# Hell in Judaism and Islam ## Intro Is there a lake of fire in Judaism or Islam? Not by that name. The phrase "lake of fire" belongs to the book of Revelation. But both faiths teach a fiery judgment after death. - **Judaism** calls it *Gehinnom*, the Hebrew name of a valley outside Jerusalem. The Hebrew Bible itself says little about it. The rabbis later said that for most sinners it lasts no more than twelve months, and that only a few are punished there for ages. - **Islam** calls it *Jahannam*. The Qur'an describes it often and in vivid detail: seven gates, boiling water, skins that burn and are replaced. Unbelievers stay forever. Muslims who believed but sinned may be punished for a time and then brought out. - **Christianity** speaks of *Gehenna* in the words of Jesus and of the "lake of fire" in Revelation, the final judgment after the resurrection. All three agree that God judges and that evil does not get the last word. They differ on three questions that matter most to anyone who wants to know where they stand: **who goes there, how long, and what rescues a person from it.** ![The Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, early twentieth-century photograph](/codex/assets/valley-of-hinnom-matson-photo.jpg) *The Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom) south-west of Jerusalem, the place that gave Judaism, Christianity and Islam their word for hell. Photo: American Colony Photo Department (Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress), public domain ([Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Valleys_of_Jehoshaphat_and_Hinnom._Valley_of_Hinnom._LOC_matpc.00941.jpg)), cropped from a stereograph and resized.* ## In full The word behind all three traditions is the same place. *Ge-Hinnom*, the Valley of (the son of) Hinnom, runs along the south-west side of Jerusalem. The kings Ahaz and Manasseh burned children there in the cult at Topheth ([2 Kings 23:10](/codex/2-kings-23-10/); [Jeremiah 7:31-32](/codex/jeremiah-7-31-32/)), and Jeremiah renamed it "the valley of Slaughter." From there the name passed into Second Temple Judaism as the place of judgment after death, into the Greek of the Gospels as *geenna* ([G1067 - geenna](/codex/g1067-geenna/)), and into Arabic as *Jahannam*. See [Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom](/codex/topheth-and-the-valley-of-hinnom/). What each tradition built on that shared word differs sharply: 1. **The Hebrew Bible** speaks mostly of *Sheol*, the shadowy realm of all the dead ([H7585 - sheol](/codex/h7585-sheol/)), and only near its end points to a divided resurrection ([Daniel 12:2](/codex/daniel-12-2/)) and an undying fire ([Isaiah 66:24](/codex/isaiah-66-24/)). 2. **Rabbinic Judaism** made *Gehinnom* chiefly a place of purgation, limited for most to twelve months (Mishnah Eduyot 2:10), with lasting punishment reserved for a narrow class (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16b-17a). Medieval and modern Judaism holds a range of views, and many Jews today say little about hell at all. 3. **Islam** made *Jahannam* a central and detailed doctrine of the Qur'an, eternal for unbelievers, and in mainstream Sunni teaching temporary for believing Muslims who die with unforgiven sins. 4. **Christianity** follows Jesus' teaching on *Gehenna* and the Revelation vision of the lake of fire, the "second death," after the final judgment. The ground of escape is not a balance of deeds but union with Christ. ## The Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Scriptures are reserved about the afterlife compared to what came after them. - **Sheol** receives righteous and wicked alike ([Genesis 37:35](/codex/genesis-37-35/); [Ecclesiastes 9:10](/codex/ecclesiastes-9-10/)). It is the grave and the realm of the dead, not a place of fire. See [H7585 - sheol](/codex/h7585-sheol/). - **Hope beyond Sheol** appears in the Psalms: "God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol" ([Psalm 49:15](/codex/psalms-49-15/), ASV; see also [Psalm 16:10](/codex/psalms-16-10/)). - **A divided resurrection** appears in Daniel: > And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ([Daniel 12:2](/codex/daniel-12-2/), ASV) - **The undying fire** closes the book of Isaiah, and Jesus quotes it word for word when he speaks of Gehenna ([Mark 9:48](/codex/mark-9-48/)): > And they shall go forth, and look upon the dead bodies of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. ([Isaiah 66:24](/codex/isaiah-66-24/), ASV) - **Topheth prepared** with fire and wood, kindled by "the breath of Jehovah," is the image of judgment on Assyria in [Isaiah 30:33](/codex/isaiah-30-33/). None of these texts uses *Ge-Hinnom* for an afterlife place. That step comes later. ## Second Temple Judaism Between the Testaments, Jewish writers made the valley's name the name of the place of judgment. - **1 Enoch** (the Book of the Watchers, third century BC) shows Enoch an "accursed valley" beside Jerusalem where the accursed will be gathered for judgment (1 Enoch 27), and later describes an abyss full of fire into which the faithless are cast (1 Enoch 90:26-27). - **4 Ezra** (late first century AD) pictures the last judgment with "the furnace of Gehenna" disclosed opposite "the paradise of delight" (4 Ezra 7:36). - **The Pharisees**, according to Josephus, held that the souls of the wicked face "eternal punishment" while the righteous are raised (*Jewish War* 2.163; *Antiquities* 18.14). The Sadducees denied any afterlife judgment. Jesus' own use of *Gehenna* ([Matthew 10:28](/codex/matthew-10-28/); [Mark 9:43-48](/codex/mark-9-43-48/)) speaks into this setting. His hearers already knew the word. What they had not heard was a teacher who claimed to be the judge at that judgment ([Matthew 25:31-46](/codex/matthew-25-31-46/)). ## Rabbinic Judaism: Gehinnom The rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud gave *Gehinnom* its classic Jewish shape. Three texts set the frame. 1. **Twelve months.** Rabbi Akiva lists five judgments that each last twelve months, ending with "the judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom," supported from [Isaiah 66:23](/codex/isaiah-66-23/) ("from one new moon to another"). Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri held it lasts only fifty days (Mishnah Eduyot 2:10). This is the source of the Jewish custom of saying the mourner's Kaddish for eleven months rather than twelve, so as not to imply a parent was among the wicked. 2. **Three classes.** The School of Shammai taught that at the judgment the completely righteous are sealed at once for eternal life, the completely wicked are sealed at once for Gehinnom, and the in-between go down to Gehinnom, are purified and come up. Heretics, informers and those who deny the resurrection go down and are judged "for generations upon generations"; others, after twelve months, are consumed (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16b-17a). 3. **All Israel and its exceptions.** "All Israel has a share in the world to come," except, among others, one who denies the resurrection or that the Torah is from heaven (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1). Later teaching extends a share to the righteous of the nations (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:2). What rescues a person in rabbinic thought is **repentance** (*teshuvah*), joined with the Day of Atonement and with death itself: "death and the Day of Atonement atone, with repentance" (Mishnah Yoma 8:8). The Talmud also records the honest fear this leaves. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai wept on his deathbed because two roads lay before him, one to the Garden of Eden and one to Gehinnom, and he did not know which he would be led on (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 28b). See [Rabbinic Judaism vs the Christian God](/codex/rabbinic-judaism-vs-the-christian-god/). ### Maimonides and later Judaism [Maimonides](/codex/maimonides/) (1138-1204) moved the emphasis from fire to loss. In his code he teaches that the reward of the righteous is the life of the world to come, and the punishment of the wicked is that they do not receive that life but are cut off (*karet*) (*Mishneh Torah*, Laws of Repentance 8:1, 8:5). His Thirteen Principles still include reward and punishment and the resurrection of the dead. Modern Judaism varies widely. Orthodox Judaism keeps the classical texts on Gehinnom and resurrection. Many Reform and Conservative Jews treat Gehinnom as symbolic or set it aside. Judaism as a whole is markedly reticent about the afterlife compared with Christianity and Islam. See [Judaism](/codex/judaism/) and [Talmud](/codex/talmud/). ## Islam: Jahannam The Qur'an speaks of the Fire (*al-nar*) and of *Jahannam* far more often than the Hebrew Bible speaks of any afterlife punishment. Locators below are for checking; wording is paraphrased. - **Seven gates.** Jahannam has seven gates, with an assigned portion of the damned at each (15:43-44). Later commentators matched the gates with seven levels and names drawn from the Qur'an, such as *Saqar* (74:26-30), *al-Hutama* (104:4-6) and *Hawiya* (101:9). The hypocrites are in its lowest depth (4:145). - **The fire's imagery.** Whenever the unbelievers' skins are burned through they are replaced with new skins, so they keep tasting the punishment (4:56). Garments of fire are cut for them, and boiling water is poured over their heads (22:19-20). Nineteen angels guard it (74:30). - **The intermediate state.** Between death and resurrection the dead are behind a barrier (*barzakh*) until the day they are raised (23:99-100). Hadith describe questioning in the grave and a foretaste of reward or punishment there. - **The weighing.** On the Day of Judgment deeds are weighed. Those whose scales are heavy prosper; those whose scales are light have lost themselves and abide in Jahannam (23:102-103; 101:6-9). - **Forever for unbelievers.** The disbelievers among the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the fire of Jahannam, abiding in it forever (98:6). God does not forgive associating partners with Him (*shirk*), though He forgives anything less to whom He wills (4:48). - **Temporary for believing sinners.** Mainstream Sunni teaching, built on hadith, holds that Muslims who die with unforgiven grave sins may be punished for a time and then brought out. In a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari (6560) and Sahih Muslim (184), God commands that whoever has faith the weight of a mustard seed in his heart be taken out of the Fire. Intercession, chiefly by the Prophet, plays a large part in these traditions. - **Every soul passes near it.** "There is none of you but will come to it" (19:71) is read by most commentators as passing over or approaching the Fire, with the God-fearing then delivered (19:72). A minority of classical scholars debated whether the Fire itself would one day end, citing the phrase "except as your Lord wills" (6:128; 11:107). The view is associated with Ibn Taymiyya and his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. The majority of Sunni scholars rejected it and hold that the Fire, like Paradise, is everlasting. What rescues a person in Islam is **faith in God's oneness, good deeds that outweigh bad, repentance, and God's mercy**, with no one able to bear another's burden (6:164). Even the Prophet is reported to have said that no one enters Paradise by his deeds alone, not even himself, unless God covers him with His mercy. See [Islam](/codex/islam/), [Five Pillars of Islam](/codex/five-pillars-of-islam/) and [Islam vs the Christian God](/codex/islam-vs-the-christian-god/). ## Christianity: Gehenna and the lake of fire The Christian vocabulary runs from *Sheol* and *Hades* (the realm of the dead before the judgment) to *Gehenna* and the lake of fire (the final state after it). See [Hell and Eternal Punishment](/codex/hell-and-eternal-punishment/) for the full biblical treatment. - **Gehenna in Jesus' teaching.** Jesus uses the word eleven times in the Gospels, warning that it is better to lose a hand or an eye than to be cast into it ([Mark 9:43-48](/codex/mark-9-43-48/)), and to "fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" ([Matthew 10:28](/codex/matthew-10-28/), ASV). - **Prepared for the devil.** "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" ([Matthew 25:41](/codex/matthew-25-41/), KJV). The fire was not made for human beings. - **The lake of fire.** The beast and the false prophet are cast in ([Revelation 19:20](/codex/revelation-19-20/)), then the devil ([Revelation 20:10](/codex/revelation-20-10/)), then death and Hades themselves: > And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire. ([Revelation 20:14-15](/codex/revelation-20-14-15/), ASV) - **Who is there.** [Revelation 21:8](/codex/revelation-21-8/) lists "the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars" (ASV). Two features set the Christian picture apart. First, **Hades is emptied into the lake of fire**, so the intermediate realm and the final state are distinct, which neither the rabbinic twelve months nor the Islamic *barzakh* maps onto exactly. Second, **the dividing line is the book of life**, not a weighing of deeds. Christians differ on the duration and nature of the final punishment (eternal conscious punishment, the historic majority; conditional immortality; and a minority universalist hope), but not on what saves. See [Conditional Immortality](/codex/conditional-immortality/), [Universalism](/codex/universalism/) and [Degrees of Punishment](/codex/degrees-of-punishment/). ## Side by side | Question | Rabbinic Judaism | Islam | Christianity | |---|---|---|---| | **Name** | Gehinnom | Jahannam, the Fire | Gehenna; the lake of fire, the second death | | **Main source** | Mishnah and Talmud, building on Isaiah and Daniel | The Qur'an, expanded by hadith | Jesus in the Gospels; Revelation 19-21 | | **Intermediate state** | The soul judged after death; Gehinnom often purgatorial | *Barzakh*, the barrier until resurrection (23:100) | Hades, which is later cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14) | | **Duration** | Up to twelve months for most; "generations" for a few; views vary | Forever for unbelievers; temporary for believing sinners | Final and unending in the historic view; conditionalists read the destruction as permanent | | **Who goes there** | The wicked, with the worst (heretics, deniers of the resurrection) punished longest | Unbelievers and polytheists forever; Muslims with unforgiven sins for a time | All whose names are not in the book of life | | **What rescues** | Repentance, the Day of Atonement, death itself, God's mercy | Faith in God's oneness, deeds that outweigh, repentance, intercession, God's mercy | Christ's death and resurrection, received by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) | | **Can you know now?** | The Talmud's greatest sage wept because he did not know (Berakhot 28b) | Hope, not certainty (Qur'an 46:9) | "That ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13, ASV) | ## Where they differ, and why it matters **1. Who goes there.** All three say the wicked are judged. Islam and rabbinic Judaism draw the line chiefly by deeds and by right belief about God. The New Testament draws it by a person's relation to Christ: "In none other is there salvation" ([Acts 4:12](/codex/acts-4-12/), ASV). That is why the moral-but-unrepentant person is not exempt in the Christian picture, and why the worst sinner who turns to Christ is not excluded ([Luke 23:43](/codex/luke-23-43/)). **2. How long.** Rabbinic Judaism mostly limits the time. Islam makes it eternal for unbelievers and temporary for believing Muslims. Christianity treats the judgment as final, with no second chance after it ([Luke 16:26](/codex/luke-16-26/); [Hebrews 9:27](/codex/hebrews-9-27/)). The Christian debate is about the nature of that final state, not about release from it. **3. What rescues.** This is the deepest difference. In Judaism and Islam the sinner is rescued by repentance plus God's mercy, and in Islam by a balance of deeds and by intercession. Christianity says God's justice is not set aside but satisfied, because the Son bore the judgment himself: "that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus" ([Romans 3:26](/codex/romans-3-26/), ASV). The Christian reply to a weighing of deeds is not that deeds do not matter, but that no one's scales balance, and Christ was weighed in their place. See [Justification by Faith](/codex/justification-by-faith/) and [Penal Substitutionary Atonement](/codex/penal-substitutionary-atonement/). **4. Assurance.** Because rescue in Islam and rabbinic Judaism rests in part on the person's own record, neither offers certainty in this life, and both say so honestly. The New Testament was written so that believers may know. See [Assurance of Salvation](/codex/assurance-of-salvation/). ## Tensions - **The burning garbage dump.** A common explanation of Gehenna, repeated on [Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom](/codex/topheth-and-the-valley-of-hinnom/), is that the valley was Jerusalem's ever-burning refuse dump in Jesus' day. The earliest known source for that claim is the medieval commentator Rabbi David Kimhi (around 1200, on [Psalm 27](/codex/psalms-27/)). Lloyd R. Bailey ("Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," *Biblical Archaeologist* 49, 1986) found no support for it in intertestamental or rabbinic sources or in archaeology. Others (Davies and Allison on Matthew; Philip Johnston) do not rule it out. The child-sacrifice history of Topheth ([Jeremiah 7:31-32](/codex/jeremiah-7-31-32/)) and the fire-and-worm language of [Isaiah 66:24](/codex/isaiah-66-24/) are on firm ground and are enough to explain the imagery. The dump should be presented as a possibility, not a fact. - **"Judaism has no hell."** The claim is common in popular conversation. It is true that the Hebrew Bible says little and that rabbinic Gehinnom is mostly temporary, but the Mishnah and Talmud do teach post-mortem punishment, and for some, punishment "for generations upon generations." The fair statement is that Judaism has a hell that is mostly purgatorial and much less emphasized. ## See also - [Hell and Eternal Punishment](/codex/hell-and-eternal-punishment/), the full Christian doctrine and the three views - [Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom](/codex/topheth-and-the-valley-of-hinnom/), the valley behind the word - [G1067 - geenna](/codex/g1067-geenna/), Jesus' word for hell - [H7585 - sheol](/codex/h7585-sheol/), the Hebrew realm of the dead - [G0086 - hades](/codex/g0086-hades/), the realm of the dead in the New Testament - [Is God Present in Hell](/codex/is-god-present-in-hell/), omnipresence and the language of separation - [Heaven](/codex/heaven/), the other side of the judgment - [Islam vs the Christian God](/codex/islam-vs-the-christian-god/), the wider comparison with Islam - [Rabbinic Judaism vs the Christian God](/codex/rabbinic-judaism-vs-the-christian-god/), the wider comparison with Judaism - [World Religions Compared by Their Ultimate Ending](/codex/world-religions-compared-by-their-ultimate-ending/), every worldview's ending side by side - [Assurance of Salvation](/codex/assurance-of-salvation/), knowing where you stand now - [Maimonides](/codex/maimonides/), the medieval Jewish view of reward and punishment
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Is there a lake of fire in Judaism?** Not by that name. Judaism speaks of *Gehinnom*, named after the Valley of Hinnom by Jerusalem. The Mishnah teaches that the judgment of the wicked there lasts twelve months (Eduyot 2:10), and the Talmud reserves longer punishment for a few, such as heretics and those who deny the resurrection (Rosh Hashanah 16b-17a). Many modern Jews treat Gehinnom as symbolic. **Q: Is there a lake of fire in Islam?** Islam has *Jahannam*, the Fire, described in detail in the Qur'an: seven gates (15:44), skins burned and replaced (4:56), boiling water (22:19-20). It is eternal for unbelievers (98:6). Mainstream Sunni teaching holds that believing Muslims with unforgiven sins may be punished for a time and then brought out. **Q: Is Gehenna the same as hell?** Gehenna is the Greek form of *Ge-Hinnom*, the Valley of Hinnom. By Jesus' day it was the Jewish name for the place of judgment after death, and Jesus used it for hell. The Arabic *Jahannam* comes from the same name. **Q: Do Jews believe hell is eternal?** Mostly not. Classical rabbinic teaching limits Gehinnom to twelve months for most sinners, with longer punishment for a narrow class. Maimonides taught that the worst sinners are cut off from the world to come rather than burned forever. **Q: Do Muslims go to hell for a time and then to Paradise?** In mainstream Sunni teaching, yes, some do. Hadith in Bukhari and Muslim say that whoever has faith the weight of a mustard seed will eventually be taken out of the Fire, often through intercession. Unbelievers and those who die in *shirk* stay forever. **Q: What is the biggest difference between hell in Christianity, Judaism and Islam?** What rescues a person from it. Judaism looks to repentance and God's mercy, and Islam to faith in God's oneness, a balance of good deeds and God's mercy. Christianity teaches that Christ bore the judgment in the sinner's place, so that rescue rests on his finished work and can be known now ([1 John 5:13](/codex/1-john-5-13/)). **Q: Was Gehenna a burning garbage dump?** Possibly, but the evidence is thin. The earliest source for the dump explanation is a medieval rabbi, David Kimhi, around 1200. The valley's history of child sacrifice and Isaiah's undying fire and worm explain the imagery on their own.