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By Root 2215 0

the seemingly powerful. Islam saw soldiers who willingly gave their lives in battle as martyrs. Starting in the medieval world and into the present, soldiers have been given the afterlife reward of martyrs, both in Christianity and Islam. But, they rarely functioned like the kamikaze pilots whose intention was to sacrifice themselves for the Japanese homeland in World War II. For the kamikaze, self-sacrifice for the state was a religious as well as national duty. It too changed a looming defeat into a moral victory because it was performed as an act of desperation against a militarily superior force. So religion may be said to play its part in the production of martyrs, but one must also note the strong importance of political aims to which the religious idea is put. However the kamikaze only atacked military targets, while Islamists deliberately target civilians.

Behind this political agenda is the historical judgment that Ottoman Turkey’s defeat in World War I and subsequent attempt to turn itself into a modern state was a terrible satanic mistake. The destruction of the Ottoman Empire was accomplished by Britain and France in the Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916, after Turkey’s unwise entrance into the war. After its empire was taken away, Turkey repatterned itself as a modern European state, under the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Attaturk (1881-1938). In the Islamists’ eyes, the secularization of Turkey must be undone because it is a temporary, damnable condition like the crusader kingdom. Then, Islam can return to its prior glory.

But in realistic politics, this judgment seems impractical in the extreme. However unwise the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire was, no practical, political analyst would believe that a single Muslim state (from North Africa to Indonesia) under a Caliph is plausible or desirable, much less a world Islamic empire, even less the conversion of all Christians to Islam. Nor will Israelis (or any other minority living in Muslim lands) give up their state or agree to live under traditional dhimmi (“protected”) status. These apocalyptic aims make their appearance not only in al-Qa’ida’s charter but also in Hizballah’s and ḥamas’s constitutions. Its implausibility is only underlined by the skepticism that it draws among ordinary Muslims. But poor, disadvantaged, and alienated youth, as well as educated youth with no employment, find the dream attractive because it fulfills their sense of the rightful moral leadership of Islam in the world.

The Religious Motivations of the Hijackers

IT IS VERY HARD to study the motivations of the 9/11 hijackers, though they left us notes professing their religious motivations. Their behavior seemed strange as well as horrifying at first because we know that in the days before their martyrdom, they went out to bars, sought out women for sex, and engaged in a variety of behaviors which would be considered un-Islamic. Perhaps, as their training manuals said, it was to allay any suspicions in the American public. Perhaps they were not as good Muslims as their handlers wanted us to believe. In any event, their suicide notes were full of the desire for martyrdom, leaving no doubt that they considered themselves to be Muslim shahada, even though their families often denied their adherence to fundamentalist Islam.

We have more information about the making of suicide bombers in Palestine. There, the dominant ideology is very favorable to the creation of martyrs. Palestine is dominated by Israelis, whom the Palestinians see as a hated, colonial oppressor. The success of Al-Qa’ida in bringing down the World Trade Center was itself encouragement. In response to Israeli domination, parents encourage martyrdom in their young children. This suggests a second necessary condition for martyrdom: Besides opposition (or some other deprivation), there must be a religious ideology. People must be willing to analyze the situation in such a way as to affirm that their personal death is meaningful and, indeed, that death is not the end of life. In the ancient world this was the general rule, but