Salam, Iqbal.

Thank you very much for your question.

Following the tragic September 11th attacks, it has been clarified by our scholars repeatedly that suicide as well as the killing of non-combatants is prohibited in Islam. I do not think it necessary to go into the details here once again.

Your question is: Why are the suicide bombers considered martyrs?

In Islam, a real martyr can be identified only by God; because it is possible in the case of a person who apparently goes out to fight for the noblest of causes to lose his faith in the cause just before he dies. Or it can happen that he wishes for death for an unacceptable reason, perhaps just before he dies. In such a case he is not a martyr. But to the world or even to those who are close to him, he may seem to be a martyr.

Also from the Islamic point of view, a person who fights for saving the life of his brother, unjustly attacked, and dies in that cause is a martyr. Any person, who fights for regaining his birthright to his homeland and dies in that cause is a martyr, as well.

You may ridicule it as a fight for "real estate". But again, if someone fights for his hard earned real estate (I mean "real" real estate) to save it from a marauder and dies in the process, he is a martyr, no doubt.

In all these cases the necessary condition is that he is ready to sacrifice the most precious of his possessions, his life, for the sake of a cause, which is noble from the Islamic point of view. That is, justice, truth, freedom etc. The man who fights to save his rightfully earned property from a robber is fighting for justice, for truth.


I wonder why people cannot understand the nobility and the height of sacrifice achieved by a young teenager who is on the threshold of life, but decides to throw away life like a worthless trifle.

This is especially surprising when so much is heard about the way the Only Son of God who courted death for the sake of saving the world! Of course the Son of God is God Himself and He could have avoided the sacrifice; He could have simply forgiven mankind, His own children. But Christian theologians never tire of explaining to us the Great Love of Christ in that sacrifice. That is the story of the Son of God (in Palestine, surprisingly), not the story of some raw young boy or girl in modern Palestine.

As people who know something of human psychology, we understand that people love life and not death. Then why do these young people seem to love death, more than the modern sybarites love wine?

What is suicide bombing to the media, can be a last ditch fighting tactic adopted by the desperate boy who saw his younger sister or brother blown to pieces by the missiles fired from sophisticated warplanes.

It is the media that makes a person into "a suicide terrorist" or a war hero who sacrifices his life for his homeland. I have read British and American poems glorifying those who died fighting for their homeland. But to their enemies the same heroes were probably "terrorists". Yet, the word was not used in the past; it is a modern coinage.

In short, who is a martyr, who is a terrorist? God has His own unerring balance of justice to decide the issue. On the other hand, we in our own faltering ways will blame each other from the petty point of view of our vested interests.

I hope this answers your question. Please keep in touch.

Salam.

Useful Links:

Who Is a Martyr?

The Palestinian Question

Palestine Holocaust: What Can Religion Offer?

The Biblical Roots of the Palestinian Problem

The Blessed Sanctuaries of Jerusalem

Extremists: Between Motivations and Justifications

When and How to Fight