The Doctrine of Heaven (Paradise) Behind the Veil of Islam -- By: Raj Kripalani

Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 06:19 (Dec 2002)
Article: The Doctrine of Heaven (Paradise) Behind the Veil of Islam
Author: Raj Kripalani


The Doctrine of Heaven (Paradise)
Behind the Veil of Islam

Raj Kripalani

D. Min. candidate
Tyndale Theological Seminary

At best, the doctrine of heaven can be a source of inspiration, incentive and comfort. At its worst, the impetus to go to a particular heaven after death can be an effective tool for great evil, coercion and manipulation. Recent acts of terrorism have only too painfully revealed to us that if you can mesmerize a few radical extremists to believe in a certain heaven, you can get them to do anything. “In the 00’s, a decade known so far for its calamities, the question of what heaven is and who gets to go has taken on a new urgency. Suicide bombs and terrorists…often invoke heaven before they act and, afterward, the survivors invoke heaven to guide them forward.”3

And so visions of heaven divide people. The afterlife and our view of heaven are quite different among the different religions of the world, as we shall see in this Islamic concept of Paradise. “Muhammad’s conception of Paradise is well known to be materialistic and voluptuous; it is expressed in several surahs which belong to the first period of his preaching…all these descriptions are quite clearly drawn pictures; they are probably inspired by the art of painting. Muhammad or his unknown teachers must have seen Christian miniature or mosaics representing the gardens of Paradise and have interpreted the figures of angels as being those of young men or young women…Orthodox Muslim Theology, whose chief representatives are Ghazi and Ashari, has admitted sensual pleasures into Paradise,

though pointing out that they will only begin after the Resurrection.”4

Muhammad’s Famous Visit to Heaven

“As far as the hadith is concerned, we shall summarize here the main topics in the account of Anas b. Malik, as related by Al-Bukhari. Two angels visited the prophet while he was asleep in Al-hatim or al-Hajr. They split open His chest, took his heart out and washed it with the water of Zamzam, filling it with faith and wisdom. Then follows the night journey and the ascension of the prophet to heaven, where he saw Adam in the first heaven; Yahya and Isa in the second; Yusuf, son of Yaqub, in the third; Idris, the biblical Enoch in the fourth; Harun in the fifth; Musa in the sixth; and Ibrahim in the seventh. In the neighborhood of the Lote tree, the prophet was offered three cups of wine, milk and honey, of which he chose the milk.”5

Narrated Malik bin Sasaa:

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