true believer

Submitted by Saladin (United Arab Emirates), May 25, 2006 at 15:00

Why do you see sex in these verses? Your own mind is so that you see what is not even implied.

I will give you one example from the Quran that is enough for clearing any misconceptions people have about this topic.

38:(49) LET [all] this be a reminder [to those who believe in God] – for, verily, the most
beauteous of all goals awaits the God-conscious: (50) gardens of perpetual bliss,45 with
gates wide-open to them, (51) wherein they will recline, [and] wherein they may
[freely] call for many a fruit and drink, (52) having beside them well-matched mates
of modest gaze.

Lit., "such as restrain their gaze," i.e., are of modest bearing and have eyes only for their mates (Räzï).
This allegorical reference to the delights of paradise occurs in the Qur°än three times (apart from the above
instance, which is chronologically the earliest, in 37:48 and 55:56 as well). As an allegory, this phrase
evidently applies to the righteous of both sexes, who in the life to come will be rejoined with those whom
they loved and by whom they were loved in this world: for "God has promised the believers, both men
and women, gardens through which running waters flow, therein to abide, and goodly dwellings in gardens
of perpetual bliss" (9:72); and, "anyone – be it man or woman – who does [whatever he can] of good
deeds and is a believer withal, shall enter paradise" (4:124, with similar statements in 16:97 and 40:40).
Finally, we are told in 36:56 that in this paradise "will they and their spouses on couches recline" – i.e., will
find peace and inner fulfilment with and in one another. (For an explanation of the term aträb rendered by
me as "well-matched," see note 15 on 56:38.)

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