Introduction

The houri, the pure female companion of Islamic paradise, is a cosmic figure who has inspired interpreters across time, region, and language. The introduction presents the prevalence of the houri in print and online media and the vast and complex set of historical reflections about the houri. Houris appear in genres of Arabic theology and Arabic and Persian poetry, but they were also frequently found in English and American literature until the early twentieth century. The history of the houri is not an exclusively Islamic history. The Introduction also discusses theories about the houri’s origins and provides an overview of the chapters in the book.

The Romance

This chapter demonstrates how nineteenth-century literature transcended religious frameworks and questioned the nature of male authority and feminine purity. Although the houri may have been based on assumptions about Islam, the term “houri” eventually was applied to Jewish and Christian women. The chapter surveys mentions of the houri in the form of the “Oriental tale” and argues that writers made use of the figure of the houri to present their own ideas of idealized Christian and Jewish women. Texts in the chapter include poems by Byron, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre, Algerine Captive, Book of Khalid, engravings, and American monthly magazines for ladies.

The Promise

This chapter examines online lectures and tours of paradise in English, French, and Arabic. It argues that the online tours of paradise offer a twenty-first-century form of exhortation by reformists, while online jihadi videos about the houri demonstrate the aim to develop affective bonds through vocalization. In particular, the chapter focuses on the videos of Anwar al-Awlaqi, the leader of al-Qaʿida in the Arabian Peninsula, who used the houri to represent the wonders of paradise and to recognize the injustices of this world and the superlative nature of the cosmic world. The chapter concludes by surveying other images of the houri in Arab television drama.

A Reward

This chapter presents Islamic theological and historical texts about the houri and argues that the houri is an ambiguous reward of paradise that has developed multiple meanings. The chapter introduces the concepts of paradise, or the Garden, and hell, or the Fire, in Islamic history and surveys Qurʾanic commentaries, hadith collections, dictionaries, eschatological manuals, and book arts from the eighth to the fifteenth century. The chapter argues that there are multiple functions of the houri, including pure companion, sensual being, cosmic bride, and singing slave girl. These many functions of the houri arise because she is an ambiguous reward in paradise.

The Question

This chapter presents a critical question in online communities about the houri: “If men receive houris, then what do women receive?” By bringing together American and European perspectives and also classical Islamic and contemporary Muslim perspectives, the chapter presents four different answers: Muslim women receive misogyny; they receive eternity with their husbands; they obtain higher status than the houris; or they receive male houris of their own. The chapter argues that the question is built on assumptions about and expectations for gender parity, and the discourse surrounding the question demonstrates an Islamic scriptural interpretation that fuses American, European, and classical Islamic interpretations of the houri.

The Letter

This chapter studies the most consequential recent mention of the houri, the purported letter of September 11th hijacker Mohamed Atta, and shows that media fascination with the houri is related to American reactions to the events of September 11th. Americans used the letter’s promise of the heavenly virgins of paradise to comment on Islam and Muslim societies. The chapter also accounts for how houris became prominent in news media by focusing on the white grape theory, which argues that Muslims do not have the scriptural freedom to interpret religious texts freely. Finally, the chapter surveys references to the houri on the Internet and in contemporary literature.

Conclusion

The houri is a cosmic being who stands outside the structures of time and has a considerable past and potential future interpretation. It is this feminine being that has been used to develop arguments about the nature of a religion, the judgment of a society, and the future of a people. The figure of the houri continues to raise questions. Within their own contexts, writers have articulated the houris they desire as they reflect on their social understandings between men and women. Ultimately, the houri provides a way to reflect upon asymmetries of power in this world and the next.

The Word

This chapter traces the French and English relationship with the Ottoman Empire and accounts for the introduction of the term “houri” in French in the seventeenth century and English in the eighteenth century. Through surveying sixteenth-century polemics about Islam, seventeenth-century travel writings, and eighteenth-century literature, the chapter argues that French and English writers used the idea of the houri as a source of critique in anti-Islamic polemics and travel writing even while their views of Islam and Islamic empires could be ambivalent. By the eighteenth century, writers also began to employ the term “houri” as a way to describe a model of feminine beauty.