How do you interpret verses on hell
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Hi everyone. I am interested in how do diferent people interpret the verses on hell. Do you interpret it literaly or do you have an alternative explanation for those.
I find it kind of hard to believe that those torments wil actualy ocur. And sometimes when I see all the evil I think it maybe possible. So I am kind of in the midle about that.
Any view would be gratly apreciated!
Thanks
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Peace,
I take the hell verses metaphorically. The imagery illustrates* the pain experienced by these souls due to neglect and/or a lack of nourishment. The absence of God is Hell. A Hellacious person doesn't get to experience God (2174, 377).
In this life, guilt is an example of hell.
*see for example 3665-66...how will hands 'speak'.. ?
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Thanks for your views Jack. I have heard similar comments to yours before. Would you say that those with chronic pain are expiriencing hell? I wouldn't, I supose the hellacious person would not experience the same pain as a chronic pain suferer wich makes me think that hell would be in next life. That is if there is any sufering in the next life.
As far as the hands talking are concerned, I agree, it is probably not literal. It would be a metaphor, but if God wanted to do something like that than I supose he could.
My personal feelings without any scriptures would be that you cease to exist after death if you are not of those who wil continue to live in paradise. Then again should I take paradise literaly and Hell metaphoricaly just so that I would suit my personal beliefs or should I take it all literaly?
They are questions hard for me to answer wich is why I need help.
Thanks
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I was just reading another view and that is that we should simply delete the verses that seem harsh and unreasonable and just take what conforms to reason and humane treatment and folow that.
What does everyone think about that?
Thanks
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*see for example 3665-66...how will hands 'speak'.. ?
48.29 (partial)On their faces are their marks, (being) the traces of their prostration.
I am using this as an example. In Egypt there are men with a mark of prostration on their foreheads, a permanent bruise, because they think that due to this verse that Allah means a mark anyone can see. I disagree, Allah sees right into our hearts and souls and a mark like this does not need to be visible to the human eye, but Allah will know it's there.
In the same way as hands speaking, and the skin and every part of the body, it will 'speak' to Allah against us. The traces of our sins will be there.
As for hell, the descriptions are horrifying and the descriptions of heaven are beautiful. I see no reason that if there is a heaven, which God has told about in His books,there will also be a hell.
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Thanks for your views Ayisha, much apreciated. However can you please clear it up for me what do you think that those verses mean. I get your thing with the forhead not being literal wich I understand means those who prostrate in prayer.
However, what would then the verses of hell metaphoricaly represent is the question I ask please.
Thanks
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Salaam Pel,
Jannah is confused with the Christian Jewish Heaven, but is not that, Jannah is a fertile place of growth and development, a place to expand and transform from state to state, Jahannam is again not the Christian Jewish Hell, it is a constrictive place, a place of stagnation and imprisonment.
This is the logic that allows us to understand why the Qur'an tells us we can establish either one in this world or the next, in this world we all suffer as one, in the next each one suffers the fruits of this world. So in the modern age we all suffer in a constrictive and stagnating environment, a prison planet we cannot escape, this being due to not following the guidance of the Qur'an but following a religion invented around the Qur'an to stop it from being applied.
Each person escapes this worlds Jahannam and wakes into reality, all is based on dichotomy, in this world a tiny few defy the odds and indeed succeed in growing and developing themselves, just as in Jahannam all will escape ultimately, as it is a dichotomy, the purpose of Jahannam is to educate those who refuse to listen, this logic is based upon the facts we are pure emotional energy and Allah makes nothing idly.
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peace all )
i understand the hell verses metaphorically and literally, it can be both.
what i've found out is that hell is a state of mind experienced on a particular realm/level of existence/dimension...
hell is described as suffering, pain, agony, discomfort, fear... (pretty much all negative emotions we all know and try our best to avoid)...
that can be (and is) experienced here in this world, also in dreams (what we consider nightmares)... after we "die" we may experience it differently on another level (spirit world)... but i imagine it like a nightmare you can't wake up from.it can also be literal, as we are all energy incarnated in flesh, we have a certain vibrational level, and our deeds change that level either higher(heaven/bliss) or lower(hell/suffering)... now after this flesh falls apart our energy will shift to appropriate level, could he other realms, like spirit worlds, could be something else, could be again on this world (as in reincarnation), but next time we may come in other flesh, like animals or maybe plants (and others would chop us, burn us... ) yes i know how it sounds, very unusual... but it's a possibility...
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Salaam nerspi,
hell is a Christian Jewish concept having nothing to do with the Islamic concepts, if you have the delusion it is imposed punishment, torture, vengeance, it is not, Allah does not exact vengeance, it is the dichotomy of all creation, you have everything at one end and Jahannam at the other end, so the Qur'an describes Jahannam as absolute cold, crushing, blackness, silence, this is the nothingness of the opposite side of creation. The fires of regret, self hate, and emotional confusion all burn within the souls held within nothingness.
Reincarnation is not possible, as the universe is, as an underlying foundation 'A' symmetrical, this means things work only one way around, you cannot break this fundamental law of creation, this excludes the idea of reincarnation as valid.
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From what I have found, as many other terms in the Quran.. Jahannam itself is not an arabic word but Hebrew.. And it used to mean the 'Valley of Hinnom' .. The example of this valley has been used to described the painful and distressful state of the unbelievers. It is also know as Gehenna..
The exact location of the Valley of Hinnom is disputed. Older commentaries give the location as below the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem, stretching from the foot of Mount Zion eastward past the Tyropoeon to the Kidron Valley. However the Tyropoeon Valley is usually no longer associated with the Valley of Hinnom because during the period of Ahaz and Manasseh, the Tyropoeon lay within the city walls and child sacrifice would have been practiced outside the walls of the city. Smith (1907), Dalman (1930), Bailey (1986) and Watson (1992) identify the Wadi er-Rababi, which fits the data of Joshua that Hinnom ran East to West and lay outside the city walls. According to Joshua, the valley began in En-rogel. If the modern Bir Ayyub is En-rogel then the Wadi er-Rababi which begins there is Hinnom.
In the King James Version of the Bible, the term appears 13 times in 11 different verses as "valley of Hinnom," "valley of the son of Hinnom" or "valley of the children of Hinnom."I tend to think the Hell is used as a metaphore to describe the state of the unbelievers in the next life.
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Salaam nerspi,
hell is a Christian Jewish concept having nothing to do with the Islamic concepts, if you have the delusion it is imposed punishment, torture, vengeance, it is not, Allah does not exact vengeance, it is the dichotomy of all creation, you have everything at one end and Jahannam at the other end, so the Qur'an describes Jahannam as absolute cold, crushing, blackness, silence, this is the nothingness of the opposite side of creation. The fires of regret, self hate, and emotional confusion all burn within the souls held within nothingness.
Reincarnation is not possible, as the universe is, as an underlying foundation 'A' symmetrical, this means things work only one way around, you cannot break this fundamental law of creation, this excludes the idea of reincarnation as valid.
salam )
umm, i have many delusions but this is not one of them ;D
i know that (about Allah), did i imply otherwise?i wouldn't say it's nothingness, (although i haven't seen all the other realms), what's the point of nothingness?
i also wouldn't say souls cease to exist, as we are energy, energy doesn't cease to exist, it just transforms, manifests into other things...
if it's nothingness or it ceases to exist, then what's the point of that? why would God create souls then make them suffer then put them into nothingness? what kind of God is this?same reason i say reincarnation is possible...
ok what about kids who are lets say in gangs, who do drugs, mistreat others, even kill people, steal... all by the age of 15,16.... should they go to hell? i mean they didn't really have enough time here, to correct their mistakes, to learn about islam or anything? so where do they go?
where do kids go who die before age 7,8?sure there was a time i opposed reincarnation strongly, until i learned more about it and it makes sense yes, even some parts of the quran can be interpreted as reincarnation... as hell is not eternal, so God gives us all enough opportunities, enough time to reach higher realms... instead of giving us just one chance and then either eternal bliss or eternal suffering...
I was just reading another view and that is that we should simply delete the verses that seem harsh and unreasonable and just take what conforms to reason and humane treatment and folow that.
What does everyone think about that?
Thanks
i disagree with that view...
it only seems harsh and unreasonable to us due to our lack of understanding and misinterpreting...
i mean if you look at quran from all angles, and as a whole, and if you study many other fields, you'd see all these punishments and hell in general not harsh at all -
Salaam nerspi,
you have not understood what I wrote, I said they were held in nothingness, not that they disappeared completely, the point of nothingness, is everything pours from nothingness, could nothingness be any more important, in our reality it is an absolute impossibility to have nothingness, as its at the other end of the dichotomy.
If you want to consider it further you should read
http//servantofthelight.com/content/view/92/124/
As for reincarnation it stands against the underlying structures of the universe, therefore cannot be a reality no matter how much you like the idea.
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Ok, I have been reading all of youre posts and I find them quite interesting. Now I think that the only way I can see them understood is to see them as what they are. A place of eternal unimaginable torment, what else. The only way around it would be to cut out parts of the Koran.
If it describes the suffering and it says that it wil be forever then, how can it be anything else but that.
Like I said personaly most of the time I would say that there is probably nothing(thats without any scriptures at all). Sometimes I believe in the literal interpretation like what I am leaning to right now and I do look to Koran for inspiration.
Aparently the word Hell or jahanam is mentioned in the Koran around 200 times so obviously God is giving us a fair warning.
Thanks
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why would you do a thing like that?
The only way I see that someone can say that there is no eternal sufering called whatever jahanam/hell, etc would be if you don't believe in the parts of the Koran. Because those parts are clear.
Thanks
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Salaam Pel,
the concept of eternal suffering is Christian, the suffering you endure is not inflicted upon you, it is coming from within yourself, through understanding your lost opportunities, so you burn in the fires of regret, you have failed to create shepherds for your emotions in the form of firm beliefs, so burn in emotional turmoil, you have failed to gain knowledge in this world to prepare you for the next so burn in confusion and fear of the unknown.
Jahannam is a place created to hold you until you establish firm beliefs, and as reality is based in circular time not linear time, which is manifest, from the first instant you arrive in nothingness is from the very moment of the creation of the first moment, this is why Allah warns you, you do not want to be there for a second.
Everyone will ultimately escape nothingness, this is clear from two points within the Qur'an, the first is it states forever and ever in Jahannam, and forever, and ever and ever in Jannah, secondly is, nothing Allah manifests is created idly, therefore everything ultimately has a purpose.
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u guys are all of background christian, or sunni, or shia or jew, well, most of verses that describe life as gardens beneath wich rivers flow are here on earth, if we follow tha quran and do rightousness, that"s how we live, we'll propsper to a point where our women and men will be hoor el ain, the most beautifull people, and all the hellfire is also here in this world, we're living it now, no peace of mind, no prosperity, nor felicity, most of us didn't feel the joy since childhood, the quran doesn't tell u how terrible hell is or how paradise is, it tells u only about resurections, and jugement, meaning we will live again, maybe in the next cycle of the universe, but it doesn't speak about how hell is or heaven, the quran didn't come to us to scare anyone about hell in the hearafter or if u do good you'll be in paradise, but it speaks about this worls, the hereafter is another story
read it ike this, if you believe and follow the koran, you have a rewaed, gardens beneath rivers flow, where everything will be good, everyone will be happy, that's for this world
if u don(t follow the quran, your reward is hell, illuminati scaring you, too much lie u won't even know where the turth is, too many desises like diabeties and all that makes u suffer or scare u before u have it for pharmacy industry don't want medicine for these desiese, they need sick people to make profit, u know, kind of hell that we suffering it's fire and agonysalam, peace
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Salaam loxbox13,
sounds from your perspective an incredibly boring place, unless you were a sheep this garden, laying around for eternity next to streams, are you certain about your vision, for a none Christian background you seem to have adopted the Christian view of their idea of heaven, like a good sheep you can spend eternity chewing the grass and drinking from the stream?
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Reincarnation is based on teachings of a Greek school around a 100BC, they influenced Buddhism and Hinduism with this doctrine, as it never mentioned by Buddha or in the Veda's. And this spread throughout the continents. So firstly it has no theological bases being known in the religions.
The story of Buddha and the General
"What do you mean with re-birth?"The General asked ; "When you were younger, you went to military school? Was the person who went to the school, the same person when he finished the training?"Asked the Buddha;"No, i guess not"The General said;"The younger person who went for education died, the person who finished the training, wasn't that younger person anymore, wasn't he? The younger untrained you, died, and was reborn again in the trained version. The untrained you, died, and the trained you was born, but they are both you. This cycle goes on your whole life."Said the Buddha.I get this from some site