Boreal

LOVE, SEX & ISLAM

Sex in the Hereafter

Procreation 

3:14 Attractive to mankind is made the love of the pleasures of women, children, heaps upon heaps of gold and silver, thoroughbred horses, cattle and cultivatable land. Such is the pleasure of this worldly life, but unto Allah is the fairest return.

3:15 Say: “Shall I tell you about something better than all that?” For those who are God-fearing, from their Lord are gardens beneath which rivers flow, and in which they abide forever [along with] purified spouses and Allah’s good pleasure. Allah sees His servants well!

With men no longer producing semen and Allah bragging that what he has to offer in Paradise is better than life with children and wives who menstruate (as per the reference to “purified spouses” which includes houris), you would expect the issue of having children in Paradise to be settled, but you would be wrong. Again, it all comes down to the observations of a man who claimed to know just about everything that goes on in the Hereafter.

A companion of Muhammad, a fellow by the name of Abu Saeed al-Khudri, reported that: “The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: ‘If the believer wishes for a child in Paradise, the pregnancy, birth and growth will occur within an hour, as he wishes.’”

However, a majority of scholars seem to disagree, quoting another saying of Muhammad where he affirms the opposite: “The people of Paradise will not have children there.” They bolster their argument with the fact that Allah will purify the real women that make it to Paradise from the scourge of menstruation, whose role in procreation, unlike Allah and His spokesman, they are fully aware.

The following is the full, somewhat surreal discussion on Islam Q&A as to whether one can have kids in Paradise. If you are a childless young man or woman contemplating a sacred explosion, read carefully; if the majority of scholars are right, you will be giving up a lifetime of joy, which includes the experience of raising children.

Arabic terms used within this discussion are defined below for the benefit of all readers.

Saheeh, i.e., authenticated, as in an authenticated saying of Muhammad. The sayings of Muhammad are graded as to their degree of reliability, and a saheeh hadith inspires the greatest confidence as to its veracity. Most hadiths were collected approximately 200 years after Muhammad's passing by men who travelled the land, seeking people who may have known of people who knew of people who were contemporaries of Muhammad, who could pass down to future generations what they remembered of his words and actions.

Da‘eef (also spelled da’if), i.e., weak; a saying of Muhammad where there is a break in the chain of transmission and/or the integrity of the narrator is suspect, or simply not enough people remember hearing about it. A weak hadith can still be considered a legal precedent, depending on the circumstances and the school of Islamic law.

Isnaad refers to the chain of narrators.

Sunan usually means collection, as in a collection of the sayings and actions of Muhammad, also referred to as the Prophet’s Sunna.

Maniy is a liquid that Muhammad may have mistaken for a woman’s ejaculate, but is actually fluid that is sometimes expelled from a female’s urethra during sex. In another posting on Islam Q&A, its form and function is described as follows:

Praise be to Allah. What comes out of a woman may be maniy, madhiy or regular discharge, which is called “moisture”. Each of these has its own characteristics and rulings that apply to it. With regard to maniy: It is thin and yellow. This is the description that is narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): “The water of the man is thick and white, and the water of the woman is thin and yellow.” Narrated by Muslim (311). There is pleasure when it is emitted, and desire ceases immediately after it is emitted. Needless to say, no female ejaculate will appear in Paradise.

From Islam Q&A, the answer to “Will there be pregnancy and childbirth in Paradise?”

Ghareeb: one meaning is “strange,” as used below.

Jiddan: one meaning is “very.” It is not unusual to find transliteration of Arabic into English on such sites as Islamqa.info. What is interesting here is that you don’t find such transposition for common English words such as “very” and “strange” that have no religious significance. They are used here in the order presented in an Arabic sentence to describe a saying of Muhammad as “very strange,” which is strange in itself.

Except for minor editing to conform to chosen nomenclature (such as changing Bukhaari to Bukhari, Allaah to Allah and hadeeth to hadith), as well as adding paragraph breaks for readability, this text is presented as found on Islam Q&A on April 28, 2020.

Answer: Praise be to Allah. Some of the scholars are of the view that if a person wishes to have a child in Paradise, Allah will fulfil that wish for him. They quoted as evidence for that the report narrated by at-Tirmidhi (2563) in his Sunan from Abu Sa‘eed al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “If the believer wishes for a child in Paradise, the pregnancy, birth and growth will occur within an hour, as he wishes.” Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Jaami‘, 6649

What is meant is that the pregnancy will occur and the child will be born and will grow to the age of perfection, which is thirty years, as the person wishes, i.e., the child will be male or female and so on, in accordance with the person’s wishes.

This is the view of many of the scholars.

Some of the scholars said that in Paradise there will be intercourse but there will be no children. This view was nar-rated from Tawoos, Muhaajid and Ibraaheem an-Nakha‘i. Imam al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) said: It was narrated from Abu Razeen al-‘Uqayli that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The people of Paradise will not have children there.”

The hadith referred to by al-Bukhari was narrated by Imam Ahmad (15773) from Abu Razeen al-‘Uqayli (may Allah be pleased with him) in a lengthy hadith in which it says “The righteous women will be for the righteous man, you will enjoy them as you enjoyed them in this world, and they will enjoy you, but you will not produce children.”

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said: It has the dignity and light of Prophethood which suggests that it is saheeh. However it was classed as da‘eef by al-Albaani in Zalaal al-Jannah, and Shu‘ayb al-Arna’oot said: Its isnaad is da‘eef and is a series of unknown narrators.

The hadith clearly states that there will be no childbirth, but there is a difference of opinion as to its soundness.

With regard to the hadith of Abu Sa‘eed (may Allah be pleased with him), “If the believer wishes for a child in Paradise, the pregnancy, birth and growth will occur within an hour, as he wishes”, it was noted that its soundness is subject to further discussion. Hence Ibn al-Qayyim said concerning it: Its isnaad meets the conditions of soundness, but it is ghareeb jiddan. Haadi al-Arwaah, p. 213

And he said: With regard to this hadith of Abu Saeed al-Khudri, the best of its isnaads is the isnaad of at-Tirmidhi, who determined that it is ghareeb and that it is only known from the hadith of Abu’s-Siddeeq an-Naaji, and the wording of the hadith is not sound. End quote.

Imam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh (may Allah have mercy on him) said concerning the hadith of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), “If the believer wishes for a child in Paradise, the pregnancy, birth and growth will occur within an hour, as he wishes”: But he will not wish. What is meant by the words of Ishaaq is that the words of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), “If the believer wishes …” are hypothetical) i.e., if the believer were to wish, but in fact he will not wish).

Ibn al-Qayyim mentioned a number of reasons why it is most likely that there will be no childbirth in Paradise, such as the following:

1. The hadith of Ibn Razeen.

2. The words of Allah, may He be exalted (interpretation of the meaning): “Therein they shall have Azwajun Mutahharatun (purified mates or wives)” [an-Nisa’ 4:57]. They are the ones who have been purified from menses, nifaas (postpartum bleeding) and so on. It was narrated that Mujaahid said: Purified from menses, stools, urine, sputum, spitting, maniy and childbirth.

3. Allah, may He be glorified, made pregnancy and childbirth along with menses and maniy; if women were to become pregnant in Paradise, menses and other discharges would not cease for them.

4. It is proven in as-Saheeh that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “There will remain in Paradise surplus space, and Allah will create a creation for it and cause them to inhabit it (the surplus space).” Narrated by Muslim, 5085. If there were to be childbirth in Paradise, then this surplus space would be for those who would be born there, and they would be more entitled to it than others.

5. Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): “And those who believe and whose offspring follow them in Faith, to them shall We join their offspring” [at-Toor 52:21].

Here He tells us that He will honour them by joining to them their offspring that they had in this world. If they were to have offspring in Paradise, Allah would have referred to them as He referred to their worldly offspring, because they would be delighted with them (the hypothetical offspring in Paradise) as they were delighted with their children in this world (i.e., the fact that He mentioned only the worldly offspring indicates that there will be no offspring in Paradise).

6. Either we say that there will ongoing procreation in Paradise or that it will continue until some point, then cease. But both ideas are impossible, because the former implies endless birth of new individuals, whilst the latter implies the end of one of the pleasures of the people of Paradise, and that is impossible. And we cannot say that there will be procreation and people will die to be succeeded by others, because there is no death there.

7. People will not grow in Paradise as they did in this world, so the children of its people will not grow and become bigger, and the men will not grow. Rather these children will remain small and will not change, and the adults will be thirty-three years old and will not change either. If there were any childbirth in Paradise, then the child would have to grow until it became an adult. It is well known that children who die will reach the age of thirty-three without growing.

Then he said: Paradise is not the realm of procreation; rather it is the place of eternal abode and those who are in it will never die and be replaced by their offspring.

End quote. Haadi al-Arwaah, 1/173

And Allah knows best.