http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5
Culture
Books
Ibn Warraq
The Guardian, Saturday 12 January 2002
Virgins? What virgins?
It is widely believed that Muslim 'martyrs' enjoy rich sensual rewards on
reaching paradise. A new study suggests they may be disappointed. Ibn Warraq
reports
--
In August, 2001, the American television channel CBS aired an interview with a
Hamas activist Muhammad Abu Wardeh, who recruited terrorists for suicide
bombings in Israel. Abu Wardeh was quoted as saying: "I described to him how
God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you
become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting
happiness." Wardeh was in fact shortchanging his recruits since the rewards in
Paradise for martyrs was 72 virgins. But I am running ahead of things .
Since September 11, news stories have repeated the story of suicide bombers and
their heavenly rewards, and equally Muslim scholars and Western apologists of
Islam have repeated that suicide is forbidden in Islam. Suicide (qatlu
nafsi-hi) is not referred to in the Koran but is indeed forbidden in the
Traditions (Hadith in Arabic), which are the collected sayings and doings
attributed to the Prophet and traced back to him through a series of putatively
trustworthy witnesses. They include what was done in his presence that he did
not forbid, and even the authoritative sayings and doings of his companions.
But the Hamas spokesman correctly uses the word martyr (shahid) and not suicide
bomber, since those who blow themselves up almost daily in Israel and those who
died on September 11 were dying in the noblest of all causes, Jihad, which is
an incumbent religious duty, established in the Koran and in the Traditions as
a divine institution, and enjoined for the purpose of advancing Islam. While
suicide is forbidden, martyrdom is everywhere praised, welcomed, and urged: "By
the Being in Whose Hand is my life, I love that I should be killed in the way
of Allah; then I should be brought back to life and be killed again in His
way..."; "The Prophet said, 'Nobody who enters Paradise will ever like to
return to this world even if he were offered everything, except the martyr who
will desire to return to this world and be killed 10 times for the sake of the
great honour that has been bestowed upon him'." [Sahih Muslim, chapters 781,
782, The Merit of Jihad and the Merit of Martyrdom.]
What of the rewards in paradise? The Islamic paradise is described in great
sensual detail in the Koran and the Traditions; for instance, Koran sura 56
verses 12 -40 ; sura 55 verses 54-56 ; sura 76 verses 12-22. I shall quote the
celebrated Penguin translation by NJ Dawood of sura 56 verses 12- 39: "They
shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them
immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will
neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own
choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed
houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the
houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..."
One should note that most translations, even those by Muslims themselves such
as A Yusuf Ali, and the British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, translate the
Arabic (plural) word Abkarun as virgins, as do well-known lexicons such the one
by John Penrice. I emphasise this fact since many pudic and embarrassed Muslims
claim there has been a mistranslation, that "virgins" should be replaced by
"angels". In sura 55 verses 72-74, Dawood translates the Arabic word " hur " as
"virgins", and the context makes clear that virgin is the appropriate
translation: "Dark-eyed virgins sheltered in their tents (which of your Lord's
blessings would you deny?) whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched
before." The word hur occurs four times in the Koran and is usually translated
as a "maiden with dark eyes".
Two points need to be noted. First, there is no mention anywhere in the Koran
of the actual number of virgins available in paradise, and second, the
dark-eyed damsels are available for all Muslims, not just martyrs. It is in the
Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified: in a Hadith
(Islamic Tradition) collected by Al-Tirmidhi (died 892 CE [common era*]) in the
Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on The Features of Paradise as described by
the Messenger of Allah [Prophet Muhammad], chapter 21, About the Smallest
Reward for the People of Paradise, (Hadith 2687). The same hadith is also
quoted by Ibn Kathir (died 1373 CE ) in his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of
Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The
smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000
servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls,
aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus
suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."
Modern apologists of Islam try to downplay the evident materialism and sexual
implications of such descriptions, but, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam says,
even orthodox Muslim theologians such as al Ghazali (died 1111 CE) and
Al-Ash'ari (died 935 CE) have "admitted sensual pleasures into paradise". The
sensual pleasures are graphically elaborated by Al-Suyuti (died 1505 ), Koranic
commentator and polymath. He wrote: "Each time we sleep with a houri we find
her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is
eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly
delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you
would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris,
besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas."
One of the reasons Nietzsche hated Christianity was that it "made something
unclean out of sexuality", whereas Islam, many would argue, was sex-positive.
One cannot imagine any of the Church fathers writing ecstatically of heavenly
sex as al-Suyuti did, with the possible exception of St Augustine before his
conversion. But surely to call Islam sex-positive is to insult all Muslim
women, for sex is seen entirely from the male point of view; women's sexuality
is admitted but seen as something to be feared, repressed, and a work of the
devil.
Scholars have long pointed out that these images are clearly drawn pictures and
must have been inspired by the art of painting. Muhammad, or whoever is
responsible for the descriptions, may well have seen Christian miniatures or
mosaics representing the gardens of paradise and has interpreted the figures of
angels rather literally as those of young men and young women. A further
textual influence on the imagery found in the Koran is the work of Ephrem the
Syrian [306-373 CE], Hymns on Paradise, written in Syriac, an Aramaic dialect
and the language of Eastern Christianity, and a Semitic language closely
related to Hebrew and Arabic.
This naturally leads to the most fascinating book ever written on the language
of the Koran, and if proved to be correct in its main thesis, probably the most
important book ever written on the Koran. Christoph Luxenberg's book, Die
Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran, available only in German, came out just over
a year ago, but has already had an enthusiastic reception, particularly among
those scholars with a knowledge of several Semitic languages at Princeton,
Yale, Berlin, Potsdam, Erlangen, Aix-en-Provence, and the Oriental Institute in
Beirut.
Luxenberg tries to show that many obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read
certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic. We cannot go into the technical
details of his methodology but it allows Luxenberg, to the probable horror of
all Muslim males dreaming of sexual bliss in the Muslim hereafter, to conjure
away the wide-eyed houris promised to the faithful in suras XLIV.54; LII.20,
LV.72, and LVI.22. Luxenberg 's new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem
the Syrian, yields "white raisins" of "crystal clarity" rather than doe-eyed,
and ever willing virgins - the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes
it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred, and not unsullied
maidens or houris.
In Syriac, the word hur is a feminine plural adjective meaning white, with the
word "raisin" understood implicitly. Similarly, the immortal, pearl-like
ephebes or youths of suras such as LXXVI.19 are really a misreading of a Syriac
expression meaning chilled raisins (or drinks) that the just will have the
pleasure of tasting in contrast to the boiling drinks promised the unfaithful
and damned.
As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its
scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is
correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to
abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72
times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white
raisins, according to their taste, in the next.
ยท Common era is an alternative to Christian era as a method of historical dating
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