Martyrdom in Islamic Thought and Praxis

Abstract

Islamic thought had no single conception of martyrdom. The act of bearing witness to faith did, nevertheless, play an important role from the time of the Prophet Mohammed. Through an exploration of texts from that time through to the present day it is clear that violent self-sacrifice in the course of Jihad (holy war) only gradually came to become a peculiarly prominent theme in Islamic thought. In fact such witness might equally be obtained through living a virtuous life and then dying from natural courses. Moreover suicide attacks which also cause the death of innocent bystanders are not supported by well-established traditions of Islamic scholarship.

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