The Islamic Debate over the Human Bomb
by Dr. Azzam Tamimi

Martyrdom – a Question of Faith

According to Tunisian Islamic thinker Rachid Ghannouchi, one of the basic features of the Islamic faith is that it generates within the believer a passion for freedom. Algerian thinker Malik Bennabi had earlier asserted that the Islamic faith accomplishes two objectives: first, it liberates man from servitude and renders him un-slaveable; and secondly, it prohibits him from enslaving others. Many contemporary Islamic thinkers agree with him and explain that this is exactly what the concept of jihad is about.

One of the meanings of Jihad is given as the constant endeavour to struggle against all forms of political or economic tyranny. Despite its sacredness, life has no value in the shade of despotism. Islamic text, both in the Qur’an and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) exhort Muslims to resist despotism and struggle against it by means of al-amr bilma`ruf wan-nahyu `anil-munkar (enjoining the good and forbidding the evil). On the basis of a hadith, Muslim scholars have articulated three levels of resistance or struggle. The minimum level is struggle by the heart. This is a psychological process whereby a Muslim prepares himself for the higher level up by means of boycotting evil and disliking it. The higher level of resistance entails condemning evil through the use of various means of non-violent means, such as speaking up, writing or demonstrating, or mobilising public opinion against evil. The highest level of all is resistance through the use of force. What really matters is that oppression should never be given a chance to establish itself in society. A Muslim is supposed to be a conscientious individual responding with appropriate action to whatever injustice that may be perpetrated in society provided the chosen action does not produce a greater evil that the one targeted with resistance. A Muslim is thus a force of positive change, a citizen whose faith reinforces within him a sense of responsibility.

It is in this way, according to Ghannouchi and Bennabi, that faith plays an important role in promoting civility and bolstering civil society. Not only does the Islamic faith permit a Muslim to resist despotism and rebel against it, but it makes it incumbent upon him or her to do so with whatever means available to him or her. It is understandable that a Muslim may lose his/her life struggling against oppression and for this he or she is promised a great reward in the life after death. In other words the effort made is not wasted and the sacrifice is not in vain.

The Prophet is quoted as saying: “The noblest of jihad is speaking out in defiance of an unjust ruler;” and “Hamza (Prophet’s uncle and one of the earlier martyrs in Islam) is the master of martyrs, and so is a man who stands up to an unjust ruler enjoining him and forbidding him, and gets killed for it.”

It would only be accurate to draw from this Prophetic tradition that martyrdom in the Islamic standard is not failure; a martyr is not a loser but a hopeful one who offers his life for what is much more valuable and, at the same time, eternal. For this reason martyrs are elevated to the highest of all ranks. A Muslim recites at least seventeen times a day in his salat (prayer):

Show us the straight way, the way of those on whom you have bestowed your Grace (1: 6-7)

Those on whom God has bestowed his grace belong to one of the categories listed in another Qur’anic verse which says:

All who obey Allah and the Messenger are in the company of those on whom is the Grace of Allah, of the Prophets, the sincere (lovers of truth), the martyrs, and the righteous (who do good). How beautiful is their Company. (4: 69)

By offering his life in the Cause of God, a martyr enters into a transaction with the Lord.

Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their wealth; for theirs in return is the Garden (of Paradise): They fight in His Cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in Truth, through the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an. And who is more faithful to his Covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded: that is the achievement supreme. (9: 111)

O you who believe! Shall I lead you to a bargain that will save you from a grievous Chastisement? That you believe in Allah and His Messenger, and that you strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your wealth and your persons: that will be best for you if you only knew. (61:10-11)

Martyrdom or Suicide?

However, martyrdom today is not as straightforward as what it used to be. In the old days Muslims went to war in a jihad wishing either for victory or for martyrdom. Today, many of those that go on a jihad are almost certain it is the latter but not the former. This is so because they strap themselves in dynamite and predetermine their fate when they press the button. Their wars are not conventional ones. They know they cannot inflict damage on their enemy without exploding in his face.

The ‘suicide-bombing’ or what Muslims call ‘martyrdom operation’ was not invented by the Muslims. However, it is today identified with them and with their religion. Precursors of these operations in the Middle East were first introduced by Arab secular leftists who seemed to import the idea from elsewhere in the world. During those days such operations did not usually involve strapping oneself with dynamite; mostly, they involved daring attacks from which the attacker had almost no chance of escaping alive. The attack by members of the Japanese Red Army in 1972 at Lod Airport in Israel is considered one of the earlier such attacks in the Middle East. However, it was at the hands of the Lebanese Hezbollah, founded in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that this modus operandi was refined throughout the 1980s. The most daring of such attacks was the suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut in 1983.

Elsewhere in the world, the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, who struggled for an independent Tamil state, began carrying out suicide bombings in 1987. It is estimated that they have since perpetrated over 200 such attacks. It was through this type of attacks that they assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and President Premadassa of Sri Lanka in 1993. In 1999, the Tigers attempted to assassinate Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga using a female suicide bomber.

In the latter half of the nineties, it was the Palestinians organizations Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) and Islamic Jihad that captured the attention of the world for what they described as ‘martyrdom operations’. The two organizations, which did not approve of the Oslo peace accords between the PLO and Israel, were undoubtedly aware of the tactic of the human bomb resorted to by Hizbollah and the Tamil Tigers. However, they did not consider employing the tactic until after more than six years of the eruption of the first Intifada and well into the second year of the era of the Palestinian Authority. It is widely believed that what triggered a change in tactic was the massacre perpetrated on 25 February 1994 by an American-born Jewish settler. Baruch Goldstein is believed to have secured the assistance of Israeli troops to sneak into Al-Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron opening fire and throwing hand grenades at worshippers as they kneeled half way through the early morning Fajr (dawn) prayers killing twenty nine of them and wounding scores more. On 6 April 1994, a Hamas bomber blew himself up near a bus in Afula, killing eight Israelis. Hamas claimed responsibility saying it carried out the attack in response to the massacre of Palestinian worshippers by Baruch Goldstein less than two months earlier.

Although Palestinians were generally appreciative of such a sacrificial mission at a time when they felt more vulnerable than ever, with no means of self-defence or deterrence, the human bomb attacks triggered a debate that is far from over. The debate, which soon crossed the borders and stretched across the Muslim world, centres on a number of themes.

– The first and most crucial theme relates to a jurisprudential problem: assessing the nature of the operation itself; is it suicide or sacrifice?

– The second relates to a practicality: the viability of the tactic in deterring the Israelis from their oppression and persecution of the Palestinians.

– The third relates to the consequences of such attacks to the Palestinians themselves since the Israelis were bound, as has always been the case, to respond; their response has invariably involved imposing collective punishment on the Palestinians whenever an attack of this kind is launched.

– The fourth relates to the impact on peace making; the attacks are an embarrassment to the Palestinian Authority which is supposed to prevent any attacks on Israel or Israelis in fulfilment of its commitments to the Oslo Accords signed with Israel in September 1993.

– The fifth relates a legal aspect: the legitimacy of a discriminate attack that may, as is the case in many instances, result in killing innocent civilians, particularly children.

As the dividends of peace turned to be bitter fruits, and as more Palestinians were becoming convinced that they had been cheated, many of these issues were resolved. It soon became obvious to the Palestinians that whether such operations existed or not the Israelis were determined to confiscate more land and build more settlements. The largest proportion of confiscation of land happened actually during days of peace making between 1993 and 1999. The peace promised turned to be nothing but a security arrangement between Israel and the PLO leadership whereby the latter takes care of the task of providing Israel with security in exchange for recognition and VIP treatment. As for the bulk of the Palestinian population their economic conditions continued to deteriorate and the six million who live as refugees or in exile were told their right to return had to be sacrificed in exchange for such a humiliating peace. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad managed to convince the majority of the Palestinians that their martyrdom operations served as the only deterrent in order to make the Israelis think twice before they attacked Palestinians villages, camps or towns. As regards the target, both organizations insisted that they never intend targeting children. They insist that they primarily target army personnel and that any attacks on civilians are either unintended or inevitable so long as Israel continues to target Palestinian civilians.

From a theological, or jurisprudential, point view, the assessing the nature of the operation had to be the most important issue to address so as to determine the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the ‘human bomb’. Since the Islamic religion has no one spokesperson or authority to refer to, it is not unusual in such turbulent times for politics to have a great bearing on the opinion of the religious scholars. Initially, supporters of the operations insisted they were acts of sacrifice while opponents claimed they were nothing but suicide. In the former case the perpetrator would be a martyr, a person who offers himself (or herself) for the sake of a noble cause and who will end up in the highest ranks of Paradise. From this perspective not only is the act permissible but it is highly commendable and greatly appreciated. There is no shortage of Qur’anic evidence to support this position. Take for instance Verse 111 of Chapter 9: “Allah has purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the Garden (of Paradise): they fight in His Cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in Truth, through the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an: and who is more faithful to his Covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.”

Those who oppose the operations on religious grounds argue that they involve suicide, an act that is strictly forbidden in Islam. Consequently, the perpetrator is a sinner who will end up in the Fire of Hell. However, no Muslim scholars inside Palestine today subscribe to this opinion. Even the official Mufti of the Palestinian Authority Sheikh Ikrima Sabri has not only considered these operations a noble act of sacrifice for the sake of God but also harshly criticized some Egyptian and Saudi scholars for denouncing them as suicide accusing them of failing to understand the context and therefore failing to apply the appropriate text.

As far as the Palestinians under occupation are concerned the overwhelming majority support these operations; they even demand that more of them are planned. However, some continue to argue against them on the grounds that they have caused more harm to the Palestinians than good and that they, even if inadvertently, result in killing innocent civilians. The Palestinian Authority is opposed to them on the grounds of its commitment to the peace process.

The attitude of scholars and religious institutions outside Palestine has been varied. Division seems to be prompted by political considerations. Official (governmental) religious institutions or scholars have maintained that these operations are illegitimate for two reasons:

1. They are suicide, and that is a major sin in Islam. An attacker cannot decide to take his own life, and if he does he will permanently be in the Hell-Fire.

2. These operations are indiscriminate and innocent people get killed, including children, and that contravenes the Islamic code of war ethics.

However, it is widely believed that these institutions or scholars are requested by their governments to adopt that position. These governments come under enormous pressure from the United States of America in order to denounce ‘suicide operations’ and stop all support for organizations engaged in them. The most outspoken scholars against these operations have been the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who is appointed by a Royal Decree and is opposed in his position by hundreds of Saudi scholars; and the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, who is appointed by the President of Egypt, is under obligation to tow the official line in his fatwas and is opposed in his position by the bulk of Al-Azhar scholars represented by Al-Azhar Scholars Front. Whereas the Saudi Mufti office has been consistent in its position, Sheikh Al-Azhar Sayyid Tantawi has contradicted himself repeatedly on this issue, seemingly reflecting the political mood each time. His first fatwa was one of outright prohibition. Then he came out in full support considering the attackers to be martyrs of the highest degree. Speaking at conference on terrorism last year in Kuala Lumpur her reverted to his original position of outright condemnation.

In the meantime, independent scholars or institutions have opted for the position of considering these attacks inside Palestine to be ‘martyrdom operations’ of the noblest forms of Jihad. Prominent and renowned scholars in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and many other Muslim countries have come out with their public endorsements and even encouragements. They base their arguments on the following principles:

1. These operations are not suicide by sacrifice of the highest quality

2. Israel is a military outpost and there are no civilians within it to spare apart from children. All men and women in Israel serve in the army. As long as attackers try their best to avoid children every other target is legitimate and if children are inadvertently hit it is because it is unavoidable.

3. The Palestinians have been left with no other choice since their enemy is armed to the teeth while they are deprived of the basic means of self-defence. So long as this situation continues the Palestinians cannot be blamed for engaging in these attacks.

4. If the Israelis want an end to these operations they should accept the offers of truce made to them repeatedly by Hamas and other Palestinian factions. However, to expect the Palestinians to unilaterally stop all resistance in the hope that the Israelis will stop attacking them is unfair and does not work.

However, as these types of operations started being carried out by Muslims elsewhere in the world, the debate became more intense and the divisions grew wider than ever. Few scholars provide a blanket support for any ‘martyrdom attack’ no matter where and when. Interestingly, a leading number of the scholars who support ‘martyrdom operations, in Palestine were among the first to condemn the attacks on 11 September and did also similarly condemn the bombings that were carried out later on in Bali, Riyadh, Rabat, Istnabul and Madrid. Here it is not a question of suicide or martyrdom but rather a question of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the target. These scholars do not see that attacking New York or Bali or Madrid was justified from an Islamic perspective and therefore they deemed those bombings to be acts of criminality rather than acts of jihad.

There are those who maintain the odd position of considering the perpetrators of all ‘suicide bombings’ as martyrs and their actions as legitimate. However, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi leads a group of scholars that disagrees. They consider the case of Palestine a unique one and therefore only in Palestine are such operations legitimate at the present time. When asked about ‘suicide bombings’ in Iraq during his recent visit to London, Qaradawi explained that although he supported the right of the Iraqi people to resist the US led invasion of Iraq and to fight to liberate their country from foreign occupation he did not believe that the use of human bombs was justified because, in his judgment, the Iraqis have an abundance of the conventional means of resistance and have not been forced to resort to such ‘desperate’ weapon as have the Palestinians.

Human Bombs: Tactic or Desperate Act

In the case of Palestine, debate has also raged over whether these ‘human bombs’ are prompted by dire economic conditions or are simply part of a strategy aimed at achieving certain political objectives. It would be wrong to suggest that it has to be an ‘either/or’ case. Many visitors to the occupied territories have privately or publicly expressed an understanding as to why the Palestinians resort to these operations. While it is true that the majority of ‘martyrs’ do not come from poor desperate backgrounds, and that many of them are well-educated and well-positioned inside the community, the general condition of despair and frustration contributes to the motivation. However, from the organizational point of view these operations are not simply reactions, though they are occasionally presented as such, to the dire economic crisis caused by occupation. More so, they are seen as the only means of pressuring the Israelis, both state and society, to recognize the rights of the Palestinians and to agree to a cease-fire deal that would at least spare the civilians. Hamas is explicit in its objectives. In a document written upon the request of a European government that was until recently in communication with the movement, the movement states that “these operations are in principle directed against military targets.” It explains that “targeting civilians is considered an aberration from Hamas’ fundamental position of hitting only military targets; they represent an exception necessitated by the Israeli insistence on targeting Palestinian civilians and by Israel’s refusal to agree to an understanding prohibiting the killing of civilians on both sides; an understanding comparable to the one reached between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.” This is a reference to the agreement signed between Hezbollah and Israel in the aftermath of the Qana massacre in the mid-90s.

Indeed, the former leader of the movement in Gaza, Sheikh Yassin, repeatedly offered the Israelis a truce only to be rejected by the Israelis. He is quoted in this same document as saying: “Hamas does not endorse the killing of civilians, but that it is sometimes the only option it has if it is to respond to the murdering of Palestinian civilians and the cold-blooded assassination of Palestinian activists. He himself was assassinated by Israel last March.

Hamas believes that such tactic, or other new ones for that matter, will force the Israelis to negotiate an honorable and acceptable deal. Since the movement does not recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist in Palestine as a matter of principle, its medium term objective is a cease-fire agreement. In exchange for a cessation of all hostilities, Israel would have to agree to the following:

the withdrawal of Israeli occupation troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip;
the evacuation of all Jewish settlements in both the West Bank and Gaza; and
releasing all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Groups that struggle for the liberation of Chechnya from Russian occupation or Kashmir from Indian occupation may resort to the same tactic with some political objective in mind. Similarly those that employ the same methods in Iraq would easily claim they aspire for the end of occupation. However, the same cannot be said of clandestine and indefinable groups that carry out attacks such as the ones that took place on 11 September or subsequently in Bali, Riyadh, Rabat, Istanbul and Madrid. These attacks may be an expression of anger against the United States of America and its allies. However, there are so far no specified negotiable demands let alone, in many cases, a credible claim of responsibility. It is suspected that at least some of these attacks are carried by different groups that are not linked organizationally but have in common an anti-American (or anti-Western) sentiment provoked by local, regional or international politics.

Future of ‘suicide bombings’

While there is no shortage of recruits for this type of operations, they are becoming increasingly difficult to execute. With the heightened states of emergency, enhanced international cooperation to exchange information and suspects, and the introduction of more stringent and sophisticated security measures – and in the case of Israel the construction of an eight-meter high wall to cut off completely the Palestinian territories from Israel, the human bomb may become less frequent and eventually disappear altogether. In Palestine, where ‘martyrdom operations’ have not been seen for several months now, the Palestinians are already developing new tactics. We have seen in recent days a higher frequency of the launching of Qassam missiles against Israeli targets by Hamas fighters. The missiles have clearly been developed further, have become more accurate and have been causing casualties. Another tactic developed by Hamas is the ‘long tunnel’ which renders the wall useless.

Similarly, those bent on putting up a resistance to strong and well-established powers will not fail to discover or innovate new ways and new methods. Perhaps the only way to guarantee a safer world is to sincerely and seriously seek to resolve problems fairly. Most of the groups that fight the status quo today do so because it is an unjust status quo, one that violates the basic human rights of individuals and communities alike. If only the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were respected by the strong as they are demanded by the week, the world would be a much more comfortable, even more enjoyable, place to be in. Perhaps then, less and less people will consider killing themselves or killing others.

Azzam Tamimi

Visiting Professor, Kyoto University, Japan

Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought, London

Getting to understand Lebanon – its politics and its soul
by Dr. Mazeni Alwi

I have long harboured the wish to visit Lebanon but have always had some misgivings about safety. Most people associate Lebanon with civil war, which after 15 years of sectarian violence, ended in 1990. There was also low level fighting between the Hizbollah and the Israeli occupying army in Southern Lebanon, and who could forget the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila camps just outside Beirut. I was pleasantly surprised that I found it very safe travelling alone recently to most parts of that small country which has an amazingly rich history and beautiful, varied landscape. The only place that I dared not venture was Southern Lebanon, until recently under Israeli occupation before the Hizbollah guerillas drove them out after nearly 20 years. I have always been keen to understand Lebanon, which I thought is the most enigmatic among Arab countries. I was especially curious about the Cedars and Mount Lebanon, two mystical symbols of the Lebanese nation. However I could not get satisfactory answers from Lebanese immigrant families that I befriended when I was studying in Australia in the early 80’s. Now I could understand why – my Lebanese friends in Brisbane and Sydney were simple, sunni muslims who had migrated to Australia to escape the ravages of civil war, whereas the Cedars and Mount Lebanon are exclusive symbols revered by the Maronite Christians for whom the Lebanese nation was carved out from Greater Syria by the French Mandate authority. The French were the guardians of the Maronite Christians and their special relationship stretched back to the Crusades. When the first Crusade arrived in the region of Tripoli in 1099, they were welcomed by the Maronites, who advised them as to the safest route to Jerusalem. The French played a leading role in forcing the Ottomans in 1860 to create the Special Province of Mount Lebanon under european protection for the Maronites. In 1920 the Maronites pressured the French to enlarge Mount Lebanon administrative region to include the major coastal plain, where the major cities are, to carve out for themselves a sufficiently large territory to be able to survive as an independent state separate from muslim Syria. It happened that the major coastal cities of Sidon, Tripoli and Beirut are predominantly muslim. It is this peculiar social mix of Lebanon, which also include the Greek Orthodox Christians, Druze and Shia muslims and later Palestinian fighters and refugees that led to the difficulties and volatility of her sectarian politics until a decade ago.

Travelling in many parts of Lebanon feeling secure and comfortable among its friendly people, and while in Beirut staying at the swanking new Movenpick Hotel built onto the side of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean where every night there was a glittering party or wedding reception of upper class families, and on top of that the frenetic phase of reconstruction in Beirut, it was hard to imagine that until a few years ago there was a bitter and bloody civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslims, plus a host of permutations of side conflicts – Syrian troops vs. Maronites (in defense of Palestinians), Maronites vs. Palestinians, Syrians vs. the PLO and back to the Maronites, Israeli bombardment of Beirut in pursuit of the PLO, the Hizbollah vs. Israelis, Hizbollah vs. Amal, Druzes vs. Christians, and not least, fighting between Christian militias.. Near the site of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps now stand a new football stadium that one can see as one heads south out of Beirut towards Sidon. But one need not look very hard for the scars of violence past. A doctor friend took me around his hometown of Sidon, an Islamic city where there are still many buildings with pock marks and mosque minarets partly damaged by Israeli shells as they marched north to Beirut. In Tripoli, an Islamic city in the north of Lebanon where Arafat and a core of PLO fighters were entrenched for a period, there were similar reminders of attacks by rival Palestinian factions supported by the Syrians. Downtown Beirut (Beirut Central District) was the site of the bloodiest fighting during the civil war. One can see testimony of this in a few buildings still left with pock marks from snipers’ shells on their walls which become more concentrated around windows frames. Happily today much of Downtown Beirut has undergone massive redevelopment, restoring many of the Ottoman and French Mandate era buildings. The area around Place d’Étoile is especially beautiful, its layout and buildings modeled along Paris Right Bank’s. In the vicinity, within walking distance from one to another are many, very beautiful old churches and mosques. The magnificent Omari Mosque (Grand Mosque), now under renovation, was originally built in the 12th century by the Crusaders as the Church of St. John the Baptist, and later converted to a mosque when the Mamelukes finally drove them out of Beirut for the last time. Nearby are Amir Munzir Mosque built in 1620 and Amir Assaf Mosque built in the 1570’s. And yet there is a huge modern mosque being constructed just nearby. Sharing the same area are the many churches and cathedrals like the Maronite Cathedral of St. George, completely restored after the civil war, the Greek orthodox cathedral of St. George, the St. Louis Capucin Church, among others, all exquisitely beautiful buildings.

The seeds of the civil war was Lebanon’s uneasy mix of confessional groups, with the Maronite Christians given an edge of supremacy over the others by the French at the birth of the nation. Accordingly to its constitution, the President is always a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of Parliament, a Shia Muslim, and Lebanese politics has always had a heavy sectarian bent, its political parties largely organized around these confession groups. Things came to a boil with the first civil war in 1958 between sunni muslims who were largely pro Pan Arabism of Nasser and the pro west Christians. Apart from that sectarian bent, their politics was also intensely clannish. Suleiman Franjieh, elected to the Presidency in 1970 was fiercely militant in his championing of Maronite supremacy and equally fiercely tribal. A commentator said of him, “His only previous claim to fame had been his involvement in the machine gunning inside a church of 22 members of a competing Christian Lebanese clan”. The second civil war, still fresh in many people’s memory today, broke out in 1975 as a result of a heavy Palestinian presence in Lebanon, both as refugees and as PLO fighters after the events of Black September of 1970 in Jordan. The civil war erupted when a bus load of Palestinians were massacred as revenge killings by Maronite Phalange militias. The Militias flourished around political groupings, the most well known of them was the Maronite phalangistes, which had close ties with Israel, and on the muslim side, a loose grouping called the National Movement.

But pure religious motives were probably not the real inspiration for the civil war. The Christian militias at times worked together against the National Movement and the Palestinians, and at other times were engaged in vicious infighting amongst themselves. It is really baffling for an observer from outside the region to grasp that a people who share many things in common – language, ethnicity, Arabic script (even in churches), and almost all having muslim sounding Arabic names, could be at each others’ throat for so long.

But today such a bitter civil war would probably not recur. The memory of death and destruction surely is still painful for the orphan, widows relatives of those who died, and the scars are still evident that many Lebanese would probably be inclined to think that what took place was sheer stupidity. But more so perhaps the influence of religion in people’s lives is much diminished today and increasingly private. With the secular materialist culture which globalization has wrought everywhere especially in the less conservative arab countries like Lebanon, people are more preoccupied with keeping up with the latest things and the most fashionable in popular culture, and few would want to fight and die for a cause. At least that was what I could discern in Beirut. I was there during the height of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, yet it was hard to notice any outrage among Beirutis, and my Arab friends did not talk about it, and even less so Lebanese television with its endless entertainment, talk and games shows. In a way, the much-attenuated influence of religion in daily life and as a social bond may mean less likelihood of a religiously motivated war, but the fast erosion of local culture, both Arab Christian and Arab Muslim, each with their rich traditions and history, and in their place, a secular, western consumerist culture is very disconcerting.

Going back to my earlier curiousity about the mystical Cedars and Mount Lebanon, the most satisfying aspect of my visit to Lebanon was making that long trip up the Qadisha valley, high up in the northern part of the Lebanese mountains. Mount Lebanon, I found out, is not one solitary mountain, but the range of mountains which make up much of Lebanon’s territory. Rising abruptly from the narrow coastal strip, it is a totally different world from the swirl and congestion of Beirut. The Qadisha valley is the spiritual home of the Maronite Christians. They were driven out of Syria by the Eastern orthodox Christians and took refuge in the isolated valleys of Mount Lebanon. This is another world of beautiful mountain scenery and cool alpine climate, with many villages hugging the steep sides of the valley, the houses typically clustered around a church. At the head the valley near the top of the mountains, is B’Charré, the seat of the Maronite patriarchs. Two large churches stand out clearly from a distance, the Mar Saba Church and the Virgin Mary Church. The deep gorge of the Qadisha valley at B’Charré combines spectacularly beautiful natural scenery with some of the most important religious centres of the Maronite faith. On the steep sides of the gorge and valley floor are numerous isolated grottoes, hermitages, chapels and monasteries. For those who had been mesmerized by Kahlil Gibran’s “the Prophet” at some point in their life, B’Charré is the poet-artist’s birth place. The Gibran museum is one of those monasteries, carved out from a rocky promontory overlooking the valley. His body was brought back from New York and the monastery/museum is his final resting place as well as a gallery for his paintings, books and memorabilia.

The Cedars, as a place, is a plateau surrounded by an amphitheatre of snow-capped mountains a few kms up from B’Charré. I had expected to see an extensive forest of Cedars like those of the Moroccan Cedars in the Middle Atlas Mountains, whose wood is extensively used for the beautiful woodwork in mosques all over Morocco. But today all that remains of the once extensive forests is a small stand of Cedars in an otherwise barren landscape. This was it – Al Arz Ar Rabb (the Cedars of the Lord), the soul of the Lebanese nation and source of great pride among Lebanese Christians. This stand contains some of the oldest (1000 – 1500 years old) and largest Cedar trees in Lebanon. The forests were steadily depleted over thousands of years and it was only by the mid 19th Century that the local people became aware of the threat of its extinction. The Maronite patriarchs of B’Charré placed them under their personal protection, building a small chapel in the midst of the stand in 1843 and forbidding any further felling of the trees. There is also a small army camp beside the stand of trees, ostensibly to protect them too one presumes. The Cedars area, quite desolate in May, is actually a large snowfield and an excellent ski resort in winter. From the Cedars the road crosses the highest ridges of the mountains and descend onto the Bekaa valley, and heading south and one can take the much longer way back to Beirut, which I intended to do. But already just above the Cedars the road was still blocked by heavy snow and I had to go back down the Qadisha Valley to Tripoli.

I was very pleased to have finally made that trip to Lebanon, one that I would certainly recommend to others. For such a small nation, Lebanon packs it in terms of outstanding natural beauty and historical monuments – Roman ruins, Crusaders castles and churches, Mameluke and Ottoman mosques, palaces and civil buildings and French Mandate buildings. From another aspect, Lebanon’s recent history like that of Yugoslavia, and to a certain Malaysia too, where people of different cultures and confessions are forced to live together in a nation-state by accidents of history, provides sobering lessons on how to turn such pluralism into a constructive and vibrant force rather than a destructive one.

Looking at suicide bombing/martyrdom operation – beyond political correctness
by Dr. Mazeni Alwi

In the concluding chapter of Ziauddin Sardar’s just recently published memoir, “Desperately seeking paradise – journeys of a sceptical muslim” (Granta Books, London 2004), a friend lamented at the intellectual and moral paralysis gripping the muslim world. In anger and despair, muslims are reduced to meeting the challenges of the modern world by summoning people to die for Islam. Ziauddin remarked “its time some of us demanded to live for Islam, unfashionable as that may sound. Martyrdom has its uses, but right now living for Islam takes more courage and more effort. You don’t have to think to offer yourself for death… But to live, you’re got to think all the unthinkables and face all the slings, arrows brickbats and siren songs of the entire gamut from the West to the Rest, from without and within, and then come up with a way forward worth traveling…”.

If there is anyone who has suffered the most vulgar of abuses and vicious denunciations in the media and in public, it is Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi, a scholarly figure widely regarded as the world’s chief proponent of moderate Islam. At a time when the confused and despairing muslims cheered the Al Qaeda suicide bombing of the Twin Towers, Qaradawi condemned the act as heinous crime. When the Taliban leader Mullah Omar decreed that the Buddha statues of Bamiyan be destroyed, Qaradawi was among a delegation of scholars who went to Afghanistan and counseled them against that decree, suggesting that they should instead “focus on fighting poverty, diseases, unemployment and bloodshed on their soil”. During his recent visit to London for a series of conferences, the influential and well connected zionist lobby and right-wing Islamophobes lobbied the government to bar his entry into Britain using over the top smear campaigns and media vilification, citing his endorsement of terrorism for his stand on Palestine. Sheikh Qaradawi has of course visited London on numerous occasions in the course of the past decades. His 3 daughters completed doctorates at British Universities and he is a trustee of the Oxford University Centre for Islamic Studies. The zionist lobby and friends of Israel, seeing that the muslims are at their lowest ebb, with the popular perception among westerners that Islam equates terrorism, anti-west and incompatible with modernity, pounced on the affable and gentle old man to make sure that muslims in Britain (and Europe) are prevented from integrating into and contributing meaningfully to mainstream society. The zionists cannot afford to have muslims integrate into the mainstream. They must be kept alienated at the margins, trapped in the ghettos with no possibility of good education and social mobility for their children. The zionists would try hard that the western public only hears their version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An alternative narrative of palestinians as victims of the victims, having their land stolen and expelled from their towns and villages to languish in abject misery in refugee camps for more than half-century and subjected to brutal, colonial policies of the Israeli occupation must not reach the ears of the western public at all cost. When he arrived in Britain the Sun called Qaradawi a “devil” and its headline read “The Evil Has Landed”. Some newspapers and parliamentarians from all parties have urged the government to deport Qaradawi, claiming that he supports terrorism and preaches race hate and intolerance. Labour MP for Liverpool, Louise Ellman, known for her staunch support for Israel, wrote a letter to Home Secretary Davie Blunkett urging the government to deny access to Qaradawi. During Prime Minister’s question time in the parliament, the Conservative leader, Michael Howard said that Qaradawi should have been prevented from entering the country. Even if muslims found themselves on the ropes, it was heartening to see that common sense prevailed in an atmosphere of openness and freedom of expression, unheard of in muslim nations, even if those who wield influence, money and connections with the powerful media and politicians exerted their weight in a vulgar manner. Credit most be given to Qaradawi’s hosts, the Muslim Association of Britain, whose leadership ranks consist of articulate and educated professionals, for its mature vision and balanced, moderate stance on many issues relating to Islam and Muslims especially after September 11. Furthermore, the zionist lobby cannot have the monopoly of the Israeli-Palestine conflict narrative forever. At the opening of a conference for Muslims in Europe at the Greater London Authority’s building, he shared a platform with the London Mayor, Ken Livingstone. Interestingly, apart from the Mayor, American Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss also defended Qaradawi against the attacks by the media, condemning the Zionist state as a perversion of true Judaism.

The London episode, discomforting and unpleasant as it was, served an object lesion for muslims. Prejudice against Islam is still very strong, even among mainstream politicians, and this is despite official calls for bridging the gap between muslims and the West, and for integrating ethnic minorities. The zionist lobby and islamophobes will take every opportunity to exploit the western public’s ignorance of Islam to perpetuate this prejudice so that Israel can do anything she wants. But the answer to that is more efforts towards engagement and integration with mainstream society, something that muslims are beginning to appreciate, rather than retreating into the ghettos in anger and frustration, into the arms of Al Qaeda recruiting agents.

And the zionists never sleep – they will scrutinize every statement and gesture to pin us down onto that catch-all, convenient label of “supporter of terrorism”. For all of Qaradawi’s positive pronouncements on the need for dialogue and interaction with the west and non muslims, his categorical condemnation of the September 11 attack, Bali bombing and those in Riyadh and Casablanca, his detractors managed to get the mud to stick on 1 issue – the Palestine suicide bomber. Indeed, this is an issue that muslims must examine thoroughly, yet find it difficult to debate especially when a scholar of Sheikh Qaradawi’s stature has issued a fatwa (religious edict) that “suicide attack” against Israel are licit and that they should be called “martyrdom operation”. In defence of Qaradawi, Sohaib Saeed argued that “A question such as that over the rights and wrongs of suicide-bombing in Palestine can legitimately be approached from different angles. A jurist like Mr. Qaradawi is required to draw conclusions about its status within Islamic law – his comments are made in the context of a debate about the interpretative of Islamic texts” (If Qaradawi is an extremist, who is left? – the Guardian, July 9, 2004). Still, with all the respect for Sheikh Qaradawi as an eminent scholar, there is an element of human fallibility, as in all matters of interpretation, especially when the modern context of Israeli-Palestine conflict has no precedence in the classical texts. Have all angles and the role of reason been exhausted, and what is the impact on the wider picture of the Palestinian struggle for justice? While Sheikh Qaradawi and the mainstream, traditional Islamic scholars are unanimous in condemning acts of terrorism on unarmed, innocent civilians are heinous crimes in Islam, the case of suicide attacks against Israel are different. In an interview by Gilles Keppel, Sheikh Qaradawi’s argument was that Israel is a Muslim land (Dar al Islam) taken over by the zionists. It was therefore legitimate to wage jihad to reclaim it. Moreover, Israelis are not civilians, because all citizens are drafted into the army, even if they are in civilian clothes (Tightrope walks and chessboards : an interview with Gilles Keppel, Open Democracy 14 April 2003). The rules of engagement during war with regards to women, children, the old and infirm (non-combattants), religious sanctuaries, plants, animals and water sources have been clearly spelled in Islam, based on the prophetic traditions. The argument that the entire Israeli society is militarized and that they are colonizers, and therefore fair target for “martyrdom operations” is problematic. The most obvious thing concerns Israeli children. Even if they have been indoctrinated to hate arabs and consider them subhuman, they cannot choose where they want to be born, have no capacity to be conscientious objects and have no means of leaving Israel. In fact the same goes for adult Israelis who become its citizens by accident of birth, yet deplore the colonial policies of Israel and sympathize with the arabs, however small may be their number.

Many sympathizers of the Palestinian cause can readily understand why arab teenagers are driven to blowing themselves up in buses and restaurants – chiefly the unspeakable despair, frustration, and desperation of life under Israeli occupation and an uncomphending, indifferent world, coupled with religious notions of sacrifice. Understanding the phenomenon is one thing but giving it moral legitimacy is another, let alone accord it religious sanction. In a post September 11 world where “terrorism” has becomes the catch-all phrase to conveniently isolate and denounce the slightest challenge or grievance against the US hegemony, to whose coat tails Israel tightly clings, it demands Muslims to be extremely careful in our stand on issue like this – an over cautions political correctness if we like. But I think its worth the trouble. Unfair in the extreme we may complain, but the world’s judgement on the legitimacy or otherwise of the Palestinian struggle today appears to hinge only on one thing – the suicide bombers, the Archilles heel of the Palestinian struggle. Everything that is legitimate about the struggle – the quest for dignity and respect as a people, a truly sovereign state, right of return/compensation for what happened in 1948, the rights to Jerusalem etc, are wiped out by these acts of desperation, and it has to be admitted that targeting children in buses is revolting to the civilized world. Conversely, Israeli’s oppressive colonial policies, state terrorism, and destruction of Palestinian society are given tacit approval or grudgingly accepted as justifiable on the basis of tit for tat moral equivalency. For the few Israelis killed by suicide bombers, the reprisals and repression visited on the Palestinians are many times over in terms of loss of life and property, and worse, the rapid depletion of its leadership ranks. Maxime Rodinson, the distinguished French orientalist and long time supporter the Palestinian struggle who died just recently (May 2004) once wrote that Israel more or less tells the arab world in a clear and simple language, “We are here because we are the strongest. We will remain here because we will remain the strongest, wether you like it or not. And we will always remain the strongest, thanks to our friends in the developed world. It is up to you to draw your conclusions, to recognize your defeat and weakness, and to accept us as we are on the land that we have taken” (from “Vivre avec les Arabes”, written by Rodinson for the Le Monde in June 1967 just before the 6 day war, republished in the July 2004 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique).

Clearly, suicide bombing/martyrdom operation is too feeble to confront the Israeli military might, and the backlash against it too costly to be a viable strategy for the Palestinian struggle for justice, regardless that eminent scholars have given it a religious sanction, although I feel it still deserves further debate within the muslim ummah.

Beyond political correctness, today’s climate demands exceptional moral scrupulousness on the part of muslims if we need the solidarity of the world’s public on the issue of Palestine, which at present remains stifled by the revulsion towards suicide bombings. Sustaining its moral legitimacy seems to be the only way out, no matter how slow and painful the process may take.

Returning to Ziauddin Sardar, perhaps it is time that we ask muslims live for Islam, a much more difficult thing to do than its opposite.