Suicide Bombers – “Would Be” Martyrs?

            But, you may think, what about the aspiring martyrs who have vowed to sacrifice their lives for your declared cause that may reward them in heavenly paradise for their efforts as suicide bombers?

            The idealistic passion that ‘would be’ martyrs possess should not blind them to the truth.  When elephants fight, it is the forest that is trampled and ravaged.  Your terrorist groups who use explosives against their enemy in neighborhood communities are the fighting elephants in a forest of innocent people.

            Osama bin Laden, are the innocent victims just casualties of war who must be sacrificed to satisfy your personal vision?  When the ‘war’ ends and you are the savior and hero of the remaining world, then do you really think that you will be rewarded in paradise with dozens of dark eyed virgins to satisfy you?

            For any “would be” martyr, rather than die in the act of destroying innocent human lives, would it not be even more rewarding for them to live out a full and more prosperous life?  Would it not be far better to have friends and family that they can love and receive love from, and help them to achieve greater prosperity in their lifetimes?

            And when they die of natural causes in their old age, they will have already been rewarded by their glorious achievements to have brought more of paradise into their lifetime for themselves and others, rather than perpetuating hatred and suffering for future generations.  Then after having lived a wise and noble life in their passionate pursuit of bettering the human race, isn’t it very likely that Allah will reward them in paradise for their honorable accomplishments?

            It is within the power and the responsibility of each generation to create a little more of paradise and less of hell in this world then the generation before.  Osama, why deny your loyal followers their opportunity to serve Allah with honorable deeds instead of becoming murders of innocents?

            Misguided goals of martyrdom are only a “perceived” way to shortcut one’s path to paradise.  Actually, it’s a comparatively easy way that anyone is capable of – simply wear an explosive vest and blow yourself up in an area filled with as many people and children as possible, regardless if they are all innocent or not.  Compared to dedicating oneself to a long lifetime of accomplishing small but accumulative daily achievements that can significantly enhance many lives, it’s so much quicker and easier to “end it all” with a big boom.

            But it doesn’t ‘end it all’ at all.  It leaves bad blood and carnage that hurts all parties, and what if after you died thinking that you were going to be rewarded in paradise, you discovered that Allah was very displeased by your actions?  How will you be able to undo what you have done?  How will you be able to give back the lives to the innocent children, women, the infirm, the elderly and the good hardworking people that Allah had created and loved?

            You cannot recreate what you have destroyed.  Rather than destroy and kill, you can redirect ‘would be’ martyrs to stay alive and work to create a better life for all.  The world is not as it was.  Changes are occurring rapidly. 

            Your passion is needed for constructive change.  But do you have the courage, perseverance and strength to work daily in constructive ways no matter what obstacles lay before you?  

            Or do you want to gamble on an easy short cut that offers no life-back-guarantee, that when you kill yourself and others, it will absolutely get you a first class ticket to paradise?

            On Allah’s scale of judgment, if your final deed of a suicide bomber rested on one side, and all the innocent lives of children and their families rested on the other side, which side would Allah’s benefit of grace fall on - and which side would Allah’s wrath fall upon?

            You may tell Allah that you deeply believed that you were acting in Allah’s name and doing Allah’s will - as others, whom you believed in, had told you.  Might Allah say that others will be judged on their deeds, you are to be judged on your deeds, not on what others have told you?  Allah might also respond that you should have acted in other ways that did not take the lives of innocents – and did not take Allah’s gift of life to you.  Ultimately, it is your choice.  But Allah shall pass judgment not only on you having taken your own gift of life, but will weigh the totality of all the injurious consequences to all parties caused by your actions.

             Instead of inspiring suicide bombers, what if your followers lived out a long life, and each day, they did one good deed – just one!  It does not matter if their good deed was small or large.  What does matter is that at the end of their lifetime, Allah may judge them very favorably for a lifetime of good deeds and may reward them with all the pleasures of paradise.  Danger of eternal hell or opportunity of paradise – it is your responsibility to inspire the destinies of those who heed your words.