At times the growing chaos in the Middle East must seem almost apocalyptic, and it's hardly surprising that some fundamentalist evangelical Christians are seeing signs of Armageddon, though hardly for the first time. Outside the Islamic world, many may have overlooked the growing apocalyptic discourse among radical Sunni and radical Shi'ite theorists who are also playing the apocalypse game.
Hardline Shi'ites since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 have been talking about the imminent return of Imam Mahdi, and Ayatollah Khamene'i has sometimes endorsed the idea that the return of the Twelfth Imam was imminent. Sunnism has been less end-times oriented, at least since 1979, which corresponded to 1400 AH, and led to a self-proclaimed Sunni Mahdi seizing the Haram st Mecca.
But hey, the end times are back with a vengeance. Now that "the Caliphate" claims to have been "restored" by people the Caliphs would probably have executed quickly, the apocalypse has also made a comeback. Others have noted this already (see for example here and here). There's some danger in putting too much emphasis on this, and it's hard to be certain how seriously those using this language genuinely believe it and to what extent they're using it to rally the base. I thought it worth some comment, however.
There are moments when an education in early Islamic history and a modern career in defense and policy issues suddenly converge. Back during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s I was working full-time on Middle Eastern defense issues and simultaneously teaching a course in the Theology Department at Georgetown on the Development of Islamic Religious Thought. When someone would suggest that the combination of military matters and theology didn't mesh well, I would note that
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