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To: olderwiser

I disagree. The peculiarity of the post-Qutb re-conception of Islamic martyrdom is the suicide.

Except for ETA-style bombers who call in a warning to get people out of the bomb-target, all bombers are intent on homicide.

Stressing the suicide aspect has the virtue that real classical Muslims, who have not imbibed the dose of existentialism with which Qutb laced his Koranic commentaries, should be revolted by the practice as much as Christians, Jews and secularists are: the Koran does have a prohibition on suicide, with rather graphic descriptions of the torments suicides face in Mohammed's conception of hell.

It is only after Sayyed Qutb's commentaries which owe as much to Sartre as to Mohammed that suicide bombing became regarded as a form of martyrdom among the Mohammedans.


17 posted on 08/21/2006 10:37:37 AM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: The_Reader_David

I'm not speaking about their (muslim radical) interpretations of the phrase. I'm talking about the importance and relevance we should ascribe to these acts of murder.

The fact that they're killing themselves is a tactical reality. For certain targets, they can get in places with bombs strapped to themselves easier than bombing in other ways.

As for the Koran rejecting suicide, it seems vast numbers of Muslims have a different interpretation. Or they themselves don't consider these acts as "suicide", but dying heroically in jihad.


25 posted on 08/21/2006 1:20:32 PM PDT by olderwiser
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