The Fire of Hell — October 1, 1965, The Watchtower

“The Hebrew Scriptures state that the penalty for sin is death:

For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all…Ecclesiastes 9:5 (Genesis 3:19; Ezekiel 18:4). And in the Bible too it is confirmed that this is so. There it reads:

“For the wages sin pays is death” as it is written. Romans 6:23. In the illustrations Jesus Christ used, some verses may seemingly be understood differently. Likewise, the fire in the book of Revelation should not be taken literally. (Luke 16:19-31; Revelation or Apocalypse 20:14)

The Quran, on the contrary, is far removed from this. In three-quarters of the Suras, hundreds of times, it speaks of the fire of hell and of eternal torment. So much so that it is like “as they are burned, their skins will be renewed so that they may burn again.” (Sura 2:207; 4:57; 25:14)

How can the ‘forgiving and merciful Allah,’ mentioned in every Sura except one (the 9th), be like this?” they say.

The answer to the matter:

This Witness has made no mention of the Christians who preached the fire of hell for centuries. Their churches are adorned with pictures of people being shoved into cauldrons boiling with tar. Where, I wonder, did the Christians get this teaching? Or had they perhaps begun to believe in the Quran?! After 1,900 years the Witnesses came along and said, “There is no torment in hell.” If they said so, then that is that, everything is settled. After all, aren’t they the truest religion?!

Yet even so they are forced to admit something: “In the Holy Scriptures there are some places that can be misunderstood in this way. But these are merely illustrations. They should not be understood literally.” My good man, if in some places the very same things appear as in the Quran, and if these too are not to be understood literally, then why must everything in the Quran be understood literally? Are there not also symbolic illustrations and parables in the Quran? Just like Christianity, Islam too—indeed even Hindus and Buddhists—teach the fire of hell. In the literal sense, like the pictures in the Christian churches. In the pictures there are demons who, with three-pronged spears in their hands, shove back inside those trying to climb out of the cauldrons of tar. These pictures have generally always been made by the Christian world. Even though Muslims teach it, I have never seen such widespread, pictorial depictions of hellfire in anyone other than Christians. But the Witnesses are something else entirely! For this reason they must be given a separate answer!

“The lake of fire and sulphur, and being tormented day and night forever and ever” appears not only in the very last book of the Bible, Revelation 20:10, which they themselves cited. Jesus Christ spoke continually of a torment in hell. Again, they themselves cited the verses. This appears not only in Luke 16:19-31 but in many places. For example, the fire Peter spoke of can never be symbolic. This prophecy concerning the last days—just as the “water” in the days of Noah’s flood was not symbolic but was fulfilled literally—so too the “fire” he speaks of in the very next verse in the same place cannot be symbolic. 2 Peter 3:6-7. And if we consider the words John spoke:

John, however, answered them all, saying: “I baptize you with water, but the one stronger than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the lace of his sandals. He will baptize you with holy spirit and with fire.” Luke 3:16

…will be liable to the fiery Gehenna. Matthew 5:22, the last portion. Jesus did not use the words in this verse as an illustration.

…and gather out from his kingdom all those doing wickedness, and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. Matthew 13:41-42. Here too Jesus did not speak by way of illustration. Please, you too look at all the verses; I hope you will understand better.

…Then he will say to those on his left: “Go away from me, you who have been cursed, into the everlasting (eternal) fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!” Matthew 25:41.

…Many of those asleep in the dust of the earth will wake up: some to everlasting life, and some to reproach and to everlasting abhorrence. Daniel 12:2

I wonder whether this many verses is enough. With these verses I am not defending the tar of hell or the existence of its fire. The God who destroyed the people on the earth with water in Noah’s time—why should He not do this work of destruction once again, this time partly with fire as well? Moreover, that there will be a hell after the resurrection is certain. And there, according to the Witnesses’ understanding, however it suits them, the people meant are not ones who go merrily and cheerfully to their death. They say “the God of the Quran is nameless,” but in their own teachings these are brainless sects that teach, “God does not always see the future.” Frauds who even expel from their midst those who, from the very book in their own hands, prove that “No, He does see, and this is an attribute of God”! These are sects, religions, and denominations that raze to the ground the very Holy Scriptures they imagine they are defending. These are the “harlot drunk with wine” spoken of in the book of Revelation. And the wine they drink is made from the blood of the peoples and nations. Drunk from drinking blood, bloodsuckers. Concerning these it reads in the last book of the Bible, Revelation: “Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.” It is written in Revelation-Apocalypse 17:4-7. And it is we ourselves who offer ourselves up to them so that they may suck our blood. It is unfortunately we humans who are stupid, brainless, and lazy. And of course they suck it. We have spoiled them so much that, at a loss for what to do, they have become drunk from drinking blood, and they stagger about even in their own vomit! Look at what God says about them and those like them:

Even priests and prophets stagger and reel from wine and drink; they stagger and reel from drink, they are overcome by wine. They see false visions, they are inconsistent in their decisions. All the tables are full of vomit, there is not a place free of filth! “Whom is he trying to teach?” they say, “to whom does he convey his message? To children just weaned from milk, just taken from the breast? For all he says is command upon command, command upon command, rule upon rule, rule upon rule, a little here, a little there…” Isaiah 28:7-10

…For this reason the word of the LORD to them is “Command upon command, command upon command, rule upon rule, rule upon rule, a little here, a little there,” so that they may go and stumble backward and be injured, and be snared and caught. Isaiah 28:13

Are these words not exactly fitting, written precisely for these people? I did not say these things; I wrote them just as they are from the words of God.

For one thing, the hell described in the Quran and in the Holy Scriptures is not described exactly in any religion. Not by the Muslim, not by the Witness, not by the Catholic, nor by the Jew. All of their teachings are nonsense, fabrications coming from their own hearts. The Witnesses went to people who had grown weary of the fairy tale of hell, with a new version, and said, “There is no hell at all.” That they gathered many followers precisely because of this is written in their own publications. As I explain this subject of hell with the verses of the Quran, I will leave the decision to you.

Let us not look for this hell spoken of in the Holy Scriptures in separate places. That is, let us see whether or not the logic that all good people go to heaven while the wicked boil in cauldrons of tar exists in the Quran. And in the end let us compare it with the Holy Scriptures. Let us read how that day of resurrection (the last day) will be according to what is written in the Quran.

On the day the Hour comes, the sinners will swear that they lingered no more than an hour. Thus they were always turned away. But those who have been granted knowledge and faith will say: “You truly lingered, by the decree of God, until the Day of Resurrection. This is the Day of Resurrection; but you did not know.” Sura Rum 30:55-56

Let us examine this verse a little. It is certain that the verse above speaks of two types of groups of people. One group are believers, the other are the unbelieving and turncoat types. Now, when will this meeting take place? It clearly reads, on the Day of Resurrection. And what do those who deny say? The place they mean by “We lingered no more than an hour” is their graves, that is, the place where the dead are. Indeed, for a person who dies and is resurrected, time means zero. How could he know how much time passed while he was dead! Therefore, according to this verse, the unbelievers, again finding it absurd to believe in the resurrection and in God, say, “We only stayed about an hour.” One more thing in this verse draws our attention. It is a fact that these resurrected people are not in some different space, as in the Muslim and Christian fairy tales told to us, but on the earth, in the world. Is there such proof in the Quran? Indeed, there are very clear proofs. In one place it is written:

There you will live, there you will die, and from there you will be brought forth resurrected. Al-A‘raf, Sura 7:25

Where do we live? In the world. Where do we die? In the world. Well then, according to this verse, where will we be resurrected and brought forth? Again in Al-Anbiya, Sura 21:105 it is written thus:

Indeed, We wrote in the Psalms, after the Reminder: “My righteous servants will inherit the earth.”

Yes, this verse appears in the book of Psalms at 37:29 and it is written thus:

“The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell upon it forever.”

There are many other verses understood in this same direction. So then it is certain that this day of resurrection and paradise will be on the earth. More precisely, let us ask this question: “In the beginning, what was God’s purpose concerning the earth?” When Adam was created, he was created on the earth. According to the belief of the Muslims, not in the heavens. If that tree they were not to eat from was in the heavens, then in which part of these heavens was it growing?! And where were those animals to which Adam gave names living, in that paradise? God’s saying “Get out of there” or “Go down from there” somehow means, for these people, “Come down from the heavens”! Perhaps could not the garden of Eden of that time have been upon a level height? God’s saying to them “Come down from here” is very logical and is in harmony with the Holy Scriptures. Whatever the case, paradise was on the earth. Indeed, because of such absurd teachings of the Muslims, and of the Christians who are like them, and of all religions, only doubt and mistrust toward these books has developed in people. In the Quran, concerning the creation, it speaks of the formation of the air, of water, of the trees, of the animals, and finally of the creation of man. All of this, according to the Muslims, was not in the world but somewhere else! Their beliefs are unfortunately a teaching that has no basis in the Quran. Either they cannot think deeply, or they love more the fairy tales they have invented from their own imaginations. That God created Adam on the earth, in the world, is something all these books merely confirm. Other teachings rest on no truth whatever; they are only nonsense and cannot be proven.

If paradise is to be on the earth, then where will this hell be? Again, according to this verse in the Quran, since those unbelievers are resurrected in the same place, and it even speaks of their turncoat behavior; then, if they can speak face to face with those in paradise, it is certain that they are in the same place.

So, will paradise and hell be in the same place? According to the verse, yes. Then what sort of thing is hell? Without dragging it out, let me say it right away, and you research it. When Adam was disobedient, what did God do to him? Did He cast him into tar and roast him in fires? In fact Adam was immortal, otherwise death would not have been given to him as a punishment. With his disobedience he began to grow old, and he died. What does the book say:

The LORD God said: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now he must not put out his hand and take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live forever”; so the LORD God expelled him from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. Genesis 3:22-24

…And all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to 930 years, and he died. Genesis 5:5

There is no such thing as “the dead walk among us,” as the nonsense they teach us would have it. For God said to Adam: “…for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19) God never told him, as though playing some cunning trick on him: “You will only pretend to die and then go on living as a spirit in the heavens.” Those who occupy themselves with summoning spirits and busy themselves with such things think that the one producing the manifestations they see is the dead person himself. In reality these manifestations are produced by demons who know the traits of those people well. Those watching, from the answers they receive, assume that the one who has died is moving among them. Because it is clearly written in the Holy Scriptures that those wicked spirit creatures always take great pleasure in toying with people and dragging them into nothingness, into despair, and in the end into death. These are the truths of the Holy Scriptures. For this reason those who summon spirits are summoning not the spirits of dead people but demons, and they converse with them. I used to never believe in such things. In fact it is a reality, and to refuse to accept the existence of spirit creatures we do not see with our own eyes is to deny God. For if there are no such spirit creatures, then it follows that one must think all the wicked deviations and corruptions in our world, and everything else, were done by God alone, which brings a stain upon God and would be not the truth but an ill-mannered slander.

Yes, let us come to the continuation of our subject. Whatever the punishment was that Adam received when he committed the offense, that same thing will happen to the people called “deserving of hell” after they are resurrected. Because Adam committed an offense, he lost the hope of eternal life, and he grew old and died. But at the resurrection, that is, after the last day, there will be a difference. In the present time both the good and the wicked grow old and die and cease to exist. But at the resurrection only those unbelieving people who continue in stubbornness and hate God will begin to grow old. For this reason it reads in the Quran, “they will be known by their faces” Sura 55:41; “some faces will darken and they will realize the calamity” (Sura 75:24-25). And again for this reason, that saying “their skins will be renewed”—is that not the very thing that happens in old age today? The Quran means the wrinkling of a person’s skin in old age, taking on a form just like burning. Is the difference between the skin of a young person and the skin of someone 80 or 90 years old not the same? Or, even if very young, look at a skin burned in a fire as a result of an accident. Is it not in resemblance with the very skin of that 80- or 90-year-old person? All the clues, and the punishment God has given the offender from the very beginning, show this. If God gave this punishment to the first humans, Adam and Eve, He will give the same punishment to the wicked people after the resurrection as well. And why should God change? The verses related to this subject: Genesis 2:17 and 3:19; Isaiah 65:20; James 5:3; Revelation 20:14; Sura 73:17; Sura 7:48

Furthermore, in one verse God clearly says: “For I am the LORD; I do not change.” as it reads (Holy Scriptures—Malachi 3:6).

Even though they have symbolic meanings, these illustrations used about fire and hell are used very aptly both in the Quran and in the Holy Scriptures. The part I cannot understand is: when they are used in the Holy Scriptures the meaning is explained, and it is pondered and investigated whether it is symbolic or not; yet when it appears in the Quran, why must it be understood just as it is?! It is not even accepted that any symbolic meaning could exist! Regarding this subject, the zaqqum tree in the Quran, concerning hell, came to my mind. It is known that the leaves of this tree are bitter and inedible. It is described that the fruit of this tree is for those deemed deserving of hell. Now think about it: in a place that is fire everywhere, how does a tree grow? In what fire are the roots of these trees buried? So then there is soil in hell, there are trees, there is water too! Sura 37:64 It is certain that they live together with the people of paradise, who are in constant dialogue, only that in time there will be a boundary between them. Where is that place? (Sura 7:48-50; Luke 16:19-31)

Who was it that gave Adam the command to turn the whole earth into a paradise? Was this command God gave to be undone by Adam’s committing sin? Because of the mistakes and sins that people—or whatever creature—commit, does God give up on His purpose? Can His command be undone? If at that time God gave the command “be fruitful, fill the earth, and subdue it” so that paradise would be worldwide, then that command too will be fulfilled. Of this I have no doubt at all. I counsel the unbelievers to research. And is it not worth researching these things, for an eternally happy life?