THE TWENTY-EIGHTH WORD

 

 

Answers to Questions about Paradise

 

 

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Give glad tidings to those who believe and do good deeds. For them are Gardens underneath which rivers flow. Every time they are provided with fruit thereof, they say: “This is what we were provided with before,” and it is given to them in resemblance. There are pure spouses for them, and they shall abide there forever. (2:25)

 

Below are brief answers to questions about Paradise, which is everlasting. The Qur’anic descriptions, which are more beautiful than Paradise, more delightful than its houris, and sweeter than its springs’ pleasant water, leave nothing to be added. We shall point out some steps so that such brilliant, eternal, elevated, and beautiful verses can be understood easily. We also shall explain some fine points, resembling flowers from that Qur’anic paradise, through five significant questions and answers.

 

Paradise is the means of all spiritual and bodily pleasures

 

QUESTION: What does the defective, changing, unstable, and pain-stricken body have to do with eternity and Paradise? The spirit’s elevated pleasures must be enough. Why should a bodily resurrection take place for bodily pleasures?

ANSWER: Soil, despite its darkness and density when compared to water, air, and light, is the means and source of all works of Divine art. Therefore it is somehow superior in meaning over other elements. Your selfhood, despite its density and due to its being comprehensive and provided it is purified, gains some kind of superiority over your other senses and faculties. Likewise, your body is a most comprehensive and rich mirror for the Divine Names’ manifestations, and has been equipped with instruments to weigh and measure the contents of all Divine treasuries. For example, if the tongue’s sense of taste were not the origin of as many measures as the varieties of food and drink, it could not experience, recognize, or measure them. Furthermore, your body also contains the instruments needed to experience and recognize most of the Divine Names’ manifestations, as well as the faculties for experiencing the most various and infinitely different pleasures.

The universe’s conduct and humanity’s comprehensive nature show that the Maker of the universe wants to make known all His Mercy’s treasuries and all His Names’ manifestations, and to make us experience all His bounties by means of the universe. Given this, as the World of Eternal Happiness is a mighty pool into which the flood of the universe flows, a vast exhibition of what the loom of the universe produces, and the everlasting store of crops produced in the field of this (material) world, it will resemble the universe to some degree. The All-Wise Maker, the All-Compassionate Just One, will give pleasures particular to each bodily organ as wages for their duty, service, and worship. To think otherwise would be contrary to His Wisdom, Justice, and Compassion.

QUESTION: A living body is in a state of formation and deformation, and so is subject to disintegration and is non-eternal. Eating and drinking perpetuate the individual; sexual relations perpetuate the species. These are fundamental to life in this world, but are irrelevant and unnecessary in the World of Eternity. Given this, why have they been included among Paradise’s greatest pleasures?

ANSWER: A living body declines and dies because the balance between what it needs to maintain and takes in is disturbed. From childhood until the age of physical maturity, it takes in more than it lets out and grows healthier. Afterwards, it usually cannot meet its needs in a balanced way. Either it takes in more than what it needs and so become fat, or takes in less than it needs and so becomes thin. This causes the balance to be destroyed and, in normal circumstances, finally leads to death. In the World of Eternity, however, the body’s particles remain constant and are immune to disintegration and re-formation. In other words, this balance remains constant.43

Like moving in perpetual cycles, a living body gains eternity together with the constant operation of the factory of bodily life for pleasure. In this world, eating, drinking, and marital sexual relations arise from a need and perform a function. Thus a great variety of excellent (and superior) pleasures are ingrained in them as immediate wages for the functions performed. In this world of ailments, eating and marriage lead to many wonderful and various pleasures. Thus Paradise, the Realm of Happiness and Pleasure, must contain these pleasures in their most elevated form. Adding to them otherworldly wages (as pleasures) for the duties performed in the world by them and the need felt for them here in the form of a pleasant and otherworldly appetite, they will be transformed into an all-encompassing, living source of pleasure that is appropriate to Paradise and eternity.

According to: The life of this world is but a pastime and a game, but the Abode of the Hereafter— it is all living indeed (29:64), all lifeless and unconscious substances and objects in this world are living and conscious in the other world. Like people and animals here, trees and stones there will understand and obey commands. If you tell a tree to bring you such-and-such a fruit, it will do so. If you tell a stone to come, it will come. Since stones and trees will assume such an elevated form, it will be necessary for eating, drinking, and marital relations to assume a form that is superior to their worldly forms to the same degree as Paradise is superior to this world. This includes preserving their bodily realities.

QUESTION: A Tradition states that “a person is with the one he or she loves,” and so friends will be together in Paradise. Thus a simple Bedouin who feels a deep love for God’s Messenger in one minute of companionship with him should be together with him in Paradise. But how can a simple nomad’s illumination and reward cause him to share the same place with God’s Messenger, whose illumination and reward are limitless?

ANSWER: I shall point to this elevated truth by a comparison. A magnificent person prepared a vast banquet and a richly adorned event in an extremely beautiful and splendid garden. It included all delicious foods that taste can experience, all beautiful things that please sight, all wonders that amuse the imagination, and so on. Everything that would gratify and please the external and inner senses was present. Two friends went to the banquet and sat at a table in the same pavilion. One had only limited taste and so received little pleasure. His weak sight and inability to smell prevented him from understanding the wonderful arts or comprehending the marvels. He could benefit only to the degree of his capacity, which was miniscule. But the other person had developed his external and internal senses, intellect, heart, and all faculties and feelings to the utmost degree. Therefore he could perceive, experience, and derive pleasure from all subtleties, beauties, marvels, and fine things in that exquisite garden.

This is how it is in our confused, painful, and narrow world. There is an infinite distance between the greatest and the least, who exist side by side in Paradise, the Abode of Happiness and Eternity. While friends are together, it is more fitting that each receives his or her share from the table of the Most Merciful of the Merciful according to the degree of his or her ability. Even though they are in different Paradises or on different “floors” of Paradise, they will be able to meet, for Paradise’s eight levels are one above the other and share the same roof—the Supreme Throne of God.

Suppose there are walled circles around a conical mountain, one within the other and one above the other, each one facing another, from its foot to the summit. This does not prevent each one from seeing the sun. (Indeed, various narrations or Traditions indicate that the levels or floors of Paradise are somewhat like this.)

QUESTION: Prophetic Traditions say: “Houris are clothed in 70 garments (one over the other), yet the marrow of their leg-bones may be seen.” What does this mean? What sort of beauty is this?

ANSWER: This Tradition has a fine meaning and a lovely beauty. In this world, which is ugly, lifeless, and for the most part just a covering, it is sufficient as long as beauty and loveliness appear to the eye as beautiful and until too much familiarity conceals it. In Paradise, which is beautiful, living, brilliant, and entirely essence or kernel without covering, like the eye, all our senses and faculties will want to receive their different pleasures from houris and from the women coming from this world, who will be even more beautiful than houris. This Tradition indicates that from the beauty of the top garment to the marrow in the bone, each will be the means of pleasure for a sense and faculty.

It also points out that the houris’ adornment, physical and spiritual beauty and charm, will please, satisfy, and gratify all the yearnings of our senses, feelings, powers, and faculties for beauty, and their great fondness for pleasure and adornment. Clothed in 70 sorts of adornment of Paradise in such a way that one does not conceal another, houris display more than 70 sorts of bodily and spiritual beauty and elegance, and thereby demonstrate the truth contained in: In it (Paradise) is whatever the souls desire and the eyes delight in (43:71).44

This Tradition also points out that since Paradise contains no unnecessary, peeled, or shelled waste matter with sediment, its inhabitants will not excrete waste after eating and drinking. In this world, trees, the most ordinary of living beings, do not excrete despite taking in much nourishment. So why should Paradise’s inhabitants, the highest category of life, excrete waste?

QUESTION: Some Prophetic Traditions say that some inhabitants of Paradise will be given a place as large as the world, and that hundreds of thousands of palaces and houris will be granted to them. What is the reason for this, and why and how does one person need all these things?

ANSWER: If you were only a solid object, a vegetable creature consisting of a stomach, or only had a limited, heavy, simple, and transient corporal or animal body, you would not own or deserve so many palaces or houris. But you are a comprehensive miracle of Divine Power. If you ruled this world and used all of its wealth and pleasure to satisfy your undeveloped senses’ and faculties’ needs, you still could not satisfy your greed during your brief life. However, if you have an infinite capacity in an eternal abode of happiness, and if you knock on the door of infinite Mercy in the tongue of infinite need, you will receive the Divine bounties described in such Traditions. We shall present a comparison to illustrate this elevated truth.

Like this valley garden, each vineyard and garden in Barla has a different owner.45 Each bird, sparrow, or honey-bee, which has only a handful of grain, may say: “All of Barla’s vineyards and gardens are my places of recreation.” Each may possess Barla and include it in its property. The fact that others share it does not negate its rule. A truly human person may say: “My Creator made the world a home for me, with the sun as its chief lamp and the stars as its electric lights. Earth is my cradle spread with flowered carpets,” and then thanks God. This conclusion is not negated because other creatures live in this “house.” On the contrary, the creatures adorn this home and are like its decorations. If, on account of being human, you or even a bird were to claim the right of control over such a vast area in this narrow, brief world and to receive such a vast bounty, why should you consider it unlikely that you will own property stretching for 500 years in a broad, eternal abode of happiness?46

Just as the sun is present here in many mirrors simultaneously, a spiritually enlightened being may be present in many places at the same time, as discussed in The Sixteenth Word. For example, Gabriel can be on 1,000 stars while being present at God’s Supreme Throne, in the Prophet’s presence, and in the Divine Presence. Prophet Muhammad can meet with most of the devoted, God-conscious members of his community in the Place of Gathering after the Resurrection, just as he can appear in many places and to numerous saintly people in this world simultaneously. A group of saints (abdal: substitutes) can appear in many places at the same moment. Ordinary people sometimes can do as much as a year’s work in a minute while dreaming or having a vision of it, and everyone can be in contact with and concerned with many places at the same time in heart, in spirit, and in imagination. Such things are well-known and witnessed.

Given this, the inhabitants of Paradise (which is of light, unrestricted, broad, and eternal) will have bodies with the spirit’s strength and lightness and the imagination’s swiftness. They will be able to be in countless places simultaneously, talk with innumerable houris, and receive pleasure in an infinite number of ways. This is fitting for that eternal Paradise and infinite Mercy, and the Truthful Reporter says that this is the reality and the truth. But such truths cannot be weighed on the scales of our tiny minds.

 

Glory be to You. We have no knowledge save only what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, All-Wise.

 

O Lord, do not call us to account if we forget or fall into error. O God, bestow blessings on Your beloved, who opened the doors of Paradise through being beloved by You, and through his prayers, and whose community You enabled to open those doors through calling Your blessings on him. On him be blessings and peace. O God, let us enter Paradise among the pure, righteous ones through the intercession of Your chosen beloved. Amin.

 

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

43 In this world, human and animal bodies are like guesthouses, barracks, or schools for atoms. Lifeless atoms enter them, become worthy of being atoms for the eternal world, and then leave them. In the Hereafter, however, according to: The Abode of the Hereafter—it is all living indeed (29:64), the light of life encompasses everything. There is no need for its atoms to make the same journey and undergo the same training as atoms in this world must do.

44 The greatest blessing in Paradise is obtaining God’s approval and good pleasure and, as implied by some verses and explicitly stated in some Traditions, seeing God beyond all concepts of quality and quantity. However, since such purely spiritual blessings are concerned rather with the élite of the believers, the Qur’an usually mentions the blessings of Paradise as if they were purely bodily pleasures. People are not composed of only the spirit, but are tripartite beings composed of a spirit, carnal soul, and flesh (the physical body). Since believers’ bodies and carnal souls serve them in the world, have to endure some hardships, and are deprived of some of the worldly pleasures to be disciplined and trained, each body will be rewarded with the pleasures particular to them. However, it must not be thought that those pleasures are purely corporeal. The spiritual contentment they will give is greater than the corporeal satisfaction. For example, every person needs a friend, a companion. What most satisfies a person’s human needs is having an intimate life companion with whom to share love, joy, and grief. Since the kindest and most compassionate and generous of hearts is the heart of a woman, the Qur’an mentions women as among the greatest blessings of Paradise for men, rather than vice versa. That is, in addition to the sensual pleasure she provides, the spiritual pleasure she can give to her spouse through such elevated feelings as compassion, love, and being a life-companion is greater than a man can give her. This does not mean that women in Paradise will be left without companions. The pleasure coming from mutual helping, sharing the joy and grief of one another and companionship, and that provided by love, affection, and intimacy, is much greater that the bodily pleasures men and women supply for each other. Those defeated by bodily pleasures and unaware of the spiritual pleasures included in them may see Paradise—mistakenly—as a realm of sensual enjoyment. (Tr.)

45 This garden in Barla belongs to Süleyman, who served this poor one with perfect loyalty for 8 years, where this Word was written in 1 or 2 hours.

46 In classical jurisprudential books, a day’s distance is about 30 km (about 18.6 miles). (Tr.)