Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions

Christian Lange is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Utrecht University. He is the author of Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination (Cambridge, 2012) and the editor of several scholarly volumes, including Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions (2015). From 2011 to 2015, he was Principal Investigator of the European Research Council project, 'The Here and the Hereafter in Islamic Traditions'. He is a member of the Young Academy of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences.

• Introduction; Part I. Textual Foundations: Narrating the Otherworld: 1. The otherworld revealed: paradise and hell in the Qurʾān; 2. The growth of the Islamic otherworld: a history of Muslim traditionist eschatology; 3. Hope, fear and entertainment: parenetic and popular Muslim literature on the otherworld; 4. The imagination unbound: two late-medieval Muslim scholars on paradise and hell; Part II. Discourses and Practices: Debating the Otherworld: 5. The otherworld contested: cosmology, soteriology and ontology in Sunni theology and philosophy; 6. Otherworlds apart: Shiʿi visions of paradise and hell; 7. The otherworld within: paradise and hell in Islamic mysticism; 8. Eschatology now: paradise and hell in Muslim topography, architecture and ritual; Epilogue.

'Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions is a fascinating trove of new information about Muslim eschatology and will serve as an authoritative basis for both general and scholarly readers. Christian Lange surveys the entirety of the Arabic Muslim tradition and paints a masterly picture of a continuous development concerning the afterlife, including the vital theological and even art historical and architectural ramifications.' David Cook, Rice University