Theology and power in the Middle
East: Palestinian martyrdom in
a comparative perspective
MEIR HATINA
Department of Islam and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
ABSTRACT Jihad (holy war) and self-sacriﬁce constituted a formative ethos
for Palestinian Islam in its struggle against Israel from the early 1990s
onward. They became important components of politics of identity, aimed at
infusing metaphysical values into Palestinian life, while also positing a
political alternative to the PLO. This paper focuses on a formative manifesto
titled ‘Readings in the Laws of Martyrdom’ (Qira’a ﬁ Fiqh al-Shahada).
Disseminated by the Islamic Jihad in 1988, the manifesto laid down the
ideological foundations of martyrdom in Palestine. With the passage of time,
Palestinian ‘suicide attacks’ became unprecedented in scale, distinctive
thereby from similar phenomena in other conﬂicted areas such as Lebanon,
Kashmir, Chechnya, Turkey and Sri Lanka. The discussion evaluates the role
of the Palestinian manifesto in the radical Islamic orbit. For this purpose, two
other formative texts are also examined. The ﬁrst is ‘The Absent Duty’, issued
in 1981 by the Egyptian Jihad movement, which was responsible for President
Sadat’s assassination. The second is ‘Manual for a Raid’, issued by the alQa‘ida
organization, containing instructions for the perpetrators of the attacks
in the United States on September 11, 2001. A comparative analysis of the
three texts reveals common themes as well as variations that reﬂect the
particular context in which each Islamic group was active.
A nation familiar with the art of death, and that knows how to die an honorable death, will be
bestowed by Allah a gloriﬁed life on earth and eternal pleasures in the hereafter.1
Correspondence Address: Meir Hatina, Department of Islam and Middle Eastern Studies, Institute of Asian and
African Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: mhatina@mscc.huji.ac.il
Journal of Political Ideologies (October 2005),
10(3), 241–267
ISSN 1356-9317 print; ISSN 1469-9613 online/05/030241–27 q 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13569310500244289
Introduction
Jihad (holy war) and self-sacriﬁce constituted a formative ethos for Palestinian
Islam in its struggle against Israel from the early 1990s onward. They became
important components of politics of identity by interpreting the past through the
prism of the pressing claims of the present.2
The very act of martyrdom in the
name of a superior moral authority delivered the dramatic message that the conﬂict
in Palestine was as much cultural as territorial. Islamic violence against Israel
aimed to infuse metaphysical values into Palestinian life, while also serving as an
effective mode of resistance in a period of a search for peace, thereby positing a
political alternative to the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The
intertwining of religion and politics as impelling Islamic violence was aptly
articulated by the leader of Islamic Jihad, Fathi al-Shiqaqi, in November 1994,
shortly after the establishment of the PA: ‘Without the martyrs we have no life or
history, no past, glory or value. It is they who pave the way for us for the future,
and not the cowards who keep silent, defeatists who trade off the homeland and
sell off Jerusalem’.3
Backed by two scriptural commands—death for the sake of Allah, and the duty
to forbid wrongdoing (nahy ‘an al-munkar)—self-sacriﬁce became a moral code
justifying ‘suicide attacks’4
against Israel. These acts were deﬁned by Islamists
and other local observers as ‘martyrdom’ (istishhad), but were perceived by
Westerners, who had long since ceased to regard religion as a central priority,
simply as fanaticism or, alternatively, as nihilism and self-destruction. The
sharpest critics deﬁned the Muslim who sacriﬁces himself as motivated by a greed
for honor, a desire to retaliate, or a thirst for blood, while harboring a fantasy of
going to heaven.5
Other Western observers held that Islamic violence was not the
result of blind outrage but was a political act that seeks to reshape the world as
more just and equal.6
Whatever the perceptions in the Western intellectual
spectrum, clearly the phenomenon of ‘human bombs’ captured the attention of the
Western world no less than the Arab Muslim world.
This paper focuses on a formative manifesto title ‘Readings in the Laws of
Martyrdom’ (Qira’a ﬁ Fiqh al-Shahada). Disseminated by the Islamic Jihad in
1988, the manifesto laid down the ideological foundations of martyrdom in
Palestine. Islamic Jihad was in fact the ﬁrst movement in the Palestinian arena to
turn Islam into a theology of liberation against Israel in the late 1970s, as well as
the ﬁrst to legitimize the ethos of self-sacriﬁce.7
With the passage of time,
Palestinian ‘suicide attacks’ became unprecedented in scale, distinguished thereby
from similar phenomena in other conﬂicted areas such as Lebanon, Kashmir,
Chechnya, Turkey and Sri Lanka.8
The discussion below evaluates the role of the Palestinian manifesto in the
radical Islamic orbit. For this purpose, two other formative texts are also
instructive. The ﬁrst is ‘The Absent Duty’, issued in 1981 by the Egyptian Jihad
movement, which advocated armed jihad against deviant Arab regimes, laying the
foundation for the assassination of President Sadat. The second is ‘Manual for a
Raid’, issued in 2001 by the al-Qa‘ida organization, containing instructions for the
meir hatina
242
perpetrators of the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.
A comparative analysis of the three texts reveals a commonality alongside
variations that reﬂect the particular context in which each Islamic group was active.
The essay, or manifesto, under discussion, ‘Readings in the Laws of
Martyrdom’, appeared as an appendix to a journal published in Nicosia identiﬁed
with the Islamic Jihad, al-Islam wa-Filastin in June 1988.9
The essay is unsigned.
According to Abdulaziz Zamel, an Arabic scholar at Tampa University, Florida,
who was associated with Palestinian Jihad circles, the author was Misbah al-Suri
and the content was based on lectures he delivered to fellow detainees in an Israeli
prison.10
Al-Suri, a former leftist, became a strict Muslim and thereafter was a key
activist in the military arm of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. He was killed in a
clash with Israeli forces in October 1987. Another possibility, no less plausible,
regarding the source of the essay, is that it was written by one of the two leaders of
the movement, Fathi al-Shiqaqi, or Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ‘Awda.
The essay was distributed in the early stages of the 1987 Intifada (uprising),
with the aim of heightening the momentum of the Palestinian revolt against Israeli
occupation from civil protest to a military operation. Although the extent of the
manifesto’s circulation is not clear, the timing of its publication overlapped with
the forging of a close link between Islamic Jihad and Iran and its prote´ge´,
Hizballah, as a result of Israel’s expulsion of the top Islamic Jihad leadership to
Lebanon at that time. The revolutionary Shi‘a, beyond serving as a source of
ideological inspiration, evolved at that point into a logistic arm for Islamic Jihad.11
This close afﬁnity also engendered new emphases in the rhetoric of the struggle in
Palestine, focusing especially on self-sacriﬁce. These emphases feature
prominently in the essay under review.
Martyrdom: Personal and collective salvation
Alternating between deﬁance and apologetics, the essay aims at molding a new
believer imbued with determination and a sense of mission, going beyond ritual to
an embrace of revolutionary activism. The essay also seeks to formulate a new
agenda for Islamic politics in Palestine and beyond, based on a carefully
constructed ethos of death which relies both on judicial arguments and on the
critical nature of the conﬂict in Palestine. The text opens, pointedly, with a
discussion of the differences between self-immolation (intihar), which lacks any
religious purpose and is motivated solely by a desire for relief from personal
distress, and martyrdom, which occurs in the battleﬁeld and represents the
pinnacle of faith. Self-immolation condemns the perpetrator to endless torment in
hell, while martyrdom grants him the pleasures of heaven.12
Notably, the
prohibition of self-immolation is ingrained in the Islamic ethic, which, like
Judaism and Christianity, preaches the duty to bear suffering and pain, since life is
a gift bestowed by God, with continuity in the hereafter. Since Allah is the sole
authority over human affairs, self-immolation by His creatures constitutes a
blatant violation of that authority, punishable by excommunication from the
theology and power in the middle east
243
Muslim community.13
In contrast, martyrdom is deeply entrenched historically in
the Islamic judicial and communal consensus.
The need to sharpen the divide between these two types of death, which is
reiterated in the text several times, relies heavily on verses from the Qur’an and the
hadith (the Prophet’s sayings). The focus on this issue reﬂected the awareness by
Islamic Jihad of the sensitivity of suicide in Islam and the fear that such acts would
be interpreted as acts of desperation purely as a result of the ongoing occupation.
Such an interpretation would detract from the attractiveness of Islam as a theology
of liberation and as the sole vehicle for the ﬁnal victory. To neutralize such a
danger, and to keep ‘suicide attacks’ within the conﬁnes of sanctity, the manifesto
highlighted two basic elements: the duty of jihad, and the acute nature of the
struggle in Palestine.
The duty of jihad
The manifesto’s reference to the doctrine of jihad is deliberate and insistent, based
on the central position of the notion of holy war in Islamic theology and law. Jihad is
linked to the ultimate goal of reafﬁrming the moral superiority of Islam over other
cultures and sharpening the divisions between Muslims and inﬁdels. Any neglect of
military jihad is tantamount to a grave sin and to nifaq, or hypocrisy, i.e. having
weak faith or even undermining the faith of others.14
In the words of the hadith,
‘Whoever dies without ﬁghting or expressing readiness to ﬁght [for Allah] dies as a
hypocrite’. An extensive body of literature exalting the idea of jihad (fada’il aljihad)
developed over the centuries, transforming it into a symbolic code that could
be evoked at any given moment, and especially in times of crisis and distress, to
awaken fervor for self-sacriﬁce.15
The Crusades in the mid-twelfth century
provided such an occasion. Another was the Mongol invasion in the mid-thirteenth
century. This symbolic element gained vitality and dominance with the declining
position of the Muslims vis-a`-vis the West in the modern era. Once a superior world
power, the Muslim community gradually found itself marginalized, lagging behind
the progressive Western nations and often subjected to their domination. Yet, the
gloriﬁed voices of the past, juxtaposed with the acute challenges of the present,
combinedto produce apolitical revolutionin the formofradical Islamicmovements
such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Typically, the 1988 essay positions jihad as an
inspirational model, thereby paving the way to the link with self-sacriﬁce.
The doctrine of jihad, the essay argues, also deﬁnes the essence of life on earth,
which is not limited to self-preservation and satisfying man’s physical needs but
includes dedication to spreading the word of Allah, which signiﬁes the victory of
truth and justice. The notion of the negligibility of life as compared to total
devotion to Allah is aptly expressed in the manifesto by quoting Khalid ibn
al-Walid (d. 642), the commander of the Muslim armies which brought an end to
Byzantine rule in Syria and Palestine. He observed that the passion to encounter
Allah’s enemies after a freezing night on the battlefront is much stronger than the
passion for the embrace of a young bride on a warm night.16
Total commitment to
an exalted act beyond the mundane realm leads the Muslim martyr to cease caring
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244
about his personal fate and to focus on the meaning of life in relation to a welcome
death. In this sense, jihad for Allah does not contradict the value of preserving
life.17
Moreover, killing others is proscribed by certain restrictions, the essay
emphasizes, quoting the Qur’an: ‘. . . you slay not the soul God has forbidden,
except by right’ (Sura 6: 151). Jihad against the inﬁdels, however, is an exception,
because it is killing for the purpose of promoting ‘a just cause’ (haqq, which is also
synonym for Allah).18
The deﬁnitive test for pleasing Allah is the intention (niya) to become a martyr,
according to the essay. This elevates Islam to a higher moral plane than Western
philosophies, which justify death and bloodshed only for the purpose of gaining
material assets such as imperial expansion, or, alternatively, which sanctify the
value of life over the worship of God. The result is tyranny, exploitation and
selﬁshness, which are avoided in Islam precisely because of the balance it dictates
between preserving life and martyrdom.19
Clearly, Islamic Jihad, as a quasi-military movement that raised the banner of
jihad in Palestine, was not interested in simply maintaining this balance but in
altering it to favor the martyrdom dimension. Martyrdom is exalted in the essay as
an act of worship, parallel to a vow or transaction that must be fulﬁlled as part of
belief in Allah.20
It is placed in the same category as refusing to submit to pressure
to speak heresy, or taking a ﬁrm stand in the name of holy truth against tyrannical
rulers—situations in which the believer knows that such behavior will lead to his
death. As an act of worship, martyrdom exchanges transient life for eternal life. It
bestows the rewards of paradise, such as purifying the martyr’s soul from all sins;
bringing him into the company of the prophets, the just, martyrs, and the righteous;
and ensuring a place in heaven for 70 of his relatives.21
Notably, the sexual
motivation of marrying 72 black-eyed virgins, which captured Western attention,
does not appear in the manifesto, but only in later documents, mainly wills left by
‘suicide’ bombers. Conceivably, this issue was avoided in the interest of
presenting arguments that were more sober and weightier.
Moreover, martyrdom for Allah and for the faith, according to the manifesto,
constitutes not only a personal guarantee of rewards in paradise but also collective
insurance for the emancipation of the political community. As such, the religious
idea was intertwined with pragmatic national considerations, with the martyr
becoming a cultural agent—a symbol of revolution and liberation. In this context,
the text posits a ‘cost-beneﬁt’ doctrine (maslaha) which holds that the welfare of
the public justiﬁes an altruistic personal sacriﬁce. Ironically, whereas Muslim
reformists enlisted the doctrine of maslaha to diffuse sectarian and cultural
tensions as a response to the challenges of modernity, radical Islamists such as
Palestinian Islamic Jihad used this doctrine to reinforce the divisions between
Islam and its cultural environment and to promote revolutionary activism.22
The nature of the struggle in Palestine
Linking individual salvation to collective emancipation paved the way for the
Islamic Jihad to highlight the second element in justifying self-sacriﬁce, namely
theology and power in the middle east
245
the existential nature of the struggle in Palestine in light of an inﬁdel, suppressive
occupier. Depicting the campaign in Palestine as a defensive jihad created a sense
of urgency. As such, the struggle is less subject to the traditional preconditions of
the existence of a caliph; the normative rules of battleﬁeld behavior outlined in
Islamic judicial literature; or the imperative of tactical withdrawal in the event of
inferior military resources vis-a`-vis the enemy. Defensive jihad imposes the duty
of personal enlistment on every believer who is sound in mind and body (fard
‘ayn),23
a duty deﬁned by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) as second in importance only to
the duty of belief in Allah (shahada), and taking precedence over prayer and other
rites such as fasting or pilgrimage.24
This interpretation reﬂected Islamic Jihad’s
aim at widening out the battlefront against Israel.
Reinforcing the notion of the jihad in Palestine as a personal duty for every
believer, the movement quoted extensively from the writings and fatwas (legal
opinions) of the ‘ulama (religious scholars) throughout the years of the ArabIsraeli
conﬂict. As a movement forged in the crucible of the late-twentieth-century
Sunni revolution in the Middle East, Islamic Jihad essentially viewed the ‘ulama
as submissive servants of heretical regimes and as distorters of Islam. However,
the need to generate broad support for the Palestinian cause, and the awareness of
the sustained inﬂuence of the ‘ulama in the Arab public sphere prompted Islamic
Jihad to display a selectively restrained attitude toward them.25
Signiﬁcantly, the manifesto under discussion goes beyond legitimizing acts of
self-sacriﬁce in Palestine on the grounds of defensive jihad, whose aim is
regaining occupied Muslim territory. It upgrades the status of Palestinian territory
as the focal point of the confrontation between the Muslims and their eternal
enemies, i.e. the Jews and the Christians. It is a religio-historical confrontation
over control of the sacred places, especially Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa mosque,
and is even more cataclysmic than the Crusader occupation of the twelfth century.
The existence of a Jewish entity in Palestine under the protection of the West
constitutes nothing less than the axis of an imperialistic scheme to maintain a state
of divisiveness among Muslims. The outcome of the struggle in Palestine,
therefore, will determine the fate of the entire mission to revive and unify the
Muslim nation.26
By elevating the status of Palestine, Islamic Jihad sought ﬁrst to broaden the
Arab-Islamic consensus over the theme of martyrdom, but also to create a strategic
depth of human and material resources to back the Islamic agenda in Palestine—a
stance adopted by Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) as well. The
Islamization of Palestine, however, did not mean rejecting the geographic
boundaries of this polity for the sake of a universal, pan-Islamic vision but, rather,
injecting metaphysical values into it. As such, Palestinian Islam adhered to a broad
thrust in modern Islamic thought incorporating national identity into the religious
discourse.27
The need in the Islamic Jihad narrative not only for heroes but also for villains is
reﬂected in the demonization of the Zionist presence in Palestine and its global
conspiratorial nature. The Zionist enemy, in ‘Readings in the Laws of
Martyrdom’, is portrayed as the embodiment of evil on earth, standing for:
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246
heresy, tyranny and hatred of both Islam and the Muslims. The Zionist presence in Palestine
is tantamount to a cancerous tumor corrupting the entire body of the nation. . . . It is both a
local and a world enemy which partly controls Palestine, while its other parts are spread all
around the world. [The Zionist entity] constitutes a nucleus causing devastation in the
blessed land, while its other arms in the capitals of international imperialism and despotism
provide it with endless military, political, moral and intelligence support.28
The demonization of the Zionist enemy is accompanied by a delegitimation of
those Arab and Muslim elements that neglect the duty of jihad or express doubts
about its validity in the modern era, especially in Palestine. These elements are
silent Satans and even worse. Their avoidance of the struggle against Israel, and
their harassment or blocking of jihad ﬁghters outside Palestine not only constitute
a blatant violation of Allah’s commands, but reﬂect the state of defeatism among
Muslims in modern times. Such avoidance in itself is tantamount to self-
immolation.29
The vociferous attack in the essay against contemporary Arab regimes, inspired
by the revolutionary approach of Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb (executed in
1966), left Islamic Jihad without substantial support in the Arab political arena.
Moreover, the Shi‘ite Iranian bear-hug did not improve the image of the
movement among its fellow Sunni in the region. If the Islamic Jihad deﬁned itself
as a bridge between Sunna and Shi‘a, the movement’s critics in the Sunni world
perceived it as having become a front organization for Khomeini’s Iran.30
The essay moves from disappointment with the Arab political elites to a new
hope for the Muslim masses, who must be awakened and enlisted in the campaign
to liberate Palestine, thereby enhancing their own fragile status in their countries.
The essay plays on the sensitivities of Muslim believers everywhere, emphasizing
that no one who prays facing the tomb of the Prophet and the sacred places in
Mecca and Medina can possibly tolerate what is happening in Palestine. Historical
examples of revolt and heroism against Western imperialism are cited, such as that
of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri in Algeria, Muhammad Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah (the
Mahdi) in Sudan, ‘Umar Mukhtar in Libya, ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi in
Morocco, and ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam in Palestine. The involvement of the Muslim
Brotherhood under Hasan al-Banna in the 1948 war is also mentioned as an
antithesis to the current impotence of his reformist followers in the Arab world. If
the essay encourages religious fervor, it emphasizes realpolitik no less.
A general enlistment of the Muslim world to join the struggle in Palestine is
acknowledged as impractical. The main burden, therefore, at least in the initial
phase, must fall on the Muslims of Palestine, the essay points out.31
They are
required ‘to display as much [ﬁghting spirit] as they can, standing fast and
defending the sacred places and the Islamic identity’. They must adopt varied
methods of resistance, both armed and unarmed. Some Palestinians will gather in
the streets raising the banner ‘There is no God except Allah’. Others—the
children, girls and women—will throw stones. The armed men will conduct
the military struggle. All this must be carried out with deep faith and conviction in
the readiness for self-sacriﬁce. ‘Those who ﬁght for Allah’, the essay says, ‘are
theology and power in the middle east
247
buying the hereafter in exchange for the worldly life’, and, quoting the Qur’an:
‘Whosoever ﬁghts in the way of God and is slain, or conquers, we shall bring him
a mighty wage’ (Sura 4: 74).32
‘The Army of the Shrouds’33
: Operative and symbolic dimensions
The essay, in addition to laying down the moral justiﬁcation for sanctifying acts of
self-sacriﬁce in Palestine, deﬁnes operative guidelines. While not disqualifying
armed attack against the enemy by gunﬁre or hand grenades, it argues that since
the enemy can seal off areas, thereby preventing the return of ﬁghters to a safe
place, they must continue ﬁghting until death. Clearly, the essay gives primacy to
‘suicide attacks’. The implication in practice is that these acts constitute a vital
frontal encounter with the enemy, combining the element of surprise with
determination.
Such acts can be accomplished by driving a booby-trapped car, by penetrating
a public building carrying arms, or by strapping explosives onto one’s body
(a ‘human bomb’). This type of combat is necessary, and, more important,
effective. It causes multiple casualties and creates public demoralization within
the enemy ranks, an optimal combination in any strategy for violence. By contrast,
using roadside bombs and preparing escape routes exposes an operation to failure,
given the high state of alert of the enemy forces. Even if the enemy might not
manage to neutralize a planted bomb, it can evacuate people in time. Moreover,
the success of the roadside bomb operation does not guarantee maximal damage to
the enemy forces. This analysis implies a criticism of the armed struggle
conducted by the PLO against Israel, which the Islamic Jihad viewed as a
conventional struggle that lacked creative thinking or daring. It was dependent on
a continuous supply of weapons and combat materials, and enabled the enemy,
with its superior operational capabilities, to neutralize it to a considerable degree.
The Palestinian struggle, the essay states, requires rejuvenation, which only the
weapon of jihad and self-sacriﬁce has the power to provide.34
Elsewhere, the
Islamic Jihad cited the virtue of self-sacriﬁce, in causing maximal fatalities in
the ranks of the enemy, as transcending the gloomy reality in which Muslims are
among the most depressed people on earth, lagging behind badly in the realm of
science and technology.35
Positioning the ‘human bomb’ as an alternative to the
‘conventional bomb’ implied the positioning of Palestinian Islam as an ideological
and political alternative to the PLO.
In depicting the importance of the ‘human bomb’ as a product of special
circumstances and as compensation for the inferior military capability of the
Palestinians, the Islamic Jihad, along with Hamas, sanctiﬁed ‘suicide attacks’ as a
means toward an end. Neither movement perceived it as a norm but rather as a
circumscribed tactic that could be delayed or postponed in favor of other means of
combat when necessary. This operative ﬂexibility was aptly expressed in an
internal Hamas document responding to the hard line adopted by the PA against
the movement following the wave of suicide attacks in Israeli cities in FebruaryMarch
1996. The document stated explicitly:
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248
Should we be required to halt the ‘suicide attacks’ based on the argument that they harm the
Palestinian cause, we will be forced to intensify our communal activity, to penetrate all the
strata of society and take ﬁrm hold of them. . . . We will have to heighten our preaching
against the Jews and their nature and enhance the praises of death in the service of Allah.36
This and other sources revealed the calculated use of the suicide weapon
depending on circumstances, a feature that led one scholar to label its dispatchers
‘rational fanatics’.37
The fact that the perpetrator’s fate a priori is death with no possibility of
withdrawal or survival, so as to ensure the success of the operation, impelled the
Islamic Jihad movement to vigorously rebut possible criticism over the suicidal
nature of such a measure. The essay argues, ﬁrst, that there is no escape from
death, as stated in the Qur’an: ‘Surely death, from which you ﬂee, shall encounter
you’ (Sura 62: 8). There can be nothing more joyous and fulﬁlling than to meet
death on the battleﬁeld ﬁghting the enemies of Allah.38
Second, and more
importantly, the very preaching of jihad entails advocating self-sacriﬁce. A study
of the jihad march of the Prophet and of believers throughout Islamic history
reveals a distinction between three levels of self-sacriﬁce when confronting the
enemy. The ﬁrst level is when the chances of dying or of surviving are equal, and
‘the combatant earns either martyrdom, or honor as a hero returning from war’.
The second level is when the probability of dying is greater than of surviving, due
to the material and military advantages of the enemy, which requires ﬁercer and
more unconventional ﬁghting. The highest level is when death is certain and the
combatant approaches it imbued with the conviction that he will enter heaven.
This last level is the most favorable, in the view of the Islamic Jihad, and the one
promoted by the movement within the Palestinian community. It involves an
operation in which the combatant or combatants carry out an assault that
destabilizes the enemy and engenders hope in the hearts of Muslims. Moreover,
the loss of life for the Muslim camp is much less than for the enemy camp.
In this context, the essay cites two heroic historic accounts of self-sacriﬁce. The
ﬁrst concerns Abu ‘Ubyad ibn Mas‘ud (d. 635), who threw himself under the feet
of the elephants of the Sasanian army to cut their bellies, inspiring other Muslims
to follow suit. The second account is about al-Bara’ ibn Malik (d. 641), who broke
into the gate of a garden where a group of inﬁdels had taken shelter, thereby
enabling his fellow Muslims to enter the place and wipe them out. Ibn Mas‘ud, ibn
Malik and other such martyrs restored the self-conﬁdence of Muslims in times of
crisis during the early history of Islam. Their role, the essay argues, is the same as
the role of those at present who wear explosive belts and blow themselves up. Both
provide the human bridge upon which Muslims march to victory.39
Their real
weapon is faith, and thereby they symbolize what Mark Juergensmeyer has termed
‘divine power’.40
The inﬂuence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, especially the credo of one of its
main ideologists, ‘Ali Shari‘ati, is also evident in the promotion of conscious
death. Shari‘ati deﬁned the ultimate category of martyrdom as that in which the
believer walks toward death deliberately in order to convey the message of
theology and power in the middle east
249
sacriﬁce for the faith and for the oppressed on earth in the most effective way
possible. In Shari‘ati’s view, Husayn ibn ‘Ali, founder of the Shi‘a, was the model
for this ultimate death when he faced the superior Umayyad army at Karbala
(680).41
In modern Shi‘ite martyrology and in its exemplar, Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
the perpetrator is seen as a candle illuminating the darkness of tyranny, thereby
serving as a ‘pedagogic object’ parallel to Christian saints in the medieval period,
whose elevated moral status provided an example for the living. In both historical
contexts, Christian and Islamic, death was perceived not as a tragedy but as an
exalted ideal by which the martyr demonstrates his community’s unshakable faith
and challenges the superior power of the enemy. However, while the Christian
martyr is a hero by virtue of a passive act—death by persecutors and torturers, the
Muslim martyr is a hero by virtue of an active, self-initiated act as beﬁtting a
victorious religion such as Islam in its formative stage.42
The glory of self-sacriﬁce in classical Islam was highlighted and molded into a
contemporary political ethos aimed at arousing loyalty to the Islamic Jihad and its
platform. The production of a large body of hagiographical literature entrenched
martyrs in the public memory, depicting them as vital to the nation’s past and
future while paving the way for the martyrs’ movement to gain communal
inﬂuence.43
A contributing factor was the strong presence of an ethos of selfsacriﬁce
in Palestinian historiography and terminology, including in the secularleftist
factions of the PLO. The religious notions of jihad (holy war) and shahid
(martyr) were closely intertwined with such modern secular symbols of struggle as
thawra (revolution) and ﬁda’ (sacriﬁce), forming a broad semantic reservoir
familiar to all Palestinians regardless of ideological inclination.44
‘Readings in the Laws of Martyrdom’, while eschewing the claim that
martyrdom has the power to drive the enemy out of Palestine, perceives it as
offering the Palestinians compensation for their inferior tangible capacities and
revealing their moral assets. Symbolic empowerment infuses a weak society under
the control of others with the fortitude to ensure its cultural and collective survival
by sacriﬁcing individual lives if necessary. Reaching this stage signiﬁes the
transformation of the society into an independent entity capable of controlling its
destiny.45
Self-sacriﬁce creates a social covenant legitimized by blood alongside
the expectation of salvation, while at the same time causing humiliation to the
enemy. Humiliation, which is one of the goals of war, instills the fear of Islam in
its enemies while restoring the dignity of the believers.
Citing a historical proof of such determination and devotion, the essay refers to
the successful struggle of the Muslims against the Crusader invaders in the twelfth
century despite the imbalance of power and weaponry between the two sides. The
modern era, according to the essay, has ushered in even greater difﬁculties for
Muslim ﬁghters, not only because of the strength and cruelty of the enemy (Israel)
and its patrons (the West) but also because of the disunity and rifts among the
Muslims. Nevertheless, in keeping with the deterministic outlook of the Islamic
Jihad (and Hamas), victory is assured even if it takes a long time to come, for it is
predestined, as written in the Qur’an. The struggle is essentially a Manichean one
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between truth and falsity, with the former destined to gain the upper hand. Until
this aspired turning point is reached, the individual must focus on improving
collective morality and heightening ongoing sacriﬁce.46
The issue of attacking civilians
A ﬁnal point regarding the manifesto relates to the issue of attacking civilians,
which became the focus of the Palestinian suicide attacks, as well as of the public
discourse about them, from the mid-1990s onward. However, the text itself, which
was disseminated in the early stages of the ﬁrst Intifada, deals with ‘suicide
attacks’ against Israeli security forces and settlers. Civilians—women and
children—are not mentioned. In one place, the essay actually emphasizes the
difference between planting a roadside bomb, which might miss the military target
or hurt women and children, and a ‘human bomb’, which never misses its target.47
This exclusion of women and children may be attributed to religious constraints
but also to the inﬂuence of modern Shi‘ite martyrology, exempliﬁed both in the
Iran-Iraq War and in the Hizballah guerrilla war in Lebanon, which targeted
military forces only.
Nevertheless, a theological foundation for the possibility of attacking Israel’s
civilian sector does exist in the essay: ﬁrst, in citing the Qur’an that one of the
goals of war is to cause demoralization in the enemy’s ranks, deﬁned as a vital
condition for victory; and, more importantly, in projecting defensive jihad and
death for the sake of Allah as a norm that applies in any time or place.
How jihad is implemented in battles against inﬁdels falls into the category of
al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya, that is, subject to political considerations.
The original meaning of al-siyasa al-shar‘iyya refers to the prerogative of
the Muslim ruler to run the affairs of state, including in times of war.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, however, shifted this prerogative to the Muslim
public at large and to its vanguard, the Islamic movement, in light of the presence
of an inﬁdel occupier in the land. They are ‘required to defend their land with
all the means and the power at their disposal’. The imperative of defensive jihad,
and the absence of concrete guidelines as to how to conduct it, enabled an
expansion of the scope of warfare to include non-combatants within the concept of
enemy forces.48
This implicit theological basis for attacking civilians allowed for
implementation whenever circumstances were deemed to require it. In the
Palestinian context, such circumstances were created when the momentum of
the peace process reached a peak with the Oslo Accords and the establishment of
the PA in 1993–1994. Harming of civilians was justiﬁed by the argument that
Israeli society was militaristic in essence. Women, the aged, workers, farmers
and others take part in Israeli war efforts by incitement, or the provision of
material and moral support. Moreover, they inhabit stolen Muslim land and are
prepared to defend it. Babies and small children are immune, but the harm
that befalls them is part of a necessary calculated risk. Their fate is similar to
that of Muslims who serve the enemy as human shields against Muslim attack.
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If the possibility of harming a Muslim is permissible, then it is all the more
permissible in the case of inﬁdel children.49
Even without explicitly touching on the question of attacking civilians, the
manifesto transforms self-sacriﬁce into a moral code that legitimizes ‘suicide
attacks’ and depicts their perpetrators as martyrs to be imitated. A succinct
summary of the rationale for such acts is to be found toward the end of the essay:
[‘Suicide attacks’] restore the awe of Muslims after a long period of weakness and slackness
and stimulate a growing number of new warriors to seek jihad for Allah. This is a blessed
grace that empowers one or two ﬁghters to actualize all this in one stroke, thereby reviving
the nation’s spirit of self-sacriﬁce and bringing the day of victory closer. . . . These acts
revive the spirit of Muslims and imbue them with pride in the power of Islam to position
Allah’s words as supreme. He who charges forward does so not to escape life in desperation
in the face of difﬁculties, or to kill himself. On the contrary, he is a devoted warrior . . . who
sells his soul to Allah and earns martyrdom for the victory of Islam and the defeat of its
enemies on earth. His aspired goal is to enter heaven and be close to the prophets and
the righteous.50
This revolutionary message was enhanced by other material published by the
Islamic Jihad movement, especially its ofﬁcial organs, al-Islam wa-Filastin
(Nicosia) and al-Mujahid (Beirut). These publications revealed that the
martyrology concept had widened out to extend beyond the battleﬁeld and into
the interrogation rooms of the enemy. In two essays, one published in September
1988 and the other in early 1990, the movement preached sustained endurance to
captured Muslim ﬁghters in the face of torture, mental abuse and threat to life,
based on the religious concept of patience and fortitude (sabr). In the words of the
Qur’an, ‘and know that God is with the god-fearing’ (Sura 2: 194).51
Captivity,
the movement explained, is merely an entry into a new and critical stage in the
confrontation with the vicious enemy. Even though the captive does not carry a
weapon and is unable to ﬁght physically, he still possesses ﬁrm faith and spiritual
strength. Spiritual stamina contains the key to victory over the enemy, who by
means of intensive interrogations hopes to extract intelligence about the
operational secrets of the movement.52
While the Israeli interrogator is perceived
as merely doing his job, the Muslim captive is portrayed as bearing a historic
mission inspired by a long tradition of self-sacriﬁce. He must never surrender or
break down. The hereafter is more important to him than the mundane world and
his sole aspiration is to be a martyr. For the captive Muslim, Allah, the Prophet and
jihad are more beloved than his children, women, or the pleasures of life.
Therefore, he must never confess.53
Ethos and Politics
While by the late 1980s Islamic Jihad had crossed a theological and moral
threshold by internalizing martyrdom as a social norm, Hamas remained a step
behind, although it had no problem in using violence against Israel as part of its
struggle against an inﬁdel occupier. Hamas did not initially adopt the ethos of
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death developed by the Islamic Jihad. The Hamas movement, which sprang from
the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1987, had a
strongly communal orientation (da‘wa). Its covenant, published in August 1988,
i.e. two months after the appearance of the Islamic Jihad’s ‘Readings in the Laws
of Martyrdom’, conﬁned itself to a general statement about the duty of jihad to
liberate Palestine combined with other means of struggle, predominantly
preaching and education.54
The Hamas covenant does not mention the notion of
self-sacriﬁce for Allah. It also contains no reﬂection of the impact of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran, a vital source of inspiration for the Islamic Jihad, especially on
the issue of martyrdom. Apparently, the historic animosity between the Sunna and
Shi‘a, exacerbated by Khomeini’s deviation from his ecumenical and pan-Islamic
attitude in the early 1980s, kept Hamas out of the Iranian fold.55
Hamas’ political rhetoric spoke of the ‘revolution of the stones’, i.e. using
stones, knives and guns to target mainly soldiers and settlers. ‘Suicide attacks’
were introduced into the movement only in 1993, impelled by the political
context—the Oslo Accords. The massacre of 29 Arabs in Hebron perpetrated in
April 1994 by Baruch Goldstein, a settler, reinforced religious approval for the
phenomenon of ‘suicide attacks’ and removed the remaining barrier to attacking
Israel’s civilian population, based on the Qur’anic principle of an eye for an eye, or
reciprocity (Sura 2: 194).56
Ultimately, the ethos of death was gradually infused into Palestinian
consciousness through intensive indoctrination and occasional ‘suicide attacks’
by both Islamic Jihad and Hamas during the 1990s. It was Hamas that took the
lead, by virtue of its organizational ability and its claim to Palestinian leadership.
The Islamic Jihad, a small, quasi-underground organization, lagged behind the
larger movement. By the time the al-Aqsa Intifada erupted in September 2000,
self-sacriﬁce had become canonized and was a prominent feature of the Intifada,
adopted as well by nationalist factions identiﬁed with the PA. These factions
recognized not only the national tenacity of this ethos, but also its power as a
political lever vis-a`-vis the Islamic elements in the struggle over Palestinian public
opinion. ‘Suicide attacks’ were depicted as the Palestinians’ daily bread, and their
perpetrators were gloriﬁed as writing a new chapter in the history of their nation
and restoring its lost dignity with their blood and souls.57
On a more personal
level, the heroic death of the perpetrators also enhanced the social prestige of their
families and granted them material support.
An important pedagogic medium for transmitting the legacy of death were the
written and video-recorded wills left by the perpetrators, which brought
the ideological platform of Palestinian Islam onto the street and into the living
rooms of the public. The content of the wills projected a message of power,
determination and commitment to the Islamic and Palestinian causes, highlighting
the altruistic rather than personal motives of the perpetrator. These motives were
aptly summarized by a will left by Jamal ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nasir, a young Hamas
activist from Nablus, dated July 2001: ‘In the name of Allah, the reasons that
impelled me to this kind of act are: ﬁrst, love for Allah and martyrdom; second,
love for the al-Aqsa mosque and Palestine and the will to protect them; and third,
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the will to revenge the blood of the martyrs in times when Arab and Muslim
leaders have ceased defending Palestine’.58
Notably, the martyrs’ messages often
contained exhortations to follow a religious life style and perform the prescribed
prayers so as to redeem society of its sins. Their wills thus became instruments of
preaching and social puriﬁcation.
The Palestinian ethos of death gained the blessing of Islamic and other circles in
the Arab Islamic world, which provided it with theological depth and moral
sanction. The voices of Muslim critics, who deplored ‘suicide attacks’ as pure
violence and unﬁt for reward in paradise, were also heard, but remained marginal
due to their small number.59
Self-sacriﬁce in radical Islam: A comparative analysis
In positioning the Palestinian manifesto under review—‘Readings in the Laws of
Martyrdom’ (1988)—in a comparative perspective, two other formative texts in the
radical Sunni thought are instructive. The ﬁrst is ‘The Absent Duty’ written in 1981
by Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, the ideologist of the Egyptian Jihad group
responsible for President Sadat’s assassination that year. The second is ‘Manual for
a Raid’, attributed to Muhammad ‘Atta, who commanded the al-Qa‘ida’s hijackers
in the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. A comparative analysis
reveals common themes as well as variations that reﬂect the particular historical and
political context in which each Islamic group was active.
The Egyptian jihad movement and ‘The Absent Duty’
The waves of religious revival that swept over the Middle East in the early 1970s
heralded widespread disillusionment with the failure of political elites in the
region to attain national viability and to alleviate social distress by such Western
formulas as liberalism and socialism. In Egypt, this was reﬂected in ideological
extremism fueled by the broader latitude granted to Islamic activity by President
Sadat in order to reinforce his status vis-a`-vis his Nasserist and leftist rivals.
Sadat’s emphasis on his commitment to implement religious law (the shari‘a), and
the expansion of religious content in the educational curriculum and the media,
fostered expectations for the creation of a new political order based on Islam.
Later, Sadat’s efforts to retreat from this religious line, and limitations he imposed
on the Islamists’ activity, antagonized them. Some Islamists turned to violence and
established radical organizations. The most prominent of these was the Jihad
movement.
The Egyptian Jihad movement was established in 1977, centered primarily in
Alexandria, Cairo and Asyut. Its membership consisted mainly of students from
marginalized urban sectors of society, as well as a number of non-commissioned
army ofﬁcers. Its ideological platform was inspired at ﬁrst by Shaykh ‘Umar ‘Abd
al-Rahman, and, after he left for a rival group, by Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam
Faraj, largely based on the booklet he wrote in 1981, ‘The Absent Duty’
(al-Farida al-Gha’iba).60
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An engineer by profession, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, belonged to the
second generation of Sunni radicals who followed Sayyid Qutb, Fathi Yakan,
Sa‘id Hawwa and other founders of radical Islam in the 1960s. Faraj’s booklet,
‘The Absent Duty’ discusses the obligation of jihad and the fact that it is ignored in
modern times, a development which resulted in the decline of Islam, in his view.
Reafﬁrming the classical concept of jihad against the inﬁdels, Faraj goes one step
further—a revolutionary step—in linking external jihad to domestic jihad against
hypocritical rulers who demonstrate only nominal loyalty to Islam and enforce
heretical Western laws. Applying history to the present reality, Faraj sees a
common link between the Mongols of the thirteenth century and the contemporary
Arab rulers in their deviation from Islam, and thereby meriting merciless
punishment by armed jihad. Neglecting this duty, Faraj asserted, is tantamount to
self-immolation.61
Moreover, Faraj is not content with defying the Sunni taboo of forbidding revolt
against a Muslim ruler, even an unjust one, for fear of civil strife. He also criticizes
the modus operandi of other Islamic trends in their efforts to establish the aspired
theocratic state, mainly the emphasis on communal activity by the Muslim
Brotherhood, and the disengagement from society of the al-Takﬁr wa’l-Hijrah
(Atonement and Holy Flight) movement. According to Faraj, an emphasis on
communal activity reinforces the legitimacy of a heretical regime, while
withdrawal from society results in the extinction of its adherents. The correct
strategy is a relentless war from within against the existing order of the state, for
example by penetrating the army, as in the case of Sadat’s murder.62
In Faraj’s view, jihad for Allah allows the use of various means, to be
determined by the judgment and needs of the believers. The violence involved is
not sweeping violence but rather is focused and subject to moral restrictions.
In special circumstances, such as night attacks, jihad allows for the possibility that
persons related to the targeted victim might be injured or killed.63
However,
innocent civilians who have no connection to a targeted victim cannot be attacked
under any circumstances, especially women, children and the aged.64
Support for
refraining from harming civilians was provided by Faraj’s follower, Ayman
Zawahiri, who in memoirs published in 2001 stated that the Jihad movement
always made sure to warn people close to those in power who were targeted for
assassination. In cases where civilians were harmed, he pointed out, his movement
offered the payment of blood money (diya) to their families.65
The perpetrator, Faraj argued, is committed to ﬁght until the death, although his
primary mission is to attack and kill without exposing himself to deliberate death.
If he dies, his death is considered to be the result of an act of jihad. If he has the
choice of surrendering or ﬁghting to the end, he must choose the latter option.66
Based on Ibn Taymiyya, Faraj sanctioned a situation in which a believer penetrates
the inﬁdel ranks in the knowledge that he may die, but the act will beneﬁt
Muslims.67
However, Faraj clearly does not refer to the type of ‘human bomb’ in
which the perpetrator deliberately kills himself ﬁrst, which then causes death to
others. His relatively restrained position reveals moral reservations based on the
theological prohibitions both of self-immolation and of killing innocent people in
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societies that were, after all, Muslim, even if they had strayed from the authentic
faith. This largely conformed to the religious principle that a sinful Muslim is still
a Muslim: he has reneged on the duty to fulﬁll Allah’s instructions and has failed
to resist temptation, yet his sin is less severe than that of a heretic who a priori and
publicly rejects Allah’s path.68
Translating these ideas into action, religious violence in such countries as Egypt
and Syria in the 1970s and 1980s took the form of conventional armed attacks
aimed at symbols of the state (the army, governmental ofﬁcials, and at times the
religious establishment). Underlying this violence was the inherent assumption
that taking power begins from above in a political coup d’e´tat.69
Civilians were
excluded from the range of harm. Scattered episodes of Islamic violence against
religious minorities in Egypt and Sudan, and against Muslim civilians in Algeria,70
revealed that domestic jihad had become a religious ritual, akin to prayer and
fasting, but it was not death worship or indiscriminate killing.71
The implications of implementing domestic jihad against heretical regimes
meant deferring the liberation of Palestine to the distant future. Faraj deﬁned this
explicitly by explaining that the battle against the enemy at hand must take
precedence over ﬁghting the enemy further away, namely Israel, as stated in the
Qur’an: ‘O believers, ﬁght the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them ﬁnd in
you a harshness’ (Sura 9: 123).72
This assertion reﬂected yet again the localization
of the Islamic agenda, focusing on enhancing the Islamic character of each
separate Arab polity. Signiﬁcantly, two ideological Islamic movements that ran
counter to the localization of the Islamic cause were essentially unsuccessful. One
was the Islamic Liberation Party that sprang up in Jordan in the 1950s and called
for the restoration of the pan-Islamic caliphate. This movement remained marginal
in Islamic politics.73
The second was the pan-Islamic ideology advocated by
Khomeini in the early 1980s, which evoked indifference and even hostility on the
part of Sunni radicals. This rejection was attributable not only to the Shi’ite
character of Khomeini’s revolution but also to the zealous devotion of Sunni
Islamists to preserving their status in their respective countries.74
An updated version of pan-Islamism, that of al-Qa‘ida, was also marginalized in
Islamic discourse. This leads to a look at the third radical text, ‘Manual for a Raid’,
which contains instructions for the perpetrators of the attacks in the United States
on September 11, 2001, and is attributed to Muhammad ‘Atta.75
Al-Qa‘ida and ‘Manual for a Raid’
The emergence of al-Qa‘ida in the late 1990s introduced a new dimension in
revivingthe notion of global jihad from the classical period of Islam, combined with
the elements of charismatic leadership, operational mobility and a new human
reservoir in the Muslim diaspora of Western Europe. Young Muslims there,
marginalized both culturally and socially, found in al-Qa‘ida a sense of belonging
and a mode of self-expression. Western observers aptly described al-Qa‘ida as an
international holding company with its head ofﬁce in Afghanistan.76
Despite its
global nature, al-Qa‘ida, too, began as a territorial Islamic movement focused on the
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Arab countries. Its leader, Osama bin Laden, initially devoted his efforts to Saudi
Arabia, while his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, was concerned with Egypt.
To what extent al-Qa‘ida detached itself from the parameters of territorial
Islam requires more detailed study. Clearly, however, at a certain point it
widened its horizons beyond the Middle East, a reﬂection of the lack of progress
by the Sunni movements in the region in entrenching the Islamic agenda by the
familiar means of political violence or communal activity.77
The fact that
Islamists succeeded in taking power in only two states—Iran and Sudan—was
proof of the poor Islamist record in the Middle East heartland.78
The September
11th attacks conveyed a dramatic message by al-Qa‘ida that modern Islam was
capable of doing more. What better means than by focusing on the ‘Great
Satan’—the United Sates and the West, symbols of hedonism. The selection of
the Twin Towers in New York as a target for mass attack was not accidental.
According to bin Laden, ‘what were destroyed were not just the towers, but more
important, the moral towers in that country’.79
Al-Qa‘ida’s brand of violence was projected as sacred in nature, operating in the
name of divine authority. However, it was also calculated. Targeting the ‘Great
Satan’ and exposing its fallibility by means of ‘suicide attacks’ gave al-Qa‘ida
maximal exposure in two publics: the West, where the point was to demonstrate
the tangible presence of Islam in global affairs; and the Arab world, where the
message was to reafﬁrm the vitality of Islam as a mobilizing, unifying and
revolutionary force.
In center-periphery terms, the al-Qa‘ida phenomenon reﬂected a combination of
geographical and ideological extremism aimed at illuminating the defects of
modern Islamic activity and confronting it with a model that deﬁed existing norms.
In this sense, the movement’s emigration to Afghanistan did not mean
disengagement but a pioneering thrust that would serve as a vanguard for modern
Islam, e.g. as a horse pulling a wagon. Such leadership requires daring and
extremism, attributes which deﬁned the al-Qa‘ida approach.
The choice of Afghanistan as a base was not coincidental. Besides being under
Taliban Islamic rule, Afghanistan, located in the backyard of the Muslim world,
was remote from the vicissitudes of modernization. In al-Qa‘ida’s view, such a
geopolitical location was advantageous, as it provided a pure environment in
which to mold new believers and wean them away from the mundane temptations
of the Westernized Muslim centers. According to Zawahiri, the jihadic movement
needs an environment which will operate as an incubator, where its seeds will take
root and where it can acquire practical experience in matters of warfare,
organization and politics. For such a movement, the only ethos is Islam, which also
explains the impetus to drive out the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, achieved in
1994. Ideological purity, Zawahiri argued, is blurred in the cosmopolitan Muslim
centers elsewhere. There Islam coexists with foreign ideologies such as
nationalism and socialism, leaving the younger generation in doubt as to who
the real enemy is.80
In the words of one of the main al-Qa‘ida’s ideologists, the
Palestinian Shaykh ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, the Afghan model constitutes ‘the start of
the historical turning of the whole world toward Islam’.81
This model was
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portrayed as a modern version of the Arabian Peninsula environment during
the formative period of Islam, which served as the cradle of Islamic civilization.
The Afghan environment, devoid of corrupting foreign inﬂuences, could foster the
attainment of unity of body and spirit so necessary for bold and effective action on
the enemy front. The enemy is to be found in Europe and the United States, but
also everywhere else, including the Middle East and Asia. This theme is well
articulated in the manifesto, ‘Manual for a Raid’.
The essay, which was translated into English, along with commentaries by
Hanan Makiya and Hassan Mneimneh, offers a valuable insight regarding the
mindset of the al-Qa‘ida perpetrators of the September 11th operation. It draws
extensively on the Qur’an as well as on moralistic themes derived from Suﬁsm
(mystical Islam). These themes emphasize that purity of soul and ﬁrmness of
intention are necessary preconditions for embarking on the ‘greater jihad’ directed
against one’s own evil nature, which precedes embarking on the ‘little jihad’ of
ﬁghting the inﬁdels.82
Such a two-step process is supported by the Qur’anic verse,
‘and struggle for God as His due’ (Sura 22: 78), which is interpreted as jihad
against both the believer’s inner instincts and the inﬁdels. The importance of the
inner journey is also referred to by the mystic Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd (d. 910):
‘Man cannot ﬁght his visible enemy without ﬁrst ﬁghting his internal enemies’.83
Clearly, Suﬁ culture provided a spiritual stimulus for Islamic activism, even
though it was denounced in modern Islamic circles as culturally corrupt and
politically passive.84
‘Manual for a Raid’ projects composure, focus and devotion to the mission. It
includes two sets of instructions: mental preparation, such as intensive prayer, the
recitation of Qur’anic verses, and the avoidance of disagreements in order to
entrench discipline; and operational preparations, such as memorizing orders,
strict secrecy, and the meticulous handling of the relevant documents and
equipment. Every movement by the perpetrator is calculated to insure the success
of the mission by confronting the devil’s camp with inner calm and a perfected
mode of behavior whose ultimate result is the aspired encounter with God and the
enjoyment of the pleasures of heaven.85
Essentially, the focus of the ‘Manual’ is
on the perpetrator and his spiritual puriﬁcation in the context of the mythical
environment of the Prophet. The essay emphasizes that the Prophet established the
Islamic order in the seventh century based on a series of military expeditions, not
for the purpose of booty or territorial assets but entirely to please Allah, as an
offering or sacriﬁce.
The link between the theological and political dimensions of jihad missions
goes nearly unmentioned in the essay, except for a general observation about the
struggle against the inﬁdel enemy and its technological superiority, and about
Muslims who are addicted to the corrupt Western culture. There is no hint of
ideological or judicial reservations about such a mission either in terms of its
beneﬁts to the Muslim community, on the one hand, or the killing of civilians, on
the other. Notably, bin Laden had stated in a fatwa in February 1998 that there is
no such thing as innocent civilians; they are all soldiers of ‘the House of War’ (Dar
al-Harb).86
The possibility of taking prisoners of war is also nonexistent,
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according to bin Laden, in contrast to the classical Islamic view that the purpose of
war is to defeat the enemy, not slaughter captives and certainly not harm innocent
civilians. In this, bin Laden also deviated from the basic approach of the founders
of Sunni activism in the twentieth century, such as Hasan al-Banna, Abu al-A‘la
Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb,87
and, more importantly, from his ideological mentor,
‘Abdallah ‘Azzam. ‘Azzam approved of attacking civilians only if they provide
moral or material assistance to the enemy. He devoted a long discussion to
refraining from harming women, due to their weakness, and children, due to their
young age, which prevents them from acting like adult inﬁdels. Other categories of
exempt civilians include the aged, the ill, farmers, tradesmen, and monks who are
secluded from society.88
The only instance of killing civilians that ‘Azzam
allowed (as did Muhammad ‘Abd Salam Faraj) was when Muslim ﬁghters cannot
attack inﬁdels without harming women and children who are in their proximity,
for example, attacks at night in inﬁdel cities or gathering places, or when helpless
civilians are used by inﬁdels as a human shield.89
Ultimately, ‘Manual for a Raid’ projects a pure cult of death, described by
Makiya and Mneimneh as a form of nihilism or self-destruction; and by other
commentators as a ‘passion for the real’, i.e. making use of violent and spectacular
means to regain one’s self-identity in a numbingly materialistic society. Still,
others viewed the essay in the broader context of al-Qa‘ida’s violence, as
stemming from the paranoia of threatened persons and groups who perceive their
culture to be under siege and struggling for survival.90
In comparing the three texts chronologically—the Egyptian Jihad’s ‘The
Absent Duty’ (1981), the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s ‘Readings in the Laws of
Martyrdom’ (1988) and al-Qa‘ida’s ‘Manual for a Raid’ (2001)—three main
points emerge:
1. All three essays deal with what Max Weber deﬁned as the ‘ethics of
ultimate ends’, which, in contrast to the ‘ethics of responsibility’, is
characterized by a monistic mindset intent on total fulﬁllment and
projecting exalted ideas in the name of justice. In such a perception, religion
represents the language of ultimate order, thereby enabling the proper
handling of the disorder of modern times. Moreover, in this view, religion
not only encourages self-sacriﬁce but demands it, according to
anthropologist Clifford Geertz.91
2. The revolutionary political spirit of the essays reﬂects the autodidactic
background of the writers, which tends to produce a dichotomous
perception of history and culture in order to fortify an exclusive identity, in
this case, an Islamic identity.
3. The autodidactic background of the writers also accounts for the scriptural
orientation of the texts, which are based mainly on the Qur’an and the
Sunna, making only minor and selective use of the judicial and commentary
literature produced thereafter. This later body of literature, according to the
radicals, detracts from the authenticity of the original legacy and is
identiﬁed with the establishment ‘ulama, who sanctioned political and
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259
social injustices by Muslim rulers over the centuries. The golden age of
Islam emerged around the core of the scriptures, or ‘the hard religion’, in
radical terminology.92
Hence, a direct link may be made between a return to
the scriptures and the restoration of the ‘textual community’, which is
characterized by purity, devotion and greatness.93
The rehabilitation of
Islam as a system of governance may take a long time, but it will occur in
the end. Every new difﬁculty is merely a passing episode in the victorious
march of truth.94
Additionally, all three essays upgrade the status of jihad and self-sacriﬁce in
Islam, perceiving them as a vital condition for a correct and intimate
understanding of the religion and for the reestablishment of its supremacy.
However, it is here that they differ in approach. The Egyptian Jihad’s ‘The Absent
Duty’ reveals a measured theology of self-sacriﬁce subject to moral restrictions
due to the nature of the environment in which it is to be implemented, namely,
Muslim society. It is directed only against heretical Arab regimes and their
spokesmen, and the death of the perpetrator is circumstantial, not deliberate. By
contrast, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s ‘Readings in the Laws of Martyrdom’ reveals
an assertive theology of self-sacriﬁce against an inﬁdel occupier through suicide
operations that implicitly target civilians as well. However, the essay reveals an
awareness of the problem involved in the afﬁnity between martyrdom and selfimmolation
and tries to resolve it. Lastly, al-Qa‘ida’s ‘Manual for a Raid’
advocates a sweeping, somewhat robotic cult of death against the Crusader West
without reservations or apologetics and without differentiating between enemy
soldiers, prisoners of war and civilians.95
Conclusion
Each of the three essays discussed signiﬁed a heightened phase of radicalization in
modern Islam. For the Egyptian Jihad and other Sunni radicals in the late 1970s,
the historical context was the political and socioeconomic impotence of the postcolonial
Arab regimes and the conciliatory stance of reformist Islam as projected
by the Muslim Brotherhood. For Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the late 1980s, the
context was the relegation of the Palestinian cause to the bottom of the Islamist
agenda in the Middle East due to the Islamists’ focus on local goals. For al-Qa‘ida
in the late 1990s, the context was the poor record of achievements by the Sunni
Islamic movements and their indifference to the real global enemy, the West. In alQa‘ida’s
view, it is the struggle with the West that will determine the success of
Islam on the domestic and regional levels.
Of the three narratives, only the Palestinian one gained wide theological
backing from the broad center of the Islamic spectrum—the Muslim Brotherhood
and the religious establishment. Palestinian jihad did not involve internal Muslim
strife (ﬁtna). Moreover, it targeted a defamed entity, which throughout twentiethcentury
Islamic historiography was deﬁned as inﬁdel and suppressive, and the
jihad against it as equal to the one waged by the believers in early Islam.96
The two
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260
other narrative poles were excluded from the realm of sanctity as advocating mere
violence: domestic jihad, as espoused by the Egyptian Jihad and other radical
movements, was dismissed as constituting a modern version of the Kharijites of
early Islam, i.e. outside the consensus; and the global jihad of al-Qa‘ida was
denounced as ‘an apostate footnote to the annals of Islamic history’.97
The
renunciation of domestic jihad against Arab regimes reﬂected the primacy of
the legalist orientation, which advocated da‘wa, or communal activity, while the
renunciation of cosmic jihad against the Christian West reﬂected the primacy of
territorial Islam, which focuses on upgrading its status within a deﬁned political
community.
Ultimately, these varied versions of jihad reveal the multi-faceted nature of
modern Islamic thought, but at the same time confusion and distress in coping with
the vicissitudes of modernity.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Professor Etan Kohlberg of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are
also due to the anonymous readers for their useful suggestions.
Notes and references
All quotations from the Qur’an cited in this paper are taken from A.J. Arberry, The Qur’an Interpreted, 2
vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). However, I followed the Azhar system of numbering the
Qur’anic versus.
1. Hasan al-Banna, ‘Risalat al-Jihad’ (The Tract of Jihad) in (no Editor) Majmu‘at Rasa’il al-Imam al-Shahid
(Collection of Tracts of the Martyr Imam) (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-Islamiyya, n.d.), p. 264. Al-Banna
(d. 1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, served as a major inspiration for most of the
contemporary Islamic movements, including Palestinian Islam. His orientation was primarily toward
educational and communal activity, but some of his followers, mainly in the 1960s and ‘70s, radicalized his
thought and imbued it with revolutionary content. This quotation was widely used in materials published by
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is the subject of the present article.
2. See, e.g., H. Arendt, ‘On Violence’, in idem, Crises of the Republic (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1972),
pp. 105–112, 134–146; J.E. Seery, Political Theory for Mortals (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).
3. Al-Shiqaqi quoted in Rif‘at al-Sayyid (Ed.) Rihlat al-Dam al-ladhi Hazama al-Saif (The March of Blood
Which Defeated the Sword) Vol. 2 (Cairo: Markaz Yafa’, 1997), pp. 1357–1361.
4. ‘Suicide attacks’ have become a term commonly used in Western parlance. Putting it in quotation marks is
meant to signify this fact without taking a stance on the matter.
5. G. Dulou, Le Proble`me Islamique (Paris: privately published, 2002); S. Zˇizˇek, Welcome to the Desert of the
Real (New York: Verso, 2002); B. Barber, Jihad vs. MacWorld, new edition (London: Corgi Books, 2003),
pp. 3–20, 205–216.
6. See, e.g., A. Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (New York: Penguin Books,
2000); R.L. Euben, ‘Killing (for) Politics: Jihad, Martyrdom and Political Action’, Political Theory, 30
(2001), pp. 4–35.
7. Preliminary indications of the legitimation of self-sacriﬁce appeared in articles written by movement
founders Fathi al-Shiqaqi and Bashir Naﬁ‘ during 1979–83 in the monthly organs al-Mukhtar al-Islami
(Cairo) and al-Tali‘a al-Islamiyya (London), and especially in the book al-Jihad ﬁ Filastin Farida Shar‘iyya
wa-Darura Harakiyya (The Jihad in Palestine: Religious Injunction and Organizational Necessity) (n.p.,
1982). For a historical and ideological proﬁle of the movement, see M. Hatina, Islam and Salvation in
Palestine (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, 2001), pp. 17–62.
8. For data on this phenomenon in the wider-content, see e.g., S. Shai, The Shahids (Hebrew; Herzliya: The
Interdisplinary Center, 2003).
theology and power in the middle east
261
9. Excerpts from the essay were republished in the Islamic Jihad’s organ, the Beirut-based al-Mujahid, 13, 15
December 1993.
10. A. I. Zamel, The Rise of Palestinian Islamist Groups (M.A thesis; Tampa: The University of South Florida,
1991), p. 195.
11. Hatina, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 38–42, 53–57; M. Abedi & G. Legenhausen (Eds.) Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle
and Martyrdom in Islam (Houston: The Institute for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986); H. Ram, Myth and
Mobilization in Revolutionary Iran (Washington: The American University Press, 1994), pp. 61–87.
12. Qira’a ﬁ Fiqh al-Shahada (Readings in the Laws of Martyrdom), published as an appendix to al-Islam waFilastin,
5 June 1988, 3–4. R. Israeli, ‘A Manual of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism’, Terrorism and
Political Voilence, Vol. 14 (Winter 2002), pp. 31–33.
13. The Islamic prohibition of self-immolation is cited (albeit ambiguously) in the Qur’an in a few verses only.
The two most prominent are: ‘. . . and cast not yourselves by your own hands into destruction’ (Sura 2: 195).
Classical and medieval Muslim commentaries on this verse interpreted it as dealing with refraining from the
duty of assisting jihad by ﬁnancial contributions, which is tantamount to self-destruction. This interpretation
was also supported by radical commentators in the twentieth century, inter alia to highlight the key role of
jihad in light of the Western challenge. The second prominent verse is ‘. . . and kill not one another’. (Sura 4:
29). Here, too, Islamic interpretations (including modern ones) tended to analyze the meaning of the verse as
taking the money of others fraudulently or by murdering someone (a relative or a fellow Muslim).
The Qur’anic ambiguity about the prohibition of suicide or self-immolation became explicit and absolute in
the hadith literature, which cited concrete situations and punishments. F. Rosental, ‘On Suicide in Islam’,
in idem, Muslim Intellectual and Social History (London: Variorum, 1990), pp. 239–246; Mahmud Shaltut,
al-Fatawa (The Legal Opinions) (Cairo: Dar al-Qalam, n.d.), pp. 419–422. For modern commentaries, see,
e.g., Sayyid Qutb, Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the Shadow of the Qur’an) Vol. 1, new edition (Beirut: Dar
al-Shuruq, 1986), pp. 191–192, Vol. 2, pp. 638–640; Sayyid Abul A‘La Mawdudi, Towards Understanding
the Qur’an Vol. 1 (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1990), pp. 154–155, Vol. 2, pp. 31–32.
14. The term nifaq in the Qur’an applies to a speciﬁc group headed by ‘Abdallah Ibn Ubayy which failed to fully
support Muhammad’s Islamic cause in critical military campaigns against the pagans.
15. The hadith is cited in Abu al-Husayn Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (hereafter, Abu Muslim), al-Jami‘ al-Sahih
(The Authentic Collection [of Hadith]) Vol. 6 (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Halbi, 1960), p. 49. On military jihad
and its modern versions, see, e.g., M. Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: John
Hopkins Press, 1955), pp. 55–73; F.M. Donner, ‘The Sources of Islamic Conceptions’, in J. Kelsay & J. T.
Johnson (Eds.) Just War and Jihad (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 31–69; R. Peters, Jihad in
Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996).
16. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 8. See also Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Egyptian Islamist whose
inﬂuence on Palestinian Islam was (and still is) well known, in al-Da‘wa (Cairo), May 1977.
17. Preserving life is also embodies in the duty of taqiyya, i.e., concealing one’s beliefs when faced with
oppression. The concept of taqiyya had the effect of restraining the religious fervor of the believer,
cautioning him to conceal his faith whenever it endangered his life or threatened the survival of his
community. Taqiyya was stressed particularly by the Shi‘a sect, which had been subjected to periodic
persecution under Sunni rulers. E. Kohlberg, ‘Taqiyya in Shi‘i Theology and Religion’, in H.G. Kippenberg
and G.G. Stroumsa (Eds.) Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near
Eastern Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 345–380.
18. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 3–4. Other exceptions are killing a murderer, an apostate (murtadd), or a married
adulterer (for not resisting sexual temptation even though he experiences sex because he is married, in
contrast to a bachelor adulterer, whose punishment is only ﬂogging). Tafsir al-Jalalayn (Al-Jalalayn’s
Commentary on the Qur’an) (Cairo: Maktabat Misr, 1980), p. 125. See also Ahmad Fathi Bahansi, al-Siyasa
al-Jina’iyya ﬁ al-Shari‘a al-Islamiyya (Criminal Policy in Islamic Law) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1988),
pp. 262–263.
19. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 3–4. On the concept of martyrdom, see E. Kohlberg, ‘Martyrs and Martyrdom in
Classical Islam’, in A. Destro and M. Pesce (Eds.) Religious and Cultures: First International Conference of
Mediterranean (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, c2002), pp. 91–120.
20. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 4, 7; also al-Jihad ﬁ Filastin, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 68–84, 90–91, 95. The essay
cites two important verses in this context. The ﬁrst is: ‘Among the believers are men who were true to their
covenant with God; some of them have fulﬁlled their vow by death, and some are still awaiting, and they
have not changed in the least’ (Sura 33: 23). According to the Muslim commentator Nasir al-Din al-Baydawi
(d. 1316), the term ‘vow’ may be deﬁned as a commitment to ﬁght for Allah until death, as demonstrated by
the Prophet’s relatives Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib and Mas‘ab ibn ‘Amir in the Battle of Badr (624).
A modern-day commentator, Muhammad Baqir Behbudi, argued that the verse refers explicitly to martyrs.
In contrast, Behbudi’s colleague, Muhammad Asad, deﬁned a vow more broadly, namely all the efforts
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involved in devotion to Allah. The second verse cited in the essay is: ‘God has bought from the believers their
selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise’ (Sura 9: 111). Most of the Muslim commentators
noted that this verse deals with holy war and sacriﬁcing one’s soul in return for going to heaven. Others,
however, ascribed a more general meaning to the verse as dealing with the striving of believers to follow all
Allah’s commands, including jihad. However, there is a general consensus among the commentaries, both
classical and modern, that this is an attractive transaction for the believer, albeit one-sided in that the believer
is not allowed to bargain over it, but show total obeisance to Allah. Abu al-A‘la Mawdudi, and mainly Sayyid
Qutb, the prominent ideologists of Sunni radicalism, deﬁned the verse as ‘powerful’ because it symbolizes
the essence of the relationship between man and His creator and the core of allegiance to Islam. Fulﬁlling this
allegiance in worship, but mainly in worldly activism, grants man the title of ‘believer’. Refusal turns him
into an inﬁdel. Nasir al-Din al-Baydawi, Tafsir al-Baydawi (Al-Baydawi’s Commentary on the Qur’an) Vol.
4 (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1996), p. 370; Tafsir al-Jalalayn, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 127; Mawdudi, op. cit., Ref. 13,
Vol. 3, pp. 254–257; Qutb, op. cit., Ref. 13, Vol. 3, pp. 1712–1717; M. B. Behbudi, The Qur’an – A New
Interpretation (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1997), p. 117; M. Asad, The Message of the Qur’an (Gibraltar: Dar
al-Andalus, 1980), p. 33, note 26.
21. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 10–11. The various rewards of the shahid in heaven are listed in ‘Abd al-Razzaq
al-San‘ani, al-Musannaf (The Composition) Vol. 5 (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islami, 1970), pp. 263–266. As for
the closeness to the venerable ﬁgures of Islam (Sura 4: 71), not all Muslim commentators interpreted the term
shuhada’, cited in the verse, as meaning death in the name of Allah. Al-Baydawi identiﬁed the term with
those who adhere to Allah’s commands and serve as witnesses of Allah and His true revelation. Al-Baydawi,
op. cit., Ref. 20, pp. 213–215. Modern radical Islam, however, including in Palestine, highlighted the
battleﬁeld interpretation.
22. On the concept of maslaha and its modern uses, see M. H. Kerr, Islamic Reform (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1966), pp. 103ff; M. Khadduri, ‘Maslaha’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 6 (1991), pp. 738–740;
also D. Abdelkader, ‘Modernity, the Principles of Public Welfare (maslaha) and the End Goals of Shari‘a
(maqasid) in Muslim Legal Thought’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 14 (2003), pp. 163–172.
23. Also see the writings of Palestinian Shaykh ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, who exerted a strong ideological inﬂuence on
the emergence of Islamic radicalism in Palestine, although his ﬁrst priority was Afghanistan. He headed the
Arab Volunteers ofﬁce in the Afghan war against the Soviet invasion, and was assassinated in Peshawar,
Pakistan, in 1989. ‘Azzam, al-Difa‘ ‘un Aradi al-Muslimin (The Defence of the Muslim Lands) (al-Zarqa’:
Maktabat al-Manar, 1987); Fi al-Jihad: Fiqh wa-Ijtihad (On Jihad: Jurisprudence and Ijtihad) (Pashawar:
Maktab Khadamat al-Mujahidin, n.d.), pp. 6–12, 53–54. For a comprehensive biography of ‘Azzam, see
Husni Adham Jarar, al-Shahid ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam (The Martyr ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam) (Amman: Dar al-Diha’,
1990).
24. ‘Azzam, Fi al-Jihad, op. cit., Ref. 23, pp 2–4, 1–53; (no editor) al-Fatawa al-Kubra li-ibn Taymiyya
(The Great Legal Opinions) Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘arifa, n.d.), pp. 607–610; (no editor) Majmu‘ Fatawat
Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad bin Taymiyya (Collection of Ibn Taymiyya’s Legal Opinions) Vol. 28 (Cairo:
Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, n.d.), pp. 7–12. A similar stance was adopted by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who stated
that jihad and the defense of the lands of Islam from aggressive inﬁdels constitute the preferred way of
worship. Al-Da’wa, May 1977.
25. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 5. On the perception of the ‘ulama in Islamic radical discourse, see E. Sivan,
Radical Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 50–56.
26. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 4–5.
27. Hatina, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 48–53, 130–131, 165–167; M. Litvak, ‘The Islamization of the PalestinianIsraeli
Conﬂict: The Case of Hamas’, Middle Eastern Studies, 34 (1998), pp. 148–163.
28. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 4–5.
29. Ibid., pp. 4–5, 11. See also al-Jihad ﬁ Filastin, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 84–89.
30. M. Hatina, ‘Iran and the Palestinian Islamic Movement’, Orient, 38 (March 1997), pp. 107–113.
31. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 4–6, 12.
32. Ibid., pp. 5–6. See also the ruling of the Shaykh al-Azhar, ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud (d. 1978), regarding
deﬁning popular uprisings as a type of jihad, and as such the fallen as martyrs, regardless of the
circumstances of their death, whether in armed battle or following the bombardment and collapse of a
building. Fatawat al-Imam ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud (The Legal Opinions of the Imam ‘Abd al-Halim
Mahmud) Vol. 2, 4th edition (Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1996), pp. 109–110.
33. An expression taken from al-Sabil (Amman), 3–9 July 2001.
34. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 13–15.
35. No author, Bi‘nwan Ma‘arakat al-Mujahid ﬁ Aqbiyat al-Tahqiq (On the Fighter’s Struggle in the
Interrogation Room) (n.p., n.d.), pp. 6–7.
36. Ma‘ariv (Tel Aviv), 1 March 1996.
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37. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 12; E. Sprinzak, ‘Rational Fanatics’, Foreign Policy, Issue 120 (SeptemberOctober
2000), pp. 66–73.
38. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 7–9. See also al-Jihad ﬁ Filastin, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 93. This argument is a further
reﬂection of Hasan al-Banna’s inﬂuence. He stated in the 1930s: ‘You should know that there is no escape
from death, which occurs only once. If you dedicate it to Allah, you will earn the blessings of this world and
be rewarded in the hereafter’. Al-Banna, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 264.
39. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, pp. 7–9. Notably, the essay, which relies on early Muslim chronicles,
documents both these acts of bravery only partially. Regarding ibn Mas‘ud, his act indeed fortiﬁed the
Muslims’ ﬁghting spirit, but when he fell, many of them ﬂed the battleﬁeld with the Sasanians in hot
pursuit. Moreover, there is no mention of a statement by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, one of the Prophet’s
close associates and later the second caliph, who questioned the very engagement in battle with the
Sasanians, as their military superiority in the ﬁled was clear. When news reached him of the searing
defeat and the death of ibn Mas‘ud, ‘Umar declared that if ibn Mas‘ud had retreated and not challenged
death, ‘we would have been among his supporters now’. Regarding ibn Malik, the essay does not
mention that he was only wounded. Some Muslim commentators argued that he was denied the privilege
of dying a martyr’s death because he sought to glorify his name, thereby ruining his chances of dying a
pure death for Allah. Moreover, ibn Malik’s constant quest for a heroic death in the many battles he
fought prompted ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab to warn the commanders of the Muslim army not to use his
services because of his ‘suicide tendency’. The omission of these details by the Islamic Jihad points to a
selective reading of Islamic traditions in order to promote the contemporary need for the reinforcement
of the ethos of self-sacriﬁce. Full accounts of ibn Mas‘ud and ibn Malik appear in Ja‘afar Muhammad
bin Jarir al-Tabari, Ta’rikh al-Rusul wa’l-Muluk (History of the Prophets and the Kings) Vol. 3 (Cairo:
Dar al-Ma‘rif, 1968), pp. 454–455; Abu al-Hasan ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil ﬁ al-Ta’rikh (Comprehensive
Treatise on History) Vol. 2 (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1965–66), pp. 360–366, 438–440; also Khayr al-Din alZirkli,
al-A‘lam (Eminent Figs.) Vol. 2, 11th edition (Beirut: Dar al-’lm, 1995), p. 47.
40. M. Juergensmeyer, ‘The World-Wide Rise of Religious Nationalism’, Journal of International Affairs, 50
(Summer 1996), pp. 15–16.
41. ‘A. Shari‘ati, ‘A Discussion of Shahid’, in Abedi & Legenhausen, op. cit., Ref. 11, pp. 230–241.
42. A. Kleinberg, Fra Ginepros Leg of Pork (Hebrew; Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 2000), pp. 28–35; Horbury &
B. McNeill (Eds.) Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980). For a comparative discussion of Christian and Islamic martyrdom, see M. Ayoub, ‘Martyrdom in
Christianity and Islam’, in R. T. Antoun & M. E. Hegland (Eds.) Religious Resurgence: Contemporary Cases
in Islam, Christianity and Judaism (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp. 67–77.
43. See, e.g., no author, Shuhada’ ma‘a Sabq al-Israr (Martyrs with Determination) (n.p., 1993). The martyr’s
capacity to serve as a moral compass and a source of inspiration for fellow Muslims was deﬁned by radical
writers as one of the meanings of the term ‘living shahid’, as in the verse, ‘And say not of those slain in God’s
way, ‘They are dead’; rather they are living’ (Sura 2: 154). Qutb, op. cit., Ref. 13, Vol. 1, pp. 143–144. For
literature on memorial rites and their link to politics, see B. Schwartz, ‘The Social Context of
Commemoration: A Study in Collective Memory’, Social Forces, 61 (December 1982), pp. 374–376;
P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 1–5, 44–53;
G. L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990), mainly Chapters 3, 5; M. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992), pp. 25–26, 84–104, 116–118.
44. N. Johnson, Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian Nationalism (London: Kegan Paul, 1982),
pp. 65–87.
45. S.Z. Klausner, ‘Martyrdom’, The Encyclopedia of Religion, 9 (1987), pp. 233–234; M. Juergensmeyer,
Terror in the Mind of God (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 195–198.
46. See also the movement’s pamphlet, al-Mujahid amam al-Tahqiq wa’l-Ta’dhib (The Fighter in the Face of
Interrogation and Torture), which appears as an appendix in al-Islam wa-Filastin, September 1988, p. 16.
47. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 14.
48. Ibid., pp. 4–5.
49. Nawaf Hayil Takruri (Ed.) al-‘Amaliyyat al-Istishhadiyya ﬁ al-Mizan al-Fiqhi (Martyrdom Operations from
the Legal Perspective) 2nd edition. (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1997), pp. 145–179; M. Hatina, ‘Ulama’ and the
Cult of Death in Palestine’, Israel Affairs (forthcoming).
50. Qira’a, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 14.
51. The concept of sabr served as a key component in modern Islamic discourse, namely as a moral and
psychological impetus for taking a ﬁrm stand in the struggle over the image of society in light of the political
suppression and evils of Westernization. See, e.g., Qutb, op. cit., Ref. 13, Vol. 2, pp. 141–143; Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, al-Sabr ﬁ al-Qur’an (Patience in Islam) (Cairo: Maktabat Wahaba, 1970).
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52. Bi‘nwan Ma‘arakat al-Mujahid, op. cit., Ref. 35, pp. 3–18; Al-Mujahid amam al-Tahqiq op. cit., Ref. 46.
These two essays constitute a severe indictment of the record of the Palestinian struggle during 1967–87,
which failed to instill in its ﬁghters the basic attributes of secrecy, discipline, commitment to the cause, and
above all endurance during interrogations by the Israeli security services. The Westernized elements in Arab
society were also criticized for disconnecting society from its Islamic cultural roots. The result was the quick
breakdown and confession of ﬁghters, stemming from fear and ignorance of the investigative methods of the
Zionist interrogators, the essays pointed out. Notably, the two essays provide only one, rather general
statement regarding death in captivity. Such a death can result from torture, but can also result from the
initiative of the captive himself (an act sanctioned by the shari‘a as well), provided that the information he
possesses is critical to Muslim interests.
53. Bi‘nwan Ma‘arakat al-Mujahid, op. cit., Ref. 35, pp. 33, 48, 105–106; Al-Mujahid amam al-Tahqiq, op. cit.,
Ref. 46, pp. 8–10. The accounts of Muslims who sacriﬁced their life for their faith during torture are
discussed extensively in al-Jihad ﬁ Filastin, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 111–126.
54. The Hamas covenant (n.p., August 1988), Clauses 7, 15, 19.
55. The momentum of the peace process in the early 1990s, however, engendered a rapprochement between
Hamas and Iran. Hamas sought to expand strategic support for the armed struggle in Palestine, while Iran
wanted to acquire a foothold in the Sunni world. Nevertheless, the political partnership was limited, mainly
due to reservations displayed by Hamas, the product of its Sunni roots and close afﬁnity with the Muslim
Brotherhood in the Arab world, and the fact that it received ﬁnancial support from the wealthy Gulf states,
rivals of Iran. Hatina, op. cit., Ref. 30, pp. 113–119.
56. For the Hamas stance on ‘suicide attacks’, see Takruri, op. cit., Ref. 49. See also Filastin al-Muslima
(London), November 1994.
57. Shuhada’ ma‘a Sabq al-Israr, op. cit., Ref. 43; H. Sande, ‘Palestinian Martyr Widowhood: Emotional
Needs in Conﬂict with the Role Expectations’, Social Science and Medicine, 34 (1992), pp. 710–716;
N. Hasan, ‘An Arsenal of Believers: Talking to Human Bombs’, New Yorker, November 2001, pp. 36–41.
The martyr ethos also took hold in the world of Palestinian children through the educational system, the
social environment and even in dreams, as reported by clinical psychologist S. Masalha in his ‘Children
and Violent Conﬂict: A Look at the Inner World of Palestinian Children via Their Dreams’, PalestinianIsraeli
Journal, 10 (2003), pp. 64–66.
58. Al-Sabil, 3 July 2001.
59. Hatina, op. cit., Ref. 49. See also a special issue published by al-Sabil on Palestinian martyrdom, its
justiﬁcations and virtues, 3 July 2001.
60. The book was also translated and edited by J. J.G. Jansen under the title, The Neglected Duty (New York:
Macmillan, 1986).
61. The condemnation of the Mongols, which relies on a ruling by the medieval scholar ibn Taymiyya, was based
on their retention of a pagan law (the Yasa code) even though they had converted to Islam, and behaved
vulgarly and licentiously in public. Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, al-Farida al-Gha’iba (The Absent
Duty) (n.p., n.d.), pp. 7–18, 28–35.
62. Faraj, op. cit., pp. 21–26.
63. Faraj, ibid., p. 46. Faraj’s ruling is based on a hadith of the Prophet, who, when asked about children of
polytheists who were killed during a Muslim night raid, replied: ‘They are from them’, i.e., he allowed it. See
Abu Muslim, op. cit., Ref. 15, Vol. 5, p. 144.
64. Faraj, op. cit., Ref. 61, pp. 46–47. Here, too, Faraj quotes a hadith in which the Prophet was informed that a
woman had been found killed in one of the battles. He denounced the act and forbade the killing of women
and children. Abu Muslim, op. cit., Ref. 15, Vol. 5, p. 144.
65. Zawahiri’s memoirs, published in al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 7 December 2001.
66. Faraj, op. cit., Ref. 61, pp. 37–38, 45, 50–51.
67. Faraj, ibid., p. 45.
68. A similar approach can be found in Judaism, Bavli Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin: ‘Even though it [Israel] has
sinned, it remains Israel’. J. Neusner, The Talmud of Babylonia (Atlanta, Georgia: American Scholars Press,
1996), pp. 23, 223.
69. The conventional nature of Sunni violence was reﬂected in a detailed list of modern weapons that should be
in the possession of the Muslim ﬁghter, cited by the Lebanese Islamist Fathi Yakan in an essay in 1981. No
mention is made of the explosive belt, or ‘human bomb’. Yakan, Abjadiyyat al-Tasawwr al-Haraki li’l‘Amal
al-Islami (Basic Operational Guides for Islamic Activity) (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 1981),
pp. 97–100. See also Muhammad Na‘im Yasin, Athar al-Islam ﬁ Takwin al-Shakhsiyya al-Jihadiyya li’lFard
wa’l-Jama‘a (The Impact of Islam on the Molding of the Combat Personality of the Individual and the
Group) (Kuwait: Dar al-Arqam, 1984), pp. 97–107; Sa‘id Hawwa, Jund Allah (Soldiers of Allah), 2nd.
edition (n.p., 1991), p. 251.
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70. The violence against civilians in Algeria was perpetrated primarily by the Group Islamique Arme´ (GIA),
established in 1993 as a conglomerate of several radical groups. The GIA killings, which included women
and children, were denounced by most of the Algerian Islamic groups, including the largest body, Front
Islamique du Salut (FIS).
71. In this context, see also Qutb, op. cit., Ref. 13, Vol. 2, pp. 177–191; idem, Ma‘alim ﬁ al-Tariq (Milestones)
(Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, n.d.), pp. 55–82; Yakan, op. cit., Ref. 69, pp. 81–94; and Hawwa, op. cit., Ref. 69,
pp. 383–389.
72. Faraj, op. cit., Ref. 61, pp. 27–28. See also Sivan, op. cit., Ref. 25, pp. 16–21.
73. S.T. Farouki, ‘Islamists and the Threat of Jihad: Hizb al-Tahrir and the Muhajiroun on Israel and the Jews’,
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36 (October 2000), pp. 21–46.
74. See, e.g., Sivan, op. cit., Ref. 25, pp. 195–207.
75. Copies of the manifesto, which consists of four pages in handwritten Arabic, were found in the vehicles and
luggage of several commanders of the attacks, including ‘Atta.
76. On historical and political aspects of al-Qa‘ida, see B. Lewis, ‘The Revolt of Islam’, New Yorker,
19 November 2001, pp. 50–63; G. Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2002), pp. 313–322.
77. Zawahiri in al-Sharq al-Awsat, 3, 12 December 2001. In Zawahiri’s thinking, the movement’s global thrust
did not mean neglecting the Arab arena. On the contrary, the struggle against the West was aimed as well at
weakening their Arab allies. Moreover, creating an Islamic base in the heart of the Arab Middle East,
Zawahiri argued, constitutes a precondition to Muslim victory over the ‘Western-Zionist alliance’. Al-Sharq
al-Awsat, 12 December 2001.
78. Zawahiri held the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the largest of the Sunni Islamic movements, as primarily
responsible for this failure. In his view, their conciliatory stance toward the regime and their acceptance of
the democratic political process served to heighten the crises of Islam in modern times. Zawahiri, al-Hisad
al-Murr (The Bitter Harvest) (Amman: Dar al-Bayariq, 1999).
79. Zawahiri in al-Sharq al-Awsat, 12 December 2001; Ha’aretz (Tel Aviv), 11 November 2001.
80. Zawahiri in al-Sharq al-Awsat, 3 December 2001.
81. ‘Azzam, Fi al-Jihad (op. cit.,) Ref. 23, pp. 5–6, 36–37, 156–157; Jarar, op. cit., Ref. 23, pp. 170–171, 182.
82. K. Makiya & H. Mneimneh, ‘Manual for a Raid’, in R. B. Silvers (Ed.) Striking Terror: America’s New War
(New York: Publishers Group West, 2002), pp. 306–307, 319–320. See also D. Cook, ‘Suicide Attacks or
‘Martyrdom Operations’ in Contemporary Jihad Literature’, Novo Religio, 6 (2002), pp. 20–24.
83. ‘Imad al-Din ibn Kathir, Tafsir ibn Kathir (Ibn Kathir’s Commentary on the Qur’an) Vol. 4 (Beirut: Dar alAndalus,
1966), p. 667; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma’ad (Provision to the Next World) Vol. 2 (Cairo:
al-Matba‘a al-Misriyya, 1970), pp. 39–42. See also Fatawat al-Imam ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud, op. cit., Ref.
32, Vol. 1, pp. 320–321.
84. The Suﬁ inﬂuence on Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was
evident, and was even more pronounced in the case of al-Banna’s radicalized follower Sa‘id Hawwa
(d. 1989), the prominent ideologist of the Brotherhood in Syria. Jum‘a ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, Fahm al-Islam
(Understanding Islam) (Alexandria: Dar al-Da‘wa, 1990), pp. 56–63; Hawwa, al-Madkhal ila Da‘wat alIhwan
al-Muslimin (Introduction to the Preaching of the Muslim Brotherhood) (Amman: Dar al-Arqam,
n.d.), pp. 49–173. Notably, the forerunner of Sunni radicalism, Sayyid Qutb, while rejecting an endless
quest for spiritual perfection by the believer, did not disqualify the ‘greater jihad’ against one’s temptations
as mental preparation for the military ‘little jihad’. Qutb’s follower, ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, displayed even
less patience for spiritual jihad. Qutb, Ma‘alim ﬁ al-Tariq, op. cit., Ref. 71, pp. 75–76; Faraj, op. cit., Ref.
61, pp. 24–25.
85. Makiya & Mneimneh, op. cit., Ref. 82, pp. 319–327.
86. Al-Quds al-‘Arabi (London), 23 February 1998.
87. Hasan al-Banna, al-Salam ﬁ al-Islam (Peace in Islam), 2nd, edition (Cairo: Manshurat al-‘Asr al-Hadith,
1971), pp. 59–65; Abu al-A‘la Mawdudi, Shari‘at al-Islam ﬁ al-Jihad wa’l-‘Alaqat al-Duwaliyya (Islamic
Law on Jihad and International Relations) (Cairo: Dar al-Sahwa, 1985); Qutb, op. cit., Ref. 13, Vol. 2,
pp. 177–191. Qutb traced the essence of refraining from harming noncombatants to the verse: ‘Fight in the
way of God with those who ﬁght with you, but aggress not: God loves not the aggressors’ (Sura 2: 190).
He deﬁned the ﬁrst section of the verse as the object of the jihad, namely to make Allah’s word supreme in
the world and to protect the believers from suppression; and the second section as the ethical limits of war,
namely avoiding attacking civilians who pose no treat to Muslims or to their community. Qutb, op. cit.,
Ref. 13, Vol. 2, pp. 177–187. See also Zaﬁr al-Qasimi, al-Jihad wa’l-Huquq al-Duwaliyya al-‘Amma ﬁ alIslam
(Jihad and General International Rights in Islam) (Beirut: Dar la-‘Ilm, 1986), pp. 314–338, 522–529.
88. ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, I‘lan al-Jihad (Proclamation of Jihad) (Pashawar: Maktab Khadamat al-Mujahidin,
1990), pp. 36–37, 110–128.
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89. ‘Azzam did, however, cite other legal opinions, i.e., the minority stance of Abu ‘Amar al-Awza‘i (d. 774),
founder of the Awza‘i school of law, and Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), founder of the Maliki school of law.
Both scholars forbade killing women and children absolutely, even when the enemy uses them as human
shields in its bases on land or in its boats at sea. ‘Azzam, ibid., pp. 122–123.
90. Makiya & Mneimneh, op. cit., Ref. 82, pp. 317–318; also Zˇizˇek, op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 9–15, 51–52; Barber,
op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. xii-xiv; J. H. Ellens, ‘Jihad in the Qur’an, Then and Now’, in idem (Ed.) The Destructive
Power of Religion (London: Praeger, 2004), pp. 42–43, 48–49.
91. M. Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Eds.) From Max Weber: Essays in
Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 120–123; C. Geertz, The Interpretation of
Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 126.
92. A phrase coined by Muhammad Abu Halima, who was involved in the World Trade Center explosion in New
York in 1993. Cited in M. Juergensmeyer, ‘Terror in the Name of God’, Current History 100 (November
2001), p. 359.
93. The term ‘textual community’ is taken from B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 90. See also M. Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper & Row,
1975), pp. 21–38; Qutb, Ma‘alim ﬁ al-Tariq, op. cit., Ref. 71, pp. 11–19.
94. Historical evidence supporting this determinist outlook was cited by al-Qa‘ida’s Zawahiri in the form of the
Crusader occupation of Syria and Palestine, the French occupation of Algeria, and the British occupation of
Egypt, which lasted decades or more but were eventually terminated by the Muslims. Zawahiri in al-Sharq
al-Awsat, 7, 8 December 2001.
95. For a psychological analysis that emphasizes the mechanical nature of suicide attacks deriving from the
memorization of mantras and the entrenchment of absolute religious truths, see M. Rotenberg, From
Mikdash to Midrash: Psychology of Fundamentalism and Judaism (Hebrew; Tel Aviv: Schocken Publishing
House, 2001), pp. 21–39.
96. See, e.g., the rulings of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Halim Mahmud in his Fatawat, op. cit., Ref. 32, Vol. 2, pp. 111, 113.
97. Jedda Arab News, 29 October 2001; Le Monde diplomatique (Paris), November 2001. See also Hatina,
op. cit., Ref. 49.
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