ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Karbala and Beyond ج, J Jadaf جدف: (v. or n.) to blaspheme (the name of God) or blashempy, to revile or reviling, to swear to a lie Jahannam جهنم: Hell; reference to and description of it has already been made in my book titled Mary and Jesus in Islam.

However, if you do not have a copy of it, here is what I wrote in explaining the Hebrew origin of this word: “Ge hen Hinnom,” Hebrew for “the valley of the son of Hinnom.” Jews believe that this valley is a place near Jerusalem where, according to Jeremiah 19:5, [Gentile] children were burnt in sacrifice to Baal. The latter was the fertility god of then polytheist Canaanites (Arabs, descendants of Ken`an, who inhabited Greater Syria. According to Vol. 1, p.

24 of Civilization: Past and Present , “'Phoenician' is the name which the Greeks gave to those Canaanites who dwelt along the Mediterranean coast of Syria, an area that is today Lebanon.”). The Greeks, then, were the ones who called those Arabs "Phoenicians". Ge hen Hinnom is Arabized as “Jahannam.” Before the advent of Islam, Arabs believed neither in heaven nor in hell; they had no clear concept of the afterlife.

They, therefore, had no words for Paradise or hell in their very rich and extensive vocabulary. “Janna جنة ,” by the way, means: a garden, an orchard, but it really does not describe Paradise fully. Paradise is a lot more than an orchard or a garden. It is a whole world by itself. Incidentally, the word “Paradise” ( firdaws ) is also a loan word, some say from Persian, others from Babylonian.

Jahid جاحد: ingrate, unappreciative, denies favors, denies the existence of the Creator (apostate), atheist Jahil جاهل: ignorant, illiterate, unlettered Jahiliyya جاهليه: period of overwhelming ignorance, a reference to the conditions of the Arabs before the advent of Islam. It implies is a combination of views, ideas, and practices that totally defy and reject commonsense and the guidance sent down by God through His Prophets.