72 Virgins in Paradise?

Much is made of the promise made to Muslim martyrs of an assured place in a blissful Paradise complete with 72 virgins.

Whilst this is derogatorily poked fun at by Western media, orientalists, and even some Muslims, as the desperately illogical ideology of the crazed suicide bomber. what is the truth behind this 72 virgin "promise"?

Firstly, readers should be aware that (as far as I'm aware) there is no mention of 72 virgins in the Quran. There is talk of heavenly creatures, the hur al-ayn (reduced to houris in English) in the Quran, but no number 72 is mentioned, and the "virginal" idea has been developed later. There is hadiths which describe the hur al-ayn aswell.

Here's what this one guy had to say about it:

"Huria" is a corruption of a word that in the original Arabic means "virgin" only by extension. The usual English form is "houri." The term found in the Qur'an is "hur al-'ayn," which does not lend itself to easy translation into English. "Hur" is the plural of an adjective meaning "pure white" and in this juxtaposition, "al-'ayn" means "of the eye." One round-about way to translate or explain the term is "with eyes [i.e. sclera] of intense whiteness [and pupils of intense blackness]." Some Muslim exegetes have pushed this to mean "virgin" or "virginal." (A couple of years ago, a European scholar opined, based on a comparison with Aramaic, that the phrase in the Qur'an means "raisins," not exactly my idea of paradise.) In any event, it was fairly clear from the beginning that the Muslim warriors for the faith, who were beginning to die in battle, were being offered an eternity of bliss that was in sharp contrast to the hot, dry, bitter life they knew in the desert. The women of the community complained: their men were being promised an eternal oasis where they could lie on couches and be tended to by willing and ever-renewed virgins. What was in it for them? They were told that they would be those virgins. Everyone was happy.

Hur, is apparentely a word in Syriac which translates to "grape" or
"raisin". Some revisionists have claimed that the word in the Quran is
intending this meaning. Quite why Arabs of the Hijaz would be using Syriac
escapes me, but at any rate, a paradise complete with "white raisins"... hmm,
*cough* can't wait.

More detail on this line of argument as part of a general look at
Quranic analysis on Al-Muhajabah's blog, here.

Here's some good reads on the subject:

Are the Hur al-`Ayn exclusively female?

What is there for women in Paradise?

The Islamic paradise - What's in it and for Whom?

Will the Bliss of Paradise be Absolute?