Terrorist martyrs may get grapes.

[ohiobuck94]

An interpretation of the Koran says the word for "Virgin" in the Koran means "white grapes". Man, what a pay back for thoes dummies who become martyrs for 72 virgins and when they get to "paradise" they get a bunch of white grapes.

Martyrs, Virgins and Grapes
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: August 4, 2004

The virgins are calling you," Mohamed Atta wrote reassuringly to his fellow hijackers just before 9/11.

It has long been a staple of Islam that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins. But a growing body of rigorous scholarship on the Koran points to a less sensual paradise - and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world.

Some Islamic theologians protest that the point was companionship, never heavenly sex. Others have interpreted the pleasures quite explicitly; one, al-Suyuti, wrote that sex in paradise is pretty much continual and so glorious that "were you to experience it in this world you would faint."

But now the same tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.

The Koran is beautifully written, but often obscure. One reason is that the Arabic language was born as a written language with the Koran, and there's growing evidence that many of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.

For example, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get "hur," and the word was taken by early commentators to mean "virgins," hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant "white" and was commonly used to mean "white grapes."

Some martyrs arriving in paradise may regard a bunch of grapes as a letdown. But the scholar who pioneered this pathbreaking research, using the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for security reasons, noted in an e-mail interview that grapes made more sense in context because the Koran compares them to crystal and pearls, and because contemporary accounts have paradise abounding with fruit, especially white grapes.

[BuckeyeInTheBoro]

I don't care if that's true or not... it's funny!

Welch's.. it's not just for martyrs anymore!

[stxbuck]

Trying to explain this concept to Al-Qaida types would be like trying to convince "Brother Jed" types that there is no way in hell that every animal in the world could fit on the ark.......................................

[AKAKBUCK]

Grapes are Sensuous.

Virgins are Sensual.

Hmmm?

Its almost like Eric Stratton in the Produce Section on his Prayer rug.

[stxbuck]

Who is Eric Stratton?

[AKAKBUCK]

"Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman, Damn Glad to meet You."

Later became a Gynecologist after his Delta Tau Chi Days.