Jahannam

Jahannam

A depiction of Muhammad visiting Jahannam; artwork from Miraj Nameh

In Islam, Jahannam (Arabic: جهنم) is the place of punishment for evildoers in the Akhirah / afterlife, or hell. This notion is an integral part of Islamic theology, and has occupied an important place in Muslim belief. The concept is often called by the proper name "Jahannam", but other names refer to hell and these are also often used as the names of different gates to hell. The term "Jahannam" itself is used not only for hell in general but (in one interpretation) for the uppermost layer of hell.

The importance of Hell in Islamic doctrine is that it is an essential element of the Day of Judgment, which is one of the six articles of faith In sunnism(belief in God, the angels, books, prophets, Day of Resurrection, and decree(which shia has disagreements with the last one)) "by which the Muslim faith is traditionally defined".

Punishment and suffering in hell, in mainstream Islam, is physical, psychological, and spiritual, and varies according to the sins of the condemned person. Its excruciating pain and horror, as described in the Qur'an, often parallels the pleasure and delights of Jannah (paradise). Muslims commonly believe that confinement to hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others, although there are disagreements about this view and Muslim scholars disagree over whether Hell itself will last for eternity (the majority view), or whether God's mercy will lead to its eventual elimination.

The common belief among Muslims holds that Jahannam coexists with the temporal world, just as Jannah does (rather than being created after Judgment Day). Hell is described physically in different ways in different sources within Islamic literature. It is enormous in size, and located below Paradise. It has seven levels, each one more severe than the one above it, but it is also said to be a huge pit over which the resurrected walk over the bridge of As-Sirāt. It is said to have mountains, rivers, valleys and "even oceans" filled with disgusting fluids; and also to be able to walk (controlled by reins), and to ask questions, much like a sentient being.

Etymology, other names and accounts

Jahannam

The Valley of Hinnom (or Gehenna), c. 1900. The former site of child-sacrifice and a dumping-ground for the bodies of executed criminals, Jeremiah prophesied that it would become a "valley of slaughter" and burial place; in later literature it thus became identified with a new idea of Hell as a place where the wicked would be punished.

In the Hebrew Bible, Gei-Hinnom or Gei-ben-Hinnom, the "Valley [of the Son] of Hinnom" is an accursed Valley in Jerusalem where child sacrifices took place. In the canonical Gospels, Jesus talks about Gehenna as a place "where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched" (Mark 9:48). In the apocryphal book of 4 Ezra, written around the 2nd century BCE, Gehinnom appears as a transcendental place of punishment. This change comes to completion in the Babylonian Talmud, written around 500 CE.

It can be thought that the narrative of Hell in Islam is largely shaped by the offerings of human sacrifices by passing it over fire or burning it to Molech, which the Torah describes as taking place in the Gehenna (Jeremiah 7; 32–35). While the Gehenna gives its name to Hell, the fire used for the offerings turns into Hellfire, and Molech turns into Malik, the guardian of Hell in the Qur'anic narrative. (Q.43:77)

Other names for Jahannam include "the fire" (النار‎, al-nar), "blazing fire" (جحيم‎, jaheem), "that which breaks to pieces" (حطمة‎ hutamah), "the abyss" (هاوية‎, haawiyah), "the blaze" (سعير‎, sa’eer), and "place of burning" (سقر‎ Saqar), which are also often used as the names of different gates to hell.

There are many traditions on the location of paradise and hell, but not all of them "are easily pictured or indeed mutually reconcilable". For example, some describe hell as in the lowest earth, while one scholar (Al-Majlisī) describes hell as "surrounding" the earth. Islamic scholars speculated on where the entrance to hell might be located. Some thought the sea was the top level, or that the sulphourus well in Hadramawt (in present-day Yemen), allegedly haunted by the souls of the wicked, was the entrance to the underworld. Others considered the entrance in the valley of Hinnom (surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem). In a Persian work, the entry to hell is located in a gorge called Wadi Jahannam (in present-day Afghanistan).

Timeline

Jahannam

Quranic verses suggest that Judgment Day, Paradise and Hell are not "conceived to lie" off in some indefinite future, but "immediately ahead; it is now, or almost there already".

It is also a common belief among Muslims that hell, like paradise, is not awaiting the destruction of earth and arrival of Judgment Day, but "coexists in time" with the temporal world, having already been created. The basis of this belief was the Quranic statement "hell has been prepared (uʿiddat) for the unbelievers" (Q.2:24), and also hadith reporting that Muhammad had seen the punishment of sinners in hell during his miraculous miraj journey on a winged creature.

Eternal or temporary

The common belief among Muslims (as indicated above) is that duration in hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others. This combines in Jahannam two concepts: an eternal hell (for unbelievers), and a place (an "outer level" of hell was sometimes called al-barrāniyya), resembling the Christian Catholic idea of purgatory (for believers eventually destined for heaven after punishment for their sins).

Several verses in the Quran mention the eternal nature of Hell or both Paradise and Hell, or that the damned will linger in hell for ages. Two verses in the Quran (6:128 and 11:107) emphasize that consignment to hell is horrible and eternal—but include the caveat "except as God (or your Lord) wills it", which some scholars considered an exemption from the eternity of hell, which suggests to some that Jahannam will be destroyed some day, so that its inhabitants may either be rehabilitated or cease to exist. The concept of hell's annihilation is referred to as fanāʾ al-nār. Thomassen writes that "several types of concerns" weigh "against the idea of an eternal hell in Islamic thought": belief in the mercy of God; resistance to the idea that Muslims—even great sinners—would "end up together with the disbelievers in the hereafter"; and resistance to the idea that "something other than God himself might have eternal existence".

The Ulama (Islamic scholars) disagree on this issue. According to Christian Lange, "the majority" of theologians agreed that Hell like Paradise "was eternal".

Ahmad ibn Hanbal argued the eternity of hell and paradise are proven by the Quran, although earths and heavens (sun, moon, stars) will perish. In modern times Shia cleric Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari argues against the idea that hell will not last for eternity.

According to many scholars who interpret verses that state "dwell therein unless thy Lord will it otherwise" eternality of hell is only depend on God's vast mercy. Jafar al sadiq the grandson of Muhammad Said the reason for that those who had decided in their intentions that they will continue denying the truth and doing wrong even if they remain forever in the worldly life they will face the eternal hell fire and those believers who had intention in their life to obey Allah they will get their intention to obey Allah as long as they remain in life will get the reward in the Paradise forever. It is also asserted in multiple hadith that majority of people will be released by mercy and purified.

for Muʿtazilis the eternity of paradise and hell posed a major problem, since they regard God as the only eternal entity. Egyptian Hanafi author al-Tahawi writes that God punishes sinners in proportions to their offense in accordance with his justice, afterwards release them in accordance with his mercy. Ibn Taymiyya (d.728/1328) also argued for a limited abode in hell, based on the Quran and God's attribute of mercy (in more recent times fanāʾ al-nār has been supported by Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1936), İzmirli Ismail Hakkı (d. 1946) Yūsuf al-Qarādāwī (d. 2022)).

How optimistic Muslims were about whether they and the rest of humanity would avoid hellfire, or at least long durations of it, varied considerably. The idea of the "demise of hell" (ibn Taymiyya, Yemenite ibn al-Wazir (d. 840/1436)) meant (or at least meant to these theologians) that God would provide for "universal salvation even for non-Muslims". At the other end of the theological "spectrum" were fearful "renunciants" such as al-Hasan al-Basri. Though Hasan was so faithful he was considered a "pious exemplar" of his age, he still felt great anxiety as to whether he would be among those fortunate enough to spend 1,000 years suffering in hell before being released to Jannah.

Doctrines and beliefs

Sufism

Many prominent Sufis preached "the centrality of the love of God", from which focus on eternal reward was a "distraction". Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya aka Rabia of Basra (died 801), is said to have proclaimed to passersby

"O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty".

Similarly, Bāyazīd Basṭāmī (d. 234/848) proclaimed the fire of "God's love" burns a thousand times more intensely than hellfire.

Others did not take literally the Quran's verses on Paradise and Hell as physical places where believers are rewarded with pleasure and sinners tortured with pain. According to ibn ʿArabī, Hell and Paradise are psychological states of the soul manifested after its separation from the body. He believed Hell and Paradise are only the distance or closeness from God, respectively, in the mind of resurrectant. The torments of Hell wrong-doers endure are actually their conception of their distance from God, created by their sinful indulgence in their earthly desires and the illusion of things other than God as existent. But distance from God is also only illusory, because everything other than God is an illusion, since "everything is a form of the degrees of the Divine Existence". So in fact, Hell and Paradise are just as real as the current world, which is unreal in comparison to God.

Many ideas attributed Ibn Arabi have been rejected by Wahhabis. For example, Ahmad ibn Idris debated in detail with the ex-Wahhabi Nasir al-Kubaybi about sins committed by him and his students, and deviations that are said to have been propagated by Ibn Arabi. For Ahmad ibn Idris, Nasir al-Kubaybi explained that no human except the Prophet is protected from sins, and he also said that individuals' actions are to be judged in line with Qur'an and Sunnah only, and regarding Ibn Arabi, he fiercely defended the stance that Ibn Arabi was a Muslim of sound faith and whatever contradicted this was in fact not from him.

Many other prominent Sufis too had more conventional attitudes, such as al-Ghazali, who warned Muslims,

"your coming unto it (hellfire) is certain, while your salvation therefrom is no more than conjecture. ... fill up your heart therefore with a dread of that destination."

Moreover, Abd Al-Aziz Al-Dabbagh gave precise details of the locations of the two abodes in terms of Islamic Cosmology, while noting that the ignorance of existence of the two abodes at present alone suffices to lead someone to Hell, and Shaykh Rifai attributed its bottom level to oppressors. Abdulqadir Jilani said that through the blessings of his students' association with him none of them were going to enter Hell, Abu Madyan Al-Ghawth in Hikam likened working for other than God to the past behavior of Hell's inhabitants.

Twelver Shia

According to a major Shia Islam website, al-Islam.org, Hellfire is the eternal destination of unbelievers, although another essay on the site states that there is a set of unbelievers known as ‘Jahil-e-Qasir’ (lit. ‘inculpable ignorant’), who "will attain salvation if they are truthful to their own religion" because the message of Islam either didn't reach them, or reached them in an incorrect form. For those Muslims "who have committed a certain number of lesser sins and offences, they shall either spend an appropriate amount of time in hellfire or receive the kindness and forgiveness of God". Al-Islam also states: "According to the Quran and ahadith, heaven and hell exist at present. However, they will become fully apparent and represented only in the Hereafter ...".

Isma'ili

Isma'ili authors (such as Abu Yaqub al-Sijistānī) believe resurrection, heaven and hell do not involve physical bodies, but what is spiritual. Suffering of hell came from failure to be enlightened by the teachings of the Isma'ili Imam, but such suffering does not require resurrection. According to one source, they do not believe hell will last for eternity, based on their interpretation of Quranic verse 11:106. Instead, they believe hell to be a possible station of the soul's journey to its perfection in afterlife.

Ibadis

According to Interfaith Alliance, Ibadis believe sinning Ibadis and all non-Ibadis are doomed to hell. According to Islamic studies professor Gavin Picken, Ibadis believe non-Ibadis and Ibadis who committed major sins without repenting will remain in hell forever.

Ahmadiyya

According to the Ahmadiyya movement (by way of their official website), the places of Paradise and Hell are actually images of man's own spiritual life during lifetime, hell is a manifestation of his sins. Contrary to the belief that sinners or at least unbelieving sinners will spend eternity in hell, "there are numerous passages in the Holy Quran showing that those in hell shall ultimately be taken out". Whereas the word "abad" used in the Quran has been translated as "eternity", it should be translated as "a long time", and the actual purpose of suffering in hell should not be thought of as punishment of sinners, but the purging of "the evil effects of their deeds done in this life" for the sinners "spiritual advancement". This is because in the afterlife, Muslims and Non-Muslims, even those "who never did any good deeds", will eventually be taken out of hell.

Modernism, postmodernism

According to Smith and Haddad, "The great majority of contemporary Muslim writers, ... choose not to discuss the afterlife at all". Islamic Modernists, according to Smith and Haddad, express a "kind of embarrassment with the elaborate traditional detail concerning life in the grave and in the abodes of recompense, called into question by modern rationalists". Consequently, most of "modern Muslim Theologians" either "silence the issue" or reaffirm "the traditional position that the reality of the afterlife must not be denied but that its exact nature remains unfathomable".

The beliefs of Pakistani modernist Muhammad Iqbal (died 1938), were similar to the Sufi "spiritual and internalized interpretations of hell" of ibn ʿArabī, and Rumi, seeing paradise and hell "primarily as metaphors for inner psychic" developments. Thus hellfire is actually a state of realization of one's failures as a human being", and not a supernatural subterranean realm. Egyptian modernist Muhammad ʿAbduh, thought it was sufficient to believe in the existence of an afterlife with rewards and punishment to be a true believer, even if you ignored "clear" (ẓāhir) hadith about hell.

Some postmodernists have found at least one sahih (authentic) hadith on hell unacceptable—the tradition of Muhammad stating, "most people in hell are women" has been explained as an attempt to "legitimate social control over women" (Smith and Haddad), or perpetuate "the moral, social, political, sectarian hierarchies" of medieval Islam (Lange).

Comparison with other religions

Bible

Some of the Quranic parables describing the sufferings in hell resemble those of the Christian New Testament.

<table><thead><tr><th>Three bible verses from Luke:</th><th>... Resemble Quranic verses:</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>"And he gave a cry and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may put the end of his finger in water and put it on my tongue, for I am cruelly burning in this flame." Luke 16:24</td><td>"And the companions of the Fire will call to the companions of Paradise, "Pour upon us some water or from whatever Allah has provided you." They will say, "Indeed, Allah has forbidden them both to the disbelievers." 7:50</td></tr><tr><td>"And in addition, there is a deep division fixed between us and you, so that those who might go from here to you are not able to do so, and no one may come from you to us." Luke 16:26</td><td>"And between them will be a partition, and on [its] elevations are men who recognize all by their mark. And they call out to the companions of Paradise, "Peace be upon you." They have not [yet] entered it, but they long intensely." 7:46</td></tr><tr><td>"Unhappy are you who are full of food now: for you will be in need. Unhappy are you who are laughing now: for you will be crying in sorrow." Luke 6:25</td><td>"So let them laugh a little and [then] weep much as recompense for what they used to earn." 9:82</td></tr></tbody></table>

The Book of Revelation describes a "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death", which most Christians believe to be a description of Hell, comparable to Jahannam as "the fire". While the Quran describes Jahannam as having seven levels, each for different sins, the Bible (as regards the issue of levels), speaks of the "lowest Hell (Sheol)". It also refers to a "bottomless pit", comparable to the lowest layer of Jahannam in most Sunni traditions.

Christian popular culture

Satan is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 34.

Just as Hell is often depicted as the seat of the devil in Christian culture (though not in the bible itself), so too some Islamic scholars describe it that way.

Al-Tha'alibis (961–1038) in his Qisas Al-Anbiya and Al-Suyutis Al-Hay'a as-samya fi l-hay'a as-sunmya describes Iblis as chained to the bottom of hell, commanding his hosts of demons from there. Also in the poetry of Al-Ma'arri, Iblis is the king of Jahannam. These depictions of Iblis as lord of hell simultaneously chained at its very bottom influenced Dante's representation of Lucifer and gave rise to the Christian depiction of hell as the seat of the devil. Inferno by Dante also shares the Islamic idea of dividing hell into multiple "circles". According to the Divine Comedy, each layer corresponding to another sin, with Satan inside a frozen area at the very bottom. As with Christian popular understanding of hell, ʿKitāb al-ʿAẓama, a popular cultural work, describes hell as inhabited not only by the Zabaniyya (guarding angels), but also by devils (shayatin), dwelling in the fourth layer of hell and rising up from coffins to torture the sinners.

As evident from late Ottoman poetry, the notion of Iblis ruling hell remained in Islamic popular tradition until modern times. In one of Ğabdulla Tuqay's works, Iblis' current abode in hell is compared to working in factories during Industrial Revolution. When Iblis gets weary about Hell, he remembers his time in Heaven. According to Salafi shaikh Osama al-Qusi, Iblis scolds the inhabitants of hell from a minbar, how they could have listened to him, knowing it is his nature to deceive them.

Notably, Iblis' temporary rule over Jahannam depends always on God's power and hell is still a form of punishment for Iblis himself. ("We have appointed only ˹stern˺ angels as wardens of the Fire." according to Q.74:31) Einar Thomassen points out that Iblis is chained to the floor of hell as punishment, whereas Malik is head of the 19 angels who guard hell, indicating it is the angels who are in charge and not the devils.

Christian Liberalism

In modern times some Christians and Christian denominations (such as Universalism) have rejected the concept of hell as a place of suffering and torment for sinners on the grounds that it is incompatible with a loving God. There are also symbolic and more merciful interpretations of hell among Muslims. Muslims Mouhanad Khorchide and Faheem Younus write that since the Quran states that God has "prescribed to himself mercy", and "... for him whose scales (of good deeds) are light. Hell will be his mother," suffering in Jahannam is not a product of vengeance and punishment, but a temporary phenomenon as the sinner is "transformed" in the process of confronting the truth about themselves. The idea of annihilation of hell was already introduced earlier by traditionalistic scholars, such as Ibn Taimiyya. However, according to at least one source—Christian evangelist Phil Parshall, who spent several decades observing and writing about Muslims in Asia—this has not been the common view of Muslims; Parshall writes that he "never met a Muslim who has attempted to undercut the bluntness and severity of their doctrine of hell."

Judeo-Islamic sources

Arabic texts written by Jews in Judeo-Arabic script (particularly those which are identified with the Isra'iliyyat genre in the study of hadith) also feature descriptions of Jahannam (or Jahannahum). These seem to have been strongly influenced by the Islamic environment in which they were composed, and may be considered as holding many of the same concepts as those today identified with Islamic eschatology. A Judeo-Arabic version of a popular narrative known as The Story of the Skull (whose earliest version is attributed to Ka'ab al-Ahbar) offers a detailed picture of the concept of Jahannam. Here, Malak al-Mawt (the Angel of Death) and a number of sixty angels seize the soul of the dead and begin torturing him with fire and iron hooks. Two black angels named Nākir and Nakīr (identified with Munkar and Nakir in Islamic eschatology) strike the dead with a whip of fire and take him to the lowest level of Jahannam. Then, they order the Earth to swallow and crush the dead inside its womb, saying: "Seize him and take revenge, because he has stolen Allāh's wealth and worshipped others than Him". Following this, the dead is brought before the dais of God where a herald calls for throwing the dead into Jahannam. There he is put in shackles sixty cubits long and into a leather sackcloth full of snakes and scorpions.

The Judeo-Arabic legend in question explains that the dead is set free from the painful perogatory after twenty-four years. In a final quote alluding to Isaiah 58.8, the narrative states that "nothing will help Man on the last day except good and loving actions, deeds of giving charity to widows, orphans, the poor and the unfortunate."

Some Jewish sources such as Jerahmeel provide descriptive detail of hell-like places, divided into multiple levels; usually Sheol, which is translated as a grave or pit, is the place where humans descend upon death.

Zoroastrianism

Like Islam, Zoroastrianism, holds that on Judgement Day all resurrected souls will pass over a bridge over hell (As-Sirāt in Islam, Chinvat Bridge in Zoroastrianism), and those destined for hell will find it too narrow and fall below into their new abode.

Hinduism

In terms of a finite hell, as asserted by some Sufi thinkers, conceived as a circulation of beginning and reset, the cosmology resembles the Hindu notion of an eternal cosmic process of generation, decay, and destruction.

A detailed description of the journey of the soul and the punishments of Hell (Naraka) are detailed in the Garuda Purana.

Buddhism

Some descriptions of Jahannam resemble Buddhist descriptions of Naraka from Mahayana sutras in regard of destroying inhabitants of hell physically, while their consciousness still remains and after the body is destroyed, it will regenerate again, thus the punishment will repeat. However, according to Buddhist belief, beings in Hell have a limited lifespan, as with all beings trapped in the cycle of Samsara; they will ultimately exhaust their bad karma, experience death, and be reborn in a higher realm.