Please, please, please. When you are looking for something, it is very easy to find it. Too many people are jumping to conclusions about verses simply because they feel it fits what they are looking for.
The rewards of paradise are mentioned, I believe, 3 times in the Quran. What everyone is failing to realize is that the chaste maidens being mentioned are, in fact, the mates of the righteous -- not some type of prize or reward.
Look at Surah 56 verses 27-40:
Now as for those who have attained to righteousness -- what of those who have attained to righteousness?
They, too, will find themselves amidst fruit-laden lote-trees, and acacias flower-clad, and shade extended, and waters gushing, and fruit abounding, never-failing and never out of reach.
And with them will be their spouses, raised high: for, behold, We shall have brought them into being in a life renewed, having resurrected them as virgins, full of love, well-matched with those who have attained to righteousness: a good many of olden times, and a good many of later times.
These verses tell us that all righteous women, however old, will be resurrected as virginal maidens and will, like their male counterparts, remain eternally young in paradise. These women and their spouses will be together in paradise.
I implore everyone to realize that one cannot simply do an online search for a word in the Quran and the Hadith, pull the relevant passages out of context, and then profess to understand what they mean. Passages are not islands unto themselves. They are part of a greater whole. It is much easier to try and bend something to fit what you are looking for then to objectively read something and figure out what it means without prior bias. |
