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THE GARDEN, THE FIRE, AND ISLAMIC ORIGINS

NO PERIOD in Islamic history elicits such careful examination and divergent interpretation as prophet Muhammad’s life in Mecca and Medina. There are other eras that figure prominently, of course, but the life of the prophet holds a special lure. Not only does studying Muhammad’s career allow for appreciation of the central figure in Islamic history, but focusing on his life in Mecca and Medina also offers the main way of assessing the nature of the new faith and the behavior of its followers. The allure of focusing on the history of Mecca and Medina is the opportunity not just to scrutinize the earliest texts, but also to interrogate the very narrative of Islamic origins.

The quest for origins offers the ultimate romance in academic study, but in the case of Islam, a focus on origins is also a basic element for understanding the configuration of Islamic societies. If there is an Islamic narrative, then its beginning is seen by Muslims to be formed in the seventh-century Hijaz region of Arabia when living in the community of believers (umma) meant being guided by revelations from God and shaped by Muhammad’s personal example. As a result, this first Islamic society provides a paradigm for the ideal community that Muslims interpret and reinterpret until the present day. When Muslims searched and continue to search for examples of righteous behavior, they turn to Muhammad and his companions. When Muslims needed and continue to need a societal model to guide them through change and transformation, they turn to the trials in Mecca and Medina.

Like any search for origins, the quest for Islamic origins presents its own challenges. There is a problem with texts: the earliest are written over a century and a half after Muhammad’s death, and the only version we have is one edited two hundred years after his demise. There is a problem with verification: we have only texts written by scholars who reflect their own sense of Muslim identity and shape their own present within Islamic chronicles. Most of all, there is the problem of the concept of “origin” itself, which promises to locate the very moment of beginning and, even more daunting, an explanation for that moment. It is not surprising, then, that the quest for origins is seen as dangerous territory for careful, academic study. In particular, the focus on the origins of Islam is even more challenging if one does not incorporate the terms of Islamic faith: after all, how can one historically explain the first revelation from God to Muhammad via the angel Gabriel? All of its challenges notwithstanding, the focus of this chapter is on the role of the Garden and the Fire in the Islamic narrative of origin. In the narrative, Muhammad received revelations in 610 (all dates are CE) from God to deliver a message to his people about the need for faith, the primacy of monotheism, and the inevitability of judgment. Judgment entailed eternal reward and punishment in two respective realms in the world to pass after the end of given time. These realms are the Garden and the Fire.

In the Qur’an and early historical texts, the Garden and the Fire are at the center of the narrative of origin. The Islamic narrative presents the Garden and the Fire as a doctrinal innovation that distinguishes the new faith. Yet, the narrative is also predicated upon the assumption that upon hearing Qur’anic revelations, newly converted Muslims automatically accepted the explanation that they would have to answer for themselves at the end of time. The idea that Muslims accepted the guiding orientation of these new worlds fits into a larger story of faith; however, it contributes to the misleading sense that faith in the Islamic afterlife was axiomatic. That the acceptance of the Islamic narrative necessitates an acceptance that belief in the afterlife was inevitable illustrates just how closely interwoven the afterlife and the Islamic narrative of origins actually are. This chapter will tease apart these two strands and show how the promise of the Garden and the Fire functioned and developed within the earliest Islamic text purporting to chronicle the time period of Muhammad in Mecca and Medina.

What was the precise nature of Muhammad’s message about the afterlife? How did listeners understand the Qur’anic assertion of judgment? What did they make of the various promises and punishments? And how did they come to believe in the existence of a world never experienced? While we know that Muhammad’s detractors resisted his message, we cannot accept without examination that the faithful were unquestioning upon hearing about the Garden and the Fire. Faith in the afterlife has a history, and it has been unexplored. The question, then, is how did early Muslims come to believe in the afterlife? Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 761/2 or 767) Sira Rasul Allah reflects the ways in which the people of Mecca and Medina learned about, believed or disbelieved in, and battled over the reality of the Last Judgment. Instead of a vision of automatic acceptance of the afterworld, the Sira Rasul Allah presents a discourse where Muslim faith in the Garden and the Fire developed over time and through Meccan opposition to Muhammad and Muslims. The Garden was not just an abstract promise made to believers, but also an end for which they worked and fought.

PRE-ISLAMIC ESCHATOLOGICAL TRADITIONS IN ARABIA

There is little evidence that the Arabs in pre-Islamic Arabia believed in an afterlife with a distinct place and time. Unfortunately, what little is known about Central Arabian religion comes from Islamic sources that stress monotheism’s superiority over idol worship in an effort to demonstrate the difference between the two systems.¹ Stories about pre-Islamic beliefs suggest a pantheistic system where each tribe worshipped stones, trees, or goddesses.² The pilgrimage to and the circumambulation of the Ka‘ba, which contained objects of veneration, testify to the same form of worship. Kuhhan, or soothsayers, were said to receive divinely inspired poetry from the gods or from jinn, beings of the desert understood to be composed of vapor and flame.³ The belief in deities and jinn suggests the belief in an unseen world. Yet, that world did not necessarily exist outside the realm of time. Instead, life occurred on one plane of existence. Each person had a fixed time or ajal. What happened after one’s ajal was reached is unclear.⁴

There may have been some notion of transformation after death, but that transformation did not necessarily entail an afterlife or an afterworld. It has been suggested that hadiths that liken souls to birds may be based on the pre-Islamic belief that the soul becomes like an owlish apparition that hovers over the grave and head of the deceased person.⁵ Another way to investigate pre-Islamic beliefs is to look at the myth of the prophet Salih of the tribe of Thamud and the she-camel whose piercing screech brought about the end of their world. As narrated in the Qur’an as an example of one of God’s chosen groups gone astray, the people of Thamud were prosperous, but they had become corrupt, so God sent them the prophet Salih. They identified him as a mere mortal and asked that he give them some indication of his divine mission. God then sent a she-camel as a test. The she-camel required water rights every other day, and neither the tribe nor its animals could use water then. The Thamud soon broke the injunction, and they hamstrung and slew the she-camel. Three days later a great scream destroyed them.

In one version of the myth, the scream came with a crash, and a large she-camel emerged from the mountain. Her shrieks brought such pain that people bled from their ears; their skin turned yellow, then red, and finally black. Realizing that their fate was sealed, they prepared themselves for death and awaited their punishment. Then came the final scream. Afterward all was silent. Fire rained down for seven days until everything was ash. On the eighth day, the sky cleared, and Salih and his few adherents carried their belongings and journeyed to Palestine.⁶ The story is also analogous to Muhammad’s plight. The motif of the scream in the Qur’an functions as a warning to Muhammad’s detractors that unimaginable pain is pending if they do not follow Allah’s messenger just as the Thamud did not follow Salih. Qur’anic verses present analogies between the story of the Thamud and other peoples who “went astray” from rightly guided messengers, such as Lot or Abraham or Noah.

In this story, the scream indicates the beginning of eschatological time. However, while the concept of pain is apparent, there is little indication of a realm or time beyond the scream. The cataclysmic end is brought about not because of the world’s end, but because the Thamud did not respect the she-camel. The end of the tribe, then, is not the end of time; rather, it is the punishment for disobeying divine commandments. Individual judgment is not apparent; instead, there is only a collective fate for the tribe.

When publicly proclaiming the revelations he received, Muhammad had difficulty convincing the people of Mecca and Medina that the Last Judgment was impending. There are numerous revelations in the Qur’an that assert the reality of the Judgment and the consequence for those who do not have faith. Similarly, as recorded in hadiths and the Sira Rasul Allah, Muhammad attempted to persuade people that their lives had a future; and their future lives were in peril if they did not heed the calling of Allah. The concept of the judgment played a central role in the early history of Islam.

What is so innovative about the Last Judgment? As in the case of the Thamud, collective judgment reflected the tribal ethic of solidarity. A judgment for each individual separated him or her from social and familial contexts. Performing pilgrimage and circumambulating the Ka‘ba with its interior idols was deemed unacceptable. What Muhammad presented as a good life was to live by the precepts of “those who submit” to Allah and solely Allah. Other gods and tribal affiliations were irrelevant. Yet, the judgment itself was not limited solely to Muslims; indeed, the judgment was also levied against those who have no belief at all. The Fire affected even those who did not subscribe to the faith.

Other than Muhammad’s visions, the revelations he delivered, and his words that were to become hadiths, there was no proof of an unseen world that lay outside time and space. The belief in jinn was evident; however, the jinn were believed to exist within the spatial parameters of the earthly world.⁷ A future realm of existence in both time and space, then, was an innovation. That there was a world beyond this one whose options depended on how one lived life in this world did not accord with the common understanding of a life span.

Both the Sira and the Qur’an record the difficulty Meccans faced in trying to understand the afterlife. The following pages will analyze their incomprehension in greater detail. The extension of judgment beyond time and space was the most trying concept to comprehend. The concept of the afterlife not only challenged individual conceptions of life, it also challenged assumptions of earthly tribal solidarity. By contrast, in the afterlife, judgment allowed an individual a new life unencumbered by tribal affiliation; yet, once within the Garden, an individual could experience ultimate solidarity by uniting with ancestors and progeny. One essentially experienced one’s life in the next world, but the framework of life was transformed in terms of time and space.

DEBATING THE DOCTRINE OF THE AFTERLIFE

The Sira Rasul Allah reflects that the Garden and the Fire were used as metonymies for the new faith. The text introduces the two realms as what marks Islam as distinct from other systems of faith before it actually uses the terms “Muslim” or “Islam.” The Garden and the Fire provided a doctrine that focused the attention of both Muhammad’s adherents and detractors. Both alluded to the afterlife in moments of strife: Muhammad’s early companions employed it as inspiration; his detractors used it to illustrate the absurdity of Muhammad’s message. At different points in Muhammad’s life, belief in the afterlife took on different meanings. In Mecca, it provided consolation to new converts who faced persecution. Sometimes the terms al-janna and al-nar are specifically employed; other times there is reference to particular items found in the Garden and the Fire.

The near-iconic power of the Garden and the Fire as a marker of Islam can be best illustrated by the passages in the Sira that chronicle Islam’s place in the world by foretelling the appearance of Muhammad. In one anecdote, Ibn Ishaq reports a Jewish man discussing an upcoming prophet and foretelling the rise of Islam:

Salih b. Ibrahim b. ‘Abdul al-Rahman b. ‘Auf from Mahmud b. Labid, brother of B. ‘Abdu al-Ashhal, from Salama b. Salama b. Waqsh (Salama was present at Badr) said: “We had a Jewish neighbor among Bani ‘Abdu al-Ashhal, who came out to us one day from his house. (At that time I was the youngest person in my house, wearing a small robe and lying in the courtyard.) He spoke of the resurrection [al-qiyama wa-l-ba‘th], the reckoning [al-hisab], the scales [al-mizan], the Garden [al-janna], and the Fire [al-nar]. When he spoke of these things to the polytheists who thought there could be no rising after death, they said to him, ‘Good gracious man! Do you think that such things could be that men can be raised from the dead to a place where there is a Garden [al-janna] and a Fire [al-nar] in which they will be recompensed for their deeds?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and by Him whom men swear by, he would wish that he might be in the largest oven in his house rather than in that Fire [al-nar al-‘azim]: that they would heat it and thrust him into it and plaster it over if he could get out from that fire on the following day.’ When they asked for a sign that this would be, he said, pointing with his hand to Mecca and the Yaman, ‘A prophet will be sent from the direction of this land.’ When they asked when he would appear, he looked at me, the youngest person, and said: ‘This boy, if he lives his natural term, will see him,’ and by God, a night and a day did not pass before God sent Muhammad his apostle and he was living among us. We believed in him, but he denied him, in his wickedness and envy. When we asked, ‘Aren’t you the man who said these things?’ he said ‘certainly, but this is not the man.’”⁸

In this passage, the Jew functions as someone who is privileged with divine knowledge not only because of his ability to see the future, but also because the Sira Rasul Allah portrays Jews as legitimate authorities of divine wisdom (although in this case, the man recants his own vision). When the man speaks, it is to signal apocalyptic time when there will be the Resurrection, the Reckoning, and humans’ lives will be weighed by the cosmic Scales. Each one of these events forms a part of eschatological time, which the passage reflects is surprising to the listeners. It is within this framework that the Garden and the Fire is first introduced. In a kind of doctrinal refrain, the Jewish neighbor is questioned about the possibility of an afterlife to which he responds about the heat or the greatest part of the Fire. In the passage, then, it is the Fire that is privileged as a marker of Islamic denial: if one does not accept the future (as the Jewish man does not by the end of the anecdote), then one may face it. The Garden, by contrast, is not highlighted at all.

Even more interesting is what is not mentioned about this new faith. The Jewish neighbor neither mentions the concept of tawhid (unity) that marks forms of Islamic theology, nor monotheism that would reinforce the narrative against polytheism, nor the name of the Islamic God “Allah,” nor what will become the social legislation of Islamic faith. Instead he introduces the future faith by the most fantastic attribute of them all: life beyond this life and cosmic reward and punishment. His audience’s amazement at events after life confirms the novelty that eschatological time provides in the Islamic narrative. In terms of the significance of the anecdote, one can argue that by the time it was committed to writing and even edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 828 or 833) in the early ninth century, the eschatological terminology was well known and projected into the narrative as a mechanism of foretelling the future. Or we can read the passage literally and allow that a Jewish man before Muhammad’s time would mention the significant words al-janna and al-nar. The result does not affect the observation that the afterlife became a way to designate Islam as a system of belief. In the earliest textual moments, the new faith is identified through the concept of the afterlife.

Meccan contestation of the validity of an afterlife is more pronounced in later anecdotes that focus on Muhammad’s call and preaching in Mecca. In a section entitled “Negotiations between the Apostle and the Leaders of the Quraysh and an Explanation of the Sura of the Cave,” the tensions between Muhammad and Meccan leaders are apparent, and the doctrine of the afterlife as a point of contention plays a part in the articulation of difference.

Ibn Ishaq relates that after Islam began to spread to Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh, leading members of each clan met after sunset outside the Ka‘ba and decided to send for and negotiate with Muhammad. They charged Muhammad with treating his tribe in a peculiar way and tried to placate what they perceived were his desires. If he wanted money, they would make him the richest; if he wanted honor, they would make him a governor or prince (amir); if he sought sovereignty, they would make him king; if a spirit had possessed him, they would find a cure. Ibn Ishaq reports Muhammad’s response:

“I have no such intention. I demand not your money, nor honor from you, nor sovereignty over you, but God had sent me to you as a messenger, and revealed a book to me, and commanded me to become an announcer and warner for you. I brought you messages of my Lord and given you good advice. If you took the message of my Lord, then you would have a portion in this world [al-dunya] and the hereafter [al-akhira]; if you rejected it, I can only patiently await the issue until God decided between me and you,” or words to that effect.⁹

Ibn Ishaq ends with “or words to that effect,” in order to indicate to readers that the wordings may not be exact. In this passage, we see the framework of what would soon constitute Islamic belief. Sections before this incident in the Sira mention individual conversion, but no section articulates Muhammad’s message. In this anecdote, Muhammad offers a synopsis—which is still not identified as a religion called “Islam”—and adds his counsel. The advice is ultimately one that involves the promise or threat of a life beyond. What is offered is success in this world and the next. The rewards for accepting Muhammad’s message are framed temporally so that the benefit extends in this earthly existence to the hereafter.

The Qurayshi leaders were not interested in the idea of apportioned reward, and instead, they responded by making demands to determine whether Muhammad’s message was divine. Additionally, Muhammad’s warning was not adequate. For them, the granting of reward is proof of prophecy:

You know that no people are more short of land and water, and live a harder life than we, so ask your Lord, who has sent you, to remove for us these mountains which shut us in, and to straighten out our country for us, and to open up in it rivers like those of Syria and Iraq, and to resurrect for us Qusayy b. Kilab, for he was a true shaikh, so that we may ask him whether what you say is true or false. If they say you are speaking the truth, and you do what we have asked you, we will believe in you, and we shall know what your position with God is, and that he has actually sent you as an apostle as you say.¹⁰

Here the leaders ask for relief from their present state, and they invoke their ancestor who was renowned for his wisdom. Their wish list also indicates a temporal difference with Muhammad’s statement. He spoke about the future beyond the material world, while they ask for the present. It is this temporal shift that the Qurayshi leaders were unable to recognize. The inability to see the import of Muhammad’s message at this stage soon transformed into the desire to ridicule him for suggesting that landscape, for example, can ultimately be changed. When Muhammad does not grant their wishes, he sends Qurayshi leaders the message that his God expects allegiance, and whatever reward may be granted will be enjoyed after death. Such a spiritual contract between God and man does not appear attractive for those who have yet to be convinced that there is a future life.

The Qurayshi leaders then ask Muhammad for what they consider a natural alternative to granting their wishes. They indicate that he should ask his God something for himself in order to give some sort of sign: “Ask God to send an angel with him to confirm what he said and to contradict them; to make him gardens and castles, and treasures of gold and silver to satisfy his obvious wants.” The leaders ask for these sumptuous items for him because he stood on the streets like them and earned a living, and this, they felt, did not mark him from common men who had no message to deliver. They finally suggest that his God punish them immediately: “Then let the heavens be dropped on us in pieces.”¹¹

Within the Islamic narrative, the position of the Meccan resistance to Muhammad’s message remains ironic for what Meccan leaders ask from Muhammad mirrors what the elect will gain in the Garden. Their request for “gardens and castles, and treasures of gold and silver” are items that believers receive as elaborated through revelation. The function of this inversion brings into high relief the lack of sagacity of Meccan leaders. Given the promises of the material items in the Qur’an and the hadiths, the Meccan leaders’ statement demonstrates their inability to accept what is presented to them.

For the leaders, the goods would indicate that Muhammad was not a simple worker, but someone of spiritual stature. Their requests demonstrate how strange Muhammad’s position must have been to them. He neither conjured miracles nor delivered divine rewards on request. Incredibly, he worked just as they did. As Salih was for the Thamud, Muhammad was too mundane for their prophetic expectations. Their frustration is finally reached when they challenge him to let the heavens drop on them. A statement of such drama acts as a type of taunt: if they believed his God could destroy them, they would not likely utter the challenge so simply.

In terms of the goods mentioned, the leaders’ demands evince the types of material realities unavailable in the Hijaz. While Mecca was a town of trade, it was not a metropolis of gardens and castles, and it was not a mining center for gold and silver. What the leaders demand, then, is unavailable in a Meccan setting; and hence, it would be seen as a divine gift. (The same could not be said for a setting in Jerusalem and Damascus where there were gardens and castles and sufficient trade for precious metals.) A similar argument may be made for another anecdote in which Abu Jahl mentions that Muhammad claims that people will be raised to “gardens like those of the Jordan.”¹² Both these statements evince a world removed from gardens, palaces, and precious metals. While all sorts of textual corruptions must be entertained for the anecdotes, the framework of the leader’s wishes reflects a material reality that resembles the conditions of Mecca, rather than greater Syria or Iraq.

The material dimension of the leaders’ requests is further reiterated in the next exchange after Muhammad responds that he was a mere messenger and claims that he cannot provide the miraculous events that the leaders seek. In return, ‘Abdullah b. Umayya chastises Muhammad for not delivering any of the things for which they asked. In a prefiguring of Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension to the heavens, ‘Abdullah b. Umayya claimed that he would not believe Muhammad even if he climbed a ladder to the sky and four angels came testifying that he was speaking the truth. A few pages later Ibn Ishaq records his fully articulated stance: “We will not believe in thee until fountains burst forth from us from the earth, or you have a garden of dates and grapes and make the rivers within it burst forth copiously, or make the heavens fall upon us in fragments as you assert, or bring God and the angels as a surety, or you get a house of gold, or mount up to heaven, we will not believe in thy ascent until you bring down to us a book which we can read.”¹³ Muhammad does not make any of these come true. Yet, according to Islamic beliefs, each one of the events eventually comes or will come to pass. The images of the fountains, gardens of copious fruit irrigated by underground rivers, domiciles of precious metals, and the vision of angels and possible presence of God are all rewards of the Garden that will be discussed in chapter 4. The last item of the book is the Qur’an, in which these otherworldly promises are described.

In the passages, the desires of the leaders foretell the blessings and goods of the Garden; yet, their wishful thinking also indicates the reality of their material conditions. What Muhammad promises in the next world is respite from a harsh desert land and palaces of silver and gold with resplendent gardens with rivers flowing beneath. Yet, the leaders’ understanding is literal. Instead of recognizing that submission to God will gain these goods in the future life, they focus on the present world. Their comprehension is limited because they are negotiating for the goods in the wrong world. Instead of fulfilling the terms of the bargain for the rewards of the next world, they demand the rewards in this world in order to determine the quality of their faith.

Meccan incomprehension of eschatological time did not signify lack of awareness of what was promised in the afterlife. Ibn Ishaq records significant details about the afterlife when describing the actions of those who oppose Muhammad. It is in these narratives that we learn of further Meccan intimidation and specific items of the Fire. ‘Amr ibn Hisham vehemently denied the idea that something lay beyond this life; hence his sobriquet Abu Jahl, “father of folly.” He appears to be one of the Qurayshi leaders who recognized how threatening Muhammad’s eschatological message was to Meccan social life. In Ibn Ishaq’s text, Abu Jahl’s threats not only inspired divine intervention in the form of angels and revelation to protect Muhammad, but they also offer the best clues for how Meccans received the premise that eventual judgment awaited each human.

It is also in Abu Jahl’s recorded diatribes that we receive the first specific textual allusions of attributes of the Fire. For example, Abu Jahl speaks out against the nineteen punishing angels mentioned in the Qur’an: “Muhammad pretends that God’s troops who will punish you in the Fire and imprison you there, are nineteen only, while you have a large population. Can it be that every hundred of you is unequal to one man of them.” In response to his challenge, Muhammad received a revelation. Ibn Ishaq continues: “God then revealed, ‘We have made the guardians of hell angels, and We have made the number of them a trial to those who disbelieve.’”¹⁴ The passage is remarkable not only because the Meccan opposition is part of consolidating knowledge about the afterlife, but because the instigation on the part of Abu Jahl resulted in revelation from God.

The connection among Abu Jahl, revelation, and the attributes of the afterworld are further developed when Abu Jahl responded to a revelation about the feared tree of al-Zaqqum, located in the Fire, whose bitter fruit are like demonic heads hanging from its branches: “O Quraysh, do you know what the tree of al-Zaqqum with which Muhammad would scare you is?” When they said that they did not he said: “It is Yathrib dates buttered. By Allah, if we get hold of them we will gulp them down in one!”¹⁵ Another revelation was soon brought down, and Ibn Ishaq—or, more likely, Ibn Hisham—reports the verse and corresponding commentary: “‘Verily the tree of al-Zaqqum is the food of the sinner like molten brass seething in their bellies like boiling water,’ i.e. it is not as he said. God revealed concerning it, ‘and the tree which is cursed in the Qur’an; and we will frighten them, but it increases them in naught save great wickedness.’”¹⁶

In both cases, revelations are sent down to rebut Abu Jahl’s insinuations. The debate in both the Sira and the Qur’an, then, involve Allah’s response to Abu Jahl’s taunts for the battle for Meccan allegiance. In both cases, Abu Jahl chose to address the unrealistic material claims of the afterlife. He questions how only nineteen can overpower hundreds of men. He suggests that the fruits of the tree of al-Zaqqum are in fact dates from Yathrib, the original name of Medina. Ironically, one of the meanings of zaqqum is “buttered dates,” so his suggestion was part of a verbal play. Nonetheless, while his statements draw on the material goods of the afterlife, they also reveal an assumption that the goods will be exact replicas of the goods on earth. His statements belie a limited understanding of a reformed sense of time and space.

Most significant for thinking about the narrative of origins, Abu Jahl not only was cognizant of the details of the Fire, but his charges imply that so were others in Mecca. For the tree of al-Zaqqum to be discussed publicly suggests that it was recognized. What Abu Jahl intended by mentioning the specifics of the afterlife was not to provide an exposition of its topography, but to elucidate the ridiculous nature of Muhammad’s revelations and the legitimacy of the new faith. Whereas the joys of the Garden are met with ridicule, it is the terror of the Fire that merits public debate and Abu Jahl’s denunciation.

Yet, contestation about the afterlife was not limited to debate. The battle of words also led to physical intimidation of Muslims at the hands of the Meccans. Ibn Ishaq presents traditions where Muslims faced harsh treatment by Meccans who were either threatened by the new religious movement or felt it was prudent to punish their fellow Meccans for falling into Muhammad’s traps. Often the terms of the punishment were linked with the promise of the afterlife.

In one such story, the tribe Banu Makhzum took three early converts, ‘Ammar b. Yasir and his parents, out of their homes and exposed them to the extraordinary heat of the Meccan day. Ibn Ishaq continues, “The Apostle passed by them and said, so I have heard ‘Patience, O family of Yasir! Your meeting will be the Garden.’ They killed his mother, for she refused to abandon Islam.”¹⁷ Thus, the Garden is a promise not in an abstract sense, but as reward for current trials. The promise that Muhammad utters entails that the family meet in the next world under better conditions.

Another case illustrates a non-Muslim’s understanding and eventual manipulation of the promise of the Garden. Khabbab b. al-Aratt was a Muslim smith who made swords. He sold some swords to a certain al-‘As b. Wa’il. When Khabbab b. al-Aratt went to collect the money he owed, al-‘As b. Wa’il was to have said: “‘Does not Muhammad, your companion whose religion you follow, allege that in the Garden there is all the gold and silver and clothes and servants that his people can desire?’ ‘Certainly,’ said Khabbab. ‘Then give me till the day of resurrection until I return to that house and pay your debt there; for by God, you and your companion will be no more influential with God than I, and have no greater share in it.’”¹⁸ It is clear from this passage that later texts such as the Sira record people’s knowing about the particular promises of the Garden, inasmuch as al-‘As b. Wa’il refers to gold, silver, clothes, and servants. He alludes to this debt in the future all the while mocking Khabbab b. al-Aratt’s actual status of belief. In this case, Khabbab b. al-Aratt does not receive his worldly due since he subscribes to a faith that has even greater otherworldly dues.

What is remarkable is that the anecdote operates on two levels as a type of joke about the afterlife. First, al-‘As b. Wa’il suggests that he is not obligated to pay his dues on the basis of the future life; second, embedded within his promise is another promise that he can cheat as much as he wants in his life until he is held responsible in the next world. Yet, al-‘As b. Wa’il’s humor also illustrates his inability to recognize that alongside the promise of the Garden is the inevitable punishment for irreligious behavior.

The Sira also records other stories that show Meccan mockery of Muslims based on the belief of the afterlife. For instance, a certain Ubayy took an old bone, crumbled it into pieces and asked Muhammad if God could revivify it. The action suggests that Muhammad’s opposition not only came to understand what Muhammad was proposing, but also referred to his promises when trying to discredit Muhammad’s claims. In the case of Ubayy, after crumbling the bone in his hand, he blew the pieces in the apostle’s face. After his assertion of allegiance to the doctrine, the apostle answered: “God will raise it and you, after you have become like this. Then God will send you to the Fire.”¹⁹ These moments of discord also produced moments of drama, as seen in the case of ‘Ammar’s family suffering in the heat, with his mother finally succumbing to death.

Meccan opposition did not provoke every moment. In the case of ‘Uthman, Muhammad’s friend and eventually the third caliph, some Muslims defended their belief fiercely. According to the account, a poet was to have read: “Everything but God is vain / And everything lovely must inevitably cease.” ‘Uthman, who replied true to the first line, cried at the second: “You lie, the joys of the Garden will never cease” after the second life. He started a brawl that resulted in his black eye.²⁰ This tale suggests that believers viewed the Garden as a realm of unceasing reward.

The Sira also records that Muslims and non-Muslims understood Muhammad’s message that one underwent a certain moral and spiritual regimen in this life in order to gain the ultimate bliss in the next. In the story of al-‘Aqaba, the leaders from the tribes al-Khazraj and al-Aws in Medina promised loyalty to Muhammad and asked what they would get in return. Muhammad promises them the Garden.²¹ They converted after al-‘Abbas b. ‘Ubada b. Nadla al-Ansari reasoned, “O men of Khazraj, do you realize to what you are committing yourselves in pledging your support to this man? It is to war against all and sundry. If you think that if you lose your property and your nobles are killed you will give him up, then do so now, for it would bring you shame in this world and the next (if you did so later); but if you think that you will be loyal to your undertaking if you lose your property and your nobles are killed, then take him, for by God it will profit you in this world and the next.”²² The cosmic contract that dictates that you offer all in this world for the promise of the next is precisely what Muhammad’s adversaries contested. Previously, they must have sacrificed to certain gods in order to gain the blessings they sought in life. Those acts, centered on the Ka‘ba, were for blessing in this life. The innovation of Muhammad’s message was that blessings needed to extend to the time beyond this life’s expectations. No longer was it adequate to worry about the state of one’s life on earth; now the concern had shifted to the eternal life beyond death. In this sense, Allah for all time, and by extension Muhammad during earthly time, remained the arbiter of sanctioned behavior until Judgment Day.

It has been accepted in scholarly circles that Islam posed a threat to the social and economic well being of Meccans. Socially, Islam broke the traditional tribal structure and replaced it with a religious community headed by Muhammad. Economically, by cleansing the Ka‘ba of its gods and idols, the new Muslim community threatened trade that occurred during pilgrimage. Yet, religiously, Islam also posed the threat of the Fire whether one was Muslim or not. It also proposed a reward for those who submitted to the will of God. The placement in either the Garden or the Fire affected everyone in Mecca. The stories related in the Sira suggest that a cornerstone of the Islamic narrative is that Muslims strove for Meccans to understand their eschatological doctrine, and Meccans employed it to ridicule and sometimes intimidate and threaten Muslim inhabitants.

“PARADISE IS UNDER THE SHADE OF SWORDS”

In the quest for defense against the Meccans, Muslims immigrated to Medina and then sought to win Mecca. Muhammad and his companions fought three significant battles: the Battle of Badr (624), the Battle of Uhud (625), and the Battle of the Ditch (627). The Sira reflects that in Medina the belief in the afterlife drummed up theological and military strength. If in Mecca the afterlife distinguished newly converted Muslims from their fellow Meccans who did not accept eschatological time, it is in Mecca that the rewards of belief in an afterlife were fully realized. The reward was not just consolation for military losses, but also justification for Muslim defense and victory. Yet, the consolation provided by the afterlife was not fully shared; however, the afterlife became the dominant belief with which Muslims agreed or disagreed. Within the context of warfare is the first mention of the houris, and the idea that martyrdom wins a place in the highest heaven where a Muslim can stand in the presence of Allah.²³

Muhammad instigated the Battle of Badr when he decided to attack a Meccan caravan that was said to consist of a thousand camels carrying fifty thousand dinars of goods.²⁴ His troops numbered more than three hundred men, some of whom may have been from the members of the Medinan tribes al-Khazraj and al-Aws. After hearing about the impending raid, Abu Jahl assembled approximately 950 men in order to protect the caravan. The two parties met at the wells near Badr. In blocking the wells, Muhammad forced a confrontation. The Muslims were terrified of the large numbers of Meccans. Even though vastly outnumbered, the Muslims soon won the battle. Within Islamic narratives, the Muslim victory was later interpreted as a testament to their strength and to the truth of their cause. A revelation in the Qur’an explicitly refers to how God helped Meccans during the battle: “Allah helped you at Badr, when ye were a contemptible little force; Then fear Allah; thus May ye show gratitude” (3.123).

The Sira records odes about Muslim courage. In one of them, ‘Ubayda b. al-Harith, whose foot was eventually cut off after being struck in battle, later recounted the bravery that he, Muhammad’s uncle Hamza, and Muhammad’s cousin ‘Ali exhibited:

A battle will tell the Meccans about us:

It will make distant men give heed,

When ‘Utba died and Shayba after him,

And ‘Utba’s eldest son had no cause to be pleased with it.

You may cut off his leg, yet I am a Muslim

I hope in exchange for life near to Allah

With houris fashioned like the most beautiful statues

With the highest Garden for those who mount there.

I have bought it with the life of which I have tasted the best

And which I have tried until I lost even my next of kin

The Merciful honored me with his favor

With the garments of Islam to cover my faults

I did not shirk from fighting them

The day that men called on their peers to fight them,

So that we came out to the herald

We met them like lions, brandishing our spears

We fought the rebellious for God’s sake

We three did not move from our position

Till their fate came upon them.²⁵

In the poem, ‘Utba’s amputated leg is exchanged for his future life. The next life is located within the highest Garden, characterized by its proximity to God and houris who are like beautiful artworks. Within this description is an implicit hierarchy where ‘Utba’s actions gain the very best of rewards, as opposed to a possibly lower level of reward in the Garden. This much-awaited fate is framed as a type of commercial transaction: He “bought” the highest heaven with the sacrifice of his limb. ‘Utba’s narration of the event highlights not only that he braved the battle for glory, truth, and reward, but that his losses and subsequent gains take the form of things. He loses a leg; he gains houris. He loses his life; he gains a better life. He states that he wins these things through his Muslim devotion, but he can still benefit from the compassion of God to cloak his faults. The focal point within this proof of faith and bravery in battle is his loss of earthly limb and gain of otherworldly beneficence and beauty.

Yet, the distinction between earthly world and otherworld do not always remain sharp within the Sira. In another account, the houris are mentioned as occupying the battle space as ethereal nurses who tend to the sick and deceased: “‘Abdullah b. Abu Najih told me that he was told that, when a martyr is slain, his two wives from the dark-eyed houris pet him, wiping the dust off his face, saying all the while, ‘May God put dust on the face of the man who put dust on your face, and slay him who slew you!’”²⁶ The houris, then, have a special place on the battlefield, acting not only as an indication of the promised life that will soon arrive,²⁷ but also as a precursor to that life within the earthly moments of dying.

In another instance, Muhammad sees houris. He turned away from a fighter who recently died. When questioned why he turned toward and then away from the man, Muhammad replies that he was with his “two wives from the dark-eyed houris” and averts his gaze out of respect.²⁸ The houris’ function may have been akin to wives in the actual battles; however, given their otherworldly origin, their visibility is curious. The appearance of the houri suggests that death is a type of intermediate state where attributes of the Garden can be experienced within earthly time. Here the Garden is not just the extension of eschatological time, but it also acts as a frame for meaning within earthly time. After all, the houri does not appear in any mundane moment or natural death. Instead, houris are visible on earth only with the spilled blood of battle.

While such an image may have provided motivation to fight other battles or consolation for the death itself, there were also Muslim voices of grief and eventual disbelief of the promise of the Garden. Hatib b. Umayya b. Rafi‘’s son Yazid was grievously wounded at the Battle of Uhud. As he was dying, he was brought to his family’s settlement. His family gathered around, and people said to Yazid’s father, “Good news of the Garden, O son of Hatib.” The transmitter Asim adds, “Now Hatib was an old man who had lived long in the heathen period and his hypocrisy appeared then, for he said, ‘What good news do you give him? Of a Garden of rue? By God, you have robbed this man of his life by your deception (and brought great sorrow of me.)’”²⁹ The disbelief of Hatib is fully vocalized within the frame of his hypocrisy. When we lift the outer justification of Hatib’s complaint, his words suggest that the Garden not only did not provide consolation for his son, but was also a way to console those who faced unbearable loss. What is invalidated within Hatib’s lament is the logic that there will be a better place called the Garden. Instead, he talks of a garden not of ultimate beauty, but of rue, which is used to anoint bodies. For Hatib, the Garden is a hoax designed only to compound his loss. What is clear from the narration about battles is the extent to which the Garden was invoked. Because the battle of Uhud was a militarily draw between the Meccans and Medinans, its costs were high in terms of lives, and it demoralized believers. In fact, the Qur’an addresses sorrow about their losses and fear that Allah no longer favored the Muslim community. In Medina, it is the Muslims who contest the meaning of the Garden; for Yazid’s kin, the Garden acts as reward. Only his father cried out what was obvious to the pre-Islamic sensibility of death in battle: his son is lost to him and to the world.

Yet, Hatib’s lament is not the only development that arises out of the losses at the Battle of Uhud. The battle also inspired traditions regarding martyrdom.³⁰ Like the passage about the houris on the battlefield, some traditions involve collapsing eschatological time. For example, one man died saying, “By the Lord of al-Nadr, the Garden! I am smelling its aroma from before the Mountain of Uhud.”³¹ Here the man experiences the Garden through the sense of smell as he dies.

More common are passages involving consolation. Sometimes the consolation is for family members. Such is the case when Muhammad reassures a mother that there are gardens in al-janna, and her son is in the highest Paradise (firdaws).³² Her son’s loss, then, is ranked high within the large hierarchy of dying. Also striking is when Muhammad reassured Muslims of their place in the Garden as opposed to the place of their enemies: “Narrated al-Mughira bin Shu‘ba: Our Prophet told us about the message of our Lord that ‘ … whoever amongst us is killed will go to the Garden.’” ‘Umar asked the prophet, is it not true that our men who are killed will go to the Garden and theirs will go to the Fire?’ The Prophet said ‘yes.’”³³ Here the consolation is not only determined by reward for self, but also punishment for others. The placement of Muslims in the Garden and their enemies in the Fire reinforced the faith of the fighters as they proceed to battle. Interestingly, the mention of both realms also further delineated and created cleavages between Muslim and non-Muslim. The function of the afterlife as a defining dogma helped Muslims to define their fellow Meccans as enemies as well as past peoples (like the Thamud) gone astray.

Yet, sacrifice in battle did not always result in a promise of the Garden. Correct behavior still played a large role in determining whether the fighter was granted a place in the Garden. In Imam Malik’s al-Muwatta’, attendees of the funeral proclaim the Garden as destination; yet, Muhammad indicates that merely dying for the cause of God does not guarantee entry into the Garden:

Yahya related to me from Malik from Thawr ibn Zayd al-Dili from Abu al-Ghayth Salim, the mawla of ibn Muti‘ that Abu Hurayra said, “We went out with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the year of Khaybar. We did not capture any gold or silver except for personal effects, clothes, and household goods. Rifa‘a ibn Ziyad gave a black slave boy called Mid‘am to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, made for Wadi al-Qura. After he arrived there, Mid‘am was struck and killed by a stray arrow while unsaddling the camel of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The people said, ‘Good luck to him! The Garden!’ The Messenger of Allah said, ‘No! By He is whose hand my self is! The cloak which he took from the spoils on the Day of Khaybar before they were distributed will blaze with fire on him.’ When the people heard that, a man brought a sandalstrap—or two sandalstraps—to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The Messenger of Allah, May Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘A sandalstrap or two sandalstraps of fire!’”³⁴

Here Mid‘am’s stealing of a cloak before distribution leads to his placement in the Fire. Assisting in battle was invalid; his punishment would eventually be meted out due to his immoral behavior of stealing. Mid‘am’s fate suggests that even though “Paradise lies under the shade of swords,”³⁵ not everyone benefits from the cosmological exchange of life in this world for elevated life in the next world.

Such a caveat did not invalidate the use of the Garden as a motivational device. In another passage, Ibn Ishaq discusses the preparation for the Battle of the Ditch. The Muslims were outnumbered vastly and in order to protect themselves, they dug a trench around Medina for defense. Muhammad built morale during the task: “He drew a trench about Medina and worked at it himself encouraging the Muslims with the hope of reward in the Garden.”³⁶ Here we are presented the image of Muhammad encouraging Muslims with the idea that they will be awarded a place in the Garden.

Other passages suggest that the motivation of the Garden was offered as a more concrete promise. In Malik’s al-Muwatta’ there is a hadith that illustrates what a fighter may have been assured when leaving for battle: “Yahya related to me from Malik from Abu al-Zinad from al-‘Araj from Abu Hurayra that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Allah guarantees either the Garden or a safe return to his home with whatever he has obtained of reward or booty for the one who does jihad in His way, if it is solely jihad and trust in His promise that brings him out of this house.’”³⁷ Here the options are set out clearly. The fighter will either receive the Garden or return to his home with appropriate booty given that his efforts of jihad or struggle are for God and God alone. In this instance, there is no mention of righteous behavior invalidating the reward. Instead, what is highlighted is the material aspect of reward: the glories of the Garden or glories in the form of war booty.

Within the framework of the Islamic narration of origin, Islam became the religion of the Garden. In Mecca, it was assured and doctrinally battled. In Medina, it was tested as Muslims gave their lives or lost their family members in service to God through battle. Discussions that Muhammad had with Muslims about the afterlife in Medina were far different from debates he had with the Quraysh in Mecca. In Mecca, the Garden began as an abstract concept to be experienced later in life. With growing Meccan pressure and persecution, the Garden became less abstract. By the time of the community of Medina, the Garden was the fate for those who prepared for battle. While not everyone accepted the promise of the Garden, from the standpoint of Islamic origins, the Garden began to offer ultimate refuge and pleasure from worldly pain, and the Fire was designated for those who caused it.

The sessions of discourse or battle in Ibn Ishaq’s Sira demonstrate how the concept of dying and being judged in Islamic doctrine threatened Meccans and provided most Muslims with consolation. In a dramatic moment in Mecca between Muhammad and Abu Jahl, the eschatological import of Muhammad’s message is highlighted: “Yazid b. Ziyad on the authority of Muhammad b. Ka‘b al-Qurazi told me that when they were all outside his door Abu Jahl said to them: ‘Muhammad alleges that if you follow him you will be kings of the Arabs and the Persians. Then after death you will be raised to gardens like those of the Jordan. But if you do not follow him you will be slaughtered, and when you are raised from the dead you will be burned in the Fire.’ The apostle came out to them with a handful of dust saying: ‘I do say that. You are one of them.’”³⁸ Abu Jahl sums up succinctly the import of Muhammad’s message: If you follow his message, then you will be victorious and resurrected into glorious gardens; if you are against his message, you will be killed and resurrected only to be punished eternally in Fire.

As a point of doctrine and an answer to Muslims’ questions about the moments after death, the idea of the afterlife was one of the easiest ways to mark what was both central and innovative about the new faith. In terms of explicit mention, there are few other topics within the early texts that elicit such concern and questions. Tenets such as the substance of faith and almsgiving constitute other widely discussed topics. If we count implicit references, however, the afterlife is not merely a doctrine, but a way in which Muslims came to identify themselves and recognize their place in the world.