Introduction

ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar (1940–2012) was among the most prolific Jordanian Islamic scholars of the late twentieth century, combining a rigorous traditional education at the Islamic University of Madinah with decades of academic teaching at the University of Jordan and the University of Kuwait. His multivolume series on Islamic creed represents his most sustained scholarly contribution, and The Garden and the Fire (al-Jannah wa al-Nār) stands as one of its most widely read instalments. The work was composed as a direct complement to his earlier volume on the Day of Judgment, extending the narrative from the Crossing of the Bridge to the final abode of souls in either Paradise or Hellfire. Al-Ashqar worked squarely within the Ahl us-Sunnah wal-Jamāʿah tradition, treating the descriptions of the two abodes as real and literal unless sound scholarship established otherwise.

The book is divided into two major sections corresponding to its twin subjects. The first covers Paradise (al-Jannah): its gates, its levels, the nature of its pleasures, the descriptions of its rivers, trees, palaces, and garments, the characteristics of its inhabitants, and the supreme felicity of the beatific vision of Allah. The second covers Hellfire (al-Nār): its depth and intensity, its fuel and keepers, the torments experienced by its inhabitants, and the conditions under which people enter it or are eventually removed from it. Throughout both sections, al-Ashqar adheres to a strict methodology: Quranic verses are presented first, followed by supporting prophetic narrations, with careful attention to the grading of hadith. The author refrains from allegorising descriptions that the texts intend literally and avoids elaborating beyond what the sources establish.

The scholarly significance of this work lies in its synthesis. Classical works on the descriptions of Paradise and Hellfire, such as those by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Ibn al-Qayyim, and Ibn Rajab, are rich but often require considerable background to navigate. Al-Ashqar distilled that tradition into a single accessible volume without sacrificing textual rigour, making it a standard reference in Islamic schools and a frequent recommendation for students moving from introductory creed into more detailed study of eschatology. The book has been translated into English, Urdu, Indonesian, and other languages, and its reception among both lay readers and scholars has been consistently favourable for its balance of comprehensiveness and fidelity to the transmitted sources.

Readers approaching this volume are encouraged to engage with it as an act of remembrance (tadhkīr) as well as study. The Islamic tradition holds that regular reflection on Paradise and Hellfire sharpens moral consciousness and motivates both hope in Allah's mercy and fear of His justice. Practically, the student should read each hadith reference in its original collection where possible to appreciate the broader context of the narration. Where al-Ashqar notes scholarly differences on a point, those disagreements are usually minor and do not affect the overall picture. By the end of the work, the reader will have a well-organised and textually grounded understanding of what the Quran and Sunnah reveal about the eternal destinies of human beings.