In The Apocalypse of Empire, Stephen J. Shoemaker argues that earliest Islam was a movement driven by urgent eschatological belief that focused on the conquest, or liberation, of the biblical Holy Land and situates this belief within a broader cultural environment of apocalyptic anticipation. Shoemaker looks to the Qur'an's fervent representation of the imminent end of the world and the importance Muhammad and his earliest followers placed on imperial expansion. Offering important contemporary context for the imperial eschatology that seems to have fueled the rise of Islam, he surveys the political eschatologies of early Byzantine Christianity, Judaism, and Sasanian Zoroastrianism at the advent of Islam and argues that they often relate imperial ambition to beliefs about the end of the world. Moreover, he contends, formative Islam's embrace of this broader religious trend of Mediterranean late antiquity provides invaluable evidence for understanding the beginnings of the religion at a time when sources are generally scarce and often highly problematic. Scholarship on apocalyptic literature in early Judaism and Christianity frequently maintains that the genre is decidedly anti-imperial in its very nature. While it may be that early Jewish apocalyptic literature frequently displays this tendency, Shoemaker demonstrates that this quality is not characteristic of apocalypticism at all times and in all places. In the late antique Mediterranean as in the European Middle Ages, apocalypticism was regularly associated with ideas of imperial expansion and triumph, which expected the culmination of history to arrive through the universal dominion of a divinely chosen world empire. This imperial apocalypticism not only affords an invaluable backdrop for understanding the rise of Islam but also reveals an important transition within the history of Western doctrine during late antiquity.

This collection of essays explores the rhetoric and practices surrounding views on life after death and the end of the world, including the fate of the individual, apocalyptic speculation and hope for cosmological renewal, in a wide range of societies from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Byzantine era. The 42 essays by leading scholars in each field explore the rich spectrum of ways in which eschatological understanding can be expressed, and for which purposes it can be used. Readers will gain new insight into the historical contexts, details, functions and impact of eschatological ideas and imagery in ancient texts and material culture from the twenty-fifth century BCE to the ninth century CE. Traditionally, the study of “eschatology” (and related concepts) has been pursued mainly by scholars of Jewish and Christian scripture. By broadening the disciplinary scope but remaining within the clearly defined geographical milieu of the Mediterranean, this volume enables its readers to note comparisons and contrasts, as well as exchanges of thought and transmission of eschatological ideas across Antiquity. Cross-referencing, high quality illustrations and extensive indexing contribute to a rich resource on a topic of contemporary interest and relevance. Eschatology in Antiquity is aimed at readers from a wide range of academic disciplines, as well as non-specialists including seminary students and religious leaders. The primary audience will comprise researchers in relevant fields including Biblical Studies, Classics and Ancient History, Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Art History, Late Antiquity, Byzantine Studies and Cultural Studies. Care has been taken to ensure that the essays are accessible to undergraduates and those without specialist knowledge of particular subject areas.

This volume includes papers on ancient apocalypticism and eschatology in the crucial period prior to the advent of Islam in the Mediterranean basin, and through the period (the sixth to the eighth centuries) when this new religion took roots and established itself in the area. As these were important social, religious, and cultural phenomena, the contributors to this volume - specialists in Late Antique and Byzantine, Syriac, Jewish, and Arabic studies - have investigated them from a variety of angles and foci, rendering this volume unique in terms of its interdisciplinary approach and broad scope. In this regard, Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity should be read as complimentary to the previous volume in the series, New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean, where similar goals were set and met, namely to understand not only how the Christian and Jewish populations responded to the dramatic political and military changes, but also how they expressed themselves in existing, reinvented, and new literary means at their disposal.

Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages provides a range of perspectives on what reformist apocalypticism meant for the formation of Medieval Europe, from the Fall of Rome to the twelfth century. It explores and challenges accepted narratives about both the development of apocalyptic thought and the way it intersected with cultures of reform to influence major transformations in the medieval world. Bringing together a wealth of knowledge from academics in Britain, Europe and the USA this book offers the latest scholarship in apocalypse studies. It consolidates a paradigm shift, away from seeing apocalypse as a radical force for a suppressed minority, and towards a fuller understanding of apocalypse as a mainstream cultural force in history. Together, the chapters and case studies capture and contextualise the variety of ideas present across Europe in the Middle Ages and set out points for further comparative study of apocalypse across time and space. Offering new perspectives on what ideas of ‘reform’ and ‘apocalypse’ meant in Medieval Europe, Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages provides students with the ideal introduction to the study of apocalypse during this period.

This volume addresses Jewish, Christian and Muslim future visions on the end of the world, focusing on the respective allies and antagonists for each religious society. Spanning late Antiquity to the early modern period, the collected papers examine distinctive aspects represented by each religion’s approach as well as shared concepts.

An examination of Apocalypticism from one of the leading lights in the field.

In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions. The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic invasion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Tibetan Buddhism. Examining apocalypticism, messianism and eschatology in medieval Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist communities, the contributions paint a multi-faceted picture of End-Time scenarios and provide their readers with a broad array of source material from different historical contexts. The first volume, Empires and Scriptural Authorities, examines the formation of literary and visual apocalyptic traditions, and the role they played as vehicles for defining a community’s religious and political enemies. The second volume, Time, Death and Afterlife, focuses on key topics of eschatology: death, judgment, afterlife and the perception of time and its end. It also analyses modern readings and interpretations of eschatological concepts.