The Koran: Suicide playbook: Paul Sperry shows how Muslim scriptures glorify death

WASHINGTON – What makes Palestinian suicide bombers tick? Not the Koran, media pundits are quick to say.

They maintain they are martyrs for a political, not religious, cause and are only resorting to such violent extremes to defend against an oppressive Israeli military. The media romanticize the heinous bombings as the desperate struggle of the downtrodden.

Given the alarming toll of innocent Israelis (not to mention Americans) recently slaughtered by Islamic suicide attacks, this is a particularly noxious batch of politically correct swill to swallow.

And those in the media who know better should be ashamed of themselves for peddling it. They are nothing but professional liars. Others too lazy to read the Koran to independently verify the spin of "moderate" Muslim scholars are guilty of intellectual malpractice.

If you read the Koran (the Muslim-approved Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation), you discover that martyrdom is the only known ticket to Paradise for Muslims.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to a former radical Shiite Muslim tell it.

"The only way Muslims can have assurance of salvation and eternal life is by becoming a martyr for the cause of Islam," said Reza F. Safa, author of "Inside Islam."

"To a Muslim," he added, "dying and killing for the cause of Islam is not only an honor, but also a way of pleasing Allah."

That explains how a Palestinian grandmother could proudly pose with her beaming teen-age grandson for a final photograph knowing that just hours later he would strap himself with explosives and eviscerate Israeli "infidels" – and himself – in the name of Allah. This adoring old woman was actually celebrating the boy's imminent death, as if he were about to cross the stage at his high-school graduation ceremony. But to her, a death certificate sealed by Allah meant more than any diploma. She said she was happy – overjoyed that her grandson would soon disembowel himself – because she knew he would be instantly transported to a better place.

Meanwhile, the pubescent grandson dreamed of the carnal pleasures awaiting him in Paradise – "Companions with beautiful, big and lustrous eyes ... virgin-pure and undefiled" – just as the Muslim prophet Muhammad promised in the Koran (Surah 56:22,35-36).

And such Koranic promises explain how the father of another young Palestinian, who set off a bomb on a crowded commuter bus, could gush, "My son will go to heaven" – as if he had just scored the winning touchdown at the homecoming game in front of Ivy League scouts. Most fathers would be bawling their eyes out over such a senseless loss.

Safa says local Muslim clerics recite to such young men the verses from the Koran that promise the reward of Paradise, and all its oddly non-spiritual perks, if they die while fighting the "unbelievers" – Jews and Christians – in the name of Allah.

"'Are you ready for martyrdom?'" the young man is asked. "'Yes, yes,' he repeats," Safa said, explaining the ritual. "He is then given the oath on the Koran."

Of course, the same media pundits who like to pretend Palestinians are fighting a political war for freedom and are only using suicide as a "cheap defense weapon," argue that the Koran forbids suicide. They claim clerics twist the meaning of the salient passages in the Koran to imply martyrdom paves the way to Paradise.

But don't be fooled. Typical of Islam's apologists, they are merely cherry picking verses to try to make the Koran seem less violent than it is.

Yes, the Koran tells Muslims not to "kill or destroy yourselves" (Surah 4:29) – but only when doing so is outside the cause of Allah. Dying for Allah is not viewed as a waste of life.

"When ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks," Muhammad commands in Surah 47:4. "Those who are slain in the way of Allah – he will never let their deeds be lost."

"Soon will he guide them and improve their condition," he continues in Surah 47:5, "and admit them to the Garden (of Paradise), which he has announced for them."

And look at Surah 4:74: "To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah – whether he is slain or gets victory – soon shall we give him a reward of great (value)."

And Surah 3:157: "If ye are slain, or die, in the way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all they could amass."

But cultural relativists among the punditry, such as Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, aren't convinced.

Goodman recently insisted that the Palestinian suicide bombers are merely "desperate" to improve their lot, deluded by the "despair" of their impoverished existence. Some politicians call them "freedom fighters." Over the weekend, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell even compared PLO leader Yasser Arafat to Nelson Mandela.

But if Palestinians are deluded into carrying out such wicked acts, it's not a function of their social or economic condition. It's a function of their faith.

They are deluded, quite simply, by their holy book, which teaches them to "fight unbelievers (Jews) who are near to you" (Surah 9:123) for the cause of Allah.

You never hear of Jewish or Christian suicide bombers for the simple reason the Bible does not encourage murder in the name of God. The Koran does.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, which according to Safa has helped the Palestinians against the Israelis, has this as its slogan:

"The Koran is our constitution, the prophet is our guide; Death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition."

Greater than land or voting rights. Greater than family or love. Above all, death. This is the enemy Ariel Sharon faces. This, sadly, is now our enemy, too.

The Koran literally doesn't make sense. How come no one has brought up the fact that Mohammud was an illiterate pedophile? The bastard married his 6 year old niece and consumated the marriage when she was 9!

... In some pious Muslim circles it is held that worn-out or damaged copies of the Koran must be removed from circulation; hence the idea of a grave, which both preserves the sanctity of the texts being laid to rest and ensures that only complete and unblemished editions of the scripture will be read.

Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries -- they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God.

The mainly secular effort to reinterpret the Koran -- in part based on textual evidence such as that provided by the Yemeni fragments -- is disturbing and offensive to many Muslims, just as attempts to reinterpret the Bible and the life of Jesus are disturbing and offensive to many conservative Christians. Nevertheless, there are scholars, Muslims among them, who feel that such an effort, which amounts essentially to placing the Koran in history, will provide fuel for an Islamic revival of sorts -- a reappropriation of tradition, a going forward by looking back.

... During the next few centuries, while Islam solidified as a religious and political entity, a vast body of exegetical and historical literature evolved to explain the Koran and the rise of Islam, the most important elements of which are hadith, or the collected sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad; sunna, or the body of Islamic social and legal custom; sira, or biographies of the Prophet; and tafsir, or Koranic commentary and explication. It is from these traditional sources -- compiled in written form mostly from the mid eighth to the mid tenth century -- that all accounts of the revelation of the Koran and the early years of Islam are ultimately derived.

... The book's organizing principle is neither chronological nor thematic -- for the most part the suras are arranged from beginning to end in descending order of length. Despite the unusual structure, however, what generally surprises newcomers to the Koran is the degree to which it draws on the same beliefs and stories that appear in the Bible. God (Allah in Arabic) rules supreme: he is the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-merciful Being who has created the world and its creatures; he sends messages and laws through prophets to help guide human existence; and, at a time in the future known only to him, he will bring about the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. Adam, the first man, is expelled from Paradise for eating from the forbidden tree. Noah builds an ark to save a select few from a flood brought on by the wrath of God. Abraham prepares himself to sacrifice his son at God's bidding. Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and receives a revelation on Mount Sinai. Jesus -- born of the Virgin Mary and referred to as the Messiah -- works miracles, has disciples, and rises to heaven.

The Koran takes great care to stress this common monotheistic heritage, but it works equally hard to distinguish Islam from Judaism and Christianity. For example, it mentions prophets -- Hud, Salih, Shu'ayb, Luqman, and others -- whose origins seem exclusively Arabian, and it reminds readers that it is "A Koran in Arabic, / For people who understand." Despite its repeated assertions to the contrary, however, the Koran is often extremely difficult for contemporary readers -- even highly educated speakers of Arabic -- to understand. It sometimes makes dramatic shifts in style, voice, and subject matter from verse to verse, and it assumes a familiarity with language, stories, and events that seem to have been lost even to the earliest of Muslim exegetes (typical of a text that initially evolved in an oral tradition). Its apparent inconsistencies are easy to find: God may be referred to in the first and third person in the same sentence; divergent versions of the same story are repeated at different points in the text; divine rulings occasionally contradict one another. In this last case the Koran anticipates criticism and defends itself by asserting the right to abrogate its own message ("God doth blot out / Or confirm what He pleaseth").

... Puin speaks with disdain about the traditional willingness, on the part of Muslim and Western scholars, to accept the conventional understanding of the Koran. "The Koran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,'" he says. "But if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense." Many Muslims -- and Orientalists -- will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible -- if it can't even be understood in Arabic -- then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not -- as even speakers of Arabic will tell you -- there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on."

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