70 Raisins?!?!?!?

In the interest of equal-opportunity religion bashing, I offer the following:

Charles Kimball, Th.D., lecturer of The Teaching Company's lecture series "Comparative Religions," reports that Muslim scholars do not always agree on the meaning of the Qur'an. There is dispute over a certain item in the description of heaven. At least one Muslim scholar, who professor Kimball does not name (but Kimball is himself an authority on comparative religions, so I trust him when he says this), asserts that the word normally taken to mean virgins actually means raisins. Thus the suicide bombers who are convinced that they will have 70 virgins in heaven may find that what they actually get a is a bowl of raisins. Raisins are good. I like raisins myself. But I certainly would not martyr myself for a bowl of them. Leaving aside the question of whether or not suicide bombers actually get into heaven (the Qur'an very explicitly forbids suicide, and also very explicitly forbids killing non-combatants) if Muhammad really is god's prophet, and the Qur'an really is god's word, and if one of those characters should make it into heaven because his faith and devotion to god outweigh his dastardly crimes, he may be sorely disappointed to find that allah has set aside for his exclusive enjoyment not 70 beautiful young girls, but rather a very nice bowl of juicy raisins.

ound:

Note: The above is a particularly amusing item, but is not by any means the only point on which learned and devout Muslim scholars disagree in their notions of what the Qur'an says. Mathematics is a precise "language" in which concepts can be expressed without ambiguity. But it is not possible to be literal and unambiguous in any natural human language. Thus literalists in any religious tradition will always find their edifices toppling over, built as they are upon shifting sands.