The Development of Twelver Shiʿism through End-times Literature
End-times literature in Islamic studies is analyzed within a broader framework of eschatology, as understood in Western scholarship. The application of the term eschatology in Islamic studies can be divided into two domains: one addressing the hereafter and matters pertaining to matters after death, and the other focusing on this world and worldly affairs that early Shiʿism was characterized by the latter in early centuries.
This paper examines the evolution of end-times literature during the early centuries of Islam, aiming to trace the process of development and consolidation of Twelver Shiʿism within an intra-religious context. The main questions that are being analyzed in this presentation is whether the term “End time” in the Islamic tradition, particularly in Shiʿism refers specifically to the eschaton, or whether it carries an implicit connotation of a near future. By tracing this trajectory, this study highlights the dynamic nature of end-times hadiths and its role in reflecting broader theological, political, and eschatological concerns. It emphasizes how Shiʿi interpretations of salvation, saviorism, and messianic expectation evolved over time, ultimately contributing to the formation of Twelver Shiʿism’s distinct doctrinal identity. It is argued that Imami Shiʿism played a decisive role in transforming Shiʿi messianic discourse by shifting from an early messianic notion of saviorism — with an emphasis on the immediate rise of the Mahdi — to an explicitly messianic-apocalyptic framework that deferred to the end of time.
Mahboobeh Hami
PhD Candidate
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Mahboobeh Hami is a PhD candidate at the Center for Islamic Theology at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany. After completing her master’s in Islamic Studies, she sought to broaden her research in theology. Since hadith literature represents the most extensive body of early Islamic corpora, she chose it as the foundation of her doctoral work. In her research, she conducts a comparative study of Sunni and Shiʿi hadith traditions on messianism, analyzing how early Muslim scholars transmitted, interpreted, and debated these narrations within their theological contexts.