33وَكَواعِبَ أَترابًاAli UnalAnd youthful, full-breasted maidens of equal age,1Some biased persons from other religions accuse Islam of promising a paradise full of carnal pleasures. Islam considers humans with their complete nature, not as body, carnal soul, or spirit only. Islam considers all of these and has laid down the necessary rules for each. So it neither orders monasticism nor sets human desires free. It employs human desires for human perfection. So Paradise will be a place where both the human spirit and the carnal soul (which will have been trained and purified) will be satisfied with the (pure) pleasures particular to each. In his inimitable style, Said Nursi addresses the matter thus: Question: What does the defective, changing, unstable, and pain-stricken body have to do with eternity and Paradise? The spirit’s elevated pleasures must be enough. Why should a bodily resurrection take place for bodily pleasures? Answer: Soil, despite its darkness and density when compared to water, air, and light, is the means and source of all works of Divine art. Therefore, it is somehow superior in meaning over other elements. Your selfhood, despite its density, and due to its being comprehensive, and provided it is purified, gains some kind of superiority over your other senses and faculties. Likewise, your body is a most comprehensive and rich mirror for the Divine Names’ manifestations, and has been equipped with instruments to weigh and measure the contents of all Divine treasuries. For example, if the tongue’s sense of taste were not the origin of as many measures as the varieties of food and drink, it could not experience, recognize, or measure them. Furthermore, your body also contains the instruments needed to experience and recognize most of the Divine Names’ manifestations, as well as the faculties for experiencing the most various and infinitely different pleasures. The universe’s conduct and humanity’s comprehensive nature show that the Maker of the universe wants to make known all His Mercy’s treasuries and all His Names’ manifestations, and to make us experience all His bounties by means of the universe. Given this, as the world of eternal happiness is a mighty pool into which the flood of the universe flows, a vast exhibition of what the loom of the universe produces, and the everlasting store of crops produced in the field of this (material) world, it will resemble the universe to some degree. The All-Wise Maker, the All-Compassionate Just One, will give pleasures particular to each bodily organ as wages for their duty, service, and worship. To think otherwise would be contrary to His Wisdom, Justice, and Compassion. Question: A living body is in a state of formation and de-formation, and so is subject to disintegration and is non-eternal. Eating and drinking perpetuate the individual; sexual relations perpetuate the species. These are fundamental to life in this world but must be irrelevant and unnecessary in the world of eternity. Given this, why have they been included among Paradise’s greatest pleasures? Answer: A living body declines and dies because the balance between what it needs to maintain and takes in is disturbed. From childhood until the age of physical maturity, it takes in more than it lets out and grows healthier. Afterwards, it usually cannot meet its needs in a balanced way, and death comes in. In the world of eternity, however, the body’s particles remain constant and are immune to disintegration and re-formation. In other words, this balance remains constant. Like moving in perpetual cycles, a living body gains eternity together with the constant operation of the factory of bodily life for pleasure. In this world, eating, drinking, and marital sexual relations arise from a need and perform a function. Thus, a great variety of excellent (and superior) pleasures are ingrained in them as immediate wages for the functions performed. In this world of ailments, eating and marriage lead to many wonderful and various pleasures. Thus Paradise, the realm of perfect happiness and pleasure, must contain these pleasures in their most elevated form. Adding to them otherworldly wages (as pleasures) for the duties performed in the world by them, and the need felt for them here in the form of a pleasant and otherworldly appetite, they will be transformed into an all-encompassing, living source of pleasure that is appropriate to Paradise and eternity. (The Words, “The 28th Word,” 515–517) (For other explanations of blessings of Paradise, see sūrah 2: 25, note 21; sūrah 73: 13, note 2; and for equality of age, see sūrah 56: 37, note 6.