[Romulus]

Are you saying this "self-martyrdom" is traditional in Islamic culture? I was under the impression that it was something new.

[bvw]

Have to watch my words here so that a fine distinction may be made. As I best understand it, Mohammed started up his religion and many people joined to it as a fight against an extreme level of vice derived from self-indulgence -- booze, women, sex, gambling -- then found in Arabia.

Rather than self-indulgence the Koran promoted self-denial, so as to eliminate or reduce the evil ways aforetime popular.

Self-indulgence and self-denial are however -- in some way -- two sides of the same coin, minted of the self.

The Arabs seem to have an acute weakness in that area -- just speaking to the history then, and the modern history.

I think that weakness for extremes of self-indulgence and indulgent self-denial became to be exploited by a historical stream of people bearing a love for death -- assasination, martyrdom, etc. And that those life-rejecting ideas caught a foothold in Mohammed's teachings.