JAHANNAM

Islamic hell, described somewhat ambiguously in the Qur'an and by Muhammad. In one version, hell seems to be a fantastic monster that God can summon at will; in another description, it is a crater of concentric circles on the underside of the world that all souls must cross in order to enter paradise by way of a bridge, narrow as a razor's edge. (The Muslim theologian and philosopher al-Ghazali considers the bridge in metaphoric terms as the straight path to God that every Muslim is expected to travel.) Punishment in hell is graded and varied according to offenses, and sinners are released only when God wills. Muslim theologians have attempted to clarify the problems inherent in the Qur'anic description of hell. Avicenna (Ibn Sina), for example, speaks of hell as a state in which souls retain sensual lusts but suffer because they have no bodies with which to fulfill their desires.