Jahannam
In Islam, Jahannam 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 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 "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. 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, 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.
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, and to ask questions, much like a sentient being.
Etymology, other names and accounts
In the Hebrew Bible, Gei-Hinnom or Gei-ben-Hinnom, the "Valley 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". 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. 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.
Other names for Jahannam include "the fire", "blazing fire", "that which breaks to pieces", "the abyss", "the blaze", and "place of burning" , 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 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, allegedly haunted by the souls of the wicked, was the entrance to the underworld. Others considered the entrance in the valley of Hinnom. In a Persian work, the entry to hell is located in a gorge called Wadi Jahannam.
Qur'anic descriptions
According to Einar Thomassen, much of how Muslims picture and think about Jahannam comes from the Qur'an. He found nearly 500 references to Jahannam in it, using a variety of names. The following is an example of the Qur'anic verses about Hell:File:Copenhagen, Davids Samling Inventarnummer 14-2014 fol. 1r Malik and Jibril open the gates of hell for Muhammad.jpg|thumb|Muhammad requests Maalik to show him Hell during his heavenly journey. Miniature from "The David Collection Copenhagen". The native authorities derived the name from mlk, meaning to possess, rule over. This root may have influenced the form, but the source is doubtless the Biblical Moloch located in Gehenna.
Among the different terms and phrases mentioned above that refer to Hell in the Qur'an, Fire is used 125 times, Hell 77 times, and Blazing Fire 26 times, or 23 by another count. The description of Jahannam as a place of blazing fire appears in almost every verse in the Qur'an describing Hell.
One collection of descriptions of Hell found in the Qur'an include "rather specific indications of the tortures of the Fire": flames that crackle and roar; fierce, boiling waters, scorching wind, and black smoke, roaring and boiling as if it would burst with rage. Hell is described as being located below Paradise,
having seven gates and "for every gate there shall be a specific party" of sinners. The Qur'an also mentions wrongdoers having "degrees according to their deeds", ; and of there being "seven heavens ˹in layers˺, and likewise for the earth",. The one mention of levels of hell is that hypocrites will be found in its very bottom.
Disbelievers; According to Thomassen, those specifically mentioned in the Qur'an as being punished in Hell are "most typically" disbelievers. These include people who lived during Muhammad's time, the polytheists, or enemies of Muhammad who worshiped idols, and the "losers", or enemies of Muhammad who died in war against him, as well as broad categories of sinners: the apostates, hypocrites, self-content, polytheists, and those who do not believe in certain key doctrines of Islam: those who deny the divine origin of the Qur'an or the coming of Judgement Day.
Committers of major sins; In addition are those who have committed serious criminal offenses against other human beings: the murder of a believer, usury, devouring the property of an orphan, and slander, particularly of a chaste woman.
Biblical and historical individuals; Some prominent people mentioned in hadith and the Qur'an as suffering in Hell or destined to suffer there are: Pharaoh, the wives of Noah and Lot, and Abu Lahab and his wife, who were contemporaries and enemies of Muhammad.
Punishments
The punishments of Hell described in the Qur'an tend to revolve around "skin sensation and digestion".Its wretched inhabitants sigh and wail, their scorched skins are constantly exchanged for new ones so that they can taste the torment anew, drink festering water and though death appears on all sides they cannot die. They are linked together in chains of 70 cubits, wearing pitch for clothing and fire on their faces have boiling water that will be poured over their heads, melting their insides as well as their skins, and hooks of iron to drag them back if they should try to escape, and their remorseful admissions of wrongdoing and pleading for forgiveness are in vain.
Hell's resemblance to a prison is strong. Inmates have chains around their necks, are "tethered" by hooks of iron, and are guarded by "merciless angels".
Its inmates will be thirsty and hungry "constantly". Their fluids will include boiling water, melted brass, and/or be bitterly cold, "unclean, full of pus".
In addition to fire, it has three different unique sources of food:
- Ḍari, a dry desert plant that is full of thorns and fails to relieve hunger or sustain a person ;
- Ghislin, which is only mentioned once ;
- Heads of devils hanging from the tree of Zaqqum that "springs out of the bottom of Hell".
File:Copenhagen, Davids Samling Inventarnummer 14-2014 fol. 1v Muhammad meeting the tree Zaqqum.jpg|thumb|216x216px|A depiction of Muhammad visiting the inmates of Jahannam being tormented by the guardian angels of Hell, and showing the tree Zaqqum with the heads of devils; miniature from "The David Collection".
In Hadith
There are "scores" of narrations or "short narratives traced back to the Prophet or his Companions" from "the third/ninth century onwards", that "greatly elaborate" on the Quranic image of hell.Organization, size, and guards
Similarly to how the Qur'an speaks of the seven gates of Hell, "relatively early" narrations attest that Hell has seven levels. This interpretation became "widespread" in Islam. The bridge over Hell that all resurrected souls must cross is mentioned in several narrations.Some hadith describe the size of hell as enormous. It is so deep that if a stone were thrown into it, it would fall for 70 years before reaching the bottom. Another states that the breadth of each of Hell's walls is equivalent to a distance covered by a walking journey of 40 years. According to another source it takes "500 years" to get from one of its levels to another.
Traditions often describe this in multiples of seven: hell has seventy thousand valleys, each with "seventy thousand ravines, inhabited by seventy thousand serpents and scorpions".
According to one hadith, hell will be vastly more populous than Paradise. Out of every one thousand people entering into the afterlife, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them will end up in the fire.
Malik in Hadith quotes Muhammad as saying that the "fire of the children of Adam which they kindle is a seventieth part of the fire of Jahannam." He also describes that fire as "blacker than tar".
In book 87 Hadith 155, "Interpretation of Dreams" of Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad is reported to have talked of angels guarding hell, each with "a mace of iron", and describes Jahannam as a place
"built inside like a well and it had side posts like those of a well, and beside each post there was an angel carrying an iron mace. I saw therein many people hanging upside down with iron chains, and I recognized therein some men from the Quraish".