Muslim organizations in the West have also spoken out. “Islam condemns terrorism,” read a sign at a Florida turnpike, sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as part of its campaign, “Not in the name of Islam.”

However, some Muslim theologians and political leaders, while condemning suicide for personal reasons, have justified suicide bombing to resist the Israeli occupation. Among them was Sheikh Ahmed Yasin — the religious leader and founder of the militant Islamic group Hamas — who was later assassinated by Israel, along with several others. Posters in the Israeli Occupied Territories read, “Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs.” The same logic is used by Tamil Tigers. “Of course, we use suicide bombers; as a revolutionary organization, we have limited resources,” a Tiger spokesman has said.10

Robert Pape of the University of Chicago analyzed every suicide bomber attack between 1980 and early 2004 — a total of 462 incidents — and compiled his results in his book, Dying to Win. He concluded that Islamic fundamentalism “has very little to do with suicide terrorism, which is a response to occupation. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide terrorist campaign — over 95 percent of all the incidents — has had its central objective to compel the democratic state to withdraw.”11

The suicide bombings usually stop once the occupying forces have withdrawn: “Once Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the suicide strikers did not follow Israel to Tel Aviv.” He then points out that “the longer the American forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack or a biological attack.”12

JIHAD AND MARTYRDOM

Huston Smith, America’s foremost authority on world religions, notes that both Islam and Christianity glorify those who die in holy wars and promise them salvation.13 Indeed, most religions and cultures celebrate their martyrs. Tamil suicide martyrs in the Tamil-held areas of Sri Lanka and Palestinian martyrs in the Occupied Territories are publicly hailed.

The word martyr, like jihad, is used more loosely in the Muslim world than in the West, notes Esposito: “Martyrdom, like jihad, has become a common term of praise for those who have died in struggles in Palestine (whether members of secular or Islamic groups), Iran, Egypt and Lebanon, as well as Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir and the southern Philippines.”14

The Qur’an does promise martyrs houris (beautiful virgins) in heaven, but it does not say how many. Some scholars have said there will be two houris to a man, others say there will be seventy-two. But who or what, exactly, is a houri? Is she human or an extraterrestrial beauty? Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi says, “There are two paradises, one promised by the sacred text and the other representing the imam’s male fantasies.”15