Specifically, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get hur, and the word was taken by early commentators to mean virgins, hence those 72 concubines. But in Aramaic, hur actually meant white and was commonly used to specifically mean white grapes.
The exact number of virgins (or raisins) is not specified in Koran, but the number 72 comes from a quotation of Muhammad recorded in one of the lesser-known Hadith. ("Hadith" is an Arabic word meaning traditions.) After Muhammad's death, several collections of his deeds and sayings were collected to form the Hadith, which is the second most authoritative document is Islam, after the Koran.
The philologist "Christoph Luxenburg", (who always uses a pseudonym for security reasons) notes that grapes would actually make more sense, because the text compares them to crystal and pearls, and because contemporary accounts have paradise abounding with fruit, especially white grapes.
Facebook
Twitter