Atheism Stack Exchange Archive

What are debate points that can be used to debunk the 72 virgins argument?

Which debate points and/or references are there to use to debunk the validity of the claim of some islamic followers that entrance in paradise guarantees access to 72 virgins?

Answer 2697

  1. If the Koran makes such claims, what is the fee for woman? Why not?
  2. Why believe in a book at all? Why hasn’t the message been released before? Why not in the far east, in Africa, in South America?
  3. What do you do with virgins in paradies? Are you physically put there? In the state you were when you died? So some people in the age of minutes, some in an age of over 100 years? You take your body there, together with it’s defects? You get there without defects, but the need for sex? You get fresh childs over there?
  4. Where do those virgins come from? Are they build from scratch for every martyr, or are they virgins which died as virgins on earth? How is guaranteed that there are enough virgins? Are the virgins asked whether they like to be a gift?
  5. Isn’t this kind of virgin-as-a-gift a kind of slavery?
  6. What if the martyr is homosexual? Does he get male virgins?
  7. What if the martyr had a wife and would prefer to stay abide by her?

Answer 2684

I was with someone who asked a Muslim about that once. The Muslim smiled and said there is no reference in the Koran that makes that claim. So, read the entire Koran and verify that. (kidding). I was talking with someone very reasonable. Someone claiming virgins await them in heaven is less likely to be reasonable. Proceed with caution.

Answer 2690

Refuting beliefs in islam is more complicated than the direct refutations of the christian bible or the hebraic talmud. It's complicated by the fact that there is the koran itself, but each 'school' of islam also has other text material and commmonly believed interpretations and scriptural apologetics. Most of this material is not readily available to the English or French or Spanish reading world, and if you do get your hands on it, the material is unbelievably dense. Furthering the entire mess is the degree to which tribal courts and sharia law have been intertwined with the scriptural components.

Much of the 'authority' of the mullahs and much of what is believed colloquially by the people in islamic nations is not directly from the koran, but instead from these extended sources. One example is the set of beliefs and practices called the Sunnah. The Sunnah This body of teaching concerns the habits and practices of Mohammed - which of course became interpreted as holy.

Answer 2722

There's a fairly detailed analysis of whether the '72 virgins' story is true by Ibn Warraq on The Guardian website. It quotes specific verses of the Koran that could have been the origin of this belief.

(I first came to know about this article from a footnote in Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion.)

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.