Thread by @DrJavadTHashmi

Numerous hadiths, including sahih ones, predict the conquest of Constantinople just before the Hour.

But the actual conquest of the city took place in 1453... and the end of the world did not transpire.

Does this pose a significant challenge to Islamic traditionalism? 1/

Traditionalists express wonder at the accuracy of such prophecies, including this particular one--which, in their minds, proves the Prophet's nabuwwa. Yet, they simply ignore or reinterpret the part about its timing:
2/

From a historical-critical perspective, such reinterpretations (a second conquest) are hardly convincing, since the hadiths were spread in a time in which Constantinople held a special place as the capital city of the Roman Empire, considered the greatest empire of history. 3/

This fact is essential to the hadiths in their original historical-literary context. Imagine a prophecy in early Roman times that Rome would conquer Carthage. Clearly it would be about the great empire of classical antiquity, not the current site, a small insignificant suburb.4/

A traditionalist must at least admit then that, at the time that these hadiths were spread and compiled, everyone would have interpreted it to mean the conquest of the (eastern) Roman capital. 5/

Admittedly, however, apocalyptic prophecies are often, by their very nature, amenable to reinterpretation, reframing, and re-deployment in new contexts. Thus, they retain their significance generation after generation, often reemerging as imminent predictions. 6/

Quranists & many Islamic modernists reject or diminish Hadith as a scriptural source, thereby bypassing this problem. Yet, they too need to deal with the problem that the Quran itself includes imminent eschatological language: e.g., "The Hour has drawn nigh" (Q 54:1). 7/

In a soon-to-be-released podcast with @GabrielSaidR, I discuss my recently published ICMR article & my forthcoming Der Islam piece, in which I discuss the Quran's imminent eschatological expectation, arguing that a partial eschatological reconfiguration takes place in Medina. 8/

Thus, eschatological imminence fades but does not disappear in Medina. My unique contribution is to suggest that a further, full eschatological reconfiguration takes place in the "Second Meccan" corpus of the Quran, as seen in Q 48 (al-fath) & 110 (al-nasr). 9/

I conclude: "Mecca’s rejection of pagan ritual and its collective turn to the proper worship of God (dīn allāh) constitute a 'manifest victory' (fatḥ mubīn), resulting in the lifting of the imminent eschatological threat and the
re-sanctification of the Mother of Cities."
10/

Thus, although the imminent forecast of the Hour may have posed a problem in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad himself, a natural solution arose out of the Quran's own theological matrix, inherent to the very logic of its imminent eschatological discourse. /fin