Hell might not be eternal

[WinterHold]

My interpretation of the phrase "god does what he wants" in the first verse was that this was a direct reference to Allah's merciful nature in that he may suspend the natural fate of the dead and deliver them unto eternal bliss instead (cf. the Protestant Christian concept of sola gratia). In that sense, the discretion of Allah which is at issue is not that of the duration of punishment but rather his discretion in choosing not to punish at all. Furthermore, it's not clear that the verse is saying anything beyond that Allah is possessed of the possibility of suspension of sentence, not that he will do so, or ever in fact does. (And I can't help but wonder if this deference to Allah's potency and choice isn't in some sense a literary or idiomatic expression of 'Islam' [submission].)

Some scholars went to this opinion, but it contradicts a basic rule of exception grammar in Arabic language. The first part of the verse was :

"dwelling in it as long as the earth & the skies last, except what god wants"

The exception word "except" -in arabic "Ella"- refers to the time & duration ; since the previous condition in the verse spoke about a "dwelling with a duration". So, the exception comes on the whole condition as a single block.

Your opinion would be flawless, if the verse was like this :
"Dwelling in it, except who god wants, as long as the earth & skies last".

Another point is the words I highlighted. "who" & "what" differ so much in the context in arabic, "what" doesn't refer to humans ; it actually refers to an entity, a place, a timeline ...etc.

So your opinion is also wrong in this, because if the verse was aimed at "people", it would use the word "who" instead of "what".
In arabic, the words are :

What = ما "ma"
Who = من "man" without extending the A.

Beyond that, I don't know much about Islam, but I have noticed in prior discussions that you seem to discount the validity of reasoning from ahadith or sunnah, which while certainly your prerogative, is to my understanding, rather unorthodox. [Though in this perhaps you are simply expressing a rather extreme opinion against the practice of kalam.] Regardless, doing so lands you in the swamp of hermeneutical problems which plagues anyone who uses a text — any text — as foundational [in the philosophical sense as serving as the foundation for knowledge]. The same problems, and their implications, similarly plague fundamentalist Christians and other literalists, despite them, and you, being oblivious to the consequences of such for their arguments and beliefs. However, I am going to defer here on the epistemological problems of literalism, as there is plenty of elaboration on that elsewhere here and on the web.

To be honest with you, I stayed away from hadiths as a challenge to the Quran ; I was about to abandon Islam sometime ago, but decided to take the Quran alone as a final check. Even though I doubted that I might get "hit" by the plague you mentioned

The book gave a promise that any arab would understand it. That's why I'm using literacy with it. If then the interpreted concepts clashed & literacy failed, then it's not the word of god ; it's a forgery of a madman.
If the Quran is the word of god, then I should understand it by reading it directly ; literally, without any intervention from outside sources.

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the earth and the skies according to science havent been here forever and wont last forever, so therefore how could heaven be forever? " except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal" doesnt make sense in english so i cant really comment on the last part. I couldnt even guess what it means.

That's exactly what I was thinking about.. but it can only lead to a small conclusion that heaven isn't even close to "the skies".

#Note : the following is a crazy thought I had -and a very weird one- ; it's not based on a strong religious evidence, rather than a wikipedia link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant#T...5D.5B19.5D

The resurrection in the Quran takes place on earth. What I was thinking about, if humanity vanished for some reason -as most religious people call "the last hour", and then resurrected when the sun is turning into a red giant..

Maybe the red giant sun is hell ? the "lucky ones" are taken to heaven -which is not even in the skies but somewhere really far-, and the rest stay on earth to get swallowed by the red giant without any help from god to prevent that fate.

It makes some sense, but still a cranky theory because it's not based on anything but a link & thoughts of me -and I'm insane-, because I think it matches the punishment rules of god. People who don't believe in heaven would stay in what they believed in : earth. and earth will end some day, and get consumed by "hell", which is nothing more than the sun growing old.

Damn, that wasn't really related to what you said ! but it answers why heaven is eternal -because it's not even in the skies-, and why hell isn't.