Question – Are the depictions of Hell and Hell-fire in the Qur’an mere symbols, and were created by Muhammad as a way to frighten ignorant Arabs into getting them to follow the religion of Islam?

There is NOTHING in the Writings or the pilgrims’ notes to suggest this! In His Tablet to Varqa, Baha’u’llah is quite explicit that Paradise and Hell-fire are metaphors in this life, but “realities” in the Afterlife, and that if such realities did not exist in the Afterlife, then the Cause of God was pointless.