Jahannam
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In Islam, Jahannam (Template:Langx) is the place of punishment for evildoers in the Akhirah / afterlife, or hell.<ref name=ETISN2009:401/> This notion is an integral part of Islamic theology,<ref name=ETISN2009:401>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.401</ref> and has occupied an important place in Muslim belief.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:3>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.3</ref> The concept is often called by the proper name "Jahannam", but other names refer to hellTemplate:Efn and these are also often used as the names of different gates to hell.<ref name=rustomji-119>Template:Cite book</ref> The term "Jahannam" itself is used not only for hell in general but (in one interpretation) for the uppermost layer of hell.<ref name=ETISN2009:407/> Template:Islam The importance of Hell in Islamic doctrine is that it is an essential element of the Day of Judgment, which is one of the six articles of faith (belief in God, the angels, books, prophets, Day of Resurrection, and decree) "by which the Muslim faith is traditionally defined".<ref name=ETISN2009:401/>
Punishment and suffering in hell, in mainstream Islam, is physical, psychological, and spiritual, and varies according to the sins of the condemned person.<ref name=idiot>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Tom Fulks, Heresy? The Five Lost Commandments, Strategic Book Publishing 2010 Template:ISBN p. 74</ref> Its excruciating pain and horror, as described in the Qur'an, often parallels the pleasure and delights of Jannah (paradise).<ref name=ETISN2009:405>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.405</ref><ref name=JISYYHIU1981:86>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.86</ref> Muslims commonly believe that confinement to hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others, although there are disagreements about this view<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref group="Note">"One should note there was a near consensus among Muslim theologians of the later periods that punishment for Muslim grave sinners would only be temporary; eventually after a purgatory sojourn in hell's top layer they would be admitted into paradise."<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:7>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.7</ref></ref> and Muslim scholars disagree over whether Hell itself will last for eternity (the majority view),<ref name="Islamic Traditions p. 12 w/quote">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=religion-quote>Template:Cite web</ref> or whether God's mercy will lead to its eventual elimination.<ref name=ETISN2009:413/>
The common belief among Muslims holds that Jahannam coexists with the temporal world, just as Jannah does<ref name="Islamic Traditions p. 12">Template:Cite book</ref> (rather than being created after Judgment Day). Hell is described physically in different ways in different sources within Islamic literature. It is enormous in size,<ref name=discover/><ref name=500-years/> and located below Paradise.<ref name=AYAli-7:50/> It has seven levels, each one more severe than the one above it,<ref name="RFIBA">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Q.15:44</ref><ref name=ETISN2009:407/><ref name="Surah Al-Hijr - 43-44">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=about>Template:Cite web</ref> but it is also said to be a huge pit over which the resurrected walk over the bridge of As-Sirāt.<ref name="Bukhārī p.12">Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, k. al-riqāq 52; Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, k. al-īmān 299; quoted in |Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.12</ref> It is said to have mountains, rivers, valleys and "even oceans" filled with disgusting fluids;<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:15/> and also to be able to walk (controlled by reins),<ref name=reins-Qurtubi/> and to ask questions,<ref name=qaf-50:30-AYAli/> much like a sentient being.
Etymology, other names and accounts
In the Hebrew Bible, Gei-Hinnom or Gei-ben-Hinnom, the "Valley [of the Son] of Hinnom" is an accursed Valley in Jerusalem where child sacrifices took place. In the canonical Gospels, Jesus talks about Gehenna as a place "where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched" (Mark 9:48). In the apocryphal book of 4 Ezra, written around the 2nd century BCE, Gehinnom appears as a transcendental place of punishment. This change comes to completion in the Babylonian Talmud, written around 500 CE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
It can be thought that the narrative of Hell in Islam is largely shaped by the offerings of human sacrifices by passing it over fire or burning it to Molech, which the Torah describes as taking place in the Gehenna (Jeremiah 7; 32–35). While the Gehenna gives its name to Hell,<ref>Richard P. Taylor (2000). Death and the Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia. "JAHANNAM From the Hebrew ge-hinnom, which refers to a valley outside Jerusalem, Jahannam is the Islamic word for hell."</ref> the fire used for the offerings turns into Hellfire, and Molech turns into Malik, the guardian of Hell in the Qur'anic narrative. (Q.43:77)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other names for Jahannam include "the fire" (Template:Script, al-nar),<ref name="IDTa">Template:Cite web</ref> "blazing fire" (Template:Script, jaheem),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "that which breaks to pieces" (Template:Script hutamah),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "the abyss" (Template:Script, haawiyah),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "the blaze" (Template:Script, sa’eer),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and "place of burning" (Template:Script Saqar), which are also often used as the names of different gates to hell.<ref name=rustomji-119a>Template:Cite book</ref>
There are many traditions on the location of paradise and hell, but not all of them "are easily pictured or indeed mutually reconcilable".<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:131>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.131</ref> For example, some describe hell as in the lowest earth, while one scholar (Al-Majlisī) describes hell as "surrounding" the earth.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:131-note-79>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.131, note 79</ref> Islamic scholars speculated on where the entrance to hell might be located. Some thought the sea was the top level,<ref>Qurtubi, Tadhkira, ii, 101, 105</ref><ref>Suyūṭī, Budūr, 411</ref> or that the sulphourus well in Hadramawt (in present-day Yemen), allegedly haunted by the souls of the wicked, was the entrance to the underworld. Others considered the entrance in the valley of Hinnom (surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem). In a Persian work, the entry to hell is located in a gorge called Wadi Jahannam (in present-day Afghanistan).<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/>
Sources
Different sources used by (or related to) Islam give different descriptions of hell, its torments, location, inhabitants and their sins, etc.
Qur'anic descriptions
Template:See According to Einar Thomassen, much of how Muslims picture and think about Jahannam comes from the Qur'an. He found nearly 500 references to Jahannam in it, using a variety of names.<ref name=ETISN2009:402 >Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.402</ref><ref group="Note">Scholars differ on the number of references in the Qur'an. A. Jones counts 92 "significant passages" about Hell and 62 about Paradise,<ref>Jones, Paradise and Hell, 110</ref> while Lange identified about 400 verses "relating, in a meaningful way" to Hell, and about 320 to Paradise.<ref>Lange, Paradise and Hell chapter 1, (forthcoming),</ref> Other scholars claim Paradise gets "significantly more space" in the Qur'an than Hell.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:5>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.5</ref> </ref> The following is an example of the Qur'anic verses<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> about Hell:
- Surely the day of decision is (a day) appointed:
- The day on which the trumpet shall be blown so you shall come forth in hosts,
- And the heaven shall be opened so that it shall be all openings,
- And the mountains shall be moved off so that they shall remain a mere semblance.
- Surely hell lies in wait,
- A place of resort for the inordinate,
- Living therein for ages.
- They shall not taste therein cool nor drink
- But boiling water and filth,
- as a corresponding recompense.
- Surely they did not feared the account,
- and they rejected Our messages as lies.
- And We have recorded everything in a book,
- So taste! For We will not increase you in anything except torment. (Q.78:17–30)<ref>Shakir
translation, quoted in Template:Cite journal</ref>
Among the different terms and phrases mentioned above that refer to Hell in the Qur'an, Fire (nār) is used 125 times, Hell (jahannam) 77 times, and Blazing Fire (jaḥīm) 26 times,<ref name=ItQ/> or 23 by another count.<ref name="Islamicity"/> The description of Jahannam as a place of blazing fire appears in almost every verse in the Qur'an describing Hell.<ref name=tahrike-21>Template:Cite book</ref> One collection<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:85-86>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.85-86</ref> of descriptions of Hell found in the Qur'an include "rather specific indications of the tortures of the Fire": flames that crackle and roar;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> fierce, boiling waters,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> scorching wind, and black smoke,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> roaring and boiling as if it would burst with rage.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Hell is described as being located below Paradise,<ref>verse 7:50 states "The companions of the Fire will call to the Companions of the Garden: 'Pour down to us water or anything that God doth provide'".Template:Cite quran</ref><ref name=AYAli-7:50>Template:Cite book</ref> having seven gates and "for every gate there shall be a specific party" of sinners (Q.15:43–44).<ref name="Surah Al-Hijr - 43-44"/><ref name=rustomji-119/><ref name=ETISN2009:407>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.407</ref> The Qur'an also mentions wrongdoers having "degrees (or ranks) according to their deeds",<ref>Template:Cite quran</ref> (which some scholars believe refers to the "specific parties" at each of the gates);<ref name=ItQ/> and of there being "seven heavens ˹in layers˺, and likewise for the earth" (Q.65:12),<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/> (though this doesn't indicate that the seven layers of earth are hell). The one mention of levels of hell is that hypocrites will be found in its very bottom.<ref name=ItQ/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Disbelievers; According to Thomassen, those specifically mentioned in the Qur'an as being punished in Hell are "most typically" disbelievers (kāfirūn). These include people who lived during Muhammad's time, the polytheists (mushrikūn), or enemies of Muhammad who worshiped idols (Q.10:24), and the "losers", or enemies of Muhammad who died in war against him (Q.21:70), as well as broad categories of sinners: the apostates (murtaddūn; Q.3:86–87), hypocrites (munafiqūn; Q.4:140), self-content (Q.10:7–8, 17:18),<ref name=ETISN2009:404>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.404</ref> polytheists (mushrikūn; Q.4:48,116), and those who do not believe in certain key doctrines of Islam: those who deny the divine origin of the Qur'an (Q.74:16–26) or the coming of Judgement Day (Q.25:11–14).<ref name=ETISN2009:404/>
Committers of major sins; In addition are those who have committed serious criminal offenses against other human beings: the murder of a believer (Q.4:93, 3:21), usury (Q.2:275), devouring the property of an orphan (Q.4:10), and slander (Q.104), particularly of a chaste woman (Q.24:23).<ref name=ETISN2009:405/>
Biblical and historical individuals; Some prominent people mentioned in hadith and the Qur'an as suffering in Hell or destined to suffer there are: Pharaoh (Firʿawn; the pharaoh of The Exodus; Q:10:90-92), the wives of Noah and Lot (Q:66–10), and Abu Lahab and his wife, who were contemporaries and enemies of Muhammad (Q:111).<ref name="surah 111">Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Ibn Hisham, Translated by Guillaume, A. (1955). The Life of Muhammad p. 707. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Punishments
The punishments of Hell described in the Qur'an tend to revolve around "skin sensation and digestion". <ref name=ETISN2009:404/> Its wretched inhabitants sigh and wail,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> their scorched skins are constantly exchanged for new ones so that they can taste the torment anew,<ref name="Quran 4:56">Template:Cite web</ref> drink festering water and though death appears on all sides they cannot die.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They are linked together in chains of 70 cubits,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> wearing pitch for clothing and fire on their faces<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> have boiling water that will be poured over their heads, melting their insides as well as their skins, and hooks of iron to drag them back if they should try to escape,<ref name="cite quran|67|7|s=ns">Quran 67:7 Template:Cite quran</ref> and their remorseful admissions of wrongdoing and pleading for forgiveness are in vain.<ref name=ItQ-233>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>
Hell's resemblance to a prison is strong. Inmates have chains around their necks (Q.13:5, 34:33, 36:8, 76:4, etc.), are "tethered" by hooks of iron (Q.22:21), and are guarded by "merciless angels" (zabāniyyah; Q.66:6, 96:18).<ref name=ETISN2009:404/>
Its inmates will be thirsty and hungry "constantly".<ref name=ETISN2009:404/> Their fluids will include boiling water (Q.6:70), melted brass, and/or be bitterly cold, "unclean, full of pus".<ref name="Gwynne 2002:416a">Gwynne, Rosalind W. 2002. "Hell and Hellfire." Encyclopaedia of the Quran, 2: :416a</ref> In addition to fire (Q.2:174), it has three different unique sources of food:
- Ḍari, a dry desert plant that is full of thorns and fails to relieve hunger or sustain a person (Q88:6);<ref name=73:13>Template:Cite quran</ref><ref name=86:7>Template:Cite quran</ref><ref name=ItQ-232/>
- Ghislin, which is only mentioned once (in Q69:36, which states that it is the only nourishment in hell);<ref name=ItQ-232/><ref name=39:36>Template:Cite quran</ref>
- Heads of devils hanging from the tree of Zaqqum that "springs out of the bottom of Hell".<ref name="ZILQ">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ItQ>Template:Cite book</ref> (These are mentioned three<ref name=ItQ-232>Template:Cite book</ref> or four times: Q.17:60 (as the "cursed tree"),<ref name="17:60">Template:Cite quran</ref> Q.37:62-68,<ref name="37:62">Template:Cite quran</ref> Q.44:43,<ref name="44:43">Template:Cite quran</ref> Q.56:52.)<ref name="56:52">Template:Cite quran</ref>
Psychological torments are humiliation (Q.3:178) and listening to "sighs and sobs". (Q.11:106).<ref name=ETISN2009:404/> There are at least a couple of indications that physical rather than "spiritual or psychological" punishment predominates in jahannam according to scholars Smith and Haddad. For example, the Quran notes that inmates of jahannam will be denied the pleasure of "gazing on the face of God", but nowhere does it state "that this loss contributed to the agony" the inmates experience. While the Quran describes the regret the inmates express for the deeds that put them in hell, it is "for the consequences" of the deeds "rather than for the actual commission of them".<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:66>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.66</ref>
In Hadith's
There are "scores" of narrations or "short narratives traced back to the Prophet or his Companions" from "the third/ninth century onwards", that "greatly elaborate" on the Quranic image of hell.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:6>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.6</ref>
Organization, size, and guards
Similarly to how the Qur'an speaks of the seven gates of Hell,<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/> "relatively early" narrations attest that Hell has seven levels. This interpretation became "widespread" in Islam.<ref name=ETISN2009:407/> The bridge (ṣirāṭ) over Hell that all resurrected souls must cross is mentioned in several narrations.<ref name="bridge">Template:Cite web</ref>
Some hadith describe the size of hell as enormous. It is so deep that if a stone were thrown into it, it would fall for 70 years before reaching the bottom (according to one hadith).<ref name=discover>Template:Cite web</ref> Another states that the breadth of each of Hell's walls is equivalent to a distance covered by a walking journey of 40 years.<ref name=discover/> According to another source (Qurṭubī) it takes "500 years" to get from one of its levels to another.<ref name=500-years>Qurṭubī, Tadhkira, 93; quoted in Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.14</ref>
Traditions often describe this in multiples of seven: hell has seventy thousand valleys, each with "seventy thousand ravines, inhabited by seventy thousand serpents and scorpions".<ref>Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, v.157, trans. Winter p.221-2; quoted in Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.14</ref>
According to one hadith, hell will be vastly more populous than Paradise. Out of every one thousand people entering into the afterlife, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them will end up in the fire.<ref>Template:Hadith-usc (Volume 4, Book 55, Hadith number 567)</ref><ref>Template:Cite quran</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (According to at least one scholarly salafi interpretation, the hadith expresses the large disparity between the number of saved and damned rather than a specific literal ratio.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Malik in Hadith quotes Muhammad as saying that the "fire of the children of Adam [humans] which they kindle is a seventieth part of the fire of Jahannam."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He also describes that fire as "blacker than tar".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In book 87 Hadith 155, "Interpretation of Dreams" of Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad is reported to have talked of angels guarding hell, each with "a mace of iron", and describes Jahannam as a place
"built inside like a well and it had side posts like those of a well, and beside each post there was an angel carrying an iron mace. I saw therein many people hanging upside down with iron chains, and I recognized therein some men from the Quraish".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Punishments
Hadiths introduce punishments, reasons and revelations not mentioned in the Quran. In both Quranic verses and hadiths, "the Fire" is "a gruesome place of punishment that is always contrasted with Jannah, "the Garden" (paradise). Whatever characteristic "the Garden offered, the Fire usually offered the opposite conditions."<ref name="NRGF2009: 117-8">Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire, 2009: p.117-8</ref> Several hadith describes a part of hell that is extremely cold rather than hot, known as Zamhareer.<ref name=Zamhareer>Template:Cite web</ref>
According to Bukhari, lips are cut by scissors. Other traditions added flogging. An Uyghur manuscript also mentions drowning, stoning and falling from heights.<ref>Christian Lange Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions BRILL 978-90-04-30121-4 p. 16</ref> Based on hadiths, the sinners are thought to carry signs in accordance with their sins.<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13">Christian Lange Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions BRILL 978-90-04-30121-4 p. 12-13</ref>
Inmates and their sins
Hadith describe types of sinners populating hell. Seven sins doom a person to Hell, according to reports of as-Saheehayn, (i.e. the reports of the two most esteemed Sunni hadith collections: al-Bukhaari and Muslim): "Associating others with Allah (shirk or idolatry); witchcraft; killing a soul whom Allah has forbidden us to kill, except in cases dictated by Islamic law; consuming orphans' wealth; consuming riba (usury); fleeing from the battlefield; and slandering chaste, innocent women."<ref name="naik-7">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="helpline">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Al-Hakeem">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Anchor According to a series of hadith, Muhammad claims the majority of the inhabitants of hell will be women, due to an inclination for gossip, conjecture, ungratefulness of kind treatment from their spouses and idle chatting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref group="Note">Other hadith include
- Narrated `Imran: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "I looked at Paradise and saw that the majority of its residents were the poor; and I looked at the (Hell) Fire and saw that the majority of its residents were women." (Sahih al-Bukhari 5198: Book 67, Hadith 132. Vol. 7, Book 62, Hadith 126
- It was narrated that ‘Abd-Allah ibn ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "I was shown Hell and I have never seen anything more terrifying than it. And I saw that the majority of its people are women." They said, "Why, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "Because of their ingratitude (kufr)." It was said, "Are they ungrateful to Allah?" He said, "They are ungrateful to their companions (husbands) and ungrateful for good treatment. If you are kind to one of them for a lifetime then she sees one (undesirable) thing in you, she will say, ‘I have never had anything good from you.’" (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 1052)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) went out to the musalla (prayer place) on the day of Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr. He passed by the women and said, ‘O women! Give charity, for I have seen that you form the majority of the people of Hell.' They asked, ‘Why is that, O Messenger of Allah?' He replied, ‘You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religious commitment than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.’ The women asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is deficient in our intelligence and religious commitment?' He said, ‘Is not the testimony of two women equal to the testimony of one man?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Is it not true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?' The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is the deficiency in her religious commitment.’" (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 304)<ref name="menstruating">Template:Cite web</ref>
- It was narrated that Jabir ibn ‘Abd-Allah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "I attended Eid prayers with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). He started with the prayer before the khutbah (sermon), with no adhan (call to prayer) or iqamah (final call to prayer). Then he stood up, leaning on Bilal (may Allah be pleased with him), speaking of fear of Allah (taqwa) and urging us to obey Him. He preached to the people and reminded them. Then he went over to the women and preached to them and reminded them. Then he said, ‘Give in charity, for you are the majority of the fuel of Hell. A woman with dark cheeks stood up in the midst of the women and said, ‘Why is that, O Messenger of Allah?' He said, ‘Because you complain too much and are ungrateful to your husbands.’ Then they started to give their jewelry in charity, throwing their earrings and rings into Bilal's cloak." (Narrated by Muslim, 885)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> </ref>
The Salafi Muslim scholar ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar (d. 2012) reaffirms the arguments of al-Qurṭubī, that women have an attachment to the here and now, inability to control their passions; but allows that despite this, many women are good and pious and will go to Paradise, and some are even superior to many men in piety.<ref>ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar, al-Yawm al-ākhir, iii, 83–4</ref> However, other hadith imply that the majority of people in paradise will be women.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since the number of men and women are approximately equal, al-Qurṭubī attempts to reconcile the conflicting hadith by suggesting that many of the women in Hell are there only temporarily and will eventually be brought reside in Paradise; thereafter the majority of the people of Paradise would be women.<ref name="Qurtubi">at-Tadhkirah, al-Qurtubî, p. 475</ref><ref group="Note">However, if the number of men and women are approximately equal, both these Hadith could not be true at the same time.</ref>
Other people populating hell mentioned in hadith include, but are not limited to, the mighty, the proud and the haughty.<ref name=qudsi>Template:Cite web</ref> Einar Thomassen writes that this almost certainly refers to those too proud and haughty to submit to God, i.e. unbelievers<ref name=ETISN2009:404/> (the literal translation of Muslim is one who submits to God).
Sahih Muslim quotes Muhammad as saying that suicides would reside in Jahannam forever.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the hadith collection Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imam Mālik (711–795), Muhammad said: "Truly a man utters words to which he attaches no importance, and by them he falls into the fire of Jahannam."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Al-Bukhari in book 72:834 added to the list of dwellers in Jahannam: "The people who will receive the severest punishment from Allah will be the picture makers".<ref>Template:Hadith-usc</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Use of utensils made of precious metals could also land its users in Jahannam: "A person who drinks from a silver vessel brings the fire of Jahannam into his belly".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As could starving a cat to death: "A woman was tortured and was put in Hell because of a cat which she had kept locked till it died of hunger."<ref>Template:Hadith-usc</ref><ref name=CC-132>Template:Cite book</ref>
At least one hadith indicates the importance of faith in avoiding hell, stating: "... no one will enter Hell in whose heart is an atom's weight of faith."<ref group="Note">hadith At-Tirmidhi (1999), Abu Dawood (4091) and Ibn Maajah (59) narrated from ‘Abdullah ibn Mas‘ood that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: "No one will enter Paradise in whose heart is an atom's weight of arrogance and no one will enter Hell in whose heart is an atom's weight of faith."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref></ref>
In Eschatological manuals
Template:Main Template:Further Template:Islamic eschatology
"Eschatological manuals" were written after the hadith, they compiled the hadith on hell,<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:6/> and also developed descriptions of Jahannam "in more deliberate ways".<ref name=Rustomji-117>Template:Cite book</ref> While the Quran and hadith tend to describe punishments that nonbelievers are forced to give themselves, the manuals illustrate external and more dramatic punishment, through devils, scorpions, and snakes.<ref name=rustomji-121/>
Manuals dedicated solely to the subject of Jahannam include Ibn Abi al-Dunya's Sifat al-nar, and al-Maqdisi's Dhikr al-nar. <ref group="Note"> hadiths, ... were compiled into special eschatological handbooks by authors such as:
- Saʿīd b. Janāḥ (Shiʿi, fl. early 3rd/9th c.),
- Ibn Abī l-Dunyā (Sunni, d. 281/894),
- al-Ghazālī (Sunni, d. 505/1111),
- al-Qurṭubī (Sunni, d. 671/1272),
- al-Suyūṭī (Sunni, d. 911/1505),
- al-Baḥrānī (Shiʿi, d. 1107/1695–6),
- al-Saffārīnī (Sunni, d. 1189/1774),
- Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān (Sunni, d. 1307/1890)
- Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Aṭfayyish (Ibāḍī, d. 1332/1917), etc.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:6>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.6</ref>
There are also "anonymous, popular compilations"; two texts in particular that focus mainly on hell are:
- Daqāʾiq al-akhbār fī dhikr al-janna wa-l-nār26
- Qurrat al-ʿuyūn<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:6/></ref>
Other manuals—such as texts by al-Ghazali and the 12th-century scholar Qadi Ayyad – "dramatise life in the Fire", and present "new punishments, different types of sinners, and the appearance of a multitude of devils," to exhort the faithful to piety.<ref name=rustomji-119/> His hell has a structure with a specific place for each type of sinners.<ref name=rustomji-121>Template:Cite book</ref>
According to Leor Halevi, between the moment of death and the time of their burial ceremony, "the spirit of a deceased Muslim takes a quick journey to Heaven and Hell, where it beholds visions of the bliss and torture awaiting humanity at the end of days".<ref name=Halevi>Template:Cite news</ref>
In The Soul's Journey After Death, Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a theologian in the 14th century, writes explicitly of punishments faced by sinners and unbelievers in Jahannam. These are directly related to the wrongdoer's earthly transgressions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Inmates and their sins
In addition to those who engage in traditional sins of wine drinking, fornication, sodomy, suicide, atheism (dahriyya); hell is where those "who sleep during prayer (or speak of worldly matters during it),<ref>Qushayrī, Miʿrāj, 40, 47, quoted in "Christian Lange p.17</ref><ref>Daqāʾiq al-akhbār, 70, quoted in "Christian Lange p.17</ref> or deny the doctrine of predestinarianism or assert absolute free-will (Qadarites), are punished.<ref>see footnote 116 quoted in Christian Lange p.18</ref><ref name=CLLHiIT2016:18>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.18</ref> Another tradition consigns to the seven different levels of hell, seven different types of "mischievous" Islamic scholars.<ref>Muttaqī, Kanz, x, 82, quoted in "Christian Lange p.17</ref> Government authorities are also threatened with hell, but often in "oblique ways".<ref>Abū Nuʿaym, Ḥilya iv, 2, 112; Qurṭubī, Tadhkira ii, 76–7, 130; Muttaqī, Kanz iii, 200, vi, 18. all quoted in Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.18</ref>
Other descriptions
Seven levels
Einar Thomassen writes that the seven levels of hell mentioned in hadith "came to be associated" with the seven names used in the Quran to refer to hell, with a category of inmates assigned to each level.
- Jahannam was reserved for Muslims who had committed grave sins.
- al-Laza (the blaze)
- al-Hutama (the consuming fire)
- al-Sa'ir
- al-Saqar (the scorching fire)
- al-jahim (the hot place)
- al-Hawiya (the abyss) for the hypocrites.<ref name=ETISN2009:407/>
"Various similar models exist with a slightly differing order of names", according to Christian Lange, and he and A. F. Klein give similar lists of levels. Al-Laza and al-Saqar are switched in Lange's list, and there is no accompanying type of unbelievers for each level.<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/> In A. F. Klein's list, it is the names of the levels that's not included, and instead of a level for Zoroastrians there is one for "witches and fortunetellers".<ref name="ReferenceA"/> <ref group="Note">Here is another tradition of layers quoted by A. F. Klein:
- A fire for sinners among the Muslims;
- Inferno interim for the sinner among the Christians;
- Provisional destination for sinners among the Jewish;
- The burning fire for renegades;
- A place for witches and fortunetellers;
- Furnace for the disbelievers;
- A bottomless abyss for hypocrites, like the Pharaoh and people who disbelieves after Isa's table or Muslims who are outwardly believers but inwardly infidels.<ref name="ReferenceA"/></ref>
Another description of the layers of hell comes from "models such as that recorded by al-Thalabi (died 427/1035)" corresponding to "the seven earths of medieval Islamic cosmology";<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/><ref group="Note">According to the first part of verse Q.65:12, "It is Allah Who has created seven heavens and of the earth the like thereof (i.e. seven). ... </ref> the place of hell before the Day of Resurrection.<ref name="Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ 6–7">al-Thaʿlabī: Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, Cairo [1960]; quoted in "Christian Lange p. 12-13"</ref> This idea derives from the concept of "seven earths", each beneath the surface of the known world, serving as a sort of underworld, with hell at its bottom. Sources Miguel Asin Palacios and Patrick Hughes, Thomas Patrick Hughes describe these levels as:
- Adim (surface), inhabited by mankind and jinn.
- Basit (plain), the prison of winds, from where the winds come from.
- Thaqil (region of distress), the antechamber of hell, in which dwell men with the mouth of a dog, the ears of a goat and the cloven hoof of an ox.
- Batih (place of torrents or swamps), a valley through which flows a stream of boiling sulphur to torment the wicked. The dweller in this valley have no eyes and in place of feet, have wings.
- Hayn (region of adversity), in which serpents of enormous size devour the infidels.
- Masika/Sijjin (store or dungeon), the office where sins are recorded and where souls are tormented by scorpions of the size of mules. In tafsir, this place is sometimes considered the lowest place instead.
- As-Saqar (place of burning) and Athara (place of damp and great cold) the home of Iblis, who is chained, his hand fastened one in front of and the other behind him, except when set free by God to chastise his demons.
A large number of hadith about Muhammad's tour of hell during the miʿrāj, describe the various sinners and their torments. A summary of the uppermost level of hell, "reserved for deadly sins" and "subdivided into fourteen mansions, one close above the other, and each is a place of punishment for a different sin", was done by Asin Palacios:<ref name="Asin Palacios (1968:13-14)"/>
The first mansion is an ocean of fire comprising seventy lesser seas, and on the shore of each sea stands a city of fire. In each city are seventy thousand dwellings; in each dwelling, seventy thousand coffins of fire, the tombs of men and women, who, stung by snakes and scorpions, shriek in anguish. These wretches, the Keeper enlightens Mahomet, were tyrants.
In the second mansion beings with blubber lips writhe under the red-hot forks of demons, while serpents enter their mouths and eat their bodies from within. These are faithless guardians, devoured now by serpents even as they once devoured the inheritances committed to their trust. Lower down usurers stagger about, weighed down by the reptiles in their bellies. Further, shameless women hang by the hair that they had exposed to the gaze of man. Still further down liars and slanderers hang by their tongues from red-hot hooks lacerating their faces with nails of copper. Those who neglected the rites of prayer and ablution are now monsters with the head of dogs and the bodies of swine and are the food of serpents. In the next mansion drunkards suffer the torture of raging thirst, which demons affect to quench with cups of a liquid fire that burns their entrails. Still lower, hired mourners and professional women singers hang head downwards and howl with pain as devils cut their tongues with burning shears. Adulterers are punished in a cone-shaped furnace... and their shrieks are drowned by the curses of their fellow damned at the stench of their putrid flesh. In the next mansion unfaithful wives hang by their breasts, their hands tied to their necks. Undutiful children are tortured in a fire by fiends with red-hot forks. Lower down, shackled in collars of fire, are those who failed to keep their word. Murderers are being knifed by demons in endless expiation of their crime. Lastly, in the fourteenth and lowest mansion of the first storey, are being crucified on burning pillars those who failed to keep the rule of prayer; as the flames devour them, their flesh is seen gradually to peel off their bones.<ref name="Asin Palacios (1968:13-14)">Asin Palacios, Miguel. 1968. Islam and the Divine Comedy. Trans. H. Sutherland. London: Frank Cass. 1968 (First published 1926.) 13–14</ref> <ref>For the Arabic text summarized here, and a Spanish translation of it, see Asin Palacios 1984:432-37- Asin's source is a Leiden manuscript. (Leiden University Library Or. 786, no. 7) containing a copy of the anonymous Khabar al-Mi'rāj attributed to Ibn Abbas. Graphic illustrations of the various punishments are found in the famous miniatures of Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale Suppl. turc 190; see Seguy 1977.</ref><ref>See also Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.86-7</ref>
Three Valleys; The three valleys in Jahannam described in the Quran on separate occasions are:
- Ghayy
- Wayl
- Saqar
Of these valleys, Ghayy is for those who postpone their prayers to the time of the next prayer, Wayl is for worshippers who neglect their prayers, and Saqar (also described as one of the seven levels above) is for those who did not pray, did not feed the poor, waded in vain dispute with vain talkers, and denied the Day of Judgement until they died.<ref name="MajorSins">Template:Cite book</ref>
Pit; In addition to having levels, an important feature of Judgement Day is that hell is a huge pit over which the bridge of As-Sirāt crosses,<ref name="Bukhārī p.12"/> and from which sinners fall making their arrival in hell (see "Eschatological manuals" above) Christian Lange writes "it made sense to picture [hell] as a vast subterranean funnel, spanned by the Bridge, which the resurrected pass on their way to paradise,<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:12>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.12</ref> with a brim (shafīr) and concentric circles leading down into a central pit at the bottom (qaʿr)."<ref name="Qurṭubī, Tadhkira ii, 108">al-Qurṭubī: Al-Tadhkira fī aḥwāl al-mawtā wa-umūr al-ākhira, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā, 2 vols in 1, Cairo 1980. ii, 108. quoted in Christian Lange p.12</ref>
But along with a pit and levels, hell also has mountains, rivers, valleys and "even oceans" filled with "fire, blood, and pus".<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:15>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.15</ref>
Sentience; Along with being a pit and a series of levels, some scholars, like al-Ghazali and the thirteenth-century Muslim scholar Al-Qurtubi, describe hell as a gigantic sentient being, rather than a place. In Paradise and Hell-fire in Imam al Qurtubi, Qurtubi writes, "On the Day of Judgment, hell will be brought with seventy thousand reins. A single rein will be held by seventy thousand angels...".<ref name=reins-Qurtubi>Template:Cite book</ref> Based on verse 67:7 and verse 50:30, Jahannam inhales and has "breaths". Islamicity notes "the animalistic nature" of "The Fire" in Quranic verse 25:12: "When the Hellfire sees them from a distant place, they will hear its fury and roaring".<ref name="Islamicity">Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> According to verse 50:30, God will ask Jahannam if it is full and Jahannam will answer: "Are there any more (to come)?"<ref name=qaf-50:30>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=qaf-50:30-AYAli>Template:Cite book</ref>
Inmates; Thomassen writes that in Islamic thought, there was "a certain amount of tension" between the two "distinct functions" of hell: to punish disbelievers/non-Muslims and to punish anyone who committed serious sins<ref name=ETISN2009:412 >Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.412</ref>—both of which could draw support from Quranic verses and hadith. Factors involved in who will be consigned to hell are:
- Unforgiveableness of unbelief. According to Smith and Haddad, perhaps "almost the only point on which Muslim thinkers completely agreed" was that it was "certain that the one unpardonable sin, that for which the pain of the Fire is assured, is refusal to testify to the tawẖīd (the indivisible oneness) of God, called either kufr (unbelief) or shirk (worshiping other besides the one God).<ref>T. Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology, (1965), p. 37; quoted in Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.22</ref><ref name=JISYYHIU1981:22>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.22</ref>
- God's mercy. "The tendency has been to suggest that even grave sinners may hope for God’s mercy, as long as they have professed belief and are Muslims", based on (two types of) Quranic verses:
- "Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him ˹in worship˺ but forgives anything else of whoever He wills..." (Q.4:48),
- "Whoever commits evil or wrongs themselves then seeks Allah's forgiveness will certainly find Allah All-Forgiving, Most Merciful" (Q.4:110);<ref name=ETISN2009:411 >Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.411</ref>
- "So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it" (Q.99:7–8) (and would be recompensed).<ref>quote of Lange describing Smith/Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 81–82</ref>
- That all human beings "are responsible" for their actions in this world, and all (even Muslims) face a "real possibility" of going to hell, (Q.19:71);<ref name=ETISN2009:411 /> This theme "has continued to play an important role throughout the history of Islam";<ref name=ETISN2009:411 />
- God's freedom to send to Paradise or Hell, whoever he chooses,
- "We do certainly know best those who deserve most to be burned therein" (Q.19:70);
- "Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him ˹in worship˺ but forgives anything else of whoever He wills". (Q.4:48);<ref name=ETISN2009:411 /><ref group="Note">"The Ash'arites were concerned with affirming the omnipotence of God even to the extent that, 'it seemed theoretically (ʿaklān) possible to some dogmatists that the Faithful should dwell in Hell for ever on account of their sins, and that the infidels should dwell in Paradise for ever on account of divine forgiveness" <ref name="Wensinck 1932:184">Wensinck, A. J. 1932. The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 184</ref></ref>
- What sins are considered grave enough to merit damnation ("There is no fixed canon of mortal sins in Islamic theology");<ref name=ETISN2009:410 >Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.410</ref>
- Whether if grave sins such as usury, murder of another Muslim, are not unpardonable in themselves, they are sufficiently serious that those that commit them cease to be Muslims and become guilty of unbelief, a sin that is unpardonable. ("Famous" issue in the theological debates of early Islam between Khawarij, Murji'a, Mutazila, Ash'ari).<ref name=ETISN2009:410/>
"Ultimately" the view of the Ash'arite school prevailed in "classical Islamic theology": God was free to judge as he chose, but on the other hand all believers can feel assured of salvation.<ref name=ETISN2009:410/><ref group="Note">Cf. e.g.<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:21-25>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.21-25, 81</ref><ref name="Gardet 1967:292-314">Gardet, Louis. 1967. Dieu et la destine de l'homme. Paris: Vrin.</ref> For more detailed accounts of the positions of the various schools and individual theologians see van Ess 1991–97, 4:1059: index, s.vv. "Hölle," "Höllenstrafe.") For a survey of more modern Muslim views on hell, see Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.134-143; quoted in Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.410</ref>
This left the issue of how/whether to punish sinful Muslims (to "ensure ... moral and religious discipline" and responsibility for individual actions). One solution was to reserve for Muslims the highest level of hell with the most lenient punishments, but a "more common" solution was to make the stay of Muslims in hell temporary.<ref name=ETISN2009:412/>
The issue of whether People of the Book are a variety of believers or unbelievers destined for hell is also discussed. In two places in the Quran, almost identical verses seem to indicate they are saved:
- "Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve" (Q.2:62; cf. 5:69)
But there "exists a strong exegetical tradition" that claims these verses were abrogated by a later verse indicating a much less pleasant hereafter:
- "...whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers." (Q.3:85)<ref name="Acar 2008, esp. 299-304">Acar, Ismail. 2008. "Theological Foundations of Religious Tolerance in Ismal: A Quranic Perspective." In J. Neusner and B. Chilton (eds.), Religious Tolerance in World Religions, West Conschocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 297–313, esp. 299–304</ref><ref name=ETISN2009:414>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.414</ref>
Jinn, devils, and angels; According to Islam, the jinn are obligated to follow the Islamic law (sharīʿa). The pairing of humans and jinn as subjects of God's judgement is settled in the Quranic phrase "al-ins wa-l-jinn" ("the humans and the jinn"). Both are created to "serve" ('abada) God (51:56), both are capable of righteous and evil deeds (11:119). The Quran confirms that hell will be filled with both sinful humans as well as sinful jinn.
The fate of Satan is less clear. Some say, he and his offspring are already chained in hell (Sijjin), others say he and his hosts will be the first to enter hell,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> while yet others say, the devils will all perish at Judgment Day. Since Satan and the devils are created from fire, some scholars suggest that they will not burn in fire, but suffer from the intense cold of intense cold (Zamharīr).<ref>Palacios, M. A. (2013). Islam and the Divine Comedy. Vereinigtes Königreich: Taylor & Francis. p. 109</ref> A popular opinion among Shias is, that the Mahdi will kill Iblis.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In some manuals of Islamic eschatology, the Angels of divine justice will seize and kill Iblis, instead.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Although there is a disagreement about the exact fate of the devils, most agree that the devils are damned to hell. An exception are the Murji'ah who argue that even Satan might be restored to his former glory.<ref>Basharin, Pavel V. "The Problem of Free Will and Predestination in the Light of Satan’s Justification in Early Sufism." English Language Notes 56.1 (2018): 119-138.</ref>
Instead of devils, angels punish the sinners and guard the entrances to hell.<ref name="Marshall, David 2014. p. 86">Marshall, David, ed. Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny: Christian and Muslim Perspectives. Georgetown University Press, 2014. p. 86</ref> These angels were created from the fires of hell, and therefore, do not suffer wherein.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They are described as subordinates of God and thus, their punishment is ultimately just.<ref name="Lange-2016">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
Timeline
Quranic verses suggest that Judgment Day, Paradise and Hell are not "conceived to lie" off in some indefinite future, but "immediately ahead; it is now, or almost there already".<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:5/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="OISO">Template:Cite web</ref>
It is also a common belief among Muslims that hell, like paradise, is not awaiting the destruction of earth and arrival of Judgment Day, but "coexists in time" with the temporal world, having already been created.<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/> The basis of this belief was the Quranic statement "hell has been prepared (uʿiddat) for the unbelievers", and also hadith reporting that Muhammad had seen the punishment of sinners in hell during his miraculous miraj journey on a winged creature.<ref name="Christian Lange p. 12-13"/>
Eternal or temporary
The common belief among Muslims (as indicated above) is that duration in hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others.<ref name="ReferenceA">A F Klein Religion Of Islam Routledge 2013 Template:ISBN page 92</ref><ref group="Note">"It may be said that the only sin that all theologians have regarded as definitely unpardonable and assuredly leading to hell, is disbelief, either in the form of kufr, the stubborn refusal to believe, or shirk, the worship of something other than the one God — in other words idolatry.<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:22>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.22</ref> Although there exists a prophetic tradition listing seven deadly sins — idolatry, magic, murder, robbing orphans, usury, apostasy, and the slandering of faithful women<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:23>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.23</ref> — the tendency has been to suggest that even grave sinners may hope for God’s mercy, as long as they have professed belief and are Muslims.<ref name="JISYYHIU1981:81–82">Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.81–82</ref><ref name=ETISN2009:410 /></ref><ref group="Note">"One should note there was a near consensus among Muslim theologians of the later periods that punishment for Muslim grave sinners would only be temporary; eventually after a purgatory sojourn in hell's top layer they would be admitted into paradise."<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:7>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.7</ref> Prior to that, theologians of the Kharijite and Mu'tazilite schools insisted that the "sinful" and "unrepentant" should be punished even if they were believers, but this position has been "lastingly defeated and erased" by mainstream Islam.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:8>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.8</ref> </ref><ref name="IQA200252">Template:Cite web</ref> This combines in Jahannam two concepts: an eternal hell (for unbelievers), and a place (an "outer level" of hell was sometimes called al-barrāniyya),<ref>Muttaqī, Kanz, xiv, 216</ref><ref name="CLLHiIT2016:14">Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.14</ref> resembling the Christian Catholic idea of purgatory (for believers eventually destined for heaven after punishment for their sins).<ref>John Renard The Handy Islam Answer Book Visible Ink Press 2015 Template:ISBN</ref><ref group="Note"> "As for those who disbelieve, for them is the fire of Hell; it does not destroy them so that they die, nor is its torment lightened for them. Thus We punish every disbeliever." [Q.35:36] Sunnah online quotes a hadith describing "As for the people of Hell, they are its inhabitants, and they neither live therein nor die. But there are people who will enter Hell because of their sins – or mistakes – so Allah will cause them to die once, then when they become like coal, He will give permission for intercession (for them). They will be brought group by group to the rivers of Paradise. Then it will be said, 'O people of Paradise! Pour water on them.' Then they will grow like seeds (i.e., the seeds of herbs and aromatic plants, or it was said, small plants that grow in between grasses, or it may mean wheat).' "<ref name="SO">Template:Cite web</ref> </ref>
Several verses in the Quran mention the eternal nature of Hell or both Paradise and Hell,<ref group="Note">
- "Never shall they issue from the Fire." (Q.2:167 Arberry trans.)
- "Their wish will be to get out of the Fire, but never will they get out therefrom: their penalty will be one that endures." (Q.5:36–37)
- "taste ye the Penalty of Eternity for your (evil) deeds!" (Q.32:14)
- "the Fire: therein will be for them the Eternal Home: a (fit) requital, for that they were wont to reject Our Signs." (Q.41:28) </ref>
or that the damned will linger in hell for ages.<ref>Christian Lange Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions Cambridge University Press 2015 Template:ISBN page 53</ref> Two verses in the Quran (6:128<ref>Template:Cite quran</ref> and 11:107)<ref>Template:Cite quran</ref> emphasize that consignment to hell is horrible and eternal — but include the caveat "except as God (or your Lord) wills it", which some scholars considered an exemption from the eternity of hell,<ref>Mouhanad Khorchide, Sarah Hartmann Islam is Mercy: Essential Features of a Modern Religion Verlag Herder GmbH 2014 Template:ISBN page chapter 2.5</ref> which suggests to some that Jahannam will be destroyed some day,<ref>F. E. Peters The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Volume II: The Words and Will of God Princeton University Press 2009 Template:ISBN page 145</ref> so that its inhabitants may either be rehabilitated or cease to exist. The concept of hell's annihilation is referred to as fanāʾ al-nār.<ref name="Islamic Traditions p. 12"/> Thomassen writes that "several types of concerns" weigh "against the idea of an eternal hell in Islamic thought": belief in the mercy of God; resistance to the idea that Muslims—even great sinners—would "end up together with the disbelievers in the hereafter"; and resistance to the idea that "something other than God himself might have eternal existence".<ref name=ETISN2009:413>Thomassen, "Islamic Hell", Numen, 56, 2009: p.413</ref>
The Ulama (Islamic scholars) disagree on this issue. According to Christian Lange, "the majority" of theologians agreed that Hell like Paradise "was eternal".<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:12/> Ahmad ibn Hanbal argued the eternity of hell and paradise are proven by the Quran, although earths and heavens (sun, moon, stars) will perish.Template:Citation needed In modern times Shia cleric Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari argues against the idea that hell will not last for eternity.<ref name=Lari-al-islam-20>Template:Cite book</ref>
Contrarily, for Muʿtazilis the eternity of paradise and hell posed a major problem, since they regard God as the only eternal entity.<ref>Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Volume 3 Georgetown University, Washington DC p. 418-419</ref><ref group="Note">"For the debates on the eternality of hell, see": e.g.<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:93-95>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.93-95, 142–43</ref><ref name="Gwynne 2002:418-19">Gwynne, Rosalind W. 2002. "Hell and Hellfire." Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, 2: 418–19</ref><ref>Robson, James. 1938. "Is the Moslem Hell Eternal?" Muslim World, 28:386–396</ref></ref> Egyptian Hanafi author al-Tahawi writes that God punishes sinners in proportions to their offense in accordance with his justice, afterwards release them in accordance with his mercy. Ibn Taymiyya (d.728/1328) also argued for a limited abode in hell, based on the Quran and God's attribute of mercy<ref>Christian Lange Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions Cambridge University Press, 2016 Template:ISBN p. 170</ref> (in more recent times fanāʾ al-nār has been supported by Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1936), İzmirli Ismail Hakkı (d. 1946) Yūsuf al-Qarādāwī (d. 2022)).<ref>Note 128, "Christian Lange p. 20"</ref>
How optimistic Muslims were about whether they and the rest of humanity would avoid hellfire, or at least long durations of it, varied considerably. The idea of the "demise of hell" (ibn Taymiyya, Yemenite ibn al-Wazir (d. 840/1436))<ref>Hoover, Islamic Universalism</ref> meant (or at least meant to these theologians) that God would provide for "universal salvation even for non-Muslims".<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:8>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.8</ref> At the other end of the theological "spectrum" were fearful "renunciants" such as al-Hasan al-Basri. Though Hasan was so faithful he was considered a "pious exemplar" of his age, he still felt great anxiety as to whether he would be among those fortunate enough to spend 1,000 years suffering in hell before being released to Jannah.<ref>Makki, Qut al-Qulub, (trans. Gramlich), iii, 221</ref>
Doctrines and beliefs
Sufism
Many prominent Sufis preached "the centrality of the love of God" for which focus on eternal reward was a "distraction". Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya aka Rabia of Basra (died 801), is said to have proclaimed to passersby
"O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty".<ref>Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. Yale University Press, 1992, p. 87.</ref><ref name="Renard-2015-136">Template:Cite book</ref>
Similarly, Bāyazīd Basṭāmī (d. 234/848) proclaimed the fire of "God's love" burns a thousand times more intensely than hellfire.<ref>Sarrāj, Lumaʿ (trans Gramlich), 529; quoted in Christian Lange p. 9</ref>
OthersTemplate:Who did not take literally the Quran's verses on Paradise and Hell as physical places where believers are rewarded with pleasure and sinners tortured with pain. According to ibn ʿArabī, Hell and Paradise are psychological states of the soul manifested after its separation from the body.<ref>Rom Landau, The Philosophy of Ibn 'Arabi, Routledge, 2013 Template:ISBN</ref>Template:Citation needed He believed Hell and Paradise are only the distance or closeness from God, respectively, in the mind of resurrectant. The torments of Hell wrong-doers endure are actually their conception of their distance from God, created by their sinful indulgence in their earthly desires and the illusion of things other than God as existent. But distance from God is also only illusory, because everything other than God is an illusion, since "everything is a form of the degrees of the Divine Existence". So in fact, Hell and Paradise are just as real as the current world, which is unreal in comparison to God.Template:Citation needed
Many ideas attributed Ibn Arabi have been rejected by Wahhabis. For example, Ahmad ibn Idris debated in detail with the ex-Wahhabi Nasir al-Kubaybi about sins committed by him and his students, and deviations that are said to have been propagated by Ibn Arabi. For Ahmad ibn Idris, Nasir al-Kubaybi explained that no human except the Prophet is protected from sins, and he also said that individuals' actions are to be judged in line with Qur'an and Sunnah only, and regarding Ibn Arabi, he fiercely defended the stance that Ibn Arabi was a Muslim of sound faith and whatever contradicted this was in fact not from him.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Many other prominent Sufis too had more conventional attitudes, such as al-Ghazali, who warned Muslims,
"your coming unto it (hellfire) is certain, while your salvation therefrom is no more than conjecture. … fill up your heart therefore with a dread of that destination."<ref>Ihya ulum al din, v, 156, (trans. Winter); quoted in "Christian Lange, p.9</ref>
Moreover, Abd Al-Aziz Al-Dabbagh gave precise details of the locations of the two abodes in terms of Islamic Cosmology, while noting that the ignorance of existence of the two abodes at present alone suffices to lead someone to Hell,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Shaykh Rifai attributed its bottom level to oppressors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Abdulqadir Jilani said that through the blessings of his students' association with him none of them were going to enter Hell,Template:Citation needed Abu Madyan Al-Ghawth in Hikam likened working for other than God to the past behavior of Hell's inhabitants.Template:Citation needed
Non-Sunni schools
Twelver Shia
According to a major Shia Islam website, al-Islam.org, Hellfire is the eternal destination of unbelievers,<ref name=Lari-al-islam-20/> although another essay on the site states that there is a set of unbelievers known as ‘Jahil-e-Qasir’ (lit. ‘inculpable ignorant’), who "will attain salvation if they are truthful to their own religion" because the message of Islam either didn't reach them, or reached them in an incorrect form.<ref name="al-islam Question 13">Template:Cite book</ref> For those Muslims "who have committed a certain number of lesser sins and offences, they shall either spend an appropriate amount of time in hellfire or receive the kindness and forgiveness of God".<ref name=Lari-al-islam-20/> Al-Islam also states: "According to the Qur`an and ahadith, heaven and hell exist at present. However, they will become fully apparent and represented only in the Hereafter ...".<ref name=al-islam-question-20>Template:Cite book</ref>
Isma'ili
Isma'ili authors (such as Abu Yaqub al-Sijistānī) believe resurrection, heaven and hell do not involve physical bodies, but what is spiritual. Suffering of hell came from failure to be enlightened by the teachings of the Isma'ili Imam, but such suffering does not require resurrection.<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:10>Lange, "Introducing Hell in Islamic Studies", 2016: p.10</ref> According to one source, they do not believe hell will last for eternity, based on their interpretation of Quranic verse 11:106.<ref name="ismailignosis-com">5 What are Ismaili Views on the Afterlife, Paradise, and Hell?, Ismaili Gnosis, 29 May 2017.</ref> Instead, they believe hell to be a possible station of the soul's journey to its perfection in afterlife.<ref name="ismailignosis-com"/>
Ibadis
According to Interfaith Alliance, Ibadis believe sinning Ibadis and all non-Ibadis are doomed to hell.<ref name="interfaith-alliance">5 Starter Facts About Ibadi Islam, Interfaith Alliance, June 2018.</ref> According to Islamic studies professor Gavin Picken, Ibadis believe non-Ibadis and Ibadis who committed major sins without repenting will remain in hell forever.<ref>Gavin Picken: Art. "Ibadism (Al-'Ibadiyya)", in: Ian Richard Netton (ed.): Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilisation and Religion, Routledge 2008, p. 245.</ref>
Ahmadiyya
According to the Ahmadiyya movement (by way of their official website), the places of Paradise and Hell are actually images of man's own spiritual life during lifetime, hell is a manifestation of his sins.<ref name="Philosophical-1991"/><ref name="Teachings of Islam">Template:Cite book</ref> Contrary to the belief that sinners or at least unbelieving sinners will spend eternity in hell, "there are numerous passages in the Holy Quran showing that those in hell shall ultimately be taken out". Whereas the word "abad" used in the Quran has been translated as "eternity", it should be translated as "a long time", and the actual purpose of suffering in hell should not be thought of as punishment of sinners, but the purging of "the evil effects of their deeds done in this life" for the sinners "spiritual advancement".<ref name="Philosophical-1991">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Review of Religions">Template:Cite journal</ref> This is because in the afterlife, Muslims and Non-Muslims, even those "who never did any good deeds", will eventually be taken out of hell.<ref name="Philosophical-1991"/>
Modernism, postmodernism
According to Smith and Haddad, "The great majority of contemporary Muslim writers, ... choose not to discuss the afterlife at all".<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:100/> Islamic Modernists, according to Smith and Haddad, express a "kind of embarrassment with the elaborate traditional detail concerning life in the grave and in the abodes of recompense, called into question by modern rationalists".<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:100>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.100</ref><ref name=Smith-Haddad-100>Smith/Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 100, quoted in Christian Lange, p.19</ref> Consequently, most of "modern Muslim Theologians" either "silence the issue" or reaffirm "the traditional position that the reality of the afterlife must not be denied but that its exact nature remains unfathomable".<ref>quoting Lange describing Smith/Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 100</ref><ref name=JISYYHIU1981:100/>
The beliefs of Pakistani modernist Muhammad Iqbal (died 1938), were similar to the Sufi "spiritual and internalized interpretations of hell" of ibn ʿArabī, and Rumi, seeing paradise and hell "primarily as metaphors for inner psychic" developments. Thus hellfire is actually a state of realization of one's failures as a human being", and not a supernatural subterranean realm.<ref>Iqbal, Reconstruction, 98; quoted in "Christian Lange, p.20</ref> Egyptian modernist Muhammad ʿAbduh, thought it was sufficient to believe in the existence of an afterlife with rewards and punishment to be a true believer, even if you ignored "clear" (ẓāhir) hadith about hell.<ref>ʿAbdūh, Risālat al-tawḥīd, 178, quoted in Christian Lange, p.20</ref>
Some postmodernists have found at least one sahih (authentic) hadith on hell unacceptable—the tradition of Muhammad stating, "most people in hell are women" has been explained as an attempt to "legitimate social control over women" (Smith and Haddad),<ref name=JISYYHIU1981:163>Smith & Haddad, Islamic Understanding, 1981: p.163</ref> or perpetuate "the moral, social, political, sectarian hierarchies" of medieval Islam (Lange).<ref name=CLLHiIT2016:18/>
Comparison with other religions
Christianity
Bible
Template:Main Some of the Quranic parables describing the sufferings in hell resemble those of the Christian New Testament.<ref>J. Harold Ellens Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [3 volumes]: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam ABC-CLIO 2013 Template:ISBN page 31</ref>
| Three bible verses from Luke: | ... Resemble Quranic verses: |
|---|---|
| "And he gave a cry and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may put the end of his finger in water and put it on my tongue, for I am cruelly burning in this flame." Template:Bibleverse | "And the companions of the Fire will call to the companions of Paradise, "Pour upon us some water or from whatever Allah has provided you." They will say, "Indeed, Allah has forbidden them both to the disbelievers." Template:Cite quran |
| "And in addition, there is a deep division fixed between us and you, so that those who might go from here to you are not able to do so, and no one may come from you to us." Template:Bibleverse | "And between them will be a partition, and on [its] elevations are men who recognize all by their mark. And they call out to the companions of Paradise, "Peace be upon you." They have not [yet] entered it, but they long intensely." Template:Cite quran |
| "Unhappy are you who are full of food now: for you will be in need. Unhappy are you who are laughing now: for you will be crying in sorrow." Template:Bibleverse | "So let them laugh a little and [then] weep much as recompense for what they used to earn." Template:Cite quran |
The Book of Revelation describes a "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which most Christians believe to be a description of Hell, comparable to Jahannam as "the fire". While the Quran describes Jahannam as having seven levels, each for different sins, the Bible (as regards the issue of levels), speaks of the "lowest Hell (Sheol)".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It also refers to a "bottomless pit",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> comparable to the lowest layer of Jahannam in most Sunni traditions.
Christian popular culture
Just as Hell is often depicted as the seat of the devil in Christian culture (though not in the bible itself),<ref group="Note">The Christian Bible itself makes no mention of hell being the home of the devil.<ref name="BS">Template:Cite web</ref> </ref> so too some Islamic scholars describe it that way.
Al-Tha'alibis (961–1038) in his Qisas Al-Anbiya<ref>Robert Lebling Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar I.B.Tauris 2010 Template:ISBN</ref> and Al-Suyutis Al-Hay'a as-samya fi l-hay'a as-sunmya<ref>ANTON M. HEINEN ISLAMIC COSMOLOGY A STUDY OF AS-SUYUTI’S al-Hay'a as-samya fi l-hay'a as-sunmya with critical edition, translation, and commentary ANTON M. HEINEN BEIRUT 1982 p. 143</ref> describes Iblis as chained to the bottom of hell, commanding his hosts of demons from there. Also in the poetry of Al-Ma'arri, Iblis is the king of Jahannam. These depictions of Iblis as lord of hell simultaneously chained at its very bottom influenced Dante's representation of Lucifer<ref>Jane Dammen McAuliffe Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Volume 3 Georgetown University, Washington DC p. 419</ref> and gave rise to the Christian depiction of hell as the seat of the devil. Inferno by Dante also shares the Islamic idea of dividing hell into multiple "circles". According to the Divine Comedy, each layer corresponding to another sin, with Satan inside a frozen area at the very bottom.<ref>Miguel Asin Palacios Islam and the Divine Comedy Routledge, 16.10.2013 Template:ISBN</ref> As with Christian popular understanding of hell, ʿKitāb al-ʿAẓama, a popular cultural work, describes hell as inhabited not only by the Zabaniyya (guarding angels), but also by devils (shayatin), dwelling in the fourth layer of hell and rising up from coffins to torture the sinners.<ref>Christian Lange Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions BRILL 978-90-04-30121-4 p. 149</ref>
As evident from late Ottoman poetry, the notion of Iblis ruling hell remained in Islamic popular tradition until modern times. In one of Ğabdulla Tuqay's works, Iblis' current abode in hell is compared to working in factories during Industrial Revolution. When Iblis gets weary about Hell, he remembers his time in Heaven.<ref>Michael Friederich Ghabdulla Tuqaj (1886–1913): ein hochgelobter Poet im Dienst von tatarischer Nation und sowjetischem Sozialismus Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998 Template:ISBN p. 160 (German)</ref> According to Salafi shaikh Osama al-Qusi, Iblis scolds the inhabitants of hell from a minbar, how they could have listened to him, knowing it is his nature to deceive them.<ref>Template:Cite book </ref>
Notably, Iblis' temporary rule over Jahannam depends always on God's power and hell is still a form of punishment for Iblis himself.<ref>William A. Young The World's Religions: Worldviews and Contemporary Issues Pearson Prentice Hall 2005 Template:ISBN p. 236</ref> ("We have appointed only ˹stern˺ angels as wardens of the Fire." according to Q.74:31)<ref name="Q.74:31">Template:Cite web</ref> Einar Thomassen points out that Iblis is chained to the floor of hell as punishment, whereas Malik is head of the 19 angels who guard hell, indicating it is the angels who are in charge and not the devils.<ref name="Gwynne 2002:417" >Gwynne 2002:417</ref><ref name=ETISN2009:404/>
Christian Liberalism
In modern times some Christians and Christian denominations (such as Universalism) have rejected the concept of hell as a place of suffering and torment for sinners on the grounds that it is incompatible with a loving God.<ref group="Note"> At least in one Christian majority country – the US. "Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who believe in the fiery down under has dropped from 71 percent to 58 percent. ... Underlying these statistics is a conundrum that continues to tug at the conscience of some Christians, who find it difficult to reconcile the existence of a just, loving God with a doctrine that dooms billions of people to eternal punishment."<ref name="Strauss">Template:Cite journal</ref></ref> There are also symbolic and more merciful interpretations of hell among Muslims.<ref name=Khorchide>Mouhanad Khorchide, Sarah Hartmann Islam is Mercy: Essential Features of a Modern Religion Verlag Herder GmbH 2014 Template:ISBN page chapter 2.4</ref> Muslims Mouhanad Khorchide and Faheem Younus write that since the Quran states that God has "prescribed to himself mercy",<ref name=Khorchide/> and "... for him whose scales (of good deeds) are light. Hell will be his mother,"<ref>Quran 101:9–10</ref><ref name="Younus-huff-post-2011"/> suffering in Jahannam is not a product of vengeance and punishment, but a temporary phenomenon as the sinner is "transformed" in the process of confronting the truth about themselves.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Younus-huff-post-2011">Template:Cite web</ref> The idea of annihilation of hell was already introduced earlier by traditionalistic scholars, such as Ibn Taimiyya.<ref>Lange, Christian, editor. Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions. Brill, 2016. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w8h1w3. chapter 1 p. 12</ref> However, according to at least one source—Christian evangelist Phil Parshall, who spent several decades observing and writing about Muslims in Asia—this has not been the common view of Muslims; Parshall writes that he "never met a Muslim who has attempted to undercut the bluntness and severity of their doctrine of hell."<ref name=parshall-131>Template:Cite book</ref>
Judeo-Islamic sources
Arabic texts written by Jews in Judeo-Arabic script (particularly those which are identified with the Isra'iliyyat genre in the study of hadith) also feature descriptions of Jahannam (or Jahannahum). These seem to have been strongly influenced by the Islamic environment in which they were composed, and may be considered as holding many of the same concepts as those today identified with Islamic eschatology. A Judeo-Arabic version of a popular narrative known as The Story of the Skull (whose earliest version is attributed to Ka'ab al-Ahbar) offers a detailed picture of the concept of Jahannam.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Here, Malak al-Mawt (the Angel of Death) and a number of sixty angels seize the soul of the dead and begin torturing him with fire and iron hooks. Two black angels named Nākir and Nakīr (identified with Munkar and Nakir in Islamic eschatology) strike the dead with a whip of fire and take him to the lowest level of Jahannam. Then, they order the Earth to swallow and crush the dead inside its womb, saying: "Seize him and take revenge, because he has stolen Allāh's wealth and worshipped others than Him".<ref name=":0" /> Following this, the dead is brought before the dais of God where a herald calls for throwing the dead into Jahannam. There he is put in shackles sixty cubits long and into a leather sackcloth full of snakes and scorpions.
The Judeo-Arabic legend in question explains that the dead is set free from the painful perogatory after twenty-four years. In a final quote alluding to Isaiah 58.8, the narrative states that "nothing will help Man on the last day except good and loving actions, deeds of giving charity to widows, orphans, the poor and the unfortunate."<ref name=":0" />
Some Jewish sources such as Jerahmeel provide descriptive detail of hell-like places, divided into multiple levels; usually Sheol, which is translated as a grave or pit, is the place where humans descend upon death.
Zoroastrianism
Like Islam, Zoroastrianism, holds that on Judgement Day all resurrected souls will pass over a bridge over hell (As-Sirāt in Islam, Chinvat Bridge in Zoroastrianism), and those destined for hell will find it too narrow and fall below into their new abode.<ref name=EWR-421>Template:Cite book</ref>
Hinduism
In terms of a finite hell, as asserted by some Sufi thinkers, conceived as a circulation of beginning and reset, the cosmology resembles the Hindu notion of an eternal cosmic process of generation, decay, and destruction.<ref>Jean Holm, John Bowker Sacred Place Bloomsbury Publishing 2001 Template:ISBN page 112</ref>
A detailed description of the journey of the soul and the punishments of Hell (Naraka) are detailed in the Garuda Purana.
Buddhism
Some descriptions of Jahannam resemble Buddhist descriptions of Naraka from Mahayana sutras in regard of destroying inhabitants of hell physically, while their consciousness still remains and after the body is destroyed, it will regenerate again, thus the punishment will repeat.<ref>Rulu Teachings of the Buddha AuthorHouse 2012 Template:ISBN page 147</ref> However, according to Buddhist belief, beings in Hell have a limited lifespan, as with all beings trapped in the cycle of Samsara; they will ultimately exhaust their bad karma, experience death, and be reborn in a higher realm.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Books and journal articles
- Asin Palacios, Miguel, 1968, Islam and the Divine Comedy, Trans. H. Sutherland, London: Frank Cass (First published 1926)
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