Ir§nian Eschatology in a Predictive Quasi-Hadith from the Fourth Century AH

In some periods of Islamic history, apart from the original verses and Hadiths that express the Islamic view of the fate of the world, a large collection of non-authentic eschatological literature and Hadiths was prevalent in Islamic texts and popular literature. Apart from recognizing the eschatological beliefs contained in them, this vast literature is also noteworthy from the perspective of extending some of the ancient eschatological ideas, and to understanding the macro-historical perspective that lies behind them, as well as their implications for some contemporary social and cultural environment and events. This paper analyzes an eschatological quasi-Hadith that Maqdisī, a famous geographer, encountered with and quoted in Fārs. According to the findings of this study, this quasi-Hadith is a reflection of some of the eschatological and at the same time non-apocalyptic tendencies in the Iranian and Islamic milieu in the 4th century AH/ 10th century AD. This quasi-Hadith also represents a mixture of a kind of cosmopolitan and non-hegemonic ideal and an ethnic ideal in the Iranian sense, which, of course, is not fully in line with the Iranian Shahanshāhī ideology. Hence, it is possible that apart from general Iranian historical perspective, some traces of cosmopolitan attitudes influenced by non-Zoroastrian worldviews that are inconsistent with the Shahanshāhī ideology, which has a hue of Islamic literature, are reflected in this quasi-Hadith.