The Garden and the Fire: Materials of Heaven and Hell in medieval Islamic culture

Histories of early Islam note the guiding motivation that The Garden or Heaven (al-janna) and The Fire or Hell ( al-nār) offered the Muslim community. Yet, no work explains the process by which Muslims came to believe in the afterlife or the manner in which their descriptions of the afterworld changed over time. What has been accepted—that Muslims automatically had faith in an unchanging understanding of The Garden and The Fire—must be explained. Considering that there was no pre-existing explanation in Central Arabia for life after death before the coming of Islam, it is unlikely that Muslims believed in the afterlife upon converting to Islam. Indeed, both the Quran and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad record questioning about the Garden and the Fire. Faith in the afterlife has a historical narrative.;This dissertation presents a history of the Garden and the Fire from the seventh to thirteenth centuries AD through the prism of material culture. Materials acted as indicators of ethical or unethical behavior: Objects unattained on earth or avoided in the name of moderation were available to believers in the Garden; objects indulged on earth provided the basis for punishment for unbelievers in the Fire. Because the descriptions of these objects change over time, it is possible to use them to mark the evolution of the Islamic community's relationship with the afterworld. From the seventh century onwards, Muslims developed descriptions of the afterworld informed by worldly, material conditions. As the descriptions expanded, the material culture of the Garden and the Fire was less informed by the material conditions of Arabia and began to obtain more symbolic meanings. From the twelfth century onwards, the previous relationship between the world and the afterworld reversed, and the earthly world began to be described through the image of afterworld.;In narrating how the Garden and the Fire were introduced and refashioned, the dissertation seeks to shed light on the general history of Islamic society and on historical literatures about the correspondence between faith and daily life, the function of material culture, and the evolution of religious aesthetics.