Jahannam
In Islam, the place of punishment for unbelievers and other evildoers in the afterlife, or hell, is an "integral part of Islamic theology", and has "occupied an important place in the Muslim religious imagination". It is often called by the proper name Jahannam (, ), but other names include "the fire" (, "al-nar"), "blazing fire" (, "jaheem"), "that which breaks to pieces" ( "hutamah"), "the abyss" (, "haawiyah"), "the blaze" (, "sa’eer"), "place of burning" ( "Saqar"), which are also often used as the names of different gates to hell. The importance of Hell in Islamic doctrine is that it is an essential element of the  Day of Judgment, which is one of the six articles of faith (belief in God, angels, books, prophets, the Day of Resurrection and providence) "by which the Muslim faith is traditionally defined." Punishment and suffering in hell in mainstream Islam, is physical, psychological and spiritual, and varies according to the sins of the condemned person. Its excruciating pain and horror described in the Quran often parallels the pleasure and delights of heaven ("Jannah"). It is commonly believed by Muslims that confinement to hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others, and Muslim scholars disagree over whether hell itself will  last for eternity (the mainstream view),<ref name="Islamic Traditions p. 12 w/quote"></ref> or whether God's mercy will lead to it eventually being eliminated. The common belief among Muslims holds that "Jahannam" coexists with the temporal world, just as Jannah (the Islamic heavens), does, (rather than being created after Judgement Day). Hell is described physically in different ways by different sources of Islamic literature. It is enormous in size, and located below heaven. It has seven levels (each one more severe than the one above it), (the Quran specifically refers to "seven gates"); but it is also said to  be a huge pit over which the bridge of As-Sirāt crosses and the resurrected walk; to have mountains, rivers, valleys and "even oceans" filled with disgusting fluids; and also to be able to walk (controlled by reins), and ask questions, much like a sentient being. Sources. Pre-Islamic: Tanakh, New Testament and Babylonical Talmud. In the Old Testament "Gehinnom" or Gei-ben-Hinnom, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom is an accursed Valley in Jerusalem where allegedly child sacrifices had taken place. In the gospels, Jesus talks about "Gehenna" (Greek rendering) as a place "where the worm never  dies and the fire is never quenched". () In the apocryphal book of 4 Ezra, written around the 2nd century, Gehinnom appears as a transcendental place of punishment. This change comes to completion in the Babylonian Talmud, written around 500 CE. Quran. Most of how Muslims picture and think about Jahannam comes from the Quran, according to scholar Einar Thomassen, who found nearly 500 references to Jahannam/hell (using a variety of names) in the Quran. An example of Quranic verses about hell is Among the different terms and phrases mentioned above that refer to hell in the Quran, "Al-nar  (the fire) is used 125 times, jahannam" 77 times, "jaheem" (blazing flames) 26 times, (23 times by another count). The description of Jahannam as a place of blazing fire appears in almost every verse in the Quran describing hell. One collection of descriptions of hell found in the Quran include "rather specific indications of the tortures of the Fire": flames that crackle and roar; fierce, boiling waters, scorching wind, and black smoke, roaring and boiling as if it would burst with rage. Hell is described as being located below heaven, having seven gates and "for every gate there shall be  a specific party" of sinners (Q.15:43-44). The Quran also mentions wrongdoers having "degrees (or ranks) according to their deeds", (which some scholars believe refers to the "specific parties" at each of the gates); and of there being "seven heavens ˹in layers˺, and likewise for the earth" (Q.65:12), (though this doesn't indicate that the seven layers of earth are hell). The one mention of levels of hell is that hypocrites will be found in its very bottom. Inmates and their sins. Among those specifically mentioned in the Quran as being punished in hell are "most typically", (according to Thomassen ), unbelievers ("al-kafirun"). These include "mushrikun", (those who worship others besides Allah) (Q.10:24), apostates (Q.3:86-87), "hypocrites" ("Munafiq", i.e. those who pretend to submit to God while actually not believing) (Q.4:140), the self-content (“those who do not expect to meet Us [God], being pleased and content with this worldly life, and who are heedless of Our signs ...") (Q.10:7-8, 17:18). also singled out are those who do not believe in certain key doctrines of Islam: those who deny the divine origin of the Quran Q.74:16-26), or the coming of Judgement Day (Q.25:11-14). In addition are those who  have committed serious criminal offenses against other human beings: the murder of a believer (Q.4:93, 3:21), usury (Q.2:275), devouring the property of an orphan (Q.4:10), slander (Q.104), particularly of a chaste woman (Q.24:23). Some prominent people mentioned in hadith and the Quran as suffering in hell or destined to suffer there are: Fir'awn (viz., the pharaoh of The Exodus, mentioned in Surah Yunus, specifically Q:10:90-92), the wives of Nuh (aka Noah) and Lut (aka Lot mentioned in Surah At-Tahrim, specifically Q:66-10), and Abu Lahab and his wife (who were contemporaries and enemies of Muhammad and mentioned in  Surah Al-Masadd, specifically Q:111). Punishments. Punishments in hell described in the Quran tend to revolve around "skin sensation and digestion". Its wretched inhabitants sigh and wail, their scorched skins are constantly exchanged for new ones so that they can taste the torment anew, drink festering water and though death appears on all sides they cannot die. They are linked together in chains of 70 cubits, wearing pitch for clothing and fire on their faces have boiling water that will be poured over their heads, melting their insides as well as their skins, and hooks of iron to drag  them back should they try to escape, their remorseful admissions of wrongdoing and pleading for forgiveness are in vain. Hell's resemblance to a prison is strong. Inmates have chains around their necks (Q.13.5, 34:33, 36:8, 78:4, etc.), are "tethered" by hooks of iron (Q.22:21), and are guarded by "merciless angels" (Q.66.6). (These angels and their subordinates were later called "Zabaniyah", term from another Quranic verse Inmates of hell will be thirsty and hungry "constantly". Their fluids will include boiling water (Q.6:70), melted brass, and/or be bitterly cold, "unclean, full of pus". In addition to fire (Q.2:174) there are three  different unique sources of food in hell: Psychological torments are humiliation (Q.3:178), and listening to "sighs and sobs". (Q.11:106). Hadith. There are "scores" of hadith or "short narratives traced back to the Prophet or his Companions" from "the third/ninth century onwards", that "greatly elaborate" on the Quranic image of hell. While the Quran speaks of the seven gates of hell, "relatively early" hadith attest that hell has seven levels. This interpretation became "widespread" in Islam. It is also in hadith (and not the Quran) that "As-Sirat", the bridge over hell that all resurrected souls must cross, is mentioned . Some hadith describe the size of hell as enormous. It is so deep that if a stone were thrown into it, it would fall for 70 years before reaching the bottom (according to one hadith). Another states that the breadth of each of Hell's walls is equivalent to a distance covered by a walking journey of 40 years. According to another source (Qurṭubī) it takes "500 years" to get from one of its levels to another. Traditions often describe this in multiples of seven: hell has seventy thousand valleys, each with "seventy thousand ravines, inhabited by seventy thousand serpents  and scorpions". According to one hadith, hell will be vastly more populous than heaven. Out of every one thousand people entering into the afterlife, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them will end up in the fire. (According to at least one scholarly salafi interpretation, the hadith expresses the large disparity between the number of saved and damned rather than a specific literal ratio.) Malik in Hadith quotes Mohammed as saying that the "fire of the children of Adam [humans] which they kindle is a seventieth part of the fire of "Jahannam"." He also describes that fire as "blacker than  tar". In book 87 Hadith 155, "Interpretation of Dreams" of "Sahih al-Bukhari", Muhammad is reported to have talked of angels guarding hell, each with "a mace of iron", and describes Jahannam as a place "built inside like a well and it had side posts like those of a well, and beside each post there was an angel carrying an iron mace. I saw therein many people hanging upside down with iron chains, and I recognized therein some men from the Quraish". Hadiths introduce punishments, reasons and revelations not mentioned in the Quran. In both Quranic verses and hadiths, "the  Fire" is "a gruesome place of punishment that is always contrasted with "Jannah", "the Garden" (paradise). Whatever characteristic "the Garden offered, the Fire usually offered the opposite conditions." Several hadith describes a part of hell that is extremely cold rather than hot, known as Zamhareer. According to Bukhari, lips are cut by scissors. Other traditions added flogging. An Uighur manuscript also mentions drowning, stoning and falling from heights. Based on hadiths, the sinners are thought to carry signs in accordance with their sins. Hadith describe types of sinners populating hell. Seven sins doom a person to Hell, according to reports  of "as-Saheehayn", (i.e. the reports of the two most esteemed Sunni hadith collections: al-Bukhaari and Muslim): “Associating others with Allah ("shirk" or idolatry); witchcraft; killing a soul whom Allah has forbidden us to kill, except in cases dictated by Islamic law; consuming orphans’ wealth; consuming "riba" (usury); fleeing from the battlefield; and slandering chaste, innocent women.” According to a series of hadith, Muhammad claims the majority of the inhabitants of hell will be women, due to an inclination for gossip, conjecture,ungratfulnes of kind treatment from their spouses and idle chatter. Salafi scholar ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar (d.  2012), affirms the arguments of al-Qurṭubī, that women have a attachment to the here and now, inability to control their passions; but allows that despite this, many women are good and pious and will go to heaven, and some are even superior to many men in piety. However, other hadith imply that the majority of people "in paradise" will be women. Since the number of men and women are approximately equal, Al-Qurtubi attempts to reconcile the conflicting hadith by suggesting that many of the women in Hell are there only temporarily and will eventually be brought reside in  Paradise; thereafter the majority of the people of Paradise would be women. Other people populating hell mentioned in hadith include, but are not limited to, the mighty, the proud and the haughty. Einar Thomassen writes that this almost certainly refers to those too proud and haughty to submit to God, i.e. unbelievers (the literal translation of Muslim is one who submits to God). Sahih Muslim quotes Muhammad as saying that suicides would reside in Jahannam forever. According to Hadith collector Muwatta Imam Malik (Imam Malik), Muhammad said: "Truly a man utters words to which he attaches no importance, and by  them he falls into the fire of Jahannam." Al-Bukhari in book 72:834 added to the list of dwellers in Jahannam: "The people who will receive the severest punishment from Allah will be the picture makers". Use of utensils made of precious metals could also land its users in Jahannam: "A person who drinks from a silver vessel brings the fire of Jahannam into his belly". As could starving a cat to death: "A woman was tortured and was put in Hell because of a cat which she had kept locked till it died of hunger." At least one hadith  indicates the importance of faith in avoiding hell, stating: "... no one will enter Hell in whose heart is an atom's weight of faith.” Eschatological manuals. "Eschatological manuals" were written after the hadith, they compiled the hadith on hell, and also developed descriptions of Jahannam "in more deliberate ways". While the Quran and hadith tend to describe punishments that nonbelievers are forced to give themselves, the manuals illustrate external and more dramatic punishment, through devils, scorpions, and snakes. Manuals dedicated solely to the subject of Jahannam include Ibn Abi al-Dunya's "Sifat al-nar", and al-Maqdisi's "Dhikr  al-nar". Other manuals—such as texts by al-Ghazali and the 12th-century scholar Qadi Ayyad -- "dramatise life in the Fire", and present "new punishments, different types of sinners, and the appearance of a multitude of devils," to exhort the faithful to piety. His hell has a structure with a specific place for each type of sinners. According to Leor Halevi, between the moment of death and the time of their burial ceremony, "the spirit of a deceased Muslim takes a quick journey to Heaven and Hell, where it beholds visions of the bliss and torture awaiting humanity at  the end of days". In "The Soul's Journey After Death", Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a theologian in the 14th century, writes explicitly of punishments faced by sinners and unbelievers in Jahannam. These are directly related to the wrongdoer's earthly transgressions. In addition to those who engage in traditional sins of wine drinking, fornication, sodomy, suicide, atheism; hell is where those "who sleep during prayer (or speak of worldly matters during it), or believe in free will, denying the doctrine of predestinarianism (Qadarites), are punished. Another tradition consigns to the seven different levels of hell, seven different types of  mischievous Islamic scholars. Government authorities are also threatened with hell, but often in "oblique ways". Doctrines, beliefs. Location and topography. Location. Islamic scholars speculated on where the entrance to hell might be located. Some thought the sea was the top level, or that the sulphourus well in Hadramawt (in present-day Yemen), allegedly haunted by the souls of the wicked, was the entrance to the underworld. Others considered the entrance in the valley of Hinnom (surrounding the Old City of Jerusalem). In a Persian work, the entry to hell is located in a gorge called "Wadi Jahannam" (in present-day  Afghanistan). Seven levels. Einar Thomassen writes that the seven levels of hell mentioned in hadith "came to be associated" with the seven names used in the Quran to refer to hell, with a category of inmates assigned to each level. "Various similar models exist with a slightly differing order of names", according to Christian Lange, and he and A. F. Klein give similar lists of levels. "Al-Laza" and "al-Saqar" are switched in Lange's list, and there is no accompanying type of unbelievers for each level. In A. F. Klein's list, it is the names of the  levels that's not included, and instead of a level for Zoroastrians there is one for "witches and fortunetellers". Another description of the layers of hell comes from "models such as that recorded by al-Thalabi (died 427/1035)" corresponding to "the seven earths of medieval Islamic cosmology"; the place of hell before the Day of Resurrection. Sources Miguel Asin Palacios and Patrick Hughes, Thomas Patrick Hughes describe these levels as: A large number of hadith about Muhammad's tour of hell during the miʿrāj, describe the various sinners and their torments. A summary of the uppermost level of hell, "reserved  for deadly sins" and "subdivided into fourteen mansions, one close above the other, and each is a place of punishment for a different sin", was done by Asin Palacios: The first mansion is an ocean of fire comprising seventy lesser seas, and on the shore of each sea stands a city of fire. In each city are seventy thousand dwellings; in each dwelling, seventy thousand coffins of fire, the tombs of men and women, who, stung by snakes and scorpions, shriek in anguish. These wretches, the Keeper enlightens Mahomet, were tyrants. In the second mansion beings with blubber lips writhe  under the red-hot forks of demons, while serpents enter their mouths and eat their bodies from within. These are faithless guardians, devoured now by serpents even as they once devoured the inheritances committed to their trust. Lower down usurers stagger about, weighed down by the reptiles in their bellies. Further, shameless women hang by the hair that they had exposed to the gaze of man. Still further down liars and slanderers hang by their tongues from red-hot hooks lacerating their faces with nails of copper. Those who neglected the rites of prayer and ablution are now monsters with  the head of dogs and the bodies of swine and are the food of serpents. In the next mansion drunkards suffer the torture of raging thirst, which demons affect to quench with cups of a liquid fire that burns their entrails. Still lower, hired mourners and professional women singers hang head downwards and howl with pain as devils cut their tongues with burning shears. Adulterers are punished in a cone-shaped furnace... and their shrieks are drowned by the curses of their fellow damned at the stench of their putrid flesh. In the next mansion unfaithful wives hang by their  breasts, their hands tied to their necks. Undutiful children are tortured in a fire by fiends with red-hot forks. Lower down, shackled in collars of fire, are those who failed to keep their word. Murderers are being knifed by demons in endless expiation of their crime. Lastly, in the fourteenth and lowest mansion of the first storey, are being crucified on burning pillars those who failed to keep the rule of prayer; as the flames devour them, their flesh is seen gradually to peel off their bones. In addition to having levels, an important feature of Judgement Day is  that hell is a huge pit over which the bridge of As-Sirāt crosses, and from which sinners fall making their arrival in hell (see "Eschatological manuals" above) Christian Lange writes "it made sense to picture [hell] as a vast subterranean funnel, spanned by the Bridge, which the resurrected pass on their way to paradise, with a brim ("shafīr") and concentric circles leading down into a central pit at the bottom ("qaʿr")." But along with a pit and levels, hell also has mountains, rivers, valleys and "even oceans" filled with "fire, blood, and pus". Sentience. Along with being a pit  and a series of levels, some scholars, like al-Ghazali and the thirteenth-century Muslim scholar Al-Qurtubi, describe hell as a gigantic sentient being, rather than a place. In "Paradise and Hell-fire in Imam al Qurtubi", Qurtubi writes, "On the Day of Judgment, hell will be brought with seventy thousand reins. A single rein will be held by seventy thousand angels...". Based on verse 67:7 and verse 50:30, Jahannam inhales and has "breaths". Islamicity notes "the animalistic nature" of "The Fire" in Quranic verse 25:12: "When the Hellfire sees them from a distant place, they will hear its  fury and roaring". According to verse 50:30, God will ask Jahannam if it is full and Jahannam will answer: "Are there any more (to come)?" Inmates. Thomassen writes that in Islamic thought there was "a certain amount of tension" between the two "distinct functions" of hell: to punish disbelievers/ non-Muslims and to punish anyone who committed serious sins—both of which could draw support from Quranic verses and hadith. Factors involved in who will be consigned to hell are: "Ultimately" the view of the Ash'arite school prevailed in "classical Islamic theology": God was free to judge as he chose , but on the other hand all believers can feel assured of salvation. This left the issue of how/whether to punish sinful Muslims (to "ensure ... moral and religious discipline" and responsibility for individual actions). One solution was to reserve for Muslims the highest level of hell with the most lenient punishments; but a "more common" solution one was to make the stay of Muslims in hell temporary. And also the issue of whether People of the Book, are a variety of believer or unbelievers destined for hell. In two places in the Quran, almost identical verses seem to indicate they  are saved: but there "exists a strong exegetical tradition" that claims these verses were abrogated by a later verse indicating a much less pleasant hereafter: Timeline. Quranic verses suggest that Judgement Day, heaven and hell are not "conceived to lie" off in some indefinite future, but "immediately ahead; it is "now", or almost there already". It is also a common belief among Muslims that hell, (like paradise), is not awaiting the destruction of earth and arrival of Judgement Day, but "coexists in time" with the temporal world, having already been created. The basis of this belief was the Quranic statement  hell has been" prepared ("uʿiddat") for the unbelievers", and also hadith reporting that Muhammad had seen the punishment of sinners in hell during his miraculous "miraj" journey on a winged creature. Eternal or temporary. The common belief among Muslims (as indicated above) is that duration in hell is temporary for Muslims but not for others. This combines in Jahannam two concepts: an eternal hell (for unbelievers), and a place (an "outer level" of hell was sometimes called "al-barrāniyya"), resembling the Christian Catholic idea of purgatory (for believers eventually destined for heaven after punishment for their sins). Several verses in  the Quran mention the eternal nature of hell or both heaven and hell, or that the damned will linger in hell for ages. Two verses in the Quran (6:128 and 11:107) emphasize that consignment to hell is horrible and eternal — but include the caveat "except as God (or your Lord) wills it", which some scholars considered an exemption from the eternity of hell. which suggests to some that Jahannam will be destroyed some day, so that its inhabitants may either be rehabilitated or cease to exist. The concept of hell's annihilation is referred to as "fanāʾ al-nār". Thomassen  writes that "several types of concerns" weigh "against the idea of an eternal hell in Islamic thought": belief in the mercy of God; resistance to the idea that Muslims—even great sinners—would "end up together with the disbelievers in the hereafter"; and resistance to the idea that "something other than God himself might have eternal existence". The Ulama (Islamic scholars) disagree on this issue. According to Christian Lange, "the majority" of theologians agreed that hell like heaven "was eternal". Ahmad ibn Hanbal argued the eternity of hell and paradise are proven by the Quran, although earths and heavens (sun , moon, stars) will perish. In modern times Shia cleric Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari argues against the idea that hell will not last for eternity. On the other hand, for Muʿtazilis, the eternity of paradise and hell posed a major problem, since they regard God as the only eternal entity. Egyptian Hanafi author al-Tahawi writes that God punishes the sinners in proportions to their offense in accordance with his justice, afterwards release them in accordance with his mercy. Ibn Taymiyya (d.728/1328) also argued for a limited abode in hell, based on the Quran and God's attribute of mercy. How  optimistic Muslims were about whether they and the rest of humanity would avoid hellfire or at least long durations of it, varied considerably. The idea of the "demise of hell" (ibn Taymiyya, Yemenite ibn al-Wazir (d.840/1436) meant (or at least meant to these theologians) that God would provide for "universal salvation even for non-Muslims". At the other end of the theological "spectrum" were fearful "renunciants" such as al-Hasan al-Basri. Though Hasan was so holy he was considered a "pious exemplar" of his age, he still felt great anxiety as to whether he would be among the  lucky ones who would spend a mere 1000 years suffering in hell before being released to Jannah. According to a major Shia Islam website, al-Islam.org, Hellfire is the eternal destination of unbelievers, although another essay on the site states that there is a set of unbelievers known as "‘Jahil-e-Qasir’" (lit. ‘inculpable ignorant’), who "will attain salvation if they are truthful to their own religion" because the message of Islam either didn't reach them, or reached them in an incorrect form. For those Muslims "who have committed a certain number of lesser sins and offences, they shall either  spend an appropriate amount of time in hellfire or receive the kindness and forgiveness of God". Non-Sunni schools. Al-Islam also states: "According to the Qur`an and ahadith, heaven and hell exist at present. However, they will become fully apparent and represented only in the Hereafter ...". Isma'ili authors (such as Abu Yaqub al-Sijistānī) believe resurrection, heaven and hell do not involve physical bodies, but what is spiritual. Suffering of hell came from failure to be enlightened by the teachings of the Isma'ili Imam, but such suffering does not require resurrection. According to one source, they do not believe  hell will last for eternity, based on their interpretation of Quranic verse 11:106. Instead, they believe hell to be a possible station of the soul's journey to its perfection in afterlife. Ibadis believe sinning Ibadis and all non-Ibadis will be in hell forever. According to the Ahmadiyya movement (by way of their official website), the places of heaven and hell are actually images of man's own spiritual life during lifetime, hell is a manifestation of his sins. Contrary to the belief that sinners or at least unbelieving sinners will spend eternity in hell, "there are numerous passages  in the Holy Quran showing that those in hell shall ultimately be taken out". Whereas the word "abad" used in the Quran has been translated as "eternity", it should be translated as "a long time", and the actual purpose of suffering in hell should not be thought of as punishment of sinners, but the purging of "the evil effects of their deeds done in this life" for the sinners "spiritual advancement". This is becausein the afterlife, Muslims and Non-Muslims, even those "who never did any good deeds", will eventually be taken out of hell. Sufism. Many prominent Sufis preached  the centrality of the love of God for which focus on eternal reward was a "distraction". Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya aka Rabia of Basra (died 801), is said to have proclaimed to passersby "O God! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty". Similarly, Bāyazīd Basṭāmī (d. 234/848) proclaimed the fire of "God's love" burns a thousand times more intensely than hellfire. Others did not take literally the Quran 's verses on heaven and hell as physical places where believers are rewarded with pleasure and sinners tortured with pain. According to ibn ʿArabī, Hell and Heaven are psychological states of the soul manifested after its separation from the body. He believed Hell and Heaven are only the distance or closeness from God, respectively, in the mind of resurrectant. The torments of Hell wrong-doers endure are actually their conception of their distance from God, created by their sinful indulgence in their earthly desires and the illusion of things other than God as existent. But distance from God is also  only illusory, because everything other than God is an illusion, since "everything is a form of the degrees of the Divine Existence". Other prominent Sufis had more conventional attitudes, such as al-Ghazali, who warned Muslims, "your coming unto it (hellfire) is certain, while your salvation therefrom is no more than conjecture. … fill up your heart therefore with a dread of that destination." Modernism, postmodernism. According to Smith and Haddad, "The great majority of contemporary Muslim writers, ... choose not to discuss the afterlife at all". Islamic Modernists, according to Smith and Haddad, express a "kind of embarrassment with the elaborate  traditional detail concerning life in the grave and in the abodes of recompense, called into question by modern rationalists". Consequently, most of "modern Muslim Theologians" either "silence the issue" or reaffirm "the traditional position that the reality of the afterlife must not be denied but that it's exact nature remains unfathomable". The beliefs of Pakistani modernist Muhammad Iqbal (died 1938), were similar to the Sufi "spiritual and internalized interpretations of hell" of ibn ʿArabī, and Rumi, seeing paradise and hell "primarily as metaphors for inner psychic" developments. Thus hellfire is actually a state of realization of one's failures  as a human being", and not a supernatural subterranean realm. Egyptian modernist Muhammad ʿAbduh, thought it was sufficient to believe in the existence of an afterlife with rewards and punishment to be a true believer, even if you ignored "clear" ("ẓāhir") hadith about hell. Some postmodernists have found at least one "sahih" (authentic) hadith on hell unacceptable -- the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad stating, "most people in hell are women" has been explained as an attempt to "legitimate social control over women" (Smith and Haddad), or perpetuate "the moral, social, political, sectarian hierarchies" of medieval Islam (Lange). Doubts, criticisms. In  modern times a number of criticisms have been made of the Islamic doctrine of hell: Uses. At least a couple of non-Muslims (Graeme Wood, Charles Baxter) have noted the use of dramatic Quranic/hadith descriptions of hell by Muslims for proselytizing. Both Muslims emphasized the Quranic story (Q.4:56) of how the skin of the condemned in hell will be continuously replaced with fresh skin once it is burned off so that the pain will always be fresh. "'It is very interesting, what happens to the skin. Every day the skin is burned off. ... And then each day, the God  gives you new skin ... and every day the "new" skin is burned off.' He said this sentence with a certain degree of excitement ..." Comparison with other religions. Christianity. Bible. Some of the Quranic parables describing the sufferings in hell resemble those of the Christian New Testament. The Book of Revelation describes a "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death", which most Christians believe to be a description of Hell, comparable to "Jahannam" as "the fire". While the Quran describes "Jahannam" as having seven levels, each for different sins, the Bible (as regards the issue of  levels), speaks of the "lowest Hell (Sheol)". It also refers to a "bottomless pit", comparable to the lowest layer of Jahannam in most Sunni traditions. Christian popular culture. Just as Hell is often depicted as the seat of the devil in Christian culture (though not in the bible itself), so too some Islamic scholars describe it that way. Al-Tha'alibis (961–1038) in his Qisas Al-Anbiya and Al-Suyutis "Al-Hay’a as-samya fi l-hay’a as-sunmya" describes Iblis as chained to the bottom of hell, commanding his hosts of demons from there. Also in the poetry of Al -Ma'arri, Iblis is the king of Jahannam. These depictions of Iblis as lord of hell simultaneously chained at its very bottom influenced Dante's representation of Lucifer and gave rise to the Christian depiction of hell as the seat of the devil. "Inferno" by Dante also shares the Islamic idea of dividing hell into multiple "circles". According to the Divine Comedy, each layer corresponding to another sin, with Satan inside a frozen area at the very bottom. As with Christian popular understanding of hell, "ʿKitāb al-ʿAẓama", a popular cultural work, describes hell as inhabited not only by the "Zabaniyya" (guarding  angels), but also by devils ("shayatin"), dwelling in the fourth layer of hell and rising up from coffins to torture the sinners. As evident from late Ottoman poetry, the notion of Iblis ruling hell remained in Islamic popular tradition until modern times. In one of Ğabdulla Tuqay's works, Iblis' current abode in hell is compared to working in factories during Industrial Revolution. When Iblis gets weary about hell, he remembers his time in heaven. According to Salafi shaikh Osama al-Qusi, Iblis scolds the inhabitants of hell from a "minbar", how they could have litened to him, knowing it  is his nature to deceive them. Notably, Iblis' temporary rule over Jahannam depends always on God's power and hell is still a form of punishment for Iblis himself. ("We have appointed only ˹stern˺ angels as wardens of the Fire." according to Q.74:31) Einar Thomassen points out that Iblis is chained to the floor of hell as punishment, whereas Malik is head of the 19 angels who guard hell, indicating it is the angels who are in charge and not the devils. Christian Liberalism. In modern times some Christians and Christian denominations (such as Universalism) have rejected the concept of  hell as a place of suffering and torment for sinners on the grounds that it is incompatible with a loving God. There are also symbolic and more merciful interpretations of hell among Muslims. Muslims Mouhanad Khorchide and Faheem Younus write that since the Quran states that God has "prescribed to himself mercy", and "... for him whose scales (of good deeds) are light. Hell will be his mother," suffering in Jahannam is not a product of vengeance and punishment, but a temporary phenomenon as the sinner is "transformed" in the process of confronting the truth about themselves. The idea of annihilation  of hell was already introduced earlier by traditionalistic scholars, such as Ibn Taimiyya. However, according to at least one source—Christian evangelist Phil Parshall, who spent several decades observing and writing about Muslims in Asia—this has not been the common view of Muslims; Parshall writes that he "never met a Muslim who has attempted to undercut the bluntness and severity of their doctrine of hell." Judeo-Islamic sources. Arabic texts written by Jews in Judeo-Arabic script (particularly those which are identified with the Isra'iliyyat genre in the study of hadith) also feature descriptions of Jahannam (or Jahannahum). These  seem to have been strongly influenced by the Islamic environment in which they were composed, and may be considered as holding many of the same concepts as those today identified with Islamic eschatology. A Judeo-Arabic version of a popular narrative known as "The Story of the Skull" (whose earliest version is attributed to Ka'ab al-Ahbar) offers a detailed picture of the concept of Jahannam. Here, "Malak al-Mawt" (the Angel of Death) and a number of sixty angels seize the soul of the dead and begin torturing him with fire and iron hooks. Two black angels named Nākir  and Nakīr (identified with Munkar and Nakir in Islamic eschatology) strike the dead with a whip of fire and take him to the "lowest level" of Jahannam. Then, they order the Earth to swallow and crush the dead inside its womb, saying: "Seize him and take revenge, because he has stolen Allāh's wealth and worshipped others than Him". Following this, the dead is brought before the dais of God where a herald calls for throwing the dead into Jahannam. There he is put in shackles sixty cubits long and into a leather sackcloth full of snakes and scorpions. The  Judeo-Arabic legend in question explains that the dead is set free from the painful perogatory after twenty-four years. In a final quote alluding to Isaiah 58.8, the narrative states that "nothing will help Man on the last day except good and loving actions, deeds of giving charity to widows, orphans, the poor and the unfortunate." Some Jewish sources such as Jerahmeel provide descriptive detail of hell-like places, divided into multiple levels; usually Sheol, which is translated as a grave or pit, is the place where humans descend upon death. Zoroastrianism. Like Islam, Zoroastrianism, holds that on Judgement  Day all resurrected souls will pass over a bridge over hell (As-Sirāt in Islam, Chinvat Bridge in Zoroastrianism), and those destined for hell will find it too narrow and fall below into their new abode. Hinduism. In case of a finite hell, as asserted by some Sufi thinkers, as a circulation of beginning and reset, the cosmology resembles to a hinduistic notion of an eternal cosmic process of generation, decay and destruction. Detailed description of Journey of the soul and the punishments in Hell (Naraka) are detailed in Garuda Purana. Buddhism. Some descriptions of Jahannam resemble Buddhist descriptions of  Naraka from Mahayana sutras in regard of destroying inhabitants of hell physically, while their consciousness still remains and after once the body is destroyed, it will regenerate again, thus the punishment will repeat. However, according to Buddhism belief, the inhabitants are able to gain good Karma and in certain circumstances leave hell again.