A faith with many faces: Islam is monotheistic, but as a religion it never has been monolithic. Theological, ethnic, historical and political divisions have divided Muslims for centuries

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 19, 2001 | by David R. Sands

"It's where the payoff comes," says Barbara Stowasser, an Islamics professor at Georgetown University. "Every deed, good or bad, will come out in a balance sheet in the end and that balance sheet will decide on whether one is admitted to the garden or thrown into the fire. It's a cool and green and delightful place. What makes it so dear is that believers know they are in the presence of God."

The conception of an Islamic heaven is part of the popular culture of the East. When Sheik Ismail Aal Ghadwan recently spoke about a martyr's reward on Palestinian TV, he described a widely perceived belief. "The martyr, if he meets Allah, is forgiven with the first drop of blood," he said. "He is saved from the torments of the grave; he sees his place in paradise; he is saved from the great horror [of the day of judgment], he is given 72 black-eyed women, he vouches for 70 of his family to be accepted to paradise; he is crowned with the crown of glory, whose precious stone is better than all of this world and what is in it."

The Koran teaches paradise automatically awaits someone who dies defending Islam. While suicide is wrong, the bombers are considered martyrs, not suicides. In a well-publicized terrorist-training-camp video aired by several news organizations, Osama bin Laden speaks of the benefits of an early death. "The love of this world is wrong," he says. "You should love the other world; you should not be afraid to die, because to die in the right cause and go to the other world, that's praiseworthy."

The "other world," according to the Koran, has the virtuous reclining on thrones, green cushions or carpets, attended by "companions" with "beautiful, big and lustrous eyes," according to Sura (Chapter) 52. These buxom companions do not sleep, get pregnant, menstruate, spit, blow their noses or defecate. Seventy of them are promised as a reward to the faithful Muslim, who also gets to keep all of his earthly wives.

Stowasser questions whether the Koran promises unlimited sex, noting theologians debate the matter, as "there is an emphasis on families being reunited." Women will get their due too, she adds, as Sura 52 mentions "youths handsome as pearls," who will serve the righteous.

Muslims have not specifically addressed what happens to women and children after they die, although the women apparently are promised a place in paradise with their husbands, according to Yvonne Haddad and Jane Smith, coauthors of the 1981 book The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. However, when the prophet Mohammed received a vision of hell, most of the inhabitants were women. The chief reason: ungratefulness to their husbands.

Taha Jaber Alalwani, president of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Va., says carnal delights are more appealing to Muslims than a Christian heaven, where Jesus specifically said believers would not marry. "The concept of the hereafter is very different," explains Alalwani. "We will stay human beings. You will never lose anything from what you have now. You will find everything you like there, and everything you want, you'll have immediately.