SPEAKING FREELY Suicide bombing: Theology
of death By Rabbi Moshe Reiss
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In the
three monotheistic religions, redemption is the ultimate
goal. Most believers expect the kingdom of heaven to
occur in Paradise rather than on this Earth. Some,
however, call the "heavenly world" the "True World". All
believe humanity began in a "Garden of Eden"; mankind
was exiled to a place of suffering and evil as a
punishment. The objective is to return to the "Garden of
Eden".
Rifat Mukdi, aged 25, a failed suicide
bomber, stated: "Dying for martyrs doesn't mean real
death" (quoted by Eric Schecter in the Jerusalem Post,
August 6). Is this a form of discontent of living, an
asphyxiation of hope?
How did Islamic clerics
react to this distorted sense of religious mysticism?
Muhammad Sa'id Tantawi, sheikh and mufti of Egypt's
famous al-Azhar Mosque and University, had signed the
Alexandrian Document in January 2002 with other
religious leaders, both Christian and Jewish, stating:
"We declare our commitment to ending the violence and
bloodshed that denies the right to life and dignity." In
2003 he was unequivocal about the issue of suicide
bombers. He declared that the Sharia (Islamic law)
"rejects all attempts on human life, and in the name of
the Sharia, we condemn all attacks on civilians" (Middle
East Quarterly, Spring 2003).
But the
fundamentalist clerics objected. The harshest rebuttal
came from Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, known
as the theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood and
currently head of the Sunni studies faculty at Qatar
University: "I am astonished that some sheikhs deliver
fatwas that betray the mujahideen, instead of supporting
them and urging them to sacrifice and martyrdom." He
argued that "Israeli society was completely military in
its make-up and did not include any civilians ... How
can the head of al-Azhar incriminate mujahideen who
fight against aggressors? How can he consider these
aggressors as innocent civilians?"
Tantawi began
to equivocate, issuing contradictory statements, finally
declaring and effectively abrogating his earlier fatwa:
"My words were clear ... a man who blows himself [up] in
the middle of enemy militants is a martyr, repeat, a
martyr. What we do not condone is for someone to blow
himself up in the middle of children or women. If he
blows himself up in the middle of Israeli women enlisted
in the army, then he is a martyr, since these women are
fighters". (Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2003).
Who are these young bombers and what are their
motives? Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist at Harvard
and Yale universities and an expert on cults and
suicide, stated that "they believe there's a higher
purpose, that in some way they are bringing about a
purification, a perfection. They are destroying the
world in order to save it ... I think in this sense, all
suicide has to do with making a lasting statement one
could not make in life" (quoted by Benedict Carey, Los
Angeles Times, July 31, 2002). Clark McCauley, a
psychologist at Bryn Mawr College in the United States
and a writer on terrorism, stated: "It's the group
that's abnormal and extreme. The bombers themselves are
psychologically as normal as you and I. The best
evidence that these terrorists are mentally competent is
the planning and patience required for many of their
missions. They are not socially dysfunctional" (for the
Social Science Research Council).
What brings a
young Palestinian to detonate him/herself amid a crowd
of other young persons? Is it a religious upbringing
with promises of Paradise in reward for acts of
martyrdom? Is it the parental support he receives for
his convictions? Is it the payment his family will
receive raising them out of poverty? Is it brainwashing,
or encouragement from a Palestinian society that see no
other means of fighting back against occupation,
oppression and humiliation?
A Friday-night
bombing outside a Tel Aviv discotheque took the lives of
20 young Israelis. The suicide bomber was identified as
22-year-old Saeed Hotary, a Jordanian who had lived at
Kalkilya. Saeed's father Hassan told the Associated
Press, "I am very happy and proud of what my son did and
I hope that all the men of Palestine and Jordan would do
the same." His brother said Saeed "was very religious
since he was young; he prayed and fasted" (Middle East
Media and Research Institute, or MEMRI, June 25, 2001).
Mouin Rabbani, director of the Palestinian
American Research Center in Ramallah, stated that the
common thread among all suicide bombers is the "bitter
experience of what they see as Israeli state terror.
Without exception, the suicide bombers have lived their
lives on the receiving end of a system designed to
trample their rights and crush every hope of a brighter
future ... Confronted by a seemingly endless combination
of death, destruction, restriction, harassment and
humiliation, they conclude that ending life as a bomb -
rather than having it ended by a bullet - endows them,
even if only in their final moments, with a semblance of
purpose and control previously unknown" (MEMRI, December
16, 2003).
Children in this culture have
increasingly grown to idolize suicide bombers and others
who are seen as having sacrificed their lives for the
Palestinian cause, said Dr Eyad Serraj, a psychiatrist
in the Gaza Strip (interviewed in the Christian Science
Monitor, March 10). The reason, he says, is that they
see "martyrdom" as the ultimate redemption. In a poll
held in the summer of 2003, 36% of 12-year-old boys in
Gaza said they believed that the best thing in life was
to die as a martyr, according to Dr Serraj.
"In
their minds, the only model of power and glory is the
martyr," he said. "Palestinian society glorifies the
martyr. They are elevated to the level of saints and
even prophets. Out of the hopeless and the inhuman
environment they live in, there is the promise that they
will have a better life in heaven."
The martyr's
image contrasts sharply with the way Palestinian youth
view their fathers, Serraj said. In studies he has
conducted, fathers are seen as "helpless, unable to
protect his children in the face of bombings".
Recently females have joined the ranks of male
suicide bombers. According to a women's magazine
published by al-Qaeda in September, "We will stand
covered by our veils and wrapped in our robes, weapons
in hand, our children in our laps, with the Koran and
the Sunna of the Prophet of Allah directing and guiding
us. The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our
children are the sacrifice by means of which we draw
closer to Allah, so that through us, Allah will cause
the Shahada for His sake to succeed ... [Our reward will
be] the pleasure of Allah and His Paradise."
Barbra Victor in a column in The Guardian (April
25) stated that "without exception, these women had been
trained by a trusted member of the family - a brother,
an uncle - or an esteemed religious leader, teacher, or
family friend, all of whom were men. I also learned that
all four who died, plus the others who had tried and
failed to die a martyr's death, had personal problems
that made their lives untenable within their own culture
and society." Female suicide bombers are concerned with
private issues rather than public issues. These women
were primarily single, independent, unable to bear
children or considered illegitimate in one way or other.
There performances are choreographed by men. Despite
Victor's statement, to the best of the author's
knowledge no child of a leader has ever attempted
suicide bombing.
These men had managed to
convince women associated with them that given their
"moral transgressions", or the errors made by a male
family member or for revenge, the only way to redeem
themselves and the family name was to die a martyr's
death. Only then would these women enjoy everlasting
life filled with happiness, respect and luxury, and
finally be elevated to an equal par with men. Only in
Paradise, and only if they killed themselves; they are
truly "black widows".
The mother of 14-year-old
Muhammad Sha'rawi, when speaking of her son who was
killed in the conflict: "He had sought martyrdom and
found it ... He always said he would die as a
shahid and asked me not to cry for him or be
sorry, because he was going to heaven" (MEMRI, June 25,
2001).
The mother of two sons killed on the same
day from the village of Ya'bad describes how religious
belief helps her overcome the pain: "During the day,
when I try to forget and calm myself. I read the Koran
and thank Allah and ask for forgiveness for my children,
and especially when I hear that the shahids
[belong] in heaven. I ask Allah to forgive them and
recite the verses of the Koran that I know by heart.
However, when I am alone even for some moments, I live
with them and imagine all their movements ... then I
feel the pain exhausting me" (MEMRI, June 25, 2001).
Another mother whose son was killed describes
the feelings she experienced when she received the news
of his death: "I felt deep sorrow, but the fact that my
son died as a shahid cooled the fire in my heart
and alleviated my pain" (MEMRI, June 25, 2001).
A father whose son died as a suicide bomber felt
differently: "I ask, on my behalf and on behalf of every
father and mother informed that their son has blown
himself up: 'By what right do these leaders send the
young people, even young boys in the flower of their
youth, to their deaths?' Who gave them religious or any
other legitimacy to tempt our children and urge them to
their deaths?
"Yes, I say 'death', not
'martyrdom'. Changing and beautifying the term, or
paying a few thousand dollars to the family of the young
man who has gone and will never return, does not ease
the shock or alter the irrevocable end. The sums of
money [paid] to the martyrs' families cause pain more
than they heal; they make the families feel that they
are being rewarded for the lives of their children.
"Do the children's lives have a price? Has death
become the only way to restore the rights and liberate
the land? And if this be the case, why doesn't a single
one of all the sheikhs who compete amongst themselves in
issuing fiery religious rulings, send his son? Why
doesn't a single one of the leaders who cannot restrain
himself in expressing his joy and ecstasy on the
satellite channels every time a young Palestinian man or
woman sets out to blow himself or herself up send his
son?" (MEMRI, October 10, 2002).
These acts are
not suicides. A suicide is based on individual
pathology. The individual who performs suicide bombing
do not commit suicide; they are involved in a culture of
death.
How does the Koran respond to killing?
"We ordained for the Children of Israel that if
any one slew a person - unless [or except] it be for
murder or for spreading mischief [or corruption] in the
land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and
if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the
life of the whole people. Then although there came to
them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after
that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the
land (5:32).
This appears to be a clear
prohibition of killing confirming the importance of
every single human being. The problem is that the words
"unless" and "except" when combined with the words
"spreading mischief" and "corruption" can be
problematic. This can be a justification for almost any
"jihad" operation.
Throughout the history of
Islam there were periods when tolerance, pluralism and
respect of multi-ethnic groups were prevalent. This was
true for several hundred years in each of the following
periods: the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim Spanish Empire
(known by Jews as their Golden Age), the Indian
sub-continent and the Muslim control of the Bosnia.
During these ages Muslims excelled in mathematics, the
sciences, astronomy and philosophy. The Islamic world
was scientifically and intellectual ahead of the
remainder of the world. This intellectual supremacy is
no longer true. As noted by two United Nations reports
(2002 and 2003) done by and for the Mideast, Arabism
currently is a failed culture.
Sheikh Ikremeh
Sabri, the highest-ranking cleric in the Palestinian
Authority preached in al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem: "They
think they scare people. We tell them: Inasmuch as you
love life, the Muslims love death and martyrdom." It is
not his Islamic theology that is abhorrent, it is his
culture. His culture sees death as standing as the
appetizer of a lifetime ending before it really begins.
His "they" who are the rest of us accept death as a
dessert after a lifetime.
Culture and religion
differ from each other. Religion can and is intended to
purify hostile and violent human cultural tendencies.
Arabism is a culture in which shame, honor and
vengeance, particularly as related to women, play
decisive roles. It is not unrelated that this culture
debases women in many ways, not least by promising 72
black-eyed virgins for male martyrdom death. What an
extraordinary definition of masculinity that he - the
Arab male - can handle 72 virgins. One wonders what the
physical reward is for female shahids - male
virgins? (The author notes that the virgin reward, like
much of the shahid ideology, is not to be found
in the Koran.)
What we have seen is a culture of
death that has developed over a long period of time in
the Arabic culture. Despite Arabs representing less than
one-fifth of the Muslim world, Arab influence is much
greater. The Koran is written in Arabic and all Muslims
pray in Arabic. Islam and the Koran do not represent a
theology of death; however, they have not yet purified
the Arabic culture of its desire to hasten the end
result of its death wish.
Moshe Reiss
currently resides in Israel, previously having
resided in the United States, the United Kingdom,
Belgium and Germany. He has lectured in of all those
countries (and others) and has degrees in literature,
economics and Judaism from the City University of New
York, Oxford University and Yale. He was formerly
assistant rabbi at Yale University. His website is
www.moshereiss.org. http://www.moshereiss.org
(Copyright 2004 Moshe Reiss.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click hereif you
are interested in contributing.
