A World Destroyed and a World Repaired – Muhammad vs Biblical Prophets: Contrasting End-of-Time Visions
Explore the fundamental differences between Muhammad's apocalyptic worldview and the Biblical prophets' optimistic vision of end times, revealing distinct approaches to humanity's future.
Muhammad’s early prophetic revelations are marked by an intense focus on eschatology - visions of the end of days that appear to have preoccupied him more than any other theme at the time. The world he presents is starkly pessimistic: God, envisioned as the sole ruler seated on the judgment throne, will save a small number of righteous souls from the ruins of a world that has been utterly destroyed. For this world, there is no hope in Muhammad’s apocalyptic outlook; salvation lies only in the afterlife.
Scholars largely agree that Muhammad did not seek to innovate theologically. He is not considered creative or original in his religious vision, but rather as a systematizer - someone who sought to organize, code, and unify pre-existing ethical and religious frameworks into what he viewed as a perfect synthesis. His eschatological vision reflects this: a tapestry woven from Christian, Talmudic Jewish, and perhaps even Norse mythological motifs.
Indeed, Muhammad’s end-time imagery aligns closely with the Christian Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, with Talmudic concepts of a world destroyed after six thousand years - leaving only the righteous to soar on wings over floodwaters - and with the Norse Ragnarok, in which gods and monsters clash in a devastating battle that ends with the birth of a new world. All these accounts share a common trait: acute despair for the existing world. Redemption, if it comes at all, lies elsewhere - in heaven or in a completely new reality.
In contrast, the Biblical Jewish vision of the end of days offers an antithesis. Unlike its Talmudic counterpart (and unlike the Christian, Islamic, and Norse traditions), the prophetic vision found in the Hebrew Bible is one of hope - a utopian expectation for a repaired future in this very world.
As the prophet Isaiah declares: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established at the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it… They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore… A shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse… The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat… The lion shall eat straw like the ox… An infant shall play on the hole of the asp..."
This is not a vision of annihilation or escape. The prophet does not yearn for most of humanity to perish, nor does he wish to relocate to a better place like paradise. He does not foresee the destruction of this world followed by the construction of a new one. Rather, the world itself will be transformed - right here.
This utopian worldview may explain why generations of rabbinic commentators have sought to soften the harsher Talmudic eschatology, reinterpreting it in ways more aligned with the optimistic biblical vision.
In sum, Muhammad’s vision of the end - while perhaps in step with Talmudic Judaism and certainly with Christian and Norse eschatologies - stands in stark contrast to the biblical Jewish ethos and its post-Talmudic interpreters.
To be continued.