Final Report Summary - HHIT (The here and the hereafter in Islamic traditions) The Starting Grant project "The here and the hereafter in Islamic traditions", led by Christian Lange (Utrecht University, the Netherlands), has resulted in a number of scholarly publications, including a general history of the Muslim paradise and hell (Cambridge University Press, 2015), written by the PI. Other monograph publications include a study of the otherworldly symbolism and ritual significance of the Kaaba; a study of the afterlife in Islamic philosophy; a study of mystical Qur'an commentaries dealing with verses about paradise and hell; and a study of pious, world-denying movements of the early centuries of Islam, and their participation in violent warfare (jihad). As a result of the project's activities, a book series called "Studies in Islamic Apocalypticism and Eschatology" has been launched, by the PI, at Edinburgh University Press. In addition, the project has organized three international conferences (with public lectures), produced a website with materials and video clips, two short documentaries, and a number of popularizing articles and media interviews.Overall, the project has contributed to nuancing common cliches regarding the Muslim belief in the afterlife. Popular tropes and prejudices, such as concern the 72 virgins of paradise, can now be much more effectively be questioned on the basis of a much broader understanding of what the afterlife is about according to a variety of Muslim currents of thought. On a scholarly level, the dominant narrative of Islam as a profoundly transcendentalist religion, as opposed to a religion that allows for divine immanence in creation, has been shown to be a misperception, at least as far as dominant modes of eschatological thinking in Islam are concerned.
