Decline of Societies in Islamic Apocalyptic Reports (Fitan)

Reports about the portents of the Qiyama, or the Doomsday, constitutes a significant portion of fitan narrations in hadith literature. The concept ‘qiyama’ refers to the end of time and the end of the world life as we know it. According to the divine religions, the worldly life will end one day and all humans will be resurrected in order to be questioned regarding what they have done on earth. Muslims believe that noone but God knows when the Doomsday will arrive, but there are certain signs for the the coming of the Hour and these signs were foretold by the Prophet Muhammad. The belief in the Doomsday, in traditional Islamic creed, is understood as the end of the world life and has been used in this sense by Muslims. Nevertheless, when the fitan narrations are examined closely, one observes that majority of the reports quoted in eschatological literature (fitan) are in fact the signs of the decline and demise of societies and their dissappearance from the scene of history. In other words, many of the portents of the end of time as told in hadiths can be taken as warnings for Muslim societies against the reasons of the decline and decay of societies. These reports do not seem to have any relation to the events of the Doomsday that will mark the end of this life. Rather, these narrations can arguably be shown to be examples of sociological analysis. This article aims at showing with examples that many of the fitan narrations are about a sociological doomsday rather than an eschatological one. All the relevant hadiths have been taken into consideration for the preparation of this essay but only an amount that would prove my point are discussed in it