Jannah and Jahannam: Paradise and Hell in the Quran
Paradise
8 gates • 100 levels
Among its delights:
🏞️ Gardens & rivers
🍇 Fruits & dishes
💎 Palaces of pearl
👰 Purified spouses
✨ The vision of Allah
Allah announces to the believers who do good deeds gardens beneath which rivers flow. Every fruit they are offered, they will say: “This is what we were given before.” They will have purified spouses there and will dwell there forever.
Those who believe and do good deeds will be the people of Paradise, where they will dwell forever.
For the righteous, Allah has prepared gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will dwell forever, as well as purified spouses and the good pleasure of Allah.
Allah calls us to hasten towards a paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, prepared for the righteous who spend in ease and in adversity.
Whoever is kept away from the Fire and admitted into Paradise has truly succeeded. The life of this world is only a deceptive enjoyment.
Those who believe and do good deeds will be admitted into gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell there forever. They will have purified spouses there.
Allah says: “This is the Day when the truthfulness of the truthful will profit them. They will have gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell there forever.”
Every grudge will be removed from their hearts. The rivers will flow at their feet. They will say: “Praise be to Allah who guided us to this.” The angels will say to them: “This is the Paradise you have been given as an inheritance.”
Those who believed and did good deeds, their Lord will guide them by their faith. Rivers will flow at their feet in the gardens of delight.
For those who have done good: the fairest reward and more besides. Allah will let them see His Face — that is the greatest bliss.
As for the blessed, they will be in Paradise, dwelling there as long as the heavens and the earth endure, unless your Lord decides otherwise — a gift without end.
The gardens of Eden, which they will enter along with the righteous among their fathers, their spouses and their offspring. The angels will come in to them through every gate.
The believers will wear bracelets of gold and green garments of fine silk and brocade, reclining on couches. What an excellent reward! What a fine abode!
For those who believed and did good deeds, their abode will be the gardens of Firdaws — the highest level of Paradise.
It is they who will inherit Firdaws, the highest of the Gardens, where they will dwell forever.
They will have there everything they desire, and they will dwell there forever. It is a promise of your Lord that is right to ask for.
No soul knows what delight of the eyes is kept in store for them, as a reward for what they used to do.
The people of Paradise that day are joyfully occupied. They and their spouses will be in the shade, reclining on couches.
Peace! Such will be the word addressed to them by the Most Merciful Lord — the greatest honour.
Except for the sincere servants of Allah — they will have a known provision: fruits, and they will be honoured in the gardens of delight.
This is a reminder. For the righteous, it is the best of returns: the gardens of Eden with their gates opened for them, reclining, calling for abundant fruits and drinks.
The righteous will be led in groups towards Paradise. Its gates will open and its keepers will say to them: “Peace be upon you! You have done well, enter it for eternity.”
Our Lord, admit them into the gardens of Eden You have promised them, along with the righteous among their parents, spouses and offspring. You are the Almighty, the Wise.
The Paradise promised to the righteous: rivers of water that does not spoil, of milk that never sours, of delicious wine, of clear honey, and all kinds of fruit with forgiveness from their Lord.
Enter it in peace: this is the Day of eternity. They will have there whatever they wish, and We have still more to offer them.
The righteous will be among gardens and springs. They will take what their Lord gives them — for they were doers of good before.
The righteous are in gardens and in bliss, delighting in what their Lord has granted them. Their Lord has preserved them from the punishment of the Blaze.
For the one who fears standing before his Lord there will be two gardens — so which of the favours of your Lord will you deny?
The people of Paradise will lie on carpets lined with brocade. The fruits of the two gardens will be within reach.
Houris kept in the tents. No man or jinn has touched them before. They sit on green cushions and fine carpets.
The Sabiqun will be on couches adorned with gold and jewels, reclining face to face. Eternal youths will move among them with cups and ewers.
In extended shade, running water, abundant fruit of which nothing is forbidden and which will never run out.
On the day you will see the believers — men and women — their light running before them and on their right. “Good news today: gardens beneath which rivers flow.”
Allah will forgive you your sins and will admit you into gardens beneath which rivers flow, and into fine dwellings in the gardens of Eden.
Their light will run before them and on their right. They will say: “Our Lord, perfect our light and forgive us.” They will enter gardens beneath which rivers flow.
The righteous will drink from a cup mixed with Kafur, a spring from which the servants of Allah drink, making it gush forth abundantly.
When you look there, you will see delight and a great kingdom. They will wear garments of green silk and brocade, adorned with bracelets of silver.
The righteous will indeed be in delight. On couches they will look on. You will recognise on their faces the radiance of delight.
There are faces that day filled with happiness, pleased with their striving. In a lofty garden, where you will hear no idle talk.
O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, well pleased and pleasing! Enter then among My servants, and enter My Paradise.
Allah has promised the believing men and women gardens beneath which rivers flow. The best reward is the good pleasure of Allah: that is the supreme success.
Hell
7 levels • 7 gates
The 7 levels:
1. Jahannam
2. Laza
3. Al-Hutama
4. As-Sa'ir
5. Saqar
6. Al-Jahim
7. Al-Hawiya
If you do not do it — and you never will — then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.
Those who have done evil and whose bad deeds have hemmed them in will be the people of the Fire, where they will dwell forever.
Say to the disbelievers: “You will be overcome and gathered into Hell. What a wretched abode!”
Fear the Fire prepared for the disbelievers.
Those who disbelieved in Our verses, We shall burn them in a Fire. Every time their skins are burned, We shall replace them with others so that they taste the punishment.
The hypocrites will indeed be in the lowest depth of the Fire, and you will find no helper for them.
They will wish to come out of the Fire but they will not be able to. They will have an everlasting punishment.
They will have Hell for a bed and above them coverings of fire. That is how We repay the wrongdoers.
Before him is Hell. He will be given festering water to drink, swallowing it in small gulps and hardly able to get it down.
You will see, on that day, the criminals bound together in chains. Their garments will be of tar and the Fire will cover their faces.
Hell will be the meeting place of all of them. It has seven gates, and at each gate a portion of them is assigned.
We shall gather them dragged on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf. Hell will be their dwelling. Every time its fire dies down, We shall increase the blaze for them.
That day We shall bring Hell close before the disbelievers whose eyes were covered by a veil that kept them from thinking of Allah.
Their recompense will be Hell, for having disbelieved and taken My signs and My messengers in mockery.
You and what you worship besides Allah will be the fuel of Hell. You will all enter it.
Garments of fire will be cut out for the disbelievers. Boiling water will be poured over their heads, melting what is in their bellies and their skins.
You will see rejection on the faces of those who have disbelieved. They will nearly throw themselves upon those who recite Our verses to them. Say: “Shall I tell you of something worse than that? The Fire!”
We have prepared a blazing Fire for the one who denies the Hour. When they see it from afar, they will hear its furious roaring.
As for the corrupt, the Fire will be their dwelling. Every time they wish to come out of it, they will be thrown back in and told: “Taste the punishment of the Fire that you used to deny.”
Those who have disbelieved will have the Fire of Hell. It will not be decreed that they die, nor will the punishment be lightened for them. That is how We repay every ungrateful disbeliever.
This is the Hell you were promised. Burn in it today, in punishment for your disbelief.
The disbelievers will be driven in groups towards Hell. Its gates will open and its keepers will say to them: “Did messengers not come to you?” They will answer: “Yes indeed!”
The Fire: they will be exposed to it morning and evening. And on the day the Hour comes, it will be said: “Make the people of Pharaoh enter the severest punishment.”
When the yokes and the chains are around their necks, they will be dragged through boiling water, then they will be burned in the Fire.
They will cry out: “O Malik! Let your Lord put an end to us!” He will say: “You are staying here.” Malik is the keeper of Hell.
The tree of Zaqqum will be the food of the sinner. Like molten metal, it will boil in the bellies, like the boiling of scalding water.
In Hell: boiling water that will tear their bowels apart. The Fire is the dwelling of those who persist in disbelief.
The day We shall say to Hell: “Are you full?” And it will say: “Is there any more?”
The Companions of the Left — who are they? They will be in a scorching wind and boiling water, in the shade of black smoke, neither cool nor kindly.
When they are thrown into it, they will hear its roaring. It boils furiously. It almost bursts with rage against the disbelievers.
They will say: “If only we had listened or used our reason, we would not today be among the people of the Blaze.”
Never! It is a blazing flame tearing away the scalp. It calls the one who turned away and went off.
With Us there are fetters, a blaze, food that chokes and a painful punishment.
They will say in Hell: “What has brought you to Saqar? We did not pray, we did not feed the poor.”
Hell is a place of ambush, a refuge for the rebellious. They will remain there for ages. They will taste there neither coolness nor drink, only boiling water and pus.
Hell will be laid bare to the sight of whoever sees it that day. As for the one who transgressed and preferred the life of this world, Hell will be his abode.
The one who refuses will enter the great Fire, where he will neither die nor live.
There are faces that day humbled, toiling, exhausted. They will burn in a blazing Fire, given to drink from a boiling spring.
No! He will be thrown into Al-Hutamah. And what will make you know what Al-Hutamah is? It is the Fire of Allah, kindled, which rises up to the hearts. It closes in upon them in columns.
He will burn in a Fire full of flames. And his wife — the carrier of firewood — will have around her neck a rope of palm fibre.
Paradise (Jannah) and Hell (Jahannam) — verses of the Quran with tafsir
Paradise (الجنة) and Hell (النار) are certain realities in Islam. The Quran mentions them in more than 70 surahs. These 81 verses with their tafsir make it possible to grasp the detailed descriptions of these two abodes of the Hereafter. Paradise has 8 gates (among them Bab ar-Rayyan for those who fast) and 100 levels, the highest being Al-Firdaws.
Among the delights of Paradise described in the Quran: gardens beneath which rivers flow, fruit in abundance, palaces of pearl and ruby, purified spouses, and the greatest reward — the vision of Allah. Hell (Jahannam) has 7 levels of punishment according to the sins: Jahannam, Laza, Al-Hutama, As-Sa'ir, Saqar, Al-Jahim and Al-Hawiya.
For a complete exploration, see the Tafsir Ibn Kathir available in the app Muslim Alim. Find too the Signs of the End of Times and the Islamic Stories drawn from the authentic hadiths.
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ReadYou may be wondering…
How does the Quran describe Paradise?
The Quran describes Paradise (Jannah) as gardens beneath which rivers flow, as vast as the heavens and the earth, where the believers will dwell forever. There are fruits in abundance, palaces, purified spouses, peace and the good pleasure of Allah. The greatest reward, according to the scholars, is the vision of Allah. Its people will know neither weariness nor sorrow.
How many gates does Paradise have in Islam?
According to the hadiths, Paradise has eight gates, among them Bab ar-Rayyan, reserved for those who fasted. The Quran also speaks of the gardens of Eden with their gates opened, where the angels welcome the righteous with a greeting of peace (surah 39, verse 73). Tradition also reports that Paradise has a hundred degrees, the highest being Al-Firdaws.
What are the seven levels of Hell?
The Quran states that Hell has seven gates, each intended for a category of the damned (surah 15, verse 44). The commentators have linked to these gates seven names mentioned in the Quran: Jahannam, Laza, Al-Hutama, As-Sa'ir, Saqar, Al-Jahim and Al-Hawiya. According to this traditional reading they correspond to degrees of punishment matched to the sins, though the scholars differ over the detail of this hierarchy.
Who is Malik, the keeper of Hell?
Malik is the angel who keeps Hell, named in Surah Az-Zukhruf (verse 77). The damned will call upon him to ask that their Lord put an end to them, and he will answer that they will remain there. The Quran also mentions other stern keepers and the tree of Zaqqum, boiling water and chains among the punishments set aside for the obstinate disbelievers.
What does this page contain about Paradise and Hell?
This page brings together 81 verses of the Quran, 41 on Paradise and 40 on Hell, with the name of the surah, the number of the verse, a theme and an explanation drawn from the tafsir. It helps in understanding the descriptions of these two abodes of the Hereafter, held to be certain realities in Islam. To go further, see also the signs of the end of times.