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REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

Encyclopaedia of Ismailism by Mumtaz Ali Tajddin

The central theme in the Koran is the requital of human deeds by divine justice both in this world and the world to come. For those who do good deeds, God gives him some reward on earth and a far greater reward in the hereafter. Unbelievers and evildoers can be punished on earth and have to undergo eternal chastisement in the hereafter. The ultimate separation of the two groups will take place on the day of judgment.

The term ajr (pl. ujur) means wage, pay or reward is frequently employed in the Koran. It sometimes refers to work or services rendered in every day human contexts. Pharaoh's sorcerers expect payment (26:41), Moses was paid for being a shepherd (28:25-7), wives and girl slaves are entitled to an ajr (4:24-5, 5:5, 60:10), and divorced wives received payment (ujur) for nursing the children of their former husbands (65:6). In most places, ajr is reward given by God for righteous conduct. One may be rewarded in this world, as e.g. Joseph was (12:56), but nearly always ajr refers to the reward in the world to come. The word thawab, mathuba and cognates occur nineteen times in the Koran, mean recompense, compensation, or requital. Another word jaza means compensation, payment or satisfaction. With its cognates, it also occurs frequently in the Koran. It refers to both reward and punishment on earth, but far more often in the life to come.

Among the punishment terms in the Koran, aza'b and cognates occur 322 times in the Koran. The word aza'b means pain or torment, and more specifically the pain or torment inflicted by way of chastisement. The flogging of adulterers is also called aza'b (24:2, 8), but otherwise this word mainly refers to the torment in hell. God seizes the sinners with the torment (23:64, 43:48) or the torment is personified, it seizes the sinners (11:64, 16:113, 26:156, 158, 189). In some 150 places, the word is embedded in often-repeated clausula phrase, such as "for them is a painful punishment" (5:36) or phrases ending with the words "a demeaning (painful or severe) punishment" e.g. "he will have a painful punishment" (2:178). Another term iqab is the verbal noun of aqaba, a verb, which means to do alternately and to punish for crime, sin, fault or offence. Its finite verb forms of the root


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