Islam’s Borrowed Paradise

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The Qur’an’s descriptions of paradise are many and vivid. One says: “Indeed, Allah will cause those who believe and do good works to enter gardens under which rivers flow, in which they will be allowed armlets of gold, and pearls, and their clothing there will be silk.” (22:23) The Qur’an frequently attempts to tantalize the believer by repeating these descriptions: “Indeed, those who kept their duty will be in a secured place. Amid gardens and water springs, clothed in silk and silk embroidery, facing one another.” (44:53). The believers are frequently reminded that paradise consists of “gardens under which rivers flow, in which they will be safe for ever.” (3:198; cf. 3:136; 13:35; 15:45; 22:23).

The blessed will be “reclining on green cushions and fair carpets.” (55:76) The “single-minded slaves of Allah” will enjoy “fruits” as they are “honored in the gardens of delight, on couches facing one another.” (37:40, 42-44). They will sit on “lined couches” (56:15), which will apparently be situated in a garden: “Enter the garden, you and your wives, to be made glad. In it trays of gold and goblets are brought around, and in it is everything that souls desire and eyes find sweet. And you are immortal in it. This is the garden which you are made to inherit because of what you used to do. In it there is plenty of fruit for you, from which to eat.” (43:70-73).

In this garden, there is also “fruit, the date-palm and pomegranate.” (55:68). In fact, “there is every kind of fruit in it for them.” (47:15) In paradise, those who have pleased Allah will also enjoy chicken and turkey: “And fruit that they prefer and flesh of fowls that they desire.” (56:21).

In it are “two abundant springs” (55:66), along with “rivers of fresh water, and rivers of milk of which the flavor does not change, and rivers of wine that is delicious to the drinkers, and rivers of pure honey.” (47:15). The blessed will enjoy “a cup from a gushing spring” that “is brought around for them, white, delicious to the drinkers, in it there is no harm, nor are they made intoxicated by it.” (37:45-47).

“Reclining in it on couches,” the denizens of paradise “will find there neither sun nor bitter cold. Its shade is close upon them and its clustered fruits bow down.” (76:13-14). They will drink their delicious drinks from goblets of silver — no, goblets of crystal — no, goblets that are both silver and crystal: “Goblets of silver are brought around for them, and goblets of crystal. Crystal but silver, which they have measured to the measure.” (76:15-16)

The food and comforts never run out: “A description of the garden which is promised to those who keep their duty, under it rivers flow, its food is everlasting, and its shade, this is the reward of those who keep their duty, while the reward of unbelievers is the fire.” (13:35).

And above all, of course, there will be “large-breasted women of equal age” (78:33): “those of modest gaze, with lovely eyes,” (37:48) “houris with wide, lovely eyes,” (44:54) “like the ruby and the coral-stone,” (55:58) to whom the blessed will be “married.” (52:20) These women will be “those of modest gaze, whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them.” (55:56) Allah “made them virgins,” (56:36) and according to Islamic tradition, virgins they would remain forever.

Also, “there go around them, waiting on them, servant boys of their own, as if they were hidden pearls.” (52:24), “immortal boys” (56:17). “There wait on them immortal youths, whom, when you see them, you would take them for scattered pearls.” (76:19)

None of this can be found in the Jewish or Christian scriptures, but it is in the writings of the Zoroastrians of Persia, who were a considerable presence in the areas around the Persian Empire before the advent of Islam. According to historian W. St. Clair Tisdall, who did pioneering work on these questions in his monograph “The Sources of Islam,” which he later expanded into a book, and in his other writings, “the books of the Zoroastrians and Hindus…bear the most extraordinary likeness to what we find in the Koran and Hadith. Thus in Paradise we are told of ‘houris having fine black eyes,’ and again of ‘houris with large black eyes, resembling pearls hidden in their shells.’…The name houry too is derived from an Avesta or Pehlavi Source, as well as jinn for genii, and bihisht (Paradise), signifying in Avestic ‘the better land.’ We also have very similar tales in the old Hindu writings, of heavenly regions with their boys and girls resembling the houris and ghilman of the Koran.” 

Thus even the most renowned and widely discussed aspect of Islamic theology, aside from jihad, is taken from elsewhere, after the manner of Islam’s tendency to appropriate the holy sites and revered figures of other religions.