FRIENDS often ask me what I make of the concept of paradise and hell. Are these places located somewhere out there where people would enter according to their deeds, good or bad? Or are these mere symbols as those who believe in batini (concealed meaning) of the Quran?

Are these places where people would eternally abide in the physical sense? Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was often asked such questions, especially regarding the Day of Judgment. It is important to note that the Quran, like other scriptures, is more symbolic than descriptive though not altogether symbolic. No scripture could be merely descriptive in order to remain eternal. Symbolism both makes it multi-layered in meaning as well as eternal in application.

The scriptures should make sense equally for ordinary people as well as those who have attained great heights in knowledge. A scripture, if it is a means only for the highly knowledgeable, would leave ordinary people uninspired; if it is flat in description and without layers of meaning, it would not attract the highly knowledgeable. Thus what the Quran says about paradise and hell should be intelligible for both lay persons as well as the knowledgeable.

Indeed it is, provided we take the description of paradise and hell both in their literal as well as symbolic sense. There is one more aspect which one must be aware of and Sufis have often emphasised that aspect. Sufis believe that one must not do anything for greed or out of fear i.e. for reward or punishment. This is symbolised in the famous story of Rabia Basri, the noted woman Sufi saint.

One day she was carrying a burning flame in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When people asked her why she was doing that, she replied that she wanted to set fire to paradise with the burning flame and put out the fire of hell with the bucket of water so that people stopped worshiping Allah for greed of paradise or fear of hell. A true worshipper would do that for neither but for its own merit.

The Quran is wonderfully balanced in its symbolism and descriptive language. An ordinary reader benefits from it as much as one who has achieved great heights of knowledge. The rationalists found it as much useful as the blind followers but there was great difference between the two in terms of their understanding. The Mutazilites (rationalists of Islam), the Ismailis (who believe in hidden meanings along with the literal) and the Sufis understood the Quran very differently from other literalists (Zahiris).

For Zahiris, paradise and hell have been described in vivid details in a physical sense: in paradise there will be eternal gardens with canals of milk and honey flowing, and in hell the fire will cause great physical pain, with no way out. Both places would be eternal abodes of those sent there. The description of paradise is tempting while that of hell inspires great fear.

However, there are those who treat such descriptions more symbolically and look for deeper meanings. The Quran calls paradise a place of peace and security: “We will root out whatever of rancour is in their breasts — they shall be as brethren on raised couches, face to face; toil shall but not afflict them therein, nor shall they be ejected therefrom.” (15:45-48) Firstly, paradise is a state in which a believer would be perfectly at peace and secure. There will be no fear or feeling of doubt or restlessness. Only a person who is perfect in his/her faith can achieve such a state of mind. A doubter, a sceptic, without perfection of faith cannot feel secure and peaceful at heart. The Sufis talk of insan-i-kamil, i.e. a perfect human being. Their whole effort is to achieve this state of being because only such a person is perfectly at peace with himself.

Also, there are stages to perfection, and one has always to try to achieve a higher and higher stage on the way to perfection. It is not correct to say that paradise is a place of rest and enjoyment. Far from it. It is a place of constant efforts to raise oneself to higher degrees of perfection. Thus the Quran says, “But those who keep their duty to their Lord shall have high places, above them higher places, built (for them)” (39:20). Thus paradise is not at all a place of eternal rest and enjoyment but that of spiritual efforts for further stages to perfection.

It is abiding in the sense that these are ceaseless efforts and once you achieve one stage of perfection there is no looking back; one goes on and there is great fulfilment in making these efforts. The more of such efforts, the more one feels at peace with oneself.

Similarly, hell is, for those who are people of knowledge, a state of mind in which one is far from perfection in one’s faith but in a constant state of doubt or even hypocrisy and thus remains in a state of torment; it is the fire of doubt or hypocrisy which keeps tormenting one, and as those who rise in a state of perfection in the case of paradise, one keeps on falling lower and lower in the case of hell. The greater the depth of the fall, the graver the torment.

However, the Quran provides for what it calls taubat al-nusuh (sincere repentance), which can redeem one of this torture. One always has a choice either to rise higher and higher to the state of perfection or fall to a state of the lowest of the low.

The writer is an Islamic scholar who also heads the Centre for Study of Society & Secularism, Mumbai.