The QuranicMushrikūnand the resurrection (Part II)

Abstract

This article examines the attitudes of the Quranic mushrikūn to the resurrection and the afterlife, focusing on those who doubted or denied the reality of both. The first part of the article, published in a previous issue of BSOAS, argued that the doubters and deniers had grown up in a monotheist environment familiar with both concepts and that it was from within the monotheist tradition that they rejected them. This second part relates their thought to intellectual currents in Arabia and the Near East in general, arguing that the role of their pagan heritage in their denial is less direct than normally assumed. It is also noted that mutakallims such as Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq and al-Māturīdī anticipated the main conclusions reached in this paper. IIHow are we to explain the resistance to the doctrine of the resurrection and the afterlife described in the Quran? The usual answer is that it reflects Arabian paganism, which does not seem to have included belief in any meaningful form of life after death. 1 The pagan roots of the resistance are universally held to stand revealed in 45:24, where the radical deniers single out time (al-dahr) as their killer. 2 This cannot be entirely true. It does indeed seem likely that Arabian paganism played a role in the resistance, but its contribution is not as simple or direct as normally assumed.1 Cf. M. M. Bravmann, "'Life after death' in early Arab conception" in The Spiritual