The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Issue 45

Issue 45 [@ 44:11]: Video clip is shown of an unknown panel discussion with audience conversing in Arabic and a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen stating – [Person A, dressed in a suit] I have a son. I am already preparing him for martyrdom either mine or his. I tell him that Allah made a vast paradise and that in it are all things that the eyes has not seen and the ear has not heard, things that a man could not even imagine He ask me if I carry out an operation and blow myself up will Allah give me car, a rifle to shoot with, toys? I answer him You will get everything you ask for. [Question asked of Person A] This really happened between you and your son? [Person A answers] This really happened. [Panelist dressed in traditional Arab dress] Hold the microphone together and we will ask what is the right answer to give a child who asks ‘Where is my father or where is my mother after one or both of them has carried out a martyrdom operation?’ [Another person] The answer in brief is that when Sa’d died a martyr’s death we said he is martyr. Do not consider those who died for the sake of Allah dead but alive and sustained by their God and we calmed the children. When they came from the television channel, the Abu Dhabi channel I think or another channel we told them ‘We are willing to sacrifice our four children.’ then the smallest (fifth) child said ‘Why can’t I?’ [Child] I wish to be a martyr for the sake of Allah and to kill some of the Jews and infidels who worshiped other gods next to Allah and his Prophet and followed a religion that Allah did not permit and which is not mentioned in the Koran. I am 12 years old and I memorize the Koran. [Panelist] May Allah protect you and make you a Jihad fighter for the sake of Allah.

Rebuttal 45: This is a video clip of unknown people, location and purpose. One can only guess that these are the personal opinions of some who reek of hopelessness and exhibit generational deprivation of their past, present or future. This reaction of theirs seems to be have been transformed into a religious cause under the garb of Jihad to gain independence if not on the map, at least in their minds. They seem oblivious of loss, either of self or others. If these people belong to Palestine, then let the Israelis make the apology on their behalf for its over six decades of occupation, apartheid, deprivation and displacement. If they are Iraqi, then America has to justify their hopelessness which emerged from an unwarranted occupation and destruction of a country that never attacked it. If these people belong to some Arab land, then let the West share the responsibility of such kind of Jihad which is equated with violence, because it is the West in general and America in particular that roused, raked, indoctrinated and paid for such a Jihad from all over Arab world. Then this twisted Jihad was fully exploited for a decade to make a Vietnam out of the Soviet “infidels” occupying Afghanistan in 1980s. West never complained when this Jihad was to their favor against the communists, but now they cry foul when it turned against themselves. Wisdom tells us that if you find yourself in a hole, first stop digging. The solution for this Jihad in Middle East is in the Clintonian phraseology – It is the occupation stupid! Stop occupying other peoples and lands. Start with Palestine first then move eastward.

This video clip brings to fore the issues of Jihad, Suicide, Martyrdom, Terrorism, Inter-faith relationship in Islam, Heaven and memorizing Quran which are addressed below:

The meaning, spirit and purpose of Jihad was fully dealt with from different angles in Issues before – Muhammad Ali (Issue 27), Pickthall (Issue 27) , Zahid Aziz (Issue 33), Nooruddin (Issue 36) and G.W. Leitner (Issue 37).

Suicide has no support in Quran. On the reverse, self-preservation is a duty. See Rebuttal 33.

Martyrdom is not equivalent to suicide. See Rebuttal 34.

Precedence setting terrorism in Palestine by founders and Prime Ministers of Israel based upon Torah, is addressed in Rebuttal 39b.

Unlike Christianity (Issue 28), Islam respects other faiths and validates their Divine origins and emphasizes peaceful coexistence with their followers, see Issue 29a.

Heaven in Quran is an allegorical construct. In Quran there is no physical or geographical heaven, which is factually supported by astronomical truths as known to us by secular science. Its allegorical dimensions of time and space are limitless:

3:133. And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden, as wide as the heavens and the earth; it is prepared for those who keep their duty:

…we have a reliable tradition on record that a messenger of Heracleus (Byzantine Emperor, born c. 575 – died February 11, 641) asked the Prophet, “If the paradise were as extensive as the heavens and the earth, where would be hell?” “He replied, “Glory be to Allah, where is the night when the day comes?” The verse and the incident recorded clearly show that heaven and hell are not the names of two places, but actually two conditions, because if paradise were the name of a particular place, hell could not exist, as paradise would then extend over the whole of the space. This conclusively gives us a rational view of “heaven,” and is confirmed fully by the trend of modern thought which rejects the conception of the “geographical heaven” as primitive and irrational. Is not Modernism then indebted to the Qur’ân?

– Dean Inge’s Homage to Muhammad, by S. Hamid Raza B.A. (Alig), p. 322, Sept & Dec, 1934, The Muslim Revival, Ahmadiyya Buildings Lahore (India)

The very next verse possibly excludes any suicide bombers as candidates for heaven who neither restrain their anger nor pardon people, nor are the doers of good to others:

3:134. Those who spend in ease as well as in adversity and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon people. And Allah loves the doers of good (to others).

As to whatever that Heaven, heavenly state or heavenly award is, according to Quran it is assuredly sampled in this life:

2:25. And give good news to those who believe and do good deeds, that for them are Gardens in which rivers flow. Whenever they are given a portion of the fruit of these (Gardens), they will say: This is what was given to us before; and they are given the like of it…

[Footnote: Whenever the faithful are made to taste of a portion of the fruits of their good deeds in the life to come, they will find those fruits much resembling the fruits which they tasted spiritually in this life. The like of it may signify that the fruits of their deeds will be similar to those deeds…All the blessings of heavenly life are, according to a saying of the Holy Prophet, “things which no eye has seen and no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive of them” (Bukhari, 59:8). The words in which these blessings are depicted in the Holy Quran, therefore, should not be taken literally.]

The video clip makes a reference to memorizing Quran, but in doing so apparently without following its meaning, purpose and spirit. Quran mocks such meaningless efforts:

2:78. And (some) among them are illiterate, who do not know the Scripture except cramming it up, and are doing nothing but making conjectures. [Nooruddin]

Similar to Jews cramming up their sacred books without deriving any moral purpose, Quran further mocks such peoples who are merely cramming the Quran and making conjectures from it:

62:5. The case of those who were charged to observe (the law of) Torah but did not carry out (its commandments in its true spirit), is like the case of a donkey that carries (a load of) volumes (of Books; he neither understands them nor gathers any advantage from them). Wretched is the case of the people who cry lies to the Message of Allâh. And Allâh guides no unjust people to success. [Nooruddin]

Quran thus addresses both Muslims and Islam haters alike who misuse Quran for its Message: Wretched is the case of the people who cry lies to the Message of Allâh.
 

 
Note: [comments in square brackets above are the footnotes from the Translation and Commentary of Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz]

Unless indicated otherwise, all verses above are from the translation and commentary of Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz.

References:

The Muslim Revival – Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, Lahore
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz
Holy Quran – Nooruddin