So where are the drugs and rock-n-roll?

The Sydney Morning Herald documents a popular Arab TV show that takes some of the mystique out of so-called "martyr operations." I think one of the items I find most disturbing in the article (and series) - largely because it fits with other stories I've seen over the past few years (most notably here, here and here) - is the use of sexual frustration (and a promised release) as a recruiting tool for young, devout Islamic males. Some go so far as to accuse Islamists of a serious case of misogyny. Witness this piece from the Herald article:

From the start, Anzour set out to mount a challenge. The name al-Hour al-Eyn (his translation is "The White Maids with Beautiful Big and Lustrous Eyes") represents the 72 virgins who militants believe wait in paradise for the martyrs to jihad. Anzour heard a recording made by Saudi security officials of two militants talking to each other by radio, counting down to a suicide attack. "You hear one of them saying to the other: 'Seven seconds to al-Hour al-Eyn, six seconds to al-Hour al-Eyn, five seconds …' And then the explosion comes," he said. "This really gives you the mentality of these people. I was very affected by this."

Something interesting I noticed while shuffling through websites and reading more deeply into martyrs and their motivation was an attempt by many Western Islamic scholars to dismiss not just sexual frustration...but religion itself as a motive, instead pointing to the more tried and true 'political frustration.' At the leadership level...yeah, I can see that. But to deny Jihadi recruiters are running around selling peep show tickets for the Afterlife to teens and twentysomethings is to deny the very words of those who conduct these operations:

The death announcements of martyrs in the Palestinian press often take the form of wedding, not funeral, announcements. "Blessings will be accepted immediately after the burial and until 10 p.m. …at the home of the martyr's uncle," read one suicide bomber's death notice. "With great pride, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad marries the member of its military wing… the martyr and hero Yasser Al-Adhami, to 'the black-eyed,'" read another.

Al Risala, the Hamas mouthpiece, published the will of Sa'id Al-Hutari, who carried out the June 1, 2001 suicide bombing outside the disco near the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv that killed 23, mostly teenage girls. "I will turn my body into bombs that will hunt the sons of Zion, blast them, and burn their remains," Al-Hutari wrote. "Call out in joy, oh my mother; distribute sweets, oh my father and brothers; a wedding with 'the black-eyed' awaits your son in Paradise."

The same view is also evident in news reports in the Palestinian press. Thus, for example, the reporter Nufuz Al-Bakri reported the death of Wail 'Awad as follows: "The mother of Wail 'Awad, from Deir El-Balah, did not plan on holding a second wedding for her eldest son, after his marriage on August 10, 2001 to his fiancée in a simple ceremony attended only by the family. But yesterday was Wail's real wedding day, and the angels of the Merciful married him, together with the [other] martyrs, to 'the black-eyed,' as all around [them] rose the cries of joy that his mother dreamed of on the day of his wedding [to his fiancée]."

Hamas official Ashraf Sawaftah told of a ceremony honoring Izz Al-Din Al-Masri, who carried out the suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in central Jerusalem on August 9, 2001: "His relatives distributed sweets and accepted their son as a bridegroom married to 'the black-eyed,' not as someone who had been killed and was being laid in the ground."

The uncle of Nassim Abu 'Aasi, who died while he was attempting to carry out an attack, said that when the deceased was asked why he was not married, he would always reply, "Why should I relinquish 'the black-eyed' to marry women of clay [i.e. flesh an blood]?"

"This is part of the Islamic belief," Hamas leader Isma'il Abu Shanab once explained to AFP. "Anyone who dies a martyr's death has a reward. If the martyr dreams of 'the black-eyed,' he'll get her."

The Hamas movement educates the children in its schools, beginning in kindergarten, to believe that a martyr is given virgins in Paradise. Jack Kelley of USA Today visited Hamas schools in Gaza City, where he saw an 11-year-old boy speak to his class: "I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys… I will tear their bodies into little pieces and will cause them more pain than they will ever know." His classmates shouted in response, "Allah Akhbar," and his teacher shouted, "May the virgins give you pleasure." A 16-year-old Hamas youth leader in a Gaza refugee camp told Kelley, "Most boys can't stop thinking about the virgins."

Along with the media, Palestinian Muslim clerics also help instill this belief. In an interview with the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, Palestinian Authority Mufti Sheikh 'Ikrima Sabri was asked what he felt when he prayed for the soul of a martyr. He answered: "I feel that the martyr is lucky, because angels bring him to his wedding in Paradise… I spoke with one young man, who told me: 'I want to marry the black-eyed women in Paradise.' The next day, he died a martyr's death. I am certain that his mother was filled with joy over his heavenly wedding. Such a son is worthy of such a mother.'"

So are lurid sexual fantasies all that spur suicide attacks? Of course not. But to deny this as an important recruiting tool - and to deny the issue of sexual repression as another of the (many) problems within fundamental Islam, is at least as dangerous as completely dismissing the economic and societal ills that have led to all those nights of rioting outside Paris and Arhus.

On a completely separate note, could the success of "Al Hoor al Ain" within the Arab Islamic world be giving us a better picture of how the "silent majority" views Islamism and violent Jihad? One can only hope.

Tags:

Islamism
72 virgins
Martyrdom