Reading done on March 20 2018
"Contemporary Martyrdom: Ideology and Material Culture"
- by David B. Cook
- a chapter in Jihadi culture : the art and social practices of militant Islamists, edited by Thomas Hegghammer - 2017
In this chapter, Cook (2017) discusses martyrdom in classical Sunni and Shi'ite versions as well as contemporary Salafi jihadism. For the sake of my research I focus on the latter.
Cook (2017) claims that "[w]ith the rise of Salafi Jihadism, there has been a revival of a salvational style of jihad that emphasizes martyrdom, bringing out themes of bodily sanctity, visions of martyr, processes of commemoration, and hagiography associated with the movement (151).
6 Unique Qualities that differentiate a martyr in the eyes of God:
- Forgiveness
- Direct access to the vision of paradise — superhuman visionary qualities ?
- Saved from the torment of the grave
- Safe from the great fright of the resurrection
- A crown of honor placed on the head
- Marriage to 72 houris (virgins) — one of the most tangible aspect of the martyr.
- Intercession for 70of the martyr's relatives — Intercession is a controversial idea.
— The marriage to the houris divorces the martyr from human women, who al-Dmayti in the 1400s, states that are disgusting (Cook 2017, 153).
— "Promoting the idea that paradise has a major sexual component, graphic details of which are contained in all of the classical and contemporary literature on paradise, provides a secondary life for the martyr [...]" (Cook 2017, 154).
— "[M]artyrologies promote a rejection of human women as an ideal for the fighter" (Cook 2017, 156).
— Salafi jihadiss opposed to the idea as it makes personal piety unnecessary (Cook 2017, 154).
— "The life of the wife of a fighter is to merely be a receptacle for future fighters, while she waits for her husband to become a martyr [...]" (Cook 2017, 156).
Abdallah Azzam is a central figure when discussing martyrdom in contemporary jihad (Cook 2017, 154-155). Azzam believed in the "close linkage between the suffering and death that is accomplished by the martyrs, and the subsequent success of the umma" (Cook 2017, 155). Nevertheless, Salafis tend to have issues with Azzam's work because of the martyrologies that include miracle stories connected with martyrs (Cook 2017, 157-158).
— e.g. the wounds of the martyr continuing to exude blood eben after a year has gone by (Cook 2017, 158). — e.g. or a martyr's heavenly communications (Cook 2017, 158).
"Horses and horsemen are [...] an important symbol of virility and warfare [...]" (Cook 2017, 159).
"Light toward heaven is also an important manifestation of God's favor" (Cook 2017, 159).