# Is the 72 Virgin Thing for Suicide Bombers When They Die in the Koran?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 3, 2001, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259 "2001-10-03T21:10:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/1 "2001-10-03T21:10:27Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/2 "2001-10-03T21:14:30Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/3 "2001-10-03T21:31:52Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/4 "2001-10-03T21:59:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \*
> \*\* nimrods(is it ok for Christians to use this word?) \*\*
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.
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### Author:  [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/5 "2001-10-03T22:12:03Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@Osip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osip)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/6 "2001-10-03T22:49:59Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Wildest Bill \*
> \*\*I mean if it is not, are these people just such total nimrods(is it ok for Christians to use this word?) \*\*
Sure is a biblical name… err Genesis 10: 6 I think.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/7 "2001-10-03T23:35:04Z")
Does it state male or female virgins? Cause I think if they were male it would be a surprise 🙂
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/8 "2001-10-03T23:47:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Daowajan \*
> \*\*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? \*\*
That would be Hassan Il Sabbah, of the_Assassins_.
(Although this legend is generally held to be apocryphal.)
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/9 "2001-10-04T00:00:28Z")
Here’s the [legend:](http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id985/pg1/)
> [@](#):
>
> Within Alamut, Hasan built the legendary “Garden of Earthly Delights”, which would play an important role in the initiatic rites of the Hashishins (also called the “Assassins”).
>
> The garden lay in a beautiful valley nestled between two high mountains. Here he had imported exotic plants, birds, and animals from all over the world. Surrounding the garden were luxurious palaces of marble and gold, decorated with beautiful paintings and fine silk furniture. Streams of milk, wine, and honey flowed throughout this earthly paradise, while fountains gushed with wine and pure spring water.
>
> The initiate, after being knocked out by a powerful potion mixed with hashish, would be carried into the garden. When he awoke from his slumber, he would be greeted by a host beautiful teenage girls (houris), who sang and danced and played lovely instruments for him. As he drifted into an ecstatic daze, the girls would go to work on the initiate, giving him a full-body tongue massage, while one girl performed oral sex on him. Eventually, the bedazzled young man would climax into the girl’s mouth “as softly and slowly and blissfully as a single snowflake falling.”
and it’s [refutation:](http://www.amaana.org/heroes/note018.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> The most defamatory allegation against Sayyidna Hasan is that he had created a paradise in the fortress of Alamut. If we consider this allegation also in the light of history, it will prove to be nothing else then a fiction. If such a paradise was at all created by Sayyidna Hasan it would not have remained to be accounted for by the historians. However, no such account is to be found anywhere in Ata Malik Juwayni, who was a historian and a companion of a destroyer of Ismaili reign in Alamut in 654 A.H.11256 C.E. i.e. Halaku Khan. He has made no mention of anything of that sort in his book “Tarikh-e-Jahan Gusha”. Mention of this paradise is found only in 'the “Travels of Marco Polo”, who reached thereafter one and half century of the existence of Sayyidna Hasan bin Sabbah in 673 A.H.; 1273 C.E. and it was no doubt the stories that he had collected without any foundation. But for the welfare and progress of Ismailis Sayyidna Hasan bin Sabbah had created peace, comfort and settled condition in the fortress.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/10 "2001-10-04T01:02:44Z")
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…
> [@](#):
>
> As for the righteous, they shall dwell in peace together amidst gardens and fountains, arrayed in rich silks and fine brocade. Yes, and We shall wed them to dark-eyed houris. Secure against all ills, they shall call for every kind of fruit; and, having died once, they shall die no more. Your Lord will through His mercy shield them from the scourge of Hell. That will be the supreme triumph.
> Sura 44:47-59
>
> Proclaim good tidings to those who have faith and do good works. They shall dwell in gardens watered by running streams: whenever they are given fruit to eat they will say: ‘This is what we used to eat before,’ for they shall be given the like. Wedded to chaste virgins, they shall abide there forever.
> Sura 2:24-25
>
> But for those that fear the majesty of their Lord there are two gardens (which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?) planted with shady trees. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
>
> Each is watered by a flowing spring. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
>
> Each bears every kind of fruit in pairs. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
>
> They shall recline on couches lined with thick brocade, and within their reach will hang the fruits of both gardens. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
>
> They shall dwell with bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
>
> Virgins as fair as corals and rubies. Which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
> Sura 55:41-57
>
> On that day the dwellers of Paradise shall think of nothing but their bliss. Together with their wives, they shall recline in shady groves upon soft couches. They shall have fruits and all that they desire.
> Sura 36:55
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…
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### Author:  [@d12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/d12)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/11 "2001-10-04T01:05:00Z")
Nimrod is mentioned in Gen: 10 verse 8-9 not 6
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/12 "2001-10-04T12:00:32Z")
So if that’s Paradise for the terrorists, isn’t it basically Hell for the virgins?
What is a virgins’ Paradise like?
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/13 "2001-10-04T12:06:29Z")
I heard that there’s one catch – the virgins stay virgins, if you know what I mean.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/14 "2001-10-04T12:29:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by handy \*
> \*\*
> Does it state male or female virgins? Cause I think if they were male it would be a surprise 🙂 \*\*
LOL! 😃
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### Author:  [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/15 "2001-10-04T12:30:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by JRDelirious \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Wedded to chaste virgins, they shall abide there forever.
> > Sura 2:24-25
>
> \*\*
Who would want to be wedded to a **chaste** virgin?
Sounds more like hell than heaven to me. (you can see, but not touch ☹ )
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/16 "2001-10-04T13:26:55Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Who would want to be wedded to a chaste virgin? Sounds more like hell than heaven to me.
Maybe instead of houris they should have **whories**? 😃
Say, did anyone “Ask the Muslim Guy”?
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/17 "2001-10-04T14:13:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tc \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > \*Originally posted by JRDelirious \*
> > \*\*
> >
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > Wedded to chaste virgins, they shall abide there forever.
> > > Sura 2:24-25
> >
> > \*\*
>
> Who would want to be wedded to a **chaste** virgin?
> Sounds more like hell than heaven to me. \*\*
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.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/18 "2001-10-04T16:30:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Who would want to be wedded to a chaste virgin? Sounds more like hell than heaven to me.
>
> Maybe instead of houris they should have **whories**? 😃
>
> Say, did anyone “Ask the Muslim Guy”? \*\*
Are you whooshing me, perhaps? I thought that the word “whore” was derived from the word “houris”? 😕
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### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/19 "2001-10-04T17:11:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Anthracite \*
> Are you whooshing me, perhaps? I thought that the word “whore” was derived from the word “houris”? 😕
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.
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### Author:  [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2001, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-72-virgin-thing-for-suicide-bombers-when-they-die-in-the-koran/85259/20 "2001-10-04T18:07:28Z")
JRDelirious…
> [@](#):
>
> 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?
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).
A link to the thread over at Fathom…
[http://fff.fathom.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000643.html](http://fff.fathom.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000643.html)
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