Hell-fire Quotes
Although this verse illustrates the particular enmity that some orthodox Muslims have for Christians and Jews, philosophically the hostility it not unlike that some orthodox Christians had (and still have) for Jews. The theory was that among the more primitive people a certain “ignorance” was tolerable, but “People of the Book” were not ignorant but actually rejected the word of Muhammed or in the case of the Jews vis a vis the Christians, they rejected the word of Christ. The hate message is preached within some Christian circles about Jews and Muslims today, but the overt, visible, statement in the midst of the holiest of Scripture makes the Koranic version even more socially and ethically difficult in a pluralistic society.
This Hadith is said to represent the view of the Prophet, Muhammad. In Islam its authority is second only to the Koran itself. This quotation is given by many Muslim Imams to illustrate that suicide of any kind is contrary to Islam. Therefore these imams condemn suicide bombing as un-Islamic. Others—the terrorists—obviously disagree.
