The Mindset That Rewards A Suicide Bomber Is Not The Mindset of Islam

By Aylin Kocaman

In October the Palestine Committee of the Arab Lawyers Union honored a suicide bomber. A law student who entered a restaurant in Israel in 2003 and blew herself up, killing herself and 21 people, was honored by the lawyers’ union. Her slaughter of herself and 21 innocent people was remembered with praise. She entered a restaurant. Full of innocent civilians. The 21 people she killed included a pregnant woman and three children. Three children still unaware of the world around them and its dangers, still ignorant of war.

This honor is thought-provoking. But before that, I want to consider the logic of a suicide bomber. Why does a person become a suicide bomber?

The majority of the Arab countries were to some extent involved with the communism that grew stronger after the Second World War. The Ba’ath Party that became strong in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, the Shanghai bloc established under Chinese auspices and that quietly placed Arab countries and Iran under its protection, and al-Fatah, that grew strong in Palestine under Yasser Arafat’s leadership, never concealed their communist/socialist leanings. It is no secret how much blood Arab socialism mixed with extreme nationalism shed in Arab countries. Those who are unaware of that history should have a look at the situation in those countries now or how Hafez Assad’s legacy is preserved in Syria.

If a suicide bomber perpetrates his action from a socialist or even deeper communist mindset, such savagery is inevitable in that ideology. A communist attaches no value to his own life or anyone else’s. Under that mindset, putting an end to his own life is as much a contribution to world progress and to the “cause,” something which is in fact totally unclear, as putting an end to someone else’s life. Therefore, putting an end to his own life, which he regards as valueless, in order to put an end to other lives he also regards as worthless, is an even greater contribution in the eyes of this savage system. This is an extraordinarily false logic, but the subject of separate criticism.

If a suicide bomber perpetrates his action in the name of Islam, then that is a disgrace. There are the most profound and terrible errors here. A Muslim cannot kill. This is a sin. God reveals in the Koran that; “…if someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind.” (Surat al-Mai’da, 32) The verse is explicit. Just like it is a sin and murder to kill someone else, it is also a sin and murder to kill oneself. It is not jihad, but a sin to blow oneself up in a restaurant. Those who honor and glorify such things and imagine that the person has become a martyr are applauding murder, not jihad.

I know this, because I am a Muslim. A Muslim with a passionate love of God. I love God, and I also love the people He creates. I learned how to love from my Lord, and I have a religion that tells me to keep love alive. My faith is written in the Koran. I did not learn my religion from nonsense, traditions and fabrications.

This is not the jihad in the religion I learned from the Koran. Jihad means to strive through knowledge and science to bring someone to the truth and to establish communication with love and respect; not to kill him.

This is not the martyrdom I learned about from the Koran. Martyrdom means death while striving on the path of God while seeking to spread the love, friendship and brotherhood demanded by Islam.

In the religion I learned from the Koran, killing is a murder and a sin. It is not a virtue to be honored.

I read in the Koran that as a Muslim I must love and protect Jews and Christians. But they spread the propaganda of a religion that commands their deaths. No, their faith is not mine. And their religion is not the religion of God, either. Very few of those who follow that faith may realize that fact. The representatives of that union that imagines it is right to honor that young girl, who may have been encouraged to become a suicide bomber by radicals, a suicide bomber who murdered innocent people, may be unaware of that fact, as well. There are many people who imagine this false religion to be true and who seek to adhere to it.

The problem is this. People who do not know their own religion being diverted toward nonsense. And unless they learn their own religion and the true love in the Koran, there will continue to be suicide bombers and those who honor them. Bombs are not the way to teach them the truth. The only way is correct education. And in order to provide a true education, people of love from among Muslims, Christians and Jews must all come together. Once the power of unity has been established, then those people on the wrong path will begin to listen to us.