سورة الواقعة

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): No believer enters Paradise but that he takes five hundred houris in marriage. With each houri there are seventy male servants and seventy handmaidens. They are like scattered pearls (لؤلؤ منثور) and hidden pearls (لؤلؤ مکنون). The meaning of maknun (hidden) is that they are like pearls inside a shell which hands have not touched and eyes have not seen; and the meaning of manthur (scattered) is that they are many.

Imam Rida (peace be upon him): Abu Ishaq al-Mawsili said: A group from beyond the river (Ma wara' al-Nahr) asked Imam Rida (peace be upon him): "From what did Allah create the houris of Paradise ...?" He said: "The houris of Paradise were created from saffron and dust, and they are not subject to perishing."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): The believing man is married to eight hundred virgins, four thousand widows, and two houris in Paradise. I said: "May I be your ransom! Eight hundred virgins?!" He said: "Yes! Whenever he goes in to one of them, he finds her a virgin." I said: "May I be your ransom! From what were the houris created?" He said: "From the luminous dust of Paradise; the marrow of her shins is seen from behind seventy fine garments. The woman's liver is the man's mirror, and the man's liver is a mirror for the woman." I said: "May I be your ransom! Do they have speech with which they speak to the people of Paradise?" He said: "Yes! They speak with speech the like of which — or better than which — mankind has not heard." I said: "What is that speech?" He said: "With gentle and soft speech they say: 'We are the everlasting ones, so we shall not die; we are those in bliss, so we shall not suffer hardship or affliction; we are the resident ones, we shall not depart; and we are the well-pleased, so we shall not become angry. Blessed is the one who was created for us, and blessed is the one for whom we were created. We are the women such that if a hair of one of us were hung in the expanse of the sky, its light would overwhelm all sight.'"

The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): The lowest of the people of Paradise, whose rank is below that of the martyrs, are those who have twelve thousand wives from the houris of Paradise, four thousand virgins and twelve thousand widows. Each of those women has seventy thousand servants, except that the servants of the houris are double that. Throughout the week he moves around among his group, and when the day or the hour of one of those women arrives, all those women gather around her and begin to sing with voices than which none sweeter or more beautiful can be found. So much so that nothing remains in Paradise but that it sways from the beauty of their voices. Those women say: 'Behold, know that we are the everlasting ones, so we shall never die. We are those in bliss, so we shall never be afflicted by poverty or hardship. We are pleased with our life, so we shall never be moved to wrath and anger.'

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): If one houri from the houris of Paradise were to appear to the people of this world and reveal a single lock of her hair, the people of this world would be enraptured by her, or else they would die. And when a worshipper is performing his prayer, if he does not ask his Lord to marry him to these houris, those houris say: "How uninterested in us this man is!"

The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): In Paradise there is a market in which there is no buying or selling except of the forms of men and women. Whoever desires a form enters into it [and takes on that form]. And in it is the gathering place of the hur al-'in (wide-eyed maidens of Paradise), who sing with resounding voices such as the creatures have never heard the like of.