HEAVEN AND HELL

                             By:  Faheim & Michelle Ansari

 

          Very comprehensive descriptions of Heaven can be extracted from the Holy Koran.  Vivid details are given depicting Heaven as a beautiful garden (47:15 ; 68:8 ; 2:25 ; 3:136) with thrones of silver and gold, with streams of milk and honey (47:15), with innumerable beautiful maidens whose beauty exceeds that of the humans by many times and much, much more.  All this for each and every human being who can find his way thither.  Each person’s share in this garden would be as expansive as his imagination could accommodate.  Each person would live in his ‘Empire’ eating, drinking and relaxing; there would be absolutely no duties to perform.

          Can you think of a better place to live in?  I can’t.  Strangely though, there is a certain kind of contradiction in the description of Heaven which boggled me for a long time and it is only now resolved in my mind when I see it in the perspective of my extraordinary beliefs.  It now appears to me more homogeneous, logical, understandable and the Heaven remains a very, very desirable place indeed.

          In order to fully understand the problem, let us, for a while, drift into the realms of imagination.  Supposing we were visiting a place as beautiful as the Heaven in every respect.  Our eyes would probably open wide at the first sight of this place, we would try to fill our lungs with the fresh and sweet smelling air and would know from the very first instant that our stay there would be a thoroughly enjoyable one.  Knowing human nature as I do, however, it would soon become very difficult to contend with the idea of having nothing to do at all.  Also, the fact that the element of companionability will largely be absent, enjoy-ability should turn out to be very temporary for the gregarious animal that man is.  Now if you were asked to live in this place forever and ever and not just a few billion centuries, would you really expect to enjoy your stay in such a place, will this place really be as good as ‘Heaven’ for you?

          Some scholars explain this by saying that in Heaven some human desires will be altered so that although he would want to eat, there would be no desire to excrete; he will love to rest but there would be no urge to work; his sexual needs would be retained but love would be extinct.  I have no real objection to this explanation especially in view of the fact that Allah is omnipotent and can do absolutely anything.  What I do propose to do here, however, is to offer another explanation which, if not more, may at least be just as plausible.

          Before I go on to the explanation, let me mention another problem which has perturbed me a great deal in the past and is perhaps so closely connected to the first that they cannot be divorced from each other and studied in isolation.  Often when there is a mention of Heaven in the Holy Koran, it addresses men (52:21 ; 15:47), or there is a general mention (66:8), but not specifically women. Even the reference to the beautiful maidens (HOURIS) is an attraction for men (52:21).  There is simply no mention of young girls going to Heaven who died before they could be married even though they lived a pious life.  The Koran also does not suggest a male counterpart for Houris.  From this it would be easy to assume that the Heaven is really for men and that even Allah is biased in favor of men, which of course, is not true.

          What is needed, under the circumstances, is an interpretation of the relevant portions of the Holy Koran that presents a more reasonable viewpoint and attempts not to mislead the reader into assuming a concept of Allah which is unbecoming of His greatness in any way.  We know, without a doubt, that Allah is just and that he does not distinguish among His creations on any grounds other than piety.

          Coming to the explanation of our problem, we must, to begin with, realize that Heaven (and Hell) are ‘places’ where living conditions may be entirely different from those on earth so that their true understanding may always belie our intellect (32:17).  For example a person who knows little about conditions on the moon will find it hard to visualize that a sheet of paper does not float down slowly but actually falls flat down or that one has to look up to see the earth and not down.  It is important to understand this because there is every reason to believe that Heaven (and Hell) is for souls and not for the bodies (32:17).  Once this idea is clear in our minds, we come to another question, is Heaven (and Hell) material and substance that excites the sensation of the body or is it something which only permeates to the soul?  The answer to this question is quite obvious.  If Heaven is for the soul, it may not necessarily exist in bodily form as it is described in the Koran.  If we accept that it has no physical form or substantial reality, we must also accept that it cannot have a physical location.

          Does this suggest that Heaven (and Hell) is not a reality and that no one will go to Heaven (or Hell)?  If that is the case then one cannot explain the repeated mention throughout the Holy Koran and the importance it is given.

          At this stage I would like to adopt certain assumptions.  According to these assumptions, each human soul is an infinitely small fragment of Allah.  The strength of this fragment lies in being able to return and reunite with the whole.  For example, let us consider the way an astronaut might feel while on a mission.  From the minute he is hurled into space, he wants to come back to earth.  He knows that he has to perform certain duties and has to do them such that nothing comes between him and his return to earth.  As long as he follows instructions carefully he runs no risk and returns to earth at the end of his mission.  It should not be too hard to imagine the degree of his happiness.  So also when the fragment (human soul) returns to Allah it is extremely happy, it is actually this ultimate happiness which parallels the state of being in Heaven (84:6).  Heaven, I believe, is neither a place nor a thing, it is a condition ----- a condition of the soul.  It is a state of extreme ecstasy which the soul can only experience on its reunion with Allah.  It has no equal, no example.

          Some people might argue that if The Holy Koran meant to say all this, it could easily have stated the facts in blunt words rather than conforming to examples and analogies.  The logic against this argument is quite simple; in view of the fact that throughout the ages man has never been able to see far beyond his nose, that his thought has largely been confined to the limits of personal experience and that his experience has never left the bounds of the physical world, one can safely say that if this explanation was included in the Koran it would have achieved very little.  The Koran had to conform to a style, an analogy that would appeal to the common man.  It had to say things in the local ‘accent’ so that man would understand easily and even if he did not quite comprehend the details, he would still find it sensible enough to accept it.  Thus the Holy Koran achieved its purpose.  So when the Koran gives details of the Heaven, it does not necessarily mean that there is or will be such a place, it could just as easily be referring to a state of happiness a person would achieve if he found himself in a place described as Heaven in the Koran. It is worth noting that in verse 47:15 Allah describes an example for heaven and not the heaven itself.

          One must also appreciate that at the moment of reunion with the whole, the fragment loses its own identity and exists, in fact, subsists, only within the whole and in truth has lost an individual existence.

          Knowing that Hell is the opposite of Heaven, and accepting the above explanation of Heaven, all that needs to be said about Hell is that in Hell, the soul is in such a state where it ‘burns’ in the desire to reunite with Allah.

          Coming to the question of Houris and keeping in mind the above discussion on Heaven and Hell, let us try and see into the depth of the Holy Koran.  These beautiful maidens belong to, and are a part of, Heaven and will be offered to all those men who go there, suggesting that even pious women will get no such gift.  What we seem to be forgetting is that even though the human species is divided into two sexes, there is no indication that there is such a bifurcation among the souls as well.  In fact, all souls are alike in this respect; a female body does not hold a female soul nor does a male body house a male soul, but since a pronoun was inevitable, Allah chose to use the male pronoun.  Since the occupants of Heaven will all be souls and may have belonged to either men or women while on earth, the women should not feel deprived in any way.  Moreover, the mention of this creature in the Koran can very will be only to complete the picture of a place that promises the utmost heights of pleasure.  It must be remembered that beautiful women have always been, and still are, a great source of attraction for men.  In the days of Muhammad men used to take great pride in being able to exercise a high degree of access to a large number of such women (3:14-15).  Islam, however, disapproved of this and forbade this practice by encouraging the treatment of women as people rather than as ‘things’ which could be owned and collected.  It was quite likely that people who accepted Islam would have felt deprived of this particular pleasure.  In order to set their mind at peace the introduction of the concept of Houris was very rational and suitable.