Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam

Sebastian Günther, Ph.D. (1989), is Professor and Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Göttingen. Germany. He has published extensively on the intellectual history of Islam, including Islamic Ethics as Educational Discourse: Thought and Impact of the Classical Muslim Thinker Miskawayh (d. 1030) (co-ed., Tübingen 2021) and Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam (2 vols., ed., Leiden 2020).Todd Lawson, Ph.D. (1989), is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Thought at the University of Toronto. He has published widely on Quranic exegesis, mysticism, Shi‘ism, and Quranic literary problems. Recent publications include articles such as Friendship, Illumination and the Water of Life (2016), Joycean Modernism in a 19th century Qur’an commentary (2015), The Qur’an and Epic (2014) and the monograph Gnostic Apocalypse in Islam (London 2012).Christian Mauder is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Department of History and Cultural Studies. He has published several studies on the intellectual, cultural and religious history of Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt, including the monograph Gelehrte Krieger: Die Mamluken als Träger arabischsprachiger Bildung (Hildesheim 2012). His second monograph In the Sultan’s Salon: Learning, Religion and Rulership at the Mamluk Court of Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–1516) (Brill 2021) constitutes the first in-depth analysis of an Egyptian court as a transregional center of Islamic intellectual, religious, and political culture at the turn from the late middle to the early modern period.

"In view of the high scholarly quality, it is safe to say that the essential background of death and the afterlife in the Islamic point-of-view is promptly understood and the authors support their arguments convincingly and authoritatively. After a comprehensive introduction by the editors (Vol. I, pp. 1-28) the reader comes in contact with useful information that helps him to form and define Islamic ontological and eschatological ideas. The editors also claim that although the present book is based in scholarly work, it is nevertheless oriented towards a wider readership where academic expertise can contribute a great deal toward a more comprehendsive understanding of current political and religious developments in both the Muslim world and West. Each article contains informative references and detailed bibliography, cited at the end of every chapter. The bibliographical appendix at the end of Volume Two (pp. 1323-1391) facilitate future research on eschatology and concepts of the hereafter of Islam, while a comprehensive index of proper names as well detailed indices of geographical names and toponymes, book titles, scriptural references, topics and keywords provide access to the contents. On the whole, scholars and students will find this two volume work quite valuable. More than a mere work, this book inspires for further research and discussion on eschatology and concepts of the hereafter in Islam." - Angeliki Georgiou Kompocholi, in: Journal of Oriental and African Studies 27 (2018)"...a massive new contribution to the field." - John Hoover, in: Bulletin of the School of African and Oriental Studies, 8 November 2017"Ein umfangreicher bibliographischer Appendix zu Paradies und Hölle im Islam und ausführliche Indizes, über die das zweibändige Werk überhaupt benutzbar wird, schließen die Bände ab. Natürlich ließen sich weitere Titel finden, die nicht aufgenommen wurden. Insgesamt handelt es sich um ein Grundlagenwerk für die weitere Forschung zu eschatologischen Vorstellungen." - Rüdiger Lohlker, in: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 108 (2018)"... the most comprehensive overview of this topic in existence." - George Archer, in: Reading Religion, 22 August 2017"Roads to Paradise maps out a beginning of modern academic research into Muslim eschatology." - Sajjad Rizvi, in: Al-Abhath 64 (2016)

• VOLUME II Continuity and Change: The Plurality of Eschatological Representations in the Islamicate World PART SEVEN Paradise and Eschatology in Comparative PerspectiveFred M. Donner: A Typology of Eschatological ConceptsMartin Tamcke: The “World” in its Eschatological Dimension in East-Syrian Synodical RecordsSidney H. Griffith: St. Ephraem the Syrian, the Quran, and the Grapevines of Paradise: An Essay in Comparative EschatologyMartin Tamcke: Paradise? America! The Metaphor of Paradise in the Context of the Iraqi-Christian MigrationPART EIGHT Eschatology and Literature Waleed Ahmed: The Characteristics of Paradise (Ṣifat al-Janna): A Genre of Eschatological Literature in Medieval IslamMahmoud Hegazi: “Roads to Paradise” in Risālat al-Ghufrān of the Arab Thinker al-MaʿarrīRoberto Tottoli: Muslim Eschatology and the Ascension of the Prophet Muḥammad: Describing Paradise in Miʿrāj Traditions and LiteratureSamar Attar: An Islamic Paradiso in a Medieval Christian Poem? Dante’s Divine Comedy Revisited Claudia Ott: Paradise, Alexander the Great and the Arabian Nights: Some New Insights Based on an Unpublished ManuscriptWalid A. Saleh: Paradise in an Islamic ʿAjāʾib Work: The Delight of Onlookers and the Signs for Investigators of Marʿī b. Yūsuf al-Karmī (d. 1033/1624)Suha Kudsieh: Expulsion from Paradise: Granada in Raḍwā ʿĀshūr’s The Granada Trilogy (1994–8) and Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995)PART NINE Bringing Paradise down to Earth – Aesthetic Representations of the Hereafter Maribel Fierro: Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ, Paradise and the FatimidsTehnyat Majeed: The Chār Muḥammad Inscription, Shafāʿa, and the Mamluk Qubba al-ManṣūriyyaKarin Rührdanz: Visualizing Encounters on the Road to ParadiseUlrich Marzolph: Images of Paradise in Popular Shi‘ite IconographySilvia Naef: Where is Paradise on Earth? Visual Arts in the Arab World and the Construction of a Mythic PastPART TEN Heavens and the Hereafter in Scholarship and Natural SciencesIngrid Hehmeyer: The Configuration of the Heavens in Islamic AstronomyAnver M. Emon: The Quadrants of Sharīʿa: The Here and Hereafter as Constitutive of Islamic LawLudmila Hanisch: Perceptions of Paradise in the Writings of Julius Wellhausen, Mark Lidzbarski, and Hans Heinrich SchaederPART ELEVEN Paradise meets Modernity – The Dynamics of Paradise Discourse in the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-First CenturiesEdiwn P. Wieringa: Islam and Paradise are Sheltered under the Shade of Swords: Phallocentric Fantasies of Paradise in Nineteenth-Century Acehnese War Propaganda and their Lasting LegacyUmar Ryad: Eschatology between Reason and Revelation: Death and Resurrection in Modern Islamic TheologyMartin Riexinger: Between Science Fiction and Sermon: Eschatological Writings Inspired by Said NursiLiza M. Franke: Notions of Paradise and Martyrdom in Contemporary Palestinian ThoughtRuth Mas: Crisis and the Secular Rhetoric of Islamic ParadiseBIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIXINDICES 1.PROPER NAMES2.GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES AND TOPONYMS3.TITLES OF BOOKS AND OTHER TEXTS4.SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES5.TOPICS AND KEYWORDSLIST OF CONTRIBUTORS