So on the idea of 72 waiting virgins in Paradise

So on the idea of 72 waiting virgins in Paradise

The Quran like other scriptural texts may be talking about a host of topics that may or may not be taken in the literal sense. I’m certainly no expert. It’s been said for example that there are many things in paradise that can’t be described, understood and compared with Earthly notions.

But when it comes to the 72 virgins waiting in Paradise, I thought I’d run the numbers.

1. Let’s start with the ration of men to women her on Earth. It turns out, according to the United States' CIA the Male to Female sex ratio ranges from 1.02 (Malawi) to 1.08 (Singapore). For simplicity let’s say that there are as many Males as they are Females for the sake of the calculation.

2. The virginity rate for men and women aged 25 to 45 is about 14 per cent for men and 10 per cent for women.

3. So if you’re one of 1000 Males who just arrived in Paradise one would want to believe that 1000 Females made it too. But for a Male to find 72 waiting virgins, there must be at least 9,000 (remember 10% of women in the age of 25 to 45 group are virgins) women from which 10 percent would be virgins.

4. For each of the 1000 men to find 72 virgin women about 7200 women must be available and waiting. Imagine a place where there are 10 times more women than men.