Heavenly Rest Quotes
At one level, this statement is typical of Christian theology and practice. Historically, the Christian martyrs were not only presumed to have gone to heaven but many of them were made Saints for their martyrdom. They assumed a type of equivalency of Christian prophets. The problem lies in the different concept of martyrdom. The martyrs of the Christian Church were almost all peaceful and docile people who would not repudiate their Christian faith even though tortured and killed. Martyrs in Islamic tradition included the above but more often were fighters and warriors who died on the battlefield or on a military mission of violence. In that sense, the modern suicide bomber is described as, and perceives him or herself as a martyrs. In Islamic culture, anyone who dies defending the faith, is a martyr. That person immediately goes to Paradise, bypassing all the other potential exclusions that the religion reserves for all others. Further, there are quasi religious beliefs about martyrdom in Islamic nations. One is that the martyr who acends to Paradise is given a bevy of virgins for his sexual pleasure for all eternity. This particular sura is used by suicide bomber recruiters to provide the highest level of religious authority to back up their claims of the advantages of a martyrs death to the would-be suicide bomber. Few of the recruiters however are sufficiently convinced of the martyrdom they sell so well, that they would willingly become martyrs themselves. While many Westerners see this as evidence of a major perversion of a perverse religion, they are usually unaware that in the Crusades, the Pope provided the same immediate ascension to Heaven for any Christian who died while fighting on the Crusades, and this was one of the major recruiting pitches to obtain volunteers to go to the Holy Land.
