TOPIC: HARAM OR HALAL? THE ISLAMISTS USE
OF
SUICIDE
AS
JIHAD
Good morning. I'd first like to thank AS
MEA
for this enlightening forum
and the opportunity to present some of my research on the increasing
reliance of lslamists
-also
identified in my paper as
AI
Qaeda and Other
lslamist
Movements-on
the use
of
suicide (Arabic: intihar/ Farsi: Khud
Kushee) attacks as a
legitimate tool
of
"jihad." Secondly, thank you for
attending
our
panel so early
on
a Saturday morning.
As someone who is
Muslim by virtue
of
birth and who grew up in the
Muslim world where I've lived a total
of
almost two decades (18 years to be
precise), I was exposed to Islamic doctrine and scripture during mandatory
Islamic studies from Grades one through ten (an hour a day of
indoctrination) before
I left school in Islamabad, Pakistan. Why
do
I bring
up this personal information? I
do
so because it helps you understand that I
speak from personal experience on Islamic/Muslim mores, customs and
perceptions on the topic of the increasing use of suicide
by Muslim
terrorists that is being justified as halal (legitimate) acts of shahada
(martyrdom) in the name
of the
din
(faith).
The
successful9
/
11
terrorist attacks on American soil from which
America has yet to fully recover as a country, would not have been possible
without the willingness of 19 Arab adherents to the Wahhabist/Salafist
ideology
to commit suicide. They must have been led to perceive this as a
legitimate (halal) act
of
martyrdom by leveraging commercial airliners as
fuel laden missiles to maximize civilian casualties. Disturbing were the
images on
TV
that showed public displays of joy over what came to be
referred to in many parts
of
the Muslim world as "Martyrdom operat
ii
ons"
thus providing a veneer of legitimacy for actions that raise serious ethical
questions
on
what is, and is not, permissible
in
Islam
in
the ongoing jihad
with the Kuffar. This, and other similarly disturbing events such as the
African US Embassy and the
US
Marine Barracks suicide bombings
in
Beirut, the failed attempts of the shoe bomber (Richard Reeves) and the
underwear bomber (Umar Farouk), numerous
Palestinian suicide bombings
in
Israel, Chechen suicide bombings, all relied on the use of suicide_ tactics
in order to gain access, maximize casualties and terrorize the populace.
Given the reliance on suicide as an important tool in the Muslim
terrorists' toolkit justified in the name
of
the din (religion/faith), it is only
logical that these series of events (both successful and unsuccessful
terrorist attacks) lead
us
to ask the question: Does this trend suggest a
favorable perception in the Muslim world on suicide as martyrdom in
general and, more pertinently for the purposes of our discussion today, is
the use of suicide as a
military tactic in war against the Kuffar sanctioned
both scripturally and by the. interpretations/opinions of learned Muslim
scholars
and religious figures, as well as by the Muslim public?
Because if suicide (inthihar/khud kushee) attacks are indeed
sanctioned in
Islam, this has grave implications for U.S.relations with the
Muslim world. If not, then the question is more nuanced: if not traditionally
sanctioned, why are more and more Muslims (to include ulema) not
vociferously and publicly condemning such heinous acts?; Second, why
did
Ayatollah Khomeini as the first prominent Shia cleric and certain Muslim
Sunni ulema like the former Palestinian Grand Mufti
of
Jerusalem, Sheikh
lkrema Sabri and the current Grand Mufti, Sheikh Hussein, declare suicide
attacks
selectively applied to certain kuffar i.e .. the Yehudi (Jews) are halal
(legitimate/legal)
actions of martyrs? Also,
why
aren't these Muslim
scholars
and religious figures not condemning suicide attacks on Muslim
mosques and Sufi shrines which lslamists justify as "martyrdom attacks"
against murtadds (apostates)?
One would suspect/postulate that such "scholars" applying selective
interpretations of
an
act
considered haram in Muslim society, are
reinventing the
religious rules
of
"engagement" vis-a-vis the Kuffar and
perceived
"murtadds." The term, Benjamin Acosta
-a
fellow AS MEA
presenter-- used in his recent
article in the Middle East Quarterly for this
"reassessment" is the "Evolving Islamic Martyrdom" This certainly does
give room for pause.
If the boundaries of what is acceptable conduct vis-a-
vis jihad against the Kuffar and murtadd are shifting towards acts
traditionally considered reprehensible and haram, then there is ample room
for concern in the non-Muslim world.
Since Islam's
inception
in
the seventh century, inthihar/khud kushee
(Arabic/Persian: suicide) has been strongly condemned as being the path
to
eternal damnation in hell and has never been recognized by either the
clerical. nor the. secular establishments as
an
acceptable means to any end,
even if it may
involve a decisive victory over the Kuffar. One reason why
committing suicide is
so
strongly condemned has to
do
with the scripturally
based belief of Muslims that
is
inculcated since childhood that only Allah
has the power to determine one's time on this earth; and, only he
determines when this time is up. Thus, for an
individual Muslim to assert
what is
essentially Allah's prerogative, by taking his/her own life for
whatever reason, is considered sacrilegious and can rightly be viewed as
heretical behavior by someone trying to play Allah. Even the specific use of
suicide as a weapon against the enemies of llslam is condemned as haram.
In
our times, the use of suicide as a weapon of warfare by Muslims
was commenced by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood against the Asad
regime.
It also ended badly for them, when
they
were literally buried at
Hama in 1982 by the Syrian regime. The use of suicide attacks against the
Kuffar began in Beirut in 1983 at the hands of
Hezballah, a Shia Iranian
funded terrorist organization that included blowing up the Marine Barracks
using a suicide bomber in a truck
laden with the equivalent of 12000
pounds of
TNT
.
The impact
of
Hezballah's strategy in the early to mid 80s, which
involved a heavy reliance on suicide bombers, was perceived by Muslims
to
have successfully led
to
the hasty withdrawal of US Forces from Beirut
and was
duly noted by other, Sunni, lslamists. Note how the Americans
responded
to
such attacks, thus emboldening the lslamists vice how the
Asad regime did and not a peep out of the Syrian
Muslim Brotherhood ever
since. Perhaps there are some
- albeit politically incorrect- lessons to be
learned here from what was/is perceived in the Sunni world as a murtadd
(apostate) regime
in
Damascus. Lessons that seem unpalatable to the
Western mind today.
Lessons
learned from the Beirut example, first inspired the
Palestinians (PLO, PFLP & Hamas) after the Oslo Accords, who resorted to
the use of suicide bombings within
Israel as acts of shahada (martyrdom).
Traditionally, the well known cases
of
acts
of
"martyrdom" were those
of
the
Assassin,
an
lsmaili Slhia Sect that was essentially engaged in a defensive
jihad against Sunni leaders who sought to oppress them. However, while
the missions of individual hashashin,
as
they came
to
be called somewhat
derogatorily, were suicidal in nature they did not involve khud kushee
(taking one's on
life). This key distinction between Assassin
of
old and
present day suicide jihadis is a critical one
for
the purposes of discourse on
the ethical. conduct of
war
based on Islamic scripture.
Historically, Muslims have stressed that suicide (the act of taking
one's own life) can never be justified under
any
circumstances. To commit
suicide is to guarantee oneself a place in an eternal, burning, hell according
to
Islamic scripture. Two Quranic suras often cited that forbid suicide:
0
ye
who believe! ... [do not] kill yourselves, for truly Allah has been
to
you
Most Merciful. If
any
do that in rancour
and
injustice, soon shall
We
cast him into the Fire ... (Quran Sura An-Nisa- 4:29-30)
You shall spend in the cause
of
GOD;
do
not throw yourselves with
your
own hands into destruction
..
. (Quran Sura AI-Baqara-2:195)
The unanimous views on discrediting the use of suicide in any form in
the
Muslim world, however, underwent a gradual
re
-examination with the
advent of suicide attacks in Lebanon,
Israel, Britain, the United States and
elsewhere conducted under the banner of Islam. Since the early 1980s,
there has been much discussion between
Muslim ulema and imams on
whether certain types
of
suicide attacks constitute "acts
of
martyrdom" that
ensure a quick entry into paradise. As a
result, there seems to have
emerged a diversity
of
opinions on the topic
of
"suicide" as a military tactic.
Writings on the topic
of
"suicide as martyrdom" have painstakingly sought
Quranic suras, hadiths and the views of respected
Muslim Imams
to
substantiate their thesis that, in certain circumstances, such behavior is
both
legitimate and worthy of reward in the afterlife.
Shaykh Yusuf ibn Salih AI-Uyayri in his book on the subject (The
Islamic Ruling on the Permissibility
of
Self Sacrificial Operations: Suicide
or
Martyrdom?) acknowledges that a person committing suicide due
to
personal reasons is bound for hell-fire. He, however, goes to great lengths
to argue that suicide as "self sacrifice" due
to
iman (faith), and sincerity in
the cause of
Allah, are not haram and, thus, must be encouraged. In his
work, Uyayri makes the
"ends justify the means" case, arguing that the
"majority"
of
scholars permit such "self sacrifice" if these missions attain the
following: a) intention (pure);
b)
inflict losses on enemy; c) successfully
terrorizes them and 4) raises Muslim morale.
To bolster his weak case --in that he apparently could not find/cite
historical. examples
of
"self sacrifice" i.e. suicide attacks, Uyayri appears
to
confuse acts of suicidal bravery (that did not involve self inflicted death) as
somehow being congruent with contemporary
lslamist suicide tactics (that
often
involve large scale casualties of mostly Muslim and non-Muslim
civilians).
Furthermore, Uyayri grasping at straws, cites from the Quran's
Sura Tawbah (repentance) as proof that Allah has extolled those who
sacrifice
themselves:
Verily, Allah has purchased from the believers, their lives
and
their
wealth in return for Paradise being theirs.
(Sura Tawbah: 9:111)
The Grand Mufti of
Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdul Aziz ai-Sheikh, has
sharply disagreed with advocates
of
suicide attacks
to
include Uyayri's
thesis. He
declared it is "strictly forbidden in Islam" and that "the one who
blows himself up in the midst of the enemies is also performing an act
contrary to
Islamic teachings." According to him, "suicide bombers should
be buried without Islamic ritual, and away from other Muslims."
Sheikh Ibn 'Uthaymeen states
on
the website "Fatwa online
,"
when
asked if attacking the enemy by
blowing oneself up in a car was sanctioned
in
Islam:
Response (Ibn Uthaymeen): Indeed,
my
opinion is that he is regarded
as one who has
killed himself (committed suicide), and as a result he
shall be punished in Hell, for that which is authenticated on the
authority
of
the Prophet (PBUH): "Indeed, whoever (intentionally) kills
himself, then certainly he will be punished in the Fire
of
Hell, wherein
he shall dwell forever' (Bukhari # 5778 and
Muslim
#1
09 and 110.
In
December of 2009, a group of Muslim scholars in Pakistan issued
a decree that
declared suicide bombings and terrorist attacks as being
haram:
Suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in
Pakistan are haram.
Offering namaz behind those religious leaders who support suicide
bombings and terrorism in the country is
also haram.
The opposite view is taken by the now Oatar based
Sheik Youssef ai-
Qaradawi,
an
Egyptian clergyman who is considered a respected figure by
many
Sunni Muslims as fellow AS MEA presenter, Dr Joseph Spoerl also
highlighted
yesterday when he informed us about the favorable perceptions
of his Pakistani-American students on Qaradawi's
religious views
a11d
fatwas. While condemning the attacks in the United States, he said rulings
against suicide bombings were issued by "people who are alien to Shariah
(I
slamic laws) and religion."
Supporting Qaradawi on the use of suicide attacks, Sheikh lkrema
Sabri, Jerusalem's
former top Muslim cleric and an appointee of Palestinian
leader
Vasser Arafat, said: "Suicide bombings
in
Israel yes, elsewhere no:
"The issue is decided,'" Sabri has said in an interview. "Muslims believe in
the Day of Judgment and that dying as a martyr
has
its reward - going to
heaven - and that a martyr is alive in the eyes of God." Sabri skirts the
ethical dimensions/questions of conducting suicide attacks on anyone, acts
that were considered
morally repugnant in both
the
Quran and Hadith.
ln
fact, Sabri supported Qaradawi's selective application
of
morality/ethics vis-
a-vis the question of leveraging suicide
as
a weapon, which they defined as
an act
of
"martyrdom .. .
if
it
targeted Israelis." Thus, for respected Sunni
Muslim figures like Qaradawi and Sabri, suicide as a tactic of jihad is
situationally dependent (emphasis added).
When the
Grand
Mufti Sabri was removed from office for constantly
meddling
in political affairs by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas in
July of 2006,. his replacement Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad
Hussein, seen as a political moderate by PA, did not waste time
in
declaring
in
a media interview in October
of
2006 that suicide bombings are
a
legitimate (halal) weapon. "Asked to express his view with regard to
suicide bombing, the new Grand Mufti answered: "It is legitimate,
of
course,
as
long as it plays a role in the resistance." In short, the views of Sabri on
the use of suicide against
Israeli targets are now shared by the current
Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem.
Furthermore, no prominent Sunni Muslim Ulema has publicly
challenged
the Mufti
on
his controversial position on the use of suicide as a
tactic of war which has
traditionally been a condemnable offense per
Islamic scripture and the historical traditions
on
the conduct of war (harb)
against the Kuffar. This status quo on the subject of suicide bombing by a
prominent
Sunni Muslim religious leader
in
Jerusalem only serves
to
bolster the case of the lslamiyyun and their reliance on suicide attacks as a
legitimate tool in a jihad against the Kuffar. It also serves to reinvent the
Islamic historical narrative
on
the subject and, over time, alters the
perceptions of mainstream
Muslims towards the use of suicide as a
legitimate tactic of war. The most damaging, long term, effects of Muslim
ulema reinventing the legitimate rules of engagement in war (jihad) is the
absence of any
ethically
or
morally derivative constraints on the conduct of
war.
In short, the ends come to justify
any
means in the name of the din
(faith).
Notwithstanding such Ulema
-and
the absence of a strong
condemnation of their interpretation on the subject of suicide attacks, the
fact remains that nowhere
in
the Quran, hadith
or
Muslim tradition, has
there been any hint
or
suggestion of selectively permitting suicide attacks
against a specific
people/group. Rather, the understanding has been that it
is prohibited.
A
traditionally strong Muslim antipathy towards relying on suicide as a
military tactic, however, has not appeared to have dissuaded lslamists from
extensively leveraging the use of suicide bombers in their ongoing global
"jihad." How
do.
these Isla mist terrorist groups justify reliance on such
heinous, even
cowardl
y,
tactics
in
the eyes
of
"the Umma"? By citing
contemporary
Muslim clerics like Qaradawi, Sabri and
al
Shuaybi among
others; and by issuing
"statements"
of
their own through their own leaders,
"Sheikh"
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri via its propaganda
efforts on the
permissibility of suicide attacks against the Kuffar and
murtadd as
legitimate jihadi military action.
Given both the nature and the frequency
of
these terrorist attacks, that
heavily depend on suicide bombings and primarily target civilian sites, it is
noteworthy that the
vocal condemnation has not been louder in the Muslim
world;
worse, there are Muslim religious scholars who have even justified,
through the process
of
ijtihad (independent reasoning), that such terrorist
acts against
civilians (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) are not prohibited
in
"jihad."
For example, in April 2002, Sheikh Hamed ai-Aii, a Salafist lecturer on
Islamic culture in Kuwait, clarified in a religious ruling the conditions that
make it
permissible to kill civilians in the cause of
jihad
without violating the
Prophet Muhammad's command prohibiting the murder of women and
children. AI-Aii on the "Participation in War" stated:
Civilians who knowingly take part in combat
or
advise and encourage
others to
do
so, etc
.,
the prohibition against killing them does not apply and
it is permitted to
kill them in war ....
It
should
be
noted that an army involved
in modern warfare also includes soldiers who are non-combatants, some of
whom serve in combat support
roles and without whom conducting a war
would not be possible.
AI Ali
on
"Collateral
damage
to
civilians
during
attacks
on
military
targets":
When
Muslims
are
forced to launch an all-
out
attack on
enemies
or
bomb
them from a
distance
and this
may
cause
the
death
of
women
,
children,
and
other
civilians, it is imperative
to
ensure
that
they
are
not
killed intentionally. However, if
they
are
killed
during
such
attacks, killing
them
does
not
constitute a sin.
Saudi Sheikh
Hamud
ibn
Abdullah
ai-Shuaybi,
was
another.
prominent
ulema
who
actually condoned the suicide
September
11
th
attacks in a fatwa
he
issued
on
September
17
1
h,
2001. Although in
the
minority, in
terms
of
views
publicly
expressed
by
Muslim
ulema, al
Shuaybi
justified his stance
on
the
killing
of
innocents on
two
grounds
: that
under
certain conditions
the
Shariah allows
the
killing
of
innocents in
warfare
and
that
it
was
legal to "respond in kind" since, according
to
him, it
was
the
same
method
of
warfare
used
against
Muslims
by
Americans.
AI
Shuaybi
,
however
, fails to
provide
concrete
examples
of
similar American atrocities
on
civilian targets in
Muslim
dominated regions
and
ends
his
fatwa
by
calling on all Muslims
to
support
the
Taliban
regime
in Afghanistan.
It is noteworthy
that
even Ibn
Taymiyyah
,
the
ideological
Godfather
of
the
lslamiyyun, in his writings
cautioned
against
violence towards
non-
combatants
with caveats:
As
for
those
who
cannot
offer resistance
or
cannot
fight,
such
as
women
, children,
monks
, old
people
,
the
blind, handicapped
and
the
like,
they
shall
not
be
killed unless they actually fight with
words
(eg
,.
propaganda),
and
acts (e.g.,
by
spying
or
otherwise assisting in
the
warfare).
Some
(jurists)
are
of
the
opinion
that all
of
them
may
be
killed, on
the
mere
grounds
that
they
are
unbelievers,
but
they
make
an exception
for.
women
and
children
since
they
constitute
property
for
Muslims.
Furthermore,
there
are
hadith with strong
isnad
chains
that
discuss
treatment
of
women
and
children in war:
It
is
narrated
on
the
authority
of
Abdullah that a
woman
found killed in
one
of
the
battles
fought
by
the
Messenger
of
Allah
(may
peace
be
upon him). He
disapproved
of
the
killing
of
women
and
children.
(Sahih
Muslim#
4319).
It is narrated by Ibn Umar that a woman was found killed
in
one of
these
battles; so the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him)
forbade the
killing of women and children. (Sahih Muslim #4320).
Dr.
Fadl, in his book, A Document for Rationalization
of
Jihad
in
Egypt
and
the World, explains that the motivation behind writing his book
had to do with how
"jihad
..
. was blemished with grave Shariah violations
during recent years
...
. [N]ow there are those who kill hundreds, including
women and children, Muslims and non Muslims in the name of jihad!"
Dr.
Fadl's harsh words directed at
AI
Qaeda specifically attracted considerable
attention throughout the Arabic-speaking world; even members of
Zawahiri's Egyptian
Islamic Jihad group jailed in Egyptian prisons signed
on and promised to end their armed
struggle after Dr. Fadl published his
work.
TO
CONCLUDE: lslamists's Use
of
Suicide Attacks as "Jihad': Haram or
Halal?
While the concept of Jihad in the minds of most Muslims generally involves
a "holy struggle" which leverages the tools
of
warfare; the specific use
of
suicide attacks as a legitimate mechanism to wage jihad has not elicited the
kind of carte
blanche support the lslamists hoped for notwithstanding their
various attempts to justify, in the eyes of fellow Muslims, the legality of such
attacks. Furthermore, what has hurt, and continues to hurt, the
lslamists case
vis-a-vis the
so-called "umma," is the fact that casualties from such attacks
predominantly involve non-combatants and, more egregiously, fellow Muslims.
A layperson's brief examination here
of
lslamist's use
of
suicide attacks
upon unarmed
civilians, within the context of Islamic scripture and traditions,
challenges current efforts both within, and without, the Sunni clerical
establishment
of trying
to
justify such tactics as being both necessary and
sanctioned.
It is indeed ironic to read the justifications of certain Sunni Muslim
scholars and leaders as
to
why, within the current context, suicide and other
such attacks using
lEOs and EFPs in non-military settings are halal
(legitimate) and thus to be supported. Ironic, because those within Sunni Islam
most vociferous about declaring that the Gates of ljtehad (independent
reasoning) are closed, are indeed,
de
facto, implementing this concept in their
current justifications/interpretations.
While, the Wahhabists who have sought
the reopening of these
so-called "Gates," are
not
encumbered by such. self
imposed restrictions as they seek to practice ijtehad and argue that
this
process is reopened in order to bring the umma back to the sahih
(correct/proper) path
of
the Salaf-e-Saliheen
of
the early period. Thus, for
them such hand wringing is
irrelevant: the ends justify the means and suicide
attacks are, therefore, a halal
tool of warfare.
Thank you.
