stating that they could
produce the like of what Allah has revealed. For such people, the Qur'an
clearly states that their punishment will be on a particular day:
And if you are in
doubt about that which we have revealed to our servant, then produce a sura like it… And if you cannot do it, and ye surely
cannot, then fear the Fire whose fuel is humans and stones, which is prepared
for those who reject faith. (Q2:23-24)
Verse
6:93 then is not an indication of any form of punishment in the grave, but
rather warns of a pain that is inflicted in the last stages of life immediately
prior to the taking of the soul, i.e., in the state of dying. The malefactors
claimed to be divine; now they have to die like all other mortals, and then be
forgotten, suffering the ignominy of being relegated to becoming bones and
dust. From their positions of pride and false claims, they now face the harsh
reality so succinctly versified by 'Adi b. Hatim:
After all their
prosperity, their royal estate and their dominion, they vanished into graves
yonder: Then they became like dry leaves, which are swept away by the east wind
and by the west. (Bevan, 1904:21)
Verse 71:25:
Because of their
sins, they were drowned, and were made to enter the fire. And they found none
to help them in place of Allah.
If
the above verse is treated atomistically, it could
give the impression that the entry into the fire was immediate upon their
drowning. The Qur'an, however, states on several occasions that the consignment
to the fire will only be after sentencing on the Day of Judgment – as in 52:13,
29:25 and 26:87-91. The most explicit reference is probably 26:87-91, which
read thus:
And let me not be in
disgrace on the Day when they will be resurrected –
The Day wherein
neither wealth nor progeny will prevail
But only the one who
comes to Allah with a sound heart
To the righteous the
garden will be brought
And to those of evil,
the fire will appear.
Understood
in light of the foregoing then, verse 71:25 therefore indicates that since at
the time of their death, the people of Noah were still rejecting God, they died
as those who on the Day of Judgment would have to enter the fire.
Verse 40:46:
They will be exposed
to the Fire morning and evening,
And on the day of the
Hour, (it will be said): "Cast the people of Pharoah
into the severe penalty."
This
is perhaps the strongest argument for the proponents of Qur'anic
sanction for punishment in the grave (Shawkani, 1993:
4:702). The verse gives the impression that there is a chronological order of
events and that before the Day of Judgment, the people of Pharoah
will be exposed to torment in the morning and evening. The exegetes, however,
explained the verse in several ways, but in following the traditional method,
did not employ a fully thematic approach to understanding the verse. Some
ventured the explanation that, as is quite frequent in Arabic literature, the
sequence of the actions of exposure and casting does not require the order
implied in the literal reading of the verses. The meaning, if taken vis a vis other
verses, would be:
And on the Day of the
Hour, (it will be said): "Cast the people of Pharoah
into the severe penalty; they will be exposed to the Fire morning and evening
(ibid.)
That
this position is correct is evident if we consider the subsequent verses, which
read:
Behold, they will
dispute with each other in the Fire. The weak ones (who followed) will say to
those who had been arrogant: "We but followed you: Can you then take (on
yourselves) from us some share of the fire?" Those who had been arrogant
will say: "We are all in this (Fire)! Truly Allah has judged between his
servants!" (Q40:47-47; Trans. YA)
The
last sentence indicates that the Fire to which they are exposed is one that has
come about after Allah's judgment – which as the Qur'an never fails to remind
us, is after the Final Hour, the Day of Reckoning. To further underline the
matter, the Qur'an states:
He will go before his
people on the Day of Judgment and lead them into the fire. And base indeed is
the place to which they are led! (11:98)
We
find, therefore, that from a thematic approach, the Qur'an is insistent that
the punishment and placement in the fire will occur only after the Judgment. It
is impossible then, for Pharoah and his people to be
exposed to it before the final resurrection and reckoning. It is quite
significant that in the section on Qur'anic exegesis,
Sahih Muslim does not contain any hadith to explain the verses which the
traditionists use to bolster their position. This seems to be telling
evidence that the use of Qur'anic verses to support
the theory was developed over a period of time, and that Imam Muslim either did
not accrue any weight to the claims of proof from the Qur'an, or that
contemporaneous traditions did not meet his criteria of acceptability.
The Judeo-Christian
Views on Life in the Intermediate State
If
some verses from the Bible point to death being a state of oblivion, as do Ps.
6:5, 88:5, 115:17, Isa. 38:18, Eccl. 9:5, others indicate a different vision.
The dead were buried with their kin as is evident from several different
instances, such as Genesis 25:8, 1 Kings 2:10, 2 Kings 11:43 etc. The normative
practice was to inter the dead in the family tomb, and only Rachel (Genesis
35:19-20) was not buried in this manner. The family tomb, as Simcha Raphael notes, is the central symbol for
understanding the early Biblical understanding of the hereafter (1994:45). The
motivation of this emphasis on burial with the family members is not solely out
of sentimental respect for the physical remains, but rather "an assumed
connection between proper sepulture and the condition of happiness of the
deceased in the afterlife" (Brichto, 1994:26).
The works of Enoch 1(22:9), 4 Ezra (7:75), and Psalms (44:14,15)
are concerned in part with souls which are in some form of purification for
their way to heavenly Jerusalem.
Simcha Raphael's "Jewish Views of the
Afterlife" (1994) is a thorough dealing with Jewish lore on the Hibbut ha-Kever, and
he proves that it was a well-developed area dating back to the days of the
redaction of the Talmud. Even though some of the Midrashic
material may come from sources that post-date the founding of Islam, they are
based on earlier reports supposedly coming from the pre-Islamic rabbis as
outlined in Chapter 1.
Since
the early Christian ideas have their foundation in Jewish antecedents, the idea
of a conscious intermediate state appears quite early in the Patristic writings.
Evidence has been cited from various texts, among them 2 Macc. 12:39-45, Matt.
12:31, 1 Cor. 3:11-15, Isa. 66:15-16, Mal. 3:2-3 etc. Tertullian (c. 200 C.E.),
Lactantius (c. 306 C.E.), and Augustine (c. 398 C.E.)
all spoke about the matter (Chambers, 1902:27ff), showing that the good are in
a place of rest, whereas the evil are in a place of torment, all awaiting a
final judgment.
The
Hades of the Gospels corresponds exactly to the Barzakh of the Hadith, for as Chambers points out, the
translation of Hades into Hell is a mistake (1902, 44). From Luke 16:19-27, we
can see that Hades is divided into two parts: Abraham's Bosom for the righteous
(Luke 16:22) and another part for the damned, such as the rich man who was
there in anguish. Lazarus and the rich man were then to be seen as not in the
ultimate Heaven or Hell, but in the after-death state prior to the final
judgment.
The Hadith
The
33 narrations that we have selected for investigation are as follows: SM584,
590, 903, 904, 905, 920, 927, 928, 929, 931, 932, 933, 956, 963, 1887, 1913,
2372, 2663, 2723, 2866, 2867, 2868, 2869, 2870, 2871, 2872, 2873, 2874. The
main points that can be extrapolated are:
-Moses fought with
the angel of death.
-There is a postmortem
life review and questioning in the grave.
-The dead are
punished in their graves.
-The martyrs live in
heaven in the bodies of green birds.
These
points will be discussed as subheadings wherein the possible sources will be
explored.
Moses Fights with the
Angel of Death
As
Schwarzbaum observed, this legend has been extremely
problematic for the Muslim theologians and traditionists over the centuries –
because it diametrically opposes the very essence of obedience and submission
to Allah's will, which is best exemplified by the Prophets (1982:32). The
angels we have shown earlier (summa 13; Q16:32) greet the believers making the
death experience one of tranquility. The antecedents of the story then could
not have come from the Qur'an. Legends of Moses defying the angel of death are
detailed only in Jewish folklore, as reported by Ginzberg
(1938: 3:471), Rappoport (1966: 354ff.) and Bialik (1992:101-104). The gist of the story is that Samael, the angel of death, was ordered to take the soul of
Moses who apparently did not as yet want to meet his Creator. When the horrible
looking angel appeared before him then, he became very angry and struck him
with his staff, blinding him. Subsequently, God Himself promised to take Moses'
soul, and the latter then committed himself to this
unique honor.
There
is a functional consensus of opinion among the scholars that the Muslim version
is an adaptation of the Jewish antecedents. Bialik
and Ginzberg have identified the sources as being,
among others, early Petirat Moshe, Deuteronomy Rabbah 7:10, 11:5, 10, Tanhuma Va'et hannan 6, and Yalkut, Va'et hannan
821. Of these, Petirat Moshe and Deuteronomy Rabbah antedate the Islamic tradition literature, while the
others, although later, are based on older sources that precede Islam.
The Postmortem Life
Review and the Questioning in the Grave
Hadith SM2866 notes that
when someone dies, the angels give that person a review of her/his life and the
recompense s/he has merited. Muslim also reports that two angels perform this task.
This idea of questioning developed in stages, as shown by John MacDonald
(1965:27). Initially there was one angel, then this angel was identified as Ruman, then there were two angels who were unnamed, but by
the time of Tirmidhi, they were given the names of Munkar and Nakir (ibid.). If
according to the Qur'an, however, the dead cannot hear or speak, and are
totally without consciousness, then any concept of their interrogation must
come from sources other than that Book. In Taanit
11a, we find that "When a man departs to his eternal home, all his deeds
are shown before him and he is told: Such and such a thing you have done, in
such and such a place on that day." Macdonald also traces the idea to the
4th Century Apocalypse of Paul which states: "I looked and saw a man about
to die, and before he departed the world, there stood by him holy angels and
evil ones."
Hadith SM2870 and 2872 put
the number of the questioning angels at two: these angels are identified in
Jewish tradition as the angel of death and Dumah
(Shabbat 152b, Hagigah 5a and Berakhot
18b). Muslim does not identify them, and since the idea of disguised or
unidentified angels visiting the tomb is to be found in Pesikta
Rabbati 2:3 (dated at 6th/7th century: EJ: 13:335)
and Ketubbot 104a, John Macdonald suggests that the
later names of Munkar and Nakir
given to them in tradition may be taken to mean "unknown or
disguised." (1965:8). Whatever Arabic appellations and finishing touches
may have been given to the angels to totally Islamize the legend, it seems
evident that the sources are from the Apocalyptic, Talmudic, and Midrashic imagery.
The Dead are Punished in Their Graves
In
most of the hadith on the subject,
the questions and/or information are put in the mouth of a Jewish person. We
see therefore that 'A'isha supposedly claims that a
Jewish woman alleges that the dead are punished in the graves. Muhammad denies
it (in some traditions), while in others he says that
only the Jews will be punished. That Muhammad could deny that there is punishment
in the grave in one hadith, while in
another claim that he could hear the dead being punished, clearly points to the
development of a concept which initially did not find acceptance among those
who are more attentive to the Qur'anic view.
In
Berakoth 62a, it states that "just as the dead
are punished, so too the funeral orators are punished and those who answer
after them." The hadith took
this tradition and made it seem that because of the weeping of the mourners,
the dead are punished. Such a position, however, was clearly at odds with the Qur'anic statement that none shall bear the punishment of
another, and so we see 'A'isha being made to explain
the hadith in several different
narrations, some concordant with Berakoth 62a (cf.
SM931), and others with the obviously polemic stance that this ruling only
applies to the Jews (SM933, 927). Yet although only the Jews are supposed to be
punished, we find Muhammad supposedly praying and exhorting his followers to
pray to God to protect them (the Muslims) against the torment of the grave.
The Martyrs Live in
Heaven in the Bodies of Green Birds
As
we explained earlier, the Qur'an does not regard the martyrs as dead, and
states that they are with their Lord in a state that the living cannot perceive
(summa, p.12). The Qur'anic view of those who are
killed in the path of the Lord is remarkably similar to that of Revelation 6:9,
10:
And when he had
opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with
a loud voice saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
If
the Qur'an agrees, however, with the view of the Book of Revelations that the
martyrs are with their Lord, it leaves the matter there. The hadith (SM1887), however, claims that
the souls of the martyrs are in the bodies of green birds in Paradise. This
narration is remarkably similar to Greek Apocalyptic Baruch, which states:
And I saw a
mountainous pillar, and in the middle of it a pool of water. And there were in
it multitudes of birds of all birds, but not like those here on earth. But I
saw a crane as great as great oxen; all the birds were great beyond those in
the world. And I asked the angel: "What is the plain, and what the pool,
and what the multitudes of birds around it?" And the angel said:
"Listen Baruch! The plain which contains in it the pool and other wonders
is the place where the souls of the righteous come when they hold converse,
being together in choirs." (3 Baruch 10, [APOT)
The
hadith makes some changes in the
scenario, coloring the birds green and putting chandeliers and trees instead of
a plain as in Baruch. This, however, can be seen as the inevitable
metamorphosis that is deliberately made to occur in adaptation to obscure the
actual origin of the story.
Conclusion
As
we have shown, the finer details of resurrection would have been something new
to many of the early Muslims. The concept of some sort of temporary existence
after death seems to have, however, been present among some of them (Guillaume
1986:9; Henninger, 1981:10). Such people, in
encountering the Jewish and Christian material, would have found a fertile
ground for maintaining their pre-Islamic belief. These ahadith indicate that the Arabs
were well aware of the Rabbinic notion that punishment in Gehenna
was only for a limited period of time (Shabbat 33b), and this is also noted by
the Qur'an in 2:80. Adapting the antecedent traditions, therefore, served a
two-fold purpose: they provided details to fill the Qur'anic
lacunae, and they also furnished material for polemic against the People of the
Book.
Chapter 3 – The
Second Advent of Jesus Christ
Muslim
narrated several lengthy ahadith
that clearly show the return of Jesus. Most of these ahadith have as a shared theme
the description of the Antichrist and accounts of the war that is to take place
between the two. Since the Antichrist and the war are dealt in sufficient
detail as to warrant specific examination in subsequent chapters, we have only
selected for our present analysis information from seven ahadith. The profile may be
summarized as follows:
● His
appearance near the end of time will be one of ten signs (SM2901).
● Jesus will
come as a just judge, break the cross, kill the pig and abolish the jizya, and wealth
will be so plentiful, none will want to accept it (SM155).
●
He will descend on the wings of two angels in Damascus (SM2937).
●
He will not lead the prayer (SM156).
●
He will descend among the Muslims and will lead them in prayer (SM 2897).
●
He will make the Hajj and ‘Umra, declaring his ritual
intention from the valley of Rawha' (SM1253).
●
He will kill with his breath (SM2940).
● He will live
for seven years after defeating the Antichrist, and during this time there will
be no rancor between two persons (SM2940).
Comparing the Jesus
of the Qur'an and the Jesus of Hadith
Jesus'
coming again must be based on the a
priori belief that he did not die on the cross and still lives, since, as Tabari pointed out, were Jesus to come again after having
died once before, it would mean that he died two deaths (JB: 6.458). This is clearly against Q30:40 which states:
"Allah will cause you to die, then again will give you
life… "
Muslim,
however, throughout his entire collection, does not relate a single hadith pertaining to the crucifixion,
nor any to show that Jesus did not die but was taken up to heaven. He also does not
give any hint that he may have, like some scholars, shared the view that
certain verses of the Qur'an could be used to show that Jesus did not die but
was taken up to Heaven where he awaits until his return. Many commentators,
using Tabari's tafsir as a matrix rely on two
verses in support of this theory. The verses are as follows:
(1) Behold!
Allah said: "O Jesus! I will cause thee to die and raise thee to Myself and purify thee of those who disbelieve; I will make
those who follow thee superior to those who reject Faith to the Day of
Resurrection; then shall ye all return unto Me and I will judge between you of
the matters wherein ye dispute. (3:55)
(2) Nay. Allah raised him
up unto himself and Allah is exalted in Power, Wise. (4:158)
Read
without the refraction of the ahadith, however, the verses do not support any concept of
Jesus being taken up alive. In verse 3:55, the statement "I will cause
thee to die" (mutawaffika)
cannot be used to mean anything other than death being the cessation of life as
normally understood. The word, in its various forms, is used throughout the
Qur'an to mean death (8:50, 10:104, 16:70, 32:11, and 39:42), and there is no
factor in 3:55 that necessitates it being understood in other than its literal
meaning.
If he praised, he
raised (rafa'a).
If he condemned, he
debased. (al-Manawi,
1938:2.186).
Read
in the context of the entire subject matter, the "raising" meant in
the verse is without a doubt, one of status. If one considers that the
crucifixion was a punishment administered by the Romans to the lowest class of
criminals (Kearney & Regan, 1908:3.312), and that the penalty was imposed
on Jesus to insult and debase him, then God's foiling of their plans can only
be seen as doing the opposite: causing Jesus to be extolled and honored till
the end of time.
In
view of the foregoing, we do not see any discussion of the weaker arguments for
a second advent as being germane to a research of this scope. Professor Mahmoud
Ayoub, with his own admirable scholarship, has
discussed these in “Towards an Islamic Christology” (1980:91-121), and “The
Qur'an and its Interpreters” (1992:2.169ff).
Muslim,
as we have shown earlier, did not relate a single hadith on the subject of the
crucifixion. Certainly it could not have been because there were none
available, since his contemporary Tabari relates
several in connection with the verses just analyzed (JB: 6.458). We posit, however, that Muslim chose not to report hadith on the matter in following his
conditions of reporting which in his own words is, "I have not placed
everything that I consider to be authentic herein, rather I have placed that on
which there is consensus" (SSM: 1.68). The ahadith on the matter, then, were
not agreed upon. This position is supported by Tabari's
own views on the ahadith,
since he, despite relating them, does not rely on them fully to explain the
verses.
The
first hadith (SM 2901) reported shows
which verse was used to allow for a second appearance of Jesus Christ. It also
shows that the verses discussed earlier and used by the exegetes were not
understood in any other meaning that the clear Arabic and according to the
interpretation we provided earlier. Instead, Abu Hurairah,
we are told, refers to verse 4:159. This verse is problematic, however, as
there are several differences of opinion as to whom the italicized pronouns in
the verse refer to: "And certainly among the People of the Book are those
who must believe in him before his death." Shawkani
shows that some commentators felt that the pronouns refer to the person from
among the People of the Book; others felt they refer to Jesus (Shawkani: 1.805). Whatever the different views, however,
the general opinion is that the verse refers to Jesus' second coming, at which
time no one from among the People of the Book will die until after believing in
Jesus, or that Jesus will not die until after everyone from the People of the
Book believes in him.
This
interpretation is clearly discordant with the latter part of the verse, for it
continues, "… and on the Day of Judgment, he will be a witness against
them." If the matter pertains to Jesus' second coming, and at that time
all the People of the Book will believe in him, why then would Jesus testify
against them? The only explanation for Jesus' adversarial stance is that,
according to the Qur'anic account, all who heard his
ministry knew even before Jesus died that he was indeed a man of God and a
prophet. This is conceivably one of the reasons why Jesus will be against them.
Another reason is explained in Q5:117 where God will ask him if he ordered the
people to worship him, to which he will respond:
I was a witness over
them as long as I was among them, but when you caused me to die, You were the Watcher over them, and You are a witness over
all things. (5:116)
There
are therefore two parties against whom Jesus will stand: those who plotted his
destruction, and those who in their overzealousness after his death, made him
into a figure of worship. In light of this, the alleged extrapolation of Abu Hurairah must be seen as erroneous.
Muslim
does not offer the verse Q43:61 "Indeed he is a sign of the hour" to
support his hadith of Jesus' return.
He could not have used the verse, as some exegetes have done, since the Qur'an
acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah who spoke of Muhammad's coming. The correct
interpretation of the verse is, as shown in McDonough's thesis, that Jesus was
a sign of the hour in that he delivered a warning that the Hour would surely
come (1955: 28).
The
Qur'anic image of Christ then puts him at the stage
of an "Inaugurated eschatology." This term, used mainly by the
Christian theologians, indicates that Jesus fulfilled some of the aspects of
the end in his time, but that there were other elements yet to come (Nelson,
1993:193). Among these elements would be the coming of the Prophet to the Arabs.
From
the foregoing therefore, it can be seen that the Qur'an does not provide any
basis for the belief in a second coming of Christ. Not only is there an argumentum e silentio,
but there are verses that actually totally negate any possibility of such an
occurrence. If Muhammad is indeed the seal of prophets (33.40), then Jesus
returning after him would negate such a seal. The general response to this is
that Jesus will not be coming as a prophet, but rather as a just judge (SSM:
18.288). Such a view, however, means that the honor of prophecy is something
that can be given and removed – a concept that is not advocated anywhere in the
Qur'an. Even if for argument's sake we were to allow the possibility of it
happening in the case of other individuals, this cannot happen in the case of
Jesus. The following verses are proof of this:
(1) (And remember) when
the angels said: O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad
tidings of a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary,
illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near [unto
Allah]. (3:45)
(2) He spake: Lo! I am the slave of Allah. He hath given me the
Scripture and hath appointed me a Prophet. (19:30)
There
is no need for elucidation as both verses are absolutely clear that the office
of Messiahship and prophecy remain unchanged. To take
away the office of prophecy would be to reduce his degree of excellence –
something clearly discordant with 3:45. Clearly then, the claim that Jesus will
return as a non-prophet is an unfounded one.
Verse
61:6 shows that Jesus prophesied Muhammad's messengership
by stating: "After me will come a messenger whose name is Ahmad." The
prepositional phrase "after me" literally means what it says i.e.,
"after my departure." The term would not be proper if Jesus were
planning a return appearance, for this would then force Muhammad's coming again
– giving room to the chaotic situation of ad
infinitum reappearances of both prophets.
The
final argument we wish to show for the specific lack of Qur'anic
support for a return is that the document throughout maintains the mortality of
all its prophets. To dissuade and repel any claim for divinity of any of its
prophets, the Qur'an claims:
Jesus the Messiah is
nothing but a messenger; the messengers before him have passed away. (5:75)
Muhammad is not but a
messenger; the messengers before him have passed away. If he dies or is killed,
will you turn back upon your heels?
(3:144)
Since
Jesus preceded Muhammad, he must therefore be of the messengers who have passed
away, and the use of the definite article makes this clear.
Hadith
SM155 shows that Jesus will come to the Muslims and act according to the
Islamic Shari‘ah.
But Jesus, by the words attributed to him in the Qur'an, came only to the
Children of Israel as is evident from:
And He will teach him
(Jesus) the Scripture and wisdom, and the Torah and the Gospel.
And will make him a
messenger unto the children of Israel, (saying): Lo! I come unto you with a
sign from your Lord…. (3:48, 49)
Jesus
therefore had no other mandate except to be a Messiah to the children of
Israel, and the ahadith
therefore contradict the Qur'an. To return and break the cross, even if we
interpret the concept figuratively, would mean that the Qur'anic
verse: "This day I have perfected
for you your religion and completed my favor upon you" (5.3) has no
function.
Hadith
SM156 and SM2897 are contradictory since the first has Jesus declining to lead
the prayer, and the other showing him actually being the leader. Such clear
contradiction leaves no room for the harmonization solution so favored by the
traditionists. In view of what we have pointed out earlier that Jesus was
only sent to the children of Israel, the aspect of him being taxed with the
Hajj, as in SM1253, is clearly against the Qur'an. Strangely, the hadith pinpoints the place where Jesus
will supposedly make his ritual declaration for entering the Hajj, but does not
indicate what type of pilgrimage he will perform. SM2901, 2937, and 2940 are
all, by the arguments adduced above, to be seen as clearly against the Qur'anic weltanschauung.
Since
Jesus is not seen in Judaism as the Messiah, the idea of his return could not
have sprung from a Jewish source. The Qur'an, as we have also shown, while
recognizing him as the Messiah, does not entertain any concept of a second
advent. Christianity is the only religion then that preaches his reappearance,
all the ahadith
on the subject must be seen to stem from Christian material, with some
alterations to make them acceptable to the Muslim outlook. Our next task will
be to identify the possible specific sources of these ahadith.
Identifying the
Possible Sources
From
hadith SM155, we learn not only that
Jesus will be a judge, but that he will abolish the jizya. This is according to the
image presented in Matt. 25.31-36, 1
Cor. 4.5, Acts 10.42, and John 5.27 where Jesus will come to judge the entire
human race, punishing those who rejected him (2 Thess. 1.7-10), and rewarding
those who followed him (Mark 13.27). The jizya is a sign of domination and
since every kind of domination, authority, and power will be abolished
according to 1 Cor. 15.24-25, the breaking of the cross and the killing of the
pig seem to be Muslim interpretations of 2 Cor. 5.10.
Hadith SM2937 places Jesus'
descent in Damascus. Several reasons could be adduced for this location.
Damascus was the center of Eastern Christianity and even before Islam provided
the source of most of the Arab information on Christianity. The early
Muslim-Christian dialogue was apparently limited to the Damascene Church, as
shown by N. A. Newman's work on the subject (1993). Since the Antichrist is
Syrian, as stated by Lactantius in the 4th century (Pohle, p.113), it seems evident that Jesus should defeat
him at his place of surfacing. It is also possible that the hadith was used as part of the Abbaside political machinery since Damascus was the seat of
the Umayyad caliphate.
The
hadith mentions that Jesus will
descend on the wings of two angels – a seemingly strange detail. According to
Acts 1.10, when Jesus was ascending, there were two men in white apparel who
informed the people that Jesus would return the same way he went. These men,
from a hadith viewpoint, were
certainly angels. The verse in Acts certainly appeals to the traditionist
perception of angelic succor, as is shown in a hadith reported by Sa‘d
b. Abi Waqqas:
On the day of the
battle of Uhud, on the right and on the left of the
Prophet were two men wearing white clothes, and I had neither seen them before,
nor did I see them afterwards. (SBE. 5:384, 7:716).
We
do not see that these two angels are a reinterpretation of the two witnesses
that are supposed to spread the news of Jesus' coming and fighting alongside
him as in Revelation 11:3, 4. This is because those witnesses will die, and the
angels are exempt from that, at least in the terrestrial theatre.
The
last part of SM2937 states that Jesus’ breath will reach as far as the eye can
see, and that the odor of such breath will kill the disbelievers. This is the
very image presented in 2 Thess. 2.8 wherein we are told that Jesus will
destroy with the breath of his mouth, and annihilate by the radiance of his
coming.
The
last hadith SM2940 is perhaps the
clearest indication of familiarity with the Jewish and Christian apocalyptic
literature. The narrator is ‘Abdullah b. ‘Amr b.
al-As who was supposed to have in his possession the literature which he
studied. In typical apocalyptic presentation, he takes an oath to remain
silent, and then mentions the burning of the Ka‘aba.
Since the earliest records we have of the hadith
are all after the event of the burning, we can refer to the prophecy as a case
of vaticinia ex eventu. Tabari tells us that the Sanctuary was burned on 5 Rabi al-Awwal, 64 (October
31, 683), at which time Zubair was being besieged by
the forces of Yazid, son of Mu‘awiya
(Tarikh: 5.498). To see the sign of the burning as
something to precipitate the unfolding of the eschatological events is very
much in concert with 2 Thess. 1.7, which
shows Jesus coming down from heaven with
angels blazing fire to start the events to the final countdown.
The
final part of the hadith that shows
the absence of rancor and reign of righteousness after Jesus' victory is the
Gospel adaptation of the prophecies in Isa. 11. 6-10, 32.1,
Jer. 33.14-26, Ezek. 37.24-28 as shown in 2 Pet. 3.13 and Rev. 21.3-4.
Muslim does not detail the matter further – but
the narrations of his contemporary,
Ibn Majah
(d.273/886) show that the scholars of the period were relying on the prophecies
of Revelation and Isaiah, as proven by Richard Bell (1968:202ff.).
The
period of seven years as shown in the hadith,
however, is a clear departure from the millennium prophesied in Rev. 20.1-7.
This can be explained by the Revelation accounts, as do all the other Gospel
accounts, showing Jesus as being equal with God in exercising this judgment.
The strict monotheism of Islam would not have tolerated importation of this
belief even in popular aspects of that religion. The different periods of reign
as reported by the hadith can be seen
as being drawn from the Jewish messianic traditions which, as in Sanhedrin 99a,
show varying periods.
Conclusion
Newman
shows that the Gospels were all translated into Arabic by 639 C.E. (1953:17),
and this therefore gave the Muslims access to actual written sources in
addition to the oral reports they already knew. His argument is extremely
strong since these translations were specifically done at the request of the
Muslim rulers, and for obvious use in what may be considered the then study of
comparative religion. However, though the possibility of such importation from
these sources does exist, it must be pointed out that many of the early Muslims
came from Christian backgrounds. They too could be seen as the source for the
historical and messianic views about Jesus and the Islamic hadith adaptation in a quasi-soteriological role.
*
* *
Posted
November 19, 2011. This material is
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except with the author’s consent.