How great is heaven for the 72 virgins?

I thought the whole 'virgin' thing was supposed to be some mistranslation so that the lucky martyrs will be presented with a bag of dates when they get to Heaven. Must be some pretty tasty dates.

But it's not clearly a mistranslation; it's a error in exegesis.

The 'white raisin' claim is based on white raisins being a delicacy at the time the Qur'an was set to paper, and on the Arabic's word being of dicey meaning. But having been defined as 'virgin' in the centuries after Muhammed, to say the scholars was wrong would undermine so much of Islamic jurisprudence. Meanwhile, in Aramaic the word's meaning is supposedly clear.

But the Qur'an is perfect, criticism is banned (and frequently gets you expelled from a secular country, or simply killed). It didn't borrow words; any similarities between it and anything else is due to it. The scholars weren't *that* wrong.

I guess 'raisins' didn't have the advertising power of 'virgins,' which is understandable, I suppose. I can imagine the early Imams trying to whip their congregations into a froth of Jihadi fervor by promising them a small box of raisins. That would be a tough sell.

But a man's going to say, I'm gonna kill myself for some RAISINS??!! Wow, that is HUNGRY, man.

But scholars will say the Qur'an is in Arabic, and couldn't possibly have borrowed such a word. At least not without them knowing about it.

So it can't possibly mean 'raisin' in Arabic. And they decided that this oddball word must be 'virgins'.

I mean, if X is your reward in paradise, and you haven't a clue what it could possibly mean, what are *you* likely to assume it means? Given that you're a proud male in a patriarchal, hegemonic 8th century Arab society.

"Cattle prod" is ruled out, as is "pork chop".

(and I am not Muslim), the 72 virgins are not humans, but are hoors created in heaven for the shaheeds to have sex with.

When I have questions about Islam, I go to the site www.askimam.com which is kind of a Dear Abby or Miss Manners column for Muslims. You can write in a question and a group of clerics answers it for you. Many of the questions are from Muslims who are living in the west and trying to keep straight what they are and aren't allowed to do.

There are many questions about the whole 72 virgins idea. One woman asked whether she's supposed to be satisfied sharing her husband with 72 virgins in heaven.

Here's a few links. It's interesting to do a little search on all kinds of questions from woman's rights to slavery to abortion.

http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=4763

http://www.islam.tc/cgi-bin/askimam/search.pl?query=hoors&limit=20&order=DESC&sort=date&where=question

God must need to take the lives of lots of young woment to keep a fresh supply on hand for the martyrs. But what about he "impure?" Out to pasture at 16, after one boink by a mad bomber?

Ah, heaven! What a place!

that the virgins are "perpetual virgins," in that after being de-flowered, they become a virgin again. Too bad, that means you're stuck with the same 72 for eternity.

boinking?

Big deal. That's HEAVEN? I expect beer and strippers. Nasty, filthy strippers. Who needs an inexperienced perpetual virgin?

"Nasty, filthy Strippers"

I love it, that would be a good heaven :)

Which explains why they're still virgins

they just feed you dates
personally I was wondering where all the virgins came from
are there a lot of young women dying before they get laid or does their god just call them up when he needs them

ICK!!

I always wondered about that concept.

If it's heaven, I think I'd prefer a slut with skills.... :spank:

But after laughing about it, it's sad. Too close to the truth about how women are regarded in so many societies.

are there the same 72 virgins that theyve all had to share since the 7th century?



im just saying - maybe they should read the fine print....

That's why they call it heaven.

the guy who gets them might be in heaven, but the 72 virgins are in hell.

as for the Jewish and "the left" in Armageddon. Why would heaven for some have to be hell for others?

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?
Peggy Lee

SPOKEN:
I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

SPOKEN:
And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to the circus, the greatest show on earth.
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And as I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don't know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a circus?"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

SPOKEN:
Then I fell in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world.
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes.
We were so very much in love.
Then one day, he went away. And I thought I'd die -- but I didn't.
And when I didn't I said to myself, "Is that all there is to love?"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

SPOKEN:
I know what you must be saying to yourselves.
If that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh, no. Not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment.
For I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my lst breath, I'll be saying to myself,

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

...not former humans. Like guardian angels, or what not. So they are happy, of course, it's their place in the celestial scheme of things.

Not a particularly silly or repugnant concept, IMHO, or no worse than most religious beliefs. It's all an attempt by the the human mind that is bound to the physical world to describe/comprehend the infinite.

As for myself, I reserve judgement, since
"I'll never know by livin'
Only my dyin' will tell"

And what do the martyrs say when the virgins ask them "What are you thinking?"

But penguins do all look alike, don't they?

St. Peter got a call on the Heaven-Hell Red Phone: "St. Peter, this is Sister Margaret of the Sisters of Intense Agony. I'm in Hell right now. Do you know why?"

St. Peter thought for a minute...'oh yeah. It's a mixup. This new guy George Bush is supposed to have gone to hell, and you're supposed to have come here. It's not a big problem, we'll get you out, just hang tight.'

The next day St. Peter got a very frantic call: "St. Peter, this is Sister Margaret again. They're having an ORGY down here starting in three hours and everyone's required to PARTICIPATE! You have GOT to get me out of this place RIGHT NOW!" St. Peter said he'd take care of it.

The day after that St. Peter got another call: "Hey Pete, this is Maggie. Look, take your time with that transfer, it's okay by me."

You get 72 virgins. You've also got food and shelter, so there's no need to get a job for money, and you've got the 72 virgins to do all the chores, so there's no need to do housework. Your whole job entails having sex with virgins any time you think sex sounds good right about now. To the normal man, sex sounds good right about now approximately six times per day, so you've got enough virgins on hand to have a different woman every time for 12 days straight.

Unfortunately for you, every one of the virgins is not only perpetually virginal, she's also perpetually impregnable. At the end of the 12 days, you've managed to impregnate every single one of your virgins.

The Quran very specifically says not to have sex with a pregnant woman, so there's no sex for you for nine months. There are, however, 72 women who need their feet rubbed, their cooking and cleaning done, and their grocery shopping done. This you get to do. Oh yeah...72 women who have prenatal appointments. You are sent to Paradise Transit Training Academy to receive your bus license.

There are 72 women who get to scream in your ear, "you bastard, this is all your fault!" while giving birth.

There are 72 babies to maintain. Guess who gets to do it?

Six weeks after they give birth, you can have sex with your 72 virgins again. They all get pregnant again.

A year later, it happens again.

Now you have 216 children all under the age of four. They all need to be fed. They all need to go to the doctor. None of your virgins will lift a finger--remember, it's still all your fault.

What's the solution? A vasectomy? Of course, and a doctor performs one with all speed. You test clear, and tentatively have sex with one of your virgins. She immediately gets pregnant.

You've decided to start violating your Muslim faith to gain relief; unfortunately, the bourbon you drink to dull your senses only heightens them. Fortunately for you, it doesn't get anyone pregnant so you start drinking heavily.

You even attempt to commit seppuku, but your guts won't come out. Your belly mended itself seamlessly as the knife passed through it...and when you laid the bloody knife on the ground, three virgins got pregnant just from the sight of it.

Now you're sitting on the stoop. You've got 500 children. Rubbers don't work. Coitus interruptus doesn't work. Smoking pot doesn't work. Take your pants off to shower and two virgins get pregnant just from the sight of your ever-contracting penis. You mainlined a whole bale of heroin in one shove and it just made you a little dizzy. You sniffed glue, and that gave you some relief...except that when you woke up you found out that in your glue-induced frenzy you had sex with eleven virgins. They're all pregnant now. You can't even masturbate because semen squirting into thin air gets five of your virgins pregnant. You're up 24 hours a day maintaining them. None of your virgins love you. This is like the legend of King al-Midas, except that everything YOU touch turns into a baby. You even cut your penis off with a chain saw in an attempt to stop this. A new one grew back that very same day.

You look up into the air and scream, "why, Allah, why? Why do you treat me this way?"

Allah steps from the shadows, kicks you in the nuts, and screams, "it's because you blew yourself up in my name, you dumb fuck. Did you really think I was going to be IMPRESSED by that?"

Ah, paradise! :rofl:

a woman that belonged to no man. Didn't belong to her father or brother or husband or any man. Had nothing to do with sex, just with who owned her.

According to a Muslim friend of mine, Heaven's rewards are unlimited and beyond one's imagination; no mind or eyes have ever thought about or seen any of it. He said that if you are trying to compare things in Heaven to things on Earth you aren't really going to achieve anything. It's like if you were living back in the dark ages and someone told you about tv's and internet, you will have no clue what it's like. According to him, Our minds are so limited in capacity that we are not able to comprehend such ideas, since our world is so relative. Thus we always seek to understand things in terms of our own state of being. However, in paradise, this sense of 'male' and 'female' beings does not actually exist, for such paradigms only exist in our world because of the need to procreate.

In conclusion, from what I understood is that 72 virgins are not exactly your average mormon girls, because you have no clue what they're like.

of the oh-so-well serviced men, though the women are supposed to be queens over the virgins whatever that means.

according to my friend, there's no such thing as males and females in heaven, he said life's rules do not apply to what's after life. Life is very limited and so is our mind. No matter how long you try to imagine what it's gonna be like, you won't really end up with much. It's like you trying to invent a new color that was never seen before, or invent a new letter that you never pronounced before, and that's a "life" example, think how much more complex "after-life" is gonna be....

www.askimam.com

They talk of mens' roles and wives' roles and hoors' roles in heaven.

Without going into a whole hell of a lot of detail, women and men are different in bed.

Men's sexual needs can be satisfied by an inexperienced woman, and there are lots of men who'd LOVE a steady diet of virgins. Cheap romance novels are full of women who are sleeping with other men because their husbands are worthless in the boudoir.

Women need guys who know what they're doing in bed. If you gave a woman 72 virgins and told her "these guys will never get any better," she'll swear off real men for bodice-ripper novels and nude horseback riding somewhere between virgins five and six.

Life's experiences do not apply to after life. What makes you think that sex in the afterlife is like sex during life? That would definitely defeat the whole purpose of going to Heaven. If that was the case, might as well just make the most out of it while you can while you're still alive on Earth.

It's a valid theorem--thinking that there's no sex in the afterlife.

It's certainly what the fundamentalists would have you believe: that you'll be so fulfilled with the Holy Spirit, you won't need earthly pleasures--like sex.

You're making a theorem about an unknowable and an unprovable, at least by conventional living standards. Therefore, ANY theorem about "it" could be considered equally "valid".

--after the illusion of death?" sez the student.

Master: "How should I know?"
Student: "Because you are an enlightened man."
Master: "That, maybe. But not a dead one."

That's so disturbing to me. It's like women aren't people, w/thoughts & feelings & dreams. I doubt heaven is heaven for the 72 virgins who are stuck there with a terrorist wanna-be.

Fucking inflation.

except for the "honor" of feeding the martyred men their dates...