Life's Little Dilemmas

Albert Camus

"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

This double-barreled query has been attributed to Albert Camus, but no certain citation cites the man.

Anyway, if you are ever confronted with this choice - it's only a dilemma if you're feeling suicidal against your will but really, really hate coffee - go ahead, kill yourself if you just have to . . . but why not have a coffee first?

To go!

Professor Clark R. McCauley Jr. on Nasra Hassan and Suicide Bombers

Clark R. McCauley Jr.
Department of Psychology
Bryn Mawr College

In my recent blog entry on Nasra Hassan's findings about suicide bombers, I didn't post the number of interviews she had conducted -- though I knew it to be a considerable number -- but I found that information in an article by Clark McCauley analyzing the 9/11 suicide bombers, "Understanding the 9/11 Perpetrators: Crazy, Lost in Hate, or Martyred?" (Ideologies of War; originally published in N. Matuszak (Ed.), History Behind the Headlines: The Origins of Ethnic Conflicts Worldwide, Volume 5, pp. 274-286. New York: Gale Publishing Group, 2002). In this article by McCauley, concerning the number of interviews conducted and the reasons found for the suicide bombers' actions, we read:

Nasra Hassan, a Pakistani woman and a Muslim, has interviewed over 200 Palestinians involved in "martyrdom operations" against Israel. Interviewees included young men who had volunteered as suicide bombers, organizers and trainers of the bombers, and the families of successful bombers. Young men are not so much recruited for martyrdom as selected from a flood of applicants that rises with every Israeli military incursion against Palestinians and with every Mossad (Israeli secret service) assassination of Palestinian militant leaders. Those selected must be over eighteen, unmarried, and without family responsibilities. Until recently the bombers were all male, but this barrier fell in January 2002 with the first suicide bombing carried out by a female, Wafa Idris, a 27-year-old nursing-aide from a refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank.

"None of the suicide bombers -- they ranged in age from eighteen to thirty-eight -- conformed to the typical profile of the suicidal personality. None of them were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying jobs. More than half of them were refugees from what is now Israel. Two were the sons of millionaires. They all seemed to be entirely normal members of their families. They were polite and serious, and in their communities they were considered to be model youths. Most were bearded. All were deeply religious" (Hassan, 2001). Except for the beards, this description might equally be a description of the 9/11 attackers.

Each Palestinian martyr is prepared for his mission by a 'trainer' and accompanied everywhere during his last week by two 'assistants' to support his resolve. A member of Hamas described the preparation to Hassan, "We focus his attention on Paradise, on being in the presence of Allah, on meeting the Prophet Muhammad, on interceding for his loved ones so that they, too, can be saved from the agonies of Hell, on the houris, and on fighting the Israeli occupation and removing it from the Islamic trust that is Palestine." With the exception of specific reference to Israel and Palestine, this might equally be a summary of the content of [Mohammed] Atta's [9/11] manual. Thus the motivation of Palestinian volunteers is very similar to that represented in the "manual": a promise of immediate reward in heaven and remission of punishment for sin.

Note the complex of motives. McCauley focuses upon the promise of paradise, but he also notes the anti-Israeli aspect. These correspond to what might be called a predispositional motive and a radicalizing motive, respectively. In his conclusion, which focuses on the 9/11 suicide bombers, McCauley says this:

The 9/11 attacks are not to be understood as the product of individual pathology or pathological hatred. Polls suggest that only relatively few Muslims may hate the U.S., but even if the 9/11 attackers came from among those few, the attackers themselves, as judged by Atta's manual, did not act out of hate. Rather they understood themselves to be doing God's will; they gave their lives in a rush for paradise rather than for the satisfaction of punishing their enemies.

In short, McCauley holds that whatever might happen to radicalize suicide bombers, religious motives -- by analogy to the 9/11 attacks -- play an overwhelming role, a point that he supports with reference to Hassan's finding. I agree that the religious motive, the predisposition, is overwhelming for the would-be suicide bomber, as we see in the cases of 9/11 and the Palestinians, but without a radicalizing trigger, few Muslims would be willing to blow themselves up.

What therefore constitutes a trigger?

Nasra Hassan's Conversations with Jihadists Hellbent on Paradise . . .

Nasra Hassan

Salzburg Global Seminar

Recently, there's been some discussion on this blog concerning the significance that hope of paradise holds in the minds of suicide bombers. Scott Atran interviewed jihadists and failed suicide bombers and was told by the leaders, and apparently even by the would-be 'martyrs' themselves, that Allah would not accept a 'martyr' who sought death motivated by the promise of paradise since that would be a selfish motive. I disagreed, saying that I didn't trust these statements, my thinking being that those who would carry out 'martyrdom operations' (suicide bombings) against infidels would certainly have no qualms about merely lying to infidels.

I did accept that seeking martyrdom out of a selfish motive, say, solely the prospect of transcendent sex with houris in paradise, would perhaps not be acceptable to Allah, but I held that such would not reduce the significance of that motive, rather that the motive would tend to be contextualized and that the would-be martyr, caught in the paradox of seeking paradise without seeking paradise, would play psychological games with himself over that motive.

Related to the point about deception, moreover, I noted that the facts established through interviews depend upon the questions posed, and -- I might also now add -- upon the relationship between interviewer and the one interviewed. Islamists are well known to say one thing to Westerners and something utterly different among themselves and to other Muslims. I therefore pointed to the rhetoric used by recruiters of suicide bombers, generally the promise of paradise and specifically the delights of 'marriage' to the beautiful houris, and I supplied the evidence offered by the practice of martyrs' weddings.

Such rhetoric and rituals would seem to support my claim concerning the motive of attaining paradise, but what do the would-be martyrs themselves say about paradise and its attractions? What might they say to a fellow Muslim in an interview? Let's find out by looking at the sort of evidence I've been seeing in print for the past twenty years and more.

Ms. Nasra Hassan, according to her profile on the Salzburg Global Seminar website, "carries out primary research on Muslim suicide terrorism and on jihadist militancy . . . . [and] her research data has been published and is widely cited in academic and other publications," so she appears to have at least some proper academic credibility. Nearly 12 years ago, Ms. Hassan published a fascinating article in The New Yorker, titled "An Arsenal of Believers: Talking to the 'human bombs'" (November 19, 2001). That was shortly after 9/11, but the interviews had been conducted a few years earlier, in the Gaza Strip, so let's see what she learned, beginning with a young man she calls "S.," a suicide bomber whose bomb failed to detonate. He was shot in the head and lay in a coma for over two months, but recovered and agreed to be interviewed:

"How did you feel when you heard that you'd been selected for martyrdom?" I asked.

"It's as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell," he said. "Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise -- it is the shortest path to Heaven."

Hassan inquired about whether he and his two companions ever wavered:

"We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah -- a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs."

Hassan even watched a video of S. and the other two:

S. showed me a video that documented the final planning for the operation. In the grainy footage, I saw him and two other young men engaging in a ritualistic dialogue of questions and answers about the glory of martyrdom. S., who was holding a gun, identified himself as a member of al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, which is one of two Palestinian Islamist organizations that sponsor suicide bombings . . . . "Tomorrow, we will be martyrs," he declared, looking straight at the camera. "Only the believers know what this means. I love martyrdom." The young men and the planner then knelt and placed their right hands on the Koran. The planner said, "Are you ready? Tomorrow, you will be in Paradise."

There is a social aspect to martyrdom, for the martyrs serve as role models:

In Palestinian neighborhoods, the suicide bombers' green birds appear on posters, and in graffiti -- the language of the street. Calendars are illustrated with the "martyr of the month." Paintings glorify the dead bombers in Paradise, triumphant beneath a flock of green birds. This symbol is based on a saying of the Prophet Muhammad that the soul of a martyr is carried to Allah in the bosom of the green birds of Paradise.

This hope of paradise appears to play a great role:

A member of Hamas explained the preparation: "We focus his attention on Paradise, on being in the presence of Allah, on meeting the Prophet Muhammad, on interceding for his loved ones so that they, too, can be saved from the agonies of Hell, on the houris, and on fighting the Israeli occupation and removing it from the Islamic trust that is Palestine."

Note that the jihad against Israel also serves as motive, and here is where Professor Scott Atran's analysis perhaps has something to add, for not every Muslim seeks martyrdom. Indeed, the vast majority of Muslims do not. There first must be radicalization. Martyrs appear more often where Muslims feel themselves oppressed, which certainly contributes to radicalization. The promise of paradise, however, remains a powerful, centrally crucial incentive, as Hassan recounts:

I was told the story of a young Palestinian, M., by two men who, at different times, had been his cellmates in Israeli prisons. In September, 1993, in a safe house just outside Jerusalem, M. had performed ritual ablution, said his prayers, and set off on his bombing mission. He had boarded a bus -- one on the same route on which S.'s bomb had failed to explode two months earlier. All he had to do was unzip his bag of explosives and press the detonator. "But at the moment he was to press the button he forgot Paradise," one of his former cellmates recalled. "He felt a split second of fear, a slight hesitation. To bolster himself, he recited from the Koran. Refreshed and strengthened, he again began to think of Paradise. When he felt ready, he tried again. But the detonator did not function. He prayed to himself, 'Please, Allah, let me succeed.' But still it did not work, not even the third time, when he kept his finger pressed firmly on the knob. Recognizing that there was a technical problem, he got off the bus at the next stop, returned the bag to the planner, and went home." (The Israeli security services subsequently arrested M. in another attack, and he is currently in prison.)

Very interesting. The would-be martyr is supposed to focus attention specifically upon paradise, or so M.'s case reveals. There's more:

Just before the bomber sets out on his final journey, he performs a ritual ablution, puts on clean clothes, and tries to attend at least one communal prayer at a mosque. He says the traditional Islamic prayer that is customary before battle, and he asks Allah to forgive his sins and to bless his mission. He puts a Koran in his left breast pocket, above the heart, and he straps the explosives around his waist or picks up a briefcase or a bag containing the bomb. The planner bids him farewell with the words "May Allah be with you, may Allah give you success so that you achieve Paradise." The would-be martyr responds, "Inshallah, we will meet in Paradise."

After a successful "martyrdom" operation, there follows one of those weddings I reported on recently:

The bomber's family and the sponsoring organization celebrate his martyrdom with festivities, as if it were a wedding. Hundreds of guests congregate at the house to offer congratulations. The hosts serve the juices and sweets that the young man specified in his will. Often, the mother will ululate in joy over the honor that Allah has bestowed upon her family.

All's well that ends well! A wedding is the happy ending to every popular fairy tale. But not for the victims. The carnage left behind, the lives taken and the lives ruined, the destruction that remains. And the image of Islam painted by Islamists in clotted blood grows ever darker. Little wonder the Islamists say, "We love death!" They have to.

All for paradise . . . and a little bit more.

Martyrs' Weddings: On Earth as in Heaven?

Shahid Wedding Blast
CNN Asia

My two recent posts on Islamist suicide bombers, here and here (and an ironic one here), in which I discuss the bombers' hope of paradise and its pleasures, has occasioned some harsh responses, for example, "don't bullsh*t by saying the afterlife 'plays a role in their thinking,'" a comment from an individual who calls himself "anonymous."*

My interlocutors are disturbed at my position that Islamist suicide bombers, like Islamist shahids (martyrs) generally, are motivated by the promise of paradise and its virgins, among other pleasures. Now, I don't argue that this is their sole motivation, but it is a powerful one and accounts for the widespread use of what are euphemistically called "martyrdom operations." Why do I claim it is a powerful motive? Aside from the fact that pious religious belief is a strong motivator for action, and that a strong motivation is necessary for carrying out a suicide bombing, there is sufficient evidence to render my view reasonable, in that the Islamist suicide shahid is "certain of the Islamic doctrine about martyrdom, 'Jihad', salvation and afterlife":

Indeed after the death of the shahid there is a celebration instead of mourning and mothers' utter cries of joy and sweets are distributed to visitors, like as if a wedding, a happy occasion took place. Handling suicide bombers' deaths as 'martyr's weddings' are truly common in Muslim tradition. (Maria Alvanou, "Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers: The Interplaying Effects of Islam, Nationalism and Honor Culture," Strategic Research and Policy Center, National Defense College, IDF, May 2007, page 43)

A more recent report comes by way of MEMRI in an article by L. Barkan, "Salafi-Jihadis in Jordan Stage 'Martyrs' Weddings' to attract youth To Jihad" (February 8, 2013, Inquiry and Analysis Series, Report No.926, Middle East Media Research Institute):

The forces fighting against Assad's regime in Syria include foreigners who have come to take part in the uprising alongside the Syrian rebels. Among them are members of Jordan's Salafi-jihadi movement, which, according to its senior leaders, has so far dispatched some 250 fighters to Syria. As one means of encouraging Jordanian youths to join its ranks and adopt the ideology of jihad and martyrdom, the Salafi-jihadi movement stages "martyrs' weddings" for fighters killed in Syria, based on the Islamic belief that every martyr is rewarded with 72 black-eyed virgin brides in Paradise . . . . [Such] "weddings" are not a new phenomenon. The Salafi-jihadi stream in Jordan has held similar ceremonies in the past for Jordanian fighters who died in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . . 'Abd Al-Fateh Shehadeh, aka Abu Muhammad Al-Tahawi, a senior figure in the Jordanian Salafi-jihadi movement, told the Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq that such "weddings" have so far been held for 18 Jordanian Salafi-jihadi fighters killed in Syria, explaining that these celebrations serve to propagate the ideology of jihad and martyrdom . . . . Marwan Shehadeh, an expert on Islamists groups, told Al-Sharq that the purpose of the "martyrs' weddings" is to attract youths to the idea of jihad and of martyrdom, and encourage them to join the fighting on jihad fronts throughout the Islamic world . . . . Abu Muhammad Al-Tahawi explained that . . . . [that] "the martyr [himself] rejoices at the reward and grace that Allah bestows upon him if his martyrdom is accepted. With the first drop of blood shed from his body, [his sins] are pardoned, and he weds 72 black-eyed [virgins] of Paradise, dons his crown of honor, and serves as an advocate for 70 of his relatives . . . . We explain to the youths who attend [the ceremony] that he who sacrifices his life in defense of Islam and the land of the Muslims will marry the black-eyed [virgins], his relatives will be pardoned, and his sins will be erased" . . . . Videos of these celebrations are also disseminated via the internet.

Related to this, see "European Muslims Hold 'Martyr's Wedding' For Tunisian Killed In Syria" (MEMRI, No. 5214, March 4, 2013):

Photos surfaced online of a celebration held by European Muslims in honor of a Tunisian youth who was killed while fighting in Syria. The celebration, held in an undisclosed location in Europe -- according to one report, in France -- was in the form of a "martyr's wedding," symbolizing the deceased's wedding to the virgins of paradise . . . . The Tunisian, Ayman Al-Hakiri, AKA Abu Maria Al-Tunsi, was an active member of Ansar Al-Shari'a in Tunisia. He recently joined Jabhat Al-Nusra in Syria and was appointed a commander in Aleppo, and was reportedly killed in the Aleppo area on February 24. Al-Hakiri was likewise an active member of jihadi forums, using the nickname Matlub fi Al-Jannah ("Wanted in Paradise").

Or from some years back, Yaakov Lappin of YNetNews reports on the martyrdom of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an article "Cleric: Zarqawi's wedding with virgins has begun":

As news of the death of Iraqi al-Qaeda terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi filtered through jihadist internet forums, many members of radical organizations expressed 'joy' at what they described as Zarqawi's 'martyrdom' and imminent 'wedding' with virgins.

Sheikh Omar Bakri, a top pro al-Qaeda jihadist preacher who is based in Lebanon, and who has a number of disciples in Britain, was quoted by one of his followers on the UK-based Muntadaa internet forum as saying that al-Zarqawi is now being 'married' to virgins in heaven, the fate he said awaited 'martyrs' of Islam.

"It is a good news Alhamdulilaah (thank God), his wedding start as shaheed (martyr), and his deputy confirm the news," read a statement attributed to Bakri.

Many reports of this sort can be dug up from the internet. I've been reading them for years now, and I think these establish rather unequivocally that the hope of paradise and its pleasures serves as a powerful motive in the deadly acts of suicide bombers.

Readers are invited to search the internet themselves . . .

*Update: Anonymous protests that I have misrepresented his position. My apologies if I have done so.

Update 2: See a more recent post on what the would-be martyrs themselves say.

Professor Adam Lankford: Parallels Between Suicide Terrorists and Rampage Shooters

Adam Lankford
Criminal Justice Professor
The University of Alabama

I read an interesting IHT opinion piece a couple of days ago by Adam Lankford, "What Drives Suicidal Mass Killers" (New York Times, December 17, 2012), an article in which he reports finding surprising parallels between suicidal mass killers and Muslim jihad 'martyrs':

Over the last three years, I have examined interviews, case studies, suicide notes, martyrdom videos and witness statements and found that suicide terrorists are indeed suicidal in the clinical sense . . . . Although suicide terrorists may share the same beliefs as the organizations whose propaganda they spout, they are primarily motivated by the desire to kill and be killed -- just like most rampage shooters . . . . [W]e should think of many rampage shooters as nonideological suicide terrorists. In some cases, they claim to be fighting for a cause . . . but, as with suicide terrorists, their actions usually stem from . . . [a] deeper and more personal . . . . triad of factors that sets these killers apart. The first is that they are generally struggling with mental health problems that have produced their desire to die . . . . The second factor is a deep sense of victimization and belief that the killer's life has been ruined by someone else, who has bullied, oppressed or persecuted him . . . . The key is that the aggrieved individual feels that he has been terribly mistreated and that violent vengeance is justified. In many cases, the target for revenge becomes broader and more symbolic than a single person, so . . . . the urge to commit suicide becomes a desire for murder-suicide . . . . The third factor is the desire to acquire fame and glory through killing . . . . Attackers who commit murder-suicide in public are . . . brazen and unusual. Most suicide terrorists believe they will be honored and celebrated as "martyrs" after their deaths and, sure enough, terrorist organizations produce martyrdom videos and memorabilia so that other desperate souls will volunteer to blow themselves up . . . . [R]ampage shooters have often been captivated by the idea that they will become posthumously famous.

This is interesting, and not insignificant, for it undercuts the Islamist position that 'martyrdom operations' are not suicide missions and thereby entails that these are forbidden by sharia . . . not that I expect Islamists to accept the findings of an 'infidel' scientist.

One question, however, remains for me: Are the causes of the 'mental illness' also parallel, or does Islamist ideology perhaps drive some individuals insane? Islamism is a grievance ideology, forever blaming external foes for Islam's problems. Anyone who's taken the trouble to look into the matter will attest that Islamists typically blame the Jews, primarily, for all the evils in the world, and they invariably cite the forged documents known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if these fakes were proof of Jewish aims to dominate the world. Islamists certainly encourage "a deep sense of victimization" among their followers, and I happen to think that Islamism gives rise to extremely frustrated, unhappy individuals "struggling with mental health problems." Moreover, Islamist ideology not only promises that suicide bombers will be "honored and celebrated as 'martyrs' after their deaths," it also promises an eternal afterlife of endless sensual pleasure of drinking and whoring. In effect, these 'suicide' killers get to keep on living, even living it up!

I therefore think that Professor Lankford needs to take his investigation at least one step further and determine if Islamism produces the clinical state of mind that he describes . . . or perhaps he has already, in his book.

Sam Harris: Career-Suicidal Intellectual Theorist?

Sam Harris

Profile: Incendiary Public Intellectual
Wikipedia

I don't follow any bloggers or tweeters or anyone, but I do regularly read a few public intellectuals because they write stuff that gets my attention, and Sam Harris is one of these few. He recently encountered a bit of resistance to a couple of his posts:

I recently wrote two articles in defense of "profiling" in the context of airline security . . . , arguing that the TSA should stop doing secondary screenings of people who stand no reasonable chance of being Muslim jihadists. I knew this proposal would be controversial, but I seriously underestimated how inflamed the response would be. Had I worked for a newspaper or a university, I could well have lost my job over it.

I told you he was career-suicidal! Best to stand your distance from the man, or you'll go up in smoke with him, either when he goes off on some sensitive issue or when some opponent drones on to him in response.

But if you're a foolhardy mensch, go over to his blog and read "To Profile or Not to Profile? A Debate between Sam Harris and Bruce Schneier" (May 25, 2012), in which he writes:

I am not proposing a mere correlation between extremist Islam and suicidal terrorism. I am claiming that the relationship is causal. There are many ways to see this, and not too many ways to credibly deny it . . . .

The first sign of a religious cause comes from what the terrorists say of themselves: al Qaeda and its sympathizers have not been shy about discussing their motives in public. The second indication is what they say when they think no one is listening. As you know, we now have a trove of private communications among jihadists. The fine points of theology are never far from their thoughts and regularly constrain their actions. The 19 hijackers were under surveillance by German police for months before September 11, 2001 . . . . Islam was all that these men appeared to care about.

And we should recall how other people behave when subjected to military occupation or political abuse. Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? They have the suicide part down, because they are now practicing a campaign of self-immolation -- which, being the incendiary equivalent of a hunger strike, is about as far from suicide bombing as can be conceived. And where is that long list of Palestinian Christian suicide bombers you've been keeping in your desk? Now would be a good time to produce it. As you know, Palestinian Christians suffer the same Israeli occupation. How many have blown themselves up on a bus in Tel Aviv? One? Two? Where, for that matter, are the Pakistani, Iraqi, or Egyptian suicide bombers killing for the glory of Christ? These Christian communities are regularly attacked by suicidal jihadists -- why don't they respond with the same sort of violence? This is practically a science experiment: We've got the same people, speaking the same language, living in the same places, eating the same food -- and one group forms a death cult of aspiring martyrs and the other does not.

As I've written elsewhere, it isn't impossible to conceive of Tibetan Buddhists practicing suicide bombing or of Middle Eastern Christians practicing terrorism at the same rate as their Muslim neighbors, but Islam offers a doctrine of jihad and martyrdom that makes such behavior perfectly understandable. And, again, it is the reason that jihadists themselves give for their actions.

There may be a conflation of "cause" and "reason" in this early passage in which Harris sets forth his basic position, for he states that "between extremist Islam and suicidal terrorism . . . . the relationship is causal," but also says that the "doctrine of jihad and martyrdom . . . . is the reason that jihadists themselves give for their actions" (italics mine). That looks like a conflation of two concepts that I would keep distinct, but I suppose that Harris is using the language of statistical analysis in referring to a "causal" relationship. I prefer, however, not to say that suicide bombers are being causally driven by extremism; rather, I favor language emphasizing the fact that they're making culpable choices based on reasons grounded in Islamist doctrines.

But that's perhaps a minor point to raise here, and I see no need to press it. I've yet to finish reading the debate -- a longish one -- but wanted to note this point merely in passing. I'm more curious what Harris and Schneier have to say about profiling. I don't know much about this issue, but I wonder what the problem with profiling is for those who oppose it. Don't we profile all the time in crimefighting? When a married woman is murdered, isn't the husband automatically one of the primary suspects since there's a strong statistical correlation between murdered wives and murdering husbands? I've put that a little crudely, partly because I'm not steeped in the literature on this, but isn't this a sort of profiling -- the husband is a suspect simply for the fact of being a husband. That is, he fits a profile.

Or do I misunderstand?

Anwar al-Awlaki: Moderate Terrorist

Anwar al-Awlaki

(Image from New York Times)

Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet have a recent, interesting article, "Imam's Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad" (May 8, 2010), published in the New York Times. Though the headline speaks of "path" in the singular, this imam seems to have been on a dual path all along, or at least was long an ambivalent figure. He first shot to national attention immediately after 9/11:

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the eloquent 30-year-old imam of a mosque outside Washington became a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion.

"We came here to build, not to destroy," the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, said in a sermon. "We are the bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide."

At first glance, it seemed plausible that this lanky, ambitious man, with the scholarly wire-rims and equal command of English and Arabic, could indeed be such a bridge. CD sets of his engaging lectures on the Prophet Muhammad were in thousands of Muslim homes. American-born, he had a sense of humor, loved deep-sea fishing, had dabbled in get-rich-quick investment schemes and dropped references to "Joe Sixpack" into his sermons. A few weeks before the attacks he had preached in the United States Capitol.

Nine years later, from his hide-out in Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has declared war on the United States.

"America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil," he said in a statement posted on extremist Web sites in March. Though he had spent 21 of his 39 years in the United States, he added, "I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim."

So says Mr. Anwar al-Awlaki, but there's another story, one beginning with a youthful interest in jihad and a salafi interpretation of Islam (see the article) and leaving tracks in Colorado, San Diego, and Falls Church, Virginia, all before 9/11:

A contrasting version of Mr. Awlaki's story, explored though never confirmed by the national Sept. 11 commission, maintains that he was a secret agent of Al Qaeda starting well before the attacks, when three of the hijackers turned up at his mosques. By this account, all that has changed since then is that Mr. Awlaki has stopped hiding his true views.

There's at least a bit of circumstantial evidence that Awlaki already supported suicide bombing even prior to 9/11. According to Shakir Muhammad, who attends a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado and listened to the CD sets that Awlaki started recording in 2000, one passage gave him pause. Mr. Awlaki was discussing suicidal violence but did not explicitly condemn it. Mr. Muhammad recalls thinking, "This guy may be for it . . . . It bothered me."

There's more circumstantial evidence, concerning some overlap between the end of his time in San Diego and the beginning of his time in Viginia:

One day in August 2001, Mr. Awlaki knocked at the door of Mr. [Lincoln W.] Higgie, his neighbor [in San Diego], to say goodbye. He had moved the previous year to Virginia, becoming imam at the far bigger Dar al-Hijrah mosque, and he had returned to pick up a few things he had left behind.

As Mr. Higgie tells it, he told the imam to stop by if he was ever in the area -- and got a strange response. "He said, 'I don't think you’ll be seeing me. I won't be coming back to San Diego again. Later on you’ll find out why,'" Mr. Higgie said.

The next month, when Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, Mr. Higgie remembered the exchange and was shaken, convinced that his friendly neighbor had some advance warning of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Merely circumstantial, of course, but rather troubling. There's more such evidence, and some of it goes back further:

In fact, the F.B.I. had first taken an interest in Mr. Awlaki in 1999, concerned about brushes with militants that to this day remain difficult to interpret. In 1998 and 1999, he was a vice president of a small Islamic charity that an F.B.I. agent later testified was "a front organization to funnel money to terrorists." He had been visited by Ziyad Khaleel, a Qaeda operative who purchased a battery for Osama bin Laden's satellite phone, as well as by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up New York landmarks.

Still more disturbing was Mr. Awlaki's links to two future Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. They prayed at his San Diego mosque and were seen in long conferences with the cleric. Mr. Alhazmi would follow the imam to his new mosque in Virginia, and 9/11 investigators would call Mr. Awlaki Mr. Alhazmi's "spiritual adviser."

The F.B.I., whose agents interviewed Mr. Awlaki four times in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, concluded that his contacts with the hijackers and other radicals were random, the inevitable consequence of living in the small world of Islam in America. But records of the 9/11 commission at the National Archives make clear that not all investigators agreed.

One detective, whose name has been redacted, told the commission he believed Mr. Awlaki "was at the center of the 9/11 story." An F.B.I. agent, also unidentified, said that "if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it would have been" the cleric, since "someone had to be in the U.S. and keep the hijackers spiritually focused."

I'm surprised that the FBI and other investigators didn't follow up more on this guy after 9/11, especially since the world of Islam in America isn't all that small, given that there are several million Muslims, nor were Alwaki's encounters with the 9/11 perpetrators merely random, since he was seen in long discussions with at least two of them, serving as spiritual advisor to one of the two. Again, circumstantial, but very troubling. At any rate, whatever the path Awlaki was really on, we know where it led him, namely, to hatred of all kuffar, or non-Muslims, as caught on video in London, where he moved in 2002 before returning to Yemen in 2004:

"The important lesson to learn here is never, ever trust a kuffar," he said, chopping the air, his lecture caught on video. "Do not trust them!"

The unbelievers are "plotting to kill this religion," he declared. "They’re plotting night and day."

If he had the same knowing tone and touches of humor as in earlier sermons, his message was more conspiratorial. You can't believe CNN, the United Nations, or Amnesty International, he told his students, because they, too, were part of the war on Islam.

If Awlaki had been radicalized solely against America because of its putative ill treatment of Muslims in the wake of 9/11, then he wouldn't have been preaching already in 2002 against all non-Muslims.

That alone suggests an obscured but radical path long trod, whatever ambivalence Awlaki might sometimes have felt.

Samson as 'Suicide Bomber'

Samson Destroys the Temple of Dagon

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872)

(Image from The Bible Illustrations)

The Milton List has been conducting a discussion about John Milton's Samson Agonistes, under the somewhat provocative thread heading "Samson as Suicide Bomber" -- the obvious allusion being made to current-day suicide bombings.

The scholar Carroll Cox offered some rather provocative comments of his own about the allusion:

There is an elephant in the room -- so far delicately ignored: "Suicide Bomber" refers, of course, to Arabs, who have replaced "dirty commies" in the mythology of u.s. politics. But that is not the elephant but merely the context. The elephant is that, through discussing Samson in theological terms, one implies that the suicide bombers of the daily newspaper are acting or claiming to act from theological motives -- that they are religious fanatics.

But they are acting from strictly secular motives, as a study of a year or so established: they represent frustrated nationalism! So if we want to discuss Samson as a suicide bomber, we need to discuss his politics, not his religion.

Not his religion? Well, Cox often presents a Marxist analysis, emphasizing political motives as more fundamental than religious ones. Be that as it may, in the case of "suicide bombers," he is wrong to state that "they are acting from strictly secular motives," as I noted in a response:

The expression "Suicide Bomber" refers to anyone who blows himself or herself up to kill others, usually in a terrorist act. The bomber can be any ethnicity and any religion -- or even have no religion. Currently, most such bombers are Muslims radicalized by Islamism. They may act out of a combination of motives, but religion is certainly one of these. Moreover, regardless of the motivation, Muslims would be unlikely to engage in "suicide" attacks if these had not already been declared not acts of suicide and if these had not already been theologically justified by Islamists. According to such Islamists, the reward for the Muslim 'suicide' bomber is paradise -- which is why . . . ["suicide bombings"] are called by Islamists "martyrdom operations." Religion certainly plays a major role in the phenomenon, and it cannot be ignored.

A number of other scholars disagreed with Cox -- including Noam Flinker, Salwa Khoddam, James Rovira, Stella Revard, and Feisal Mohamed. Feisal's response was the most interesting for my purposes:

I believe Carrol Cox has in mind the work of Robert Pape, now available in the important book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Pape and others have shown that the Tamil Tigers, which is not a religious movement at all, is one of the groups most frequently engaging in suicide attack. But complicating the assertion that this is only the military tactic of a nationalist struggle is the culture that has developed in the Tamil cause, which elevates self-sacrifice to the kind of cosmic virtue that one would associate with religion.

Feisal's point about the Tamil Tigers is very interesting since this group is often put forward as evidence that suicide bombers can have entirely secular motives. Apparently, that's not quite the case. I suspect that any 'military' strategy requiring 'suicidal' missions would tend to offer religious motives even if the struggle were otherwise wholly secular. At any rate, Cox seems to have backed away from his assertion that suicide bombers "are acting from strictly secular motives," for he contacted the journalist Chip Berlet, an expert on right-wing religious movements, asking for his opinion of Pape's book. As Cox acknowledges, Berlet responded that Pape's analysis is a:

"Highly flawed analysis because the concepts of apocalyptic belief and religious nationalism were simply dismissed."

Cox therefore restated his position -- or, rather, repositioned himself, dropping his own dismissal of religion as a motive:

I do want to insist that when writers speak of "suicide bombers" they should recognize that the subject is a complex one. The phrase is firmly embedded in contemporary politics, and to use it raises contemporary political issues. (Just as it is impossible to discuss Milton's concept of freedom in PL without overlapping 21st-c theological disputes.)

This is a rather far cry from his original claim that suicide bombers "are acting from strictly secular motives" and appears to be an implicit acceptance of my own position (though Cox and I would cash this out rather differently).

Anyway, the comparison of Samson to a suicide bomber is not new, for Noam Flinker dealt with it as early as 1991, and the comparison became quite popular after 9/11. I haven't dealt with this particular issue much, for I'm not an expert on Milton's Samson Agonistes.

But perhaps I ought to look into it.

The 'uncultured fop' speaks again: Ban Good Omens

Good Omens

Ban The Book?

(Image from Amazon.com)

Faithful readers know that I have previously called for banning John Milton's writings for inciting violence, and I must now also call for a ban on the book Good Omens.

I realize that a mere three days ago, I was praising the book for its positive portrayal of a character with the good name of Hodges, but I have since come to see darker aspects to this book. In my opinion, it encourages suicide bombing. Consider this scene depicting the death of Agnes Nutter:

Thirty seconds later an explosion took out the village green, scythed the valley clean of every living thing, and was seen as far away as Halifax.

There was much subsequent debate as to whether this had been sent by God or by Satan, but a note later found in Agnes Nutter's cottage indicated that any divine or devilish intervention had been materially helped by the contents of Agnes's petticoats, wherein she had with some foresight concealed eighty pounds of gunpowder and forty pounds of roofing nails. (Good Omens, page 109)

As Hillary Clinton might say, "it takes a village" out entirely! The problem is that are intended to like Agnes Nutter. Why, her name even appears in the book's subtitle: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Granted, she's called "Witch" . . . but that seems to be intended in a positive sense, else why would her 'prophecies' be called "nice"? Kind of like how my paternal grandmother was a water witch. But unlike my grandmother, not all witches are nice! Agnes Nutter's final act hardly seems nice at all! Yet, she is portrayed positively, even more so than Mary Hodges! We should therefore not be astonished to discover a statistical correlation between the publication of this book and an uptick in suicide bombings.

Unconvinced? Then, go read Scott Atran's article, "The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism" (The Washington Quarterly 29.2 (Spring 2006), 127-147). See especially page 128 for Table 1, and note that for the decade of the 1990s, the annual number of suicide bombings shot up from 4.7 for the period from 1981 to 1990 to 16 for the period 1991 to 2000.

Good Omens was published in 1990.

In calling for a ban on this book, I realize that I shall no doubt once again be called "an uncultured fop, a boob, an imbecile!!!" Such are the slings and arrows of outraged ill humor.

I can do no better than to quote myself on this:

"I'll continue tilting the windmills of my mind as I call on my partron saint, Don Quixote, that great knight beatified for ultimately recognizing the danger of unregulated books."

May other noble knights of Don Quixote's order join me.

Steve S. Sin: "Homegrown Terrorism: South Korea's Next Challenge against Terrorism"

Steve S. Sin

Expert on Terrorism

(Image from A Fencer's Musings)

Islamist terrorism has been in the news lately here in South Korea due to a couple of suicide bombings aimed at Korean tourists in Yemen. The first attack killed four Korean citizens, but the second attack failed to cause any Korean fatalities. In both cases, Al-Qaida has been cited by Yemen and Korean authorities as responsible for the attacks.

Robert Koehler, who writes for The Marmot's Hole, reports in a recent blog entry, "Inadequate Understanding Leads to Muslim Hostility: Expert," that a South Korean expert on the Middle East, Lee In-seop (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies), has suggested to the Chosun Ilbo "that because Koreans have an insufficient basic understanding of Muslim religious culture, they frequently earn unintentionally the enmity of Muslims."

One often hears variations on this sort of 'root-cause' argument as explanation for the thousands of Islamist attacks that have occurred throughout the world over the past decade, though such an explanation apparently would not account for Islamist attacks on other Muslims, which have not been infrequent.

Whatever the root causes of Islamist enmity, the Korean government is alarmed and taking measures against the threat of Islamist terrorism here in Korea itself. According to a recent article in The Korea Times, "105 Foreigners on 'Terrorist' Watch List" (March 21, 2009), "the nation's intelligence agency is watching closely 105 foreign passport holders for possible terrorist-related activities." The Times reports that "[a]mong the 105 foreign nationals, those from the Middle East topped with 87, followed by 10 from Africa and the rest from Asia and the Pacific regions," and adds that the intelligence agency "is particularly paying attention to those foreign individuals with suspected ties with al-Qaida and is checking their entry to and exit from the country."

In a blog entry of last September, I posted on this sort of Islamist problem faced by South Korea: "Korea Herald: 'Foreign terrorists active in Korea: NIS report'" (September 23, 2008). In response to that post, I was contacted by Steve S. Sin, who blogs at A Fencer's Musings and is a specialist on terrorism and related issues in Northeast Asia. He asked me if I would be willing to proofread an article of his on the potential for Islamist terrorism in Korea, for he intended to publish it. I accepted because I wanted to learn more, not because I consider myself an expert.

I did, in fact, proofread Sin's article, from which I learned a great deal. It has since been published as "Homegrown Terrorism: South Korea's Next Challenge against Terrorism" in Asian Affairs (Number 29, January 2009) and can be read online. Basically, Sin notes that experts have no doubt that Islamist terrorists are here in South Korea, so the big question is why these terrorists have not acted. Sin suggests that the terrorists might prefer to use South Korea as a 'safe' place where they can plan operations elsewhere throughout Asia and transfer money via hawala networks that allow for the informal transfer of funds. Terrorist attacks here would put a severe damper on those activities.

However, Steve Sin emphasizes that he is speculating on this point, and I have my own concerns, for Islamist terrorists don't do cost-benefit analysis in the same way as secular thinkers, and the 'benefit' of a successful suicide bombing is an eternity spent in sexual ecstasy by repeatedly deflowering celestial virgins, so even if major Islamist groups like Al-Qaida are not intending any major 'martyrdom operations' on the Korean peninsula, we can't be certain that 'freelance' Islamists won't take matters into their own hands.

The recent attacks on Koreans in Yemen might be a harbinger of attacks in Korea itself.

Muslim Clerics' Fatwa: Suicide Attacks Forbidden . . . in Pakistan

The 7th July 2005 London Suicide Bombers

Haram in Pakistan!

Elsewhere, Martyrdom Operations are halal?

(Image from Wikipedia)

More news from MEMRI: In Special Dispatch No. 2093 (October 24, 2008), "Clerics' Conference In Lahore Issues Prohibition Against Suicide Attacks Inside Pakistan," we learn that:

"On October 14, 2008, clerics from 28 religious groups in Pakistan held a conference at the Jamia Naeemia madrassa in Lahore. The conference was organized by the Muttahida Ulema Council of Pakistan. In a fatwa agreed by consensus, the clerics declared suicide attacks inside Pakistan to be haram, or forbidden in Islam."

Specifically, that's point number 13 of "the 21-point declaration issued by the clerics and distributed to journalists at the end of the conference":

"13) It is Ulema's fatwa by consensus that suicide attacks inside Pakistan are haram [forbidden in Islam] and illegitimate."

The implication is that such attacks are halal in other contexts, else why specify Pakistan? But did the clerics actually call these "martyrdom operations" by the contested expression 'suicide attacks'? To call such bombings "suicide" attacks would make them automatically haram anywhere, yet the clerics specify Pakistan.

Perhaps MEMRI has mistranslated this term?

'Suicide' in Islam: Some Hadith

Suicide Bombing Damage, USS Cole

Permissible in Jihad?

(Image from Wikipedia)

In an attempt to get to understand clearly the Muslim position on suicide, and with the helpful assistance of Jeanie Oliver, I located five hadith in Muhammad Muhsin Khan's translation of Sahih al-Bukhari, which the Muslim Students' Association has generously supplied for everyone's benefit at their site hosted by the University of Southern California. Thank Golly for Islamic dawah, eh?

Anyway, here are the five hadith that I found (with suicide statements in red font):

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 73, Number 73:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak:

(who was one of the companions who gave the pledge of allegiance to the Prophet underneath the tree (Al-Hudaibiya)) Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever swears by a religion other than Islam (i.e. if somebody swears by saying that he is a non-Muslim e.g., a Jew or a Christian, etc.) in case he is telling a lie, he is really so if his oath is false, and a person is not bound to fulfill a vow about a thing which he does not possess. And if somebody commits suicide with anything in this world, he will be tortured with that very thing on the Day of Resurrection; And if somebody curses a believer, then his sin will be as if he murdered him; And whoever accuses a believer of Kufr (disbelief), then it is as if he killed him."

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 78, Number 647:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak:

The Prophet said, "Whoever swears by a religion other than Islam, is, as he says; and whoever commits suicide with something, will be punished with the same thing in the (Hell) Fire; and cursing a believer is like murdering him; and whoever accuses a believer of disbelief, then it is as if he had killed him."

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 73, Number 126:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak:

The Prophet said, "Whoever swears by a religion other than Islam (i.e. if he swears by saying that he is a non-Muslim in case he is telling a lie), then he is as he says if his oath is false and whoever commits suicide with something, will be punished with the same thing in the (Hell) fire, and cursing a believer is like murdering him, and whoever accuses a believer of disbelief, then it is as if he had killed him."

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 445:

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak:

The Prophet (p.b.u.h) said, "Whoever intentionally swears falsely by a religion other than Islam, then he is what he has said, (e.g. if he says, 'If such thing is not true then I am a Jew,' he is really a Jew). And whoever commits suicide with piece of iron will be punished with the same piece of iron in the Hell Fire." Narrated Jundab the Prophet said, "A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him."

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 446:

Narrated Abu Huraira-:

The Prophet said, "He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell Fire (forever) and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself shall keep on stabbing himself in the Hell-Fire."

Note that all but one of these hadith go back to Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak. Nevertheless, it seems quite clear that Islam forbids suicide -- assuming that this hadith is considered authentic, which seems reasonable since it's in Sahih al-Bukhari.

Yet, I here run up against my limits: I don't know Arabic, so I have no idea what the original text actually states. What Arabic word is being used for "suicide" here in these passages? Does it have a specific meaning? I'm guessing that there must be some ambiguity, just enough to enable 'scholars' such as the 'moderate' Yusuf al-Qaradawi to state:

Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do. (Yusuf al-Qaradawi, "Controversial preacher with 'star status'," BBC News, July 7, 2004)

Read more on Qaradawi's views -- and the debate among Muslim scholars -- at MEMRI's website: "Debating the Religious, Political and Moral Legitimacy of Suicide Bombings Part 1: The Debate over Religious Legitimacy," MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 53, May 31, 2001.

Incidentally, did everyone appreciate the 'portmanteau' word in my expression "Thank Golly for Islamic dawah"?

"We Sing Sin": Loving death at one's own hand?

The Osama Gang

"We Die Soon"

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a long comment to yesterday's post, Jeanie Oliver provided information from an online article, "Jihad in the Hadith," that looks to be a chapter in a longer work by 'Carlos' titled Facing the Global Jihad: The Roots of Holy War Within Islam Itself (November 2004). I haven't read this whole work, nor have I even read the entirety of the chapter "Jihad in the Hadith."

I have scanned quickly through this chapter, however, and seen that it's useful for going to the original sources to back up its points, which thereby allows us to form our own opinions independently of 'Carlos' . . . whether we agree or disagree with him on an Islamic tradition supporting suicide jihad.

In a section of the chapter subtitled 'The High Value of Martyrdom,' the writer 'Carlos' observes that "It is praiseworthy both to seek death as a martyr and to love it," and he provides two hadith (and I've linked to the MSA site mentioned yesterday):

Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: If anyone fights in Allah's path as long as the time between two milkings of a she-camel, Paradise will be assured for him. If anyone sincerely asks Allah for being killed and then dies or is killed, there will be a reward of a martyr for him. (Sunan Abu Dawud, 14:2535)

It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say:... "By the Being in Whose Hand is my life, I love that I should be killed in the way of Allah; then I should be brought back to life and be killed again in His way." (Sahih Muslim, 20:4631 [see also 20:4626])

This doesn't explicitly support suicide jihad (let alone suicide terrorism), which is what interests us at the moment, but it does offer some support for statements by those Islamists like Osama bin Laden, who once told us:

"We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us." (Richard Stengel, "Osama bin Laden and the Idea of Progress," Time, December 21, 2001)

Bin Laden certainly supports suicide bombing -- as a 'martyrdom operation', of course -- but does suicide in the path of jihad have a precedent in Islam? According to 'Carlos', it does:

[O]ne cannot say that suicide fighting is by its very nature un-Islamic. In fact, it is not new . . . . Daniel Pipes notes the existence of jihad suicide nearly a thousand years ago:

Jihad suicide has been around for a millennium. The Assassins, a fanatical religious sect that flourished in the twelfth century developed jihad suicide into a powerful tool of war that succeeded in killing dozens of leaders and cast a long shadow over the region's politics for decades.

And certainly there is no prohibition on terrorism when suicide is not involved. When seen as a sacred struggle against non-believers, terrorism by any means becomes a virtue, whether or not one knows one's life will be forfeit.

The reference to Daniel Pipes leads to his article "The [Suicide] Jihad Menace," written for the Jerusalem Post issue of July 27, 2001 . . . only 46 days prior to 9/11, interestingly. That was prescient of Dr. Pipes, but he's nevertheless wrong in pointing to The Assassins as practicing "jihad suicide," for they didn't kill themselves. True, we do speak of "suicide missions" even in the West when referring to those military missions in which death is likely unavoidable, but this is a very loose expression, and not precisely accurate. Those on so-called "suicide missions" die not by their own hands but at the hands of others.

I have not yet seen any hard evidence that traditional Islam provides strong support for setting forth on a jihad with the intent to kill oneself.

Do not kill . . . yourselves? . . . one another? . . . your people?

The Inestimable Qur'an

(Image from Wikipedia)

In yesterday's post, I quoted Quintan Wiktorowicz's remark stating that "Islam explicitly prohibits suicide" (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," (Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 28:75-97, 2005), page 93).

Although Wiktorowicz supplied no quotes from the Qur'an or the hadith, I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of his remark, for I've read this sort of statement before. Still, I like to know for sure, so I asked readers to direct me to original sources . . . in English translation, of course. An old friend from my hometown, Jeanie Oliver -- daughter of my old math teacher and surveyor extraordinaire, "the Magnanimous Mr. Jim Scott" -- supplied the directions:

There is only one verse in the Koran that contains a phrase related to suicide: "O you who believe! Do not consume your wealth in the wrong way -- rather through trade mutually agreed to, and do not kill yourselves. Surely God is Merciful toward you." (4:29)

Everything, however, depends on translation of the original Arabic and I had -- after posting my entry -- uncovered an ambiguity:

Thanks, Jeanie. I happened across that one myself after posting this entry. I may blog on it tomorrow, for there's apparently a grammatical ambiguity that jihadis use to their advantage.

But the hadith ought to settle the issue...

I haven't yet come across the hadith against suicide, although I'm assuming that such hadith exist, but I did look into the Qur'anic ambiguity far enough to discover that three different translators have rendered the the expression in Qur'an 4:29 quite differently:

Yusuf Ali: O ye who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves in vanities: But let there be amongst you Traffic and trade by mutual good-will: Nor kill (or destroy) yourselves: for verily Allah hath been to you Most Merciful!

Pickthal: O ye who believe! Squander not your wealth among yourselves in vanity, except it be a trade by mutual consent, and kill not one another. Lo! Allah is ever Merciful unto you.

Shakir: O you who believe! do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent; and do not kill your people; surely Allah is Merciful to you.

These variant translations from the "An-Nisa (Women)" sura of the Qur'an can be found online at the USC Muslim Students' Association website, hosted by the University of Southern California.

I don't know Arabic, unfortunately, but I take it that the ambiguity lies in whether to read the verbal expression as Yusuf Ali's reflexive, Pickthal's reciprocal, or Shakir's transitive. This ambiguity would seem to allow the jihadis some hermeneutic space within which to elaborate a defense of what they call "martyrdom operations" and what we call "suicide bombings."

That still seems odd, however, for most jihadis these days are Sunni Salafis, who usually take as an indisputable point the view that innovation (bid'ah) is utterly forbidden (haram) -- and suicide bombings are surely a radical innovation.

But I suppose that the tactic is useful enough for even Salafis to agree that a little bid'ah never hurt anybody . . . at least, not anybody who matters.

Wiktorowicz on Islamist Suicide Bombings

Suicide Attack . . .

. . . or martyrdom operation?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Wiktorowicz, in his article "A Genealogy of Radical Islam" (Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 28:75-97, 2005), makes some interesting points about suicide bombings.

He notes, for instance, that these began with Shi'ites, not Sunnis:

Like civilian targeting, the issue of suicide bombings or "martyrdom operations" is relatively recent. The use of suicide bombings by Muslims began in Lebanon and was popularized by Hizballah. Tactically speaking, this influenced Palestinian groups. Theologically speaking, however, it is unlikely that Hizballah directly influenced Al Qaeda and the Sunni jihadis because its arguments derived from Shi'ite traditions of martyrdom (and it focused on military and political targets). The real debate about the religious permissibility of these kinds of operations among Salafis, in fact, did not emerge until the mid-1990s and was a response to its widespread usage by Hamas and other Palestinian factions. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," page 92)

Wiktorowicz does not specify, but the first Muslim suicide bombing used against the US was in the 1983 attack upon the US Marine barracks in Lebanon. I don't know the "Shi'ite traditions of martyrdom" that Wiktorowicz refers to, but I strongly suspect that the justification would be similar to that used by Iran to justify sending "Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines . . . . [to march] in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies" (Matthias Kuentzel, "Ahmadinejad's Demons," The New Republic Online, April 24, 2006; republished in SPME). Technically, of course, these children weren't committing suicide, for they're not dying by their own hands, but what of their intention toward dying? This is where the issue lies for those who glorify the so-called "martyrdom operations," as we shall see in a moment.

But first note that this Shi'ite method was initially adopted as a tactic by Sunni Palestinian groups in the 1990s and used in suicide attacks without any real theological justification, nor has any clear theological support ever been provided, according to Wiktorowicz:

What is interesting about the current jihadi arguments about suicide bombings is how little attention seems to be given to constructing a theological argument justifying such attacks. Instead, the vast majority of materials focus on extolling the virtues of martyrdom. Abdullah Azzam's Virtues of Martyrdom in the Path of Allah is a classic example. In it, he elaborates twenty-seven points of evidence about the benefits of martyrdom. Most writings argue that the martyr has a seat in Paradise, avoids the torture of the grave, marries seventy black eyed virgins, and can advocate on behalf of seventy relatives so that they too might reach Paradise. Scholars from all ideological persuasions agree about the virtues of martyrdom. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," pages 92-93)

The emotionally laden emphasis upon the virtues and rewards of martyrdom suggest that a theological problem is being papered over. Not that the question of suicide can be totally ignored:

Since the 1990s, Al Qaeda and the jihadis have been forced to . . . . [ask:] are martyrdom operations suicide? This is critical because Islam explicitly prohibits suicide. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," page 93)

I wish that Wiktorowicz had quoted passages in the Qur'an and hadith supporting this prohibition, for I'd like to see just how specific the prohibition is. He does cite the older generation of Salafi clerics, who tend to oppose the "martyrdom operations" as clear cases of suicide:

Some of the more senior Salafi clerics in Saudi Arabia have argued that these attacks are prohibited. Muhammad Bin Salih Bin Uthaymin (d. 2000), for example, argues that, "as for what some people do regarding activities of suicide, tying explosives to themselves and then approaching disbelievers and detonating amongst them, then this is a case of suicide . . . . So whoever commits suicide then he will be considered eternally to Hell-Fire, remaining there forever." In making this condemnation, the focus is on the act itself: consciously killing oneself. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," page 93)

Wiktorowicz emphasizes here that these opponents base their critique on the action taken, namely, the fact that suicide bombers consciously kill themselves by their own hands. The proponents, by contrast, emphasize the intention of those killing themselves in "martyrdom operations":

The jihadis, however, focus on the intent of the perpetrator. Although he is not as radical as Al Qaeda, Yusuf al-Qaradawi outlines the basic reasoning:

He who commits suicide kills himself for his own benefit, while he who commits martyrdom sacrifices himself for the sake of his religion and his nation. While someone who commits suicide has lost hope with himself and with the spirit of Allah, the Mujahid [holy warrior] is full of hope with regard to Allah's spirit and mercy. He fights his enemy and the enemy of Allah with this new weapon, which destiny has put in the hands of the weak, so that they would fight against the evil of the strong and arrogant. The Mujahid becomes a "human bomb" that blows up at a specific place and time, in the midst of the enemies of Allah and the homeland, leaving them helpless in the face of the brave Shahid [martyr] who . . . sold his soul to Allah, and sought the Shahada [Martyrdom] for the sake of Allah.

Here Al Qaeda shares its view of suicide bombings as legitimate martyrdom operations with less radical, conservative Sunnis. This includes not only figures like al-Qaradawi, but also Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the Sheikh of al-Azhar in Egypt. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," page 93)

The quote comes from our 'moderate' friend, Qaradawi, the Egyptian scholar whom I've previously mentioned and whose defense of the 'self-martyrdom' tactic is summed up in this central distinction: "While someone who commits suicide has lost hope with himself and with the spirit of Allah, the Mujahid [holy warrior] is full of hope with regard to Allah's spirit and mercy." One's intention, it seems, can override the fact that "Islam explicitly prohibits suicide."

I'd still like to see that prohibition, and if any reader has the sources from the Qur'an and hadith, please link to these.