David Rutledge: What else do you imagine when you think of heaven? What does the Qur’an say about heaven and who gets to go there?
Afroz Ali: You know, it’s an amazing description in the Qur’an when you look at the description of paradise—the gold-lined and silk-lined Ottomans and grape vines around you and goblets of whatever you want to drink—so it seems to apply sensorial pleasure to the human being to have this kind of a visual of what it is. That’s where most people focus on.
But there’s a higher level of interesting description of heaven in the Qur’an and that is this companionship of the righteous, you know? So you can imagine you could be and I’m hoping that we can be in heaven together with Plato and Socrates and Muhammad and Buddha, you know, around a table. So there’s kind of a pious companionship who are people of God. And the highest companion is Prophet Muhammad in that regard. All prophets without a doubt—Abraham and Jesus and peace be upon all of them—but Muhammad becomes your ultimate companion, because he was the guide in this world and therefore we rejoice that he actually has brought us to this paradisal experience.
