By Col. C. M. Ramakrishnan (Retd.) and Smita Mukerji
Martyrdom in Abrahamic religions
One of the dominant themes in Abrahamic religions is that ‘its greatest heroes were not those who did good deeds, but those who died in the most painful way. If you are willing to die in an excruciating end in this arena then whatever your previous holiness or lack thereof, you would go straight to heaven. Martyrdom wiped out all sins at the point of death.’[1] Not only did it get you there faster, martyrs enjoyed preferential terms in paradise, getting to wear the much-desired martyrs crown. Tempting celestial terms were offered.[2] It was said that the scripture promised rewards even hundredfold the joys of brothers or sisters, children or parents, or wife or the fields and home one left behind. Precisely how this celestial sum has been calculated is not clear but the general principle was: those who died publicly and painfully would be best rewarded.
As tales of martyrdom evolved, the descriptions became more graphic and colourful. Martyrdom was open to all, the poorest of poor, the uneducated and even women who were willing to become martyrs[3]. ‘In martyr poems, mothers watched the martyrdom of their children with great fulfilment.’ In one of the stories a mother rejoiced that she had borne a son who would die a martyr and embracing his body congratulated herself on her offspring.[4] We saw an instance of this in recent times during the Shaheen Bagh unrest where a child of three months was heartlessly allowed to die in the cold and the mother similarly, instead of expressing sorrow, gloated in pride for having produced a ‘martyr’. This appalling absence of natural human sensibility is caused by prolonged brainwashing into religious ideology[5] according to which death in the way of Allāh is the highest merit that can be earned by a human being. What is still more shocking is the total absence of condemnation from the supposed advocates of humanism, the liberal-left lobby which does not let a single opportunity pass to attack the values of Hinduism.
Apart from death striving in the way of Allāh, seven other types of shahādā are recognised in Islam, among them, those who die of pleurisy, stomach disease or in an epidemic.[6] This circumstance was brought up by a Muslim MP from Hyderabad, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi[7], in the context of the Corona-virus pandemic which had claimed around 250 lives in India and a further 7600 individuals in the country are infected by it. Owaisi said that Corona-virus victims are ‘martyrs’ and appealed that the burials should be conducted as per the specifications of Islam which does not require the body of a martyr to be bathed (ghusl) or wrapped in a shroud (kafan). Though he appeared to be discouraging the handling of a COVID-infected patient’s dead-body by relatives in invoking this stipulation of Islam and preventing spread of the disease, in the context of the high premium placed on martyrdom in Islam and the readiness to be slain while slaying non-believers[8] the statement given by the MP is particularly troublesome.
Muslims all over India—and indeed world over—have been conspicuous in their active defiance of social-distancing directives issued by the state, refusing to inhibit their religious gatherings, especially namāz in congregation. Their behaviour has been dangerously offensive and in literally hundreds of cases around the country they did not fight shy of attacking police and administration personnel to hinder enforcement measures. Several videos are doing rounds in social media asking Muslims to flout prohibition orders and resist the state by all means available to them. They have been refusing medical tests citing scripture, evading detection by authorities and resorting to the most abhorrent behaviour to resist being quarantined and in many cases escaping the premises in spite of the best facilities being provided to them. A particularly obnoxious behaviour has been spitting on personnel to stave them off with the threat of coming in contact with a possibly infected person. But most disturbing is the attack on doctors and medical workers who could not possibly harm them in any way and seek to help them and treat them in case of an infection. This leads one to wonder, do Muslims want to be cured of the disease at all?
There are scores of videos of Muslims expressing the malicious intention to deliberately infect non-believers with the deadly virus. Several reports emerge of Muslims actually carrying out these designs by indulging in the disgusting act of spitting on fruits and vegetables[9] and wares which they look to then sell to unsuspecting customers (who are largely non-Muslim.) The conclusion that a large section of Muslims suffer no compunction from causing the death of other human beings just on account of a different religion is inescapable!
There is a clear skew in figures of Corona-virus in many countries with significant South-Asian Muslim populations, with Muslims forming a significant majority of the afflicted, both infected and dead. But the Muslim community appears unfazed at these figures because for many of them courting death in this manner which would help in the spread of the disease to eradicate kāfirs is an honourable act as per their religion. This has been proclaimed by far too many individuals to ignore it as isolated cases of derangement. Neither does this fantasy seem to be limited to the uneducated-illiterate. In this video, a senior software architect of Infosys asks Muslims to deliberately sneeze on people to spread the novel Corona virus. Another video asks Muslims to wipe nasal fluid on currency notes as a means to spread the disease. Given the innate hostility of Muslims towards non-Muslims born out of their religious beliefs and that in a non-Muslim country a political leader’s word may be considered equivalent to the exhortation of an imām, the statement of the AIMIM president, a member of the Parliament from the constituency of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and a well-known Muslim leader, could have serious implications. It may be construed by zealous Muslims as a direct call to action, to deliberately infect non-Muslims with the virus to cause maximum fatalities and be regarded as hallowed martyrs of Islam and attain to their conception of jannāh. Indeed such calls have been given out by clerics.
Even at their most innocuous, Muslims earnestly seem to believe that the Corona-virus will not affect pious Muslims and that it is a punishment brought by Allāh upon non-believers.[10] This man claims, making an allusion to the court decision in the ‘Ram-janmabhoomi Babri Masjid’ matter, that the pandemic is Allāh’s retribution upon non-Muslims. Far too many Muslims are claiming this with absolute certainty. The conviction with which they defy government orders is derived directly from the Prophet’s teaching that plague is a mercy and a martyrdom from God for the faithful Muslim and a punishment for the infidel, that a Muslim should neither enter nor flee a plague-stricken land, and there was no contagion of plague, because disease came directly from God.[11] In a prayer message recently from the Islamic State in the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, protection is sought for Muslims and God implored to “cast plagues and diseases upon the infidels, exterminate their crops and exhaust their powers, so that they are distracted with themselves from assaulting Muslims.” In the prayer, divine justice is sought against the Chinese regime for the oppression of Uyghur Muslims but Muslims, who hold IS in great esteem, have been pronouncing such anathemas upon every infidel who is a real or imagined persecutor of Muslims, among them, the kāfir state of India.
Yet there has been hardly any condemnation of the enormity of the damage caused by holding the Tabligi Jamaat meeting over nearly 2 weeks in flagrant violation of government directives, during which hundreds have been infected with Corona-virus. During and after the meet, participants have been moving freely all around the country and spreading the deadly virus to those who came in contact with them. Many of them would have been unwitting carriers and would not have known the danger they are subjecting others to. But quite a few, including the organisers, must have known the potential hazard and chose to ignore it, and from certain indicators even deliberately proliferate it[12], owing to which several hundreds of Corona-virus affected participants of Tablighi Jamaat are ‘virus bombs’ walking amongst us.
Among the Muslim community even the seemingly educated like Owaisi have been unable to allow reason to override scriptural writ, even if patently opposed to common sense, and be the leading lights to guide their community away from their mulish obduracy and irrational suspicion and animosity against ‘unbelievers’.
The warmer season has been ushered in and as the mountain passes open, even the calamitous pandemic that has befallen the world has failed to deter Pakistan from the other Islamic preoccupation: terrorism. Pakistan resumed bids at infiltrating jihādīs into the Kashmir valley. An added factor to this regular and unending irritant is the fact that Pakistan set up its major quarantine camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, a training ground for jihādīs. The possibility of ISI pushing in Corona-positive jihādīs into the valley cannot be ruled out. (From intelligence inputs the threat would appear realistic.) There is the peril of Kashmiri separatists who encourage and harbour jihādīs and give them shelter, of getting infected with the virus and spreading it further among the other denizens of the valley. The Indian Army personnel stand the risk of contracting an infection by handling the bodies of dead or captured ISI jihādīs. India just cannot afford to take its eyes off potential weaponization of Corona-virus by the adherents of a troublesome ideology.
Cover Picture Source: Billboard of Iran war martyrs mounted on School of Media Studies in Valiasr square, Tehran/Iran (Artography, October 2012) | Shuttertock
Title Picture Source: Tehran Propaganda Murals (Fontini Christia, 2006) | Harvard Library
References:
- ‘The Darkening Age’, by Catherine Nixey
- ‘What Does Islamic Faith Promise Martyrs?’, by Denise Chow
- Coronavirus Victims are Martyrs – Owaisi
[1] “From the moment his first drop of blood spills, he feels no pain and he is absolved of all his sins; he sees his seat in heaven; he is spared the tortures of the grave; he is spared the horrors of the Day of Judgment; he is married to [70] black eyed [women]; he can vouch for 70 of his family members to enter paradise; he earns the crown of glory whose precious stone is worth all of this world.” – Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (an official daily newspaper of the Palestinian National Authority), January 13, 2001.
[2] “They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds… We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand…” (Qur’an. 56:12-39)
[3] Female martyrs, according to Muslim scholars, can expect to find their husbands in paradise. A woman who had multiple husbands in life will be able to choose the best one as her eternal spouse in the afterlife. Religious commentators state that paradise will make female martyrs beautiful and happy, and satisfied to be with only one man. Additionally, their earthly devotion to Allāh will make them superior to the virgin maidens in heaven, and thus their husband’s affections will never stray. (Al-Tabarani)
[4] “And do not think of those who have been killed in the way of Allah as dead; they are rather living with their Lord, well-provided for. Rejoicing in what their Lord has given them of His bounty, and they rejoice for those who stayed behind and did not join them, knowing that they have nothing to fear and they shall not grieve.” (Qur’an: 3/169-70)
[5] “Consider not those who have died for the sake of Allāh as dead but rather as alive, who are being nurtured by their Lord.” (Qur’an: 3/169)
[6] “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Five are regarded as martyrs: They are those who die because of plague, abdominal disease, drowning or a falling building etc., and the martyrs in Allah’s Cause’.” (Sahīh Bukhāri, narrated Abu Huraira: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 82)
“The Prophet said, ‘Plauge is the cause of martyrdom of every Muslim (who dies because of it)’.” (Sahīh Bukhāri, narrated Anas bin Malik: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 83)
“There are seven kinds of martyr other than those killed in the way of Allah. Someone who is killed by the plague is a martyr, someone who drowns is a martyr, someone who dies of pleurisy is a martyr, someone who dies of a disease of the belly is a martyr, someone who dies by fire is a martyr, someone who dies under a falling building is a martyr and a woman who dies in childbirth is a martyr.” (Al Muwatta Malik, Book 16, Hadith 36)
[7] Asaduddin Owaisi is an Indian politician, four-time Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Hyderabad constituency in Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. Owaisi has been in controversies and news due to his politics primarily centered around minorities like Muslims and Dalits. (Wiki)
[8] “Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for the price that theirs shall be the Paradise. They fight in Allah’s Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed. It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel) and the Quran. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. That is the supreme success.” (Qur’an. 9:111)
[9] From past reports this appears to be a common practice among Muslims.
[10] The Prophet said, “Ad-Dajjal [Devil] will come to Medina and find the angels guarding it. So Allah willing, neither Ad-Dajjal, nor plague will be able to come near it.” (Sahīh al-Bukhāri, narrated Anas bin Malik: Volume 9, Book 88, Number 248)
The Prophet said, “Ad-Dajjal [Devil] will come and encamp at a place close to Medina and then Medina will shake thrice whereupon every Kafir (disbeliever) and hypocrite will go out (of Medina) towards him.” (Sahīh al-Bukhāri, narrated Anas bin Malik: Volume 9, Book 88, Number 239)
[11] “It is a punishment that Allah sends upon whoever he wills, but Allah has made it a mercy for the believers. Any servant who resides in a land afflicted by plague, remaining patient and hoping for reward from Allah, knowing that nothing will befall him but what Allah has decreed, he will be given the reward of a martyr.” (Sahīh al-Bukhāri 5402, narrated by Aisha)
[12] On March 31, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against Maulana Mohammed Saad and six other office-bearers charging them with “deliberately and wilfully” allowing a huge gathering on the premises, an act that posed a threat to many lives.