Security Watch

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/002886.html

The Causes of Islamic Suicide Terrorism

Islamic suicide bombing has become so commonplace it hardly makes the news. What once was shocking is now part of the moral landscape, an evil among others. What have not changed are the moral justifications in defense of suicide bombing offered by much of the Western intelligentsia: "we must understand the root causes of terrorism", they say, "the poverty, the humiliation, the despair."

Let's be clear; the explanations turned justifications do not stand up to scrutiny. "Poor and oppressed" people who are not Muslim rarely resort to such savagery. North Korean peasants, for example, do not blow themselves up in the streets of Pyongyang. Really oppressed people are too busy fearing for their lives to kill others. An explanation must be found elsewhere.

Clues could be collected from relatively recent Islamic history. American Patriot John Paul Jones, then fighting for the Russian Empire against the Turkish Caliphate as a naval commander, described the phenomenon of "suicide shipping"; some Turkish skippers would choose to ram Russian ships and be killed, along with their crews, in the process, even when other options were available to them. (This was an incredible wasteful practice detrimental to the Muslim cause, which should not be understood as militarily sound.) But perhaps I'm wrong and the Turks were "oppressed and humiliated", and "had no other options available to them." Let's go back farther in history, to the times of Muhammad. (The following narrative is adapted from Alfred Guillaume's The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, pp. 531-535).

The year is 630 A.D., when Muhammad decided to send a strong raiding force into Syria, then under Byzantine control. He appointed a chain of command and armed them with a verse (Koran 19:72) which was interpreted as a promise that none of those dying in the expedition would go to Hell, and hence would go to Paradise instead.

The expedition went forward but found itself facing a stronger Greek (Byzantine) force. (Ibn Ishaq gives the dubious figure of 100,000 Greeks and 100,000 auxiliaries, but it is credible they were outnumbered.) When facing a larger force, raiders usually withdraw, but the Muslims wanted to obey Muhammad's orders. But 'Abdullah son of Rawaha' urged them to fight using Muhammad's logic: 'Men, what you dislike is ... martyrdom', he said, and also; 'Both prospects are fine: victory or martyrdom.' And so they fought.

When fighting began things quickly went bad for the Muslims. Their standard-bearer was killed and a man named Ja'far took the standard. When fighting grew desperate Ja'far dismounted, hamstrung (crippled) his horse, and fought to the death. He died welcoming paradise, and cursing the Greeks. Ibn Ishaq adds; "Ja'far was the first man in Islam to hamstring his horse."

Ja'far was the first man to hamstring his horse.

Two things can be learned from that simple sentence; 1) that the practice was known to Ibn Ishaq's readers and 2) that it wasn't an aberration in need of explanation. Muhammad later praised Ja'far as a martyr. So, finally, we can understand the "root causes" of suicide terrorism: they are the teachings of Muhammad, as explained by the religion of Islam.