Follow Up: A Note on the Dabiq Prophecy

Adam L. Silverman

In the comments to my post yesterday, COL Lang asked for further information regarding the Dabiq Prophecy that is supposedly a major driver for ISIS. In attempting to respond to his question I started digging for more information. The prophecy appears to originate in the Kitab Al-Fitan wa Ashrat As-Sa`ah (The Book Pertaining to the Turmoil and Portents of the Last Hour) - the link includes both the Arabic and the English. The isnad, or chain of citation demonstrating provenance, is to Abu Huraira - one of Prophet Muhammed's companions and the narrator of a very large number of hadith. The Dabiq Prophecy is specifically found in Chapter 9: Pertaining to the Conquest of Constantinople and the Appearance of the Dajjal and Descent of Jesus Son of Mary (Jesus Christ). These sections follow on from earlier hadith that retell more familiar end times prophecy, such as of Gog and Magog.

From what I've been able to track down, Kitab Al-Fitan wa Ashrat As-Sa`ah, is part of a larger collection of hadiths entitled Sahih Muslim. Sahih Muslim was compiled by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Naysaburi and is considered to be one of the authoritative collections of the hadith. For more general information on Muslim eschatology, Virginia Commonwealth University's World Religions and Spirituality Project has put together a basic primer, which can be found here.

Comments

[turcopolier]

All

I have no doubt that the Dabiq Prophecy is in the background of IS minds. This contributes to my thought that IS is seeking to lure the "crusaders" to what they hope would be their doom. I think we should see this in the context of Dorylaeum rather than Dabiq. if IS wishes to concentrate its forces for a final throw of the dice, let them so so! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dorylaeum_(1097) pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

Adam L. Silverman:

Abu Huraira is considered a fabricator of false hadiths among the Shia.

He has no credibility; he spent at the most 3 years with the Prophet and yet his total hadiths exceed the entire corpus of the hadiths by men and women who had known the Prophet for much longer period of time and more intimately.

[Charles I]

Gee, that sounds horribly familiar. . .

[turcopolier]

Babak

People easily forget that not all hadiths are of equal value. pl

[Charles Cameron]

Greetings, Col. Lang, all:

It is interesting to note how fashions in which “end times” hadith to quote change as one moves from one group to another.

The Gharqad Tree hadith appears in the charter of Hamas, indicating an end times battle between Islam and the Jews, in which even the stones and trees the Jews hid behind would cry out, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him – all except the Gharqad tree: “but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”

Ali Soufan notes in his book *The Black Banners* that a series of hadiths much favored by recruiters for AQ calls the faithful to join an army with black banners from Khorasan, “even if you have to crawl over ice to do so”. The interpretation of Khorasan as Afghanistan is not too far-fetched, but following David Cook I believe the hadiths in question were fabricated by the ‘Abbasids in support of their own cause.

IS / Daesh on the other hand has made the Dabiq hadith the centerpiece of its recruitment, naming its glossy magazine Dabiq and opening every issue with this quote from Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi

QUOTE: The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify - by Allah’s permission - until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq. UNQUOTE

I have given more detail on IS use of the Dabiq motif in a post published yesterday on Lapido Media -- ANALYSIS: ISIS’ magazine Dabiq & what it tells us:

http://www.lapidomedia.com/analysis-what-we-learn-about-isis-magazine-dabiq

I am grateful to Adam Silverman for linking to my notes on Islamic apocalyptic, written up for a class at USC and now posted on the World Religions and Spirituality Project site, but my central recommendation for those interested would be to J-P Filiu’s book, *Apocalypse in Islam*, University of California Press, 2011.

In line with my comment about fashions in such things, it’s interesting that Filiu doesn’t include Dabiq in his index. His book is an impressive work of scholarhip, but appeared, alas, before IS / Daesh made its mark. He has however written more recently on the topic of IS and apocalypse.

Jessica Stern and JM Berger’s book *ISIS: The State of Terror* to be published in March will deal with this aspect of IS, as, I understand, will a forthcoming book from Will McCants. The topic of Islamic apocalyptic is not going away any time soon.

[FB Ali]

Col Lang,

"...not all hadiths are of equal value".

You are being polite. The fact is that the hadith collections, even the "authoritative" ones, are riddled with contradictory, implausible and outright false ones.

I discovered the magnitude of this problem when I researched an article on the treaty of al-Hudaibiya that I was writing long ago. If an historical event relating to the Prophet, an important one, can be so falsified, it is easy to imagine what could happen to doctrinal issues - and has happened, unfortunately.

Anyone interested in following up on the issue can read the article at:

http://tinyurl.com/pnogepn

[FB Ali]

Adam,

Thank you for both your excellent pieces. However, I would suggest that it is quite easy to over-emphasize the religious aspect of the IS, AQ and other such jihadi movements. Their ideology is religious, but it is also much else besides. Similarly, they attract many people on religious/ideological grounds, but there is always, in addition, a 'secular' motivation (political, economic, social or even personal). In most cases (certainly in those of the IS and AQ) their directing structures have many people who may certainly be personally religious, but operate on other considerations (strategic, tactical, political).

It also seems to me that there is a tendency to over-emphasize the part that religion plays in the lives of ordinary people in the Muslim world. The vast majority live in a 'Muslim Culture', which is the local culture infused with the ethos of Islam. Many of them may engage in overt religious practices, but they are not too concerned about the doctrinal issues that are the playthings of religious scholars and academics. Practically all of them do harbour an intense loyalty to their religion, and can be easily aroused in its defence or vindication. Another strong motivation is a feeling of oneness with other Muslims, which easily leads to a reaction if these others are attacked or oppressed.

I would exclude Wahhabis from the generalization above. They are a special breed that flourish among the most backward Muslim peoples. As I tried to show in my recent post here, the Wahhabis, backed by Saudi and Gulf money, seek to strip this culture away from Muslims worldwide and induct them into their primitive, fundamentalist faith, which feeds and supports the jihadi movement.

The West would blunt the jihadis much more by not backing the Wahhabi Sauds and Gulf emirs than by trying to find chinks in the jihadis' religious beliefs.

[Charles I]

Winner's write the history, losers fight it.

[alba etie]

Brig General Ali
If Bushcheney just had to occupy an Arab Country - why could it not have been the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia ,,