Suicide Bombings and Martyrdom in Islam

TheReligionofPeace

TROP is a non-political, fact-based site which examines the ideological threat that Islam poses to human dignity and freedom

Jihad Report Aug 16, 2025 - Aug 22, 2025
Attacks	28
Killed	131
Injured	30
Suicide Blasts	1
Countries	11

Jihad Report July, 2025
Attacks	183
Killed	1290
Injured	373
Suicide Blasts	1
Countries	20
List of Attacks

It's much easier to act as if critics of Islam have a problem with Muslims as people than it is to accept the uncomfortable truth that Islam is different

List of Attacks
Last 30 Days 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 (Post 9/11)

What can we learn about
Islam from this woman?

What Does Islam Teach About...

Suicide Attacks
(and Islamic Paradise)

Are suicide bombings justified or condemned under Islam?

Suicide is against Islam. Martyrdom is not.

"Suicide bomber" is a derogatory term invented in the West to describe what in Islam is known as a Fedayeen or Shahid - a martyr. The point of the bomber isn't suicide - it is to kill infidels in battle. This was not only permitted by Muhammad but encouraged with liberal promises of earthy rewards in heaven including food and sex.

Quran

Quran (4:74) - "Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward."

Quran (9:111) - "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme."

Quran (2:207) - "And there is the type of man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah..." This would not be in the Quran if it were not permissible.

Quran (3:140) - If a wound (and killing) has touched you, be sure a similar wound (and killing) has touched the others. And so are the days (good and not so good), We give to men by turns, that Allah may test those who believe, and that He may take martyrs from among you. And Allah likes not the Zalimun (polytheists and wrong-doers).

Quran (61:10-12) "O ye who believe! Shall I lead you to a bargain that will save you from a grievous Penalty? That ye believe in Allah and His Messenger, and that ye strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons: That will be best for you, if ye but knew! He will forgive you your sins, and admit you to Gardens beneath which Rivers flow, and to beautiful mansions in Gardens of Eternity: that is indeed the Supreme Achievement." This verse was given at the battle of Uhud and uses the Arabic word, Jihad.

The dark-eyed virgins are mentioned in several places as well, including verses 44:54 and 52:20. For those who swing the other way, there are "perpetual youth" verse 56:17, otherwise known as "boys" in verses 52:24 and 76:19.

Quran (17:33) "And do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause." An important verse that is used by martyrdom bombers to not only justify their own deaths, but that of other bystanders who might be believers as well. The end justifies the means, with the goal being the defeat of the kafir and the establishment of Islamic rule.

There is only one verse in the Quran that directly discourages suicide (apart from martyrdom): 4:29

Hadith and Sira

Sahih Bukhari (52:54) - The words of Muhammad: "I would love to be martyred in Allah's Cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred, and then get resurrected again and then get martyred and then get resurrected again and then get martyred." This is why modern-day Jihadists often say that they love death.

Sahih Bukhari (52:46) - "Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid in His Cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty."

Sahih Muslim (20:4678) - During the battle of Uhud, Muhammad was desperate to push men into battle. He promised paradise for those who would martyr themselves, prompting a young man who was eating dates to throw them away and rush to his death.

Sahih Muslim (20:4655) - A man asks Muhammad "which of men is the best?" Muhammad replies that it is the man who is always ready for battle and flies into it "seeking death at places where it can be expected." (The next most saintly man in Islam is the hermit who lives in isolation "sparing men from his mischief.")

Sahih Muslim (20:4681) - "Surely, the gates of Paradise are under the shadows of the swords." After hearing Muhammad say that martyrdom leads to paradise, a young man pulls his sword and breaks the sheath (indicating that he has no intention of returning) then flings himself into battle until he is killed.

Sahih Muslim (20.4635) - Muhammad: "Nobody who enters Paradise will (ever like to) return to this world even if he were offered everything on the surface of the earth (as an inducement) except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed ten times for the sake of the great honor that has been bestowed upon him." (also Bukhari 52:53)

Sahih Muslim (55:93) - A lengthy parable told by Muhammad, in which a boy chooses to die in order to spread religion, thus legitimizing the practice.

Sahih Bukhari (64:211) - I said to Salama bin Al-Akwa`, "For what did you give the Pledge of allegiance to Allah's Messenger on the day of Al-Hudaibiya?" He replied, "For death (in the Cause of Islam.)

Sahih Muslim (19:4450) - In the process of trying to kill a man who is protecting his community, a Muslim loses his own life due to a tactical error. "So I came to the Prophet weeping and I said: Messenger of Allah. Amir's deed has been wasted. The Messenger said: Who passed this remark? I said: Some of your Companions. He said: He who has passed that remark has told a lie, for 'Amir there is a double reward."

Jami' At-Tirmidhi, Vol. 3, No. 1663, p. 410 - Al-Miqdam bin Ma'diykarib narrated that the Messenger of Allah said: "There are six things with Allah for the martyr... he is married to seventy-two wives among Al-Huril-'Ayn [virgins] of Paradise..." This hadith verse attributes the origination of the '72 virgins' teaching to Muhammad himself.

Sunan Ibn Majah - The Messenger of Allah said, "There is no one whom Allah will admit to Paradise but Allah will marry him to seventy-two wives, two from houris and seventy from his inheritance from the people of Hell, all of whom will have desirable front passages and he will have a male member that never becomes flaccid (i.e., soft and limp). This is considered a weaker hadith, but of the same category as others promoted by apologists..

Notes

Each week, there are attempted suicide bombings - all by Muslims. The reason why they are prone to self-detonation has nothing to do with genetics, desperation or suicide. It is the ideology that promotes martyrdom by promising paradise to those who lose their lives for the cause of Allah.

A suicide bombing is really an act of homicide. When apologists in the West say that Islam is against suicide bombings by pointing to hadith that oppose killing oneself (such as Bukhari 23:446) they are being disingenuous. Many Muslims in the Arab world, who are less concerned with public relations, celebrate and revere suicide bombers, knowing that martyrdom in battle is glorified by their religion. As the Ayatollah Khomeini put it, "The purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed for Allah."

CAIR's Jamal Badawi, often held up as an example of moderate Islam, says "Suicide out of despair is not acceptable…Giving one’s life in a military situation is different and can be heroic if there is no other way of resisting…Killing civilians should be avoided if possible, but not everyone out of uniform is a civilian.” (As such, thousands of civilians are killed by suicide bombers across the globe each year).

Another prominent CAIR figure, founder Omar Ahmad, actually praised suicide bombers to a youth convention in 1999: "Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam."

As for the argument that innocent Muslims are often casualties, the prominent Sunni cleric, Omar Bakri explains that "Allah will also accept as martyrs those killed by mistake." Thus, the terrorist is actually doing a favor to true Muslims killed as collateral damage, by sending them to paradise.

The highly esteemed, Yousef al-Qaradawi lays out the case for suicide bombing, even when innocent Muslims are affected: "Muslim clerics, or most of them, have agreed that it is permissible to kill Muslims if the army that attacks the Muslims hides behind them, that is, uses them as barricades or human shields... There was no choice but to sacrifice some [of the Muslims] in order to defend the entire [Muslim] community... Therefore, if it is permitted to kill innocent Muslims who are under coercion in order to protect the greater Muslim community, it is the more so permissible to kill non-Muslims in order to liberate the land of the Muslims from its occupiers and oppressors."

A 2014 fatwa by the mainstream OnIslam.net site states that suicide operations are actually an "obligatory form of Jihad that has nothing to do with terrorism or suicide." The fatwa quotes Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, deputy chairman of European Council for Fatwa and Research, who calls suicide bombings "a sacred duty carried out in form of self-defense and resisting aggression and injustice. So whoever is killed in such missions is a martyr, may Allah bless him with high esteem." (The same scholar encourages "every Palestinian" to this act of violence for the sake of religion).

The Quran's version of paradise is not the ultimate communion with God that is portrayed in Christianity, but the ultimate gratification of earthly desires. Gluttony (47:15, 52:17-22, 56:18-29) and sex (44:54, 55:54-58, 55:70-77, 56:36, 78:31-33) are emphasized almost exclusively - with hints of pleasure Muslims will have laughing at (Quran 83:34) and taunting (Quran 40:70-73) non-believers as they suffer in Hell.

While Christian theologians study spiritual transformation and moral perfection, their Muslim counterparts speak of eternal erections and the ability to eat endlessly without excretion.

If Islam's crude vision of the hereafter sounds like more like something a teenage boy would dream up, there is a good reason why. Muhammad was trying to inspire males of that age to sacrifice themselves in battle. His shrewd strategy of painting paradise in the most prolifically decadent terms - an endless orgy of sex, food, and aesthetic comfort - continues to motivate suicide bombers, convinced that eternal gratification lies just on the other side of martyrdom.

[Although not really a suicide bombing, the story of Amalda de Rocas is an interesting note. This Christian teenage girl was captured by the Turkish armies sent to conquer Cyprus in 1570 for no other reason than that they were not Muslim. During the campaign, the Muslims slaughtered entire towns (after promising them safe passage) and captured about 2,400 children for transport back to the robust sex slave market in Islamic Turkey.

Amalda, one of the older girls, realized the hell that awaited them, and threw a burning torch into a powder keg, blowing up the ship and sparing several hundred Christian children the indignity of sexual exploitation at the hands of the Muslims of the day.

It is probably unfair to even mention Amalda's noble and desperate act in the same breath with the homicidal mass-murder sprees of Muhammad's modern-day Fedayeen, who heap misery onto innocent people simply for the purpose of achieving a gluttonous paradise for themselves... but it is a point of interest.]

TheReligionofPeace

Jihad Report Aug 16, 2025 - Aug 22, 2025

Jihad Report July, 2025

List of Attacks

Suicide Attacks (and Islamic Paradise)

Quran

Hadith and Sira

Notes

Further Reading

Jihad Report
Aug 16, 2025 -
Aug 22, 2025

Jihad Report
July, 2025

Suicide Attacks
(and Islamic Paradise)