Friday Nasiha

Living The Quran

Suicide Bombing
Al-Nisa (The Women) Sura 4: Verse 29 (Partial)

"... And kill yourselves not, for God is truly Merciful to you."

People who are driven to despair are thus reminded to have faith in God's mercy in the hope that they may be relieved of their suffering. Since suicide is prohibited, anyone who tries to facilitate it, or acts as an accomplice, is also liable to a deterrent punishment that may be quantified by the court while taking into consideration the material circumstances of the case. Commentators have, moreover, drawn a five-point conclusion from this verse as follows:

1. the obvious meaning is that suicide is forbidden;
2. the text also stipulates that 'you may not kill one another' nor facilitate suicide;
3. one may not undertake a task which is likely to cause his own death, even if it be in lieu of a religious obligation;
4. no one should deprive himself of the necessities of life to the point of self-destruction; and
5. the text covers cases of self-destruction regardless of the manner in which it is done.

The manuals of Islamic law are silent on the issue of suicide bombing, a disturbing phenomenon of our time that became frequent in connection with Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially when Israel unleashed a new wave of aggression on the street processions of unarmed Palestinian youth in 2000-1. The aftermath of 11 September 2001 and more recently the horrendous violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, added new dimensions to the incidence of suicide bombing among Muslims.

Suicide bombing in the name of Islam is a 'sociopolitical phenomenon, not a theological one'. And any long-term solution to the problem must also address the causes that have brought so much pain and hopelessness to many Muslim societies.

It would be simplistic to lump the Palestinian suicide bombing with Al-Qaedah terrorist activities. One can hardly deny the genuine suffering of the Palestinian people and legitimacy of their struggle against sustained Israeli brutalities. It would appear equally simplistic, however, to equate suicide bombing with martyrdom and jihad. This is because suicide bombing contravenes two fundamental principles of Islam: prohibition against suicide, and deliberate killing of non-combatants. The argument that proceeds over reciprocity and retaliation is also flawed by the involvement of innocent non-combatants in suicide bombing.

Those who have raised the issue of 'collateral damage' in this context have also exaggerated their case, simply because non-combatants are chosen as the direct target of suicide bombing. They are, as such, neither collateral nor incidental.

The Muslim fighter who is motivated by the spirit of jihad enters the battle, not with the intention of dying, but with the conviction that if he should die, it would be for reasons beyond his control. Martyrdom in Islam does not begin with suicidal intention, let alone the linkage of that intention with the killing of non-combatants.

To justify suicide bombing under the banner of retaliation, or as a form of jihad, is therefore questionable, simply because it begins on an erroneous note, which goes against the essence both of just retaliation and justified jihad.

Compiled From:
"Shariah Law - An Introduction" - Mohammad Hashim Kamali, pp. 283-288

Understanding The Prophet's Life

Human Effort

Ali ibn Abi Talib said, "One night Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) came to me and Fatimah and asked, 'Won't you pray (at night)?' I said, 'O Allah's Messenger! Our souls are in the hands of Allah and if He wants us to get up He will make us get up.' When I said that, he left us without saying anything, and I heard him hitting his thigh and saying, 'But man is more quarrelsome than anything.' (Quran 18:54)" [Bukhari]

This hadith brings out the following important points:

1) Justifying a failure of human effort by referring it to the Will of Allah is a false argument and is therefore unacceptable.

2) All forms of worship require a strong will and a firm determination, so that one can effectively dispense with physical needs, such as sleep, etc.

3) Supplication must be accompanied by human effort and endeavour of a congenial nature. Supplication denotes love, and true love relishes vigil, staying awake, and dispensing with physical comforts like sleep and rest.

4) A true believer looks after his household and brings up his children in accordance with these higher values.

5) Education is by persuasion not by compulsion. We see how the many Quranic verses recited by the Prophet, peace be upon him, to this effect seeped down into the depths of human souls. They will continue to do so, insha Allah, and guide and lend strength to all believing men and women until the very end of time.

Compiled From:
"Freedom and Responsibility in Quranic Perspective" - Hasan Al-Anani, pp. 202, 203

Blindspot!

Shrivelled Culture

There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shrivelled. In the first - the Orwellian - culture becomes a prison. In the second - the Huxleyan - culture becomes a burlesque.

No one needs to be reminded that our world is now marred by many prison-cultures whose structure Orwell described accurately in his parables. Of course, Orwell was not the first to teach us about the spiritual devastations of tyranny. What is irreplaceable about his work is his insistence that it makes little difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous, icon-worship equally pervasive.

What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.

An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan. Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us. But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggle? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?

Huxley believed that we are in a race between education and disaster, and he wrote continuously about the necessity of our understanding the politics and epistemology of media. For in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.

Compiled From:
"Amusing Ourselves to Death" - Neil Postman, pp. 155-163