Fire was composed of seven levels, each with its
own distinctive name, such as “abyss,” “blaze,”
and “furnace.” People were assigned to the
level that suited the degree of their sinfulness,
together with the corresponding punishments
that were administered by the angel Malik and
his assistants. Some accounts described the Fire
as a living creature—a monster with thousands
of heads and mouths. According to Muslim
theologians, wrongdoers would not necessar-
ily be punished in the Fire for eternity. Rather,
punishment was finite, and wrongdoers might
eventually be admitted to paradise once their
sins had been atoned.
Belief in the Fire helped focus the attention
of Muslims on holding fast to their faith and
performing their religious obligations. Some
medieval Sufis, however, held that too much
concern with the Fire and paradise could dis-
tract spiritually minded mystics from achieving
union with God. Others saw fire as a metaphor
for the passion of the spiritual lover that ended
with his or her annihilation in the beloved, God,
or they interpreted it as the intense pain experi-
enced as a result of one’s separation from God.
In more recent times, modernist thinkers and
reformers have attempted to explain the Fire and
paradise as psychological or spiritual conditions
rather than actual places where people would
live in the afterlife. Nonetheless, the prevailing
view among Muslims today, as with most Mus-
lims in the past, is that punishment in the fires
of hell is a reality that awaits all wrongdoers and
unbelievers.
See also (^) angel; death; eschatology; sata n.
Further reading: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Remem-
brance of Death and the Afterlife (Kitab dhikr al-mawt
wa-ma bdahu): Book XL of the Revival of the Religious
Sciences (Ihya ulum al-din). Translated by T. J. Winter
(Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995); Jane Idle-
man Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).
fitna (Arabic: punishment by trial,
temptation)
The term fitna has several meanings. In the con-
text of early Islamic history, it refers to one of sev-
eral armed conflicts, or civil wars, that occurred
within the Muslim community (umma) during
the seventh and eighth centuries. These wars led
to the establishment of the Umayyad caliphate
in damascUs, the rise of the khaWariJ sectarian
movement, the schism between the Sunnis and
the Shiis, and the founding of the abbasid caliph-
at e in baghdad. The first fitna occurred when
the caliph Uthman ibn aFFan was assassinated
in 656 by a group of dissidents from egypt who
were angry with the favoritism he had shown to
members of his clan, the Abd Shams, a prominent
branch of the qUraysh tribe in mecca. Uthman’s
successor, ali ibn abi talib, mUhammad’s cousin,
declined to avenge his death, which earned him
the enmity of Uthman’s supporters, including
Muhammad’s wife aisha bint abi bakr and some
leading companions oF the prophet. Ali defeated
these opponents at the Battle of the Camel that
same year, but this only led to a clash with
Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 680), a close relative
of Uthman, and Muawiya’s Syrian Arab supporters
at the Battle of Siffin in 657. This confrontation
ended with an arbitrated peace that left the ques-
tion of leadership in the Muslim community unre-
solved until 661, when Ali was assassinated by the
Khawarij, a dissident faction that had opposed
Ali’s peace agreement with Muawiya at Siffin. The
first fitna ended in 661, with Muawiya becoming
caliph, inaugurating the reign of the Syrian-based
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750).
The second fitna occurred when hUsayn ibn
ali, grandson of Muhammad, rebelled against the
Umayyads and was killed with a group of loyal
supporters at karbala, Iraq, in 680. The tragic
story of his death as a martyr has since assumed a
place of central importance in the religious life of
the Shia, and it is remembered by them annually
during their ashUra rituals. Other factions in the
early Muslim empire also rebelled at this time,
fitna 241 J