The End of the World

     Most religions have apocalyptic scenarios in their doctrines. None of the world empires of the past have existed at their zenith of influence and might forever and inevitably succumb to change whether internally, externally, or an alloy of those changes. An unique comparative analysis can be examined when comparing the eschatological hope-fears of the Christian Byzantium Empire and the enthusiastic vigor of the newer Islamic forces.
     An extension of the historical Roman Empire, Byzantium, with its capital of Constantinople, remained strong well into the tenth century if at only a shadow of its former power. The Judeo-Christian belief system upon which the Eastern Roman Empire was founded under Constantine took the promise of Jesus' return "soon" seriously and strove to set up a Christian world empire to begin Jesus' Millennial Reign on earth. This belief motivated the Byzantine's to expand and conquer, especially the areas around Jericho and the Holy Land.
     However, the quick rise of the fundamentally oppositional Islamic power immediately and dramatically reduced the dominating capabilities of the Byzantines. The Byzantine Empire was not unfamiliar with the tides of fortune having long weathered bankruptcy, civil unrest, plague, and military defeat. Initially, even as the empire's strength waned, hope burgeoned, especially in the outskirts of Constantinople's provinces. A variety of groups and belief systems viewed their Roman-founded empire as immortal as the phoenix that must suffer defeat to be renewed to full prominence again.

Overall there seemed to be a fairly popular train of thought that imperial redemption and renewal would start on the outskirts of the Byzantine Commonwealth and be consummated in Constantinople and/or Jerusalem. At least in part this tendency could be explained by the belief that the empire itself needed a renewal, its sacred vitality no longer strong enough to guarantee the empire's triumphant universalism. The power of renewal could no longer be found within Constantinople but outside of it. The shift of focus. of imperial sacred geography from the imperial center to the periphery sought to restore the vitality of mythical Byzantium through the inversion of established canons of imperial sacred space. In the situation in which the imperial center lost its strength, once-peripheral parts of the empire claimed this strength for themselves, positioning themselves as legitimate successors of Constantinople.¹

            1  Alexei Sivertsev. Judaism and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

               Press, 2011), 214.

     As the years wore on without providing a great return of Byzantine might, defeatism set into the culture, and the once proud armies of the Eastern Roman Empire called upon the Franks for military aid. The mighty Christian empire was set to fall.

     On the other side of the spectrum, the new Muslim armies expanded furiously with their own religious urgency in conquering the world because of the basic teaching's of Muhammad warning that the world would end and God would judge all.

What drove Muhammad and his armies to conquer is a subject of deepest controversy . . . it is clear that the common Late Antique themes of universalism and apocalypticism shaped both his message and his method. A significant portion of the Qur'an addresses the Apocalypse (the Last Day, the Overwhelming Event) when God the righteous judge would return and set the whole world to right. Believers were enjoined to a Holy War to prepare themselves and the world for the impending day of reckoning. Muhammad's last recorded speech admonished that 'Muslims should fight all men until they say "There is no god but God."' The goal seems to have been to build a universal righteous community - a melding of Late Antique monotheism with dynamics drawn from deep in the Age of Ancient Empires.²

           2 Eric Cline and Mark Graham. Ancient Empires: From Mesopotamia to the Rise of Islam (Cambridge, UK:
             Cambridge University Press, 2007), 330.

     Byzantium Christendom and the Islamic Empire had the end of the world to spur their conquests; thus, both sides of a centuries long war struggled to convert the world before the end. These two mighty empires used religion to mutual self-destruction.
     In the case of Byzantium, European Crusaders did as much to destroy Constantinople as the Islamic forces. Centuries of war, contraction of governed land by church officials, and reduced tax revenue wore out the Eastern Roman Empire. The Islamic armies fractured under diverging sects and local governors over their vast holdings. Essentially both empires crippled themselves enough for an outside force to have the final impact. The Arab-based Muslim world shifted as Asian Turks took the reigns of the empire, and the Byzantines eventually fell to these Islamic-modified Turks as well.
     In the end both regimes got what they long expected though perhaps neither side predicted the "apocalypse" to be of their empire, not the world. However and whenever man's world ends has been the focus of legends, tales, and religions for millenia. Since we can neither know the day of our own death nor the death of the world, strive to do all you can in the time given to consistently carry out your beliefs and improve upon the world that we do have for as long as we have it.


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Agatha Tyche