RELIGIONS THAT WORSHIP DEATH
Mexicans Worship Mictlantecuhtli, god of death and Sante Muerte, the white death
Why murder anyone or kill yourself as an act of faith?
The religions of the world take many forms, both positive and negative, and the studies of these beliefs have fascinated researchers for millennia. Oceans of ink have been expended in these written tomes and knowledge has increased, but wisdom had still fled and remains in hiding today. Humankind still persists in worshiping weird and false gods.
All religions including Christianity revere death with a positive spin, regarding an afterlife as a positive goal of this life, which is achieved by conscious acts committed in the name of, or ordered by, the religions founder. The difference, however, is the pursuit of the death of others through murders committed in this life as a goal of faith to be sought after, which results in the blessings of the diety worshipped are then cast upon the faithful follower who kills others in the name of the god or idol. This article will follow a study of the second premise stated above that is now so prevalent on planet earth as the worship of death. Adherents of death cults now comprise a large percentage of religions today as evidenced by the many news stories and an increasing barbarous body count of the innocent throughout the nations.
During World War II, the Japanese Empire’s religion targeted American military forces for suicide bombers to attack, primarily as an act of faith in their religion of dead ancestor worship. Now, the worlds largest and longest-lived (1,400 years or so) murder cult of Islam expands religious murder to include ALL of humanity, including themselves, as murder victims in order to show humanity the superiority of their Mesopotamian moon god, Allah (Strong’s H#421-423, the CURSE). This study will name and examine a sample of the plethora of old and new death religions now in the world and their destructive belief systems that result in oceans of innocent blood shed by the insane and cannibalistic adherents to these murderous beliefs.
Deities associated with death take many different forms, depending on the specific culture and religion being referenced. Psychopomps along with birth, is among the major parts of human life, these deities may often be one of the most important deities of a religion. In some religions with a single powerful deity as the source of worship, the death deity is an antagonistic deity against which the primary deity struggles. The related term death worship has most often been used as a derogatory term to accuse certain groups of morally abhorrent practices which set no value on human life, or which seem to glorify death as something positive in itself.
In polytheistic religions or mythologies, which have a complex system of deities governing various natural phenomena and aspects of human life, it is common to have a deity who is assigned the function of presiding over death. The inclusion of such a “departmental” deity of death in a religion’s pantheon is not necessarily the same thing as the glorification of death, which is commonly condemned by the use of the term “death-worship” in modern political rhetoric.
In the theology of monotheistic religion, the one god governs both life and death. However in practice this manifests in different rituals and traditions and varies according to a number of factors including geography, politics, traditions and the influence of other religions.
1. Mexico’s SAINT DEATH
Santa Muerte (Spanish for Saint Death) is a female folk saint venerated primarily in Mexico and the United States. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Not sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, her cult arose from popular Mexican folk belief, a syncretism between indigenous Mesoamerican and Spanish Catholic beliefs and practices. Since the pre-Columbian era Mexican culture has maintained a certain reverence towards death, which can be seen in the widespread commemoration of the syncretic Day of the Dead. Elements of that celebration include the use of skeletons to remind people of their mortality. The worship is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico as invalid to Mexican Catholics, but it is firmly entrenched among Mexico’s lower working classes and various elements of society deemed as “outcasts”. Deities of the underworld, and resurrection deities are commonly called death deities in comparative religions texts. The term colloquially refers to deities that either collect or rule over the dead, rather than those deities who determine the time of death. However, all these types will be included in this article.
Many have incorporated a god of death into their mythology or religion. As death, Since 2001, there has been a “meteoric growth” in the size of the Santa Muerte cult, largely due to her reputation for allegedly performing miracles. Worship has been made up of roughly two million adherents, mostly in Mexico State, Guerrero, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Campeche, Morelos, and Mexico City, with a recent spread to Nuevo Leon. In the late 2000s, the founder of Mexico City’s first Santa Muerte church, David Romo, estimated that there were around 5 million devotees in Mexico, constituting approximately 5% of the country’s population; Chesnut accepted this as a plausible figure. Chesnut noted that by this time Santa Muerte had become Mexico’s second-most popular saint, after Saint Jude, and had come to rival the country’s “national patroness”, the Virgin of Guadalupe. The cult’s rise was controversial, and in March 2009 the Mexican army demolished 40 roadside shrines near the U.S. border. Circa 2005, Mexican and Central American migrants brought the Santa Muerte cult to the United States, and by 2012 had tens of thousands of followers throughout the country, primarily in cities with high Latino populations. In the Mexican and U.S. press, the Santa Muerte cult is often associated with violence, criminality, and the illegal drug trade. She is a popular deity in prisons, both among inmates and staff, and shrines dedicated to her can be found in many cells. The majority of believers are poor people who are not necessarily criminals, but the public belief in her by several drug traffickers and small numbers of other petty criminals has indirectly associated her with crime, especially low-level organized crime. In Mexico, authorities have linked the worship of Santa Muerte to prostitution, drug trafficking, kidnapping, smuggling, and homicides. Criminals, among her most fervent believers, are likely to pray to her for successful completion of a job as well as escaping from the police or jail. In the north of Mexico, she is venerated along with Jesus Malverde, the so-called “Saint of Drug Traffickers”. Altars with images of Santa Muerte have been found in many drug houses in both Mexico and the United States. Among two of Santa Muerte’s more famous devotees are kidnapper Daniel Arizmendi Lopez, known as El Mochaorejas, and Gilberto Garcia Mena, one of the bosses of the Gulf Cartel. On Friday, 30 March 2012, the Sonora State Investigative Police announced that they had arrested eight people for murder for allegedly having performed a human sacrifice of a woman and two ten year old boys to Santa Muerte.
The Holy Death sect is gaining followers in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital, where rival drug cartels have been battling for every inch of turf, according to Fox News’ Latino News.
Three Holy Death churches have opened in the past two years in the border city, drawing hundreds of people to pray and make offerings to the “White Girl,” a skeletal image dressed in women’s clothing. The Catholic Church does not sanction her worship.
She is called Santa Muerte or “Holy Death.” A federal marshal says shrines to the skeletal “Holy Death” are a growing presence, not just along the U.S.-Mexico border but also throughout the United States.
“Based on my experience, it appears she is the most popular icon being used by the drug traffickers, criminals not just in Mexico and not just along the Southwest border area but throughout the entire United States,” U.S. Marshal Robert R. Almonte of El Paso told the Laredo Morning Times for a story in Sunday’s editions.
She is also called ”La Flaquita” or “the skinny little girl” and has become increasingly visible in Laredo, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
The sect’s roots can be traced to 1795, according to different researchers, when Indians began worshipping a skeleton they called the Holy Death in a town in central Mexico, and there are accounts that say the religion remained underground for two centuries.
Experts, however, agree that the sect has experienced explosive growth since the economic meltdown of 1995, when worship of the Holy Death moved from home altars into the streets, with the deity gaining a presence in processions and festivals that draw hundreds of people.
Drug traffickers and even residents of some sections of the border city battered by drug-related violence ask the Holy Death for protection, sometimes putting up chapels where alms, tequila, cigars, candy and other offerings can be left.
Almonte said he has heard reports from Mexico of people killing their victims as an offering to Santa Muerte, as the Aztecs did and as Islam does today.
“The pen is silent, powerless and confused when facing the magnificence and power of he who commits suicide for Allah, the pen is powerless faced with your ability and strength, the pen trembles faced with your courage and toughness, the pen is silent to the sound of your voice which blends with the music of the belief and struggle, the pen bows its head in submission faced with your sublimeness. Oh, he who commits suicide for Allah, we do not know if to grieve for your departure… or to rejoice because you have obtained the honor of dying following the path of Allah, and the Lord knows (the reward of the suicide bomber) from the determined mother who receives her son who has committed suicide, weltering in his holy blood, at times with blessings and words of praise and at times with howls and cries. A thousand blessings and a thousand blessings of mercy for your pure spirit hovering in the skies of Palestine, which rose to the high skies… your name will be engraved in the heart and in the memory, and we swear to continue the path of Jihad (holy war) on which you marched.” QUOTE, praise to a suicide bomber for “Allah”
Suicide is against Islam. Martyrdom as a suicide killer is not.
“Suicide bomber” is a derogatory term invented in the West to try and describe what in Islam is known as a Fedayeen or Shahid – a martyr. The point of the bomber isn’t suicide – it is to kill infidels in battle. This is not just permitted by Muhammad, but encouraged with liberal promises of earthy rewards in heaven, including food and sex.
There have been such martyrs in Islam almost from the founding of the religion. Whereas Christian and Jewish martyrs without exception passively accepted death for their faith, most Muslim martyrs have given up their lives fighting as combatants in the holy war. Even Sufis, members of the mystical fraternities in Islam, have embarked on jihad as individuals and groups. The warrior monk is a common figure in pre-modern Islam, and jihad scholar Michael Bonner has drawn attention to the important role played in war by religious leaders and scholars as preachers and as fighters.
The figure of the martyr as a holy warrior (mujahid) who dies in battle and goes on to reap a heavenly reward above that of ordinary mortals is of central importance in the earliest period of Islam. Its ideal type is the fighter who engages in an action called inghimas, throwing himself recklessly at the enemy, even if he should be one man against a thousand. Doing this was seen as legitimate because the Mujahid was seeking martyrdom and did not need permission from the leader of his army or unit. Its legitimacy, even today, is derived from the fact that Muhammad himself often sent out individual fighters as “military expeditions” in and of themselves. In the modern period, some scholars have argued that there is a close connection between inghimas and suicide bombing: “If, by immersing himself into enemy ranks, a fighter brings about his own death, such self-sacrifice is legally [in terms of Shari’a law] the same as bringing about his own death by his own hand. In this respect there is no legal difference between the direct hand of the self-detonating suicide fighter and the proxy hand of the outnumbered fighter entering the fray alone.” Gibril Haddad, a hard-line Wahhabi sheikh, writes that inghimas “must not be viewed as reckless self-destruction but as the highest valor and courage. More than that, as Abu Ayyub [a companion of Muhammad] indicated with his tafsir [interpretation] of al- Baqara 195 [Qur’an 2:195] before entering the fray at Constantinople and fighting to the death, they viewed inghimas as life itself.”
This again is a clear echo of the Islamist saying that Muslims “love death” whereas non-Muslims love life. This conceit seems to have begun during the great Arab conquests of the seventh century. In 633, just one year after the death of Muhammad, the Muslim general Khalid ibn al-Walid had entered Iraq in the first phase of the conquest of the Iranian Sassanid Empire. Writing to Hormuz, the Persian governor of a frontier district, Dast Maysan, Walid proclaimed: “Submit to Islam and be safe. Or agree to the payment of the jizya [tax], and you and your people will be under our protection, else you will have only yourself to blame for the consequences, for I bring the men who desire death as ardently as you desire life.”
The Almighty and Glorified Allah said to his servant and messenger, Muhammed (P.B.U.H): “And worship your lord until there comes into you the certainty (Al- Quran 15:99) certainty here means death.
The real meaning of this verse is: Do not abandon worship until you die. So he made the ultimate point of worship, the ultimate point of one’s life. The righteous servant of Allah, Jesus (P.B.U.H) said “And has enjoined on me Salaah (Prayer) and Zakah as long as I live —“(Al-Quran 19:3!). Also the prophet (P.B.U.H) said: “verily, if the son of Adam dies, her deeds terminate—“by Muslim. So he made- “death”-the limit of his deeds terminate—-that means, after fasting in the Ramadan a believe does, and should not stop fasting, for fasting will still be lawful in the whole year round in the form of fasting 3 days of each and every month, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, and fasting on Arafat Day.
And even if the night prayers of Ramadan are gone a believer will not cease from performing them. How can he do that when Allah praised those who perform night prayers when he said: “Their sides for sake their Beds, to invoke their, lord in fear and hope, and they spend (charity in Allah’s cause) out of what we have bestowed on them. No person knows what is kept Hidden for them of joy as a Reward and for what they used to Do—“(Al-Qur’an 32”, 16-17).
Palestinian society actively promotes the religious belief that their deity craves their deaths. Note the words of a popular music video directed at children, broadcast hundreds of times on PA TV, which depicts the earth thirsting for the blood of children: “How sweet is the fragrance of the Shahid, how sweet is the scent of the earth, its thirst quenched by the gush of blood, flowing from the youthful body.”
This conviction that the deity thirsts for or craves human death as tribute and sacrifice has its roots in ancient beliefs.
The Bible cites ancient cultures of the Land of Israel: “Their sons and their daughters they sacrifice to their Gods” [Deut: 12]. Even the Israelites were drawn to it: “And they built altars to give their sons and daughters to Molech which God did not command nor consider this abomination [Jeremiah: 32].”
As recently as 500 years ago, South American tribes used to leave children to die on mountaintops as presents to their gods. The common denominator driving human sacrifice cults was the belief that the deity craved the death of innocents.
This is precisely the belief that the leaders of Palestinian society are inculcating in their people. Moreover, Palestinians have been taught on PA TV by their religious leaders that they are born for the very purpose of dying for Allah: “The believer was created to know his Lord and to uphold Islam to be a Shahid, or intend to be a Shahid. If the Muslim does not aspire Shahadah, he will die as in the Jahiliya [pre-Islam faith]. If we truthfully request it of Allah, He will grant us its rewards even if we die in bed.”
This message is of paramount significance. The Muslim is born in order to die the right death, according to Palestinian Islam. Death need not be the termination of life to be prevented, but can be transformed into the ultimate achievement, on the condition it is for the deity. Those who do achieve this death are promised rewards by religious leaders on PA TV: “All his sins are forgiven from the first gush of blood; he is exempted from the torments of the grave (Judgment)… he marries 72 Dark-Eyed [Virgins or Maidens of Paradise]… on his head is placed a crown of honor, one stone of which is worth more than all there is in this world.”
Like their adult role models, Palestinian children have learned to see dying for the deity as their goal in life. In a chilling talk show interview on PA TV, two 11- year-old girls explain cheerfully and eloquently what they and their young friends desire: Walla: “Shahadah is very, very beautiful. Everyone aspires to Shahadah. What could be better than going to paradise?”
Yussra: “Of course Shahadah is sweet. We don’t want this world; we want the Afterlife. We benefit not from this life but from the Afterlife… Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says, “Oh Lord, I would like to become a shahid.” Public opinion polls indicate that Yussra and Walla represent an overwhelming majority of Palestinian children who embrace this belief. According to three different polls, 70 to 80 percent of Palestinian children aspire to Shahadah.
In the ancient world, there was widespread belief that the deity wanted humans to die as the ultimate form of worship. People gave their children to the deity of Molech and the Baal. This ancient belief has now returned to plague the world. The world had assumed that the Palestinian suicide terrorist was facing a dilemma of having to choose between the “value” of killing Jews and the value of life. Clearly, this is false.
Killing Jews is one “value.” Death for deity is itself a value, indeed, a value greater than life. Seeking Shahadah is not desperation but aspiration. As the mother explained her joy after her son’s death: “I wanted the best for him.”
Suicide, or self-killing, has been known throughout the whole of recorded history and has been a phenomenon in every culture and social setting. It was noted in the Biblical Times within the Jewish and Christian faiths. It is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita within the Hindu faith, in classical Greece and Rome, and later throughout the Middle Ages, when the reaction to the heresy of suicide was severe hostility from the Universal Church, whose later fathers railed against the canonical sin of despair. Suicide occurs in every culture, not only in the Western developed world, but also in India, China and, despite severe theological prohibitions, in Islam.
As shown, neither the Judaic nor Christian parts of the Bible are there direct injunctions against suicide. However, this is not the case in the traditions of the true religion, Islam, which continues to be a major influence upon many Islamic people. There are a few quite specific sanctions expressed in the Quraan against self-killing. The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) also assigns suicide to the lower levels of Hell. Allah says explicitly in the Quraan, “And do not kill yourselves. Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to you”. (Surah An-Nisa Verse 29) In another verse of the Quraan, Allah says: “And do not throw yourselves in destruction”. (Surah Al-Baqarah Verse 195) The impact of this injunction still has considerable force in Islamic countries, and it may be one reason why, with the exception of Jordan and Turkey, there is no recorded suicide in national statistics of the Islamic Nations. But, in the last decade or so there has been a substantial increase of suicide in Muslims living in Non-Muslim countries, namely Britain and America.
The female suicide bomber completes her journey. Oh Shahid (martyr), relax, relax, we will continue the struggle but how? This is the ever-present question. Our brothers and sisters in the suicide university (the name given to Al- Najah university) participate in an impressive procession, while accompanying a new bridegroom to heaven (i.e. A funeral of a suicide bomber) so he can meet there with prophet Muhammad and his martyred colleagues. Is not the Jihad (holy war) a binding command for every Muslim? What will I say to my Lord tomorrow? I placed my trust in the death for Allah as my most noble aspiration. At night she told her fiancé, and after a long argument, the desire to die for Allah triumphed, to follow those who sacrificed themselves for Allah. (After her fiancé was killed) she contacted the leadership of Al- Qassam Brigades and requested what every Muslim dream of (i.e. carry out a suicide bombing) and they immediately prepared and booby-trapped (with explosives) the vehicle, which our heroin drove. After the Al- Qassam Brigades set the target, she was dispatched (to carry out the suicide attack). Where the bride wed her groom and a voice from heaven stated: the female suicide bombers are worthy to wed in heaven with the male suicide bombers.
The women of heaven-Hur al-Ayan Hur al- Ayan are those with the beautiful eyes. The white of their eyes shine and their pupils are jet black. Their breasts are prominent and their teeth compatible. They are young and beautiful as pearls, corals and gems and the shade of their skin is like sunlight. The women of heaven are pure. They have no monthly period or bleeding after birth and no other secretions. The women of heaven sing beautifully in anticipation of good husbands. The “Shahid” (martyr) for Allah, receives immediate atonement of all his sins, with the first drop of his blood being shed. He is exempt from the suffering of the grave, a crown at honor is placed on his head and he weds 72 virgins, whose abode is in heaven (Hur al- Ayan) and is entitled to have 70 family members enter heaven- The “Shahid” receives the potency of 70 men.
Women Arriving in Heaven The wife of a believer in this world will be his wife also in heaven, if she were a believing woman. They are entitled to the pleasures of heaven with their husbands. The women will be wed to her last husband if she were married to several men. One tradition says that each man will have one woman only, the righteous will have two, and the “Shahid” will have 72, because he enters heaven unconditionally.
The Scorn of Inhabitants of Heaven toward those Going to Hell The believers, after entering heaven, heap scorn and curses upon the infidels going to hell.
“The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death,” explained Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah.
Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached: “We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: “It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve the interests of his nation and his religion.
To the Muslim religionist death is victorious because he believes he will be united with 72 virgins in some ‘Paradise’ after he blows himself up in his misguided attempt to please his god—Allah. Under this interpretation of the Koranic verse, Islam is a suicide/death cult and Mohammed taught that death is good and glorious.
In Islam such a notion also exists. However, it is nothing like the Golden Rule. In Islam the world is divided into believers, the Dar-al-Islam, and the evil unbelievers or the kafirs, known as the Dar-al-Harb or world of war. While Muslims are prohibited from lying, cheating or stealing from Muslims, no such restrictions are applied when dealing with kafirs. Even murder is acceptable. Killing a Muslim is a serious crime, but the murder of an infidel is justified by the non-Muslim’s non-belief in Allah.
So Muslims leaders the world over is preaching the doctrine of Death. They love death. They say,
“We are going to win, because they love life and we love death,” said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: “each of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah.” Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”
These poor misguided devotees! The enemy himself has deceived them. Just like Eve was deceived in the Garden, Satan deceived Muhammad and the deception is still here today with these poor lost Muslims. This fact is evidenced by death being the result of sin.
So these Muslim suicide terrorists are just doing the devil’s work, when we read how they blow themselves up killing many innocents.
Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty. (Exodus 23:7)
Don’t lie and don’t kill the innocent because God will not acquit you. The deception is great—Muslims, it seems, believe the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
There is no mistake he is talking about killing the innocent. This thinking is exactly from the Muslim holy books. It is not aberrant Islam but mainstream. Benbrika is being true to the faith. The problem is the faith is based on a false foundation, i.e. that death is to be celebrated. As we have seen from the Bible the truth is the opposite. It warns against this sort of thing.
They band themselves together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. (Psalm 94:21)
And shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted, with the blood. (Psalm 106:38) Muslim mothers are doing the same today, offering their own children as sacrifices to their god Allah, just like the pagan Canaanites did by burning their children in the fires of Moloch—the false god.
Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: “if you’re not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don’t want you.” Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women – some married with infant children – are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life.
The true Word of God tells us to love life and protect the innocent. We find that Proverbs 1:10-19 gives almost a perfect description of the way the Muslim terrorist believes he can force the world to believe using the sword.
My sons, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol [Hell] let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”— my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.
But Allah is the god of Death and he teaches his followers to kill and destroy. The Koran says,
Fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)… (Sura 9:5)
We went out to Khaibar in the company of the Prophet. While we were proceeding at night, a man from the group said to ‘Amir, “O ‘Amir! Won’t you let us hear your poetry?” ‘Amir was a poet, so he got down and started reciting for the people poetry that kept pace with the camels’ footsteps, saying: – “O Allah! Without you we would not have been guided on the right path neither would be have given in charity, nor would we have prayed. So please forgive us, what we have committed (i.e. our defects); let all of us Be sacrificed for Your Cause And send Sakina (i.e. calmness) Upon us to make our feet firm When we meet our enemy, and If they will call us towards An unjust thing, We will refuse. The unbelievers have made a hue and Cry to ask others’ help against us.” The Prophet on that, asked, “Who is that (camel) driver (reciting poetry)?” The people said, “He is ‘Amir bin Al-Akwa’.”
Then the Prophet said, “May Allah bestow His Mercy on him.” A man amongst the people said, “O Allah’s Prophet! Has (martyrdom) been granted to him. Would that you let us enjoy his company longer.” Then we reached and besieged Khaibar till we were afflicted with severe hunger. Then Allah helped the Muslims conquer it (i.e. Khaibar). … So when the army files were arranged in rows (for the clash), ‘Amir’s sword was short and he aimed at the leg of a Jew to strike it, but the sharp blade of the sword returned to him and injured his own knee, and that caused him to die. When they returned from the battle, Allah’s Apostle saw me (in a sad mood). He took my hand and said, “What is bothering you?” I replied, “Let my father and mother be sacrificed for you! The people say that the deeds of ‘Amir are lost.” The Prophet said, “Whoever says so, is mistaken, for ‘Amir has got a double reward.” The Prophet raised two fingers and added, “He (i.e. Amir) was a persevering struggler in the Cause of Allah and there are few ‘Arabs who achieved the like of (good deeds) ‘Amir had done.”
So, did Amir commit suicide and the Prophet praised his “suicidal” action? No. Amir DID NOT commit suicide and the Prophet DID NOT praise suicide. Such are the glaring misrepresentations and lies being spread about Islam!
Such exposure of lies or ignorant claims of these former Muslims may not stop them from their anti-Islamic propaganda, but Muslims themselves need to be educated about Islam and its various sources (the Qur’an, hadith, history books, commentaries, etc.). More importantly, Muslims need to be educated in these regards in a self-critical manner.
Does this hadith make Islam look better? We never said Muhammad encouraged suicide. Although he himself attempted it, he said that Allah would punish those who commit suicide. He encouraged murder-suicide. He said getting killed while killing in the path of Islam will attract the highest reward. So, if Amir had turned the sword on himself intentionally, he would have gone to hell, but since his intention was to kill a defenseless Jew and was killed accidentally by his own sword, his reward will be doubled. The moral of the story is clear. If you kill yourself you will go to hell, but if you are killed while attempting to kill an infidel you will be rewarded.
Doesn’t this encourage suicide bombing? Many of the suicide bombers are frustrated people. They are ordinary Muslims, who face a life crisis. Then they are told that if they kill non-Muslims and in the process end their own miserable life, they will be rewarded handsomely and all their problems will go away.
Using this Islamic logic, an Iraqi woman had 80 young women raped then recruited as suicide bombers.
Once these girls were raped, she told them that they are sinners, that there is no future for them either in this world or in the next. But there is one way out. The way out is to become martyrs.
In this macabre enterprise, no one was doing anything un-Islamic; everyone thought he or she would be rewarded. In Islam, you can commit all sorts of crimes; and if it is done for the advancement of Islam, you will be rewarded. The rapist’s thought they will be rewarded; the woman, who encouraged these victims of rape to become suicide bombers, thought she will be rewarded; and the victims themselves, who carried out the suicide bombings, thought they would be rewarded. In Islam, it is the intention that counts. If your intention is to murder non-Muslims, or even Muslims, who, you think, are murtad and do not interpret Islam in the “right” way, you will be rewarded. You can rape them, loot them, murder them and treat them with utmost savagery and you will be rewarded. This is Islam – the only major religion that is completely divorced from the Golden Rule and actually prescribes qildhat, being harsh to unbelievers. (Q. 48:29; 9:123)
It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. Ye desire the lure of this world and Allah desireth (for you) the Hereafter, and Allah is Mighty, Wise. (Q. 8:67)
This sura, appropriately called ‘Spoils of War’, was written after the battle of Badr. Muslims did not want to kill the captives. They wanted to return them in exchange for ransom. But the bloodthirsty prophet of Allah wanted his vengeance. Hence the above verse. He tells his followers, “don’t worry about ransom; there is more to come. It does not behoove a prophet to stop killing just for a miser ransom. My thirst for blood must be satisfied. These captives derided me when I was in Mecca and now I want to take my sweet revenge.” So, he ordered beheading of his captives of war. No matter how you look at it, what he did was war crime.
It is shameful for Muslims, especially those, who claim to be scholars and know the truth, to tell us that Islam respects human life when the reverse is true. From the time Muhammad managed to fool a bunch of savages in Medina, he did nothing but raiding, looting and killing. How can anyone say Islam respects life when according to an estimate Muslims have slaughtered more than 280 million people since the inception of Islam? Muslims follow the examples set by their prophet. The victims of Islam are increasing and will continue to increase until Islam is eradicated. No other cause has taken more tolls on humanity than Islam.
This is the logic of Islam. Hell may freeze before Muslim scholars find courage to confront ex-Muslims.Nothing will destroy Islam faster than such a confrontation. Muslim scholars know it well. That is why they pretend they do not see us. That is why Muhammad prescribed swift death for apostates.
Only by understanding Genesis as real history can we understand that death is the product of sin. It is an intruder and is evil and not to be celebrated, but overcome. When the Church rejects Genesis as real history she cannot understand that Islam is as much as a false religion as the Canaanite pagan worship of Moloch—a religion of Death.
Suicide in Japan has become a significant national social-issue. Japan has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, and the Japanese government reported the rate for 2006 as being the ninth highest in the world. 71% of suicides in Japan were male, and it is the leading cause of death in men aged 20–44.
Factors in suicide include unemployment (due to the economic recession in the 1990s), depression, and social pressures. In 2007, the National Police Agency revised the categorization of motives for suicide into a division of 50 reasons with up to three reasons listed for each suicide. Suicides traced to losing jobs surged 65.3 percent while those attributed to hardships in life increased 34.3 percent. Depression remained at the top of the list for the third year in a row, rising 7.1 percent from the previous year.
In Japanese culture there is a long history of honorable suicide, such as ritual suicide by Samurai to avoid being captured, flying one’s plane into the enemy during WWII, or charging into the enemy fearlessly (Banzai) to prevent bringing shame on one’s family.
There has been a rapid increase in suicides since the 1990s. For example, 1998 saw a 34.7% increase over the previous year. This has prompted the Japanese government to react by increasing funding to treat the causes of suicide and those recovering from failed suicides.
Japanese society’s attitude toward suicide has been termed “tolerant,” and in many occasions suicide is seen as a morally responsible action. Public discussion of the high rate of suicide also focuses on blaming the economic hardship faced by middle-aged men (see sarakin). However, the rise of Internet suicide websites and the increasing rate of suicide pacts (shinjo) have raised concerns from the public and media, which consider the pacts “thoughtless.”
In 1703, Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote a puppet play entitled Sonezaki Shinjuu (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki), which was later, re-engineered for the kabuki theater. The inspiration for the play was an actual double suicide, which had recently occurred between two forbidden lovers. Several more “double suicide” plays followed, which were eventually, outlawed by the governing authorities for emboldening more couples to “romantically” end their lives.
During Japan’s imperial years, suicide was common within the military. This included suicide when a battle was lost. The samurai way of glory was through death, and ritual suicide was seen as something honorable. Writer Yukio Mishima is famous for his ritual suicide while trespassing on the grounds of the Defense Agency headquarters in Ichigaya.
The cultural heritage of suicide as a noble tradition still has some resonance. While being investigated for an expenses scandal, Cabinet minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka took his life in 2007. The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, described him as a “true samurai” for preserving his honour. Ishihara is also the scriptwriter for the film I Go To Die For You that glorifies the memory and bravery of the kamikaze pilots in WWII.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found, call on Him while He is still nearby.” (Isaiah 55:6)
Walking on the Emmaus road to Peace with Yeshua,
Rav James and Erlene Talbott, Yeshua HaTikvah Yisrael Ministry