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Downloaded from Brill.Com09/29/2021 01:09:03PM Via Free Access chapter 2 Adversity in Post-Secular Europe The Dialectics of Martyrdom: Death as Witnessing and Professing Like Judaism and Christianity before, Islam has a long history of martyrs (μάρτυς – “blood witnesses” or “witnesses by death”). Yet unlike in Christian- ity, where Jesus of Nazareth himself was martyred at the hands of the Roman Empire, Pontius Pilate (the Prefect of Judea), and those Jewish authorities who collaborated with Rome, Muhammad escaped all assassination attempts and eventually died peacefully with his family in the city of al-Madīnah al- Munawwarah.1 Although his adversaries attempted to kill him on more than one occasion, the zeitgeist of barbarism they wished to perpetuate was broken by the establishment of Islam in Arabia, which brought relative peace to the Arabian Peninsula. For the believer, Muhammad’s long life attests to Allah’s mercy and protection, especially in considering that Muhammad was fully pre- pared to be a martyr for his cause. For twenty-three years he lived under and accepted the very real threat of violence. There is no doubt in the Islamic tradi- tion that he was entirely prepared to be sacrificed for his message, but his mar- tyrdom was not the purpose of his life and message. When the Qur’aysh tribe asked his Uncle Abū Ṭālib ibn ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib to intercede on their behalf hoping to persuade him to abandon his call, Muhammad said ‘even if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left, I will not give up this mission until either Allah is victorious or I die in the attempt.’2 Even non-Muslim biog- raphers praise his resolve to see his message through to the end.3 Not even the promise of great wealth and pleasure could dislodge his determination to con- struct a society of tawḥīd (oneness of God) and taqwá (God-consciousness) based on the Qur’an. Muhammad’s message was essentially what the psycholo- gist Erich Fromm describes as biophilic (love of life), as opposed to necrophilic 1 It should be noted that the Muslims do not blame “the Jews” for the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, since the Qur’an states, ‘they slew him not,’ ‘the Jews’ cannot be made responsible for what did not happen. (Qur’an 4:157). 2 My translation. 3 See Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. New York: HarperSanFran- cisco, 1992. © Dustin J. Byrd, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004328556_003 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the cc-by-nc License. Dustin J. Byrd - 9789004328556 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 01:09:03PM via free access <UN> 44 chapter 2 (love of death or inanimate objects), as it promoted a society predicated on equality, justice and mercy.4 Nevertheless, the earliest Muslim community, those who risk their lives pledging their allegiance to the prophet and witnessing their faith in his mes- sage, felt the wrath of the Qur’aysh tribe, the wealthiest and most brutal op- ponents of Islam. Before Muhammad ultimately triumphed over his pagan adversaries in 630 ce, the pagans had sent hundreds of Muslims to Jannah (paradise) as šuhadāʾ (martyrs). Yet the historical record demonstrates that Muhammad refused to make martyrs out of his adversaries when a just peace could be established. For exam- ple, when conquering Mecca from the pagans, Muhammad forbade any of his followers from engaging in any form of revenge, despite the fact that there were legitimate reasons to do so.5 Qiṣāṣ, or the right of retaliation, was suspended by the command of Muhammad, as he believed it would only perpetuate violence and vendettas, and would therefore close the door to reconciliation between the Muslims and the pagan inhabitants of Mecca. If the Meccans, who spent the last two decades oppressing and murdering Muslims, would lay down their arms and live in peace, Muhammad could not allow his followers to retaliate, despite the fact that they had an abundance of legitimate reasons to seek re- venge. The Qur’an states, ‘fight for the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not violate the limits; Allah does not love those who transgress.’6 By this ayat (verse) alone, Muhammad was obliged to offer peace to the Meccans as long as they were willing to live peacefully with their Muslim neighbors. This situation has been pointed out by many scholars as being an example of the capabil- ity of Muslims to live peacefully with those who do not share their faith, as the ṣaḥābah (companions) of the Prophet could even live with their former enemies who did not convert to Islam and had previously oppressed them, confiscated their properties, and murdered their kinsman.7 4 See Erich Fromm, To Have or To Be? New York: Continuum, 2000. 5 Yahiya Emerick, Muhammad (Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002.), 227–248. 6 Qur’an. 2:190. My Translation and my emphasis. 7 Another paradigmatic example of an inter-faith community of early Muslims is when many Muslims escaped persecution at the hands of the pagan Arabs by traveling to Abyssinia, in East Africa. There, King Negus, a Christian, overrode the objections of the pagan Meccans and offered these Muslims sanctuary. The King was impressed by their reverence of Jesus and Mary and in kind protected them from their enemies. According to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Vol. 5, Number 218, Jabir bin ‘Abdallah Al-Ansari related that the Prophet even held a funeral service for King Negus when he later died, despite the fact that Negus did not convert to Islam. Re- gardless, the Prophet was impressed by Negus’ ecumenical spirit and willingness to embody the Christian value of charity and mercy. Dustin J. Byrd - 9789004328556 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 01:09:03PM via free access <UN> Adversity In Post-secular Europe 45 According to Asma Afsaruddin, the earliest conceptions of Islamic mar- tyrdom were not limited to military activities, but were just as applicable to scholars who died in their pursuit of knowledge and other pious believers. She notes that in contradiction to our current conceptions, early exegetical works on the Qur’an did not privilege military or fighting-martyrs above the pious, the scholars, and the suffering believer; they were all given the same reward for the devotion to the divine and his religion.8 However, as Islam expanded into increasingly hostile territories outside of the Arabian Peninsula, and as Islam split between the Sunni and the Shi’i, the concept of martyrdom took on an increasingly martial meaning. Today, at least in the public sphere in both the West and the Muslim world, martyrdom has almost become synonymous with those who either fight or die fisibillah (for the sake of Allah), whilst those who live for Allah and his religion are no longer understood to be martyrs at death. This martial definition of martyrdom is more akin to the Christian conception martyrdom that was conceived under the conditions of the Roman Empire where Christianity was brutally persecuted until Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 ce, which legalized the faith. To the consternation of the Roman authorities, the more the early Christians were suppressed, the more the re- ligion grew. The same phenomenon can be witnessed among Muhammad’s ṣaḥābah, many of which were persecuted for not only being slaves, women, orphans, or for just simply being weak, but also for following Muhammad’s “new” religion. Being a Muslim denied the “inferiority” claim that the society imposed on slaves, women, orphans, and the weak, and thus provoked a back- lash from the socially “superior.” However, the more the unjust power structure manufactured martyrs, the more their suffering created new converts. From a historical and theological perspective, the production of mar- tyrs is only called upon when the bonds of brotherhood, as expressed in the Abrahamic traditions, are broken and violent conflict ensues. For many non- fundamentalist schools of thought, it is one of the primary goals of Islam to retire the concept of martyrdom by bringing into existence a society that no longer produces the conditions for which martial martyrs are needed – a rec- onciled society rooted in justice, peace, and friendly living together.9 It light 8 Asma Afsaruddin, ‘Martyrdom in Islamic Thought and Praxis’ in Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-Modern to Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Dominic Janes and Alex Houen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 40–58. 9 A “reconciled society” is a society that has resolved its antagonisms, i.e. its class antagonisms, its gender antagonisms, it racial antagonisms, etc. Although prototypically belonging to the- ology, this term, via the Frankfurt School and others has been brought down from metaphys- ics and into sociology and philosophy. Dustin J. Byrd - 9789004328556 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 01:09:03PM via free access <UN> 46 chapter 2 of this, it is the height of irony that martial martyrs are praised in the modern day struggles in the Muslim world when Islam itself is an attempt to eman- cipate mankind from the conditions that produce these sorts of martyrs. In other words, the fact that Muslim martyrs are still being created is evidence that Islam itself has not been fully realized; its “perfection” is not perfectly im- minent. Unfortunately, a society free from the need of warrior martyrs has yet to be achieved as humanity has not yet resolved the conditions that stirs the hatred for the other; it has yet to live within a sane balance of autonomy and solidarity; it has yet to value each individual as an ends and not as a means; and it has not learned how to identify and embrace the humanistic points of com- monality which transcend cultural differences.
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