Naim Qassem Quotes
It is an honor for us to be accused of believing in the culture of martyrdom. What is martyrdom? It is death for the sake of Allah, and in defense of what is just...
Naim Qassem, Islamic Terrorist & Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, MEMRI, April 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is the type of person who suicide bomber recruiters seek out.
It is hard to believe that there are any people in the world that would try and educate youth in this manner, but it is common amongst the ultra fundamentalist Muslims to day. However, it is very similar to what the Christians, including the Pope, preached a millennium ago and what the Japanese preached to their young Kamakasi in WWII.
It was a custom for suicide bombers in the Middle East to write or video record last words to loved ones.
This is the basis of the immediate access to paradise that Mullahs promise would be suicide bombers or other fighters in jihad. Lest we think of Islam as more reprehensible than other religions, note that this same type of promise of immediate entry to Heaven was given to Christians who fought for Christianity. See {617185} .
Some apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood claim that the organization is social and political and not violent or advocates of terrorism. However, quotations like this one calls clearly for the sacrifice of lives. Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization is the Palestinian Branch and Offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which has never repudiated any of their terrorist murders and actively raises money for Hamas. See the original founding principle of the Muslim Brotherhood—{621776}
His views are a mix of modernism and fundamentalism. He favors democracy and elections but also favored the Taliban destroying the great ancient Buddha statues when he was called an idol worshipper for urging the preservation of art.
This for many suicide bombers provides much of the motivation and overcomes the prospect of suicide. According to Islamic doctrine, those killed in “the cause of Allah” go immediately to Paradise, unlike those who die a natural death. And when in Paradise, the males get 72 beautiful virgins.
These “benefits” as well as males getting 72 virgins are constantly told to young and impressionable Muslims, some of whom take it so literally that they become suicide bombers. They actually believe that blowing themselves up feels only like the sting of a mosquito. This sales pitch for suicide bombers and other martyrs is also effective because with the poor education, high unemployment, and few political and civil rights, most young Arab males have no other way of obtaining “honor, dignity, and respect.”
At one level, this statement is typical of Christian theology and practice. Historically, the Christian martyrs were not only presumed to have gone to heaven but many of them were made Saints for their martyrdom. They assumed a type of equivalency of Christian prophets. The problem lies in the different concept of martyrdom. The martyrs of the Christian Church were almost all peaceful and docile people who would not repudiate their Christian faith even though tortured and killed. Martyrs in Islamic tradition included the above but more often were fighters and warriors who died on the battlefield or on a military mission of violence. In that sense, the modern suicide bomber is described as, and perceives him or herself as a martyrs. In Islamic culture, anyone who dies defending the faith, is a martyr. That person immediately goes to Paradise, bypassing all the other potential exclusions that the religion reserves for all others. Further, there are quasi religious beliefs about martyrdom in Islamic nations. One is that the martyr who acends to Paradise is given a bevy of virgins for his sexual pleasure for all eternity. This particular sura is used by suicide bomber recruiters to provide the highest level of religious authority to back up their claims of the advantages of a martyrs death to the would-be suicide bomber. Few of the recruiters however are sufficiently convinced of the martyrdom they sell so well, that they would willingly become martyrs themselves. While many Westerners see this as evidence of a major perversion of a perverse religion, they are usually unaware that in the Crusades, the Pope provided the same immediate ascension to Heaven for any Christian who died while fighting on the Crusades, and this was one of the major recruiting pitches to obtain volunteers to go to the Holy Land.
This sura is interpreted by some Islamic fundamentalists as absolution for the killing of a non-Muslim by a Muslim. It was Allah who did it. In a greater sense, critics of Islam observe that many Muslims and Islamic nations have a double standard of responsibility for crimes. If the victims are Muslims, the normal standards of morality hold; but if a non-believer there can be no crime. Terrorism, torture, beheading, mass murder can all be done with a clean conscience if a Muslim takes this interpretation of this sura. Many Muslims however take an opposite point of view. These people do not have the concept of fatalism and lack of free will that others believe. There is a parallel to this problem in Judeo Christian countries although it is less common statistically. But the murder of physicians who perform abortions, and the Jewish radical fundamentalist who killed innocent Arabs at worship are examples of people who viewed themselves as instruments of God in their heinous activities.
This quotation reveals the Islamic “logic” of murdering innocent people by a suicide bomber. “Terror” must be brought to the enemy (See {586965} and {586916}) to be a good Muslim. If an innocent person is killed, it will not be so bad because Allah will welcome them in Paradise. And Allah will ask the murdered innocents to forgive their murderer. And they will do so because they as good Muslims they would not only listen to Allah but would realize that they died to save Islam from its enemies. If the innocent victims do not forgive the suicide bomber, then they really are not very good Muslims and are really not so innocent.
Fanatic Muslims believe that suicide bombers when they blow themselves up have done so to defend Islam and therefore will not only go directly to heaven but will get 72 Virgins when they get there. Most of the suicide bombers are young men with very little or no sexual experience. At the time that Trainor made this remark, there had been an enormous increase in suicide bombers in the Iraq war.
Naim Qassem (Arabic: نعيم قاسم; born 1953) is a Shia Lebanese cleric and politician, who was the second-in-command of Hezbollah with the title of deputy secretary-general.