How will marriage be in Paradise?

Does a woman have to marry her husband in the world in Paradise? If she married only once in the world, will she have the right to choose another man?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Detailed information regarding the bounties of Paradise has been given in the Quran for man, who is inclined to all kinds of perfection and beauty and who desires his highest degree like a lover; in addition, he has been pledged the content and pleasure of Allah.

Paradise, which includes all kinds of spiritual and emotional bounties, also contains all kinds of bodily and material bounties. Eating, drinking and marrying are regarded among the highest bounties of Paradise. According to the statements of the Quran and hadiths, the family life that is established in the world will continue forever if both spouses deserve to go to Paradise; their marital relations will go on endlessly. However, the spouses that did not believe and died as unbelievers will be separated from their spouses and they will suffer the punishment for their unbelief by staying in hell forever even if they are the wives of Hazrat Noah and Lot and the husband of Asiya, the Pharaoh.   

God Almighty will give the believing women who entered Paradise due to their belief and good deeds to their husbands as spotlessly clean wives by cleaning them from all kinds of worldly defects. Those women of the world, who were created in a more beautiful form than houris, will be eternal friends of life for their husbands and become the sultans of the houris. They will make use of Paradise forever with the people they love without any feelings of jealousy and competition. 

The believing men and women who died before they got married in the world will be married in Paradise; all of the single people will be married there. However, those who died as children are exceptions to that rule. As it is understood from the phrase, “wildanun mukhalladun” (immortal children), the children of believers who died before reaching the age of puberty will go to Paradise directly, but they will make their parents enjoy the pleasure of caressing and loving children by remaining as children forever. However, God Almighty will create the children who prayed and performed fasting thanks to the encouragement of their parents although they did not have to as adults and he will grant them the return for their deeds as Paradise. The children of unbelievers who died before reaching the age of puberty will enter Paradise but they will be employed as servants. Those who were not sane and the people of interregnum who were unaware of the true religion will enter Paradise since they were not mukallaf (responsible); they will not be accounted for their mistakes.

– Which one of her husbands will a woman who married several times in the world be together with in Paradise?  

– First of all, it is necessary not to forget the characteristic of Paradise. If its characteristic is forgotten, many questions cannot be answered. That characteristics is as follows:

Paradise is a place of complete happiness. A person who enters Paradise will not come across with even the slightest thing that will overshadow his happiness. On the contrary, he will have all of the things that will make him happy and as he likes them to be; there will be no deprivation.

Acting upon that basic criterion, we can say that she will be together with the husband that she will be happy with. In other words, she will prefer to be with the husband that made her happy in the world; she will increase the happiness of the world more in the hereafter. In Paradise, it is out of question to be together with a person that one does not like or does not want. Then, those who love will be together with the people whom they loved in Paradise; they will transform their ephemeral happiness in the world to eternal happiness in the hereafter. That is the summary of the judgment expressed by the hadiths that are thought to have different meanings.

As a matter of fact, the following famous hadith that is uttered as a proverb among people expresses the same thing:

– A person is together with whom he loves!

Unfortunately, the world is not a place that is appropriate for fulfilling every wish. A person might not be together with the person he loves in the world no matter how much he wants. However, it is certain that he will be together with whom he loves in the hereafter though not in the world. 

What is more, those who did not express their love openly and could not be together with their lovers will meet their lovers there.

We can add the following remark here.

Since a person will be together with whom he loves in the hereafter, one should love the people who deserve to go to Paradise so that he will be together with them in Paradise. God forbid, if you love the people who deserve to go to Hell, it is possible that you go to Hell in order to be together with whom you love.  – Do not say is it possible? It is. They say love is blind. A person may love someone that Allah does not love. He follows that person and goes to the place where he/she goes because a person is together with whom he loves.

Then, love the people that Allah loves so that you will be together with them in the hereafter. Be careful not to be a victim of wrong love and a person who is overcome by his feelings.

Another important point to remember here is as follows.

Great saints say:

– Do not attribute your love in your marriage to outward appearance and beauty, which will disappears soon. Do not regard the beauty of a face, which will disappear soon, as the only reason for love because outward beauty will disappear in a short time; since what makes you love disappears, your love may disappear too. That approach will soon make the family loveless. However, if one attributes his love to nice qualities like belief, ethics, sincerity and loyalty, which will increase as one gets older, not to outward beauty, which will disappear, the future of the family will be guaranteed. The parties who see that the reason for their love continues lifelong will maintain their family without weakening it until they die because the high ethics that originates from devoutness brings the wife and husband together in Paradise; it will enable them to be together in the eternal life after the world; thus, they make their love kind of eternal. Therefore, they are very careful and try not to disappoint and hurt their eternal friend here. 

The following point regarding the issue should never be forgotten:

– The wife and husband that will be together in Paradise will not be the same couple with their weaknesses in the world. Both of them will be together in Paradise after being cleaned from all kinds of material and spiritual dirt. What is more, the wife and husband that they imagined will appear exactly; they will have the appearance of a Paradise youth and a Paradise houri that will make each other happy. They will meet in Paradise being freed from some views that overshadowed their love that existed in the world. 

Thus, the wife of the man in the world will be a Paradise houri that he will admire fully and the husband will be a Paradise youth that she will admire fully; they will have the opportunity of enjoying their overshadowed happiness in the world without being overshadowed in Paradise, and in a better phase.

Therefore, the love in the world should not be attributed only to the temporary outward beauty. They should focus on the beauty of belief and ethics that will gain them the eternal friendship of life in Paradise, which will improve as they get older so that their family love will continue lifelong and will be transformed to eternal friendship of life.

Ahmed ŞAHİN

Does a woman have to marry her husband in the world in Paradise? If she married only once in the world, will she have the right to choose another man?

We can give the following summarized information regarding the issue:

a. The principle is that each husband and wife continue their marriage in Paradise.

b. The women who died before getting married can marry the men they like.  

c. According to the opinion of some scholars, if a woman married two or more men in the world, she will marry her first husband if her other marriage(s) took place as a result of the death of her husband not as a result of divorce; according to the opinion of other scholars, she will marry her last husband. However, she can also marry the one that she likes better. (cf. Alusi; ad-Duhan, the interpretation of the verse 44/54.)

d. If one of the spouses wants the other but the other spouse does not want him/her (if there is a consciousness and demand like that), the one who likes will be given a similar spouse, and the other is left free; he/she will marry whomever she wants.

- It should not be forgotten that a depressing situation is never in question in Paradise. Nobody will be more beautiful and beloved than one’s spouse no matter whom one marries. The sadness and longing in the world are not in question in Paradise. In other words, the longing and sadness remaining from the world will be eliminated there by reunion or there will be no traces from them; what is important is to enter Paradise. Therefore, it is necessary to compete in taqwa, that is, in obeying the commands and prohibitions of Allah, which is a prerequisite for entering Paradise.

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