Where Will All Those Virgins Come From?

[Minimalist]

http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/i...r-raisins/

The promise of “70 virgins” for Islamic suicide bomber martyrs is in fact a mistranslation of the original text. The correct translation was supposed to be “70 white raisins.” Imagine the disappointment on these people’s faces who upon dying, awake to find themselves to be surrounded on their bed not by virgins but raisins.

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.

I expect to be on the receiving end of a fatwa from the religion of peace in short order!