72 virgins

[JetLeg]

Hi, does anyone have evidence that Muslim Martyrs do believe that they will be met by 72 virgins, or is this an urban myth?


Clarification :

I do not ask if the Muslim martyrs believe that they will be met by 72 virgins, or rather they "believe in the belief" that they will be met by 72 virgins, or that they believe-but-know-in-their-hearts-that-is-not-true ...

This isn't a question about their psychological state / a question of epistemology. This is a factual question that should be decided using evidence - is it part of the official doctrine of the denomination that the martyrs belong to? Are the martyrs _told_ during their indoctrination courses they will be met by 72 virgins in heaven?

[Rodibidably]

This week on "ask a muslim suicide bomber", we're going to ask if they believe their superstitious nonsense.

*sound of explosion*

Oops, too late. That's all the time we have this week, tune in next week for an all new episode of "ask a muslim suicide bomber".

[George]

http://www.appletreeblog.com/wp-content/2008/10/twin-towers.jpg

[SirPhilip]

Hi, does anyone have evidence that Muslim Martyrs do believe that they will be met by 72 virgins, or is this an urban myth? The context was actually an allegorical construct, it correlates to the 72 'names' in Jewish tradition (Kabballah is also a rough conjunction of Kabb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba) and Allah). The symbolism suggests mystical development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism) - the opposite of anything sexual.

[JetLeg]

__

[JetLeg]

http://www.appletreeblog.com/wp-content/2008/10/twin-towers.jpg

Don't you realize yourself that doesn't answer the OP in any conceivable way?

[Rodibidably]

Aha, so you just assert something without evidence for it?
What assertion is that exactly?

[Mojo]

Hi, does anyone have evidence that Muslim Martyrs do believe that they will be met by 72 virgins, or is this an urban myth?


There's a suggestion that it was a mistranslation, and what actually awaits them is 72 raisins:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.

[JetLeg]

What assertion is that exactly?



Notice that I removed the post you quoted, and clarified the op. It should be more clear now.

[Malkuth]

Does the Koran really promise Islamic martyrs 72 virgins?
December 14, 2001
Dear Cecil:

There's been a lot of talk about how the hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center expected to receive 72 virgins (or 70 or 50, depending on whom you listen to) in paradise. Is this really true? (That they expected this, I mean, not that they'll receive it.) It seems a rather unsophisticated and juvenile theology: "In heaven you can eat all the ice cream you want and stay up past ten o'clock and it's always recess." Is there any Koranic basis for believing that those who kill and die for the faith will get the aforementioned virgins?

— J. Haas

I realize I'm treading on dangerous ground here. But I figure, Salman Rushdie got a fatwa, and I want one too.

Breach of Rule 4 removed. Please don't copy large sections of text from a copyrighted source. As a guideline, quote a paragraph or two and provide a link to the original.

— Cecil Adams

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2329/does-the-koran-really-promise-islamic-martyrs-72-virgins

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, you can take it as a straight up distortion of the tracts in the Koran and the Hadiths...or...

You can buy into the Israeli created propaganda meant to demonise palestinians to the west, which still largely does come from the same tracts in the Koran and Hadiths, as shown here.


Debunking the ‘Suicide for 72 Virgins’ Myth
Published March 4, 2007 Uncategorized

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/debunking-the-suicide-for-72-virgins-myth/


Breach of Rule 4 removed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or, you could have a read of the Guardian's stellar journalism on the subject.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5


Virgins? What virgins?It is widely believed that Muslim 'martyrs' enjoy rich sensual rewards on reaching paradise. A new study suggests they may be disappointed. Ibn Warraq reports
Special report: religion in the UK
Ibn Warraq
The Guardian, Saturday 12 January 2002

Breach of Rule 4 removed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


In any case, it's clear that various verses in the koran and the Islamist Hadiths Traditions are the basis for the idea. It has nothing to do with the Kaballah.

[Cainkane1]

There's a suggestion that it was a mistranslation, and what actually awaits them is 72 raisins:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5
How could anybody pass up those yummy raisons?

[Malkuth]

---

[Cainkane1]

What I'd like to know is this. What does a female muslim get if they blow themselves up? 72 studs?

[JetLeg]

In any case, it's clear that various verses in the koran and the Islamist Hadiths Traditions are the basis for the idea. It has nothing to do with the Kaballah.

First, many many thanks.

That was very informative.

Second, I would like to point that the question whether in the Quran virgins are promised to those that dwell in heaven, this doesn't mean that the suicide bombers believe it -> one should look into their specific exegisis, and on the focuses of their religion. Do you have by chance evidence for those?

[Mojo]

What I'd like to know is this. What does a female muslim get if they blow themselves up?


Maybe they get to be one of the virgins. They've got to get them from somewhere.

[Malkuth]

I do not have any specific evidence of whether the 19 hijackers were indoctrinated with this idea or not. However, if you know the history of the Assassins, or hash-eaters, you will know something of the history of an ancient form of drug induced mind control used for many centures in this islamist secret society in order to create mind controlled killers. The Hashsishin were routinely force drugged for days and given access to harems and promises of greater rewards upon completion of their missions. It's not really a stretch to imagine a modern day version of such a thing, however that would only be a supposition on my part. I do have a book on this I believe, let me check and get back a little later.

[HansMustermann]

What I'd like to know is this. What does a female muslim get if they blow themselves up? 72 studs?

Maybe the prophet just liked lesbians a lot? :p

[George]

Don't you realize yourself that doesn't answer the OP in any conceivable way?

Are you referring to your opening post timed @4.10 PM.

Or your edit timed @4.35PM.





They appear to me to be two quite distinct statements.

[Malkuth]

I found the book I have a pdf copy of, here's the amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Bernard-Lewis/dp/0465004989

It seems I may have been mislead by the various legends about the Assassins (I havent actually read this book yet) There is much controversy regarding the actual practices of the Assassins. That they were fanatical killers is not an issue, it's the use of hashish that is suspect in this author's estimation.

[I Ratant]

"Committing Suicide is a Major Sin:

Bukhari Volume 2, Book 23, Number 445:

Narrated Jundab the Prophet said, “A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him.”

Bukhari Volume 8, Book 73, Number 73:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak: ”And if somebody commits suicide with anything in this world, he will be tortured with that very thing on the Day of Resurrection."
.
If suicide is such a sin, does tempering it with mass murder make it praiseworthy?
That's what we have today.
How are those mass murders justifiable in Islam?

[HansMustermann]

Ok, there's one thing that bothers me about those quoted analyses, and that's the word "Jihad." Jihad just means "struggle" as a noun, so it can apply to anything from holy war to the struggle with constipation. But if we're talking Jihad as in the duty codified in the Quran:

A) it is pretty much just a mutual defense duty against a non-islamic aggressor, _not_ a duty to wage aggression

B) only a major religious figure can actually proclaim a Jihad.

Ideally it would be the head of the islamic caliphate, but nobody claimed the rulership of a global islamic "nation" since the fall of the Ottoman empire. Failing that, a great ayatolah.

I don't see how anyone, on either side, can see those acts of terrorism as a Jihad, since simply put it hasn't been proclaimed by anyone with the authority to do so.

Basically it's as if me and a couple of bible-thumping nutters decided to call ourselves "The Christian Crusade" and go blow sh*t up. Would anyone believe it's a genuine crusade just because it says so? Wouldn't it need to be proclaimed by the pope to be a real crusade?

[Malkuth]

"Committing Suicide is a Major Sin:

Bukhari Volume 2, Book 23, Number 445:

Narrated Jundab the Prophet said, “A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him.”

Bukhari Volume 8, Book 73, Number 73:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak: ”And if somebody commits suicide with anything in this world, he will be tortured with that very thing on the Day of Resurrection."
.
If suicide is such a sin, does tempering it with mass murder make it praiseworthy?
That's what we have today.
How are those mass murders justifiable in Islam?

This seems to be one of the more powerful arguments against the 19 muslim hijackers idea. I have seen various arguments nullifying this idea, that jihad somehow absolves the muslim of the apparent sin of suicide. Also that the men involved were perhaps not pious muslims and had no true belief in the suicide as sin concept.

It is indeed a great mystery. There is great controversy regarding the possibility that some of these men were mistakenly identified. Perhaps if any of them are around, we could ask them?

As reported by the BBC no less

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

more details, however tenuously associated with conspiracy theory here, including bbc links

http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Hijackers_still_alive

I'm quite certain that you'll find some rather heated debunking exercise of this idea in the 911 conspiracy theory forums, though I havent looked at it myself.

[HansMustermann]

Well, even then, as I was saying, what gave them the idea that they were fighting a Jihad, when nobody with the religious authority to proclaim a Jihad had actually done so?

[Hokulele]

I'm quite certain that you'll find some rather heated debunking exercise of this idea in the 911 conspiracy theory forums, though I havent looked at it myself.


Read the conclusion in the second link you posted.

[Malkuth]

With extremists, you kind of have to expect that they won't always play by the rules. In such a scenario, who can predict exactly what form their actions will take, or what lengths they might be willing to go to outside those bounds once they're there?

Perhaps the men in question were rather simple after all and had been led to believe through some assassin type secret group that their leader did have said authority. More speculation ad nauseum. The only real way to answer that question would be to find out who trained them, financed them etc. If there was some kind of conspiray beyond the official 19 dudes with boxcutters version, I'd be fairly certain that much if not all of the evidence linking it together has been dismantled long ago.

[Hokulele]

CT sub-forum, thataway ------->

[HansMustermann]

Well, I wasn't as much thinking "what kind of conspiracy" as "what kind of mental illness" ;)

[Malkuth]

Yes, this is certainly leading that direction. However, I do agree strongly that this is a topic much ignored by any serious investigation. I would very much like to know the answer to the question as stated/clarified in the OP.

[drkitten]

I don't see how anyone, on either side, can see those acts of terrorism as a Jihad, since simply put it hasn't been proclaimed by anyone with the authority to do so.

Basically it's as if me and a couple of bible-thumping nutters decided to call ourselves "The Christian Crusade" and go blow sh*t up. Would anyone believe it's a genuine crusade just because it says so? Wouldn't it need to be proclaimed by the pope to be a real crusade?

The problem is that there are a lot of bible-thumping nutters (as you so charmingly put it) who believe that their particular nut-in-charge is a major figure, and that the one whom the rest of the world recognizes is an imposter or an antipope or something.

For examples, check out "traditional catholicism" or "sedevacantism." Sample quote: "You are old enough to know that bogus Council Vatican II took place between 1962 and 1965. The bogus popes (John XXIII and Paul VI) formed a new false Protestant religion. They made a new liturgy with seven new invalid sacraments. They made a new false canon law in 1983. Finally, they made a heretical 'Catechism of the Catholic Church.'"

The "true" pope of the author of the lines above is Earl Pulvermacher of Springdale, Washington, who has taken the regnal name of Pius XIII.

I submit that Father Earl has exactly as much authority to declare holy war against the infidel as does the Rat in the Hat.

[dafydd]

There's a down side,They could be 80 year old virgins with faint mustaches and ear trumpets.

[plumjam]

It's a turban myth.

[I Ratant]

Or it could be a misprint.
72 virginians, with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to answer to!

[Delvo]

I saw Wahlid Shoebat, a former Muslim extremist/terrorist who has since then converted to pacifist Christianity and written a couple of books explaining the Islamic mindset for us Occidentals, answer this in an interview. He said that the official doctrine they're taught is not that they'll get 72 virgins. It's that they'll get 72 mansions/palaces, each of which has 72 rooms with beds and harems in them, and each of those has 72 virgins in it. It might even have been 72 beds per room AND 72 women per bed, but I'm not sure.

So he was taught that he'd get either 373,248 or 26,873,856 women.

And according to Jay Leno, Hell is the same, except that they all STAY virgins forever.

[JetLeg]

Are you referring to your opening post timed @4.10 PM.

Or your edit timed @4.35PM.





They appear to me to be two quite distinct statements.



The edited is a clarification of the non-edited.

But the picture doesn't answer any one of them...

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

The context was actually an allegorical construct, it correlates to the 72 'names' in Jewish tradition (Kabballah is also a rough conjunction of Kabb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba) and Allah). The symbolism suggests mystical development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism) - the opposite of anything sexual.


Joke, right? Kabba + Allah = ancient Hebrew word qabbālâ (from the verb, qibbēl: To Receive)?

Anyhow...

Sura 55 () deals with a description of paradise, in which all kinds of good stuff resides for the faithful. Among them are, in one garden, "Therein are those of modest gaze, whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them, (In beauty) like the jacynth and the coral-stone," and, in two other gardens, "Wherein (are found) the good and beautiful - Fair ones, close-guarded in pavilions - Whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them - Reclining on green cushions and fair carpets."

So, unless raisins can have a modes gaze, the first bit isn't about raisins. In another place, large, lustrous and beautiful eyes are mentioned. I'm pretty sure those aren't raisins, either.

I suppose that raisins could, "recline," so maybe the second bunch are raisins.

As for the number 72: I think, maybe, someone just WAGed it. ([url=http://www.urbandictionary.com/]Urban Dictionary (]three translations here[/url), WAG (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=WAG), #5)

[Mojo]

It's a turban myth.


They'll be as Sikh as parrots when they find out.

[fuelair]

What I'd like to know is this. What does a female muslim get if they blow themselves up? 72 studs?A new set of studded tires for her cart.

[LarianLeQuella]

Little do they realize that the virgins are all guys that lived in their mom's basement playing Magic the Gathering. :p


(The above post was not meant as a slight to people who DO live in their mom's basement or people who play MtG!)

[HansMustermann]

The problem is that there are a lot of bible-thumping nutters (as you so charmingly put it) who believe that their particular nut-in-charge is a major figure, and that the one whom the rest of the world recognizes is an imposter or an antipope or something.

For examples, check out "traditional catholicism" or "sedevacantism." Sample quote: "You are old enough to know that bogus Council Vatican II took place between 1962 and 1965. The bogus popes (John XXIII and Paul VI) formed a new false Protestant religion. They made a new liturgy with seven new invalid sacraments. They made a new false canon law in 1983. Finally, they made a heretical 'Catechism of the Catholic Church.'"

The "true" pope of the author of the lines above is Earl Pulvermacher of Springdale, Washington, who has taken the regnal name of Pius XIII.

I submit that Father Earl has exactly as much authority to declare holy war against the infidel as does the Rat in the Hat.

Hmm... point taken, but then that still leaves me wondering about the western media, who's all too happy to rant about jihad this, jihad that, whether they'll get forgiven because they fough in a jihad, and exactly how many virgins those guys will get for their participation in a jihad. Just because Bin Laden rants about a jihad, there must be one, ya know? Bloody berks.

I mean, wth, Bin Laden also rants about being in the middle of a new crusade. And I don't see newspapers going, "yeah, well, I guess we're busy crusading if he says so. He wouldn't lie about something like that." ;) You don't see them arguing that the soldiers will be forgiven all sins, like the Pope proclaimed for the crusaders a thousand years ago.

Ah well... I guess expecting journalists to do their homework is even less realistic than wanting a real lightsaber for christmas ;)

[SirPhilip]

HiJoke, right? Kabba + Allah = ancient Hebrew word qabbālâ (from the verb, qibbēl: To Receive)? It's important to understand Islam is essentially a mosiac of plagiarizations of pre-Islamic, Jewish and Indian traditions. The 72 houries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houri) correspond to the 72 names although of which in Islam there are 99. Make sense? It doesn't except as an exercise in cultural commonalities.

Sura 55 (three translations here (http://three%20translations%20here)) deals with a description of paradise, in which all kinds of good stuff resides for the faithful. Among them are, in one garden, "Therein are those of modest gaze, whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them, (In beauty) like the jacynth and the coral-stone," and, in two other gardens, "Wherein (are found) the good and beautiful - Fair ones, close-guarded in pavilions - Whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them - Reclining on green cushions and fair carpets." It's a double insinuation, as is common in allegories: literal and abstract definitions. Male or female escorts as a religious goal is completely in contradiction to Islamic modesty and morality, manhood and womanhood.

So, unless raisins can have a modes gaze, the first bit isn't about raisins. In another place, large, lustrous and beautiful eyes are mentioned. I'm pretty sure those aren't raisins, either. That is as well, also a poetic and allegorical affair (no pun intended). :duck:

[Wildy]

Maybe they get to be one of the virgins. They've got to get them from somewhere.

Maybe Allah has a Virgin Factory in the same way the FSM has a Stripper Factory?

There's a suggestion that it was a mistranslation, and what actually awaits them is 72 raisins

You might enjoy this (http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/02/11/fruit/).

[tsig]

Hmm... point taken, but then that still leaves me wondering about the western media, who's all too happy to rant about jihad this, jihad that, whether they'll get forgiven because they fough in a jihad, and exactly how many virgins those guys will get for their participation in a jihad. Just because Bin Laden rants about a jihad, there must be one, ya know? Bloody berks.

I mean, wth, Bin Laden also rants about being in the middle of a new crusade. And I don't see newspapers going, "yeah, well, I guess we're busy crusading if he says so. He wouldn't lie about something like that." ;) You don't see them arguing that the soldiers will be forgiven all sins, like the Pope proclaimed for the crusaders a thousand years ago.

Ah well... I guess expecting journalists to do their homework is even less realistic than wanting a real lightsaber for christmas ;)

Lets move to something a little more contemporary than the Crusades.

Do you agree there are suicide bombers?

[Beerina]

There's a suggestion that it was a mistranslation, and what actually awaits them is 72 raisins:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5

Exactly! What awaits them are 72 venerable, long-since retired Librarians.

[KarlG]

It's a turban myth.


Nominated :)