Hadith Q: Does the Martyr Get 72 Beautiful Women of Paradise?

Posted bySamer DajaniPosted inUncategorized

Q: I was asked about the hadith that a martyr gets 72 beautiful women of paradise.

Summary Answer: This hadith comes from a number of hadith transmitters – all of whom come from the city of Homs in Syria –  who did not meet the strict criterea of Bukhari, Muslim and Nasa’i, but whose narrations could be authenticated by less strict scholars like Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah. In this case it was only Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah who included this hadith in their collections.[1]

Another problem is that there is a lot of variation in its chains of transmission. Tirmidhi appears to have authenticated it, not based only on the chain he presents in his book, but on the total sum of chains for the hadith. In fact, the chain Tirmidhi included in his book is one of the most problematic.[2]

A third problem is that even if we were to take the most likely chain to be authentic, its wording contains a lot of variation. Even those who authenticated it, like al-Albani, said that this is a case where the hadith may be authentic but the wording suffers from major variation in wording.[3]

The most correct version, based not only on the chain of transmitters, but also analysis of the wording itself as well as external validation, appears to be the one in Ibn Majah’s Sunan, on the authority of the Companion al-Miqdam ibn Ma’di Karib:

“The martyr will be given six things by Allah:

  1. He will be forgiven (all his sins) with the first shedding of his blood
  2. He will be shown his seat in Paradise (while in his grave) and will be protected from the punishment of the grave
  3. He will be safe from the big fright (on the Day of Judgement)
  4. He will be adorned with the ‘Garment of Faith’
  5. He will marry from the beautiful maidens of paradise
  6. He will be allowed to intercede for seventy of his relatives

This is supported by a similar hadith narrated in Musnad Ahmad (#17783) that goes back to a different Companion (Qays al-Judhami), which has the same wording as Ibn Majah’s version, except it misses out the intercession for seventy relatives and instead makes the second reward two different ones: being safe from the punishment of the grave and being shown one’s seat in Paradise become different rewards. The point here is that this narration, though it is weak, supports the wording in Ibn Majah.

Tirmidhi’s version, has two major differences: With regard to marrying from the maidens of paradise, the number 72 has been added so that it says: “He will marry 72 of the beautiful maidens of paradise.” Also, him being “adorned with the Garment of Faith” has been changed to “He will be crowned with the Crown of Dignity, each ruby in it worth more than the whole world and all that is in it” (Note: there is no authentic hadith that mentions believers being rewarded with rubies – or other jewels – or with crowns, these are the embellishments of preachers when the Muslim society was influenced by other civilisations and are far removed from the speech of God’s Messenger ﷺ).

It appears that the narrator Ismail ibn Ayyash was later unsure of which version is more correct, so he narrated that “The martyr will be given six things by Allah” but included nine things in his list: He had both the “Crown of Dignity” and the “Garment of Faith,” he had both “He will marry from the beautiful maidens of paradise” and “He will marry 72 of the beautiful maidens of paradise” as two separate rewards, and he narrated being shown one’s place in paradise and being safe from the punishment of the grave as two separate things instead of one (see Hadith # 17182 in Musnad Ahmad and narration #10392 in Abd al-Razzaq’s Musannaf).

In conclusion, this hadith suffers from weakness and cannot be ascribed to God’s Messenger ﷺ with certainty, and should be classified as Hasan, not as Sahih. Also, due to the great level of variation in its wording, no single wording can be chosen with certainty, but the wording in Ibn Majah’s Sunan appears to be the best. This wording does not mention the martyr being rewarded with 72 maidens of paradise, only that he will marry from the maidens of paradise.

1) See what the critics have said about the narrators Bahir ibn Sa’d, Ismail ibn Ayyash, Baqiyya ibn al-Walid, and Nu’aym ibn Hammad. Also analyse all the chains that include any of these narrators in Tirmidhi and his comments on them.

2) See the criticism of Ibn al-Qattan al-Fasi in Bayan al-Wahm wa l-Iham, vol. 5, p. 161.

3) See al-Albani, Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Sahiha, vo. 7, pp. 647-8.

See also Ibn Abi Hatim’s Kitab al-Ilal, vo. 3, pp. 418-9.