Quran scholar says martyrs get raisins not virgins!

NEW YORK (PNN) - May 31, 2016 - Radical Islamists committing acts of terror and martyrdom may not collect 72 virgins in heaven after all. At least one scholar said the Quran word that’s been used for “virgin” really means “raisin”. Note to jihadists: It’s raisins you’ll get in heaven for acts of martyrdom - not virgins. That’s according to at least one scholar who studied the Quran’s original text and found the word that’s been commonly translated to mean “virgin” in recent times actually means “raisin”.

The revelation came to light during a recent showing of CNN’s “Why They Hate Us” special with host Fareed Zakaria aimed at trying to discern just why radical Islamists seek to bomb, kill and destroy those in the West, including Amerikans.

As CNN’s blogged promo of the show stated, “‘Why do they hate us?’ [This] has been the question asked since the 9/11 attacks 15 years ago - and again in the wake of terrorist attacks in Boston, Brussels, Beirut, Paris, Mumbai, [Fort] Hood, San Bernardino, and beyond. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria explores what is fueling the rage - and challenges intelligence experts, religious scholars, policy influencers, and even the very men who want o kill us - for answers to whether Amerika and the rest of the West can do anything to stop the bloodshed.”

A Twitchy review of the broadcast found Zakaria furthered a more moderate view of Islam, one that put forth the view that terrorists hate “all things modern,” rather than just Israel, the West and Amerika.

But one surprising element emerged: a Canadian author and scholar named Irshad Manji broke commonly held ranks to say Islamists might want to double check the truthfulness of their supposed receipt of 72 virgins in heaven for acts of martyrdom. The word “virgin” in the Quran actually means “raisin,” he said.

Zakaria first asks, “The Quran promises (to) a martyr in the name of Islam, 72 virgins. Is that true?”

And Manji’s response, “It is not true.”

Zakaria, to the audience, “Manji says that several scholars studying the original text came to a startling realization.”

Manji then went on, “Nowhere in the Quran does it promise 72 virgins, 70 virgins, 48 virgins. What it promises, as far as heaven goes… the Arabic word for ‘virgin’ has been mistranslated. The original [word] that was used in the Quran was the word for raisin, not virgin. In other words, that martyrs would get raisins in heaven, not virgins.”

Radio giant Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the revelation, saying he heard the report and then dug deeper - only to find that the meaning of the word interpreted by jihadists to mean “virgin” is truly contested.

He opened a recent show by mocking, “I’d like to be there when they tell them this. ‘Uh, sorry. Not virgins. You were misinformed. Here are 73 raisins.’ You envision that?”

Limbaugh then spoke of the physical characteristics of raisins, saying what Islamist leaders are promising their would-be martyrs is actually a 180-degree skewing of truth.

“It really is unsettled what it actually means, and there is one interpretation that does mean raisins. Now, what are raisins? The reason they think ‘raisins’ here is specific. What are raisins? It’s a dried grape, dried prune, shriveled up, the opposite of a virgin,” Limbaugh said. “So this means that the bin Ladens and the other imams and the Ayman al-Zawahiris and so forth are purposely promising virgins when they know it’s raisin.”

Limbaugh went on, “If we would just treat these guys the way Democrats treat Republicans, we could discredit these people inside of a week. Can you imagine, say, Hillary Clinton going on TV and just laying into bin Laden for this? ‘How dare you mislead all these young men, all these youths, promising them virgins when it’s raisins?’ Then compare it to Republicans, somehow, some way. We can dream.”