Paradise: an Elusive Image to Kill and Die For; Let’s Close the Door on Murderous Motives

 

By Wahab Raofi

According to a new United Nations report, extremist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan have intensified their use of religious imagery — especially the promise of paradise — to recruit fighters. For impoverished young men, this vision of eternal bliss can be more persuasive than any earthly reward.

 

What is paradise, and why are so many Muslims captivated by it?

The first time I heard the word was from our village mullah. I grew up in Afghanistan, a conservative Muslim society where mullahs often described paradise as a place where rivers of honey and milk flow; where ḥūr and ghilmān — paradise maidens and youthful attendants — stand ready to fulfill every desire, and where wine runs freely alongside countless other pleasures. All this, they said, awaits the true Muslim who obeys Allah’s will.

Whoa! Doesn’t it boil your blood — especially when you’re young and the sexes are kept apart behind veils and walls? Isn’t the urge even stronger when you are poor and destitute?

Yet even as a child, these promises sounded very vague and elusive to my inquisitive mind. Instead, I became fascinated with the idea itself. In psychology, this kind of persistent preoccupation is known as the ironic process or ironic rebound effect, a concept linked to Wegener’s Ironic Process Theory.

In simple terms, it’s a paradox, where trying not to think about something only makes you think about it more. I kept asking myself: Is this reward only for Muslims? Is it for both men and women equally? And beyond Islam, does the concept of paradise belong exclusively to one faith, or is it woven into the collective human psyche, much like the very idea of God?

The word paradise comes from the ancient Persian pairidaeza, meaning a “walled garden.” Over time, the term evolved into a spiritual ideal — first in Judaism’s Garden of Eden, later in Christianity’s vision. Even in childhood, these promises carried a hazy, dream-like quality — too vague, too elusive to satisfy my inquisitive mind. And what of  Heaven, and most vividly in Islam’s descriptions of Jannah: gardens under which rivers flow, filled with comfort and delight?

In all these traditions, paradise has been portrayed as a reward for the righteous, the faithful, the obedient. It was a promise to those who endured suffering on Earth. But for some, especially those raised in poverty, repression or war, this promise can become dangerously literal.

Paradise, once a spiritual ideal, has been weaponized. Politicians and religious leaders have turned it into a tool of terror, persuading the faithful to kill, die and submit in exchange for the promise of eternal bliss. This life, they say, is fleeting and meaningless; the real reward comes only after death.

I still recall the mullahs proclaiming that this world belongs to the kuffar — the infidels — while we, the Muslims, will inherit true life in the hereafter. The 11th-century Hashashin sect — often credited as history’s first suicide attackers — were allegedly shown false paradises (complete with wine, music and pleasure) before being sent on missions. Though modern historians question the truth of these accounts, the story reflects a deeper truth: that the idea of paradise can be used to control the living.

 

Modern Martyrdom and the Weaponization of Heaven

In recent decades, militant groups such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS and others have perfected the art of turning theology into propaganda. Through videos and fiery sermons, they promise young recruits instant passage to paradise if they die fighting “infidels” or “tyrants.”

I have watched with pain as young men in my native Afghanistan — some barely out of childhood — strap explosives to their chests, convinced they are going home to a divine realm no one can prove exists, yet many are tragically willing to trade their lives for.
During the two decades of U.S. occupation, warlords recruited destitute boys from poor, uneducated families to fight the “infidel” Americans, luring them with the promise of paradise — 72 virgins, rivers of honey and milk and eternal bliss. A motive to kill and die for.

 

The Psychological Pull of a Perfect Afterlife

What makes paradise so powerful is not just religion. It’s also psychology. When life is unbearable, when dignity is stripped away, when one's future is stolen, the idea of another life, a better one, becomes intoxicating. It's a balm for despair, a meaning for death and sometimes a license to kill or die for.

As Algerian journaist Kamel Daud writes, “The new Muslim utopia weighs heavily on today’s Arab world. What motivates the masses gives sense to their despair, lightens the weight of the world and compensates for sorrow no longer is the promise of a rich and happy country, as was the case after decolonization; it’s a vision of paradise in the afterlife.”

But this fantasy of eternal bliss also causes uneasiness, for however much one wishes to ignore this, the fact remains that in order to get to heaven, one first has to die.

 

The UN report warns about extremist groups exploiting the promise of paradise to lure the young and desperate into violence. But these promised take root only on soil already poisoned by powerty and injusticer

Unless the world addreses those underlying conditions, extremists will keep finding willingrecruits. If the UN truly wants to close the door to this false paradise, it must open the door to education, opportunity and justice­­ ­—in  Afghanistan and beyond.

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