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PARADISE. The Muḥammadan Paradise is called al-Jannah (الجنة), “the garden,” pl. jannāt, in Arabic; and Bihisht (بهشت), in Persian; the word al-Firdaus (الفردوس), or Paradise, being restricted to one region in the celestial abodes of bliss. There are eight heavens or paradises mentioned in the Qurʾān, and although they appear to be but eight different names for the place of bliss, Muḥammadan divines have held them to be eight different stages.

The sensual delights of Muḥammad’s Paradise are proverbial, and they must have exercised a considerable influence upon the minds of the people to whom he made known his mission. There are frequent allusions to them in the Qurʾān. The following are specimen passages:—

Sūratu ʾl-Insān (lxxvi.), 12–22:—“God hath rewarded their constancy, with Paradise, and silken robes, reclining therein on bridal couches; nought shall they know of sun or piercing cold: its shades shall close over them, and low shall its fruits hang down: and vessels of silver and goblets like flagons shall be borne round among them: flagons of silver whose measure themselves shall mete. And there shall they be given to drink of the cup tempered with zanjabīl (ginger) from the fount therein whose name is Salsabīl (i.e. the softly flowing). Blooming youths go round among them. When thou lookest at them, thou wouldst deem them scattered pearls; and when thou seest this, thou wilt see delights and a vast kingdom; their clothing green silk robes and rich brocade: with silver bracelets shall they be adorned; and drink of a pure beverage shall their Lord give them. This shall be your recompense.”

Sūratu ʾl-Wāqiʿah (lvi.), 12–39: “In gardens of delight, a crowd of the former and a few of the later generations; on inwrought couches reclining on them face to face, blooming youths go round about them with goblets and ewers and a cup of flowing wine; their brows ache not from it, nor fails the sense: and with such fruits as shall please them best, and with flesh of such birds as they shall long for; and theirs shall be the Houris (Arabic ḥūr), with large dark eyes, like pearls hidden in their shells, in recompense for their labours past. No vain discourse shall they hear therein, nor charge of sin, but only cry ‘Peace! Peace!’… Unfailing, unforbidden, and on lofty couches and of a rare creation have we made the Houris, and we have made them ever virgins, dear to their spouses and of equal age, for the people of the right hand, a crowd of the former, and a crowd of the later generations.”

Sūratu ʾr-Raḥmān (lv.), 54–56: “On couches with linings of brocade shall they recline, and the fruit of the two gardens shall be within their easy reach.… Therein shall be the damsels with retiring glances, whom neither man nor jinn hath touched before them.”

Sūratu ʾl-Muḥammad (xlvii.), 16, 17: “Therein are rivers of water which corrupt not: rivers of milk, whose taste changeth not: and rivers of wine, delicious to those who quaff it; and rivers of clarified honey: and therein are all kinds of fruit for them from their Lord.”

Abū Mūsā relates that “the Apostle of God said, Verily there is a tent for every Muslim in Paradise, it is made of one pearl, its interior empty, its breadth 60 kos, and in every corner of it will be his wives: and they shall not see one another. The Muslim shall love them alternately,” &c.

Abū Saʿīd relates that “the Apostle of God said, ‘He who is least amongst the people of Paradise, shall have eighty thousand slaves, and seventy-two women, and has a tent pitched for him of pearls, rubies, and emeralds.… Those who die in the world, young or old, are made of thirty years of age, and not more, when they enter Paradise.’ ”

Abū Saʿīd also relates that “the Apostle of God said, ‘Verily a man in Paradise reclines upon seventy cushions, before he turns on his other side. Then a woman of Paradise comes to him and pats him on the shoulder, and the man sees his face in her cheek, which is brighter than a looking-glass, and verily her most inferior pearl brightens the east and west. Then the woman makes a salām to him, which he returns; and the man says, “Who are you?” and she replies, “I am of the number promised of God for the virtuous.” And verily she will have seventy garments, and the man’s eyes will be fixed on them, till he will see the marrow of the bones of her legs through the calves of them, and she will have crowns on her head, the meanest pearl of which would give light between the east and west.’ ”

One of the attractions of Paradise is the river Kaus̤ar. [KAUSAR.] According to Anas, “the Apostle of God said, it is a river which God has given me in Paradise, its water is whiter than milk, and sweeter than honey, and on its waters are birds whose necks are like the necks of camel.”

Abū Aiyūb says, “An Arab came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Apostle of God! I am fond of horses; are there any in Paradise?’ The Prophet replied, ‘If you are taken into Paradise, you will get a ruby horse, with two wings, and you will mount him, and he will carry you wherever you wish.’ ”

Abū Hurairah said, “Verily the Apostle of God said, when an Arab was sitting near him, that a man of the people of Paradise will ask permission of his Lord to cultivate land, and God will say, ‘Have you not everything you could wish for? What will you cultivate?’ The man will say, ‘Yes, everything is present, but I am fond of cultivating.’ Then he will be permitted to cultivate, and he will sow, and, quicker than the twinkling of an eye, it will grow, become ripe, and be reaped, and it will stand in sheaves like mountains.”

The apologists for Islām, Carlyle for example, have suggested that the sensual delights of Muḥammad’s paradise may, after all, be taken in a figurative sense, as the Revelation of St. John or the Song of Solomon. It is quite true that such an interpretation is hinted at in the Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī (Thompson’s translation, p. 102), and Mr. Lane in his Egyptians (vol. i. p. 84) says that a Muslim of some learning considered the descriptions of Paradise figurative, but such is not the view held by Muḥammadan doctors, whether Sunnī, Shīʿah, or Wahhābī. They are all agreed as to the literal interpretation of the sensual enjoyments of the Muslim paradise, and very many are the books written giving minute particulars of the joys in store for the faithful.

Were proof needed, to show that the Prophet taught a real and literal interpretation of the sensual delights of the abodes of bliss, a tradition of high authority is found in the Ṣaḥīḥu Muslim (p. 379), vide also Mishkāt, book xxiii. ch. 13, in which the Prophet goes to some trouble to explain the sanitary laws of the heavenly kingdom, in the most literal manner possible.

Sir William Muir says: “It is remarkable that the notices in the Corân of this voluptuous Paradise are almost entirely confined to a time when, whatever the tendency of his desires, Mahomet was living chaste and temperate with a single wife of threescore years of age. Gibbon characteristically observes that ‘Mahomet has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of the former husbands, or disturb their felicity by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage.’ The remark, made in raillery, is pregnant with reason, and aims a fatal blow at the Paradise of Islām. Faithful women will renew their youth in heaven as well as faithful men: why should not their good works merit an equal and analogous reward? But Mahomet shrank from this legitimate conclusion. It is noteworthy that in the Medîna Suras—that is in all the voluminous revelations of the ten years following the Hegira—women are only twice referred to as one of the delights of Paradise; and on both occasions in these simple words:—‘and to them (believers) there shall be therein pure wives.’ (Sūrah ii. 23, Sūrah iv. 60.) Was it that satiety had then left no longings unfulfilled; or that a closer contact with Judaism had repressed the budding pruriency of his revelation, and covered with confusion the picture of a sensual Paradise which had been drawn at Mecca?” (Life of Mahomet, new ed. p. 82 and note.)

Sir W. Muir has omitted a third passage, Sūrah iii. 13, where “women of stainless purity” are spoken of, but it is remarkable how much more restrained are the Prophet’s descriptions of Paradise in his later revelations. For example, Sūrah xiii. 23, 24, 35:—“Gardens of Eden—into which they shall enter together with the just of their fathers, and their wives and their descendants, and the angels shall go in unto them at every portal: Peace be with you, say they, because ye have endured all things.… The rivers flow beneath its bowers; its food and its shades are perpetual.”

Sūrah liii. 32, 33: “God’s is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, that He may reward those who do evil with evil, and those who do good with good. Those who shun great sins and iniquities—all but venial sins,—verily thy Lord is of ample forgiveness.