Section Two: The Text, Critically Edited and Annotated
1/a
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
(1)
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah bless Muhammad, his family, and his Companions, and grant them peace.
A question concerning the refutation of those who assert that Paradise and Hell will perish, and of those who speak of annihilation (2)—such as the Farābiyyah (3)—together with a mention of people’s divergent views regarding the Abode of Requital, marked by punishment, and the Abode of Reward, marked by bliss.
On this issue people hold three views:
• A group who maintain that both abodes will come to an end;
• A group who maintain that both will remain forever; and
• A group who maintain that the Abode of Requital will pass away, while the Abode of Grace, beneficence, and honor will abide.
(1) In the upper right margin of the first page of the original manuscript is written: “A section on the annihilation (fanaʾ) of Paradise and Hell. People have disputed this in three ways: that both remain, that both perish, and that Paradise remains while Hell perishes.” Below this, in small script, appears the word “mukarrar” (duplicated). In the upper left margin is the note: “That is, a marginal note: a treatise refuting those who assert the annihilation of Paradise and Hell and those who affirm their continued existence, and clarifying the correct view—this appears in one copy.” Afterwards, the word “fanaʾ” (annihilation) was added and marked.
(2) The original leaf is blank.
(3) I have not encountered any sect by this name, but it may be linked to the famous philosopher Abu Nasr al-Farabi (d. 339 AH), since he authored a philosophy of creed studied by many. See: Kitāb al-Farabi by Saʿīd Zayed; Durūs fī Tārīkh al-Falsafa by Ibrāhīm Bayūmī Madkūr and Yūsuf Karam (p. 73); and Tārīkh al-Falsafa by Muḥammad ʿAlī Muṣṭafā and Aḥmad ʿAbduh Khayr al-Dīn (p. 208).