Jahannam

Timeline

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, "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

Some Muslims believe that hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others. This combines in Jahannam two concepts: an eternal hell, and a place (an "outer level" of hell was sometimes called al-barrāniyya), resembling the Christian Catholic idea of purgatory.

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". In modern times Shia cleric Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari argues against the idea that hell will not last for eternity.

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 hell 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 that she does not worship out of fear of hell or desire of paradise, but out of love.

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.

Non-Sunni schools

Twelver Shia

According to Islamic scholars (such as Ayatullah Mahdi Hadavi Tehrani and Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari) works on a major Shia Islam website, al-Islam.org, some unbelievers go to hell, but unbelievers known as ‘Jahil-e-Qasir’ (lit. ‘inculpable ignorant’), "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 "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 Qur`an 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 and 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. They believe "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 hell 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).

Doubts and criticisms

In modern times a number of questions have been raised and replies made, about how just or suited to divinity the Islamic doctrine of hell, or at least the traditional doctrine, is. Among them are:

• the seeming relish with which the Quran and/or commentators detail "the torture and the sufferings awaiting the sinners", the "boiling water, running sores, peeling skin, burning flesh, dissolving bowels, and crushing of skulls with iron maces"; what Christian Lange describes as indulging in "phantasies of violence and pain" which are "often shockingly violent, and frequently obscene"; Thomassen thinks shows an "almost sadistic delight"; and ibn Warraq finds out of character for a creator who begins all but two of the chapters of His holy book with the statement that God is merciful and compassionate.

Replies include that hell serves as deterrence. Fear of hell's horror will strengthen the will of the morally weak to obey God and to turn away from the temptations of sinful pleasure and the pollution of unbelief; that the wholesome fear of God's "just punishments ... grounded in religious faith" is very different than "coercion and force" (Mujtaba Musavi Lari). God created Paradise and Hell because "the people should worship their Lord, desiring His reward and fearing of His torment." God being "the Wisest of the judges", knows that his creations "love security and benefits and hate misery and torture" (Islamweb).

• that the gruesome punishments of hell last for eternity, while the sins were committed over (some part) of a lifetime of a few decades. Antony Flew wonders if the "infinite punishment" of hell is out of proportion to the "finite offenses" of the damned.

Shia cleric Mujtaba Musavi Lari acknowledges that this "presents a problem for many people", and offers a number of arguments: He notes that God's "essence is utterly pure of any trace of injustice", and reminds readers that "utter justice prevails in God's judging of men", with even small amounts of good being weighed in the balance; he quotes Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq that eternal punishment is appropriate because of the intention of the sinners was "to persist in sin" as long as they lived and if they had been "made immortal in this world" they would have kept on sinning indefinitely; and furthermore their sins may have long lasting consequences, and/or lead other humans "to the wrong path", spreading sin all over.

• the standard doctrine that the eternal reward for non-believers is hell, "irrespective of who they were and what they did." E. Thomassen writes that while the traditional idea that hell is punishment for unbelievers and Paradise the reward for Muslims plays "an important role in the construction and maintenance" of Muslim religious identity, it has "become increasingly challenged" by the "common humanitarian values" of global society. (One ex-Muslim – "Abu Lahab"—writing in The Guardian Editor press review, felt he was "forced out of Islam" because he could not accept the idea of eternal punishment of torture for non-Muslims. "I found it hard to understand why every non-believer would end up" in hell, no matter how kind and good they may have been.)

Conservative scholars (Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid and his subordinates) emphasize Islamic doctrine in the judging of whether someone goes to Paradise or Hell: "the point is not whether their morals are good, rather the point is whether they submit to Allaah ... and obey his commands." In answering an audience question, well-known preacher Zakir Naik compares the consigning to hell of otherwise righteous non-Muslims (like Mother Teresa), to giving a failing grade/mark to a student who scores 99 out of 100 in five of the six subjects they must pass, but fails one subject (comparing this to failing iman, i.e. Islamic faith). Jonathan Brown concludes an examination of the matter by saying "anxiety over the fate" of human beings after death (whether Muslims or non-Muslims) "is best assuaged by trusting in God's total justice and immense mercy". Finally, some, (such as Gabriel Said Reynolds) simply deny the traditional doctrine, arguing God will "find goodness, even holiness, in those who do not practice Islam.".

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali categorized non-Muslims into three categories:

1. People who never heard of the message, who live in far away lands, such as the Byzantines ("Romans"). These will be forgiven.

2. People who were exposed to a distorted understanding of Islam and have no recourse to correct that information. These too will be forgiven.

3. People who heard of Islam because they live in neighboring lands and mix with Muslims. These have no hope of salvation.

He also wrote about non-Muslims who have heard a distorted message: "The name of Muhammad has indeed reached their ears, but they do not know his true description and his character. Instead, they heard from the time they were young that a deceitful liar named Muhammad claimed to be a prophet. As far as I am concerned, such people are [excused] like those who the call of Islam has not reached, for while they have heard of the Prophet's name, they heard the opposite of his true qualities. And hearing such things would never arouse one's desire to find out who he was."

Islamic scholars disagree on duration of Hell's punishment. The common view holds that Hell will continue to exist for an eternity with some inhabitants, while others hold that Hell exists to purify rather than inflict pain, and may even cease to exist after a while.

• that God literally "creates beings to fill hell with", punishing his creatures for actions beyond their power to control, as reflected in verses such as
  • "If We had so willed, We could have given every soul its guidance, but now My Word is realized—'I shall fill Hell with jinn and men together.'" (Q.32.32.)
  • "God misleads whom He will and whom He will He guides." (Q.14:4)

and the logical conclusion of a world where God is omnipotent, controlling even the behavior of human beings. In the words of verse Q.9:51,

• "By no means can anything befall us [his creatures] but what God has destined for us."

Michael Cook notes that "compassion is conspicuously absent" in these verses, and philosopher, political economist John Stuart Mill condemns the combination of predestination and hell as a "dreadful idealization of wickedness."

In reply the Hanafi fiqh fatwa site IslamQA states that predestination is one of those issues which God urges Muslims to "abstain from" speaking about "as much as possible". "We must believe in predestination, yet we cannot assume that our actions are entirely bound by it." Though "everyone's abode (for Jannat or Jahannam [i.e. for Paradise or Hell]) has been written", because God "knows everything we have done", are currently doing, or will do in the future, nonetheless God has still "given us the choice in everything" we do.

Based on Sunni traditions, God wrote everything that will happen (in all of his creation) on a tablet before creating the world. Thus it is asked: how can humans be punished for what God has determined they do. In this tradition, in Ashari thought, God created good and evil deeds, which humans decide upon—humans have their own possibility to choose, but God retains sovereignty of all possibilities. This still leaves the question of why God set out those people's lives (or the negative choice of deeds) which result in Hell, and why God made it possible to become evil. In Islamic thought, evil is considered to be movement away from good, and God created this possibility so that humans are able to recognize good. (In contrast, angels are unable to move away from good, therefore angels generally rank lower than humans as they have reached heaven because they lack the ability to perceive the world as humans do.)

Comparison with other religions

Christianity

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

Just as hell is often depicted as the seat of the devil in Christian culture (though not in the Bible itself), some Islamic scholars also 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, Christian evangelist Phil Parshall, who spent several decades observing and writing about Muslims in Asia, wrote 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

The religion of Zoroastrianism resembles Islam in not only having a hell and a Judgement Day, but also a bridge over hell (As-Sirāt in Islam, Chinvat Bridge in Zorastrianism) that all resurrected souls will pass over, and that those destined for hell will fall off of to land in hell.

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 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.