By SYED-MOHSIN NAQUVI
In light of the multitude of terror attacks across the globe in recent years, some have expressed concerns about certain principles and teachings within Islam. “Martyrdom operations,†suicide bombings, and the “72 virgins in Paradise†are some of the most common misconceptions about Islam. Unfortunately, the meaning of martyrdom and self-sacrifice as understood in Islam has been maligned in recent years by groups like Daesh, which falsely claim that their followers who carry out suicide attacks will enter Paradise as “martyrs†(shaheed). Such attackers blatantly disregard the Qur’anic prohibition on suicide and patently violate the Qur’anic prohibition on killing others; thus, they can never be called “martyrs†in Islam.
The word “martyr†is derived from a Greek root meaning “a witness.†Martyrdom, or the act of serving as a witness, is a historically rooted concept in all three Abrahamic religions. The period of Christianity before Constantine I was called “The Age of Martyrs†because of the persecution early Christians endured. In Judaism, Kiddush Hashem is a sanctification of those who lost their lives while following the commandments of God.
In Islam, Martyrdom generally refers to suffering, persecution, and death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor. This definition, therefore, requires a hero, a person with a committed ideal, a cause or something similar; and an opponent who is a person, a group, or an institution that opposes that cause and is willing to go to extremes to stop the movement. The hero foresees action by opponents to harm him because of his commitment to the cause. In spite of that, the hero continues, knowing the risk of retaliation. The opponents kill the hero because of his commitment to the cause, and the hero’s death is commemorated. The end result is that, although the opponents succeed in temporary worldly gain, the victory belongs to the martyr who succeeds by standing up to the oppressor and then dying without fulfilling the desire of the opponent. Though Daesh refers to their suicide bombers as “martyrs†who are allegedly fighting oppression, in reality, their actions result in chaos, death, and destruction, and create, rather than alleviate, suffering for innocent people.
A true martyr in Islam is one who dies in God’s way, and he is called “Shaheed,†which is a superlative form of the Arabic word Shahid, meaning an eyewitness. The idea of being a martyr is that a person made the ultimate sacrifice by being a witness to God’s laws being preserved. In Islam, the Arabic terms Shaheed and Shahid are often used interchangeably with the word “martyr,†but the direct translation of the word is, again, “witness to the Truth.â€
The Qur’an describes the rewards for those who sacrifice themselves while bearing witness to God:
And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of God as dead. Nay, they are alive and they are with their Lord receiving provision (3:169).
We can interpret the last part of the statement as addressing those devotees of the same cause who, after the martyr has been killed, remember him for his sacrifice, and commemorate his bravery and glory to further the cause for all time to come.
A martyr is not, however, one who commits suicide. Suicide is defined as intentional, self-inflicted death, and is explicitly prohibited in the Qur’an:
And spend in the way of Allah, but do not throw [yourselves] with your own hands to destruction; but work deeds of excellence for verily Allah loves the people of excellence(2:195).
This is a very clear indication that anyone trying to kill himself/herself will be damned in this world and in the Hereafter. This is why prominent Sunni and Shi’a scholars publicly condemn acts of suicide bombing and have declared that one who commits suicide will be damned to committing it eternally, and can never be considered a “martyr†in Islam.
Neither is a martyr one who kills innocent people, and treats them as “collateral damage.†The Qur’an strictly prohibits such killing:
Do not take any human life, which God has declared as sacred, other than in the pursuit of Justice. This is what He commands you to do, so that you may remember (6:151).
Martyrdom, by Islamic definition, is founded on moral and ethical convictions; it is never based on killing and being killed. Mahmoud Taleghani, the Iranian theologian and reformer, once described a martyr as one who moves from imperfection to perfection. This concept is simply impossible for those whose “martyrdom†is based on ethically abhorrent ideas. They can never be witnesses to the truth (shaheed) when they burn prisoners of war alive, persecute religious minorities, destroy antiquities and historical sites, and violate the Qur’an by desecrating their own places of worship—including the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. They ignore the Qur’anic verse below, which instructs Muslims that they are obliged to protect houses of worship (belonging to any religion) from destruction:
Were it not for God’s repelling people, some by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God’s name is mentioned, much of that would have been destroyed. And God will surely help those who help Him—truly God is strong, mighty (22:40).
Further, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) set ethical standards of warfare, and the atrocities carried out by Daesh would be unfathomable to him were he alive today. When the Prophet (pbuh) fought the battles of Badr, Uhud, Khandaq, and Khyber, the cause and principles of the fight were more important to him than the actual result, as he valued intention, morality, and ethics over battlefield prowess and winning. The Prophet’s (pbuh) strict ground rules for warfare prohibited collateral damage, and he ordered his followers to safeguard noncombatants, including women, children, elderly persons, and animals. He also emphasized right conduct, empathy, and compassion for the enemy, including the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Today, we need to remind people of true martyrs, who have served as exemplars to others, and continue to inspire many to live their lives faithfully. What separates the deaths of true martyrs from the concept of martyrdom preached by terrorist groups is not the fact of their death, but their intention with which they die in the course of submitting to God.
True martyrs have been described by the scholar Suyooti in his renowned work, The Gates of Felicity in the Causes of the Witnessing to Oneness, as follows:
A woman who dies during childbirth is considered a shaheeda. Anyone who dies while fulfilling a religious commandment or defending his property, honor, or religious commitments is considered a Witness. Any Muslim, male or female, who dies in the pursuit of knowledge, such as those who die in their college/university struggling with their studies, or in a study circle in their mosque, are considered to be witnesses to the truth of God’s commandment to seek knowledge. People who die from a plague, a stomach disease, through drowning, or crushed in a collapsed building are also considered martyrs. Men who care, empathize, and humble themselves with their wives and families are witnesses to God’s message and the Prophet’s traditions. For example, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) stated that “the best of you is he who is best with his family.â€
Islam has produced many such martyrs, who were killed because of their belief in one God. The first martyr was a woman, Sumayyah; she was followed by Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle, at the Battle of Uhud; and Jafar al-Tayyaar, the Prophet’s cousin and the older brother of his son-in-law Ali, at the battle of Mauta. Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law and fourth caliph, was martyred by a splinter group called the Khawarij, while in prostration during prayer. The greatest martyr in Islamic history, however, was Ali’s son (and the Prophet’s grandson), Imam Hussein, who was beheaded on the plains of Karbala, because he stayed true to his faith.
After the death of the fourth caliph, Ali, Mu’awiyah, the governor of Damascus, forcibly declared himself “caliph†(“vice-regentâ€), because he wanted to be seen as the “leader of the believers.†Ali’s eldest son, Hasan, signed a treaty with Mu’awyiah on the condition that his successor be chosen by the community. After Hasan died, his brother Hussein took up the spiritual leadership of the community and was bound to the treaty. However, Mu’awiyah reneged on the terms of the treaty and declared his own son, Yazid, as his successor, which Hussein considered a breach of the treaty. Hussein refused to pledge allegiance to Yazid, and fled Medina with the rest of his family to take refuge in Mecca. On his way to Kufah, Yazid’s army butchered Hussein in the historic Battle of Karbala. Hussein’s caravan was captured and the surviving women and children were imprisoned in Damascus, where they lived in miserable conditions. When the horror of this massacre of the Prophet’s family came to be known across the Muslim kingdom, Yazid realized that the political climate was changing against him, and released the prisoners.
To this day, Muslims continued to revere Hussein for refusing to pledge allegiance to Yazid, whose rule they considered unjust, and every year during the month of Muharram, they commemorate Hussein’s martyrdom and honor him for his unwavering faith and his unjust death. The shrine of Hussein at Karbala continues to serve as a place of pilgrimage for many faithful Muslims, especially Shi’a, and is the site of the largest annual peaceful gathering in the world on the day of Arba’een.
Today, groups like Daesh are no different from Mu’awiyah and Yazid—aiming to destroy the shrine of Hussein at Karbala, and actively persecuting Shi’a Muslims who respectfully commemorate Hussein’s martyrdom, by destroying their homes and their places of worship and killing them en masse, in cities like Mosul in Iraq today.
Daesh’s myopic definition of martyrdom, coupled with their acts of terror, such as suicide bombing, murder of innocents, and joy in violence, is absolutely unsupported by the Qur’an and would never be accepted by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Today, it is incumbent upon Muslim leaders to show that such attacks are patently un-Islamic. Recently, following the terrorist attack on London Bridge, over 130 imams of different mosques refused to perform the burial rites of the terrorists who died in the attack—a rite normally performed for every Muslim regardless of his actions—thereby disowning the terrorists and clearly indicating that they did not accept the dead as being Muslim, let alone “martyrs.†Indeed, the depravity of such attackers and the ruthless nature of their actions are rejected by Muslims worldwide, have been condemned by leaders of many Muslim sects, and have no place in Islam.
