Early Views of Paradise in Islam

Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x Early Views of Paradise in Islam Nerina Rustomji* St John’s University Abstract This article presents the early history of the faith in Islamic Paradise (al-janna or the Garden) from the seventh to the 12th century CE. The focus of the article is to trace three major stages in the developing doctrine of the Islamic afterlife: doctrinal innovation in the Qur’an and early biography of the prophet Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah), elaboration in traditions of the prophet (hadiths), and formalization in eschatological manuals. While providing an introductory survey of the afterworld, the author also considers some of the textual problems and ensuing controversies that have arisen in the field of Islamic history. The Islamic afterworld was a doctrine of faith, a motivation for reform, and most of all a place where Muslims could live full, dynamic afterlives within the parameters of a physically described world. These otherwordly realms, known as al-janna (literally the Garden) and al-nar (literally the Fire) were spaces that over the centuries Muslims discussed, elaborated, and eventually structured with objects, beings, and social realities that mirrored the best and worst of earthly life. While the history of Paradise extends from the seventh century CE to the present day, the image of Paradise most often invoked by scholars emerged between the 9th and 12th century CE with its full articulation by the 12th century. Afterwards, eschatological texts often commented, elaborated, or provided commentary on the afterworld; however, their commentaries were based on a vision of Paradise that had already significantly been structured. Part of the crystallization of the idea of Paradise is evident in its terminology in Arabic. Most often referred to as al-janna in the Qur’an and early texts, the concept of an otherworldly realm of reward was also indicated by the terms sama’ (heaven) or firdaws (paradise), which 12th century Islamic texts eventually identified as the highest level of the Garden. In order to appreciate the process by which this early view of Paradise was understood, created, and structured, this article offers a conceptual chronology of the Garden from an early, innovative doctrine in the seventh century to a developed, formalized realm by the 12th century. The vision of Paradise in Islam shares common features with eschatology from Iran (the bridge Sirat, for example, likens to the Zoroastrian Chinvat Bridge) and the Hebrew Bible (Islamic texts discuss, for example, the four rivers of Paradise); however, Muslims articulated their visions of Paradise without regard to religious comparison. Because this article aims to offer readers a broad intellectual history of the Garden, it will not consider the particularly rich pre-history of articulations of Paradise; instead, it will present Muslim commentary alongside the historiographical problems that force the scholar to makes choices about the eschatological material. The first section, ‘Doctrinal Innovation in the Qur’an and Sirat Rasul Allah’ introduces polemics reflected in the earliest literature about the inevitability of the Last Judgment and also explores the ways that scholars deal with oral versus written transmission. The second section, ‘Elaboration in Sahih Hadith Collections’ presents a range of traditions ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Early Views of Paradise in Islam 167 about the landscape, bodies, and social interactions within the Garden. While these traditions are detailed, they do not often offer geographic or temporal specificity and so this section will also address the limitations of approaching material that aims to normalize traditions. The final part, ‘Formalization in Eschatological Manuals,’ focuses on the treatment of eschatology within manuals from the 9th to 14th centuries. These works further dramatized the Garden and gave it an architecture and social form that exists until today. Because the most sensational aspects of Paradise emerge from the reflections of Paradise in these eschatological manuals, this section will also address some contemporary misperceptions about the Islamic afterlife. In seeking to provide an introduction to the early views of Paradise in Islamic texts, the article demonstrates that Muslim faith in the afterlife had a history which developed through time, and the study of eschatological developments allows scholars to understand how Muslim articulated themselves through their otherworldly conceptions. Idea of the Afterlife in the Qur’an and Sirat Rasul Allah The earliest recorded texts for Islamic history include the Qur’an and biographical traditions of the prophet Muhammad contained with the Sirat Rasul Allah, a text composed by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 CE) and edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 834 CE). In both texts, there was a significant lag between the events transpired and the events recorded. It took nearly three centuries for the Qur’an, considered by Muslims to be the literal word of God transmitted via the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, to be recorded, systematized, and fully vocalized. The recension of the Sirat Rasul Allah that we use was recorded nearly a century and a half after the prophet’s death and then edited two centuries after the prophet’s death. In order to contend with the historiographical problem of written sources emerging from an oralbased society, scholars have been divided about how to deal with texts that form the basis of Islamic doctrine and jurisprudence. Some scholars accept the general narrative propagated by Islamic tradition: Muhammad was a man who lived in the town of Mecca and in 610 CE began to receive revelations from God. Other scholars are uncomfortable with accepting the terms of the Islamic narrative without early, written verification and in various works have intimated that Islam may have been influenced by or developed within a different region, later century, or Jewish and Christian splinter sects (Wansbrough 1977, 1978; Crone & Cook 1977; Crone 1987; Hawting 1999; Cook 2004). In between these two polarities, other scholars have challenged the field to resolve the impasse, to develop a ‘middle ground,’ and to find ways to engage with source criticism without denying the importance of oral transmission (Berg 2000; Motzki 2003; Schoeler 2006). At the heart of the controversy over sources are two issues that require scholarly choices. The first is a judgment of how to deal with written sources that emerge from an oral-based society. In this sense, scholars who deal with the early history of Islam have to grapple with an oral-based historical rendering that early Muslims conveyed to each other through stories that religious learned (ulama) committed to writing alongside chains of transmitters (isnad) for further verification. The second issue deals with how to treat the Qur’an as revealed text. Most scholars tend to bypass the question and treat the Qur’an as another kind of historical source whereas other scholars encourage a critical reading of the Qur’an (often with polemical intent) along the lines of biblical criticism since the 19th century (Ibn Warraq 2002; Luxenberg 2000; Wansbrough 1977, 2003). While there are varying approaches about how to read the Qur’an and Sira, the two works do present fairly consistent narratives. One of the majors themes within both works is the inevitability of the Garden and the Fire and the promise that all of humanity ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x 168 Nerina Rustomji will face the consequences of its choices. In the Qur’an the constant refrain about the notion of recompense has been identified as one of the polemics that structures the Qur’an itself, especially in the earlier Meccan suras that evoke the consequences of earthly choices (Robinson 1996, Chittick 1987). At times the polemic about the Last Judgment is explicit in the Qur’an: Therefore, when there come the great, overwhelming (Event) – The Day when man shall remember (all) that he strove for, and Hell-Fire shall be placed in full view for (all) to see – Then, for such as had transgressed all bounds, and had preferred the life of this world, the abode will be Hell-fire; And for such as had entertained the fear of standing before their Lord’s (tribunal) and had restrained (their) souls from lower Desire, their abode will be the Garden. (Qur’an, 1989, 79:34–41) Other times, the polemic is more subtle. For example, sura al-Rahman accounts for the creation of the world and treatment in the Garden and the Fire. In an effort to demonstrate that God created the world and will hold humanity accountable as well, the sura is structured by the haunting refrain: ‘Then which of the favors of the Lord will you deny?’ (Abdel Haleem 1999). The Sira also suggests a setting for the verses and records similar statements of incredulity and incomprehension about the Last Judgment and the promise of a future life. These exchanges support the notion that the Last Judgment was seen as an innovation that was both threatening and misunderstood by Muhammad’s detractors who rejected the message that there was one God as opposed to a multitude of deities that were represented in the various forms of religious worship surrounding the Ka’ba. In one exchange, leaders of Muhammad’s tribe the Quraysh tried to negotiate with Muhammad. They first tried to elicit a sense of shame for treating his tribe in such a peculiar way and then tried to find a way to satisfy what they saw as his ambitious desires. They promised him money, a title, sovereignty, or a cure for any ailment. In an effort to make his intentions clear and to reinstate the Qur’anic polemic, Muhammad was said to reject their offers for money, honor, and sovereignty and remind them that ‘‘‘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 of 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’’’ (Ibn Ishaq 1955, p. 134). Aside from the structuring effect of the polemic in both the Qur’an and early sections of the Sira, invocations to the Garden also are pivotal in the way that they are associated with the new faith-based structure that Muhammad was revealing. In the Sira, mentions of the Garden and Fire are made long before the text uses the terms ‘Muslims’ or ‘Islam.’ In fact, the doctrine surrounding the Garden and the Fire became a focal point for both early Muslim converts and their detractors. Also, within the Sira, there is a story told by a Jewish man who foretells the story of Muhammad by specifically mentioning the resurrection, the reckoning, the scales, the Garden, and the Fire (Ibn Ishaq 1955, pp. 93–4). In these textual moments, the new faith is identified through the concept of the Last Judgment and afterlife long before it is associated with any doctrines, rituals, or even given a name. In later anecdotes, Muslims and Meccans, such as the vocal Meccan leader Abu Jahl, exchange differing visions about the veracity of the afterworld. Some of the debates involve punitive angels in hell (Ibn Ishaq 1955, p. 141), bitter fruit from the hellish tree of Zaqqum that Abu Jahl claims is no worse than buttered dates (Ibn Ishaq 1955, p. 167), and even future recompense in the Garden (Ibn Ishaq 1955, p. 162). In this sense, the doctrinal innovation of the afterlife ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x Early Views of Paradise in Islam 169 becomes one of the ways in which the Qur’an and the Sira signal the distinct message conveyed by Muhammad. Given the controversies in Islamic Studies about how to read the Qur’an and the Sira, there is significant contestation that the early texts report the innovative character of the Last Judgment. The strategy of scholars has often been to either assert or deconstruct the Islamic narrative embedded within Qur’anic verses or biographical traditions. A close engagement with the sources, however, suggests another approach. No matter the scholarly position, the Garden was one of the early identifiers of Islam. Within the earliest recorded texts, the Garden becomes a textual site where Qur’anic verses and biographical traditions depict an alternative reality to the world. That alternative vision was not just an alternate message, but also an alternate world – a superlative world – that was only to be experienced through good actions made manifest at the end of time. Before Islam was formalized and identified through doctrines such as tawhid (unity of God) or jihad fi-sabil allah (striving in the path of God), there was the assertion that the new faith was recognized as the religion of the Garden (Rustomji 2009). That sensibility was made manifest through the ways that the Garden was employed to provide motivation to battle the Meccans after the Muslim community established itself in Medina. It also became prominent when Muhammad was able to see the hereafter during his Night Journey and Ascension (al-isra’ wa-l-mi’raj), when he was purported to be led by Gabriel to Jerusalem where he first led prayer for Abraham, Moses, and Jesus and then ascended a fine ladder to see the fires of hell and visit the seven levels of heaven (Bencheick 1988, Bencheick 1991). When it comes to the traditions of the Garden, the quest for textual verifiability is not the most fruitful endeavor since the doctrine of the afterlife does not concern the location or periodization for the coming of Islam. No matter opinions about the credibility of the sources, the earliest sources from verses to biographical traditions suggest that the idea of the afterworld was one of the first and most powerful ways to articulate the faith, provide motivation for believers, and damn those who provided opposition to Muhammad’s revelations. Elaboration in Sahih Hadith Collections Islamic texts do not just depict an afterlife, they detail an afterworld (Rustomji 2009, p. xvi). The Garden and the Fire, after all, are more than just states of being. They are also spaces for living and sometimes objects themselves, in the case of traditions where the Garden is an animated creature. Because of the capacity to be both a place to be inhabited and a realm in which believers can encounter God directly, the Garden has a greater material character than the form of heaven and hell in other religious traditions, such as Judaism and Christianity (although Eastern Christianity also has a heaven of material nature, it is not as extensive). Even though Muslims had vigorous debates about if the rewards of the Garden were to be understood metaphorically or literally, a tour of its landscape allows us to see how Muslims imagined their afterworlds. The best way to illustrate the differences is to view the extensive nature of prophetic traditions or hadiths. Hadiths are sayings of the prophet Muhammad or reports of his deeds. Composed of a chain of transmission (isnad) and content matter (matn), hadiths were compiled and then classified by religious learned on the spectrum from sound (sahih) to weak (da’if). Sometimes hadiths are also classified as gharib, which indicates their unusual, foreign, or borrowed status. Hadiths present extremely rich inventories about the Garden because they offer details of life in the Garden that extend beyond the narrative strands of Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension. ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x 170 Nerina Rustomji Yet, while hadiths can offer specific details about life in Paradise, they often do not give any clues about their circulation. It is sometimes difficult to know where, when, or even if a particular hadith circulated. The problem is compounded by the fact that the most extensive collections of hadith are found in collections of hadith that were deemed to be ‘sound’ because they recorded traditions whose chains of transmissions could be verified. Collectors of hadith, such as al-Bukhari (d. 870 CE) and Muslim (1999, d. 875 CE), compiled and categorized traditions. In the process, they also vetted the circulating traditions by evaluating the isnads so that that their volumes reflect what they considered to be the most verified traditions. By contrast, the interesting collection of al-Tirmidhi (d. 892 CE) also report traditions that are considered gharib. Sometimes, social context becomes vital for interpreting a tradition, especially when the historical context is not evident. For example, if a hadith discusses the river between Syria and Byzantium, it most probably circulated sometime during Muslim campaigns there. On the whole, however, the vision of the Garden presented in the hadiths cannot be specified in terms of time and place. Nonetheless, it is possible to paint a picture of life in the Garden as reflected in traditions that were compiled in written records in the ninth century and to locate correspondences for reward in the same way that scholars have linked images of punishment in the Fire in the 12th and 13th century with state-based violence (Lange 2008). Like the etymology of the word ‘Paradise,’ the Garden is an enclosed garden space. As mentioned in the introduction, al-janna is not the only term used to denote Paradise. Sometimes the term al-firdaws, which is traditionally translated as ‘Paradise,’ is also used. Some texts tend to represent al-firdaws as the highest level of the Garden, whereas others conflate the terms al-firdaws and al-janna. No matter the term and multiple levels and dimensions of the afterworld, a singular image of Paradise emerges within the hadith collections: the banquet. As a perpetual banquet, life in the Garden is filled with ease and wonder, unlike the daily living of earthly life. The Garden itself has a marvelous landscape. It is a realm of fountains and rivers filled with ease in contrast to earthly life. In the Qur’an the Garden is sometimes qualified with the phrase ‘gardens beneath which rivers flow’ (47:12), and there is also mention of rivers of wine, milk, and honey (47:15) (El-Zein, 2006). In the hadith, the rivers become amplified, and in additional to the previous three rivers of wine, milk, and honey, a river of water is mentioned. These four rivers reinforce the mention of four rivers in the Hebrew Bible: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates (Genesis 2:10–4). Yet, four rivers are also mapped onto an earthly geography and include the Sayhan and Jayhan, which are Anatolian rivers that cross Cilicia and flow into the Mediterranean, and the Euphrates and Nile. Aside from the fountains salsabil (76:18) and the fountain or river al-Kawthar (108:1), the Garden is also filled with trees, such as generic shade trees (13:55), date palm trees, pomegranate trees (23:19, 55:28–9), and vines that bear grapes (78:32). Like the tree of Zaqqum in the Fire, there is also a significant tree for the Garden: the Sidrat al-Muntaha (53:19), the Lote Tree of the Boundary that is located on one end of the Garden by the throne of God (53:20). In hadiths, the Sidrat al-Muntaha gains more symbolic value for being near the throne of God, and for that reason, it is not surprising that the graphic covers of contemporary editions of eschatological manuals often show a tree in the horizon. Aside from water and trees, the Garden is the realm of smells like camphor, musk, ginger, saffron, and perfumes. The structures of the Garden are made of gold, silver, pearls, and gems. While each of these materials is mentioned in the Qur’an, in hadith collections, the materials are given greater prominence. In one hadith, Muhammad is to have said that the Garden is made of ‘a brick of ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x Early Views of Paradise in Islam 171 gold and a brick of silver with mortar of excellent musk, and pebbles of pearls and gems, and its soil is saffron’ (al-Bukhari 1976, Kitab al-tafsir, bk. 60, no. 488). While the landscape is composed of precious metals, refined scents, and abundant water, humanity is also transformed into purified versions of themselves. Believers will beam, laugh, and rejoice (80:38–9), they will have no need to labor, and they will be restored to their full capacity (sometimes given the age of 30 or 33) and also cleansed of bodily fluids and pollution. Reclining upon thrones or couches on silk carpets, believers will wear fine silks and fine and heavy brocades (18:21, 76:21, 44:53) that are laced with silver and gold and pearls (76:12). Aside from the opulence of life, believers will enjoy reconnecting with their families through all generations, and they will be able to meet their forefathers and their progeny (13:23). They will also be served food and drink by young men (wildan) and servant boys (ghilman) ‘youths of perpetual (freshness): If thou seest them, thou wouldst think them scattered pearls’ (76:19 and 56:17). Aside from their families, male believers are also granted pure female companions (houri) who are mentioned as ‘pearls well-guarded’ (55:72) or ‘like gems and small pearls whom no man or jinn before them has touched’ (55:56) in the Qur’an (Stetkevych 1997). In the hadith, their descriptions are further elaborated so they are composed on saffron, adorned with jewels, and so fair that their marrow can be seen through their flesh. They also speak to the believers: ‘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’ (al-Tirmidhi n.d., 4:2,533). The ‘swift glimpses’ (Reinhart 1991) of the Garden in the Qur’an are given greater detail in hadiths whose exchanges were often initiated by Muslims who wanted to learn more about the future world that lay ahead of them. The elaboration was meant to fill in the details for a world that was yet to come, and for that reason, hadiths capture a world that is structured by two principles: amplification and earthly transformation. Amplification is evident in the scale of the elaboration that offers a kind of spectacle for the believer to behold (al-Azmeh 1995). The spectacle, which extends from the precious metals to the silks to the food to the sexual capacity of men, suggests an infinite quality to the realm of the Garden. The Garden is not just perfect; it is everlasting in its perfection. The second principle takes many of the attributes of the Garden and reconfigures them so they are not bound by earthly parameters (Rustomji 2009). For example, earthly lote trees are known for their shade and their thorns (Watson 1974). Hadiths endow lote trees which such shade that a rider will be able to ride for a hundred years without emerging from its protection; yet the trees are also described as ‘thornless.’ Another example is the case of nonintoxicating clear liquids in the Qur’an, which then transform into khamr (wine made of red grapes) that does not intoxicate. The transformation of the wine from an intoxicating to non-intoxicating beverage not only shows the ambiguity regarding the beverage (Kueny 2001), but it also demonstrates how the reconfigured realm of the Garden can allow the pleasures of drinking alcohol without any of its ill effects. The building of an afterworld within the hadiths, then, allows a space for the afterworld to grow in detail and form, and we can read of the concerns and expectations of Muslims regarding the future life. In those reflections, sometimes hadiths offer the sense that the Garden is a realm of reward for the believer in all the ways that the believer could imagine. The Garden is a promise, then, of a reconfigured world and humanity. Formalization in Eschatological Manuals Scholars collected material from the Qur’an and hadiths and organized them into small tracts that informed Muslims of what they should expect from the time of their death to ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x 172 Nerina Rustomji their entry in the Garden or the Fire (Smith and Haddad 1981, Eklund 1941, Homerin 1985, Cook, David 2003). These manuals that concerned eschatology not only become repositories for the material about the Garden and the Fire, but they also were sites where theologians could address Muslims’ questions about the afterlife. Through the narrative process, the scholars not only depicted the Garden, but they structured it and imbued it with moral resonance. The manuals, then, drew upon hadith collections and compiled traditions; however, they differed from previous texts because their aims were not just to record. Instead, the narrative structure of the eschatological manuals suggests that were composed for the religious edification of a broader audience. Like corresponding manuals about the apocalypse, eschatological manuals tended to dramatize the events after time in a way that a loosely connected series of hadiths could not. It is in these dramatic renderings that the full articulation of Paradise as a site was realized. The eschatological manuals are unified in providing a narrative form so that each one has a definite beginning, sometimes the time of death or Judgment, other times the actually entry into the Garden. In this way, the manuals tended to provide the afterworld the temporal framework from life to death to what lay beyond. While this timeline propelled the narrative forward, not all the manuals had the same purpose. Some were dedicated to mystical contemplation (al-Muhasibi (d. 857) 1978), whereas others were intended for moral edification (al-Ghazali (d. 1111) 1979, 1989; al-Qadi (d. ca. 12th century) 1977; al-Samarqandi (d. 1002) 1966; al-Qurtubi (d. 1273) 1980), whereas yet others invoked earthly consequences, but also provided answers to certain questions about the future world (Ibn Habib (d. 852 or 853) 1987). In the new narrative framework, the hadiths often took on a more determined structure. For example, the gates and levels of the Garden which were invoked in the Sira and hadith form a definite motif of eight gates and eight levels, each of which is reserved for a certain group, such as prophets, messengers, martyrs, those who prayed, those who were charitable (zakat), those who did pilgrimage (hajj and ‘umra), or those who struggled in the path of God (jihad). Each level is also associated with a different garden name and jewel. For example, the sixth garden is the ‘Garden of Firdaws’ (al-Samarqandi 1966, D4 and alQadi 1977, p. 76), and new gems also appear as part of the landscape such as green chrysolite, red and yellow coral. Waters are also given more prominence. Al-Kawthar figures more prominently as a pool or river given to Muhammad (al-Qadi 1977, p. 77). Also aside from the Lote Tree of the Boundary, which is the named tree of the Qur’anic verses and hadith, the tree Tuba is the bejeweled tree within some eschatological manuals. It is made of roots of pearls, trunk of ruby, branches of chrysolite, and leaves of silk brocade. Most significantly, it is connected to the leg of the throne of God, which also has a more prominent role in the manuals as an ultimate destination for believers (al-Qadi 1977, p. 78). The prominence of the houri is a result of her growing function in eschatological manuals where she is the main female presence in the Garden (Smith and Haddad 1975, Jarrar 1993, Jarrar 1999, Jarrar 2003, Wensinck & Pellat 2006, Rosenthal 1987, Mernissi 1986). Like the architecture of the Garden, she becomes more sensual. In al-Muhasibi’s text, saffron plants awake as she passes them (al-Muhasibi 1978, no. 149), and she becomes a more active agent who welcomes the male believer to his palace and new way of living. In fact, in al-Qadi’s manuals, houri even have a retinue of girls who attend them and even the teeth of one of girls is so beautiful that the angel Gabriel mistakes his vision for the light of God (al-Qadi 1977, p. 80–1). The heightened amplification in the eschatological manual produced two textual legacies. The first is that the bejeweled splendor of the Garden had become extraordinary and formulaic. As a result, a definite esthetic vocabulary emerged in the manuals. The ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x Early Views of Paradise in Islam 173 vocabulary may have been evident in the Qur’an and elaborated in the hadiths, but it was in the manuals where the full vision of the Garden was identified. It is for this reason that often the visions of the Garden that emerge in contemporary Arabic works draw more upon the categorization and narrative form of eschatological manuals than merely the verses and hadiths. Second, the manuals also developed the motifs of the Garden in forms that are still employed today. For example, the tree Tuba becomes a more prominent image in miniature painting, and the invocation of houris as virginal also becomes commonplace (Jarrar 2006). If the Garden was one of the identifiers in early Islamic texts, then it is the genre of the eschatological manual that gave architectural form to the Garden. In an effort to produce works that allowed readers to reflect upon worldly choices and to satisfy their curiosity about the world to come, eschatological writers created a reflection of the Garden that was completely bejeweled and structured for the pleasures of the individual believer (Rustomji 2009). It is within the genre of the eschatological manual that Paradise becomes the realm of the individual. For that reason rewards for individual believers, such as the houris, become privileged. This focus on the individual reward leads to some contemporary misperceptions. For example, it is commonly held that martyrs receive houris upon entry into the Garden; however, within traditions, all male believers if they have led righteous lives have access to houris (Rustomji 2007). The ambiguity in the Qur’an and the mentions in hadiths about the landscape and social world were expanded in a narrative about the end of time, and it is through that narrative form that the Garden became a formalized detailed, material place. Conclusion While the idea of and belief in Paradise had a significant impact in the lives of Muslims during the early centuries of Islam, it was not a place that was fully elaborated in the Qur’an and early biographical literature. With the development of the Garden in prophet literature, traditions about the Islamic afterworld became more expansive and reflected the concerns and aspirations of Muslims who were curious about their lives in the next world. The elaboration in the traditions was employed by writers of eschatological manuals who took traditions and structured them into fairly coherent narratives and settings. It is within these narratives about the end of time that Paradise in Islam developed an esthetic form. Studies about the relation of this esthetic form and its correspondences to earthly lived experience are still at an early stage. There are still many avenues of exploration such as how various theological and philosophical positions are related to otherworldly imagery, how notions of Paradise within Shi’ism and Sufism are distinctive, and how notions of Paradise develop from the 15th to 18th centuries. The early views of Paradise in Islam may have been formative, but it is also the later views that have shaped the ways that Muslims understand their afterworlds today. Short Biography Nerina Rustomji specializes in the cultural and intellectual formation of Islamic societies and the Middle East. Her book The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture (Columbia University Press, 2009) narrates a history of heaven and hell in Islamic texts, material cultures, and book arts from the seventh century CE. The book demonstrates that otherworldly realms have histories that are shaped by Muslims’ ethical formulations, esthetic sensibilities, religious reform, and unending impulse to contemplate the everlasting ª 2010 The Author Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 4/3 (2010): 166–175, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00199.x 174 Nerina Rustomji future. Her current research, which has received fellowship support from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Center of Oriental Research (Amman, Jordan), examines how contemporary Muslims and American and European media represent one of the most sensational tropes about Islam: pure female companions or houris in Islamic Paradise. Before joining St John’s University in 2006, she taught at Bard College. She holds a BA in History and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas, Austin and a PhD in History from Columbia University. 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