The forming of an “Apocalyptic Metageography”. Muslim and Byzantine apocalyptic traditions and the developing of a shared geographical worldview

The way in which apocalyptic narrations affect the vision a culture has of its future history has been the subject of many studies; also, several works have been dedicated to the analysis of apocalyptic imagery in literary and figurative productions; still, not many researches have investigated the way apocalyptic weltanschauung gives new spatial coordinates, shaping for the believer a whole new and subjective map of the world. Being apocalypticism such a common feature in the medieval world, it looks quite profitable to analyse the impact of this mentality in the geographical worldview of that time. A good case in point is provided by the apocalyptic productions written by Arabs and Byzantines during the first two centuries after the birth of Islam. In works such as the Kitāb al-Fitan (Book of seditions) by Nu’aym b. Ḥammād (d. 842) and the Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius (late seventh century) we can find a considerable amount of geographical places and terms; many of them are real locations of conflict (in the Syrian area); several others instead are fabulous and symbolic places, related to the pre-existent Judeo-Christian apocalyptic traditions: we could define the combination of these different geographical layers an “apocalyptic metageography”, which gives us an idea of how the conflict was spatially perceived by both civilizations. The choice is interesting also in front of the contemporary use of these traditions, made by both Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, who look for a “prophesied map” to read the current geopolitical situation of the middle-eastern area.