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Qur’anic Verses on Women and Men in Paradise

This is yet another of the cringe-inducing topics outrageously laid at the door of the Qur’an, but what can one do. Like a couple of others before it, this myth must unfortunately also be addressed because of how prevalent it has become since 9/11.Footnote 1

Common sense and the Qur’an itself tell us that the promise of Paradise is made to both women and men who earn it through the choices they make during their lives on earth, and that the rewards are the same for both. We have seen this self-evident truth explicitly articulated in various verses of the Qur’an cited in this book already, and there are many more.

So why is it that when we come to descriptions of this Paradise, we suddenly perceive the three dozen or so instances of these in the Qur’an as if they were addressing only men? Societal programming, that is why. Layers of patriarchal fog have accumulated over our minds over the centuries that have left us effectively programmed to hear any description of Paradise in the Qur’an as though it were addressing only men—which is logically impossible. The Qur’an does occasionally address men specifically—such as when it describes female spouses —but where it uses the generic plural it is undoubtedly addressing both women and men in its promises of the rewards of Paradise.

Descriptions of heaven in the Qur’an occur in a single verse or in a group of verses at a time. There is a lot of repetition, while some elements are mentioned only once or twice. Here are the key elements of these physical descriptions:

  • Gardens underneath which rivers flow, plenty of shade, two upper and two lower gardens, and two groups of the righteous (the foremost or those “brought near”, i.e. to God, and those “of/on the right”).

  • Abundant and varied fruit, cups ever-filled from a spring providing a refreshing drink, four types of potable rivers: of never-stale water, ever-fresh milk, delicious wine, and clear honey (47:15).

  • Silk and embroidered clothing, jewellery, precious stones, reclining on couches in contentment.

  • Boys and immortal youths, described as hidden pearls and as scattered pearls floating around, attentive to the inhabitants of Paradise as though they were their own children, filling their cups and generally waiting on them (52:24, 56:17).

And then there are the descriptions that reference either earthly women or other female beings in heaven , or both:

  • Purified mates/spouses for every person in Paradise are mentioned in verses where the same phrase re-appears such as:

Verse

Verse The Cow, 2:25; The House of ‘Imran (Joaquim , father of Mary ), 3:15; Women, 4:57 …And there [in the gardens underneath which rivers flow] they shall have purified spouses (azwāj)…

And as described in Part II, the word zawj and its plural azwāj used in the verses above and elsewhere means a “pair” or “one of a pair”, i.e. mate , so it is one spouse each, for those who may wonder.

Culturally, verses referring to having a “purified spouse ” in heaven are usually assumed to be addressing men only because of a fundamentally incorrect association of purity with virginity , thereby attaching it to women. The ubiquitous concept of “purity ” (tahara , zakat ) in the Qur’an is never used to refer to virginity . It is used in relation to:

  • The souls of God’s prophets, for example:

Verse

Verse The House of ‘Imran (Joaquim, father of Mary), 3:42 And when the angels said: Oh Mary,Footnote

See verse 21:91 mentioned in Chap. 10, on Mary being included in the Qur’an as one of God’s prophets.

God has chosen you and purified you [i.e. your soul] and chosen you above the women of the worlds.

Verse

Verse The House of ‘Imran (Joaquim, father of Mary ), 3:55 When God said: Oh Jesus , I am making you die (mutawaffeeka)Footnote

As every Arabic speaker knows from everyday speech, a person who has tawaffa has “died”. But most English translations of the Qur’an opt for indirect meanings in 3:55 such as “to be taken away” instead of the actual “be made to die”. See the note in Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (editor-in-chief) et al. 2015. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 146 and also Asad, Muhammad. 2003. The Message of the Qur’an. Bristol, England: The Book Foundation, 89.

and raising you to Me and purifying you from those who disbelieve, and placing those who follow you above those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection [i.e. Judgment Day]…

  • People on a righteous path and the inhabitants of Paradise, as in:

Verse

Verse The Congregational Prayer, 62:2 It is He who sent forth among the illiterate a messenger [Muhammad ] from among themselves, to relay to them His messages (ayas ) and purify them and teach them the Book and wisdom, though they were before then lost in evident error.

Verse

Verse Ta Ha (unknown meaning), 20:76 The Gardens of Eden under which rivers flow, where they shall dwell forever: that is the reward of those who purify themselves.

Verse

Verse The Cow, 2:25 (and similarly 3:15 and 4:57) And give good tidings to those who believe and do good deeds that theirs are gardens underneath which rivers flow…where they shall have purified spouses and dwell forever.

  • Things, e.g. rainwater or a house of worship:

Verse

Verse The Pilgrimage, 22:26 And when We assigned for Abraham the site of the House [the Kaaba in Mecca], saying: Do not associate anything with Me and purify My house for those who would make the rounds, and those who would stand, and those who would bow, prostrating themselves.

  • And actions, e.g. almsgiving or ablutions:

Verse

Verse The Banquet (i.e. The Last Supper), 5:6 Oh you who believe: When you get up to pray wash your faces and hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet up to the ankles. And if you are physically uncleanFootnote

To be “physically unclean” and so require purification before prayer (beyond the just-described simple ablution that involves simply wiping the face, head, forearms and feet with water) refers to the need for actual washing after answering a call of nature or after sexual intercourse, as defined in the rest of verse 5:6 and also in 4:43. The Qur’an does not include menstruation in its definition of being “physically unclean” and therefore requiring purification/actual washing before prayer, though custom has always included it to the point that women are prohibited or excused, depending on one’s perspective, from even performing the daily prayers while menstruating.

then purify yourselves…

  • Reunification with one’s earthly spouse in Paradise is mentioned in verses such as:

Verse

Verse Thunder, 13:23 Gardens of Eden that they [the righteous] shall enter, along with those who were righteous of their parents Footnote

Most popular translations render ābā’ in 13:23 as “fathers” rather than “parents”. But every Arabic speaker will readily recognise the word here to essentially mean “forefathers” and so includes mothers, and moreover the verse is clearly speaking of a person’s more proximate ancestors and descendants (as evidenced by the mention of one’s spouse, a contemporary) irrespective of their gender, so the forefathers in question are also proximate, i.e. parents. Besides, we would have expected to see the word “sons” used instead of the gender-neutral “offspring” for consistency had God meant to include righteous male relatives but exclude righteous female relatives from Heaven, surely the implication of such translations. See also the note in Asad, Muhammad. Ibid., 406.

and spouses and offspring. And the angels shall enter upon them from every gate—

Verse

Verse Ya Sīn (uncertain meaning), 36:55–56 Those who have earned Paradise on this day are busy rejoicing, They and their spouses reclining on couches in the shade.

Verse

Verse Forgiver, 40:8 Our Lord: admit them [the righteous] to the Gardens of Eden that You promised them, along with those who were righteous of their parents and spouses and offspring…

Verse

Verse Ornaments of Gold, 43:69–70 Those who believed in Our messages (ayas ) and who surrendered [to God]: Enter the Garden , you and your spouses , to be made joyous.

Disappointingly, most (but not all) translations use the word “wives” in the above and previous verses rather than “spouses ”, as though God was only addressing men. This is not justifiable because the Qur’an here does not use the feminine plural version (zawjāt or even the ubiquitous nisa’, i.e. women, or wives) but the generic masculine plural (azwāj) of the word zawj or mate , which linguistically (and logically) means both husbands and wives.

That said, the Qur’an sometimes does speak specifically of earthly women in Paradise:

Verse

Verse “Those (women) of limited/short glances” (37:48, 38:52 and 55:56), i.e. righteous women, which is reminiscent of verses 24:30–31 covered earlier in Part IV where both believing men and believing women are advised to “lower their gaze” in modesty. The Event, 56:35–37 We shall have created them (women) anew, Thus made them virgins. Loving, (and) of equal age/quality (atrāb).

In the above verse the Qur’an is promising that earthly women in Paradise will be newly created, perfect and young again, as will men be born anew and made young again since the women will be of matching age and substance to the men. To reduce virginity here—this bigger concept of being born anew—to a mere sexual state while applying it exclusively to women is to miss the point, which is re-gifted youth and freshness on an eternal basis for women and men alike.

  • “Glorious and of equal age/quality” (78:33)—while there is nothing in this sentence that implies that its subject is feminine, it has almost always been taken to refer to women while “glorious” is usually translated as “voluptuous” or even “buxom”,Footnote 6 a rendering that is unfortunately in keeping with the narrowing and therefore sexualisation of the broad and profound descriptions of Paradise.

  • Union with a hoor spouse in Paradise, by default (given all the above and the emphasis on “pairs”) for those without an earthly spouse as mate , is mentioned in such verses as:

Verse

Verse Smoke, 44:54 So (it shall be); and We shall have married them [literally “paired” them with, i.e. zawwajnahum] to beautiful-eyed hoor .

Verse

Verse Smoke, 52:20 Reclining on couches in rows; and We shall have married them [literally “paired” them with, i.e. zawwajnahum] to beautiful-eyed hoor .

Hoor , or hooris in its anglicised form, are heaven -made beings also likened to hidden pearls, having a beautiful whiteness of the eye that contrasts with an intense blackness of the iris (e.g. 56:22).Footnote 7 But some translations render the description as “wide-eyed” rather than “beautiful-eyed”, which has a very different connotation that I find culturally telling. Meanwhile the word hoor is strikingly similar (in its Arabic word construction) to the term used in the Qur’an to refer to the disciples of Jesus , the hawariyyun (61:14).Footnote 8 This confirms that the term hoor essentially and unsurprisingly refers to pure beings, and in fact Muhammad himself was described as hoori -eyed by a female contemporary,Footnote 9 which would have been unlikely if only females were thought to constitute this category of pure beings in Paradise. That there should be male and not only female heavenly beings or hoor makes perfect sense: if God promises to pair the single people in Paradise with hoor , then surely there will be single women and not only single men in Paradise in need of being paired up in this way, right?

That said, and just as it sometimes speaks specifically of earthly women in Paradise, the Qur’an does speak specifically at times of hoor women in Paradise:

  • “Hoor (female) in palatial pavilions” (55:72), although this is usually translated as “hoor confined/restrained in pavilions”, which is surely counter-intuitive in the delightful and carefree Paradise the Qur’an describes. Linguistically, the root word at play here is qasr which can mean either “palace” or “limitation, restriction”: given the repeated descriptions of Paradise as a luxurious, beautiful, happy place free of all concerns for all of its inhabitants, does it make sense to then basically “restrict” the movement of these female heavenly beings to a particular structure there? Does it not make more sense that the verse is saying that they are enjoying these pavilions that are more like palaces? The usual interpretation and translation surely undermine the essence of the Qur’an’s extensive description of Paradise as an idyllic place for all.

  • “(Female hoor ) untouched by human or jinn ” (55:56 and 55:74), the jinn being a species invisible to human beings that the Qur’an often mentions. Like human beings, the jinn have free will and are therefore capable of both right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, greatness or lowliness. Mention of the jinn here makes it clear, to me at least, that “untouched” means never having been vulnerable to the imperfections or failings of either humans or jinn , a far more profound and comprehensive characteristic than to simply be virgin in a sexual sense—surely a more aptly loft concept when speaking of Paradise and of the two species, humankind and jinn , that the Qur’an addresses.

In summary, women and men are promised the same things in Paradise. “Purified spouses/mates ” for everyone (2:25, 3:15, 4:57), whether one’s righteous spouse from one’s time on earth (13:23, 36:56, 40:8, 43:70) or a spouse from among beings referred to as hoor or hooris (44:54, 52:20). And as already mentioned, the word zawj in its plural azwaj used in these verses and elsewhere means a “pair” or “one of a pair” of either sex, i.e. mate , so it is one spouse each.

Virginity as relating to people being born again and made equally and eternally young in Paradise applies to both women and men by definition. For those who would insist on a narrower and more sexual meaning, or on “purified spouses ” referring to sexual virginity and of women specifically, it is worth remembering that at least 10 and possibly 11 of the 12 women the Prophet married during his lifetime were not virgins, and that chastity was prescribed for men and women alikeFootnote 10 as we have seen in Chap. 14, entitled Marriage and Chap. 19, entitled Sexual Misconduct.

It is legitimate to ask why the Qur’an sometimes focuses its description on the women of Paradise specifically, be they earthly or hoor women. I have not come across any commentary on why this is the case, which is unsurprising given that most commentaries assume that the Qur’an is addressing men anyway, as if women were appendages. My own thought on this issue is that perhaps men were a harder sell at the time and needed to be wooed more proactively than women, being the tribal and clan leaders of their communities and the defenders of the prevailing idolatry: in fact as mentioned in Chap. 14, Marriage, the earliest converts to the new religion were in fact the underdogs, namely young men and women of no influence, and slaves .

My other thought on the question of women in Paradise, whether earthly or hoori , is to recall the Prophet’s own description of them (among other beings and things) after the miracle of his heavenly visit in the company of the archangel Gabriel, which could not be further from the popular preoccupations I have reluctantly addressed in this chapter:

…if a woman of the people of Paradise appeared unto the people of earth, she would fill the space between Heaven and here below with light and fragrance.Footnote 11

The Pushback of Alleged hadith: 72 Virgins Are Promised…Or Perhaps 70

Just to get it out of the way, the number 72 does not occur anywhere in the Qur’an. There are three mentions of the number 70 in varied contexts—all unrelated to women or even hoor —which sometimes appears as a stand-in for the word “many”Footnote 12 in the way we might today say “dozens”, for example.

There is an alleged hadith attributed to the Prophet that promises a martyr several things, including 72 hooris as wives.Footnote 13 While we are at it, there is another alleged hadith that promises the lowliest believer, who does not even have to be a martyr, the same thing—along with 80,000 servants!Footnote 14 Yet another allegedly states that a martyr gets 70 hooris as wives and is allowed to intercede on behalf of 70 members of his family.Footnote 15 And so it goes.

Firstly, and as discussed above at length, a female hoori according to the Qur’an is first and foremost a heaven -made, purified being untouched in every way—physical, mental or spiritual—by humans or jinn . To reduce a female hoori to a mere “virgin” and use the two terms interchangeably is a cultural bias that speaks for itself.

Secondly and unsurprisingly, none of these hadiths have ever stood on solid ground anyway, even going back to their original inclusion in the hadith corpus, which as we discussed in Part I at length had scooped up every last claim anyone ever made if they assigned it to the Prophet. Questions of problematic transmitters, whether intentional or not, with regard to this group of alleged hadiths on hooris were well-documented from the outset by scholars who researched the infractions and even expressed regret for their previous confidence in some transmitters.Footnote 16 In any case, collective common sense had always pretty much dismissed such reports, until modern communications gave a fringe and agenda-driven claim a global voice.