Living The Quran
From Issue: 661 [Read full issue]
Immortality
Al Baqara (The Cow) - Chapter 2: Verse 154
"Do not say that those who are killed in the cause of God are dead; for they are alive, although you do not perceive that."
There is of course the physical suffering in martyrdom, and all sorrow and suffering claim our sympathy, the dearest, purest, most outflowing sympathy that we can give. But there is a greater suffering than physical suffering. That is when a valiant soul seems to stand against the world; when the noblest motives are reviled and mocked; when truth seems to suffer an eclipse. It may even seem that the martyr has but to say a word of compliance, do a little deed of non-resistance; and much sorrow and suffering would be saved; and the insidious whisper comes: "Truth after all can never die." That is perfectly true. Abstract truth can never die. It is independent of man's cognition. But the whole battle is for man's keeping hold of truth and righteousness. And that can only be done by the highest examples of man's conduct – spiritual striving and suffering enduring firmness of faith and purpose, patience and courage where ordinary mortals would give in or be cowed down, the sacrifice of ordinary motives to supreme truth in scorn of consequence. The martyr bears witness, and the witness redeems what would otherwise be called failure. It so happened with Husain on the 10th of Muharram, may Allah be pleased with him. For all were touched by the story of his martyrdom, and it gave the deathblow to the politics of Damascus and all it stood for.
All human history shows that the human spirit strives in many directions, deriving strength and sustenance from many sources. Our bodies, our physical powers, have developed or evolved from earlier forms, after many struggles and defeats. Our intellect has had its martyrs, and our great explorers have often gone forth with the martyrs' spirit. All honour to them. But the highest honour must still lie with the great explorers of spiritual territory, those who faced fearful odds and refused to surrender to evil. Rather than allow a stigma to attach to sacred things, they paid with their own lives the penalty of resistance.
The word 'death' as well as its general concept has a depressing effect. People have therefore been instructed not to refer to martyrs who laid down their lives for God as 'dead', since this might lead to the overindulgance of the spirit which enables people to struggle and make sacrifices in God's cause. Instead, people have been instructed to bear in mind that anyone who lay down his or her life for God has in fact attained immortality. As well as being a statement of fact this also helps to arouse and sustain courage.
Compiled From:
"Imam Husain And His Martyrdom" - Abdullah Yusuf Ali
"Towards Understanding the Quran" - Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, p. 128