ISLAMIC APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE AND EXTREMISM: CONTEXTUAL READING OF HADITHS ON THE MAHDI WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SRI LANKA

Abstract

Like any other religious community, the apocalyptic literature in
Muslim society has become a source of pessimism instead of
optimism. The extremists who conducted a series of suicide attacks
on religious places and hotels in Sri Lanka in 2019 justified their
violent activities, referring to apocalyptic literature that prophesied
the advance of Mahdi. These extremists misunderstood the hadiths on
the Mahdi and intended to create instability in the world to
accelerate his coming to resolve the present issues of Muslims. This
research studied the relevant hadiths quoted by the extremists to kill
innocent people and explored their meaning. The contextual analysis
method has been employed to extract the meaning of these hadiths.
This research shows that the extremists have misinterpreted these
hadiths and used the Islamic apocalyptic literature out of context.
The socio-political context of the usage of these hadiths further
elaborates the change that has taken place in the understanding of
their purpose throughout history. Therefore, this research
recommends that Muslim religious and social leaders review
interpretation traditions and educate young people to adopt
socio-political and historical contexts to understand Islamic
apocalyptic literature, mainly hadiths, to protect young people from
extremism and radicalism.