Does Islam Teach That Women Rarely Enter Paradise?
Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Question
I have heard that women rarely enter Paradise, or that they are the majority of the people of Hell. Is this what Islam teaches? It weighs on me.
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.
May Allah grant you ease and gather you among the people of Paradise.
To answer your question directly: Islam does not teach that women rarely enter Paradise.
This is a misunderstanding of a single report, taken out of context from the broader guidance of the Quran and Sunna.
The scholars closest to these texts never understood it in this way. Before looking at the hadith that concerns you, let us first reflect on what the Quran itself says about women. This is the light by which we understand every narration.
The Quran Places Women and Men on One Scale
The Quran is explicit that faith, worship, and reward belong to women exactly as they belong to men.
Allah Most High says: “Verily men and women who submit to Allah, and men and women who truly believe, and men and women devoted in adoration … and most nobly men and women who remember Allah much: Allah has prepared for all of them a mighty forgiveness and incomparable wage.” [Quran 33:35; Keller, The Quran Beheld]
Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606 AH / 1210 CE) reads this verse as ten ascending spiritual ranks that women climb precisely alongside men.
Imam Ibn Ashur (d. 1393 AH / 1973 CE) calls it the foundational principle of the equality of the sexes in the Sacred Law. It was revealed, the commentators note, when women asked why revelation had named men — and Allah answered them by name, ten times over.
The same equivalence runs throughout the Book. “Verily I waste not the work of any worker of you, man or woman: you are of one another.” [Quran 3:195]
Al-Razi comments that there is no distinction between male and female in the answering of prayers or in reward; rank in religion is fixed by deeds alone, not by any other attribute of the doer.
Allah says again: “And whoever works righteous deeds, whether male or female, while a believer, those shall enter Paradise, and they shall not be wronged even the hole on the back of a date-stone.” [Quran 4:124]
And: “Whoever works righteousness, whether man or woman, being a believer, We shall bestow them a life wondrous fair, and requite them their wage hereafter as if their every deed were the best they ever did.” [Quran 16:97]
Nor is the believing woman a lesser partner in the community’s life. “And true believers, men and women, are the faithful friends and protectors of each other; they bid the right and forbid the wrong, keep the prayer, give the due alms, and obey Allah and His messenger.” [Quran 9:71]
The very next verse promises them, in the same breath as the men, “myriad lush groves of Paradise … and the merest of the supreme divine pleasure of Allah is vastly yet greater” [Quran 9:72].
And the Quran’s final word on human worth erases the question: “Verily the greatest of you all in the sight of Allah is the most godfearing of you.” [Quran 49:13]
Imam al-Qurtubi (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE) explains that this rebuked those who boasted of lineage: all are from Adam and Eve, and honor is through godfearing alone.
The Great Women the Quran Holds Up
The Quran does not overlook women. Rather, it raises certain women as examples of faith for all believers, both men and women, to look up to.
Foremost is Maryam, the daughter of Imran (peace be upon her). “O Mary, verily Allah has chosen you, purified you, and preferred you above all women in the world.” [Quran 3:42]
Al-Razi describes a two-fold divine election, and al-Qurtubi holds that she received angelic revelation as the Prophets did; others name her a Siddiqa, a friend of God of the highest rank.
When Allah praises her devotion, He uses the masculine plural — “she was of the humbly devoted” [Quran 66:12] — which Abu al-Su’ud (d. 982 AH / 1574 CE) explains is to signal that her obedience fell not one degree short of the obedience of the greatest men.
Beside her, the Quran sets Asiya (Allah be pleased with her), the wife of Pharaoh, a faithful woman standing upright inside a tyrant’s own house. “My beloved Lord, build me an unsurpassed home with You in the luxuriant grove of Paradise, and wholly deliver me from Pharaoh and all he does.” [Quran 66:11]
Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH / 1373 CE) records the words of the scholars: “She chose the Neighborr before the home” — she asked first for nearness to Allah, and only then for the house in Paradise.
Qurtubi relates that she was tortured beneath the sun, and the angels shaded her, and she was shown her home in the Garden before she died.
The Quran honors, too, the mother of Musa (Allah be pleased with her), whose trust in Allah was so complete that she placed her infant on the water at His command — and He returned him to her.
Qurtubi glosses “thus We reward the doers of good” upon her: she surrendered to Allah’s command and believed His promise, and He gave her child back to her with honor and security [Quran 28:7].
It honors the Queen of Sheba for a ruler’s wisdom and restraint — al-Qurtubi finds in her story a proof for the merit of consultation, praising how she weighed counsel rather than rushing to war (Surah 27).
And it honors the believing women who came to pledge their faith directly to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) as moral agents in their own right [Quran 60:12]; al-Alusi (d. 1270 AH / 1854 CE) records that he honored their dignity, saying, “I do not shake hands with women; my word to a hundred women is as my word to one.”
The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) gathered this Quranic honor into a single saying: “Many men reached perfection, but none among women reached it save Maryam, the daughter of Imran, and Asiya, the wife of Pharaoh” [Bukhari; Muslim].
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH / 1449 CE) explains that this “perfection” (kamal) means the summit of every virtue, piety, and godliness — a station the Quran itself declares two women reached in full.
The Prophet’s Honoring of Faithful Women
The Sunna of the Messenger of Allah (peace & blessings be upon him) is filled, likewise, with the rank and honor of women — as believers, as mothers, as wives, and as worshippers.
As a believer and companion in life, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “The world is but provision, and there is no provision in the world better than a righteous woman” [Muslim].
Mulla Ali al-Qari (d. 1014 AH / 1605 CE) notes that “righteous” is the key: such a woman helps her husband toward his religion and his hereafter, which is why she surpasses every other enjoyment of a passing world.
As mothers, women hold a rank that the religion sets above that of the fathers. A man asked who was most deserving of his good company, and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) answered, “Your mother,” three times over before he said, “then your father” [Bukhari; Muslim].
Imam al-Nawawi (d. 676 AH / 1277 CE) explains the threefold priority in terms of the three hardships a mother alone bears: carrying, delivery, and nursing and raising.
And when a man came seeking to serve, he was told, “Stay at her feet, for there lies Paradise” [Nasai; Ahmad] — the sound expression of the well-known saying that Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers, which al-Qari reads as an image of the utmost humility and service owed to her.
As wives, women are a trust upon whose honoring a man’s own faith is measured. “The most complete of believers in faith are the best of them in character, and the best of you are the best of you to their women.” [Tirmidhi]
Mulla Ali al-Qari observes that the Lawgiver singled women out for this care “because they are a place of mercy, owing to their gentleness.” He also said, “Any woman who dies while her husband is pleased with her enters Paradise” [Tirmidhi] — an honor, Qari notes, of entry among the foremost.
And as worshippers and mothers of daughters, the rewards are immense. “Whoever is tested with daughters and is good to them, they will be a shield for him from the Fire” [Bukhari; Muslim]
Ibn Hajar notes this overturned a whole age’s contempt for daughters, making kindness to them a cause of salvation.
Above all, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “When a woman prays her five, fasts her month, guards her chastity, and obeys her husband, it is said to her: enter Paradise from whichever of its gates you wish.” [Ahmad; Ibn Hibban]
Imam Abd al-Ra’uf al-Munawi (d. 1031 AH / 1622 CE) explains that zakat and Hajj are not mentioned only because most women in that setting held no wealth that would require them, so the Prophet named what applied to all.
Now, the Hadith That Troubled You
Only against all of this can the report you heard be read rightly. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, on the day of Eid, “O women, give charity, for I have been shown that you are the majority of the people of the Fire.” [Bukhari; Muslim]
As our own scholars explain, these words were spoken as the community prepared to fund a campaign; they were a spur — a challenge to give generously and to leave two specific, correctable habits: frequent cursing and ingratitude to a spouse. [SeekersGuidance, Shaykh Jamir Meah, “In What Context Did the Prophet Say’ Women Make up the Majority of the Inhabitants of Hell’?”]
The faults mentioned are actions that anyone can change. They are not part of being a woman. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who honored women throughout his life, never belittled anyone because of their gender.
Understanding the “Problematic” Hadiths in Light of Other Hadiths: Most of the People of Paradise are Also Women
There is, moreover, a second and decisive report: “I looked into Paradise and saw that the majority of its people were the poor; I looked into the Fire and saw that the majority of its people were women.” [Muslim]
Read beside the reports that women are also the majority of the people of Paradise, the picture is settled.
Qadi Iyad (d. 544 AH / 1149 CE), as Imam Nawawi relates, concludes that taken together these narrations establish one thing only: that women are the majority of the children of Adam.
Their greater number in each place follows from their greater number overall — not from any deficiency in their worth. Where a narration seems to make women “few” in Paradise, Ibn Hajar notes in Fath al-Bari that this was a narrator’s own inference and does not necessarily follow.
Al-Munawi adds that any such fewness refers to the very beginning, before the generality of believers enter Paradise, that the women of this world are fewer than its men in the Garden.
On “Deficiency” in Intelligence and Religion
The same gathering is often quoted for the phrase “deficient in intelligence and religion,” and it too has a plain, gentle sense.
The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) himself glossed it: the “intelligence” point referred to a rule of legal testimony, and the “religion” point to the days a woman does not pray or fast during her monthly cycle — a dispensation Allah granted her, for which she is rewarded, not blamed.
Neither of these points affects a woman’s rank before Allah or her capacity to reach the highest levels of closeness to Him. The Quran itself shows Maryam and Asiya reaching these heights.
Let This Settle Your Heart
So do not fear about this. The Quran judges each person by faith and deeds. It raises women as role models for all people. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) honored believing women as daughters, wives, mothers, and worshippers, and opened for them every gate of Paradise.
The women around our Beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), such as Khadija, Aisha, Fatima, and many others (Allah be pleased with them), are among the greatest souls of this Umma.
Your task, like every believer’s, is to have faith, sincerity, and steady good deeds. If you meet Allah with these, His Paradise is open to you as it is to anyone He has honored.
And Allah knows best.
[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani
Related Answers
In What Context Did the Prophet say Women Make up the Majority of the Inhabitants of Hell? — The setting of the hadith, why it is not a literal condemnation, and the meaning of “deficiency.”
What Do Women Get in Paradise? — The reward and honor promised to believing women in the next life.
How Can I Stay Muslim When I Feel Women Are Overlooked in Islam? — Pastoral guidance for the distress that questions like this can stir.
Why Do Women Face the Most Severe Threats Mentioned in Hadiths? — How to read admonitory hadith addressed to women without despair.
Is It Sinful to Believe Women Can Be as Intelligent as Men? — Untangling the “deficiency” hadith from any claim about women’s worth or ability.
Shaykh Faraz Rabbani is a recognized specialist scholar in the Islamic sciences, having studied under leading scholars from around the world. He is the Founder and Executive Director of SeekersGuidance.
Shaykh Faraz stands as a distinguished figure in Islamic scholarship. His journey in seeking knowledge is marked by dedication and depth. He spent ten years studying under some of the most revered scholars of our times. His initial studies took place in Damascus. He then continued in Amman, Jordan.
In Damascus, he was privileged to learn from the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas. Shaykh Adib al-Kallas was renowned as the foremost theologian of his time. Shaykh Faraz also studied under Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi in Damascus. Shaykh Hassan is recognized as one of the leading Hanafi jurists of our era.
Upon completing his studies, Shaykh Faraz returned to Canada in 2007. His return marked a new chapter in his service to the community. He founded SeekersGuidance. The organization reflects his commitment to spreading Islamic knowledge. It aims to be reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible. This mission addresses both online and on-the-ground needs.
Shaykh Faraz is also an accomplished author. His notable work includes “Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School.” This book, published by White Thread Press in 2004, is a significant contribution to Islamic literature.
His influence extends beyond his immediate community. Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been recognized as one of the 500 most influential Muslims. This recognition comes from the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center. It underscores his impact on the global Islamic discourse.
Shaykh Faraz Rabbani’s life and work embody a profound commitment to Islamic scholarship. His teachings continue to enlighten and guide seekers of knowledge worldwide.
