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HUMANITY, SERVANTS, AND COMPANIONS

WHEN EARTHLY time yields to otherworldly timelessness, humanity assumes its place in the afterworld and fully realizes the consequences of earthly choices. Inhabitants of the Garden and the Fire are introduced to their new lives as they enter the otherworldly realms. Those destined for the Garden will be led in crowds to the gates. As the gates open, gatekeepers will greet people by saying, “Peace be upon you! Well have ye done! Enter ye here to dwell therein” (39.73). Those destined for the Fire are not greeted with such a gracious invitation. Instead, they are violently flung into it. Whereas the inhabitants of the Garden are active agents who stroll through the gates to meet their new lives, inhabitants of the Fire are passive players who have no choice about how they are thrown into their fate.

Upon entering the new realms, inhabitants find their bodies reformed and encounter their living spaces. The purpose of the Garden is to remove earthly pollution and ugliness and replace them with heavenly perfection; by contrast, the purpose of the Fire is to contribute to earthly injury and construct an eternally painful existence. As a result, inhabitants of the Garden become physically beautiful and frolic at leisure in opulent tents or pavilions that are spacious and surrounded by glorious gardens. Meanwhile the Fire’s inhabitants toil forcibly in the occupation of torturing themselves in small solitary cells that offer only confinement.

The physical state of the body reflects the judgment of the soul. Refined clothing and jewelry reinforce the beauty of believers’ bodies in the Garden. By contrast, unbelievers’ bodies in the Fire are not only objects of punishment, but they are also the mechanisms by which the punishment takes place. The body is not just a tortured, fetid thing, but also an instrument of punishment whose parts inflict pain against the will of the individual. The body, as opposed to being a site that reflects the beauty of the soul, becomes the deliverer of pain.

Yet, life in the afterworld amounts to more than just reward and punishment. Instead, the afterworld also provides forms of social interaction. In the Qur’an and hadiths, those awarded life in the Garden enjoy the company of their families and companions, and each companion is promised a retinue that can provide a luxurious life. In the Fire, the opposite holds true. Inhabitants have no companionship, and they can look forward only to their punishment in contained compartments. If the inhabitants of the Garden enjoy a metaphorical banquet of companionship, fine drink, and sumptuous food, then the inhabitants of the Fire encounter a bitter dish, indeed.

Just as the landscape of the Garden, which privileges the importance of trees and rivers at the expense of grasses and shrubs, sheds light on aspirations for the afterworld, the social life of the afterlife reveals which family dynamics were prized. Expectations of interactions center on earthly experiences such as life with spouses, children, companions, and at times household servants. Yet, the realities of earthly life—childhood, growing into adulthood, procreating, providing for a family, taking care of elders, and of course dying—are suspended in the afterworld, for the inhabitants (even in the Fire) do not age. In both the Garden and the Fire, there is no birth, sickness, or death. As a result, the afterworld is based on the experience of earthly living without earthly parameters or limitations.

Describing life in the afterworld through earthly frameworks is understandable (how else could Muslims and non-Muslims have discussed an unknown time and space?), but it also raises a number of questions. What kind of life can a believer or unbeliever expect to live outside the strictures of time? Is the Garden merely a more purified and the Fire merely a more putrid version of the earthly world? What happens when a believer’s desires exceed the limitations of the Garden? How can a servant labor in the Garden, which is defined as a realm of no labor?

By focusing on individuals’ reconfigured selves and inhabitants’ social worlds, the Qur’an and hadiths offer fragmentary glimpses of how believers and unbelievers live in the afterworld. Earthly models of social relations did not always accord with the inherent principles that structure the Garden and the Fire, and the Qur’an and hadiths address these inconsistencies by describing parts of the afterworld, including certain beings, as objects. The significance of the objectification of the material nature of the afterworld can encompass even humans as part of a social landscape. More importantly, seeing the afterworld as being made up of objects becomes a mechanism that replicates earthly models of a slave class in otherworldly images of leisure.

PAIN AND PUNISHMENT IN THE FIRE

What marks life in the Fire is solitude and emptiness. Inhabitants of the Fire enjoy no companionship from friends, family, or household members. They also have no homes. Instead, their settings are only described as sites of punishment, such as mountains, fires, or valleys. While the flames crackle and roar (25.14), hot boiling water surrounds inhabitants as they wander around (55.44). People sigh and sob because there will be nothing left for them to do (11.106).

Not only will the inhabitants or unbelievers be scorched from fire, but their faces will also be covered with the Fire and their garments will be made of liquid pitch (14.50). In another verse, their garment is described as being cut from the Fire (22.19). Their only adornments are objects and the results of punishments: chains of 70 cubits (69.32) and the wounds they create (69.36). Mostly, they are yoked either physically or mentally: “The yokes (shall be) round their necks, and the chains; they shall be dragged along—In the boiling fetid fluid then in the Fire shall they be burned” (40.71, 40.72). The yokes are elsewhere described as “yokes of servitude” (13.5), which may represent their payment for the burden of unbelief.

While unbelievers lose a sense of living without social interaction or familiar spaces, they retain their physical selves in an altered state. The transformation of the earthly body begins during eschatological time, and all of humanity experiences fear in anticipation of punishment. At death, the unbeliever’s soul smells in the grave; in one hadith, Muhammad puts a cloth to his nose to block the stench.¹ At the time of the Last Judgment, humanity gathers barefoot, naked, and uncircumcised. In essence, humanity will revert to the way that Allah made them as opposed to the way that they changed themselves.² Some will try to prostrate themselves, but they will not be able to because their backs will revert to one bone of a single vertebra.³ When they stand before Allah, people will be drenched in perspiration that flows so copiously that it reaches halfway to their ears.⁴

According to one hadith, the extreme range of pleasures and punishments are so great that the person forgets the pains and pleasures of earthly life. A future inhabitant of the Fire would be dipped in the Fire and would not find any blessing; a future inhabitant of the Garden would be dipped in the Garden and would not find any hardship.⁵ The physical punishments of the Fire are not only ones that pain them and force them to live a life of eternal fear and excruciating pain, but also the punishment of a lesson understood far too late. That lesson is the majesty of God, which was ignored in the pursuit of the world’s riches: “The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things)” (102.1).

After the end of eschatological time, those destined for the Fire undergo another transformation. Their bodies are enhanced with both a greater ability to withstand and greater sensitivity to feel all forms of pain. As a result, punishments in the Fire cut deeper than their earthly versions. Pain is felt in a greater capacity at the same time as the body is able to manage the pain without physical collapse. In this way, the Fire can promise a future of eternal pain.

In the Qur’an and hadiths, there is sparse reference to beings that administer punishment. While the functioning of the Garden is at the hands of the well-guarded youths and houris, nineteen punitive angels administer punishment (74.30–31), and guards flank the gates of the Fire. These angels and guards are under the authority of Malik, the keeper of the Fire (43.77). The only other mention of beings in the Fire appears in the hadith collection of Muslim where women, whose piled hair on their heads resemble camel humps, roam the compartments to tempt men sexually.⁶

Instead of depending on others to manage their punishments, unbelievers are compelled to cause themselves pain. Yet, although they are agents in their own divine retribution, they are passive, since they cannot control their own bodies or their own wills. In the most gruesome manner, punishments take on an infinite quality of unceasing torment. When they are punished, their scorched skin renews itself. They drink fetid water, and they still cannot die (14.6–7). Instead, they cannot stop sipping it, and no amount will damage the person: “In gulps will he sip it, but never will he be near swallowing it down his throat: Death will come to him from every quarter, yet will he not die: and in front of him will be a chastisement unrelenting” (14.17).

Once in the Fire, body parts become separated from the individual as self-contained punishment. Muhammad saw ‘Amr b. Luhayy dragging his intestines, as mentioned in chapter 1. An unbeliever’s molar or canine tooth will be like the rocky, plateau-topped Mount Uhud north of Medina. Inhabitants’ skin will also thicken to the length of a three-night journey.⁷ In another hadith by al-Tirmidhi, “an unbeliever drags his tongue a league and then two leagues while people tread on it.”⁸ The conditions of the Fire also transform bodies. The Fire’s heat alters the body: the color of an inhabitant will change to a darker hue. The Fire will roast an inhabitant until his lower lip retracts to the middle of his head and his lower lip to his navel.⁹ Inhabitants are quenched of thirst, but their desire is never satiated: “The believer drinks in one intestine and the unbeliever drinks in seven.”¹⁰

The greatest transformer of bodies, however, is the infliction of boiling liquids. Dregs of olive oil will become like molten copper that is so hot that when it comes near the face, the scalp and face fall into it.¹¹ Boiling water will be poured over inhabitants’ heads, and it will penetrate them until it comes out; in the process, it will burn the person to such an extent that his innards will emerge at his feet. The person, then, becomes restored to full form, presumably to face the torture again.¹²

Another punishment involves the drinking of boiling liquids: “He will be given to drink some liquid pus which he will gulp” (14.16), and, “They will be given to drink a boiling liquid and it will cut their entrails to pieces” (47.15 and 18.29). The inhabitant will be given liquid pus; when it is brought near, it will burn his face and scalp. When he drinks it, it will cut his entrails until it emerges from his posterior.¹³ The purulent matter is so pungent that if a bucket of it were poured on the world, the people of the world would stink.¹⁴

Aside from the general torment that occurs to inhabitants’ bodies, punishments are sometimes based on earthly sins. As mentioned in chapter 2, during his Night Journey and Ascension, Muhammad saw usurers whose bellies were like camels maddened by unquestionable thirst since they consumed income that was unnaturally generated. Male fornicators were faced with good fat meat and lean stinking meat, but chose to eat the latter, presumably since in earthly life they sought female flesh that was not theirs for the taking. Female adulterers were hung by their breasts to emphasize their sexual indiscretion. Those who consumed the wealth of orphans were forced to eat the fire that would then emerge from their posteriors since they took what was not theirs by right.¹⁵

In the Qur’an, there is also mention of specific torments for specific sinners. A sura is dedicated to one of Muhammad’s main detractors ‘Abd al-‘Uzza whose father nicknamed him Abu Lahab (“father of the flame”) because of his beauty.¹⁶ The nickname allows a play on words in the sura, for his punishment is to burn in the blazing flame (111.3). Meanwhile, his wife will carry wood as fuel for the flame. Around her neck will be the twisted rope of palm leaf fiber (111.4–5). The scandalmonger or backbiter also acquires wealth, thinking that he is saved and protected. Instead, “he will be sure to be thrown into that which breaks to pieces” (104.4). The Fire he builds encompasses unbelievers and creates a vault around them so they suffocate. The blaze will mount to the hearts, cutting off each from the other, and be upheld by “columns outstretched” (104.9).

In hadiths, categories that involve political rule also develop. A ruler who does no good for his people will never smell the Garden.¹⁷ A person who rules without doing good circulates around the Fire like a donkey grinding a mill.¹⁸ One of the forms of punishment in the Fire is the lack of authorities to whom inhabitants can appeal. In one hadith recorded by al-Tirmidhi, the inhabitants cry for food and are fed the bitter dari‘; they cry for water, and then boiling water poured from iron hooks approaches them and scorches their faces. When they drink the water, it cuts their stomachs to pieces. They turn to the guards, who tell them that the appeal from unbelievers is futile. Then the inhabitants call out to Malik. He responds a thousand years later and tells them, “You are remaining” (43.77). The punishment is one of solitude where no one can intercede on their behalf.

Muhammad alludes to unbelievers’ torment at the battle of Badr. After Abu Jahl b. Hisham, Umayya b. Khalaf, ‘Utba b. Rabi‘a, and Shayba b. Rabi‘a died and their bodies went unburied for three days, Muhammad is said to have sat near them and asked if they found the promises of the Lord correct. ‘Umar listened to the prophet and asked if they could hear him. Muhammad replied: “By Him in Whose Hand is my life, what I am saying to them, even you cannot hear more distinctly than they, but they lack the power to reply.”¹⁹ Muhammad then reassured him that his enemies would live with bodily mutations resulting from punishment.

Given that the purpose of the Fire is to make the unbeliever feel pain, the body becomes the prime site of punishment. Yet, the punishment is both physical and mental. The everlasting physical torture is experienced in solitude. Whereas the inhabitants of the Garden have transformed bodies and homes that allow them to share companionship, the companions of the Fire are trapped alone in compartments that sometimes have four walls with forty years in distance between each.²⁰

The transformation of unbelievers’ bodies is one of the main ways that the Garden and the Fire distinguish themselves. Just as in the Garden bodies are relieved of their earthly smells, pains, and decay, in the Fire bodies become the prime mechanism to inflict punishments that yield greater stench, pain, and decay. Living in the Fire is as much an external transformation as an internal one. It is not just the world that transforms into a more blissful or more terrifying place, but it is also the physical and mental self that contributes to the bliss and terror.

BODIES IN THE GARDEN

Life in the Garden is an everlasting banquet. In the Qur’an, the Garden creates the opportunity to experience fully the joy that could not exist for those who toiled on earth for Allah. Believers are finally restored, endowed with perceptions and knowledge that they did not enjoy on earth. Transformed versions of themselves, they will be resurrected to an ageless age. They will experience the span of their lives without temporal gradation.

In their beautiful residences (masakin) in “gardens of eternity,” inhabitants will enjoy peace (61.11). Removed from their hearts will be “any lurking sense of injury: They will be brothers joyfully facing each other on thrones of dignity” (15.47). Inhabitants of the Garden, then, not only have altered bodies, but also altered mentalities. They are rid of any earthly based jealousies or ill will. They are guaranteed bliss, no matter the residue of their attitudes from the toil of earthly life.

Beaming, laughing, and rejoicing will be the order of the day (80.38–9). Believers will never be weary from work (35.35), and life will be peaceful with the trials and toils of earthly life left behind. The righteous will be surrounded by joy and will feel joy in all that they do (36.55). After all, the Garden is also the dominion of Allah: “His throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and he feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them” (2.255).

Hadiths focus on the transformed physical state of the inhabitants of the Garden. In the Garden, believers’ hearts will be like the hearts of birds, while the stature of each group to enter the Garden varies.²¹ Those who entered the Garden would not be destitute, have worn-out clothes, or declining youth.²² A weak tradition in al-Tirmidhi notes: “Inhabitants of al-janna would enter hairless, beardless, eyes anointed with collyrium, age thirty or thirty three.”²³ Inhabitants’ health would be perfect so they would never fall ill or die; they will always remain young, and they would be reminded, “This is the Garden. You have made to inherit it for what you used to do.”²⁴

The transformation of bodies is also determined when an inhabitant enters the Garden. The first group to enter would be sixty cubits, or the size of Adam, but the inhabitants’ sizes would diminish group by group until they would be contemporary human sizes.²⁵ The first group would also have a number of characteristics that symbolize their new lives in their transformed bodies. Their faces would be as bright as a full moon during the night, and the next group would have faces as bright as shining stars.²⁶

Bodies would not be marked by bodily pollution. “They would neither pass water, nor void excrement, nor will they suffer from catarrh, nor will they spit, and their combs would be made of gold, and their sweat will be musk.”²⁷ The significance of the lack of pollution is that believers will be restored to a state where they will not have to be encumbered by earthly necessities. When they are relieved of these bodily processes, it is as if their body is fully restored to its pure state, as opposed to being corrupted by worldly experiences.

According to one gharib hadith in al-Tirmidhi, men will be given additional strength for sex. When the prophet was asked about sexual capability, he responded that the believer would have the sexual strength of a hundred men.²⁸ The enhanced energy would be used, since no one would be without a wife in the Garden.²⁹ One hadith refers to each inhabitant having two wives whose shank marrow glimmers beneath the flesh.³⁰ While hadiths clearly specify sexual enjoyment, it will not detract from worship of Allah: “Their hearts would be like one heart, glorifying Allah morning and evening.”³¹

Just as the landscape is blissful, the inhabitants of Garden become more beautiful. They would come to a street every Friday and when the north wind blows, it would scatter fragrance on their faces and clothes and enhance their beauty and loveliness. When they returned to their families later in the day, they would be greeted with statements that they have increased in beauty and they would find the same of their families.³²

TEXTILES IN THE GARDEN

Beauty will not only surround inhabitants of the Garden, but it will also adorn them. Believers will be clothed by, recline on, and walk upon fine textiles. In the Qur’an, believers recline on thrones or couches adorned with silks and brocades· cushions will be by their sides and rich carpets, mostly silk, at their feet (88.8–16, 55.76). Their clothes will be of silk (22.23, 35.33), sometimes green garments (76.21, 43.31), and fine and heavy brocades (18.31, 76.21, 44.53), laced with silver and gold and pearls (76.12). They will also wear bracelets of gold and pearls (56.19) and perfume or riyhan (56.89). Hadiths continue these descriptions, and sometimes extend them to the landscape so that trees too are bejeweled.

In terms of fabrics for clothing, the Qur’an mentions silk (harir), thin silk brocade (sundus),³³ and thick silk brocade (istabraq).³⁴ As mentioned in chapter 3, Persian silk and brocade were renowned during the time of Muhammad. Aside from luxurious fabrics that adorn believers, the opulence of the Garden is also evident through the multitudes of carpets that believers can walk upon. Carpets in the Garden are described by three terms: furush, ‘abqari, and zarabi. Furush generally connotes “carpets;” however, in the Qur’an they are characterized as extraordinary: “carpets whose inner linings will be of brocade” (55.54).

While the furush exemplify the sumptuary environment, the connotation of ‘abqari or zarabi is of a fantastic, marvelous object. ‘Abqar was understood to be the land of jinn located somewhere in the desert. Certain texts also identify it as a town in Yemen or al-Jazira, the Iraqi region in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where there was the production of variegated or figurative textiles. ‘Abqar, then, has two meanings; the first is as a magical and unlocated land, the second as a specific region that produces exquisite textiles. These fabled carpets were used to describe Muhammad’s prayer carpet. In the Qur’an, they appear as “carpets of beauty” (55.76). Zarabi were carpets of all sundry colors and perhaps made of silk brocade. The zarabi were often likened to plants, since their image was of thick carpets spread widely like foliage. In the Qur’an, they are described as “rich carpets spread out” (88.16). All three terms depict types of carpets and rugs that are extraordinarily expensive or contain qualities that are only attributed to rich, developed artisan and trading areas.

Believers will also rest upon cushions or namariq, a term that is used to describe cushions that are placed on saddles to soften the impact of travel.³⁵ The term, while used to depict the more urban setting of the Garden, is also understood as cushions to place on animals as well as cushions in the home.³⁶ The use of the term suggests a society that still appreciated the process of journeying on pack animals. Both the carpets and the cushions, then, would have been appreciated in Mecca, a trading center that exported coarse textile.³⁷ Like gem-studded jewelry, the exquisite silks and brocades would not have been available to most believers. Instead, they would have to wait until entry into the Garden to wear their fine, fantastic fabrics and jewels.

FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS

To be placed in the Fire is to forgo meaningful connections with other humans. Social life is nonexistent for the unbeliever. Unbelievers live a fragmented existence where they have no companions to provide comfort and no opportunities to reunite with their families. By contrast, sharing otherworldly rewards with the family is one of the joys of life in the Garden. Believers enjoy time with parents, spouses, and offspring (13.23). Just as bodies are made whole and perfected in the Garden, families also reunite in ways that defy earthly temporal realities: believers will not only meet the full genealogical line of their progeny, but they will also be able to greet their ancestors for the first time. There are limitations in this otherworldly reunion: those ancestors (and presumably progeny) who did not follow the faith will not be included (52.21). In otherworldly time, faith in God and Muhammad’s message either makes or breaks the constitution of a family.

The continuation of the family in the Garden illustrates the possibilities of living in a timeless realm. In the Garden, one is able to meet all branches and generations of the family line. Since everyone enters the Garden after the end of time, humanity can be gathered together. Families will become whole in the Garden in a way that is impossible for families on earth. However, neither the Qur’an nor hadiths discuss how families will be organized or how they will relate to one another: there is no discussion of patriarchs, matriarchs, uncles, aunts, cousins, or siblings.

Yet there is discussion of spouses and children. One series of hadiths illustrates the paradox of catering to an individual’s wishes to have children in the Garden, a realm where there can be regeneration of Allah’s earthly creations, but limited possibility of generation. Al-Tirmidhi records that if an inhabitant wishes a child, it will be conceived, delivered, and full grown to the age it wishes. This hadith is considered gharib, and al-Tirmidhi discusses the consensus of religious scholars who argue that the believer can have a child, but he will not wish it.³⁸ The hadith exemplifies the inconsistency of continuing the earthly family and granting believers their desires for new family. The case of generation of children illustrates that even the Garden, a realm of otherworldly promise, has limitations. The Garden is supposed to be made up of whatever the individual desires so if an individual wants a child, he or she should be granted one. However, life in the afterworld is based on the human relations in this earthly world so there can be no new additions in the Garden. Children are born in earthly time, and in the realm of no time or growth, new creations are impossible.

The logical problem that the desire for children raises exemplifies one of the main tensions of understanding life in the Garden. The Garden is supposed to be what every individual desires, but the Garden is also understood within the limitations of natural landscape and human relations. In the Qur’an and hadiths, material conditions of the world still define what is possible in the afterworld so that there is a limit to what an individual can be provided. Is the Garden, then, a more purified and restful version of the earthly world or a realm for individual desire?

In a certain respect, the Garden actualizes desire and fantasy. For example, one hadith records a believer asking Muhammad if there will be horses in the Garden. He is said to have replied that there will be horses of gems.³⁹ The exchange suggests that believers can enjoy whatever their minds can conceive. Other issues, such as having children, are more complicated. Al-Tirmidhi’s hadith takes a diplomatic path by diffusing the tension between individual desire and structural possibility: the believer’s desire for children is acknowledged, but it is also accompanied by suggestions that the desire for the impossible would be muted by the sheer joy of the Garden.

Family life in the Garden occurs within domestic space. The Qur’an refers to scenes in beautiful residences (masakin) in “gardens of eternity.” In the Qur’an and hadiths, homes are described as places of rest and not as castles or courtyard mansions. Family life not only takes place in opulent homes, but also involves a large retinue. One hadith suggests that aside from his wife, even the lowest-ranked man in the Garden will enjoy eighty thousand servants, seventy-two wives, and a pavilion of pearls and gems. He will also wear a crown of pearls that will light up the space between east and west.⁴⁰ It is in the home, then, that families will enjoy what was most probably an expensive or impossible luxury of earthly homes: space, privacy, and bejeweled setting among a large household.

There are two types of homes in the Islamic afterworld: tents and pavilions. The two homes illustrate different topographical expectations of future life. The vision of the tent suggests an urban afterworld that still has contact with near-nomadic conditions. Allusions to tents appear in the Qur’an and the Sira and are further developed in hadiths. The appearance of pavilions, by contrast, has an urban vision of the afterworld that is separated from the conditions of the desert. Pavilions appear in the Qur’an, Sira, and hadiths; however, they become more prominent in later eschatological texts written by authors who did not necessarily experience the realities of desert life.

While both types of residences are opulent domiciles in the Qur’an, in hadiths they are described more fully. Tents are referred to in the Qur’an in terms of both luxury and their ability to unify the family. Often, these two motifs are combined into one image. Inhabitants of the Garden are described as living in a single hollow pearl whose breadth would be sixty miles⁴¹ or thirty miles high.⁴² Each corner could house a family; due to its vast size, families would be out of sight of each other, and enjoy utmost privacy.⁴³ Also during the Night Journey and Ascension, Muhammad was said to have seen small tents of pearls and the earth of musk.⁴⁴

What is striking about these two examples is that they both involve visions of a modified tent. The tent is not one made of hide or coarse cloth; instead, it is described as a pearl, a precious item that often symbolizes purity in the Qur’an. What marks this kind of domicile is that it affords another kind of luxury: privacy. Whole families can reunite under the shelter of one luminescent roof. Not only is there the promise that families will meet their ancestors, but each branch has its own space. For this reason, hadiths often mention that the tents are so wide that they equal a hundred-day journey.

The model of the pavilion also emerges early in the Islamic textual tradition. The Qur’an mentions one specific place for Muhammad’s first wife Khadija. According to hadith collections, Muhammad and Khadija learned of her palace from Angel Gabriel. One day, Khadija was bringing Muhammad some soup while he was in Gabriel’s presence. Gabriel instructed Muhammad that he should tell Khadija that she has a palace in the Garden where there will be no noise and fatigue.⁴⁵ Presumably, he was indicating that the palace would be a reward for the labor of her present life. While in the Qur’an this place is only designated as Qasab, in hadiths it becomes identified as a palace.

The expectation of the pavilion is also represented in the Sira of Ibn Ishaq. In an exchange, described in chapter 1, Meccan leaders adversarial to Muhammad try to negotiate with Muhammad so he will stop reciting the verses that he hears from Allah. At one point of frustration, they ask Muhammad to ask God for a 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.”⁴⁶ Here the leaders ask for a residence within the model of a pavilion.

While both types of residences are invoked in early texts, the tent and the pavilion represent different visions of luxury. The tent represents a rewarding life where believers can enjoy time and utmost space with family members. In life in the otherworldly tent, the privilege is space. The pavilion is also spacious, but carries with it a connotation of heightened luxury. What makes the pavilion a paradisiacal home is it reinforces an urban vision and also transcends earthly models of luxury.

Eventually the pavilion as the domestic model of the Garden overtakes the tent beginning in tenth century texts. The later pavilions are only populated by servants and are no longer residences whose principle purpose was to house families throughout time, as will be discussed in the next chapter. The transformation from tent to household, then, erodes the concept of the family in the afterlife, eliminates women and children, and replaces them with a world that caters to individual desire. What results is a vision of a Muslim male’s otherworldly home as one that is designed solely for his pleasure.

MARKETS

In the Qur’an, there is no commercial exchange in the Garden. The only exchange that exists is the spiritual one established on earth with God: believers offer their lives in veneration, and in return, they are rewarded a more glorious life in the Garden. However, in a series of hadiths found in al-Tirmidhi, there is mention of a marketplace in the Garden, which male inhabitants reach after meeting Allah. Wives do not visit the market; rather, they stay within the home. The only females who interact in the public sphere are houris.

The visit to the market occurs on Friday when men would visit Allah, and they will see Allah’s throne and presence in the garden of Paradise (al-firdaws). “Pulpits of light, pulpits of gold, and pulpits of silver will be placed for them, and the lowest of them, for there is no worthless among them, will sit on mounds of musk and camphor, not considering that those who are on chairs are in a better position than they.”⁴⁷ Allah will remind them of the things they have done in this world. When believers ask if Allah will forgive them, Allah responds that it is only out of forgiveness that they have received the elevated station of being in the highest heaven of al-firdaws.

At this point, Allah instructs believers to take what they desire. They arrive at a market surrounded by angels and things of which their eyes had never seen, ears had never heard, and hearts had never known. Although the place is identified as a market, there will be no buying and selling; instead, people will greet each other. A man of an exalted station would meet a man of a lower station and perceive his clothes to be charming, and they would become more beautiful as they conversed. When the men return home, their wives notice that they have become even more beautiful in the presence of Allah.⁴⁸ In another gharib hadith, Muhammad is to have said that in “al-janna there will be a market with no buying and selling except forms of men and women and if a man wants something he enters the form.”⁴⁹

The presence of markets illustrates the problem of modeling the afterworld on the world. Markets appear in al-Tirmidhi’s hadith; however, they are denuded of their import. There can be no buying and selling in the Garden because there can be no exchange. If each inhabitant can receive what he or she wants, then there is no need to barter or negotiate. There is also no need for monetary units. With no discernible way to measure wealth, there can be no distinction between the rich and poor. The lack of functioning markets ensures a greater equality within the social environment of the Garden.

The only hierarchy presented in the Qur’an and hadiths is a result of righteous behavior on earth that is rewarded by proximity to Allah. The earthly hierarchy within the family, tribe, or economic society is not evident. Yet, even within al-Tirmidhi’s hadith, the remnant of hierarchy still exists. The man of exalted status greets the man of lesser status, and as he imagines his clothes as charming, they become more beautiful. Presumably, the clothes were rough at the moment of meeting, and they transform through their exchange. The hierarchy of the Garden, then, is not just reflected in the different levels of the Garden where the highest level is for the most elect, instead, differences can also be seen through the adornments and interior beauty of the individual. What is interesting about the hadith is that the differences are not static: the man of lesser status, after all, becomes more beautiful through his exchange with the man of higher status.

Is there equality in the Garden? While all believers in the Garden live in a blessed condition, some are more elevated than others. What is remarkable is that the process of reform can happen within the Garden. If the man of lesser station has clothes that become more beautiful, then there can be growth and transformation. The transformation, though, is only related to the proximity of Allah. Yet, the issue of equality is made more complicated by the articulation of the hadith. While the man of higher station respects the man of lower station, the distinction of his superiority is still asserted to illustrate a society without hierarchy.

The presence of the market illustrates how the afterworld is understood through the models and institutions of the earthly world. However, the appearance of the institution does not necessarily have the same significance as it would have in the earthly world. The exchange in the market is intriguing because it is the main space where inhabitants meet each other. There is no other space, such as a mosque, in the Garden. In some ways, the market approximates the social aspect of the mosque since it takes place on Friday, the day of congregational prayer on earth.

The approximation of market for mosque brings into high relief what earthly activities are missing in the afterworld. No one prays in the Garden. For that matter, other obligations, such as fasting or giving charity, are not evident. Muhammad is also absent: he does not appear in the Garden in Qur’an, hadiths, or even later eschatological texts. Instead of enacting practices that defined believers as Muslims in earthly time, the inhabitants of the Garden have only one purpose—reaffirming their relationship with Allah and themselves.

BEING SERVED

In the Garden, believers are served; in the Fire, they serve themselves. The Garden is the realm antithetical to toil and work. Believers are never employed. They do not provide necessary services to maintain their lives, and there are no emergencies that require their attention. By contrast, in the Fire, inhabitants toil in order to create their own punishments. While there is mention of angels and demons in the Fire, its punitive state and constant punishment is maintained by the inhabitants themselves. If extreme labor defines the Fire, then it is the absence of strain that marks the Garden.

While the perfection of the Garden does not require labor, there are helpers who ensure that believers live the blissful life. In the Garden, beings form a retinue who serve inhabitants. They include angels, youths, and pure companions (azwaj mutahhara, which refers to persons of a coupled pair [2.25]). The function of these beings is to serve. Yet, they serve in an invisible manner. While the Qur’an, hadiths, and later eschatological texts mention their existence, they form a nameless, faceless work force. They are living beings; yet, they are not human. Instead, they are beings who, unlike believers and unbelievers, did not live on earth and face judgment.

The Qur’an explicitly mentions male servants. Both young men (wildan) and slave boys (ghilman) are depicted as “well guarded as pearls.” Believers will be surrounded by “youths of perpetual (freshness): If thou seest them, thou wouldst think them scattered pearls” (76.19 and 56.17). Another verse also depicts ghilman serving “a cup free of frivolity, free of all taint of ill” (52.24). These male servants are linked particularly with easing the life of the Garden through serving food and drink. Like angels, they function as objects in the landscape, as opposed to sentient, sensitized beings. If the function of the angel is to do God’s biding, then the function of the wildan and ghilman is to serve the banquet. In the Qur’an, the vision of the opulent life centers on the food and drink. The males are not general laborers in the Garden whose duties just happen to include serving nonintoxicating drinks. Instead, it is the life where one does not even lift a finger that requires that a drink, the focal point of pleasure, be poured by one of the males. One object serves another.

In Qur’anic verses, it is clear that the wildan and ghilman act as servants. To what extent are they slaves? Ghilman in Arabic denotes “male slaves,” and it is reasonable to assume that wildan or “boys” is a euphemism for them.⁵⁰ Yet, the Qur’an does not use the terms to denote slaves in other contexts. Instead, male and female slaves are designated as ‘abd (“slave”), raqaba (“nape of the neck”), or ma malakat aymanukum (“that which your right hand possesses”). Furthermore, while in the Qur’an the distinction between free and slave is part of the natural order, verses also present the emancipation of slaves as a meritorious act (2.177, 90.13) and command certain ordinances to safeguard the dignity of slaves.⁵¹ The wildan and ghilman cannot be slaves in a conventional sense because they cannot be freed from their function.

Given the practice of slavery in Islamic society, it is not far-fetched to assume that the wildan and ghilman were understood as kinds of otherworldly slaves. Slavery was common in both pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabia. In particular, slaves of Ethiopian origin were ample commodity. In fact, Bilal, the first caller to prayer (muezzin) in Islamic history, was of Ethiopian origin. There may have been some white slaves, but they were not numerous.⁵² Arab slaves, who were captured as a result of raiding and ransoming, were also available.⁵³ If there were slaves in the world, why not slaves in the afterworld?

The presence of the male servants raises interesting questions about the implication of their functions in the Garden. If the practice of slavery arose out of both economic and social considerations, do the male servants appear because they are needed or because the afterworld would not be socially complete without them? Clearly, the servants do perform a task: they serve food and particularly nonintoxicating drink. Through the services they provide, then, the male servants have an “economic” function, even if the Garden has no commercial economy. More important, the slaves complete the approximation of the earthly world. Yet, unlike earthly slaves, they cannot be transformed into free people. Since the wildan and ghilman are part of the retinue of the Garden, there is no chance that they will one day transform into believers.

The descriptions of the servants as being “well guarded as pearls” or “scattered as pearls” offer some clue into the social and spiritual value of the servants. As mentioned in the previous chapter, pearls (lu’lu’) have a spiritual significance, yet, the term lu’lu’ also appears in later texts as a name for a black slave. Referring to the male servants as having characteristics like a lu’lu’, then, may have had several registers of meaning. The term may have been a linguistic marker to show the spiritual worth of the servant. It could have also indicated a black slave or conversely a very fair white slave. More likely, the invocation to pearls confers an iconic quality on the servants so that wildan and ghilman are not just servants, but also represent archetypal beauty and youth. In this function, they share the function of the cupbearer (saqi), who conferred youth and immortality in classical Arabic poetry.⁵⁴

Whether white or black, wildan and ghilman are considered pure. The metaphors about pearls used to describe them suggest that they have an otherworldly quality that transcends earthly form and limitation. Their function in the Garden is to provide beauty and ease, and they do so with purity, the highest state of spiritual and aesthetic existence. For this reason, they are akin to rivers, fountains, jewels, and textiles. While they appear human, they are still objects.

FOOD AND DRINK

While the servants may seem invisible, what they serve is pronounced. Male servants offer sumptuous food and nonintoxicating drinks on dishes of gold and silver. The variety of cuisine reaches perfection and is always available for believers. As for food, one can choose from a variety of dishes. Explicitly mentioned is the flesh of fowls (56.12) and any fruit and meat desired (52.22). The banquet is not just an exquisite experience; it is an everlasting exquisite experience. Sustenance or satisfaction (rizq) is given morning and evening (19.62), and believers will be told “Eat ye and drink ye to your heart’s content: For that ye worked” (43.77).

What distinguishes the banquet in al-janna from an earthly banquet is that appetitive pleasures are soulful endeavors built into the landscape of the Garden. One drinks a drink that does not intoxicate: “Nor will they suffer intoxication therefrom with goblets, (shining) beakers, and cups (filled) out of clear-flowing fountains” (37.47). The drink does not produce aftereffects; instead it is designated as “holy” (76.21) and is filled from a clear flowing fountain. Other verses mention pure drink (rahiq al-makhtum) sealed with musk (83.25) that can be sipped from a fountain located near Allah (83.27). The pure drink is created for the pure soul in the pure realm. The cup will be “free of frivolity, free of all taint of ill” (52.23).

While the landscape is filled with rivers of wine (khamr), none of the descriptions of the drink in the Garden refers to wine directly. Instead, the Qur’an refers to pure drink that does not intoxicate. What does it mean to drink nonintoxicating drinks? While the type of libation is not clear, its nature reinforces the notion of the Garden as a place where pleasure can be experienced without any spiritual taint. One enjoys the drink, then, without earthly limitations of becoming drunk, losing control, and proving to be a nuisance. Additionally, the pleasure is something that is granted by God, as opposed to being an act that detracts from his reverence.

Muslim tradition records that people of Mecca and Medina used to get drunk and gamble, thus, the need to prohibit wine and gambling games (maysir). In one instance, Muhammad’s uncle Hamza b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib became drunk and mutilated ‘Ali’s camels.⁵⁵ The types of wine that were available in the Hijaz may have included khamr and nabidh. Khamr was generally understood to be the drink from fermented black grapes, whereas nabidh was the drink of raisins or fermented dates, such as tamr and busr. Unlike the soil of Mesopotamia and Palestine, the soil of the Hijaz was not suitable to grow grapevines for wine, however, there is some evidence of wine production in the town of Ta’if, located north of Mecca.⁵⁶ Most wine, then, was probably imported from Iraq or from Syria, fabled as the land of wine in pre-Islamic poetry. Like the link of silver with Persians, Jews and Christians were linked with the sale of wine in Arabia,⁵⁷ and Syrians were linked with the sale of wine in Medina before the prohibition of alcohol.⁵⁸ With the prohibition of khamr (5.90), Muslim jurists debated the question “What is wine?” There were also attempts to answer the question and apply it to other drinks such as coffee.⁵⁹

Thus, whether the intoxicating drink was made of wine, raisins, or dates, there was consumption of alcohol in the Hijaz. While wine is ethically corrosive on earth to such an extent that its excessive consumption is one of the signs of the apocalypse, in the Garden, wine turns into beverage of reward.⁶⁰ Because there is nothing to tempt believers, wine is stripped of its cosmological threat. For the drink to be nonintoxicating in the Garden, then, may have indicated that it would taste as delicious, but not lead to the unruly earthly behavior associated with intoxicants and gambling. The drink was associated with destructive behavior. In the Garden, however, inhabitants could enjoy all food and drink without fear of maleficent consequences.

FEMALE COMPANIONS

There are no female servants in the Garden. While wildan and ghilman represent male servants, females are referred to through different terms. These females provide services, but they are not servants in the same fashion as the male youths. They are integral to the vision of the paradisiacal banquet, but they do not serve food and drink. Instead, their function is to provide companionship.

While the role of companionship is clear, there is no single term for the companions. Instead, the Qur’an refers to the notion of female companions in a number of ways. Some references invoke the notion of hur: “wives with beautiful eyes” (zawwajnahum bi hur ‘ayn, 44.54, 52.20); “hur restrained” (hur maqsurat, 55.72); “hur ‘ayn like pearls well guarded” (al-lu’lu’ al-maknun, 56.22–23). Other references focus on the notion of companionship: “companions of equal age” (kawa‘ib atraban, 78.33). Yet, others emphasize the notion of purity: female plural pronoun as virginal (abkaran) (56.35–37); male plural pronoun with the phrase “around them restraining their glances” (37.48, 38.52); female plural pronoun with the phrase “like gems (yaqut) and small pearls (marjan) whom no man or jinn before them has touched” (55.56). These various phrases make it difficult to ascertain if there are different categories for women. For example, one verse mentions the general term for wives (azwaj) in connection with the Garden: “Enter ye the Garden ye and your wives in beauty and rejoicing” (43.70). Yet, this verse is different in tone from the descriptive phrases of women listed above. Interestingly, not all the verses even have a name for these females; instead, the descriptors are in apposition to a feminine pronoun.

Although there is a wide range of interpretation about the houri, there is no definitive account of what constitutes the meaning of the term. Is hur ‘ayn meant to be a feminine being? If so, are they wives or concubines? Do earthly wives transform into houris, as some scholars suggest? Or are these female companions in a category separate from a male believer’s wife? Some scholars argue that in fact the two possibilities are really an evolution of the houri from feminine beings to wives in the earlier to later verses in the Qur’an.⁶¹ Yet, Smith and Haddad suggest that purified wives (azwaj mutahharah; 2.25, 4.57, 3.15) are definitely not houris, since the houris are pure from the beginning.⁶²

While understanding the original nature of the houri is challenging, there is an evolution of the houri from pure to sensual female companion that can be traced in the Qur’an, hadiths, and eschatological literature. Houris are mentioned four times in putative Meccan suras (52.20, 56.22, 55.72, 44.54). In two of the suras, the righteous will be joined “with companions with beautiful, big and lustrous eyes” (44.54, 52.20). There is also mention of “(companions) restrained glances” (55.72) and “wide eyes” (56.22). It is in the sura al-Rahman that their conditions are discussed: they live in pavilions or tents, neither man nor jinn has touched them before, and they recline on green cushions and rich carpets of beauty.

In the Qur’an, houris are marked by large eyes and purity by virtue of being untouched. Hadiths develop their description. Their white limbs are so fair and fine that their bones can be seen through them. Their white gauzy garments flow in the breeze.⁶³ When they walk in the marketplace, they have a scent that wafts for miles. Composed of saffron, the houri is adorned with jewels. Like all people of the Garden, she will not spit or go to the bathroom. Unlike women on earth, she will not menstruate. In al-Tirmidhi’s collection, the houris also speak in their melodic voices: “We live forever and never pass away, we are affluent and never austere, we are content and never discontent. Blessed are those who belong to us and to whom we belong.”⁶⁴ This hadith is unusual in that it is the only sound other than laughter that is heard in the Garden.

Whereas the houri served as a nurse to the wounded in chapter one, hadiths begin to describe her in a more titillating way. With her translucent flesh and her untouched, restrained manner, the houri as an object draws on sensual perception. But is she desexualized or hypersexualized as an untouched being? Given modern commentators’ effort to neutralize her sexuality and conflate her with believers’ wives, it is probable that the popular understanding of the houri was (and continues to be) a sexual one.⁶⁵ Interestingly, the purity of not having to experience any bodily fluids does not invalidate sexual activity and satisfaction.⁶⁶ In later eschatological texts examined in the next chapter, the houri is equated with a virgin designated to each believing man.

The houri is one of the more enduring objects in the Garden, contemporary eschatological manuals still discuss the qualities of houris and forgo detailed discussions of food, drink, and male servants. Yet, the meaning of the houri is highly contested. While there may have been an insistence to see her purity in the Qur’an, hadiths develop her alluring, virginal attributes. References to the houri in hadiths suggest that she must have been understood more as a concubine or a female singer or musician (qiyan) than a wife.⁶⁷ In the Qur’an, however, the categories are at times conflated: believers are promised a wife from the houris. Yet the houri as wife is not necessarily someone who has lived on earth and faced judgment. In this sense, while she may not provide labor in the way that a wildan or ghilman does, she too was understood in terms of an object to be relished in the Garden.

The social dynamics of the afterlife lend insight into what makes both the Garden and the Fire such visions of pleasure and pain. What structures the Fire architecturally and socially is the lack of social interaction. By contrast, the Garden completes social life by easing life, providing domestic space, and ensuring physical and spiritual beauty. Within the transformation that occurs to bodies in the Garden, believers are able to enjoy experiences that would be impossible in earthly time. Meeting one’s ancestors and progeny is one of the rewards of the Garden. Other rewards include enjoying the companionship of pure females while a retinue of servants ensures that the banquet is everlasting.

While the social life in the Garden is meant to be glorious, it provides a glimpse into the construction of idealized visions of human interaction. In this sense, the importance of family in the Qur’an and hadiths is preeminent. So, too, is the notion of a servant class that provides the believer services and companionship. Although not articulated in the texts, these beings form another class within the afterworld. Their existence is understood through the prism of objectification in the same way that earthly slaves would be objectified. For this reason, social life in the afterworld is defined as much as by textiles and food as it is by its beings, which also act as objects.