Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Jonah Winters, Martyrdom in Jihad, bahai-library.com.
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Martyrdom in Jihad

Jonah Winters

1997

Contents:

Background

Introduction

Jihad in the early period

Jihad in the contemporary world

Conclusions

Appendix one: Some examples of the meanings of death in the history of religions

Appendix two: Further notes on Jihad in Sufism, the "greater striving"

Appendix three: Reuters World News Summary headlines

Bibliography

Footnotes

Background of this paper:
This study focuses on martyrdom in the Middle East. Outright terrorism and that occurring outside the Middle East, e.g. the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was not covered. In the wake of September 11 2001 I regret not having included such an important aspect of jihad. After 2001 I concentrated on 9/11 studies, joined Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven (formed by academics in 2003 it was the first independent investigative team), helped build the Physics911 website to further this research, and later joined Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.

I wrote this paper as background for my master's thesis Dying for God: Martyrdom in the Shii and Babi Religions to summarize a number of distinct phenomena relating to jihad, martyrdom, and politics, concluding with a media survey of coverage of jihad in the Muslim world. It does not mention the Bahá'í Faith. (Of personal interest, this was also the first paper uploaded to the website that eventually became the Bahá'í Library Online.)

I.
Introduction

The face of Islam is, to the West, often a bloody one. Islam, seen as a
religion born in the harsh and unforgiving desert, is commonly believed to be
the religion of the sword.[1] Its holy book
speaks frequently and at times proudly of the sufferings of prophets (e.g.
7:94-5), its fighters seek the glory of death on the holy battlefield, its
early mystics sought spiritual martyrdom through harsh ascetic practices, and
its Shi'is annually beat themselves bloody in commemoration of a long-dead
icon. In recent politics, Islam is often associated with a religious fanaticism
that motivates, not simply terrorism, but suicide terrorism.
Portrayals of Islam in the contemporary media further strengthen this image of
violence and martyrdom. The jacket blurb on a dimestore paperback concludes
that "Western people...ignore the strength of jihad at their peril--for it
knows no compromise."[2] A two-month-long
monitoring of Reuters "World News" headlines [see below] revealed that, of the twenty-three
articles which mentioned Islam, twenty were exclusively reports of Muslim
military activity in which clear connections were drawn between the news-making
actions and the participants' adherence to Islam.[3] A more formal study of violence in
contemporary politics examined the forty-two primary armed conflicts identified
as active in 1994. Twenty of these cases displayed overt religious factors, and
of these twenty, Islam was involved in sixteen.[4]
Despite the disproportionately large involvement Islam
has in both modern conflicts and in the popular portrayal of these, the
common perception of Islam itself being a violent religion is
unwarranted. That Islam de-emphasizes outwardly-directed violence is indicated
by its name itself--the meaning of the Arabic root S-L-M, from which islam and muslim
are derived, is "peace" and "submission." As well, Islam de-emphasizes inwardly-directed
violence for, unlike certain other of the world's major religions, there does
not seem to exist a strong thread of martyrdom in Islam. However, in the few aspects
of Islam in which suffering and martyrdom do figure, such as those listed above,
they figure quite prominently.

Tracing the theme of jihad through Islamic history would demonstrate a
great variety of meanings of the term and spheres of its application. To
explore some of these while avoiding a chaotic presentation of too-numerous and
unconnected instances of jihad, this study will focus exclusively on the
earliest and the contemporary arenas. Thereby we can better evaluate the
strength and influence of this thread within the religion as a whole and judge
the meaning of martyrdom for Sunni Islam. Since the doctrine of jihad is
multi-faceted, bringing into its sphere such diverse considerations as
violence, politics, power struggles, military history, and theology, a central
pin is needed to better anchor the examination of jihad. Martyrdom, the
pinnacle statement of belief and the most purely religious event within
jihad, will serve as a focal point of the examination. The nature of
jihad as a legal construct (because a communal, not individual,
obligation),[5] though of central import in
understanding jihad, will thus not be addressed here.

A brief background of martyrdom in its various manifestations in Islam will
complete the introduction. The themes of suffering, pain, asceticism,
sacrifice, and martyrdom find three primary loci in Islam. First is the most
obvious meaning of martyrdom: someone who dies for his or her religion. In
Islamic history this aspect of martyrdom has played out the most in conjunction
with jihad, usually translated as "holy war." Some branches of Islam
declare participation in jihad to be one of the key requirements for all
able-bodied male Muslims. The Qur'an declares that "those who are slain in
Allah's way" are not dead, but alive (3:169),[6] and this has often been interpreted to mean
that any fighter who is killed in a jihad attains automatic salvation.
Though most Muslims came to renounce holy war as an honorable pursuit, a
characteristic of the early community and among extremists today is a zeal for
fighting "in Allah's way" and attaining martyrdom.
During the first centuries following the ministry of Muhammad the Muslim
community actively sought great territorial expansion for the new Islamic
empire. In these years the martial aspect of jihad was strongly
emphasized, for, as it lent a spiritual justification and even exhortation to
war, it proved to be an effective motivator of conquest. Within the first two
centuries the vast majority of the Muslim conquests had been achieved, and,
largely under Sufi influence, the spiritual aspect of jihad began
outweighing the martial; for the majority of Muslim thought the term has now
come to mean primarily a striving in the practice of religion, of individual
betterment. The contemporary emphasis of jihad is that which is most
infamous among the Western world today: the jihad against Israel and the
West, carried out by an extremist and often suicidal minority.
A second arena of the spectrum of martyrdom is the mystics' asceticism, what
can be termed "living martyrdom." Many Sufis, like their mystically-leaning
counterparts in all religions, elevated voluntary suffering to a spiritual
practice. The demographics of what we could term "mystical martyrdom" are
minimal, in that the number of mystics who have actually died through their
practices, either by being executed as heretics or through harmful ascetic
practices, is quite small. However, the cultural impact of mystical martyrdom
is immense.
By the third century A.H. the wars of conquest were all but over, and the
concepts of both jihad and martyrdom began undergoing a subtle shift.
Since the opportunity to die in the prosecution of God's cause was all but
gone, alternate forms of martyrdom were sought. Hadith report that there are
other types of martyrdom besides being killed in Allah's cause, including
various forms of death by illness and accident, death while on pilgrimage,
during pregnancy, or even the death of anyone who expires while in the process
of fighting against his own temptations.[7]
Jihad suffered similar shifts in meaning. It came to be seen as more an
internal, spiritual struggle than a political one, and other types of
sacrificial moral duties such as fasting and alms-giving came to be a preferred
substitute for martyrdom.[8] The jihad
that remained was a modified one. It was no longer the jihad bi
al-sayf, "struggle by means of the sword," but the jihad al-nafs,
the struggle against one's lower natures, nafs. The glory of pain in the
path of the divine Beloved and the yearning for suffering and death on the
spiritual path as subsequently highlighted by the Sufis have found expression
in all of the arts in all branches of Islam.
A third area of the theology of martyrdom and its host of relata is without
doubt the most conspicuous: Shi'ah Islam. The party of 'Ali, Muhammad's
son-in-law, was from the first a group of people that found its self-definition
in being a persecuted minority but that believed itself to be following the
true heritage of the Prophet. This easily translated into an agenda of fighting
for the manifest truth and yet being resigned to consistently losing. The
murder of Husayn, 'Ali's son, became a focal point for the community's sense of
justified rebellion. Largely since this was an impotent rebellion--the Shi'is
being a political and demographic minority--the community's ethos became an
introspective one of mourning and of heightened spirituality. The concepts of
martyrdom and suffering have reached a level of pathos in Shi'ism almost
unmatched in the history of religion.
The history of Shi'i thought and religious belief differs rather markedly in
places from that of Sunni Islam, such that different justifications tend to
motivate martyrdom for Shi'is than for Sunnis. In contemporary praxis, however,
the ethos of suffering in the path of Husayn which separates the Shi'i from the
Sunni makes little difference. For the most part, then, we can examine the
theology of jihad-inspired martyrdom without taking such party
affiliation into account.
This study will not address either the psychology of martyrdom, nor its
sociological actualizations, nor its underlying theological motivations in a
great deal of depth, for each of the above would require its own dedicated
study.[9] Instead, it will touch briefly upon
some of the main textual foundations behind jihad and martyrdom and its
most conspicuous historical manifestations, namely in the early community and
in the contemporary world. Some common interpretations of violence and
martyrdom in classical and modern Islam can then be critiqued.

II.
Jihad
in the early period

While much of the Islamic theology of jihad predates Islam--Islam was
born in a harsh, demanding environment where fighting was common--the theology
of martyrdom and suffering as encapsulated in the Qur'an was a wholly new
concept for the Arabs. The first sources of Muslim conceptions of martyrdom are
to be found in the Qur'an, and especially in its doctrine of jihad.
Jihad has had different emphases at different times. It is usually
translated as "holy war," and in the Qur'an the term can clearly convey the
meaning of fighting (e.g. 9:73, 9:81, 9:86, 25:52, 66:9). This, however, is but
one of its uses.[10] The various meanings of
jihad as found in the Qur'an can be broken down into the following broad
categories. First, Jihad is the allegiance which one must hold before
all others: "If it be that your...kindred; the wealth that ye have gained;...or
the dwellings in which ye delight--are dearer to you than Allah, or His
Messenger, or the striving[11] in His cause,
then...Allah guides not the rebellious" [i.e. this is not per Allah's wishes];
Second, it is the way to confront the non-Muslims: "listen not to the
Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness" (25:52);
Third, it is the definitive way to conduct one's daily life as a Muslim: "And
strive in His cause as ye ought to strive" (22:78), and "The (true) believers
are those only who believe in Allah and His messenger and afterward doubt not,
but strive with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah" (49:15,
Pickthal); Fourth, it is a requirement for entering paradise: "deemed ye that
ye would enter paradise while yet Allah knoweth not those of you who really
strive?" (3:142, Pickthal); Fifth, it can simply be a synonym for fighting:
"[A] Sura comes down, enjoining them to believe in Allah and to strive and
fight along with His Messenger..." (9:86)[12]

Hadith, as this from Sahih Bukhari, also express the importance
Muhammad is reported to have placed on jihad:

'I asked the Prophet 'Which deed is loved most by Allah?" He replied,
'To offer prayers at their early (very first) stated times.'" 'Abdullah asked,
"What is the next (in goodness)?" The Prophet said, "To be good and dutiful to
one's parents," 'Abdullah asked, "What is the next (in goodness)?" The Prophet
said, To participate in Jihad for Allah's Cause." (Volume 8, Book 73, Number
1)[13]

This emphasis the Qur'an and hadith place on jihad, whichever its
meaning, led to jihad becoming "canonized" as one of the key doctrines
of Islam. The majority of Muslims define the religion as having five "pillars,"
or basic articles of faith and practice. The five usually given are the
profession of faith "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger,"
ritual prayer, giving alms, fasting during Ramadan, and making the pilgrimage
to Mecca. While both scholars and apologists alike often deny that jihad
could be considered a sixth pillar,[14] there
have been extremist groups of Muslims that declared it thus. The radical
Khariji sect was the first to declare holy war an inescapable duty, and
explicitly defined it as the sixth pillar of Islam.[15] More recently a few movements in the modern
Middle East have elevated jihad to an extremist level, such as Egypt's
Takfir wa al-Hijra group and Jamaat al-Jihad and Palestine's Hamas and the
Islamic Jihad. Nonetheless, whether jihad is officially canonized as a
sixth pillar, its status as a duty for all able-bodied Muslims is universally
accepted.[16]
Three distinct Qur'anic and hadith themes--the call to war, the call to
martyrdom, and the martyr's reward--proved a powerful and volatile combination.
Textual quotes will demonstrate this. Despite that jihad often has a
non-martial sense, many other verses in the Qur'an do clearly call for war.
Surah al-Baqara features a most clear and perhaps even unforgiving call
to arms:

"Fight[17] in the cause of Allah
those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not
transgressors. And slay them wherever you catch them...If they fight you, slay
them. Such is the reward for those who reject faith....And fight them on until
there is no more persecution.... (2:190-193)[18]

Other passages in the Qur'an explain that martyrdom in the cause of God is a
means to enter paradise:

"Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead. Nay, they
live, finding their sustenance from their Lord. They rejoice in the Bounty
provided by Allah...the (Martyrs) glory in the fact that on them is no fear,
nor have they (cause to) grieve. They rejoice in the Grace and the Bounty from
Allah, and in the fact that Allah suffereth not the reward of the Faithful to
be lost (in the least)." (3:169-71)[19]

Such passages as these provide much of the rationale for a further theological
position: not only does a martyr in the cause of God enter paradise, but he
does so automatically--his admission is guaranteed. Many hadith elaborate on
this theme. Sahih Bukhari provides two key texts:

Allah's Apostle said, "Someone came to me from my Lord and gave me
the news that if any of my followers dies worshipping none along with Allah, he
will enter Paradise." I asked, "Even if he committed adultery and theft?" He
replied, "Even if he committed adultery and theft." (Volume 2, Book 23, Number
329)

Allah's Apostle said, "Allah guarantees [the martyr] that He will either admit
him into Paradise or return him with reward or booty he has earned to his
residence from where he went out." (Volume 9, Book 93, Number 555)

Further rewards, as reported by hadith, are that the fighter in God's cause
will, if killed in the struggle, receive privileges otherwise unattainable: he
or she escapes the examination in the grave by the "interrogating angels"; he
does not need to pass through barzakh, the purgatory limbo; he receives
the highest of ranks in paradise, sitting near the throne of God--Muhammad
described the "house of martyrs," dar al-shuhada', as the most beautiful
abode of paradise; on the Day of Judgment any wounds the martyr received in
battle will shine and smell like musk; his death as a martyr frees him of all
sin such that he does not require the intercession of the Prophet; he is
purified by his act and so he alone is not washed before burial.[20] The popular understanding of the Qur'anic
descriptions of this paradise for the believer (martyr or not) could not but be
of the greatest appeal to the desert-dwelling nomad: awaiting him is a garden
of cool breezes, beautiful companions, couches, fruit and drink, and nearness
to God. Particularly deserving martyrs are even eligible for double the
standard reward, some hadith report.[21] This
is an incentive so great that the Prophet is reported to have said that no one
who dies, even if he or she enters paradise, "would wish to come back to this
world," even if he or she were to be given ownership of "the whole world and
whatever is in it," except the martyr who, "on seeing the superiority of
martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again.'"[22] Finally, the martyr enacts the greatest act
of worship possible for a human, for only he, the shahid, witnesses to,
shahida, God Himself.
These three distinct themes, one emphasizing the importance of jihad in
its variety of meanings and the other two shedding glory on martyrdom, proved
to be a powerful combination for both early and contemporary Islam. The battles
the community fought became greater and greater--first against opposing tribes
within Mecca, then against another city, and finally against almost all
countries in the area. Concomitant with this, the host of rewards awaiting the
martyr became more extensive. While it is not provable that Muhammad
intentionally created the dialectic between jihad and the martyr's
reward in paradise for the sake of encouraging his followers to battle on his
behalf, there is no doubt that the dialectic was employed to that end in the
early community. The rewards awaiting the martyr were so wondrous, it was
widely related, that he alone among men would wish to return to this world and
be killed again and again.[23] When, in the
early years A.H., the world was officially divided between the "House of Islam"
and the "House of War," the theology of martyrdom was strong enough to provide
a highly motivated and zealous fighting force. This religiously motivated zeal
proved sufficient to allow a full century of Muslim conquests--conquests which,
history shows, mere political enthusiasm tends not inspire.[24]
The strength of the theology of martyrdom in encouraging war is further
indicated by events in the early community's first civil war. In 656 A.D.
'Uthman, the third leader of the community following Muhammad, was
assassinated. His killing seems to have been purely for political reasons, but
the contending sides of 'Ali versus Talha, Zubayr, and 'A'isha used it as a key
justificatory event. After a series of skirmishes, when the opponents and their
arbiters met in 659 to examine the murder of 'Uthman and decide blame, it seems
to have been largely an excuse for the party of 'Ali to try to consolidate his
leadership and for his opponents to seize it.[25] 'Uthman was treated as a martyr for, while
contending claims for leadership of the community was the core issue of the war
for both sides, seeking to lay blame and enact revenge for his death was the
alleged key issue.

III.
Jihad in the contemporary world

An aspect of martyrdom that seems the most horrific, is frequently addressed
by Western scholars and polemicists alike, and is most quickly rejected and
denounced by the majority of Muslim apologists today,[26] is the jihad seen in the contemporary
Middle East. Since the end of the Second World War and the creation of the
state of Israel Muslim terrorism in the Middle East has become more and more
common. The theologies of jihad and martyrdom have become topical to a
level not seen since the period of the Crusades. However, unlike with the
earlier manifestations of jihad, the modern Muslim world now features no
centralized authority for interpreting scripture and applying the resulting
religious judgements to the civil sphere. Hence, jihad is now, as a
recent article states, "freelance": "the result is that almost any band of
Muslim malcontents who resent the way the world has treated them can read in
the Koran a moral warrant for the most nuance-blind carnage."[27]
There are numerous possible explanations behind the renewed and
newly-fanatical emphasis some place on martyrdom. First is the century-old
response to European colonialism. The influx and even invasion of the Arab
homelands by the West clearly and simply prompted a defensive reaction from
many Muslims and sparked, as a counter-reaction, the creation of many reform
movements, both the liberal, adaptive and the conservative, reactive. There
were new calls to jihad against what often seemed a modern successor to
the Crusades.[28] The occasionally
"fundamentalist"[29] reaction to colonialism
took a more religious form in 1929, when Palestinian justifications for the
"`Wailing Wall Riots" were couched in religious terms,[30] and then was further enflamed by the forced
creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the loss of the holy city of
Jerusalem in 1967. Many Muslims interpreted these two events as signs that the
liberal and adaptive type of response to colonialism was the wrong
approach--traditional Islam had to be fortified, often by jihad, to
bolster it against its Western and Jewish enemies. As if to provide an
affirmation of this sentiment, the success of the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and
the overthrow of the American-supported Iranian shah in 1979 both spoke to a
newly-found independence and strength of the Muslim world contra the West.[31]
John Esposito sees grounds for a new emphasis on Muslim violence in this fall
and rise of Muslim nationalistic and religious self-esteem in polar reaction to
the influences of the West. Included among the characteristics of the
revivalistic framework he describes are the failure of Islamic secularization
and liberalism; the reestablishment of an orthodox shari'ah; an expanded
definition of Islam as a totalistic way of life--contrary to the spirit which
long before separated the religious and the political spheres into caliphate
versus sultanate, religious moralities must be reapplied to the political
arena; the perception of a full attack on Islam by the united anti-Muslim front
of Western, Russian, and Zionist neocolonialism; and the proven illegitimacy of
non-Muslim forms of life and government.[32]
All legitimate and perhaps even require a new and unforgiving jihad.
The form of jihad precipitated by what Esposito calls the "revivalist"
framework is in many ways the diametric opposite of the inward-looking
jihad of the previous millennium A.H. While the early community laid
emphasis on both the jihad of the soul as well as the jihad
against the unbelievers, and the later community, largely under Sufi influence,
deemphasized the militant aspect and shifted the focus to the "greater"
jihad of the struggle against the self, the contemporary prosecutors of
jihad reversed the shift by deemphasizing the spiritual aspect and
swinging the application of jihad to the other, militant, extreme.
Rudolph Peters, in his study Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in
Modern History, writes that Muslims fighting the new Western influence
interpreted the stress on the jihad al-nafs as sabotage, that is, as an
idea spread within Islam by its enemies purely to weaken Muslim combativeness.
In response, then, these mujahidun spread their interpretation of
jihad as an expressly militant requirement.[33]
Another factor encouraging extremist applications of jihad is that
milder rhetoric and action has proven a disappointing failure in motivating
contemporary revolutionary agendas. The killers of Egyptian president Anwar
Sadat made it clear that by their actions they were hoping to spark a
full-scale jihad, a hope frustrated by lack of popular support;[34] popular indignation over a 1988 killing of an
Egyptian police officer--a minor event by standards of contemporary Middle East
history--prompted a newspaper article reporting the event to note "the
prevalent view...that the fundamentalists do not have mass support and are not
able to challenge the security forces militarily";[35] in the days prior to the Iranian revolution
men who were blatantly defying curfew by walking in the streets at night
wearing white shrouds to signify their wish to be martyred by the military
police would to their disappointment be left alone.[36] This widespread ambivalence to the
politico-religious radicals has often served only to further radicalize the
extremist position and thereby encourage martyrdom as an activist statement.
Islamic revivalist Fayiz Azzam expressed this renewed call to violence in a
speech to a gathering in Atlanta, Georgia in 1990. "Allah's religion," he said,
"must offer skulls, must offer martyrs. Blood must flow. There must be widows,
there must be orphans. Hands and limbs must be cut, and the limbs and blood
must be spread everywhere in order that Allah's religion stand on its feet."[37] Besides the historically atypical radicalism
of the rhetoric expressed in this speech, another aspect stands out as unique:
the call to martyrdom. It is this aspect of the new jihad that has in
many ways become the most extreme manifestation of martyrdom in the entire
spectrum of the Sunni tradition and one of the most extreme in the Shi'i.
Martyrdom in the contemporary prosecution of jihad has two principle
functions: it furthers the mujahid's agenda through its unique military
efficacy, and it consolidates his or her movement and inspires its
participants. The strategic efficacy of martyrdom in a military operation is
explained simply. Some examples are that, first, the fighter who is willing or
even eager to die can attack an enemy with greater fervor than the fighter who
is concerned with self-preservation and consequently will fight with more
restraint. Second, a terrorist prepared to die can plant a bomb or infiltrate
an enemy position much more easily, for he or she has no need to prepare a
means of escape and, since he or she will die, also has no need to be cautious
about hiding tracks and evidence. Third, the logistics of a suicide attack are
more straightforward; walking or driving into the area of attack with an
explosive is less challenging than finding a means of sneaking an explosive
into the area or detonating one at a distance. Fourth, only one willing to die
can most effectively use one's own body as a military tool, as exemplified by
the use of volunteers to clear land mines in the Iran-Iraq war. Fifth, the zeal
of the martyr can both demoralize the enemy at the same time as inspire his own
faction.[38]
The belief that martyrdom can strengthen the ideology behind a group's agenda
is perhaps its chief appeal. At a celebration in Qum in 1990 a prominent mulla,
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, is reported to have said to one of his disciples, "not
all people are moved by ideas. Indeed, there are people who can be moved only
by blood."[39] His case is an exemplary one in
explaining this aspect. Al-Sadr expressed the strength of his belief in the
efficacy of martyrdom by his own--in challenging the Ba'th party he guaranteed
his eventual martyrdom. His death, as perhaps intended, proved a catalyst in
advancing his agenda. A great variety of institutions were named after him, and
the day of his death is commemorated religiously. An entire literature of
inspirational stories are recounted of him, and he has become a chief figure
motivating others in his party. One follower expressed the impact of al-Sadr's
martyrdom with unusual bluntness in saying that his death was better than his
life, in view of the tremendous contribution he made to the movement by dying
the way that he did.[40]
The contemporary age offers unique opportunities for jihad fighters to
utilize this function of jihad: the number of forms of media available
to anyone with a degree of resourcefulness and intent is large, and their
impact is increasing. The death of martyrs is one of the most
commonly-advertised events on these media. This, in conjunction with the
immediate and broadly-cast nature of modern media, allows for a power in
rallying the fighters previously unattainable.
An overview of the use of media in glorifying martyrdom will help explain the
religious function of contemporary martyrdom. The most simple medium is the
billboard: it is reported that in Iran, and presumably elsewhere, one can see
billboards with slogans and depictions of martyrs whose intent is to arouse
sympathy in the viewer and arouse him to action.[41] Related to this is the informal billboard:
graffiti. Militant and pro-martyrdom slogans can often be seen in turbulent
areas of the Middle East. Newsprint is perhaps the oldest of the modern media
used to advertise martyrdom. Journalist E. F. Porter reports that the
nineteenth-century Muslim guerrilla fighters in Chechnya known as the Murids
distributed sometimes-exaggerated news reports of their activities as early as
the beginning of the nineteenth century.[42]
Radio and television, too, have been used to broadcast such incitative
material, most notably the broadcasting of the rawda, the recitation of
the sufferings of the Imam Husayn; however, being under state supervision,
these media tend to be less radical in focus.
The newest medium, and the one with the least administrative control and hence
greatest opportunity for extremism, is the internet, which contemporary
religio-political groups advocating martyrdom have made rather extensive use
of. For example, reports on the recent war in Chechnya were frequently mailed
to internet listservs and Usenet groups to champion the Muslim fighters and
publicize their deaths. While some of these "Chechen Jihad" sites offered
updates on all aspects of the battles, such as the battle tactics, numbers of
Russians killed, and political decisions by both sides, these aspects were
presented rather matter-of-factly--it was the martyrdom of Chechen fighters
that could draw the greatest stress. "We are deeply honored and proud to report
to all Muslims the Martyrdom InshaAllah [sic] of one of our own faithful people
in the land of Chechnya,"[43] said one; "Muslim
fighters are telling us that they will fight until the last Martyr or the last
Russian is sent home in a coffin"[44] read
another. The Palestinian activist organization Hamas, too, provides a central
web page offering "periodic reports on the association's activities and the
Islamic Resistance operations...welcom[ing] all suggestions and discussions
concerning the support of the Resistance."[45]
Finally, propaganda in the simple use of names cannot be overlooked. Groups
that announce their militant and often martyrdom-oriented aims in their very
names include the Jamaat al-Jihad, or "Parties of Jihad," the Islamic Jihad,
Hamas, which is an acronym for its full Arabic title "Movement of Islamic
Resistance," and, most obviously, a conservative movement in Iran called the
Fadayeen-i Islam, or "The Martyrs of Islam."
This proclamatory aspect of martyrdom is usually expressed
as the core meaning of the martyrdom event. In an etymological coincidence, the
words for "witness" and "martyr" are almost identical in Greek and Arabic. In
Greek, a "witness" is martus and "to witness" as well as "to be or became a martyr"
is marturein. In Arabic, the root SH-H-D provides the meanings of
both "witness" or "testimony" as well as
"martyr," and, by the definition given in Wehr's Arabic-English
Dictionary, "one killed in battle with the infidels."[46] While shahid can have a
passive sense, i.e. "witnessed,"[47]
it is usually taken to mean that the martyr is one who witnesses to the sincerity
of his faith or political conviction through the ultimate proof--his own life.
This ultimate testimony has been seen as the most powerful tool for winning converts
to one's side, be it religious or political. A young village merchant speaking
to a European sociologist defined well this most common justification for religious
martyrdom in saying "the blood shed by the Iranian martyrs is like the water of
an irrigation canal which gives life to the crops. From it the religion will grow."[48]
Similarly, refrains chanted, published, and scrawled in graffiti in war-stricken
regions of the Middle East express this sentiment as a political justification.
A graffito written on a home in Lebanon reads "Victory or Death...Kill us, then
our nation will realize the truth more and more!"[49]

In the political sphere the application of the sense of martyr as "witness,"
i.e. one who demonstrates the truth of one's conviction, adds another dimension
to the modern phenomenon of jihad as well as the martyr being a most
effective fighter in prosecuting God's cause, he also testifies to its
legitimacy by his willingness to die. It is this aspect of martyrdom which best
helps interpret an apparent contradiction. The modern extremist form of
jihad often features, and is notorious for, a new willingness to embrace
suicide in the prosecution of the struggle and a new fervor in seeking
martyrdom. Indeed, while these suicide operations can be called "freelance,"
they are not rogue--many of the political extremist groups operating in the
Middle East officially sanction these actions and provide both logistical
planning and materials[50] and as well aid and
provide for the martyr's bereaved family and descendants.[51] Yet, the Qur'an expressly forbids suicide.
The Qur'an statement "make not your own hands contribute to (your) destruction"
(2:195) and the hadith teaching that anyone who dies by suicide will eternally
reenact in hell the means by which he died (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 2,
Book 23, Number 446) have been interpreted as a clear prohibition of suicide.

Scholarly apologia, leaders of resistance movements, and the testaments of
their believing followers respond with a single refrain: dying in the course of
fighting for God, even if it is a willed and voluntary death, is not suicide.
When the fighter uses suicide as a military tactic, it is not a simple throwing
away of life, but rather a purposeful sacrifice. If a terrorist bombing kills
an enemy, even if the terrorist is himself killed in the process, a valid
military objective has been attained and hence the terrorist's death is not
suicide. Br. Abu Ruqaiyah, in his article "The Islamic Legitimacy of The
'Martyrdom Operations,'" quotes a hadith in support of this position: "It is
said that, Abu Isaac once asked al-Bara'a Bin Azeb 'A man fights a thousand of
enemies, then he is killed. Is he one of those whom Allah says about: "and do
not cast yourselves into destruction,"' al-Bara'a said: 'No, let him fight to
death.'"[52] Hizbollah leader Sheik Mohammed
Hussein Fiadfallah makes clear the fact that these apparent suicides are simply
necessary military tactics. "We are obliged to use all the ways and
possibilities to face the enemy," he said in an interview. "Due to our weak
military possibilities, we were forced to use the weapon of human bodies to
make advances on the front."[53] Finally,
twenty-seven year old Hizbollah fighter Abou Mahdi explained the place of
suicide in this jihad from the standpoint of the fighter himself. "In
the middle of the battlefield we don't think about death, but just to hurt and
damage the enemy," he said, and "if it is our destiny to get killed, we accept
the fact with pleasure, because we're looking for it."[54]
A psychological component further helps explain the justification for
martyrdom in light of the prohibitions of suicide. One who is martyred is
guaranteed of victory. Since the jihad is a religious as well as a
political struggle, two levels of success can be recognized. On the political
level only the complete conquest of one's side over the enemy's, e.g. the final
downfall of the state of Israel, can be considered a victory--partial victory,
such as capture of one region, might strengthen one's position but can not be
considered a fulfillment of the objectives. On the religious level, however,
victories are personal. One's judgment in the afterlife will not take into
account such things as which state owns which cities, but rather will weigh
one's individual actions in the cause of God. Therefore, the mujahid who
dies in the struggle against God's enemies has achieved his or her personal
victory and will receive his reward in the afterlife regardless of the
logistical state of the battle. All manner of participants in the struggle,
then, agree that martyrdom is not to be regarded as the goal of the struggle,
but merely a possible and at times unavoidable side-effect of the fight. The
fighter who is killed both achieves a personal victory as well as furthers the
group's political position. Martyrdom is therefore justified as an Islamically
legitimate sacrifice, not an illegitimate suicide.

IV.
Conclusions

There is no single most common or correct interpretation of the meaning of the
term jihad, as can be seen in the above discussion. Not only has it had
numerous layers of meaning and practical usage at any one time in Islamic
history, but as well differing circumstances both external and internal to the
religion have effected shifts of meaning and application. While this paper has
presented two of the most conspicuous significances of jihad in two of
its most easily delineated spheres of application--as a tool in the wars of
conquest in the early period and as an often secular political agenda in the
modern period--and has touched on a third--as a system of spiritual growth in
the middle period--these diachronic divisions are largely artificial and all
three of these chief meanings of jihad could often be found
synchronically. As well, many more nuances and historical uses of the term
could be distilled.
Focusing on jihad through the lens of martyrdom narrows the inspection
of the concept to its purely religious senses. Outside the Muslim world
martyrdom need not be and often is not a religious phenomenon--taxi drivers on
a hunger strike for higher wages dying in a Mexican prison or a ship's captain
sinking with his craft would not necessarily profess a transcendental cause for
their actions. Usually, though, the martyr does invoke a higher, religious
power as justifying his or her death; even ostensibly political martyrs, such
as the self-immolating Vietnamese Buddhist monk or the Japanese kamikaze pilot,
would claim spiritual legitimation. In Islam, death through jihad is a
wholly religious act.
The above discussion allows us to clarify now the reasons why martyrdom, even
more than aspects such as spiritual striving, is the most uniquely religious
aspect of jihad. First, Muhammad limited the proper sphere of war solely
to fighting in the path of God: purely political conflicts, especially if
internecine, did not constitute a just war (bellum justum) in the
Prophet's philosophy.[55] Anyone killed while
fighting in one of these wars was thus not merely a dead soldier but was a
witness to God. Another dimension which makes death in jihad wholly
unlike death in a secular conflict is that the soldier in a political war would
seek to defeat his adversary while preserving his own life. A death thereby
incurred would be no more than an unfortunate accident. The soldier who dies in
the path of God, however, accepts and embraces his death, for the religious
backdrop to the jihad sacralizes his fate.[56] Third, the martyr in Islam is guaranteed a
unique reward--automatic admittance to heaven. Of the host of specific honors
promised the martyr (see above), not one is other than religious, which implies
that religion, not secular factors like political gain or strategic advantage,
was at least nominally the chief justification for participating in a
jihad.
In examining the meanings and practice of jihad in the foundational
period and in modern Islam, we have seen that martyrdom has a few functions. Of
these, two stand out as central: martyrdom is in many ways an unstated goal of
the mujahid, especially as practiced in the early period, and the
martyrdom is heroically exemplary, especially as practiced in the contemporary
period.
Philosophers from Aristotle to Hobbes have declared that the tendency to make
war is inherent to the human species, and Ibn Khaldun went so far as to trace
its impetus back to creation itself.[57] The
Bedouins of Muhammad's time were no less warfaring than other early cultures,
and likely were even more so. Muhammad both canalized and fortified this
militant spirit, the first by channeling the practice of war to that conducive
to God's cause only and the second by emphasizing and encouraging this practice
as a duty of every male Muslim. Since he and the Qur'an declared such a
bellum justum to be a religious obligation, and since the enemy was
defined as the "Abode of War" antithetical to Islam and hence implicitly
satanic, it followed that death in the prosecution of this sacred conflict was
a religious honor and that the one dead deserved a unique station. The dead
thus is a martyr and his martyrdom grants him a station higher than that
otherwise achievable, as indicated by the abundance of rewards he alone is
entitled to. As the pious Muslim would of course wish to attain the highest
possible station, martyrdom inevitably became seen as an ultimate achievement.
Thus, whether intended by the Prophet and acknowledged by the community or not,
death in jihad was a supreme and enviable achievement. The haste with
which Muslim apologists deny that martyrdom is suicide and quote official
prohibitions of suicide (see above) further betrays a not-uncommon and perhaps
even prevalent belief in at least the early community that martyrdom was indeed
seen as a noble and desirous expression of one's religious faith.
History affords many examples of the use of martyrdom as a propaganda and
inspirational tool, a use seen in all periods of Islam.[58] This phenomenon can be seen as the converse
of the above: for the individual believer, martyrdom becomes his private,
religiously internalized goal, and then, through his sacrificial act, he makes
public and advertises the goal to his follow believers. The public aspect of
martyrdom both serves to intimidate the enemy, by demonstrating the fervor and
commitment of the martyr, and to inspire and vitalize his follow fighters, by
serving as a role model. Whether the martyr is demonstrating zeal and
commitment, as by being willing to fight to the death, or endurance and
steadfastness in his faith, as by submitting to torture rather than recant his
or her political or religious allegiance, his act of dying for his beliefs
elevates them to the capstone of his life, the crowning event of his
participation in the group's struggle. Such a radicalizing of his belief
serves, he would believe, to further unite those still living and consolidate
their group identity and purpose.
The function and influence of this "exemplary" aspect can be best understood
by what comparative religion terms charisma.[59] While in casual use charisma simply means
having a strong and attractive personality, its technical religious sense, as
defined by sociologist Max Weber, is a virtue by which a person is "set apart
from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman...powers
or qualities."[60] It is this extraordinary
power manifested by select individuals, Weber held, that can form religions.
This process is quite clear with Christianity, the religion which most
influenced Weber's thought: Christ was seen as God incarnate, and making him
the role model for one's life was paramount. Though both Christ's death and
resurrection were the central events of his life, it was only the former that
the worshipper, as mere human, could emulate, and hence the imitatio
Christi focused almost exclusively on emulating his physical sufferings.[61] Islam, however, does not lend itself to an
"imitatio Muhammad" in quite the same way, for Islam's prophet is,
theologically, no more than a chosen human. The charismatic aspect is more
depersonalized in Islam, and God and his Cause, not the messenger, is the focus
of piety. When Muhammad defines God's cause as propagated by means of the
jihad, then, the goal of martyrdom becomes almost a substitute for the
human focus.
More than this, the comparative lack of human charismatic focus lends the
martyr as exemplar a unique force in Islam. The history of Islam shows that
many individuals who either acted in such significant ways as to attract
followers or claimed spiritual roles became powerful socio-religious forces.
The many historical claimants to prophethood and the Shi'i's Imams are the two
strongest examples of this, but the phenomenon can be seen more often in lesser
instances, namely the individuals who died for their cause and perhaps
inadvertently became the champion of their cause.
Some or all of the following uses can be made of the martyr's death: the
strength of his belief as attested to by his willingness to die for his cause
can inspire and consolidate the commitment of his followers to their common
cause; the strength of his belief as thereby attested can motivate to action
those who sympathized with the cause but were not yet participants; relating
and reciting the details of his sufferings can allow his coreligionists to
experience his trauma vicariously and thereby evoke a level of sympathy which
can further animate the group; the extent of the oppression of the system as
evidenced by the system's willingness to kill the martyr can radicalize the
polarity between the righteousness of the group's cause and the injustice of
that against which they struggle; annual commemoration of the martyr's death
can serve to keep his sacrifice alive and present in the group's memory and
thus help to keep alive the aims and goals of the group; his death can be used
as a newsworthy event which can be reported to the outside world in an attempt
to elicit sympathy and external support.
The early and the contemporary periods in Islamic history show a variety of
meanings of jihad and of martyrdom, such that, individually, no single
definition of the former or phenomenological description of the latter can be
found. However, the interplay between the two is more easily defined and can be
broken down into the above few key descriptions. The understanding of
jihad and martyrdom hereby attained can help in analyzing forces
operating in both the formative and the modern eras of Islam and allow for both
a comprehension and criticism of the agendas behind the many Islamic
insurgencies witnessed in the contemporary Middle East and elsewhere.

Appendix
one:

Some
background examples of the meanings of death in the history of religions

Martyrdom and its relata, such as suffering, pain, asceticism, sacrifice,
death, and resurrection, are principal phenomena in the religious experience,
doubtless as central as birth and creation.
Many of the earliest texts known betray a strong interest in the religious
significance of sacrifice and death. The earliest text of Hinduism, the Rig
Veda, describes a "primal man" whom the gods sacrifice and from his body create
the universe. "From this sacrifice offered up were born the Rig- and
Sama-Vedas,...the common people,...the moon,...the sun,...the sky,...the
earth....These were the first religious rites."[62] Other ancient texts depict a less voluntary
sacrifice in which primordial gods battle, the winner creating the cosmos from
the body of the loser. Hesiod's Theogony, from the 10-century B.C.E.,
reports horrific and incestuous battles in which gods create parts of the
universe and other gods out of dismembered pieces of their own family
members.[63] Perhaps the prototype, or at least
the oldest, of such myths is the Mesopotamian Enuma elish, dating from
as early as 3,000 B.C.E. Here the young god Marduk battles the primordial
goddess Tiamat. After killing her "he split her like a shellfish into two
parts: half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky," and from her other half he
constructed the moon, sun, and earth.[64] The
Pantheon of gods then investigates who incited Tiamat to rebel. Upon
discovering the instigator, the god Kingu, they execute him in turn, and "out
of his blood they fashioned mankind."
Both the ancient world and more recent agricultural societies manifest another
type of death and sacrifice ceremony, that of the harvest god who is
symbolically murdered in the autumn and resurrected in the spring. This theme
presents a remarkable cross-cultural similarity: Egypt's Osiris, Greece's
Demeter and Persephone, the Norse Odin, Babylonia's Tammuz/Greece's Adonis, and
many others all embody the fall and rise of the seasons with their own deaths
and resurrections.[65] The early Central
American cultures elevated the importance of human sacrifice to a frightful
extreme. Not only was it paramount to sacrifice the largest number of unwilling
victims, but inflicting as much pain as possible on them was essential. The
priests committing these murders, too, would participate in the pain through
elaborate self-mutilation ceremonies.[66]
The theological preoccupation with suffering and sacrifice is not merely a
relic of ancient civilizations, but exists quite strongly in many of the world
religions alive today. For example, the entire philosophy of the Buddha is
literally predicated on suffering, duhkha, and its place as the most
essential description of the human condition. Every human state other than
nirvana is at root unsatisfactory and unpleasant--in short, suffering.[67] The world of the Ancient Near East was also
one in which the daily fact of suffering could occasionally reach horrific
extremes. When Micah warns about "When the Assyrian invades our land and
marches through our fortresses," (Micah 5:5) it was no idle threat, for the
ancient Assyrians were widely famed for their fearsome brutality and sadistic
cruelty. Shalmaneser the Third exults that in his ninth-century B.C.E.
expedition against Aleppo he cut down 14,000 fleeing soldiers, so many that
"the plain was too small to let all their souls descend into the nether
world."[68] In such an atmosphere the Judaic
prophets taught that the people's suffering provided lessons that nothing else
could: only in suffering and exile could the true worth of freedom be
appreciated and the quality of constancy be internalized. Only pain and
suffering could enflame Israel to champion justice.[69]
It is in Christianity that the themes of suffering and sacrificial martyrdom
find their most complete and developed embodiment. Jesus' death on the cross is
the saving event par excellence, for not only is all humanity redeemed
and saved by this act, and not only is it the theological core of Christianity,
but more Jesus' death and resurrection is often viewed as the key event of the
entire history of God's universe. Partly in emulation of Christ's voluntary
death, numerous Christians submitted to or actively sought martyrdom in the
first few centuries A.D.,[70] and the Roman
Catholic church counts and commemorates 14,000 official martyrs in its
history.[71] Asceticism as a practice of living
martyrdom remained strong in Christian practice up through the time of the
Enlightenment.[72]

Appendix
two:

Further
notes on Jihad in Sufism, the "greater striving"

By the third century A.H. the wars of conquest were all but over, and the
concepts of both jihad and martyrdom began undergoing a subtle shift.
Since the opportunity to die in the prosecution of God's cause was all but
gone, alternate forms of martyrdom were sought, as shown by a hadith which
depicts a girl seeking advice from the Prophet. She laments that her father,
dying of an illness, will not be able to be a martyr in a war of conquest.
Muhammad said to her "Allah Most High gave him a reward according to his
intentions. What do you consider martyrdom?" "Being killed in the cause of
Allah," she replied. Muhammad explained that there are other types of martyrdom
"in addition to being killed in Allah's cause." He listed various forms of
death by illness and accident as constituting martyrdom, as well as death while
on pilgrimage, during pregnancy, or even the death of anyone who expires while
in the process of fighting against his own temptations.[73]
Jihad, too, suffered shifts in meaning. It came to be seen as more an
internal, spiritual struggle than a political one, and other types of
sacrificial moral duties such as fasting and alms-giving came to be a preferred
substitute for martyrdom.[74] Ramadan, the
month of fasting, was sometimes portrayed as a period of voluntary suffering
enjoined upon the community as a sort of communal sacrifice.[75] Indeed, their relation is evidenced by the
fact that one fighting a jihad is excused from fasting, the only
official exclusion that is not necessarily based on travel or health
considerations.
The most evident of these new meanings of martyrdom was the new Sufi
redefinition of jihad as comprising a greater and a lesser struggle.
Sufism is not entirely peaceful and not-militant: one of its founding
hero-figures, Hasan al-Basri, lived an active life largely devoted to
participating in the early jihads of political conquest, and many later
Sufi leaders were also militant, teaching that a true messiah must lead
jihad against unbelievers.[76]
Notwithstanding, the generality of Sufis accept a modified doctrine of
jihad. An oft-quoted (but weak) hadith reports that Muhammad, on
returning from a military struggle, exclaimed "we have come back from the
lesser jihad to the greater jihad." When asked what he meant by
the "greater jihad," he answered "the jihad against oneself."[77] This and similar sentiments led the Sufis to
more clearly formulate a distinction between the jihad al-nafs, the
struggle against one's lower natures, nafs (what the Bible would call
"the flesh"), and the jihad bi al-sayf, "struggle by means of the
sword," which is restricted to actual fighting.[78] One early Sufi, Sufyan ibn-'Uyayna, expressed
how much greater the jihad al-nafs is than the jihad bi-l-sayf by
declaring jihad to have a total of ten aspects, nine of which are
varieties of struggle against one's self and only one of which is a struggle
against an enemy.[79]
The jihad against oneself is the struggle to subjugate one's lower
natures and fortify oneself against succumbing to temptations of pleasure. It
is seen as being greater because, while the jihad bi-l-sayf is against
an external opponent and is by nature a short-lived struggle, the jihad
al-nafs is all-encompassing and life-long. The nafs is the seat of
all blameworthy qualities and sinful actions--it is what a hadith describes as
"the worst enemy you have..."[80] Therefore,
these Sufis taught, the struggle against this nafs becomes, not just a
moral imperative, but the greatest duty a Muslim could have in the path of God.

Appendix
three:

Reuters
World News Summary headlines

The following is an informal survey of the daily news headlines of Reuters
"World News Summary" webpage from Thursday, January 2, 1997 to Tuesday,
February 23, 1997, taken for the purpose of charting the ratio of articles
about Islam to those which specifically link Islam and offensive violence (i.e.
attacks on Muslims were not counted).

Results: of the twenty-three articles which mentioned Islam, twenty were
exclusively reports of Muslim military activity in which clear connections were
drawn between the news-making actions and the participants' adherence to Islam.
These three exceptions are underlined.

From Linkname: Reuters News Summary; World. Filename:
http://www.yahoo.com/text/headlines/international/ All articles, and only those
articles, mentioning "Islam" or "Muslim" have been included. Ellipses indicate
intervening paragraphs which have been cut.

Thursday January 2 8:26 AM EST Jihad to Punish Israel for Hebron Attack

JERUSALEM (Reuter) - An Islamic militant group on Thursday vowed that Israelis
would be punished for an attack by an off-duty Israeli soldier on Palestinians in
the West Bank town of Hebron.

...In a statement faxed to an international news agency, the Islamic Jihad group
described an emerging deal on Israeli army redeployment in Hebron as "an agreement
of shame" and said that the wounding of seven Palestinians in Wednesday's shooting
would invite more atrocities against Palestinians.

Monday January 6 10:42 AM EST Tensions Rise in Muslim Village on Serb Land

SARAJEVO (Reuter) - U.N. international police on Monday reported rising tension
between Serb police and Muslim residents of a northeastern village in Bosnian Serb
territory who have complained of insults and night-time explosions.

The pre-war Muslim residents of Dugi Dio reoccupied their village in September,
sparking a standoff with Serb authorities that ended after both sides signed a
refugee return procedure and Serb police were allowed to conduct patrols.

Monday January 6 5:18 PM EST Algerian Rebels Kill 22 in Overnight Attacks

PARIS (Reuter) - Muslim guerrillas killed 18 people in an overnight attack in an
Algerian village and four others in the capital Algiers just as the Algerian prime
minister said his government had crushed rebel violence.

Tuesday January 7 5:40 PM EST Algeria Car Bomb Kills Seven, Wounds Dozens

PARIS (Reuter) - A huge car bomb exploded in central Algiers Tuesday afternoon,
killing seven people and wounding 48, several of whom were in critical condition,
security forces said in a statement.

...Algiers has been the target of numerous bomb attacks blamed by the authorities
on Muslim fundamentalists. Two car bombs in Algiers late in December killed at
least 18 people.

Wednesday January 8 4:07 PM EST Eight Israeli Troops Wounded in Lebanon

JERUSALEM (Reuter) - Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded Wednesday in two separate
incidents in the south Lebanon border zone occupied by the Jewish state, Israeli
security sources said.

Tuesday, Muslim guerrillas attacked Israeli and allied militia posts and some
shells slammed into two villages in the zone, pro-Israeli militia sources said.

Tuesday January 14 8:35 AM EST Mubarak Doubts Letter Bombs Came from Egypt

CAIRO (Reuter) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday he doubted letter
bombs sent to London, Washington and New York came from Egypt, despite carrying
Egyptian stamps and postmarks.

...The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has described as speculation a
possible link with the Islamist groups which planted a bomb at the World Trade
Center in New York in 1993 and planned to blow up the United Nations and other
targets.

Wednesday January 15 5:12 PM EST PLO Warns Hamas Against Wrecking Hebron Deal

JERUSALEM (Reuter) - A top Palestinian security official threatened Wednesday to
use severe measures against the militant Islamic Hamas group if it tried to wreck
peace deals with Israel in Hebron and in other Palestinian-ruled areas.

...Hamas has in the past carried out suicide bombing attacks in Israel in an
effort to wreck the Palestinian-Israeli peace deal initiated in talks in Oslo,
Norway, four years ago.

Thursday January 16 4:54 PM EST Radical Palestinians Vow to Wreck Hebron Deal

DAMASCUS, Syria (Reuter) - Radical Palestinian guerrilla groups Thursday condemned
the terms of a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank town of Hebron as a
crime against Palestinians and vowed to wreck the accord.

A 10-member alliance, which claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings
against Israel since its peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) in 1993, said the new accord met all Israel's conditions. "Like the previous
treacherous deals, this accord does not represent our people or reflect its will.
The alliance will continue its struggle and jihad (holy war) to foil it and the
deals of capitulatio and surrender," the statement said.

Friday January 17 4:24 PM EST Taleban Claim New Advances in Afghanistan

MIR BACHA KOT, Afghanistan (Reuter) - Afghanistan's Islamic Taleban militia said
it had captured parts of Kapisa province, northwest of Kabul, from opposition
forces on Friday.

Monday January 20 5:01 PM EST Bomb Explodes by Algerian School

PARIS, Jan 20 (Reuter) - A bomb exploded on Monday outside a school for girls in a
suburb southeast of the capital Algiers, but there were no casualties and only
slight material damage, residents said.

The latest blast follows a pattern of attacks against schools since 1994 when the
ruthless Armed Islamic Group (GIA) warned students to stay away from schools,
arguing their courses hamper the struggle to overthrow the government.

Tuesday January 21 7:21 AM EST Strike Called by Muslim Group Hits Karachi

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuter) - A strike called by a militant Sunni Muslim group
reduced commercial activity and public transport in the southern port city of
Karachi on Tuesday, witnesses said.

Police and paramilitary rangers patrolled main roads in Pakistan's biggest city
and guarded commercial centers and mosques to prevent any outbreak of violence.

Tuesday January 21 5:11 PM EST Bomb Rocks Algiers Commercial Center

PARIS (Reuter) - A huge bomb explosion hit Algiers's Ryad el Feth trade center
Tuesday evening, less than four hours after a car bomb blast killed at least six
people nearby, residents said.

...The leader of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) has warned that his Islamic rebel
group will step up attacks in Algeria during the Moslem fasting month of Ramadan
that started on January 10, an Algerian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Thursday January 23 4:56 PM EST Algerian Toll Rises, Opposition Urges US Help

PARIS (Reuter) - Nearly two weeks of urban bombings and village massacres by
suspected Islamist guerrillas have killed at least 170 people, Algerian newspapers
said Thursday.

Thursday January 23 4:57 PM EST Afghan Taleban Breach Enemy Defenses

SALANG PASS, Afghanistan (Reuter) - Afghanistan's Islamic Taleban militia burst
through opposition defenses to capture three key towns and part of the Salang Pass
north of Kabul in a dawn assault Thursday, witnesses said.

Friday January 24 4:52 PM EST Algerian President Calls Killings 'Barbarous'

PARIS (Reuter) - Algerian residents said Friday suspected Muslim rebels killed 15
civilians, including 10 women, overnight, hours before President Liamine Zeroual
said Algeria was being shaken by a wave of "barbarous savagery".

Thursday January 30 4:08 PM EST Tearful Algerian President Leads Mourners

PARIS (Reuter) - A retired Algerian general was killed Thursday in the western
Algerian city of Oran soon after a state funeral was held in Algiers for
assassinated union leader Abdelhak Benhamouda.

Algeria's security forces said in a statement retired general Habib Khelil was
"assassinated by terrorists," the term used to describe Muslim guerrillas.

Feb 2, 1997 00:06 a.m. EST Bosnian Croats Block Return of Muslims

STOLAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Reuter) - About 200 angry Bosnian Croats throwing
stones and eggs forced a group of Muslim refugees to cancel a groundbreaking return
to their hometown Friday.

...Chanting "no more mosques, no more bowing prayers, no more Muslims," the Croats
threw eggs at Muslim officials, U.N. aid workers, officers for the NATO-led peace
force and even Croat police.

Sunday February 2 8:35 AM EST Dwarf 'Terrorist' Beheads 31 in Algeria

PARIS (Reuter) - Muslim "terrorists" killed 31 people in an Algerian town, and a
dwarf hacked off their heads with an axe and knife, the usually well-informed
Algerian newspaper El Watan said Sunday.

Feb 5, 1997 9:18 p.m. EST Algiers Bans Cars to Thwart Bombers

PARIS (Reuter) - Algeria on Wednesday imposed a traffic ban in the streets of its
capital Algiers to try to thwart car bomb attacks blamed by the authorities on
Moslem fundamentalists.

Feb 5, 1997 9:18 p.m. EST Turkish Army, Leftists Gang up on Islamists

ISTANBUL (Reuter) -- Opposition MPs and the secularist armed forces, alarmed by
the ruling Islamists' radicalism, have ganged up on Prime Minister Necmettin
Erbakan in a show of political and military strength.

...Meanwhile, Turkey's generals stepped up their war of nerves with the
government, using an anti-Islamist newspaper to caution it was straying too far
from the secular path staked out 70 years ago by Kemal Ataturk, creator of the
modern republic.

Monday February 10 4:15 PM EST Iran Marks Islamic Revolution Anniversary

Iran's Islamic revolution rallied in Tehran on Monday, cheering and brandishing
posters of the late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

More than 100,000 men and women in black veils marched to a rally in Tehran,
chanting the trademark slogans of the 1979 revolution: "Death to America" and
"Death to Israel."Iran Marks Islamic Revolution Anniversary

Monday February 10 4:17 PM EST China Puts Curfew on Muslim Town After Riot

BEIJING (Reuter) - Chinese authorities have imposed a curfew on a town in the
restive northwestern Xinjiang region after at least 10 people were killed in a
separatist Moslem riot last week, officials and local residents said on Monday.

At least 10 people were killed and many wounded when about 1,000 Muslim
separatists of the Uighur ethnic minority rampaged through Yining last Wednesday,
smashing cars, burning shops and beating up Han Chinese to protest against Beijing
rule.

Monday February 10 11:06 AM EST Algeria's Ramadan Ends with More Violence

PARIS (Reuter) - Twenty-two people, including four families, were killed in
Algiers and nearby towns in weekend violence coinciding with the end of Ramadan and
the feast of Eid al-Fitr, Algerian newspapers said Monday.

Algeria's Liberte newspaper said suspected Muslim guerrillas Friday killed 14
people, members of three families, in the Muslim fundamentalist stronghold of
Eucalyptus on the southern edge of Algiers.

Tuesday February 25 5:10 PM EST Radical Palestinian Alliance Splits on Policy

DAMASCUS (Reuter) - A radical Palestinian alliance of 10 Islamic and secular
factions opposed to the Palestinian-Israeli peace deal has split over policy,
Palestinian officials said Tuesday.

They told Reuters the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by
George Habash and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) led
by Nayhef Hawatmeh were refusing to participate in meetings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Amir Ali, M. "Jihad Explained." Chicago: Institute of Islamic Information and
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Armstrong, Karen. Holy War. London: Macmillan, 1988.

------. A History of God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Baram, Amatzia. "Two Roads to Revolutionary Shi'ite Fundamentalism." In Martin E.
Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., The Fundamentalism Project, volume IV: Accounting
for Fundamentalisms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Bonner, Michael. "Ja'a'il and Holy War in Early Islam." Der Islam 68 (1991).

Bowersock, G. W. Martyrdom and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Cherágh Ali, Moulavi. A Critical Exposition of the Popular "Jihád."Delhi: Idarah-i
Adabigat-i Delli, 1984.

Donner, Fred M. "Sources of Islamic Conceptions of War." In John Kelsey and James
Turner Johnson, eds., Just War and Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Esposito, John. Islam: The Straight Path. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Fischer, Michael M. J. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Frazer, J. G. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged edition.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1960.

Frend, W. H. C. Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Churche New York: University
Press, 1965.

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Cornell University Press; 1965.

[HAMAS], The Association for Supporting the Islamic Resistance. Accessed from the
internet: Linkname Islamic Resistace [sic]; URL http://www.moqawama.org/home2.htm.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: The Modern Library
1902.

Kelsay, John and James Turner Johnson. Just War and Jihad: Historical and
Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions. New
York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates. London: Longman, 1986.

Khadduri, Majid. War and Peace in the Law of Islam. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
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Laffin, John. Holy War. London: Grafton Books, 1988.

Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989.

Legrain, Jean-François. "Palestinian Islamisms: Patriotism as a Condition of their
Expansion." In Marty and Appleby, eds., The Fundamentalism Project, volume IV:
Accounting for Fundamentalisms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Loeffler, Reinhold. Islam in Practice: Religious Beliefs in a Persian Village. New
YorK: State University of New York Press, 1988.

Mandaville, Peter G. "Religion, Contingency, and Violence: Cases from Islam."
Accessed from the Internet: Linkname none; URL
http://snipe.ukc.ac.uk/international/dissert.dir/ pehgehmast.html.

Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby. The Fundamentalism Project, volume I:
Fundamentalisms Observered. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

McGeary, Johanna and Eric Silver. "Killing for God." TIME (December 4, 1995).

Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi'i Islame Oxford: George Ronald, 1985.

Parrinder, Geoffrey, ed. The World's Religions: From Ancient History to the
Present. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1983.

Patai, Raphael. "The Sinister West." In The Arab Mind. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1983.

Peters, Rudolph. Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History.
The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1979.

Pinault, David. The Shiites. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.

Porter, E.F. "History soaked in blood; hatred, savage fighting have marked Moscow's
involvement in Chechnya for close to 400 years." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (January
29, 1995). Accessed from the internet: Linkname Current Chechyna Qital News; URL
http://www.ummah.org.uk/haqqani/Islam/ Shariah/ muamalaat/jihad/chechen_news.html.

Pritchard, James B. ed. The Ancient Near East: Volume 1: an Anthology of Texts and
Pictures. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). "Jihad in America." Broadcast September 21,
1994. Accessed from the internet: Linkname Urban terrorism in the name of Islam;
URL http://www.twibp.com/ archives/17/1.html.

Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qur'an. Minneapolis: Bibliotheco Islamica, 1994.

Saddiqi, Harun. "The Meaning of Suffering in Islam." Lecture delivered at the
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Tuesday, February 11, 1997.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to
Islam. New York: SUNY Press, 1994.

------. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1975.

Schleifer, S. Abdullah. "Jihad and Traditional Islamic Consciousness." The Islamic
Quarterly XXVII:3-4 (1983).

Siegel [Winters], Jonah. "Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Middle Way." Bachelor's
Thesis, Reed College, Portland, Oregon. 1994.

Smart, Ninian. The Philosophy of Religion. New York: Random House, 1970.

Smith, Huston. The World's Religions. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.

Sproul, Barbara C. Primal Myths: Creating the World. San Francisco: Harper, 1979.

Termos, Rima. "Lebanon: Martyrs Line Up for Honor of Dying for God." International
Press Service (IPS). Beirut, Dec. 13.

Voll, John E. "Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan." In
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. The Fundamentalism Project, volume I:
Fundamentalisms Observered. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Wallensteen, Peter and Margareta Sollenberg. "After the Cold War: Emerging Patterns
of Armed Conflict 1989-94." Journal of Peace Research, 32:3 (1995).

Watt, W. Montgomery. "Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War." In Thomas Patrick
Murphy, ed. The Holy War. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1976.

Wehr, Hans. J. M. Cowan, ed. Arabic-English Dictionary. New York: Spoken Language
Services, 1976.

Footnotes

1 Karen
Armstrong, Holy War (London:
Macmillan, 1988), 18.
2 John Laffin, Holy War (London: Grafton Books, 1988), rear
jacket.
3 Informal survey by author of the daily news of Reuters "World News
Summary" webpage. Linkname "Yahoo! Reuters News Summary"; Linkname "World"; URL
http://www.yahoo.com/ text/headlines/ international.
4 Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, "After the Cold War:
Emerging Patterns of Armed Conflict 1989-94," in Journal of Peace Research,
32:3, 1995.
5 The five "pillars" of Islam concern individual duties, and are
thus not necessarily enforced by the state. Jihad, as a collective
obligation, must be initiated by the religious leader and regulated by the
state. It is thus subject to a different juridical treatment: one more similar
to what the West would recognize as a legalistic one than are the other
religious observances. See Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of
Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), 57-8 and 60.
6 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the Qur'an will taken
from the revised translation of Yusuf Ali.
7 Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 20, Number 3105 (Taken from the internet.
Linkname "Sunan Abu Dawud"; URL
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud) and Shorter
Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. Shahid, 516.
8 Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v.
Shahid, 516.
9 Another issue is that of gender in martyrdom, for in each of these
three areas gender has played a different role. Regarding martyrdom in the
cause of God, Muhammad is reported to have elevated death in pregnancy as a
form of martyrdom [see note 73, below]; in Sufism ascetic practices often were
identical for each gender; and in the contemporary jihad it has
tended to become an almost exclusively male activity. [Jean-François
Legrain, "Palestinian Islamisms: Patriotism as a Condition of their Expansion,"
in Marty and Appleby, eds., The Fundamentalism Project, volume IV:
Accounting for Fundamentalisms, 413-27].
10 While mentions of war are frequent in the Qur'an, the words used
are usually harb and qital. Translating jihad as
"holy war" would be incorrect in this context, for the literal translation of
"holy war," harb muqaddas, is not found in either the Qur'an or hadith.
Cf. M. Amir Ali, "Jihad Explained" (Chicago: Institute of Islamic Information
and Education), accessed from internet: Linkname "jihad explained"; URL
http://www.moslem.org/ jihad2.htm.
11 All instances of the verb "to strive" in these
excerpts are derivations of S-L-M.

12 Further nuances of jihad include the fight against
the polytheists versus the apostates versus the People of the Book; against
criminals and highway robbers, against internal dissension; and against
unjustice within the community. Moulavi Cherágh Ali provides a full
account of the derivations of JHD as they occur in the Qur'an in Moulavi
Cherágh Ali, A Critical Exposition of the Popular "Jihád"
(Delhi: Idarah-i Adabigat-i Delli, 1984), 166-8, 171-92. See also Khadduri,
War and Peace, 74-82.
13 All quotations taken from Sahih Bukhari are from the
internet. Linkname "Sahih Bukhari"; URL
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari.
14 Cf. Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A
Phenomenological Approach to Islam (New York: SUNY Press, 1994), 206. See
also Amir Ali, "Jihad Explained."
15 Armstrong, Holy War, 25, and S. Abdullah Schleifer, "Jihad
and Traditional Islamic Consciousness," in The Islamic Quarterly
(XXVII:3-4, 1983): 180.
16 See Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur'an
(Minneapolis: Bibliotheco Islamica, 1994), 63, Rudolph Peters, Islam and
Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton
Publishers, 1979), 12f., and John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 95.
17 All instances of the verb "to fight" in these
excerpts are derivations of the same word.
18 Also "They ask thee concerning fighting in the
Prohibited Month. Say: Fighting therein is a grave offense; but graver is it in
the sight of Allah... to deny Him" (2:216-217) and "But when the forbidden months
are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them."
(9:5)

19 Also "And if ye die or are slain in the way of Allah, forgiveness
and mercy from Allah are far better than all they could amass: and if ye die,
or are slain, Lo! it is unto Allah that ye are brought together," (3:157-8 [Cf.
2:153]) and "Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, and are then
slain or die;--on them will Allah bestow verily a goodly Provision. Verily He
will admit them to a place with which they shall be well pleased." (22:58-9)
20 H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, eds.; Shorter Encyclopedia of
Islam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 1965); s.v.
Shahid, 516.
21 Michael Bonner, "Ja'a'il and Holy War in Early Islam," in Der
Islam (68, 1991), 56.
22 Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 53.
23 Schleifer, "Jihad," 124.
24 Cf. Fred M. Donner, "Sources of Islamic Conceptions of War," in
John Kelsey and James Turner Johnson, eds., Just War and Jihad: Historical
and Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic
Traditions (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 49.
25 Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates
(London: Longman, 1986), 77.
26 E.g. Harun Saddiqi, "The Meaning of Suffering in Islam," in a
lecture delivered at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, on Tuesday,
February 11, 1997.
27 Johanna McGeary and Eric Silver, "Killing for God," in
TIME (December 4, 1995), 50.
28 Cf. Esposito, Islam, 127f.
29 I.e., newly-conservative and militant. See Martin E. Marty and R.
Scott Appleby, The Fundamentalism Project, volume I: Fundamentalisms
Observered (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), vii-x, for a
discussion of the general use and application of this term, and John E. Voll,
"Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan," in ibid., 347,
for a discussion of the term applied to Islam.
30 Religion, Contingency, and Violence: Cases from Islam, by Peter
G. Mandaville. Accessed from the Internet: Linkname none; URL
http://snipe.ukc.ac.uk/international/dissert.dir/ pehgehmast.html.
31 See Voll, "Fundamentalism," 376ff., and Raphael Patai, "The
Sinister West," in The Arab Mind (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1983), 290-5.
32 Esposito, Islam, 169-71.
33 Peters, Islam and Colonialism, 119f.
34 Voll, "Fundamentalism," 345f.
35 Quoted in John Kelsay and James Turner Johnson, Just War and
Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and
Islamic Traditions (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 149f.
36 Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to
Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980), 204
and 214.
37 Portrayed in "Jihad in America," television program aired on the
American Public Broadcasting Service Sept. 21, 1994. Quoted here from the
internet. Linkname "Urban terrorism in the name of Islam"; URL
http://www.twibp.com/ archives/17/1.html.
38 These five examples of martyrdom terrorism--though I cite no
specific instances and though similar examples are often portrayed as fiction
in media such as Hollywood "action" movies--are not fictional. See John Laffin,
Holy War; McGeary and Silver, "Killing for God"; Br. Abu Ruqaiyah, "The
Islamic Legitimacy of The 'Martyrdom Operations,'" Br. Hussein El-Chamy,
trans., Nida'ul Islam magazine, vol. 16 (Dec.- Jan. 1996-97) (http://
www.speednet.com.au/~ nida).
39 Quoted in Amatzia Baram, "Two Roads to Revolutionary Shi'ite
Fundamentalism," in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., The
Fundamentalism Project, volume IV: Accounting for Fundamentalisms (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 558. The motivations behind martyrdom in
jihad differ between Sunnis and Shi'is. While the modern Sunni
extremists are inspired by the justifications listed above (the martyr's
reward, reaction to secularization and Zionism, etc.), the Shi'is are further
motivated by the model of the death of the third Imam Husayn. This aspect of
Shi'ism will be addressed below; the difference is not relevant for our
purposes here.
40 Baram, "Two Roads," 561f.
41 Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (Oxford:
George Ronald, 1985), figure 39, and David Pinault, The Shiites (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), figure 5, are reproductions of such
billboards.
42 E.F. Porter, "History soaked in blood; hatred, savage fighting
have marked Moscow's involvement in Chechnya for close to 400 years," in St.
Louis Post-Dispatch (January 29, 1995), p. 1B.
43 Internet: Linkname Chechnya Headlines; URL
http://www.ummah.org.uk/haqqani/Islam/ Shariah/
muamalaat/jihad/chechen_news.html. One of the principle directories of this
site, at Linkname: Table of Contents; URL:
http://www.best.com/~informe/haqqani/Sufi/toc.html, offers a full menu of
jihad-related definitions, histories, and links.
44 Internet: Linkname none; URL
http://www.ummah.org.uk/haqqani/Sufi/chechen_jihad.html.
45 From the Association for Supporting the Islamic Resistance,
accessed from the internet, Linkname Islamic Resistace [sic]; URL
http://www.moqawama.org/home2.htm.
46 Hans Wehr, J. M. Cowan, ed., Arabic-English
Dictionary (New York: Spoken Language Services, 1976)
47 Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome, 19.
48 Quoted in Reinhold Loeffler, Islam in Practice: Religious
Beliefs in a Persian Village (New YorK: State University of New York Press,
1988), 230.
49 Rima Termos, "Lebanon: Martyrs Line Up for Honor of Dying for
God." Beirut, Dec. 13 (IPS)
50 See Legrain, "Palestinian Islamisms," 413-27.
51 Termos, "Lebanon: Martyrs Line Up," and Internet, Linkname
Chechnya Headlines.
52 Ruqaiyah, "The Islamic Legitimacy."
53 Quoted in Termos, "Lebanon: Martyrs Line Up."
54 Quoted in Termos, "Lebanon: Martyrs Line Up."
55 Khadduri, War and Peace, 62.
56 Encyclopedia of Religion, s.v. "martyrdom."
57 Khadduri, War and Peace, 70.
58 Examples of this public, motivational aspect of martyrdom are so
numerous in Islam that selecting only a few to cite would be misleading.
59 I am indebted to Ruth Mas for pointing out the unique nature of
charisma in Islam.
60 Quoted in Ninian Smart, The Philosophy of Religion (New
York: Random House, 1970), 17.
61 Karen Armtrong, A History of God (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1994), 272-3.
62 Rig Veda, book X, chapter 90. Barbara C. Sproul, Primal Myths:
Creating the World (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), pp. 180f.
63 See Sproul, Primal Myths, 157-66.
64 The Enuma elish, tablets four through six. Trans. E. A.
Speiser, in James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: Volume 1: an
Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1958), 31-37.
65 See J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and
Religion, abridged edition (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1960), 379,
427-37, 455, 456-62, 802-12, and elsewhere.
66 Geoffrey Parrinder, ed., The World's Religions: From Ancient
History to the Present (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1983), 72-77,
81-87.
67 See Jonah Siegel [Winters], Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's
Middle Way (Bachelor's Thesis: Reed College, 1994), 62-67, 173.
68 Slightly paraphrased from Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near
East, 191. The text's meaning appears to be that the dead bodies were so
thickly clustered on the battlefield that not even souls could slip through.
69 Huston Smith, The World's Religions (San Francisco:
Harper, 1991), 293-95. See also W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in
the Early Church (New York: University Press, 1965), 22-57.
70 See G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).
71 Encyclopedia Americana, 1970, s.v. "martyr."
72 See, for example, William James' collection of primary documents
on Christian asceticism and his commentary on them in William James, The
Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: The Modern Library 1902),
286-307.
73 Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 20, Number 3105 (Taken from the internet.
Linkname "Sunan Abu Dawud"; URL
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud) and Shorter
Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. Shahid, 516.
74 Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v.
Shahid, 516.
75 Saddiqi, "Suffering in Islam."
76 Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), 110, 284-5.
77 Peters, Islam and Colonialism, 118.
78 Peters, Islam and Colonialism, 120.
79 W. Montgomery Watt, "Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War," in
Thomas Patrick Murphy, ed., The Holy War (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State
University, 1976), 155.
80 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 112.

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