The formation of paradisiacal notions in the early Muslim community : influences and innovations -

Abstract

Paradise, the dwelling of the souls of the righteous after their death, is mentioned in all the monotheistic scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur’ān with the Islamic scripture encompassing the most developed and lucid description of Paradise of all three. Nevertheless, devotional books were not the only place where Paradise was portrayed. In fact, many poets, writers, theologians, scholars, and painters elaborated on the scripture’s views of Paradise, in defining its location, content and purpose. For the early Islamic community, the formation of paradisiacal notions was the product of both influences and innovations. Many scholars believe that the Qur’ānic Paradise is very similar to that of Ephrem the Syrian (d.c. 373), a Syriac Christian deacon, poet, and theologian of the 4th century. Ephrem wrote madrashe, lyrical doctrinal hymns. He composed fifteen of these hymns under the title The Hymns on Paradise, in which he depicts a Paradise that develops upon the narrative of Adam and Eve from chapters two and three of Genesis. While these two texts do share some similarities in the description of Paradise, the paradisiacal notions that resonated among the early Muslim community share very little with that of Ephrem. This can be seen in the textual and visual products of early Muslims such as in the tafāsīr of the time, and the mosaics portraying Paradise in early Muslim religious monuments. Moreover, not only do the scholars who note the similarities between Ephrem’s Paradise and the Qur’ānic Paradise not adequately address the nature and depth of the similarities, they do not study the development of paradisiacal notions within the early Islamic community that are depicted in textual and visual sources of the time. By considering a textual and visual reading of Paradise in Ephrem’s hymns, the Qur’ān, early tafāsīr, of Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d.c. 767) and Furāt al-Kūfī an