I think that is the number those yoyos get. Is that in the Koran? I mean if it is not, are these people just such total nimrods(is it ok for Christians to use this word?) and wouldn’t bother to make sure it was in there before they blew themselves up with alot other people?
I believe in the Bible and if some radical dude like Jim Jones told me do drink poison lemonade because God wanted me too, I think I would look that up in the Bible before I did it.
So it got me wondering is there something like the 72 virgins in the Koran or is this another book that was written like the Koran that nutty people like Bin Laden is forcing his troops to read?
Islam, like Judaism and Christianity does not condone suicide. It is highly doubtful that any number of virgins are supplied to suicide bombers. Unless, of course, there is something in Islam that makes them fear and loath virgins.
What I understood adam is that they are promised when they die they get ~72 virgins for doing the suicide bombing plus their families will be well provided for. But like I said if someone was telling me that I would have to see it for myself as an instuction from God.
Yes WB, it is completely acceptable for a Christian to compare someone to the mighty hunter of the Old Testament. Even if he does it sarcastically, as Bugs Bunny did.
I, too, am curious to know whether the Seven Rewards originate in the Koran, in the oral traditions or elsewhere.
As far as I know, the 72 virgins and all that originated with a caliph or shah or somebody who got his followers stoned out of their gourds and then convinced them that all those great rewards would be waiting for them in heaven if they made political murders.
Does anybody know the full text behind this story? Or the guy’s name?
From the Koran, the virgins are not exclusive for those who die in Jihad, but for all those found righteous by Allah. Just that Paradise is “guaranteed” for those killed in Jihad, as opposed to the regular Joe Muslim who has to wait to be judged. The specific # of 72 virgins comes from an early post-Koranic source (apparently not the Hadith either).
As mentioned bofore in various threads, too bad these guys didn’t get a Second Theological Opinion, or they’d have found out that Jihad is supposed to be fought fair and w/o butchering civilians in order to be righteous…
Obviously everything that a poor desert people did not have – the shady groves, soft couches, flowing springs, etc.
Doing a search for houris, Koran/virgins/paradise, you come up with that it’s in the books of the Hadith (Sayings attributed to Muhammad), Sunna, and other early Islamic works that they go into heavy detail as to the nature of the houris and their [ahem] attributes. The depiction of the “Old Man of the Mountain”'s Garden of Pleasures seems to be partly derived from those.
Oh, BTW, handy, the Koran does mention that the righteous, in paradise, beside the harem of houris will have a staff of fair servant-boys. Make of that what you will, the only comments I came up with were from writers with obvious axes to grind…
Boys, boys, behave now… you do know that in literary language “chaste” also refers to someone who is 100% faithful to their true beloved and perfectly well-behaved in public and private… So this probably means the houri will only act upon the Late Righteous Dude’s pleasure and desire and not try any such unchaste thing as (GASP!THE HORROR!) demand pleasure for herself. The Hadith do imply that the houris are * [ahem]* well disposed in all the “ways of love”.
(And the way I heard it – this one from pure FOAF hearsay – is that, how do I put this, the Houri Operating System does a Clean Reinstall every evening. Remember, houris are NOT human, they’re specially-designed accourtements of Paradise)
Of course, it says nothing as to what is the reward awaiting a Righteous Woman. What are the Mother and Wives of the Prophet doing for the rest of Eternity?
And my apologies to any faithful Moslems if this all so far sounds excessively irreverent, but you must understand that to westerners who are accustomed to teachings of “Heaven” in very general, non-specific terms as either a loosely defined plane of pure spiritual transcendence, or a theocratic but physically AND socially Utopian Earth, the notion that it specifically involves spending Eternity living like Hugh Hefner multiplied tenfold is, well, intriguing.
According to the OED Online (may the blessings of Allah be upon my university for finally getting an institutional subscription) “whore” is derived from the Old English “hóre”, meaning adulterer.
This same question was asked over at FFF a couple of days ago and I did a little research via google. One of the sites said that prior to the translation it appeared that the word referring to those heading to paradise included both sexes, the same applying houris (IIRC the original had the root ‘hur’ which didn’t necessarily refer to a specific sex).
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