SUICIDE BOMBING
According to the Bible
“Let me die with the philistines” with these words, Samson pulled down the pillars of the great temple killing himself and more than three thousand people in the process and becoming in history the first man to carry out a suicide attack. Today in Gaza strip, the Great Mosque is a tourist attraction as it is built on the exact site where Samson pulled down the temple. The mosque seems symbolic of a new religious system that will perpetuate the dastard act of suicide bombing.
My interest in suicide bombing was triggered by the recent Nigerian born Abdulmuttalab Farouk saga who attempted a suicide attack on an American bound airline and the consequent listing of Nigeria in the US terror watch list. I searched everywhere for the cause, motivation and solution to suicide bombing, the best answers I got came from the Bible. That is what I intend to share with you here. You will be surprised the Bible has a lot to say about suicide bombing.
For while secular writers traced the first suicide attack to the 17th century (400 years ago). The Bible gave the above Samson’s account that happened over 4,000 years ago. I also discovered the Bible (written over 2,000 years ago) foretold the present Islamic terrorism. I arrived at a conclusion: the Bible is more historically complete than a museum of archeological collections and more current than tomorrows newspaper
What is A Suicide Attack?
A suicide attack (also known as suicide bombing) is an attack intended to kill others and inflict widespread damage, while the attacker intends to die as well in the process. Statistics show that the number of attacks using suicide tactics has grown from an average of fewer than five per year during the 1980s to 180 per year between 2000 and 2005,1 and from 81 suicide attacks in 2001 to 460 in 2005.2 These attacks have been aimed at diverse military and civilian targets, including in Sri Lanka, Israel since 1989, Iraqis since the US-led invasion of that country in 2003, and Pakistanis and Afghans since 2005. In short, suicide tactics have become commonplace in the modern Muslim world, with attacks on a global scale as part of diverse regional conflicts.
Samson’s Case
Samson is that Jewish ‘commando’ that could single handedly conquer a city and their military band. No film tricks, this man killed a lion with bare arms, wiped out a thousand military squad with a jaw-bone and took the gates of cities3. But Samson lost his eyes and freedom to his moral weakness. As a blinded Prisoner of War, his enemies praised their gods and taunted him. Weighed down with guilt of sin he asked God for a second chance even if it means dying with his enemies. The Bible completes the story:
“The Philistine rulers were celebrating in a temple packed with people and with three thousand more on the flat roof. They had all been watching Samson and making fun of him. Samson prayed, "Please remember me, LORD God. The Philistines poked out my eyes, but make me strong one last time, so I can take revenge for at least one of my eyes!.... Then he shouted, "Let me die with the Philistines!" He pushed against the columns as hard as he could, and the temple collapsed with the Philistine rulers and everyone else still inside. Samson killed more Philistines when he died than he had killed during his entire life" 4
Note this about Samson’s case
• Samson lived in the Old Testament under the eye for eye law of Moses. He was constantly on a revenge mission just like the Philistines were also out for him. On the contrary, Jesus in the New Testament spoke against that principle. He rather recommend we turn the other cheek.5
• Samson was a prisoner of war (POW). In a war situation, your mission is to destroy your enemy. What other option does a blind, chained prisoner have? Moreover, there was no other scenario that would have brought such dignitaries together. It was divinely arranged for him to destroy his enemies.
• God’s will for us is not that we die with our enemies. The power that can pull down buildings can open blind eyes, but he didn’t ask for it. In spiritual war fare for instance, the Bible said that we should still be standing after a fight6, that’s God’s will for us.
• Samson prayed the wrong prayer. The Bible says that ‘life and death are in the power of the tongue’7. Like Elijah he asked for death and he had it. Words are powerful especially when released by an anointed man
Islam and Suicide Bombing
Statistics show that recent suicide attacks are almost entirely done by Islamic fundamentalists. 224 of 300 suicide terror attacks from 1980 to 2003 compiled by the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism involved Islamist groups or terrorist acts in Muslim-majority lands8. Another tabulation found a massive increase in suicide bombings and that the overwhelming majority of these bombers were motivated by the ideology of Islamist martyrdom9. According to still another estimate, as of early 2008, 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq alone10.
Psychologists and other social scientists have propounded several theories about suicide bombing. All conflicting each other and holding no water. Some theories profiled the bombers as poor, frustrated and brainwashed illiterates. But other findings show the bombers to be rich and educated (like Farouk) a departure from psychologists ‘suicide theories’. Irshad Manji, in a conversation with one leader of Islamic Jihad noted their ideology.
"What's the difference between suicide, which the Koran condemns, and martyrdom?" I asked. "Suicide," he replied, "is done out of despair. But remember: most of our martyrs today were very successful in their earthly lives. In short, there was a future to live for--and they detonated it anyway.”
So all the social scientists have no explanations to the underlying motivation behind suicide bombings. It counters all known theories. Only the Bible gives a clear reason behind it
Islamic Terrorism in Bible’s Prophecy
Muhammad the founder of Islam is an Arabian, they trace their ancestry to Ishmael (Abraham’s first son). Ishmael was that son of Abraham from Hagar an Egyptian maid. He and his mother had been expelled twice for fighting Isaac, the son of promise and father of the Jewish race11. So the hatred of Arabs for Jews did not start today, the Bible gives us the genesis.
During her first exile, an Angel appeared to her and gave the destiny of her child
And the angel also said,
“you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael… this son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.” 12
We need to understand prophecy; here God was neither referring to Ishmael nor the Arabs-his descendants, but to a terrorist minded religion that will emanate from his descendants. This religion will through violence unite the Arabian world and become the headquarters of terrorism in history. Speaking further to Abraham, God was careful to describe the Ishmael- He told Abraham that 12 princes shall come from Ishmael13; Shiite Muslims today recognize 12 princes or Imams in their top ecclesiastical ranking.
Contemporary English Version (CEV) of the Bible translates the last part of that verse this way “he will be like a wild donkey, fighting everyone, and everyone fighting him." Islam comes with a dangerous demonic fighting instinct. Apart from the unthinkable acts of the suicide bombers, we can see how wild and untamed Muslims can be when a Danish journalist cartooned Muhammad in 2005. They carried out open rally (some violent) protests in the embassies of the countries where they lived and even killed Christians in Northern Nigeria. A writer described the incidence following the cartoon
"
Leaders of Denmark’s Muslim community, which numbers about 200,000, objected when the cartoons were published, saying it was part of a growing climate of hostility against Muslims in Denmark. The editor-in-chief of the Danish newspaper apologized for the offense, but a number of newspapers in Europe and elsewhere reprinted the cartoons as an issue of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In response, demonstrations, often violent, took place throughout the Islamic world. A number of Islamic countries withdrew their ambassadors from Denmark, and in early February Danish embassies and consulates were attacked and burned in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Many Muslim leaders also called for boycotts of Danish goods14.
Dan Brown published “The Da Vinci Code” in which he portrayed Jesus and the Church in a negative way and became a best selling author with no threat to his life. Salman Rushdie tried the same thing in Islam: he published a book “The Satanic Verses” in which Muslims believed he wrote some blasphemous things about Muhammad. Wikipaedia reports what followed after the book was published:
In the Muslim community, however, the novel caused great controversy for what many Muslims believed were blasphemous references. The book was banned in India, burned in demonstrations in the United Kingdom, and was the subject of a violent riot in Pakistan. In February 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran issued a fatwa calling on all good Muslims to kill or help kill Rushdie and his publishers. Following the fatwa, Rushdie was put under police protection by the British government. As of early 2010 Rushdie has not been physically harmed, but 38 others have been killed in violence against those connected with the book.15
Jesus on Suicide Bombing
Jesus warned his disciples that Islamic terrorism was coming but that it should not make them afraid (the goal of terrorism is to cause fear). He said
"I am telling you this to keep you from being afraid…. the time will come when people will kill you and think they are doing God a favor. They will do these things because they don't know either the Father or me. I am saying this to you now, so that when the time comes, you will remember what I have said. I was with you at the first, and so I didn't tell you these things” 16
Jesus obviously was not referring to the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperors who did it for political reasons. He was talking about a people that will do it for religious reasons-thinking they are doing God (not god) a favour. In Islam Jihad literally means “the struggle to please God”, the same God of the Christians. So those suicide bombers actually believe they are doing God a favour just like Jesus foresaw. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, sometimes called "the world's most quoted independent Islamic jurist"17, has called martyrdom operations:
“the greatest of all sorts of Jihad in the Cause of Allah. A martyr operation is carried out by a person who sacrifices himself, deeming his life less value than striving in the Cause of Allah, in the cause of restoring the land and preserving the dignity”.18
Faisal Bodi another Islamic cleric wrote in The Guardian (UK) that,
"in the Muslim world, then, we celebrate what we call the martyr-bombers. To us they are heroes defending the things we hold sacred. Polls in the Middle East show 75% of people in favour of martyr-bombings."19 Islamist militant organisations (including Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad) continue to argue that suicide operations are justified according to Islamic law.
The Killing of fellow Muslims
Pharaoh invited Jannes and Jambres, Egyptian occultists to counter Moses’ plague of frogs, they came and multiplied it20. I start wondering whether the magic was for good or evil. But that is just how the devil works-deceitfully increasing the woes of his adherents instead of abating it. Suicide bombing have killed more Muslims than Christians or Jews. I am forced to ask, is Jihad for victory or defeat? But the truth is that the religion was built on blood: Islam was a religion spread by fighting and killing. Many lost their lives when Muhammad was on a mission to conquer societies for Allah. An account of the spread of Islam reads
The remarkable speed of this religious expansion can be attributed to the fact that it was accompanied by military conquest. Muhammad drew Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam by his forceful personality, the promise of salvation for those who died fighting for Islam, and the lure of fortune for those who succeeded in conquest. The caravan raids of the early years of Islam soon become full-scale wars, and empires and nations bowed to the power of this new religious, military, political, economic, and social phenomenon.
Norman Itzkowitz
However, unlike Muhammad, when Peter tried to use violence to preach the Gospel Jesus cautioned him
"Put your sword away. Anyone who lives by fighting will die by fighting.” 21
This is another major reason Muslims are killing each other and fighting everyone-the religion was built on violence. Thus Muhammad activated a pending 4,000 year old prophecy given about Ishmael. Ever since, the Arab world has lived in open hostility against everyone else especially Jews-their brother. The Church may have killed in their backsliding state, but Jesus never did nor encouraged that-He remains the perfect example of a true Christian
The Sword Shall not depart from your house
If you have ever studied world history you will discover that history repeats itself. You will find out that present world events have either happened before in the Bible or prophesied to happen in the future. Here is one case: The curse that came on David and his family for killing Uriah is also the curse that is operating in Islam for the souls Muhammad killed in the name of religion. For killing Uriah and taken his wife, Nathan the prophet cursed the house of David
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house…. Howbeit,... the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. 22
That child finally died and the family of David started doing bizarre things: brother raping sister, brother killing brother, son rising against father etc. His children could not link the motivation for their weird activities to their father and if not for the Bible we wouldn’t have known. Like David, like Muhammad-the Islamic world do not even link their killer instinct to their founder. Do you know that just like that son of David later died all of Muhammad’s 5 children died in infancy except Fatima, a lady that later married his cousin (Ali). The Bible said
“Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” Gen 9:6
It is the cry of the blood of Abel (innocent people Muhammad killed in the name of Allah) asking for vengeance23;
it is a case of he that lives by the sword dying by the sword24,
it is the curse of the sword shall not depart from your house25.
These are all confirmations that the scriptures cannot be broken26
The Way out for Muslims
Every Islamic adherent is under a curse, they may not know and some may not be violent. That Farouk’s father was not violent but gave birth to a dangerous (Islamic bred) son tells me that every Muslim is a potential threat to societal peace. The curse runs in Islam-that curse will ultimately motivate them to kill each other and to war. Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, and Afghanistan are Islamic nations impoverished by war, yet they keep crying out for more war. There is a blood tasty demon in operation.
Fortunately the blood price has been paid 2000 year ago by a righteous man-Jesus. He is the present City of Refuge to all sinners. All they need for their freedom is to accept Jesus Christ the prince of peace. The blood of Jesus cleanses a man from all unrighteousness27 and grants us the freedom to live in peace and to love humanity.
Our Duty
Our duty is to pray for them. Samson committed suicide bombing out of blindness, the same way the Bible says that the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot not believe and be saved28. We must pray open their blind minds. The second thing is to ask God for opportunities to reach out to them, God knows how to arrange it. Finally, we must live exemplary lives as worthy citizens of the Kingdom. Jesus said that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. The reason many Muslims resent Christianity is because they think America with all their lewdness (homosexuality, drugs, porn, etc) is an ideal Christian nation. They may have been right 300 years ago when America was still predominantly Christian in philosophy. We believers of the 21st century must shine the light and represent Christ.
References
3. Judges 15, and 16
4. Judges 16:25-30
5. Matthew 5:39
6. Ephesians 6:13
7. Proverbs 18:21
8. Pape, Dying to Win, (2005), p.209
11. Genesis 16 and 21
12. Gen 16:10-13 (NLT)
13. Genesis 17:20
14. Denmark." Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
16. John 16:1-4 CEV
20. Exodus 7:22; 8:7; 2 Timothy 3:8
21. Matthew 26:52 CEV
22. 2 Sam 12:10,14 KJV
23. Genesis 4:10
24. Matthew 26:52 KJV
25. 2Sam 12:14
26. John 10:35
27. 1 John 1:9
28. 2 Corinthians 4:4
