PARADISE AND PROPAGANDA This isn’t the first time Muslim extremists have immolated themselves in the name of heaven. As recently as the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers died walking headlong into Iraqi artillery and land mines, certain of their rewards in the hereafter. Many were heeding a book, written by an Iranian religious leader, called “Ma’ad” (literally, “Resurrection”), which made paradise sound something like a deluxe Vegas hotel: “There is a castle in Paradise made of marble. In that castle there are 70 houses made of rubies and in each house there are 70 rooms made of emeralds … In each room there are 70 female servants.” An Iranian field commander who served in battle for five years calls this heavenly vision “propaganda,” written expressly for young, unmarried men living in material poverty and sexual repression.
For at least a decade, groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have preached similar messages to would-be suicide bombers. The heaven they promise offers martyrs easy access to God, better conditions in the hereafter for family members and beautiful, available women. At home in Gaza recently, SheikAbdul-Karim al-Kahlot, who is a leading religious authority for the Palestinians, answered a reporter’s questions about heaven. “Real martyrs,” he said, “are those who fight for the sake of Allah and raise the flag that says there is no God but Allah. Those martyrs will reach the highest level of heaven.” Moderate Muslim scholars vehemently dispute the fundamentalist view. For one thing, descriptions of heaven are metaphorical, human attempts to describe the indescribable, these scholars say. For another, Muslim teachings contain strict injunctions against suicide. And while Islamic texts do promise heaven to soldiers who give their lives for Allah, they require those soldiers be engaged in what contemporary Westerners would call a “just war.” “There’s a verse in the Qur’an that says, ‘If you’ve killed one innocent person it’s as if you’ve killed all of humanity’,” says Basit Koshul, a lecturer in comparative religion at Concordia College, in Moorhead, Minn. “To kill someone unjustly and then say to yourself that you’re going to go to heaven and won’t have to submit to judgment, it’s very problematic.” .
Show Forgiveness, speak for Justice and avoid the Ignorant.