Imagining the End: Visions of

da'wat-e jadid

), opted for a hidden Imam with a visible Proof  (

hujja

) as

the head of  the mission and for supreme authority in the authoritative teaching

(

ta'lim

) of  the adepts. The Nizaris, who called each other ‘comrade’ (

rafiq

),

held a number of  impregnable fortresses in the mountains of  Iran and Syria

which they used for training the zealous devotees (

fida'i

) and developing the

technique of  political assassination in the revolutionary struggle against the

Seljuq empire.

122

On 



 August 



/



th of  Ramadan 



, the ruler of  Alamut and other

Nizari Isma'ili fortresses, Hasan II b. Muhammad b. Buzurg-Umid, pro-

claimed the Resurrection as the Deputy (

khalifa

) and Proof  (

hujja

) of  the

Imam and the Riser of  the Resurrection (

qa'im al-qiyama

).

123

 He was evidently

impatient with the calculations of  the Brethren of  Purity, and refusing to

wait until their appointed time, which was the end of  the Islamic millennium,

had used a different horoscope.

124

 This meant that the era (

dawr

) of  the Law

and external reality had come to an end and the era of  inner reality had

begun. All believers could know God and the cosmic mysteries through the

Imam, and God would constantly be in their hearts.

Hasan II was fatally stabbed in January 



, but his son Muhammad II

confirmed the continuation of  the Resurrection which lasted for a total of

forty-six years to 



. The mission was now ‘the call to [or, preaching of ]

Resurrection (

da'wat-e qiyamat

),

125

 and the Nizaris considered themselves ‘the

saved community of  the Qa'imites (

qa'imiyin

)’.

126

 As time went on, the doctrine

of  the Resurrection as developed by Muhammad II, who claimed Imamate

for himself  and his father as putative descendants of  Nizar, made the Imam

the manifestation of  the word and command of  God through whose vision

the believers could find themselves in Paradise. He added the Sufi level of

truth (

haqiqa

) to the Isma'ili levels of  external and inner reality and identified

it with the Resurrection.

127

Hasan II, ‘upon whose mention be peace’, was now considered the Qa'im

as well as the Imam, but the meaning of  the term changed radically because

of  the declaration of  Resurrection. A treatise written some forty years into

the Resurrection reaffirmed the old Isma'ili idea that 'Ali was the Qa'im of  the

---

125

Messianism, Millennialism and Revolution

Resurrection, but also asserted that ‘all the Imams are 'Ali (bless him) himself,

and will be’.

128

 It is true that the Qa'im of  the Resurrection, ‘in this period

of  ours … in the clime of  the sun … in the land of  Babylon among the lands

of  the 'Ajam (non-Arabs) … in the midst of  the Jabal (mountainous region)

… at the castle of  Alamut, he was Our Lord [Hasan II]’.

129

 But the Qa'im is

no longer restricted to that particular incarnation. He is the eternal Imam and

the primordial Adam who completes the cycle of  revelation (

kashf

).

130

 With

the Resurrection, the Qa'im as the New Adam is and ever will be in the heart

of  the people of  truth, imparting to them the authoritative teaching (

ta'lim

)

that transcends the duality of  external and inner reality and makes possible

the full pantheistic plenitude of  existence.

131

 By completing the cycle of

revelation (

kashf

), the Great Resurrection is the apocalyptic appropriation of

the world through the universal integration of  saving knowledge into the daily

lives of  the people of  truth. With this kenosis of  the apocalyptic into Sufi

mystical pantheism, the ‘realized apocalypticism’ of  the Isma'ilism took the

form of  mystical life in what purported to be post-history.

Epilogue

The apocalyptic perspective that underlies both political messianism and

astrological millennialism was integrated into pristine Islam by Muhammad.

I have surveyed the unfolding of  political messianism and astrological millen-

nialism in revolutionary action and their subsequent containment with regard

to the rise of  Islam, the Abbasid and Isma'ili (Fatimid) revolutions, and the

development of  the doctrine of  occultation in Twelver Shi'ism. Each time,

with the realization of  the apocalyptic vision, messianism and millennialism

in history, the apocalyptic perspective was temporarily closed, but the closure

could never be definitive. The apocalyptic, messianic and millennial elements

remained contained in the Islamic tradition, but as can be seen in chapters 



and 



 by Bashir and Cole, could always be reactivated under favourable

conditions.

---

---

I I I

Medieval and Early

Modern Periods

---

---

129

7

Medieval Europe: Religious Enthusiasm

and Social Change in the ‘Millennial

Generation’

R. I. Moore

The apathy and despair in which the expectation of  the end of  the world had

held the spirits of  the tenth century were dissipated, to give way to prodigious

activity which imparted an entirely new impulse to the arts and literature.

The social entity which is called France was formed, came into existence, only

at the end of  the tenth century … this development deserves, for the first time,

the name of  French civilization.

1

Without reviving the romantic fantasy of  ‘the terrors of  the year 



’ – that

is, the anticipation of  the end of  the world at the millennium of  the in-

carnation (or the resurrection) of  Christ, according to the prophecy of  St John

the Divine – discarded by the scientific historians of  the later nineteenth and

twentieth centuries, the last fifteen or twenty years have seen a dramatic revival

of  interest in the millennium; the millennium, that is, in the most literal

possible sense, the years between 



 and 



 and the decades perceived by

many as leading up to and away from them. Put as simply as possible – and

therefore, no doubt too simply – two questions about the first millennium are

being discussed increasingly furiously. First, is it indeed the case that the

course of  European history changed sharply – so sharply as to imply a

‘revolution’ or at least, in the phrase popularized by Poly and Bournazel,

2

  a

‘mutation’ – at that time? Second, if  so was there a connection between the

change and the date? That is, did thoughts, anxieties and expectations

associated with the millennium make a significant, even an indispensable

contribution to that change?

Historiographically, the two questions have rather different lineages. The

first, in its modern form, has arisen from the work of  Georges Duby, quite

---

130

Medieval and Early Modern Periods

independently of  interest in the millennium as such, and in contexts which

accord if  not marginal, certainly secondary importance to the history of  ideas

and of  popular religious convictions. In 



 and 



 Duby published the

results of  his ‘researches on the evolution of  judicial institutions in southern

Burgundy’,

3

 showing that Carolingian public justice remained effective in the

region around Mâcon throughout the tenth century, only to collapse with

great suddenness between