The Final Signs of Qiyaamah (Islam)
- The ground will cave in: one in the east, one in the west, and one in Hejaz, Saudi Arabia.
- Fog or smoke will cover the skies for forty days.
- The nonbelievers will fall unconscious, while Muslims will be ill (develop colds).
- The skies will then clear up.
- A night three nights long will follow the fog. It will occur in the month of Zil-Hajj after Eidul-Adha, and cause much restlessness among the people.
- After the night of three nights, the following morning the sun will rise in the west.
- People's repentance will not be accepted after this incident.
- One day later, the Beast from the earth will miraculously emerge from Mount Safaa in Makkah, causing a split in the ground.
- The beast will be able to talk to people and mark the faces of people, making the believers' faces glitter, and the nonbelievers' faces darkened.
- A breeze from the south causes sores in the armpits of Muslims, which they will die of as a result.
- The Ka'aba will be destroyed by non-Muslim African group.
- Kufr will be rampant.
- Haj will be discontinued.
- The Qur'an will be lifted from the heart of the people, 30 years after the ruler Muquad's death.
- The fire will follow people to Syria, after which it will stop.
- Some years after the fire,
- Qiyaamah begins with the Soor (trumpet) being blown.
- The year is not known to any person.
- Qiyaamah will come upon the worst of creation.
Prophets are men specially elected by God to be his messengers. Prophethood is indivisible, and the Qur'an requires recognition of all prophets as such without discrimination. Yet they are not all equal, some of them being particularly outstanding in qualities of steadfastness and patience under trial.
Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jesus were such great prophets. As vindication of the truth of their mission, God often vests them with miracles: Abraham was saved from fire, Noah from the deluge, and Moses from the Pharaoh. Not only was Jesus born from the Virgin Mary, but God also saved him from crucifixion at the hands of the Jews. The conviction that God's messengers are ultimately vindicated and saved is an integral part of the Qur'anic doctrine.
All prophets are human and never part of divinity: they are simply recipients of revelation from God. God never speaks directly to a human: he either sends an angel messenger to him or makes him hear a voice or inspires him. Muhammad is accepted as the last prophet in this series and its greatest member, for in him all the messages of earlier prophets were consummated.
He had no miracles except the Qur'an, the like of which no human can produce. (Soon after the Prophet's death, however, a plethora of miracles was attributed to him by Muslims.) The angel Gabriel brought the Qur'an down to the Prophet's "heart." Gabriel is represented by the Qur'an as a spirit, but the Prophet could sometimes see and hear him.
According to early traditions, the Prophet's revelations occurred in a state of trance when his normal consciousness was in abeyance. This state was accompanied by heavy sweating. The Qur'an itself makes it clear that the revelations brought with them a sense of extraordinary weight: "If we were to send this Qur'an down on a mountain, you would see it split asunder out of fear of God."
This phenomenon at the same time was accompanied by an unshakable conviction that the message was from God, and the Qur'an describes itself as the transcript of a heavenly "Mother Book" written on a "Preserved Tablet." The conviction was of such an intensity that the Qur'an categorically denies that it is from any earthly source, for in that case it would be liable to "manifold doubts and oscillations."
Eschatology
In Islamic doctrine, on the Last Day, when the world will come to an end, the dead will be resurrected and a judgment will be pronounced on every person in accordance with his deeds. Although the Qur'an in the main speaks of a personal judgment, there are several verses that speak of the resurrection of distinct communities that will be judged according to "their own book." In conformity with this, the Qur'an also speaks in several passages of the "death of communities," each one of which has a definite term of life.
The actual evaluation, however, will be for every individual, whatever the terms of reference of his performance. In order to prove that the resurrection will occur, the Qur'an uses a moral and a physical argument. Because not all requital is meted out in this life, a final judgment is necessary to bring it to completion.
Physically, God, who is all-powerful, has the ability to destroy and bring back to life all creatures, who are limited and are, therefore, subject to God's limitless power.
According to strict Qur'anic doctrine, there is no intercession, although God himself, in his mercy, may forgive certain sinners. Those condemned will burn in hellfire, and those who are saved will enjoy the abiding pleasures of paradise. Hell and heaven are both spiritual and physical.
Besides suffering in physical fire, the damned will also experience fire "in their hearts"; similarly, the blessed, besides physical enjoyment, will experience the greatest happiness of divine pleasure.
Quite early, however, Islamic tradition developed the notion of intercession, probably in answer to the Christian doctrine of redemption.
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Nice blog post.
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