Is suicide bombing in the Middle East really motivated by religion?
William Hamblin and Daniel Peterson, Deseret News July 11 2015
Suicide terrorism is routinely cited as a parade example of the evils caused by religious fanaticism — or, as some atheists say, by religion, period. But close analysis of the evidence fails to support this view.
The so-called “New Atheists” differ from previous generations of vocal unbelievers (e.g., Bertrand Russell and Antony Flew) by not merely repudiating the existence of God but aggressively denying the moral legitimacy and cultural value of religious faith. They’re fond of citing the great 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully,” he said, “as when they do it from religious conviction.”
And nothing has played so well into the hands of the New Atheists in this regard than the violence associated over the past couple of decades with fundamentalist Islam. It’s believers in God, partisans of the New Atheism observe, who strap bombs to their backs and fly airplanes into buildings.
“For good people to do evil things,” the outspokenly atheistic Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has famously said, “that takes religion.”
Of course, matters aren’t quite so simple as some imagine. Pascal himself, for instance, was a very devoted Christian, and Weinberg shared his 1979 Nobel Prize with Mohammad Abdus Salam, a devout Anglo-Pakistani Muslim who quoted the Quran in his acceptance speech.
But the fundamental problem with blaming religion for suicide bombings may surprise many readers: The data simply don’t support the charge. Not by a long shot.
In 2005, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago published a vitally important book titled “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” It’s based upon meticulous analysis of every suicide attack occurring anywhere in the world between 1980, when modern suicide terrorism began, and 2003.
Pape’s case is factually rich and rigorously argued. “The data show,” he concludes, “that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. In fact, the leading instigators of suicide attacks are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion.”
He continues: “Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective.”
Even in the Middle East, at least half of the suicide attacks between 1980 and 2003 had little, if any, link to Islamic fundamentalism; indeed, many such attacks were undertaken by Communists, secular nationalists and even Christians. The motivations were this-worldly, tied to national liberation. Those who carried them out weren’t impelled by poverty, alienation, psychological dysfunction, hopelessness or a pathological desire for death. On the contrary, by a very wide margin, suicide attackers turn out to have been relatively prosperous, exceptionally well-integrated within their communities, healthy and in no conventional way suicidal. Their acts were oddly altruistic and idealistic, however depraved others outside their community might judge them to be.
Why have we so misunderstood what’s going on? For one thing, we’ve paid disproportionate attention, in a sense, to suicide attacks in the Middle East; after all, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka target that nation’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority, not us. The West has no vital interests there, and little representation, and we seldom hear reports about Sri Lanka on the nightly news. So our sample is skewed. Moreover, although they’ve spoken openly, we’ve paid curiously little attention to what suicide attackers have actually said about their motives and goals.
The fundamental point of Robert Pape’s argument is strikingly congruent with the entirely distinct case made by Graham Fuller in his brilliant 2010 book “A World Without Islam.” We’ve summarized that 2010 book in a previous column: Fuller observes that today’s divisions between the (Islamic) East and the (Christian) West regularly trace the same geographical and other lines that divided East from West long before the rise of Islam in the seventh century (see "Is Islam a primary cause of international violence?" published Sept. 6, 2014).
In other words, what we typically understand to be a fundamentally religious conflict in the Middle East may, at its root, have relatively little to do with religion. And that, if true, has major ramifications for — among many other things — the way in which the United States and the West should conduct their foreign policy in and about the region.
“It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble,” Will Rogers once quipped, “it's what we know that ain't so."
There is no religion that tolerate violence,Oppression nor asking the followers for suicide bombing,Its their own ambition,Revenge,Hatred or propaganda that started it.
There is no religion that can motivate this kind of activity..
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Suicide Attacks (Martyrdom) |
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Are suicide bombings justified or condemned under Islam? |
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Suicide is against Islam. Martyrdom is not. "Suicide bomber" is a derogatory term invented in the West to try and describe what in Islam is known as a Fedayeen or Shahid - a martyr. The point of the bomber isn't suicide - it is to kill infidels in battle. This is not just permitted by Muhammad, but encouraged with liberal promises of earthy rewards in heaven, including food and sex. |
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Qur'an (4:74) - "Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward." Qur'an (9:111) - "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 Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme." Qur'an (2:207) - "And there is the type of man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah..." Qur'an
(61:10-12) "O ye
who believe! Shall I lead you to a bargain that will save you from a grievous
Penalty? That ye believe in Allah and His Messenger, and that ye strive (your
utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons: That will
be best for you, if ye but knew! He will forgive you your sins, and admit you
to Gardens beneath which Rivers flow, and to beautiful mansions in Gardens of
Eternity: that is indeed the Supreme Achievement." This verse
was given at the battle Uhud and uses the Arabic word, Jihad. Qur'an (17:33) "And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except by right" An important verse that is used by Shahid to not only justify their own deaths, but that of other bystanders who might be believers as well. The end justifies the means, with the goal being the defeat of the kafir and the establishment of Islamic rule. |
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Bukhari (52:54) - The words of Muhammad: "I would love to be martyred in Al1ah's Cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred, and then get resurrected again and then get martyred and then get resurrected again and then get martyred." This is why modern-day Jihadists often say that they love death.
Muslim (20:4678) - During the battle of Uhud, Muhammad was desperate to push men into battle. He promised paradise for those who would martyr themselves, prompting a young man who was eating dates to throw them away and rush to his death.
Muslim (20:4655) - A man asks Muhammad "which of men is the best?" Muhammad replies that it is the man who is always ready for battle and flies into it "seeking death at places where it can be expected." (Tellingly perhaps, the next most saintly man in Islam is the hermit who lives in isolation "sparing men from his mischief.")
Muslim (20:4681) - "Surely, the gates of Paradise are under the shadows of the swords." After hearing Muhammad say that martyrdom leads to paradise, a young man pulls his sword and breaks the sheath (indicating that he has no intention of returning) then flings himself into battle until he is killed.
Muslim (20.4635) - "Nobody who enters Paradise will (ever like to) return to this world even if he were offered everything on the surface of the earth (as an inducement) except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed ten times for the sake of the great honour that has been bestowed upon him."
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Each week, there are about ten attempted suicide bombings - all by Muslims. The reason why Muslims are prone to self-detonation has nothing to do with genetics, desperation or suicide. It is the ideology that promotes martyrdom by promising paradise to those who lose their lives for Allah.
A suicide bombing is really an act of homicide. When Muslim apologists in the West say that Islam is against suicide bombings by pointing to the hadith that oppose killing oneself, such asBukhari (23:446), they are being disingenuous. Muslims in the Arab world, who are less concerned about public relations, celebrate and revere suicide bombers, knowing that martyrdom in battle is glorified by their religion. As the Ayatollah Khomeini once put it, "The purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed for Allah."
CAIR's Jamal Badawi, often held up as an example of moderate Islam, says "Suicide out of despair is not acceptable…Giving one’s life in a military situation is different and can be heroic if there is no other way of resisting…Killing civilians should be avoided if possible, but not everyone out of uniform is a civilian.” (One wonders how families of the 12,000 Iraqi civilians killed by suicide bombers would feel about Badawi's armchair analysis).
Another prominent CAIR figure, founder Omar Ahmad, actually praised suicide bombers to a youth convention in 1999: "Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam."
As for the argument that innocent Muslims are often casualties, the prominent Sunni cleric explainsthat "Allah will also accept as martyrs those killed by mistake."
A 2014 fatwa by the mainstream OnIslam.net site states that suicide operations are actually an "obligatory form of Jihad that has nothing to do with terrorism or suicide." They quote Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, deputy chairman of European Council for Fatwa and Research, who calls suicide bombings "a sacred duty carried out in form of self-defense and resisting aggression and injustice. So whoever is killed in such missions is a martyr, may Allah bless him with high esteem." (The same scholar encourages "every Palestinian" to this type of violence for the sake of religion).
Muhammad was quite shrewd in making suicide a crime while at the same time painting paradise in the most prolifically decadent terms - an endless orgy of sex, food, and aesthetic comfort. The frustration of the young believer, who is convinced that such eternal gratification lies just on the other side of death, but is forbidden from attaining it directly by his own hand, therefore comes to think of martyrdom as a relief - particularly if he is deprived of these comforts in life. Given this, it's a wonder that suicide bombings aren't more common than they are.
As a side note: the first suicide bomber in history may well have been Amalda de Rocas, a Christian teenage girl who was captured by the Turkish armies that were sent to conquer Cyprus in 1570 for no other reason than that they were not Muslim. During the campaign, the Muslims slaughtered entire towns (after promising them safe passage) and captured about 2,400 children for transport back to the robust sex slave market in Islamic Turkey.
Amalda, one of the older girls, realized the hell that awaited them and threw a burning torch into a powder keg, blowing up the ship and sparing several hundred Christian children the indignity of sexual exploitation at the hands of the Muslims of the day.
It is probably unfair to compare Amalda's noble and desperate act to the homicidal mass-murder sprees of Muhammad's modern-day Fedayeen, who heap misery onto innocent people simply for the purpose of achieving a gluttonous paradise for themselves... but we thought that it makes for an interesting note.
See also: Killing for Allah to Avoid Hell
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