Jahannam

Islamic representation of hell

Jahannam ( Arabic جهنم, DMG ǧahannam ) is one of the names for hell in Islam . The Arabic word corresponds to the Hebrew Gehinnom . The opposite term is janna (paradise).

The jahannam is an otherworldly world in Islamic eschatology . There are numerous names for hell in the Koran . Jahannam appears in 109 places, but only takes second place in terms of frequency. Most often - about 125 times - "fire" appears ( nār /نار, e.g. B. Sura 4 : 56). Other names are saʿīr "glowing fire" (4, 10), al-ḥuṭama "the crusher" ( Sura 104 , 4), lazā "blazing fire" ( Sura 70:15 ), saqar "extreme heat" ( Sura 54 : 48 ), al-dschaḥīm ( sura 5 : 10), like “ jahannam ” derived from the Hebrew Gehinnom , and hāwiya “pit” ( sura 101 : 9).

Hell is thought of as a fiery abyss under a narrow bridge called As-Sirāt , which leads to heaven. All souls of the dead must cross this bridge, only the damned will fall into the fire if they are not redeemed by the grace of Allah. As with Christian hell, Islamic jahannam is shaped by hellfire. The gates of the Jahannam are guarded by Malik , to whom 19 angels are subordinate. In addition, the Qur'an contains an idea of hell as a kind of animal that howls and starts to boil (cf. Sura 67 : 7), and which bursts with rage and can be brought in (cf. Sura 89 : 23). Similar to purgatory, there should also be a possibility in the Jahannam to be cleansed of sins between death and the general day of resurrection (yaum al-qiyama) and, by the grace of Allah, to move into the Janna , paradise.

Traditional Sunni view

In Sunni Islam , Jahannam is basically divided into seven floors , analogous to heaven , starting from the seven gates of hell in sura 15:44. The sinners are assigned to the respective floor according to the severity of their offense, whereby the lower floors should always be worse than the higher ones. The ulamas disagree as to whether the stay in the Jahannam will last forever. Basically, the stay in Jahannam is limited only for Muslims and is used for cleaning. Whether non-Muslims escape the jahannam again is controversial (see: Janna in Islamic theology ).

A typical division of the Jahannam is as follows:

1) A fire for sinners among Muslims
2) An inferno for sinners among Christians
3) Provisional destination for sinners among the Jews
4) A burning fire for apostates
5) A place for witches and fortune tellers
6) An oven for the unbelievers
7) A bottomless abyss for the haughty and hypocrites who appear Muslim on the outside but are incredulous on the inside.

Another traditional subdivision lists them as follows:

1) The surface on which humans and jinn dwell.
2) The place of residence of the wind. The winds go from him.
3) On the third floor live beings whose faces resemble those of the children of Adam, but their mouths resemble dogs' snouts, and they have hooves like oxen and ears like goats.
4) On this floor is the sulfur stone for lighting up hell.
5) On the fifth floor, huge scorpions lurk for the unbelievers.
6) A dungeon in which the scrolls with the names of the souls to be tormented lie.
7) It's freezing cold on the seventh floor. At the bottom is Iblis , chained in the middle of the fallen angels. Sometimes he is released to restrain his demons .

In Sufism and Islamic mysticism

In the mystical conception of Islam, the Jahannam is an expression of the distance from Allah, because the greatest punishment is to be far from the beloved. The inmates of the Jahannam are therefore punished by their imprisonment in their own ego and the illusion of being separated from Allah.

View of the Ahmadiyya community

According to the Ahmadiyya community, the descriptions of heaven and hell are metaphors for mental states. In principle, every person comes back from hell regardless of their beliefs as soon as they have been cleansed of their sins and offenses. The punishments in hell are presented as a manifestation of one's offenses.

Literary mention

Through the dessert

In his book Through the Desert from 1892, Karl May had his Arab hero Hajji Halef Omar answer the question about the appearance and nature of the hell called Jehenna :

In the Jehenna burns the Nar, the eternal fire; there are brooks flowing there which stink so badly that the damned man cannot drink from them in spite of his fiery thirst, and there are terrible trees, among them the terrible tree Zakum (= Zaqqum ) , on whose branches devil's heads grow ... Yes .. .it is dreadful! The ruler of the Jehenna is the punishment angel Thabek. It has seven departments to which seven gates lead. In the Jehennem, the first division, the sinful Muslims must atone until they are cleansed; Ladha, the second division, is for the Christians, Hothama, the third division, for the Jews, Sair, the fourth, for the Sabians, Sakar, the fifth, for the magicians and fire-worshipers, and Gehim, the sixth, for all, who worship idols or fetishes. But Zaoviat, the seventh division, which is also called Derk Asfal, is the deepest and most terrible; it will accept all hypocrites. In all these divisions the damned are dragged by streams of fire by evil spirits, and in doing so they have to eat the devil's heads from the Zakum tree, which then bite and tear their entrails.

It should be noted that the writer obtained his information from written sources from the 18th and 19th centuries. Karl May first traveled to the Orient in 1899/1900.

swell

^ Afterlife , Hell in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , Third Edition.
^ Bernard Carra de Vaux in: Concise Dictionary of Islam. Leiden 1986, keyword DJAHANNAM
↑ Ursula Spuler-Stegemann : The 101 most important questions. Islam. CH Beck, 2007, p. 43.
↑ FE Peters : The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition. Volume II: The Words and Will of God. Princeton University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4008-2571-4 , p. 145. (English)
^ AF Klein: Religion of Islam. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-136-09954-0 , p. 92 (English, first published in 1906)
↑ Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Thaʻlabī: Islamic tales of prophets and men of God: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʼ or ʻArāʼis al-maǧālis. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-447-05266-X , p. 7.
^ Miguel Asin Palacios: Islam and the Divine Comedy. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-134-53650-4 , pp. 88 f. (English)
^ Rom Landau: The Philosophy of Ibn 'Arabi. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-02969-2 .
↑ Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Mehdi Razvi: Islam and Christianity in dialogue. Verlag Otto Lembeck, 2006, ISBN 3-87476-513-X , p. 69.
↑ Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad : Teachings of Islam: A discussion on the philosophy of spiritual development in Islam. Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, Lahore USA 2011, ISBN 978-1-934271-17-9 . (English)
↑ karl-may-gesellschaft.de

[1] Afterlife , Hell in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , Third Edition.

[2] Bernard Carra de Vaux in: Concise Dictionary of Islam. Leiden 1986, keyword DJAHANNAM

[3] Ursula Spuler-Stegemann : The 101 most important questions. Islam. CH Beck, 2007, p. 43.

[4] FE Peters : The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition. Volume II: The Words and Will of God. Princeton University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4008-2571-4 , p. 145. (English)

[5] AF Klein: Religion of Islam. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-136-09954-0 , p. 92 (English, first published in 1906)

[6] Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Thaʻlabī: Islamic tales of prophets and men of God: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʼ or ʻArāʼis al-maǧālis. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-447-05266-X , p. 7.

[7] Miguel Asin Palacios: Islam and the Divine Comedy. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-134-53650-4 , pp. 88 f. (English)

[8] Rom Landau: The Philosophy of Ibn 'Arabi. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-02969-2 .

[9] Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Mehdi Razvi: Islam and Christianity in dialogue. Verlag Otto Lembeck, 2006, ISBN 3-87476-513-X , p. 69.

[10] Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad : Teachings of Islam: A discussion on the philosophy of spiritual development in Islam. Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, Lahore USA 2011, ISBN 978-1-934271-17-9 . (English)

[11] rl-may-gesellschaft.de