Istishhad
[9] Sunni Islamist figures such as Hassan Al-Banna viewed martyrdom as a duty incumbent upon every Muslim, urging them to ready themselves for it and to excel in the "art of death".
[3] The rise of many martyrs in conflicts spanning regions such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq, and Iran has been accompanied by extensive literature glorifying their actions.
[4][5][6] At least one scholar, Shi'i cleric Sa'id Akhtar Rizvi, writes that while normally when a human being dies, their afterlife "depends on one's faith and deeds", but that "the moment a believer is slain in the way of Allah, his eternal life begins".
[7] The concept has also been described (by Yoram Schweitzer and Sari Goldstein Ferber) "as a means of warfare" that is "part of an overall philosophy that sees active jihad against the perceived enemies of Islam as a central ideological pillar and organizational ideal.
[10] Supporters have also described martyrdom/suicide operations as a military "equalizer" whereby pious Muslim martyrs use their willingness to sacrifice for their faith and their certainty in their reward in the afterlife to counter the Western unbeliever, who has "at their disposal state-of-the-art and top-of-the-range means and weaponry to achieve their aims.
[12] Salafi Jihadi ideologue Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi declared "all-out war" on Shia Muslims in Iraq in response to a US-Iraqi offensive on the town of Tal Afar.
[13] He described his view of the Sunni-Shia conflict in a February 2004 open letter to supporters where he argued for a cycle of attack and retaliation that would "awaken" those Sunnis who previously had not wanted a sectarian war to join his side.
"[15][16]During the colonial era and up to World War II, Muslims in Aceh and Moro (what are now part of Indonesia and the Philippines) used suicide attacks their enemies (principally the Dutch, Japanese and Americans).
[26][27][28][29] During the revolt, the Japanese troops armed with mortars and machine guns were charged by sword wielding Acehnese under Teungku Abduldjalil (Tengku Abdul Djalil) in Buloh Gampong Teungah and Tjot Plieng on 10 and 13 November.
[54] In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the quantity and "innovation" of Istishhad used against civilian and military targets has raised its level of "destruction and fatalities to previously unknown heights",[10] by one estimate totaling 3,699 suicide attacks in 40+ countries from 1982 to 2013.
[56] This began in the 1980s with Shia revolutionaries in Iran fighting off Iraqi Baathist invaders,[57] and Hezbollah's successful expulsion of Western peacekeepers and Israeli's from Lebanon.
[10] Scholars believe the origins of Istishhad attacks in the late 20th and early 21st centuries lie among the Shia of the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran following the invasion by Iraq in 1980.
Among the contemporary ulema, if the great Ayatollah ... Shirazi ... thought like these people [who do not fight for Islam], a war would not have taken place in Iraq ... all those Muslims would not have been martyred.
[67] Some scholars (Ervand Abrahamian) argue that the idea of martyrdom was transform by Khomeini from the traditional Shi'i belief [note 4] of "a saintly act", usually referring "the famous Shi'i saints[note 5] who in obeying God's will, had gone to their deaths";[68] to "revolutionary sacrifice" done "to overthrow a despotic political order";[69] and that Khoemini was heavily influenced by Iranian leftists individuals and groups active in the 1960s such as Ali Shariati, the Tudeh Party, Mojahedin, Hojjat al-Islam Nimatollah Salahi-Najafabadi.
[69] While martyrdom operations did not lead to victory over Iraq, in Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Shia party/militia funded and assisted by Iran, was enormously successful in its attacks.
[58] This "rare victory" over Israel "lionized" the group among Arabs in the region and added to "the aura of Shia power still glimmering amid the afterglow of the Iranian revolution.
[72] Writing in 2006, Vali Nasr states that "until fairly recently" willingness to die for the cause" (with suicide bombing or other means) was seen as a "predominantly Shia phenomenon, tied to the myths of Karbala and the Twelfth Imam".
[75] According to one scholar, Noah Feldman: "The vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice, the formal videotaped pre-confession of faith, the technological tinkering to increase deadliness—all are now instantly recognizable to every Muslim."
Feldman sees a worrying trend in the steady expansion of the targets of Istishhad since its debut in 1983 when successful bombing of barracks and embassy buildings drove the U.S. military out of Lebanon.
From Lebanon and Israel, the technique of suicide bombing moved to Iraq, where the targets have included mosques and shrines, and the intended victims have mostly been Shiite Iraqis.
Not long ago, a bombing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, killed Muslims, including women, who were applying to go on pilgrimage to Mecca.
The rules governing jihad, literally meaning struggle but often called "holy war" by non-Muslims, are covered in exquisite detail in the classical texts of Islamic jurisprudence.
It is considered legally forbidden, constituting a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic tradition, morally an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation".
[87] Other Islamic groups such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research cite the Quran'ic verse Al-An'am 6:151 as a prohibition against suicide: "And take not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by way of justice and law".
In short, there was a future to live for—and they detonated it anyway.Another rationale provided for why istishhad is not against Islamic law is that the civilians caught in the crossfire "were destined to die".
[92] During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah apologized for an attack on Nazareth that killed two Israeli-Arab children—but said the two children should be considered "martyrs".
[97] After the knighting of Salman Rushdie in June 2007, Pakistan's acting Minister of Religious Affairs Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq publicly justified and called for a suicide attack against him.
[99] However, a translation from Al Azhar website quotes him as supporting suicide attacks on Jews in Israel as part of the Palestinian struggle "to strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Islam".
As a reporter for The Guardian notes in an article written during the Second Intifada in August 2001, the Muslim world celebrates "martyr-bombers" as heroes defending the things held sacred.
And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined them (in their bliss), the (Martyrs) glory in the fact that on them is no fear, nor have they (cause to) grieve.Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah?
