セカイノオワリに取り憑かれて（Giles Fraser）

Giles Fraser*1 “To Islamic State, Dabiq is important – but it’s not the end of the world” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/oct/10/islamic-state-dabiq-important-not-end-of-the-world

シリア北部、土耳古国境に近いDabiq*2という小さな町は「イスラーム国（ISIS）」*3にとっては象徴的な重要性を有している。何しろISISの機関誌のタイトルはDabiqなのだ。そこは「世界が終わるであろう場所（the place where the world will come to an end）」。

Like Judaism and Christianity – and strongly influenced by them – Islam has a powerful eschatological strain. It anticipates the end of the world and a final historical confrontation between good and evil, after which human life is set to be miraculously transformed. And according to one reading of Islamic tradition (hadith), the place where this final malahim (apocalypse) will happen is – of all places – Dabiq. This is where the Muslim and Christian armies will finally face each other and the Crusaders will be destroyed. And this is why Dabiq is the name on the lips of Isis recruiting sergeants.
It is worth noting that Isis is extremely selective in their use of hadith. For instance, other parts of the tradition has it that Jesus, dressed in yellow robes, will return east of Damascus and will join forces with the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi, in a battle against the false messiah, the Dajjal. After the death of the Mahdi, it is the Muslim Jesus who will rule the Earth. This hadith is less useful to Isis, though their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, looks to many observers to be trying to style himself as the Mahdi.

Fraser氏はこれを笑いごとで済ますことができる者はいないという――”before we chuckle too much at what we see as the peculiar theologies of other times and cultures, we would do well to examine a few of our own.” ノーマン・コーン（『千年王国の追求』）を参照しながら、20世紀において、共産主義もナチズムも「善と悪との最終決戦を通じた集合的救済という理念（the idea of collective salvation through some final battle between good and evil）」に同意していたことが示される。また、John Gray*4によれば、「レジーム・チェンジ」を「グローバル民主革命のスタート」と考えるネオコンの思想にも「この同じ終末論的想像力（this same eschatological imagination）」が表現されている*5。さらに、現在欧米を中心に昂っており、既に実行もされているISIS討伐の理念、つまり「軍事行動を通じて中東を「救済する」という理念（idea of “saving” the Middle East through military action）」も「中世的な終末論の世俗化されたヴァージョン（a secularised version of medieval eschatology）」だということになる。

*2:See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq

*5:“The book that changed my life” http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/02/norman-cohn-john-gray-world