Come Hell or High Water: Afterlife as a Poetic Convention in Mediaeval Arabic Literature

Abstract

The Quran contains captivating descriptions of what awaits believers in Heaven and unbelievers in Hell as well as both categories of people at the Last Judgement. Predictably enough, Quran commentaries and the popular imagination would later add further details to such eschatological descriptions. The vivid Quranic imagery of Heaven and Hell and the later elaborations upon this theme inevitably inspired poets and belletrists alike. This study gives an overview of the literary uses of such imagery, including motifs appearing in licentious literature (i.e. the quasi-genre of muǧūn) as a demonstration of wittiness (ẓarf).

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