Two Versions of Islam and the Apocalypse: The Persistence of Eschatology in Schlegel, Baudrillard and Žižek

Abstract

This brief article deals with the persistence of a single motif — the medieval Christian association of Islam with the Apocalypse — in the vocabulary of an early modern thinker (Schlegel), and its reappearance in the geopolitical mindscapes of two postmodern philosophers (Žižek and Baudrillard). The medieval motif has two variants: a thirteenth‐century Franciscan version (one which sees Muslims as unconvertible signs of the Apocalypse to come) and a seventeenth‐century Protestant millenarianism (in which the Muslim becomes an anti‐Papist ally whom Protestant Christendom can form a coalition with, convert and ultimately march together with onto Rome). Essentially, the author argues that in his essay on the first Gulf War, Baudrillard reveals himself to be a Franciscan, whilst Žižek's approach in his treatment of both 9/11 and his book on Iraq is that of a Calvinist.