Will the Quran be read in Paradise? What will Paradise be like?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Yes, the Quran can be read in Paradise. Whatever man wishes will take place in Paradise.

What will Paradise be like?

Paradise is the happiness corner of the realm of the hereafter... Paradise is an ocean of boons and grants, a country of pleasure and tranquility... Paradise is a land of consent, land of peace. It is the settlement of those who attain the mercy of our merciful Lord... Our Lord, who is free and away from all kinds of imperfection and incompleteness, orders us to avoid sins and to be purified from evil deeds as much as we can so that He will accept us to the land of peace, which is free of all evil deeds and people...

- There is no place for bad faith like unbelief, polytheism and heresy there…
- Bad characteristics like lying, backbiting and slandering cannot enter there...
- You cannot find anyincompleteness like illness, tiredness and sleeplessness there...
- There are no words like ah, ow, I wish and alas there...
- That land of peace is free and away from them...

This universe, whose ends we cannot see and whose size we cannot imagine, is our testing hall. Man can undergo a test in the candlelight, on dry wood and a bagel in his hand... Then, why is this universe so magnificent? What do so many kinds of vegetables and fruits mean?

The huge sun is our testing lamp... This state widens our horizons. It shows our imagination from a distance how wonderful the realm of the hereafter, whose nature we cannot know, is... If the testing hall is so big, nice and magnificent, how will the realm of happiness and reward be?.. If we receive so many boons in the test, God knows what kind of grants we will receive in Paradise...

"The world is the field of the hereafter,”

says the Messenger of Allah (pbuh). A field is not a place to have fun. A field necessitates hard work and getting tired. Time is used in the best way in a field...

With this hadith, the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) advises us to benefit from the field of this world in the best and most productive way. He gives us the glad tiding that the seeds that we sow here will flourish and yield fruits at a rate of a thousand for one, seventy thousand for one or more...The eating, drinking, speaking, listening and thinking of a believer are like seeds. If they are done within the boundaries of legitimacy, they will be fruits of Paradise...

A person who listens to a religious and scholarly talk sows a lot of things there. He gains eternity in return for the ephemeral minutes he spends there. He becomes a candidate for talks of Paradise in return for the words to which he listens there. He increases his power of understanding and meditation in Paradise in return for the understanding and meditation there. He is regarded to have prayed to meet luminous faces in Paradisein return for the believing faces he sees there...

A person who eats halal food is regarded to have sowed his eating for Paradise. A person who always tells and proclaims the truth is regarded to have sown words on behalf of Paradise. If we can make use of all of our capital in our realm of deeds, state and words, we will attain incredible rewards, prepare our Paradise here and send our sustenance from this world to Paradise...

Our Lord gives us the glad tiding of that land as follows:

“Allah hath promised to Believers men and women Gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in Gardens of everlasting stay, but the greatest bliss in the Good Pleasure of Allah: that is the Supreme Felicity.” (at-Tawba, 9/72)

Interpretations like rivers of clean water, milk and honey are made for the rivers of Paradise. There are also so many rivers that cannot be described. The small samples of those rivers are present in the world... A river of milk flows in the world every day... However, we cannot see this river as a whole; we only see the part that comes out of breasts... The rivers like the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates have flown for centuries without ending... Our Lord, who informs us about the rivers of Paradise and the nice residences in the Gardens of Eden and encourages us to prepare for them, turns our hearts toward His consent by the following great lesson in the end and teaches us to do all of our deeds sincerely: “The greatest bliss is in the Good Pleasure of Allah: that is the Supreme Felicity.”

The difference between a child who obeys his father in order to attain his consent and a child who obeys him in order to get something, say chocolate, from him is very big... The shares of the believers who have noticed this subtlety and who spend their lives with this consciousness in the eternal grace will be much more.

This divine news has another aspect that is valid for all people of Paradise: When the lucky guests of that land of bliss receive a boon, they feel a lofty pleasure by thinking, “This is a sign showing that my Lord is pleased with me.” Badiuzzaman Said Nursi expresses this meaning in a very nice way in his book called Mektubat:

"An apple an august monarch presents to you holds a pleasure superior to that of a hundred, indeed a thousand, apples, for it is he that has bestowed it on you and made you experience the pleasure of a royal favor...”

It means people will both benefit from material boons and enjoy spiritual pleasures that are much better than them... Not to regard this like that, and to regard Paradise as something spiritual only will be a wrong and incomplete understanding that is contrary all of the verses related to the hereafter.

The spirit only watches the mansion of Paradise and its houris... It finds it enough to look at the rivers of Paradise... It does not interest the spirit whether the rivers contain this or that. In that case, will the boons of Paradise, which are much more superior to worldly boons, not be lower than them contrarily?..

Is it not better to drink a glass of milk in this world than to watch a river of milk in Paradise?..

The spirit will not be satisfied with such an incomplete Paradise... Such an understanding will satisfy the apprehensions of only those who cannot realize that resurrection will take place bodily... The way to the land of Paradise, which is full of the originals of all of the flavors and pleasures, is through Sirat Bridge... Those who pass through Sirat safely reach the gates of Paradise. The seed of Sirat, like everything else in the hereafter, is in the world. Those who conduct all of their affairs in accordance with the orders of Allah and those who always tell the truth will pass through Sirat safely...

Hell lies under Sirat whether you fall from the right or the left. The seed of this reality is also present in the world. Both excessiveness and negligence destroy man… That is, extremism in both ends leads man to destruction... That is, man needs to drive away excessiveness with one hand and negligence with the other; he needs to act like that throughout his life in order to reach Paradise, the land of bliss.

Alaaddin Başar (Prof. Dr.)

Questions on Islam