Woman
And full-breasted [companions] of equal age
(Quran-78:33)
Thus. And We will marry them to fair women with large, [beautiful] eyes.
(Quran-44:54)
They will be reclining on thrones lined up, and We will marry them to fair women with large, [beautiful] eyes.
(Quran-52:20)
Fair ones reserved in pavilions -
(Quran-55:72)
And [for them are] fair women with large, [beautiful] eyes,
(Quran-56:22)
Boys
There will circulate among them boys [especially] for them, as if they were pearls well-protected.
(Quran-52:24)
There will circulate among them young boys made eternal
(Quran- 56:17)
Describer
I happened to see this TED talk by Lesley Hazleton. She is an agnostic Jew and without bias she explains that Quran doesn't speak of 72 virgins. It is simply a misguided verse of the Quran. The verse no 33 of Sūratl-naba. I am a bit perplexed here.
In her speech she says, Quran doesn't speak of a number.
She also says, Quran doesn't speak of bosomly shaped women.
Is that a misinterpretation of the Quran?
I can't give you as erudite an answer as the others, but I can address your two specific questions about the Qur'an. My main reason for offering this answer is that a significant portion of those who watch TED talks are non-Muslim Americans who have almost zero familiarity with Islam, and the familiarity they have is usually based on wild propaganda.
So in case you (or anyone else reading your question) find it useful, here is the perspective of a non-Muslim American who has read, from begining to end, multiple times, various English translations of the Qur'an: Arberry, Pickthall, Rodwell; recently begun studying the hadith; and supplemented the study of the Qur'an with an English translation of Tafsir Ibn Kathir.
The tiny fraction of TED viewers who have any familiarity with Islam will likely have scanned (not read) one of these translations, will never have read a single hadith, and will never have even heard of a tafsir. Further, almost no one realizes the importance of the hadith. The average American would have no idea what a Qur'anist is, and if you told them what it means, they would think all Muslims are Qur'anists.
As for the number, I have carefully combed the Qur'an for the number 72. It is not there. There is not even a hint at there being a limit on the number of virgins you can have.
As for bosomly shaped women, it is important to understand that Christianity still has a strong influence on the way Americans think, even if they aren't Christians. Christianity traditionally has had a rather dim view of sex; note the fact that Catholic priests are required to be celibate, for example. The fact that there is sex in the Muslim Paradise is therefore scandalous. It wouldn't matter much whether your virgins were exceptionally voluptuous. I count seven suras that talk about virgins in Paradise. Presumably Hazleton is referring in particular to Sura 78, which in English is called The Great Event, in verses 31-33:
Arberry says, Lo! for the duteous is achievement / Gardens enclosed and vineyards / And voluptuous women of equal age
Rodwell says, But, for the God-fearing is a blissful abode / Enclosed gardens and vineyards / And damsels with swelling breasts, their peers in age
Pickthall doesn't describe the virgins: Lo! for the duteous is achievement / Gardens enclosed and vineyards / And maidens for companions
The words voluptuous and swelling breasts are the only words that would be heard by most non-Muslim Americans. And it would be taken in a very sensual way. Further, it would make little difference whether this description were included; the key point is the fact that seven surahs indicate that Muslim men will be given an unlimited number of sex partners.
Source:https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/33619/misinterpretation-about-the-72-virgins
Hadith
Abu Sa`id al-Khudri said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “The humblest of the People of Paradise shall have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two wives. A palace of pearl and peridot (a pale green variety of chrysolite; used as a gemstone) and sapphire shall be erected for him as wide as the distance between al-Jabiya [a valley about 70 kms. East of Makka] and San`a’ [in Yemen].”
Sunan al-Tirmidhi Vol. IV, ch. 21, hadith 2687
Reported in Ibn Majah, Ibn `Adi in the Kamil, and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur
Abu Umama said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “None is made to enter Paradise by Allah Most High except Allah Most High shall marry him to seventy-two wives, two of them from the wide-eyed maidens of Paradise and seventy of them his inheritance from the People of Hellfire, not one of them but her attraction never lags nor his arousal ever wanes.”
Ibn Majah, Ibn `Adi in the Kamil, and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur
Al-Suyuti marked its chain as “fair” (hasan) in al-Jami` al-Saghir (7989).
Reported in Sifat al-Janna, al-`Uqayli in the Du`afa’, and Musnad of Abu Bakr al-Bazzar
Anas said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “The servant in Paradise shall be married with seventy wives.” Someone said, “Messenger of Allah, can he bear it?” He said: “He will be given strength for a hundred.”
Sifat al-Janna, al-`Uqayli in the Du`afa’, and Musnad of Abu Bakr al-Bazzar
Reported in Ma`rifat al-Sahaba and Tarikh Dimashq
Hatib ibn Abi Balta`a said, Allah be well-pleased with him: I heard the Messenger of Allah say, upon him blessings and peace: “The believer in Paradise shall be married off to seventy-two women, seventy women of the hereafter and two women of the women of this world.”
Abu al-Shaykh in al-`Azama and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur
Reported in al-Saghir and al-Awsat, Sifat al-Janna, and al-Khatib in Tarikh Baghdad[edit]
Abu Hurayra said, Allah be well-pleased with him: It was asked, “Messenger of Allah, do we reach our women in Paradise?” He replied, “A man will reach in a single day one hundred virgins.”
Al-Tabarani in al-Saghir and al-Awsat, Abu Nu`aym in Sifat al-Janna, and al-Khatib in Tarikh Baghdad
Reported in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Abu Hurayra said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “The humblest of the People of Paradise in rank shall have seven levels and as he will be on the sixth, below the seventh, he will have three hundred servants, every morning and evening three hundred dishes of gold shall be brought before him, every dish carrying something the other does not. He will taste pleasure as sharply with the first dish as he will with the last. He shall say, ‘My Lord! If you gave me permission, I would feed all the people of Paradise and water them from what I have and nothing should go missing from it.’ He will most certainly have seventy-two wives from the wide-eyed maidens of Paradise, the couch of only one of whom is as wide as a square mile on earth.”
Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal
— Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 54 "The Beginning of Creation", hadith 476)
[People who enter Paradise] will not urinate, relieve nature, spit, or have any nasal secretions. Their combs will be of gold, and their sweat will smell like musk. The aloes-wood will be used in their censers. Their wives will be houris. All of them will look alike and will resemble their father Adam (in stature), sixty cubits tall.
— Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 55 "Prophets", hadith 544
A houri is a most beautiful young woman with a transparent body. The marrow of her bones is visible like the interior lines of pearls and rubies. She looks like red wine in a white glass. She is of white color, and free from the routine physical disabilities of an ordinary woman such as menstruation, menopause, urinal and offal discharge, child bearing and the related pollution. A houri is a girl of tender age, having large breasts which are round (pointed), and not inclined to dangle. Houris dwell in palaces of splendid surroundings.
— Abu `Isa Muhammad ibn `Isa at-Tirmidhi, Jami al-Tirmidhi. Vol. II pp.35-40. (Karachi:Muhammad Ali) and Mishka Sharif (Lahore: Farid) Vol. 3 pp 83-97. Translated by Anwar Shaikh Islam: Sex and Violence, Cardiff: Principality Publishers (1999).
Reported in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Sunan al-Tirmidhi
“For the Shahid in the Divine presence there will be six qualities: he will be forgiven from the first moment his blood is spilled; he shall see his seat in Paradise and be protected against the punishment of the grave; he shall be safe from the Greatest Terror [the rising of the dead]; he shall be crowned with the diadem of dignity, one ruby of which is worth more than the entire world and its contents; he shall be coupled with seventy-two spouses from the wide-eyed maidens of Paradise; and he shall be granted to intercede for seventy of his relatives.”
Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal , Sunan al-Tirmidhi
This is a “fair, sound, single-chained hadith (hasan sahih gharib).”
Reported in Sunan al-Kubra and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Anas said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace:
“The servant in Paradise shall be married with seventy wives.” Someone said, “Messenger of Allah, can he bear it?” He said: “He will be given strength for a hundred.”
From Zayd ibn Arqam, Allah be well-pleased with him, when an incredulous Jew or Christian asked the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, “Are you claiming that a man will eat and drink in Paradise??” He replied: “Yes, by the One in Whose hand is my soul, and each of them will be given the strength of a hundred men in his eating, drinking, coitus, and pleasure.”
Sifat al-Janna, al-`Uqayli in the Du`afa’, and Musnad of Abu Bakr al-Bazzar
Ibn Abi Shayba, Ibn Hibban, and al-Hakim declared it sahih (authentic).
Reported by Abu al-Shaykh in al-`Azama and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur
Ibn Abi Awfa said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “Every man from the People of Paradise shall be married off to four thousand virgins, eight thousand slave-girls, and one hundred wide-eyed maidens of Paradise. They shall all meet him within every seven days. They shall say with their exquisite voices no creature has ever heard the like before: ‘We are the everlasting women, we never grow old, we are the refined women, we never grow sour, we are the ever-pleased women, we never anger, we are the sedentary ones, we never travel away, blessings to him who is for us and we are for him!’”
Abu al-Shaykh in al-`Azama and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur
