[Dukie]

I can see your point regarding the importance of OBL's preserving his image. As such, whatever happens, it must be Allah's will. However, I saw on the thread about Flt 93, among the final night instructions from Atta to the gang was to "shave off excess body hair". Could be that Atta was just a particularly obnoxious fruitcake like the leader of the "Heaven's Gate" bunch or do the Islamists perceive that desperate times call for desperate measures, including shaving.

[Travis McGee]

I think that the pre-martyrdom shaving is part of the islamists cleanliness cult, to purify oneself before facing allah.

On many levels, they really are primitives. This is one reason for the 2nd class status of women: women can never, in the eyes of the fanatics, truly be clean because of their bleeding.