The 72 Virgins Are Not in the Qur'an. The Transparent Women Are Somewhere Else.

Everyone has heard about the 72 virgins.

Fewer people have asked where the number actually comes from.

It is not a Qur'anic verse.

The Qur'an does describe beautiful companions in Paradise. Surah 56 mentions hur 'ayn, commonly translated as maidens or companions with beautiful eyes. Surah 55 describes untouched maidens, and Surah 78 contains another famous description of youthful female companions.

But seventy-two appears in a hadith attributed to Muhammad concerning the rewards of a martyr. Jami at-Tirmidhi 1663 says the martyr is married to seventy-two from the hur al-ayn.

Then Sahih al-Bukhari supplies an entirely different detail.

A description of the inhabitants of Paradise says each man has two wives whose beauty is such that the marrow of their legs can be seen through their flesh.

The standard English translation renders them as astonishingly pure and transparent.

So the internet has essentially taken several traditions, put them in a blender and produced one immortal headline.

Seventy-two.

Virgins.

Transparent women.

Paradise.

Done.

The underlying texts are more complicated. The Qur'an and hadith literature are separate textual corpora, translations vary, interpretations vary, and centuries of Islamic scholarship surround these descriptions.

But the transparent-marrows detail?

That one really is sitting there in Sahih al-Bukhari.

Religious literature is considerably stranger when people actually read it.