On a lighter note: There’s a persistent rumour going around that jihadists are encouraged to blow themselves up and become martyrs with the promise that they will receive 17 virgins in heaven.
However, a scholar at my workplace told me that the translation of the term “virgin” from the original text of the Koran is highly questionable, and it could just as easily be translated as “raisin.”
Imagine the disappointed faces of the suicide bombers turning up in heaven, only to be rewarded with a small packet of Sun Maid raisins!
some more here :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,631357,00.html#article_continue
Luxenberg tries to show that many obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic. We cannot go into the technical details of his methodology but it allows Luxenberg, to the probable horror of all Muslim males dreaming of sexual bliss in the Muslim hereafter, to conjure away the wide-eyed houris promised to the faithful in suras XLIV.54; LII.20, LV.72, and LVI.22. Luxenberg ‘s new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, yields “white raisins” of “crystal clarity” rather than doe-eyed, and ever willing virgins – the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred, and not unsullied maidens or houris.
In Syriac, the word hur is a feminine plural adjective meaning white, with the word “raisin” understood implicitly. Similarly, the immortal, pearl-like ephebes or youths of suras such as LXXVI.19 are really a misreading of a Syriac expression meaning chilled raisins (or drinks) that the just will have the pleasure of tasting in contrast to the boiling drinks promised the unfaithful and damned.
As Luxenberg’s work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.
Nice one mate! Here’s a hyperlink to the Guardian article, Virgins? What virgins?