15 - Islam and the Afterlife

The Muslim fundamentalists who hijacked and then flew jet airliners into the flanks of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 died believing that they were holy martyrs. This event motivated non-Muslims to take a closer look at Islamic conceptions about the afterlife. The consensus among mainstream Muslims was that the views and actions of the suicidal pilots were both eccentric and dangerous. The author states that the terrorists chose to martyr themselves because of their fundamentalist, extremist proclivities, a phenomenon that is not confined to Islam. Every religion includes a minority faction that is willing to die for the cause.

Islam was formed based on the doctrines of both Judaism and Christianity filtered through the lens of Muhammad’s revelations. Information contained in the Old and New Testaments that conflicted with the Holy Quran was regarded as having been corrupted. The Quran acknowledges both Moses and Jesus as true prophets but is regarded as being the final and definitive message from a monotheistic God to humanity. The revelations granted to Muhammed were not exclusively directed toward Arabs but indicated the correct path for every inhabitant of earth. Islam developed a more tolerant view of its predecessors than did Christianity, and worked just as hard, if not harder, than Christianity to convert nonbelievers to their faith. The term that the Quran most uses to designate Muhammed is “rasul,” meaning “apostle.” The revelation given to Muhammed mirrors what was given to Paul on the road to Damascus: a command to proselytize, conveying a specific message of salvation. Central to the mission of Islam was the Islamic conception of the afterlife, of paradise.

Revelations contained in the Quran, delivered to Muhammed by the angel Gabriel, range from short ecstatic utterances to much longer discourses on morals and the primacy of monotheism. The latter topic was significant for the polytheistic Arabs that Muhammed first addressed. Muhammed’s teaching soon created conflict with Jewish and Christian Arabian tribes, other Arab tribes, and even with the Arab tribe that he was born into, the Quraysh. Muhammed was both secular and religious leader of his early following, and since this era distinctions between secular and religious authority in Islam are rare. Religious conversion is associated with military conquests. Evangelical zeal led to the unification of, by force of arms, of the entire Arabian Peninsula. This resulted in the creation of an army in a part of the world that neither the Byzantine Christians not the Sasanian Persians expected to ever pose a threat to themselves. When the Arabs unexpectedly ventured forth from Arabia, they managed to conquer half of the Mediterranean world. Ultimately, subsequent conquests made through either force or persuasion established Islam as a universal world religion.

When the Muslim armies first emerged, the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia and the Sassanian Empire in Iran were exhausted from warring among themselves. Muslims took full advantage of this opportunity by capturing Syria, Jerusalem, and the Levant, and conquering large portions of North Africa. Islam eventually reached Spain where it staged forays into France. By the mid-fifteenth century Anatolia was overrun, and Byzantium was renamed Istanbul. In the sixteenth century (1529 CE) the Muslim army of the Ottoman Sultan of Istanbul were at the gates of Vienna. Like the rapid spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Muslims interpreted their military successes as a sign of God’s favor and as a demonstration of the truth of its doctrines. After stalling out after having effectively surrounded Europe, Islam faced a crisis of confidence.

The enormous and complex regional empires that emerged from these conquests were well governed, but the ecclesiastical organization of Islam remained, and remains relatively informal. There is no structure in Islam comparable to the hierarchical Roman Catholic church. This makes contemporary Islam more like Judaism than Christianity. An evolving variety of local clerical administrators of varying effectiveness oversees everyday operation. The true unifying factor of Islam is the Quran, a record of the revelations of Muhammad that embraces a multitude of topics.

A major focus of the Quran is resurrection and the afterlife. Second only in importance to the oneness of God is “The Day of Judgement” (Yawm al-Din) or “the Hour” (As-sa’ah), a day of reckoning (Hisab) for every human being. On the great Day of Judgement resurrection (Qiyamah) will be the reward for those who have faith and have acted justly. Quran 22:5-7 states:

O mankind! If you have any doubt concerning Resurrection, then know that it is surely We Who created you from dust, then from a drop of sperm, then from a clot of blood, then from a little lump of flesh, some of it shapely and other shapeless. (We are rehearsing this) that We may make the reality clear to you. We cause (the drop of sperm) that We please to remain in the wombs till an appointed time. We bring you forth as infants (and nurture you) that you may come of age. Among you is he that dies (at a young age) and he who is kept back to the most abject age so that after once having known, he reaches a stage when he knows nothing. You see the earth dry and barren and then no sooner than We send down water upon it, it begins to quiver and swell and brings forth every kind of beauteous vegetation. All this is because Allah, He is the Truth, and because He resurrects the dead, and because He has power over everything, (all of which shows that) the Hour shall surely come to pass - in this there is no doubt - and Allah shall surely resurrect those that are in graves.

As was the case with Christianity, this kernel of millennialism was soon integrated into mainstream Muslim institutions and doctrines. Muhammed did not begin to receive his revelations until he was 40 years old, and he lived for another two decades. His exercise of both temporal and religious power permitted him to build a movement that recognized the pending end of the world but exercised its authority in the present. Figuratively speaking, Muhammad was both the Jesus and the Paul of nascent Islam. Like Jesus, Muhammad stopped short of predicting when the end would come, but did describe it in vivid and unsettling detail. Quran 81:1-14 states:

When the sun is rolled up.

When the stars are dimmed.

When the mountains are set in motion.

When the relationships are suspended.

When the beasts are gathered.

When the oceans are set aflame.

When the souls are paired.

When the girl, buried alive, is asked:

For what crime was she killed?

When the records are made public.

When the sky is peeled away.

When the Fire is set ablaze.

When Paradise is brought near.

Each soul will know what it has readied.

These verses reflect Muhammed’s concern with the social evils of his day, including the practice of exposing unwanted infant females to the elements. At the end of time, the fires of hell are set ablaze even as Paradise is brought near. As was the case with the Christian Church Fathers, the terrors of hellfire aided efforts to convert pagans to Islam. The word Islam itself means “submission,” a figurative synonym for “conversion.” Christians and Jews would not have been offended by a message that promoted morality as the sole means of avoiding eternal punishment, but the pagans who lived in regions surrounding the birthplace of Islam were incredibly offended. Quran 22:5-7 is addressed to this hostile audience:

O people! If you are in doubt about the Resurrection - We created you from dust, then from a small drop, then from a clinging clot, then from a lump of flesh, partly developed and partly undeveloped. In order to clarify things for you. And We settle in the wombs whatever We will for a designated term, and then We bring you out as infants, until you reach your full strength. And some of you will pass away, and some of you will be returned to the vilest age, so that he may not know, after having known. And you see the earth still; but when We send down water on it, it vibrates, and swells, and grows all kinds of lovely pairs. That is because God is the truth, and because He gives life to the dead, and because He is Capable of everything. And because the Hour is coming - there is no doubt about it - and because God will resurrect those in the graves.

Peace and tranquility is depicted as existing within the Islamic community. Death and suffering pervade everything that lies outside of it. The author surmises that Muhammed learned from the missionary activity of the Jews and Christians of Arabia but tailored it to more effectively persuade Arabs to convert to Islam. Elaborate polytheistic temple rituals were suppressed in favor of simple daily devotionals and spoken sermons which both evangelized the unconverted and sustained the converts.

The chapters (surahs) and verses (verses) of the Quran consist mostly of sermons, lectures, and exhortations rather than the narratives of the Hebrew and Christian Bible. It would be difficult to reconstruct how the original message received by Muhammed became adapted by him in the concluding decades of his life. The author believes this was an opportunity for Muhammed to reject doctrine that proved to be impractical and to emphasize doctrine that had proved to be useful. An urgent millennial message may have been scaled back to better focus on institution building. By the time of the Prophet’s death, the Muslim community and the principles of it piety were firmly entrenched. Millennialism survived as the basis for an emphasis on purification, repentance, and submission as prerequisites for joining the community of believers.

Jews, Christians, Sabeans, and, eventually, Zoroastrians, were permitted to remain in their own communities as “people of the book” (‘ahl al-Kitab) but were subjected to taxation and social discrimination. Quran 3:83-85 is typically interpreted as denying salvation to all non-Muslims, but intervening verse 84 seems to leave the door slightly ajar for Jews and Christians:

Do they desire other than the religion of God, when to Him has submitted everything in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned? Say, “We believe in God, and in what was revealed to us; and in what was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Patriarchs; and in what was given to Moses, and Jesus, and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit.” Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion, it will not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers.

Page 232 of Ishaq’s “The Life of Muhammad” accepts Jews as equal to Muslims in a section titled “The Covenant Between the Muslims and the Medinans and with the Jews:”

Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders. To the Jew who follows us belong help and equality. He shall not be wronged, nor shall his enemies be aided. The peace of the believers is indivisible.

Early Western scholars of the Quran mistakenly believed that it could be easily explained because it was created, as Ernest Renan stated, “in historical times.” Modern scholars of the Quran, however, admit that this field of study remains in its infancy. The present edition of the Quran was assembled in the reign of Uthman ibn Affan, the third Khalifa (“successor”). All versions that disagreed with it were destroyed. Some scholars feel free to attempt to reconstruct the content of Qurans that predated this “orthodox” compilation. Uthman’s redaction placed longer passages before shorter ones and was therefore not chronologically arranged, an approach similar to the New Testament’s disposition of the Epistles of Paul. Scholars believe that this is an inversion of the timeline of Muhammad’s revelation, with short, ecstatic utterances having preceded the longer prophetic writings. Muslims regard the Quaran itself as divine, rather than Muhammad, but an extensive corpus of hagiographies of the prophet nevertheless exists.

Some scholars believe that early Islam was practically indistinguishable from Judaism, a discredited approach which is termed Hagarism. In the Biblical account, Hagar was the Egyptian slave of Sarai, Abram's wife (whose names later became Sarah and Abraham). Sarai’s inability to conceive prompted her to enlist Hagar as her surrogate. Hagar, by Abram, bore a son named Ishmael who became the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, generally taken to be the Arabs. Later, Sarai and Abram later produced a son named Isaac. Determined that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance, Sarai demanded that Hagar and her son be exiled. She and her son wandered aimlessly until their water was completely consumed. In a moment of despair, she burst into tears. God heard her son crying and came to rescue them. An angel opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well of water. The angel told Hagar that God would "make a great nation" of Ishmael. Hagar obtained an Egyptian wife for Ishmael and they settled in the Desert of Paran. The Quranic narrative slightly differs from the Biblical account: it is God alone who commands Abraham to take Hagar (Hājar) and Ishmael (Ismā'īl) down to the desert. Hājar is honored as an especially important matriarch of monotheism, since it was through Ismā'īl that Muhammad would be born.

Western perceptions that Islam expanded primarily due to the forced conversions of conquered peoples are overwhelmingly incorrect, despite this technique having been occasionally employed. Quran 2:256 proclaims:

Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly from falsehood. So whoever renounces false gods and believes in Allah has certainly grasped the firmest, unfailing hand-hold. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.

Conquered nations did not immediately convert to Islam. In the case of the conquest of Iran in 656 CE, a significant increase in the number of believers did not occur until about 150 years later. Islams focus on winning new converts did not diminish its role as a guide for living with its call to prayer five times a day, its five pillars of pious deeds, its rites of passage, and its comprehensive and detailed theology. In the wake of millions of conversions, Islam became the religion of a large and stable population. As is the case with contemporary Christianity, present Islamic missionary activity is mostly undertaken by sectarian groups.

Muslim burial customs are very similar to those practiced by Jews. The dead are buried as soon as possible, and the performance of this task is regarded as virtuous despite belief in the uncleanliness of corpses. The dead are bathed, dressed simply, then enshrouded. Coffins are optional, and funerals are intentionally lowkey, like Judaic practices. Unique to Islam is a preference for nighttime burials in emulation of the burial of Muhammad. Presumably to avoid displays of excessive emotion, women are forbidden to attend. Like Jewish funerals, those of the Muslims were intended to counter the Near Eastern tradition of elaborate burial rites. It was believed that the senses of the bodies of the dead remained intact, and that pain experienced during the process of decomposition was an atonement for sins committed while living.

The Quran is largely silent about the period between the death and resurrection of a person. Quran 23:96-100 can be interpreted as alternately referring either to the condition of the dead or of the living who await judgement:

Respond to evil with what is best. We know well what they claim. And say, “My Lord! I seek refuge in You from the temptations of the devils. And I seek refuge in You, my Lord, that they ˹even˺ come near me.” When death approaches any of them, they cry, “My Lord! Let me go back, so I may do good in what I left behind.” Never! It is only a ˹useless˺ appeal they make. And there is a barrier behind them until the Day they are resurrected.

This passage describes a barrier, “barzakh” in Arabic from the Persian loan word “farsakh,” which can mean “physical barrier,” “hinderance,” or “separation.” These verses indicate that the inhabitants of earth have only one life wherein they may prove their worth, and that the dead will not have a second chance to make things right, an effective spur to repentance, conversion, and the performance of charitable works. A barrier separates the dead from the living, a condition that is also described by Jesus in the parable of the rich man and Lazurus. Luke 16:23-26 records the fruitless petition of a deceased rich man to a beggar he ignored while he was still alive.:

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Like their intentionally unelaborate burial practices, proclaiming that there is a barrier between the dead and the living also served as a countermeasure to the prevailing pagan belief that the living could communicate with the dead. The living could, however, journey to the afterlife in dreams and visions, primarily so they could inform others what awaits believers and nonbelievers in the afterlife. From the beginning, Islam proclaimed that only believers would be resurrected. Originally, the fate of nonbelievers was confined to their not being resurrected. An interim state was later developed in response to an apparent delay in Judgement Day, and Muslim traditions about hell also emerged which allowed imaginative writers to describe the fiery punishments that are reserved for infidels. As is the case with other religions, these refinements served to encourage the faithful and to gain new concerts. The dead that inhabit an interim period have gained their permanent identity, awaiting rewards or punishments in the final consummation.

The belief that a corpse retains its senses indicates that the essence of a person adheres to its body after the person has died. The readjustment of doctrine required by the delay of God’s judgement which led to the creation of an Islamic hell also led to the development of traditions that describe the intermediate state between death and resurrection, a Muslim version of Purgatory where sins could be expiated through contrition and punishments. Two synonymous terms, “nafs” (“self” or “soul”) and “ruh” (God's own spirit which was blown into Adam, and which is considered the source of human life) are used to describe an identity that exists apart from the body. Quran 39:42 opaquely alludes to this disembodied self:

Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.

Here is Islam’s standard commentary on the preceding verse:

In verse 42, it was said: (Allah fully takes away the souls [of the people] at the time of their death, and [of] those who do not die, in their sleep). The word: tawaffa literally means to receive, to take back, exact. In this verse, Allah Ta’ ala has stated very clearly and emphatically that the spirits or souls (arwah) of living beings are under the free will and discretionary dispensation of Allah Ta’ ala at all times and under all conditions. He can seize, exact and take them back at will. And there is at least one manifestation of this absolutely autonomous dispensation that every living being sees and feels every day when, once asleep, the ruh (spirit, soul) of a person is, so to say, taken away from the body, then, returned on rising from sleep, and ultimately, one such time is bound to come when this ruh stands seized, absolutely and conclusively, following which, this will never be returned.

Similar to preceding discussions of Judaic conceptions of the afterlife, the ultimate reunion of body and after resurrection enabled Muslims to experience a more intensified version of earthly indulgences such as food, wine, and sex in the afterlife. As was the case with Judaism and Christianity, later traditions that describe the afterlife filled in whatever details may have been missing from the fundamental texts. The angel of death, Izra’il, was believed to painlessly extract souls that were then conveyed to heaven in the company of angels. During the purgatory-like barzakh interim period, the pains of decomposition are inflicted on flesh that has been temporarily divested of its ruh, or soul. The angels Munkar and Nakir interview the deceased and determine, based on the quantity of good deeds performed, the extent of their punishments in the grave. The sounding of a trumpet by an angel (Gibril, or alternately Israfil) at the final judgement is an event that was extensively elaborated upon in later Muslim traditions. The dead are reunited with their flesh and sit upon their graves to await judgement.

The historical development of Islamic views of the afterlife is too vast and varied to summarize, but representative of these views is a work by fifteenth-century author al-Suyuti which, like the poems of Dante, describes the circumstances of both the blessed and the condemned after the final judgement. This writer considers heaven and hell to be parts of the existing cosmos. This permits the dead to wander throughout these domains and to visit the living through dreams and visions. Often, the faithful dead are portrayed as birdlike, winged creatures. Martyrs are described as being green (an auspicious and favored hue) birds inhabiting the highest heaven, surrounded by lush foliage and abundant water. Conversely, the unfaithful dead are condemned to be consumed by enormous black birds in hell. Reincarnation is rejected as being antithetical to good morals, but the influence of this pervasive Platonic doctrine sometimes (as it does in Jewish mystical meditation and speculations of the Christian Fathers) can be discerned in various Islamic mystical or sectarian writings. Ultimately Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, accepted the Neoplatonic cosmology with its hierarchical, nesting spheres of goodness while rejecting its doctrine of reincarnation. As also the case with Judaism and Christianity, the incorporation of Neoplatonism into Islamic doctrine gave rise to mysticism. Neoplatonist concepts validated ecstatic states wherein goodness and divinity could be apprehended through meditation, and also served as the source for Islamic conceptions about the immortality of the soul.

Muhammad’s “Night Journey,” termed the Mi’raj, is only briefly alluded to in the Quran, 17:1:

Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muḥammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing.

Elaborate travelogues were created based on this short description of an ascent to heaven by Muhammad. In the Mi’raj tradition, Muhammad is prepared for his meeting with God by the archangels Jibrīl (Gabriel) and Mīkāl (Michael) one evening while he is asleep in the Kaʿbah, the sacred shrine of Mecca. They open up his body and purify his heart by removing all traces of error, doubt, idolatry, and paganism and by filling it with wisdom and belief. Later traditions add that he is then transported in a single night from Mecca to Jerusalem by the winged mythical creature Burāq. From Jerusalem he is accompanied by Jibrīl to heaven, ascending possibly by ladder or staircase (miʿrāj). Muhammad and Jibrīl enter the first heaven and proceed through all seven levels until they reach the throne of God. Along the way they meet the prophets Adam, Yaḥyā (John), ʿĪsā (Jesus), Yūsuf (Joseph), Idrīs, Hārūn (Aaron), Mūsā (Moses), and Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and visit hell and paradise. Moses alone of all the inhabitants of heaven speaks at any length to the visitors. Moses tells Muhammad that is more highly regarded by God than himself, and that Muhammad’s following outnumbers his own.

Based on a later tradition of the prophet’s sayings, the Hadith, the soul, once separated from the body, experiences a journey similar to Muhammad’s ascent from Jerusalem. The Mi’raj attributes a degree of importance to Jerusalem that is absent from the Quran. Jerusalem thus became an important Muslim pilgrimage site shortly after its capture. In 691 or 692 CE, the conquerors demolished an existing Byzantine church and constructed a mikdasa (a sanctuary, rather than a mosque) upon the Temple Mount. Inscriptions in this mikdasa emphasized the oneness of God, and the primacy of Islam over its incompletely enlightened predecessors, Judaism and Christianity.

The Hadath, along with other post-Quranic stories of Mohmmad’s ascent, inspired the establishment of several Islamic religious practices. Muhammad has an audience before the divine throne where he is commanded that Muslims pray fifty times a day. Moses advises Mohammad to repeatedly return to the throne to have this number reduced. Islam ultimately ordained that Muslims pray five times a day, more than the Jews were required to but equal to the number of prayers offered daily by Zoroastrians. The Quran prescribes three daily prayers, but the story of Muhammed’s success in having reduced the initially mandated fifty prayers makes five per diem seem like a relatively light obligation. Additionally, Muhammad’s early detractors had objected to his ordinariness, aside from his role as a revelator. Al-Isra 17:90-93 records these objections:

They challenge ˹the Prophet˺, “We will never believe in you until you cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us, or until you have a garden of palm trees and vineyards, and cause rivers to flow abundantly in it, or cause the sky to fall upon us in pieces, as you have claimed, or bring Allah and the angels before us, face to face, or until you have a house of gold, or you ascend into heaven—and even then we will not believe in your ascension until you bring down to us a book that we can read.” Say, “Glory be to my Lord! Am I not only a human messenger?”

The Quran itself recommends that such objections can only be countered with statements that describe God’s majesty. Al-Isra 17:96 is a representative rebuttal:

Say, “Sufficient is Allah as a Witness between me and you. He is certainly All-Knowing, All-Seeing of His servants.”

Before the advent of Islam, stories of heavenly ascents were a theme common to most religions. This theme was domesticated to better serve the Islamic cause, much as the city of Jerusalem was drawn into its doctrine. As noted, Muhammad’s own Mi’raj served as inspiration for other ascent traditions. Al-Qasd Ila Ilah (“The Quest for God”) is attributed to A’bul Qasim al-Junayd. Its ninth chapter contains the Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī, a ninth-century Persian Sufi Muslim from north-central Iran. The Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī seems as if Bisṭāmī is going through a journey toward self-knowledge as he ascends through each heaven, communicating with angels who increase in number as he rises higher. Bisṭāmī is one of the expositors of the state of fanā, the notion of dying in mystical union with Allah. Bastami was famous for "the boldness of his expression of the mystic’s complete absorption into the mysticism." Many "ecstatic utterances" have been attributed to Bisṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" school of Islamic mysticism. His utterances are more provocative than those of Muhammad recorded in the Quran, chiefly his proclamation, “Glory to me,” wherein he claims divine status in the tradition of earlier accounts of angelic transformation. Like the Mi’raj of Mohammad, Bisṭāmī is granted a vision of God, cementing his status as a safi (“chosen one”). Pages 248-249 of Michael A. Sell’s 1996 book “Early Islamic Mysticism” replicates the story of Bisṭāmī’s theophany:

I continued to cross sea after sea until I ended up at the greatest sea on which was the royal throne (‘arsh) of the Compassionate. I continued to recite his praises until I saw chat all that there was - from the throne to the earth, of Cherubim (karibiyyin), angels, and the bearers of the royal throne and others created by Allah Most High and Glorious in the heavens and the earth - was smaller, from the perspective of the flight of the secret of my heart in quest for him, than a mustard seed between sky and earth. Then he continued to show me of the subtleties of his beneficence and the fullness of his power and the greatness of his sovereignty what would wear out the tongue to depict and describe. Through all that, I kept saying: O my dear one! My goal is other than that which you are showing me, and I did not turn toward it out of respect for his sanctity. And when Allah Most High and Glorious knew the sincerity of my will in quest for him, he called out “To me, to me!” and said O my chosen one (safi), come near to me and look upon the plains of my splendor and the domains of my brightness.’’ Sit upon the carpet of my holiness until you see the subtleties of my artisanship I-ness. You are my chosen one, my beloved, and the best of my creatures.

Upon hearing that, it was as if | were melting like melting lead. Then he gave me a drink from the spring of graciousness (lutf) with the cup of intimacy. Then he brought me to a state that I am unable to describe. Then he brought me closer and closer to him until I was nearer to him than the spirit is to the body.

Then the spirit of each prophet received me, saluted me, and glorified my situation. They spoke to me and | spoke to them. Then the spirit of Muhammad, the blessings and peace of God be upon him, received me, saluted me, and said: O Abu Yazid: welcome! welcome! Allah has preferred you over many of his creatures. When you return to earth, bear to my community my salutation and give them sincere advice as much as you can and call them to Allah Most High and Glorious. I kept on in this way until I was like he was before creation and only the real remained (baqiya) without being or relation or place or position or quality. May his glory be glorified and his names held transcendent!

Parallels with Mesopotamian, Jewish, Christian, and Hellenistic ascent stories are evident in the preceding passages. The adept enters an ecstatic state, journeys to heaven, and is greeted upon arrival. The traveler then encounters saints and prophets, and, ultimately, God. A state of ecstasy is sustained throughout the narrative. In the presence of God, the adept attains the immortal status of a saint or angel. The content of these stories is a blend of physiological experience and cultural expectations.

In recent times Islam has become increasing associated with martyrdom. The initial success of Islam can be attributed to a martyr-like ethos, but the earliest martyrs were restrained by rules of engagement written in the Quran. It was revealed that those who die for the faith need not molder in their graves, awaiting the final judgement. Al-‘Ankabut 29:57-58 states:

Every soul will taste death, then to Us you will ˹all˺ be returned. ˹As for those who believe and do good, We will certainly house them in elevated˺ mansions in Paradise, under which rivers flow, to stay there forever. How excellent is the reward for those who work ˹righteousness!˺

The term “shahid” is commonly used in Arabic to mean "martyr,” but it literally means "witness" in Quranic Arabic. Its development closely parallels that of the Greek word martys, the origin of the term martyr used in the New Testament which may have inspired the Islamic designation. Terms shared by different religions, however, cannot be universally defined. An interpretation common to all religions is that martyrs enjoy a special reward in the afterlife. Muslims augment this common view with the belief that martyrs await the day of judgement in a specially prepared aljamia (“pleasure garden”). Like Rabbinical Judaism, Muslims identify this waiting area as the garden of Eden. Those who die in holy wars, Jihad, are also entitled to await judgement in this portion of heaven. The greater Jihad described in the Quran refers to a personal, interior battle to acquire good morals, but the lesser Jihad, or holy war, is the Quran’s principal topic of discussion. The term mujahid (“striver”) designates the soldier-warriors of holy wars. Every Muslim is obligated to serve as a mujahid. The Quran specifies what is allowed and what is forbidden during a holy war. The random killing of civilians, or terrorism, is forbidden, and so is suicide.

For Muslims, martyrdom should be actively sought and earnestly prayed for. The Hadith states:

Whoever honestly asks Allah for martyrdom, Allah will grant him martyrdom even if he dies in his own bed.

Holy war and a penchant for martyrdom fueled the early Muslim conquests of the Middle East and significant portions of Asia and Europe. The tradition of immediate translation to heaven for soldiers slain in combat began with the battle of Badr in 624. Muhammad’s small band of Muslims was vastly outnumbered by forces comprised of members of his own tribe, the Quraysh. Prayer revealed that the angel Gibril would be fighting alongside the Muslims. Muhammad’s army scored a complete victory, and many prominent Meccan opponents were killed. The victory at Badr was a watershed so momentous for the nascent Muslim community that it was believed to be miraculous. In 630, after years of struggle, the Quraysh surrendered Mecca to Muhammad and became Muslims. Quran 37:41-49 describes the augmented felicity of the 15 original mujahidin who died in battle that day, and of the many thousands of martyrs who have followed them to paradise:

For them awaits a known provision, a variety of delicious fruits; and they shall be honored in the Gardens of Bliss. They will be seated upon couches set face to face; a cup filled with wine from its springs, will be passed around to them; white, sparkling (wine), a delight to the drinkers. There will neither be any harm in it for their body nor will it intoxicate their mind. Theirs shall be wide-eyed maidens with bashful, restrained glances, so delicate as the hidden peel under an egg's shell.

The pleasure garden reserved for Muslim martyrs resembles those of oriental potentates, complete with women and wine, indulgences forbidden to youth in the circumscribed setting of the Near East. Later theologians and mystics described the garden as a blend of pleasure and piety. It remains a lively tradition in Islam and remains especially relevant to those who aspire to become martyrs. For the sake of Muslims from cultures less receptive to the ideas of hedonism as a heavenly reward, Islam provides a variety of more sophisticated portrayals of the afterlife where physicality is reinterpreted as a metaphor for a more philosophical or mystical condition.

Islam as originally devised does not recognize any means by which the dead can intercede on behalf of the living, or the living can improve the condition of the dead. Preceding mythologies describing heavenly ascents to obtain these improvements such as the Merkabah and Gnostic traditions nevertheless influenced Islam and became fully developed in Sufi and Marabout Islam. This led to the creation of the Muslim equivalent of Christian saints, agents of divine intercession which seem to be common to every world culture. The Kabod figure, named Melatron by the Rabbis, was reimagined in mystical Islam to represent the principal bridge between God and humanity. Quran 9:30 contains this warning:

The Jews say, “Ezra is the son of Allah,” while the Christians say, “The Messiah is the son of Allah.” Such are their baseless assertions, only parroting the words of earlier disbelievers. May Allah condemn them! How can they be deluded ˹from the truth˺?

Despite this warning, the doctrine of intercession by intermediaries first appears in Islam in the ghulat, or ghuluww (meaning “exaggerating about something”), extremist Gnostics and mystical Shi’s (the forerunner of Sufism, and viewed as heretical by mainstream Muslims). According to these traditions, God did not create the world, but relegated this task to a lesser, created deity. This was the role of Metatron for the Rabbis, and of Salman al-Farisi (who is based on Metatron) in the “Umm al-Qitab,” an eighth century Persian Gnostic apocalypse. In the tenth century, Islamic historian al-Masudi is first to write about the Karaite Jews, a sect that began to coalesce in the Muslim setting of eight century Iraq. The Karaites were the likely transmitters of Samaritan traditions. Al-Masudi ascribes the origin of Metatron not only to Enoch 3, but also to an early Jewish tract entitled “Shi’ur Qoma” (“The Measure of the Divine Stature”) which was condemned for its anthropomorphic descriptions of bejeweled, measurable God. Later Jewish rationalists like Maimonides were exceptionally offended, but the evolving Kabbalists were not ashamed of the Shi’ur Qoma. On the contrary, they regarded it as a repository of divine mysteries.

Binitarianism, the belief that the one true God exists as two persons (the Father and the Son, or in the case of Islam, God and the Mahdi) not only continued to influence Jewish mysticism but is also evident in Islam as late as the era of Iranian Shi’ite cleric Muḥammad Bāqir b. Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī (circa 1627 – March 29, 1699). Taqi al-Majlisi is regularly critiqued for his close relationship with the Safavid Shah Abbas II, for his rejection (or, for some, persecution) of Sufism, and for popularizing an uncritical, accessible sectarian version of the Shia faith. Mirzā Ḥosayn Ṭabarsi/Ṭabresi Nuri (d. 1902), who sharply criticized the belief in miracles as credulity, reported a great number of dreams in which scholars were visited by Majlesi.  In several of these accounts Majlesi is presented as the apotheosis of an Imamite scholar who is one of the intermediaries facilitating access to the imams and therefore to divine knowledge. On a much more exalted note, Shia Islam believes in a messianic figure, the hidden and last (of a series of twelve) Imam known as "the Mahdi" (a figure mentioned in the Hadith, but not in the Quran) that will one day return and fill the world with justice. It has been suggested that the concept of the Mahdi may have been derived from earlier messianic Jewish and Christian beliefs. Not only for Shi’ites, but for millions of Muslims, the return of the Mahdi, (the “Hidden Imam”) is the culmination of, and the underlying purpose for every event of human history.

Although most Muslims believe that they will rest in their graves until the day of judgement, martyrs are exempted from having to wait. Another group that assures themselves that they are privileged to journey to heaven immediately after dying are the mystics. This idea evolved slowly. Early ascetics feared hell and greatly desired heaven because they were convicted of their own sinfulness. Ascetic Hasan al-Basri (642-728 CE) sought the hereafter (al-‘ahira) because they despised and rejected the world (al-dunya). Soon, however, ecstatic love of God supplanted asceticism as the key element of Sufism, resulting in novel conceptions of the afterlife. The earliest Arabian love-mystic was the poetess Rabi’ah al-adawiya (717-801 CE). Rabia is generally credited as the founder of the Sufis. This new sect reacted to the political turmoil of their times, an era when the Abbasid caliphate was extending its power throughout the Muslim world, by retreating to an inner search for God. A principal belief of the Sufis was that one should not worship Allah out of fear of Hell, or hope of Heaven; rather, love for God should be an end in itself. Below is a prayer attributed to Rabia:

O God, if I worship Thee in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting beauty.

Sufis frequently present their views on life and afterlife as the pantheistic extinction (fana’), the "passing away" or "annihilation" of the self). Fana’ means "to die before one dies", There is controversy around what Fana exactly is, with some Sufis defining it as the absolute annihilation of the human ego before God. The self becomes an instrument of God's plan in the world. Other Sufis interpret fana’ as the breaking down of the individual ego and a recognition of the fundamental unity of God, creation, and the individual self. However, persons having entered this enlightened state are said to obtain absolute awareness of an intrinsic unity (Tawhid) between God (Allah) and all that exists, including themselves. This second pantheistic interpretation is considered heretical by many religious and political authorities. Mansur al-Hallaj (858-033 CE) was best known for his saying, "I am the Truth" ("Ana'l-Ḥaqq"), which many saw as a claim to divinity while others interpreted it as an example of the annihilation of the ego which allowed God to speak through him. After years of imprisonment, he was finally condemned to death in 922 on the charge of being a rebel who wished to destroy the Kaaba because he had said "the important thing is to proceed seven times around the Kaaba of one's heart." His prayer to God to make him lost and despised is typical for a Sufi seeking annihilation in God.

Whatever its exact meaning may be, Sufis believe that the extinction of fani’ may free them from the purgatory of the barzakh interim period between death and judgement, or even from death itself. A mystical state of oneness with God can either be achieved while living or in the afterlife. For the living, fana’ is accessible to only the greatest masters of meditation. When achieved, the ecstasy and joy of this condition is identical to what a resurrected person experiences in heaven. Those who witnessed the joy of the mystics took it as proof of their own pending heavenly reward. Some mystics, to avoid charges of arrogance, taught that the joyousness of fani’ would cease once an individual was so absorbed into God that the ego no longer exists. Poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273 CE), better known as Rumi, wrote this Sufi statement of subsumption into God: “I was raw; I was cooked; I was burnt.” Sufis who claimed to have achieved unity with God attain greater prestige and legitimacy, and often are more influential than the conventional religious authorities.

Since fana’ implies a previous ascent to God, it can be identifies with the heavenly journey of the soul that the Platonists espoused. It also has attributes comparable to Aristotelian conceptions of intelligence. Sufi philosopher Al-Gazzahli suggests that as a soul ascends, its individuality fades away, a manner of second death as the mind becomes subsumed into a God of illimitable intelligence and love. A synthesis of Platonism and Aristotelianism became developed in Judaism and Christianity as well, both of which obtained much of their knowledge of Greek secondhand from the great Medieval Muslim philosophers. For Maimonides and other Jews, this offered assurance of the immortality of the souls. Assurance of the immortality of identifiable individuals, however, was not available through the philosophy of Aristotle. Personal immortality must be based on faith, a faith undergirded by Greek “proofs” of the soul’s immortality. Maimonides developed this approach based on his study of Muslim philosophers like al-Farabi (circa 870-951 CE). According to al-Farabi, the afterlife is not the personal experience commonly conceived of by religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity. Individuality is annihilated after the death of the body. Only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection) to become united with all other rational souls within the agent intellect (God) and enters a realm of pure intelligence.

Shia Islam holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (656–661 CE) as his successor, but that after Muhammad's death, ‘Ali was prevented from succeeding as leader of the Muslims because of the choice made by some of Muhammad's other companions. This view primarily contrasts with that of Sunni Islam, whose adherents believe that Muhammad did not appoint a successor before his death and consider Abu Bakr, who was appointed caliph by a group of Muhammad's other companions at Saqifah, to be the first Rashidun (“rightful”) caliph after Muhammad. Shia Muslims' belief that Ali was the designated successor to Muhammad later developed into the concept of Imamah, the idea that certain descendants of Muhammad, the Ahl al-Bayt (“People of the House”), are rightful rulers or Imams through the bloodline of ‘Ali and his two sons Hasan and Husayn, whom Shia Muslims believe possess special spiritual and political authority over the Muslim community. The Battle of Karbala (680 CE) ended with the defeat and destruction of the “party of the faithful” (Hizballah), marks the beginning of Shi’ite Islam as a formal movement. This event occurred on the tenth of Muharram, 61 AH (680 CE) and is designated in Arabic as “The Ashura” (“The Tenth”). It is commemorated by all Muslims, but especially by the Shi’ites.

Disagreement over the proper successors to Mohammad between Sunnis and Shi’ites led to differences in religious practices. In their five daily prayers, Shi’ites add two statements about ‘Ali, whose marriage to Muhammad’s daughter Fatima augmented his status as heir apparent. ‘Ali’s son, and Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali, who perished in the Battle of Karbala, is considered a martyr by Shi’ites. Rituals and religious practices honor the memory of early martyrs like Husayn, some of which feature flagellation and bloody imagery as signs of remembrance. A Shi’ite folk tradition is the Ta’ziye, a dramatic reenactment of the death of Husayn created in rural Iran and continue, in a more sophisticated form, to be performed in Iranian cities. In its original villager-oriented version it was performed by troupes of travelling players. Audiences participated in the drama, establishing empathy with the events of the martyrdom that was being commemorated, a participatory reenactment that was religious ritual, rather than theater. This drama is comparable to Medieval Passion Plays. Conventions helped the audience to better understand the scenes. For example, good char acters always wore colorful clothing and sang or chanted their lines. The bad characters wore black and spoke, rather than sang their lines. Martyrs dressed themselves in white prior to their martyrdoms. 

In one cycle, or scene of the Ta’ziye, two youthful sons of a warrior named Muslim, a partisan of Hussein, are relentlessly pursued by the enemy. When they are captured, they compete to determine who will have the privilege of being martyred first. In recent times the villains are depicted as Jews, or citizens of Israel (“the Little Satan”), and, ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979, as citizens of the United States (“The Great Satan”). This type of religiously infused drama has the effect of dualistically splitting the world into Shi’ite Muslims and all who are not Shi’ites, all of whom are portrayed as the demonic enemies of Islam, even if they are noncombatants.

Jihad, when defined as “holy war.” has been central to Islam since its foundation. During the Crusades, when Christianity sought to reclaim the Holy Land, a Christian equivalent of Jihad was incrementally formulated. In 847 CE Pope Leo IV promised a heavenly reward for any warrior who died in defense of the church. In 858 CE Pope Nicholas offered both heavenly and earthly indulgences for anyone who violated law if they would participate in the war against the infidels. In 872 CE, Pope John VIII augmented Pope Leo’s to proclaim that those who were martyred were holy and would have their sins remitted. In 1061 CE, Pope Alexander II extended these benefits to all who assisted in expelling the Moors from Spain. Gregory VIII was the first pope to call for a war of all Christians against the infidel. In response to the defeat of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin, Gregory issued the papal bull Audita tremendi calling for the Third Crusade. A 2018 book “Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War Between the Muslim World and the Global North” by William R. Polk offers a condensed account of the various European armed expeditions to the Levant:

Christian attacks on Muslim states began in Spain and lasted for hundreds of years, but better known both in the West and among Muslims is the series of crusades that were launched against Muslims at the other end of the Mediterranean in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The first of these crusades was declared by Pope Urban II in a sermon in Clermont, France, in November 1095 in response to an appeal by the Byzantine emperor for volunteer foreign warriors fight the Seljuq Turks. Suddenly, after centuries of unconcern, the Christian rulers of Europe discovered that the “Holy Land” had been “lost” to Muslims. The time to redeem past inaction seemed propitious, since the Byzantine emperor appeared keen to help, the Fatimid caliphate at Cairo appeared to have lost its vigor, and the Levant coast was divided among feuding warlords. Then there was the popular myth that somewhere off in the unknown East there was a hidden great ally, a secret but sincere Christian known as Prester John, who was ready to come to the Europeans’ aid. Meanwhile in Europe, the Norman invasions and the rise of the German warrior class provided apparently limitless numbers of proud but impoverished knights, hungry for honor and greedy for loot, to answer Urban’s call. Imbued with his ardor and by their own worldly objectives, they showed their dedication to the liberation of the Holy Land by mounting vicious attacks on defenseless Jews in the ghettoes of Europe.

News of their conduct was not long in reaching the Byzantine emperor, Alexios Komnenos. Seeing them as barbarians - a view shared by the Muslims - he feared they would draw no line between Jews, Muslims, and Eastern Christians. As they marched toward Jerusalem, they pillaged the Byzantine territories along their route. Alexios got rid of one group, the so-called Children’s Crusade, by sending them off to fight the Seljuq Turks in Anatolia, where most of them were killed. He did all he could to speed the others on their way and keep them away from his own territories. The Muslim authorities tried to do the same and to evacuate Muslims from the cities in their path, but they often were not quick enough. When the crusaders finally arrived in “Jerusalem the Golden,” they immediately surrounded both the main church of the Christians and the main synagogue of the Jews and burned them down with the terrified worshippers still inside. Even those Jews, Christians, and Muslims who surrendered were cut down in an orgy of blood, plunder, and religious ecstasy.

The state the crusaders founded from the Eastern Christian and Muslim Middle Eastern communities gradually took on a calmer demeanor, but the crusaders themselves were always regarded as ruthless, uncultured, and slovenly barbarians.

Despite the excess of what later generations would describe as atrocities, tales of martyred crusaders offered lessons in piety for average European Christians. Similarly, accounts of Islamic Jihad, suffering, and martyrdom strengthened and motivated ordinary Muslims. The average Muslim is not unduly influenced by spiritually meditating on the martyrs, but the idea of martyrdom can be manipulated by unscrupulous political and religious leaders, whatever their faith may be. It is far too easy, and potentially dangerous to underestimate the power of religious justification as motivation for both Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages. At present, national and political struggles are being defined in terms of religion, and their appears to be no shortage of zealots willing to die to advance secular causes 

Contemporary Islamic views of the afterlife resist summarization, but the author tentatively overcomes this by comparing them to analogous viewpoints held by Americans. Pious traditionalists, fundamentalists, and increasingly dangerous fundamentalist extremists still believe in bodily resurrection, the day of judgement, and the barzakh (the transitional phase between death and resurrection) as revealed by the Quran. Fundamentalists remain conscious of the importance of conversion, and typically favor the foundation of Islamic states based on Islamic law, the Shariya’. Heaven and Hell remain as a major component of religious life and are often elaborately described. Extremists have created unprecedented and horrendous descriptions of tortures that await sinners consigned to hell, as well as detailed descriptions of heavenly pleasures awarded not only to martyrs, but to their friends and families as well. Although mainstream Muslims might regard these elaborations as heretical, this doctrinal addendum can be compared to similar approaches by Christian fundamentalists and their extremist brethren. Ironically, each of these groups trespasses the boundaries of orthodoxy, yet maintains that they are simply restoring ancient traditions.

Conversely, there are Islamic groups who interpret traditional teachings more broadly. These attempt to extract from Islam justifications for cultural pluralism and tolerance for other belief systems. Despite representing the minority view, these inclusivist moderates are gaining influence, and typically inhabit culturally plural settings like India, Europe, and the United States. It is interesting to note that many Islamic fundamentalist extremist groups have also arisen the same pluralist societies.

Currently (2025) Islam is, in terms of number of incidents, the largest sponsor of violent extremism. The events of September 11, 2021, tragically made Americans aware of the existence of Muslim extremist religious groups, but Muslims had known about these groups decades beforehand. Americans also witnessed many instances of terror by homegrown extremist groups but have had difficulty recognizing that Muslim extremism is no more indicative of Islam as a whole than are terrorist acts perpetrated in the United States by non-Islamic extremist groups. The destruction of the World Trade Center emphasizes the role that conceptions of the afterlife plays in motivating terrorist acts by Islamic groups such as Hamas, Hizballah, and Al Qa’ida, Iran has never been directly implicated in the 911 attacks, but has been funding terrorist groups. Iraq, a secular state, has been financing and training a variety of terrorist groups, whatever their religion of level of extremism may be. 

Islamic extremists are quick to blame problems in their nations of origin on Israel and the United States, despite the latter’s “hands-off” approach that developed in the aftermath of embarrassing Middle East incursions by the CIA in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In the case of Israel, the rights of its Palestinian citizens have been curtailed, exacerbating the desperation and hopelessness of this group, thus creating conditions that lead to an increase in the number of potential Palestinian martyrs. Despite attempts by Westerners to contribute to the development of the Arab world, the economies of these states remain in poor condition. Funds allocated for development are redirected to despots and to the wealthy. The anti-Western attitudes of Arabs have a long history. Arabs offered significant aid and support to the Nazis during World War II, and also to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Successful terrorists attacks against the United States are celebrated, but are also illogically attributed to Israelis or the CIA. Ony 4% of Arabs view the United States in a favorable light, but, despite this, the American State Department persists in its effort to establish amicable relations with Arab nations. This effort is thwarted primarily because of the United States’ support for Israel. Israel and the United States, as characterized by Satan, are portrayed as the cause of Arabia’s lack of development rather than internal issues that are the true cause. Even in Middle Eastern secular despotisms, Islam remains as a positive, unifying symbol, but it is a mutated form of Islam, deprived of its proven potential to inspire progress.

Muslim extremists believe that anyone who supports the United States (the “Great Satan”) is an infidel, even if they happen to be Muslims themselves. The outsized influence of this minority opinion has resulted in extensive damage to Islam as an “Ummah” (the commonwealth of Muslim believers). Every violent act against a non-Muslim is justified as an act of self-defense, excusing the murder of anyone who disagrees with the extremists. In Islam, the Arabic word kafir means "nonbeliever" or "infidel". It is used to describe someone who denies Allah's authority or teachings. Any Muslim can be executed as a kafir if they disagree with extremist interpretations of a proper Muslim ought to be. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher, who preached implementing traditional Islamic Sharia law in all aspects of life, from everyday problems to the organization of the government.

Al-Banna can be described as the founder of Islamic extremism. He branded those who disagreed with him as apostates and unbelievers. Al-Banna promoted jihad and, like the early Kharijites, preached martyrdom and the assassination all who opposed him. Hassan al-Banna was himself assassinated in 1949, but his extremist approach remains intact to this day.  Destructive dualism (“us” verses “them”) is characteristic of every fundamentalist but has been particularly evident in the revolutionary regime that has controlled Iran since the 1979 overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The current regime has, so far, failed to establish a free and just Islamic society and state. Instead, it has replaced a repressive secular elite with a repressive religious elite. It seized power by appealing to the religious self-righteousness of mainstream Iranians, who have increasingly come to regret their support for the establishment of an ideal state by imperfect human beings. Between June 1981 and March 1982, the new theocratic regime carried out the largest political massacre in Iranian history, targeting communists, socialists, social democrats, liberals, monarchists, moderate Islamists, and members of the Baha'i faith as part of an Iranian Cultural Revolution decreed by supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini on June 14,1980 with the intent of "purifying" Iranian society of non-Islamic elements. Between June 1981 and June 1982, Amnesty International documented 2,946 executions. Several thousand more were killed in the next two years.

Fundamentalism and millenarianism can differ considerably. Fundamentalism is a broad intellectual movement that limits scientific knowledge to only that which does not conflict with a fundamentalist’s religious beliefs. In the case of fundamentalist extremism, millenarianism is a component, and typically, so is politics. In millenarian cults, the decrees of a charismatic leader serve as absolute law.  In fundamentalist-extremist movements, a charismatic leader usually also exists, but other leadership roles are filled by a class of people who make absolutist claims which can be supported, to a greater or lesser extent, by scriptural traditions. In Iranian and American fundamentalism, these roles are usually consigned to the clergy, but these clerics are not always trained in a traditional manner. In both the cults and in the more populated movements, absolute and unquestionable claims are used to gain support for the political ambitions of the clerics. The complications and difficulties that plague reality are brushed aside in favor of clearcut, (over)simplified solutions.

Ideas about martyrdom held by contemporary terrorists are like those of the Khawarij, and like those of the medieval Christian crusaders. The absence of a Kharijite version of their history has made discovering their true motives difficult. Traditional Muslim historical sources and mainstream Muslims viewed the Kharijites as religious extremists who separated themselves from the Muslim community. The term Kharijites is often used by modern mainstream Muslims to describe Islamist militant extremist groups. A late seventh century factions Kharijites were called Azariqa after their leader, Ibn al-Azraq, and are described by secondary sources as the most fanatical of the Kharijite groups. They approved the doctrine of isti'rad, the indiscriminate killing of non-Kharijite Muslims, including women and children.

The long history of Islam is marked by tolerant phases (particularly in Muslim Spain and Moghul India) and periods of intolerance, as is the case with Judaism and Christianity. The degree of intolerance displayed by modern Islamic extremists, however, is unprecedented. Martyrdom is deployed as an offensive weapon, like the suicidal Japanese Kamikaze pilots of World War II. Suicidal martyrdom is a novel and difficult idea for Americans, and for the rest of the world, to comprehend, although nineteenth century uprisings against colonial powers were similarly motivated and sustained by religious beliefs. Ancient doctrines of resurrection arose directly from instances of religious martyrdom, the execution of the pious by an oppressive political entity. The doctrine of resurrection was first formulated in the second century BCE by Jewish apocalyptic sectarians.

Islam has always glorified soldiers who died in Jihad as martyrs but has never condoned suicide as a method for killing civilians. Traditional Islam strictly forbids murder and suicide, and both are punishable by eternal damnation. Extremists negate these proscriptions with the belief that terrorist acts are justifiable counterattacks on an enemy that is responsible for every bad event that has happened in the Arab world. Victories are gauged by the number of corpses an act of terrorism yields. Especially bothersome to the extremists is the creation of a secular, Westernized Turkish state under Mustafa Kamel Attaturk after the defeat and dissolution of the Ottonian Empire in World War I. As was the case with crusader incursions in the Middle Ages, the extremists believe that the glory of Islam cannot be revived until Anatolia is de-secularized and restored to the Muslim fold.

It is far from realistic to believe that the formation of a single, worldwide Muslim state under the leadership of a single Caliph is practical, or even desirable. The conversion of every Christian to Islam is an equally unrealistic vision, as is any possibility that Israel will dissolve their state and agree to live by the terms of the traditional protected status Muslims grant to the “people of the book.” Ordinary Muslims are skeptical that such grandiose ambitions can be realized. Yet, these unpragmatic aspirations appear in the constitutions and charters of Al-Qua’ida, Hizballah, and Hamas. This dream, however deluded it may be, is nevertheless attractive for impoverished and alienated youths, as well as for the educated, but unemployed. Buying into the dream empowers disenfranchised Muslims to participate in the establishment of Islam as the rightful moral and political overlord of humanity.

Before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda issued proclamations that provide insight into the motivations for the attacks. A fatwa issued in 1998 by Osama bin Laden and four of his associates, proclaimed "jihad against Jews and Crusaders" and called for the killing of American civilians. When it was publicized, many Islamic jurists stressed that bin Laden was not qualified to either issue a fatwa or declare a jihad. When the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, killing 2,753 people, enthusiastic Palestinian parents urged their children to seek a meaningful death as martyrs. It was common in the ancient world to believe that death was not the end of life, but this belief has become more increasingly open to doubt in the modern West. Modern martyrs are religiously motivated, believing that their death is only a step to a higher reward on earth and in heaven. Public acceptance and reinforcement of martyrdom serves as encouragement for the potential martyr, and makes martyrdom seem both natural and logical. In occupied territories, the intentions of a dedicated martyr are often publicly announced. The shahid ("martyr," but literally meaning "witness" in Qur'anic Arabic) is publicly celebrated and is commemorated by having their portrait featured on posters that are prominently displayed on the walls of Palestinian cities. Martyrdom becomes transformed into a religious ritual, emphasizing the martyr’s unwavering faith and the justness of the cause that they are willing to die for.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, may have inspired disenfranchised Palestinians to follow suite, but Bin Laden’s primary purpose for staging the attacks was to protest the presence of infidel American soldiers in Saudi Arabia. When the World Trade Center collapsed, Saudi, Egyptian, and Lebanese student viewed the event as a retribution for injustices, both real and imagined, perpetrated by the United States and Israel on innocent and defenseless Arabs. Educated Arabs in nations that were not hostile toward the West asserted that no self-respecting Arab would dare to think of committing an atrocity of such magnitude. Instead, they blamed the attacks on the Israeli secret service, embellishing this fable by alleging that the secret service had given Jews advanced warning to stay at home on that day. This story remains a regular feature of Arab newspapers and television stations, similar to the perineal reappearance in American of stories about CIA complicity in the assassination of President Kennedy. Egyptian television recently aired a dramatization of “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an antisemitic fabrication that Henry Ford had formerly republished. Antisemitism has not, historically, been exclusively confined to Arabia, but modern Arabs use antisemitic ideology as a means of deflecting attention away from their own enthusiastic support for Islamic extremist acts of terror. 

Muhammad ruled out any possible role for intermediaries that could intercede with God on another person’s behalf. Despite this proscription, recent campaigns to entice young Arabs to become martyrs proclaim that their deaths will gain them a special heavenly dispensation for their family and friends. The impoverishment and disenfranchisement of this world will be a thing of the past. In heaven, a martyr can become a good provider for their kinsmen, a role that circumstances have denied to them in the world. Traditional Arabian familial responsibilities also require that revenge be taken upon enemies of the kinship group. Losing one’s life seems insignificant compared to an opportunity to reclaim their dignity in heaven, a motivation which is also evident in ancient millennialist communities. Many volunteers for martyrdom, as noted, are educated young men. Frustration at their inability to find a position that is equal to their educational attainments is another strong motivation for martyrdom. A suitable position awaits them in the afterlife.

Benefits for a martyr’s family do not entirely depend on the martyr’s heavenly intercession for them. The governments of Iran and Iraq, as well as wealthy Saudi Arabians contribute funds that provide an earthly reward. This sum varies but is frequently reported to be around $10,000 but can rise up to $35,000 for notable martyrs like the suicide bomber who killed four American soldiers during Operation Iraqi Freedom. $10,000 is a significant sum for a young Palestinian or Iraqi, many times more than they could hope to earn in a single year. Typically, older young men working for Hizballah or Hamas recruit Palestinian teenagers. Israelis have captured videotapes featuring these recruitment sessions. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policies describes conditions that promote and encourage martyrdom:

…a social environment that is supportive of such an attack; media that disseminates the information among the supportive population; spiritual leadership that encourages such attacks; and financial and social assistance for families of suicide terrorists after their death.

Levitt later notes the acceptance of, and admiration for the voluntary martyrs that the radicalization of Palestine by groups like Hamas has fostered:

Hamas also seeks to equate in the minds of Palestinian parents familial "nurturing" with nursing hatred. In an interview with National Geographic, a suicide bomber's mother admitted that it was she who instilled in her son the desire for martyrdom and "brought them [her sons] up to become martyrs, to be martyrs for the name of Allah."

P. W. Singer writes the following words in “New Children of Terror:”

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of contemporary terrorism is the growth in suicide bombing, particularly emanating from the Middle East. Here, too, children are present. Radical Islamic groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas have recruited children as young as thirteen to be suicide bombers and children as young as eleven to smuggle explosives and weapons. At least thirty suicide bombing attacks have been carried out by youths since the Israel-Palestine conflict sparked up again in 2000.

The personal histories of every suicidal terrorist that crashed into the World Trade Center is not known, but it can be assumed that a similar cultural setting shaped their decisions to martyr themselves. It can also be assumed that their families were well-compensated by entities eager to cause harm to the United States 

There is a direct link between fundamentalism, whatever one’s religion may be, and parochial education. While Judaism and Christianity do not produce the same degree of fundamentalism as do the madrassas (Islamic religious schools that offer a range of educational opportunities, from elementary to higher learning), a strong fundamentalist education and atmosphere often gives rise to extremist political radicalism, along with its all too frequent recourse to violence. Tariq ‘Ali states that parochial education is one of the strongest reasons why fundamentalism has been increasing in Islamic nations. Below is a portion of his description of the madrassas of Pakistan and Afghanistan taken from page 196 of ‘Ali’s book “The Clash of Fundamentalisms:”

Together with the verses from the Koran (learned by rote) and the necessity to lead a devout life, these children were taught to banish all doubt. The only truth was divine truth, the only code of conduct was that written in Koran and the Hadiths, virtue lay in unthinking obedience. Anyone who rebelled against the imam rebelled against Allah. The aim was clear. The madrassas had a single function. They were indoctrination nurseries designed to produce fanatics. The primers, for example, stated that the Urdu letter jeem stood for jihad; tay for tope (canon); kafe for Kalashnikov [a Russian assault rifle] and khay for khoon (blood).

As they grew older the pupils were instructed in the use of sophisticated hand weapons and taught how to make and plant bombs. ISI agents provided training and supervision. They could also observe the development of the more promising students or Taliban, who were later picked out and sent for more specialized training at secret army camps, the better to fight the “holy war” against the unbelievers in Afghanistan.

The following statement straddles pages 196 and 197:

The dragon seeds planted in 2,500 madrassas produced a crop of 225,000 fanatics ready to kill and die for their faith when ordered to do so by their religious leaders. 

The growing impact of fundamentalist extremism has divided public opinion in the democracies that the extremists have targeted. The Israeli peace process, after a promising start, transitioned to unenthusiastic support for the continued occupation of Palestine in reaction to an enormous increase in violence. The number of well-planned suicide bombings increased after the destruction of the World Trade Center. This augmented level of violence was the brainchild of Palestinian radicals who remain oblivious of its inability to improve the lives of its partisans or of ever destoying Western civilization. In the United States, the increase in terrorist acts became the justification for a new crusade against the terrorists. This vicious cycle of attack and counterattack cannot lead to an even-handed settlement of Palestinian debacle, nor will it ever establish economic and political stability in the Near and Middle East. Fouad Ajami, on page 312 of his 1998 book “The Dream Palace of the Arabs” attempts to offer rational advice to a world enmeshed in an irrational conundrum:

But there arises too the recognition that it is time for the imagination to steal way from Israel and to look at the Arab reality, to behold its own view of the kind of world the Arabs want for themselves.

The “Dream Palace of the Arabs” Ajami defines as an Arab obsession with Israel which he describes as a monomaniacal distraction from the confrontation of more substantive issues. Ajami has his detractors. In a 1998 critique of Ajami’s book, Andrew Rubin writes:

Far more eager to reproach Arab civil society than condemn the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Ajami considers the struggle for a Palestinian homeland only as an internal Arab contest between modernity and tradition… Indeed, for Ajami to reduce modern Arab intellectual history to a series of generational (and highly gendered) conflicts between the old and the new, between fathers and sons, between modernists and traditionalists, between secularists and clerics, is to ignore the complexity, the sophistication and above all the possibilities of renewal that exist in other spheres of civil society that Ajami does not even recognize as modern.

“Fundamentalist” is used, particularly in the United States, to designate a class of law-abiding citizens who are not extremist proto-martyrs. The term “fundamentalism” was first used in connection with a twelve volume series of essays written between 1910 and 1915 by a group of conservative theologians who urged that Christianity should never compromise with science, or with any worldview which was derived from science. The authors, Lyman and Milton Stewart, espoused an eschatology that emphasized “the tribulation” and the “rapture,” two preexisting American traditions based on biased misinterpretations of the writings of Paul and the Book of Revelation. Footnotes contained in the Scoffield Bible were largely responsible for the introduction of this nonbiblical, but popular and persistent doctrine. This reflects the common fundamentalist characteristic of wresting scripture to support a private agenda while proclaiming a desire to cleanse scripture of every trace of accumulated debris.

The most important early victory for the fundamentalists was the Scopes Trial of 1925, during which the legal machinery of the state appeared to triumph over the scientific worldview. It was a highly publicized legal case that tested the limits of teaching evolution in public schools. The trial featured William Jennings Bryan as prosecutor, a three-time Democratic presidential nominee who became an opponent of evolution in the 1920s. Clarence Darrow, who had unsuccessfully acted as lawyer for the defense in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, unsuccessfully defended John Thomas Scopes, who stood accused of teaching evolution in a stae-funded school, a violation of Tennessee's Butler Act.The fundamentalists won a courtroom battle fought the heartland of the Bible Belt, but most of the rest of the nation ridiculed the proceedings. From the viewpoint of northern intellectuals, “The Monkey Trial” served as one more example of what kept the south so outdated and decadent. The hostility of the elite, however, confirmed for the fundamentalists the justness of their cause, the victory of their values over those of their patronizing superiors. It was the revenge of believers upon nonbelievers, the victory of the south over the north because the verdict denied any legal standing to modernist, evolutionist, anti-creationist innovations. Defeating the forces of modernism utilizing modern jurisprudence connects American fundamentalism with postcolonial Muslim fundamentalism, which embraces technology to accomplish anti-secular goals.

Christian fundamentalists interpret the Bible literally, and hope to reverse the advances of secularism by establishing an idealized, scripturally based Christian community. It also has a political agenda that was evident a century ago during the Scopes trial, to restore power to those like themselves who object to being patronized and exploited by northern liberals. The Moral Majority was an American political organization and movement associated with the Christian right and the Republican Party in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates. It was dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force, particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s. Moral Majority was an early example of what has been termed “the southern strategy,” which is based on an awareness that the population of the United States, and therefore political clout, is migrating south. Southern influence, however, is mostly exercised by urban environments in the south whose economy depends on providing goods and services, rather than on rural agriculture. Rather disingenuously, the name “Moral Majority” insinuated that the conservatives that supported it were moral, formed a majority, but had previously chosen to distance themselves from politics, rather than being the highly vocal minority that they were. Contemporary southern politicians are not focused on religion, but, like all politicians, on the acquisition and preservation of political power.

Christian fundamentalists are predominately Protestant. The clergy of denominations that gravitate toward a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture are typically not as well educated as the clergy of more mainstream Protestant denominations or the Catholic church. The authority of a pastor or preacher is charismatic in nature. Charismatics and Pentecostals are validated if they enthusiastically display spiritual gifts as prescribed by Paul in the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians, including glossolalia (speaking in tongues), with the hope of inspiring others to also seek to attain these gifts. Other fundamentalist denominations dismiss the claims of charismatics and Pentecostals. The author cynically states that their objections could be based on the fear that divinely imbued authority poses a threat to the authority that their earthbound denominations have granted them. The true influence of a fundamentalist clergyman, however, is based on their ability to gather many followers, rather than on credentials a denomination may have granted them. Pastors and preachers are typically free, when inspired by the holy spirit, to engage in freewheeling and highly discursive Bible exegesis, an example of a characteristic of fundamentalism that has been previously noted. While professing to purge religion of accumulated error, instead the clergy Idiosyncratically reinterprets scripture through the lens of personal preference and shares their opinion with other through fiery rhetoric.

Christian fundamentalists in the United Staes operate in the political realm, but in the absence of democracies, Islamic fundamentalists are excluded from using this resource. Lack of access to political power has driven the fundamentalists to engage in extremist actions intended to overthrow the political system. The dictators that largely control Arab politics, however, have never been able to completely suppress dissent that originates in the mosques, so Islam remains capable of expressing political opinions. In more moderate nations like Egypt, mosques serve as an effective political force. Politics are discussed in Egyptian mosques after Friday prayer are concluded. Fundamentalist citizens of the United States remain free to espouse the democratic values of the state while simultaneously working to fulfill their religious agenda. But by rejecting everything that does not align with their absolutist values, Christian fundamentalism sets the stage for violent extremism should it suddenly be denied access to the political process. The attitude of the American branches of fundamentalism lends tacit support not only to extremist acts perpetrated by private militias in the United States, but also unwittingly validates the extremist acts of the Muslim brotherhoods and other fundamentalist Arab groups.

It is difficult to define what constitutes fundamentalism in Judaism. The Rabbinical tradition permitted the elastic interpretation the Torah, so groups that that appear be fundamentalist would describe themselves as being strict orthodox Jews. American political scientist Ian Lustick believes that, in Israel, only the group Gush Emunim could be described as fundamentalists, and only a few subgroups of Gush Emunim engage in terrorism. In the West Bank between 1980 and 1984 there were more than 380 attacks against individuals, 23 of whom died. 191 were injured, and 38 were abducted. 41 Muslim and Christian religious institutions were also attacked. From 1978 to 1982, a group of Gush Emunim activists systematically planed an effort to blow up the El-Aska Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This plan was aborted, however, when it failed to be approved by leading Gush Rabbis. The public learned of this operation in 1984 after the arrest of 25 Jewish activists (all of whom were respected members of Gush Emunim) charged with planting bombs under Arab buses. The heterogenous backgrounds of this group of men, soldiers, pioneering farmers, political activists, and devout and observant Jews, reflects the broad appeal of Gush Emunim. Violence was justified as being necessary to compensate for the failure of the Israeli government to protect Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Violence began to subside as a growing number of seasoned terrorists began to question whether or not it was right to kill innocent women and children.

A less extremist approach is displayed by an Israeli group which could be described as fundamentalist, the Haredi Jews. The emphasis that Hasidism and Haredi Judaism placed on Rabbinical writings. Strict adherence to a source they believe is infallible qualifies the Haredi to be labelled fundamentalist. Like other versions of fundamentalism, the Haredi are suspicious of the secular state and extremely xenophobic. The Haredi vent their wrath on Gentiles and view them all as either current or future anti-Semites capable of launching another Holocaust. The Haredi (and other ultra-Orthodox Jews justify their hatred of modern secular states and Zionism on religious, rather than political grounds,

Whatever the religion a fundamentalist group represents, it invariably calls for women to return to their traditional roles. This undermines native beliefs in the value and dignity of a working man. In colonial and post-colonial settings, women typically find work more quickly than men. A male experiences feelings of inadequacy when he notices an abundance of educated and competent females in the workforce. This offense would cease if the Qur’an were the law of the land.

Islamic fundamentalism has given rise to extremist groups which show relationships to other millenarian movements. A notable example is Al-Qa’ida, founded by Osama bin Laden (1957-2011). Al-Qa’ida uses a combination of modern technology and extreme piety to try to defeat the modern Western world. Just yhree months after the fall of the World Trade Center (an event that he had planned) Osama bin Laden was overheard speaking about the world’s initial reaction to the events of September 11, 2001:

I was sitting with Dr Ahmad Abu-al-Khair. Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington.

They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: be patient.

The brothers who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America, but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter.

Islamic fundamentalist extremism asserts that every problem can be answered by casting out their cherished scapegoat, the Jew. Jews are viewed with suspicion for rejecting the message of Islam and foe serving as agents for satanic Israel. French scholar Gilles Kepel published a book shortly after the events of September 11, 2001 called “Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam.” It argued that fundamentalist terrorists were losing their big game, a war for the allegiance of the entire Muslim world. He described Islamist extremists as history's losers. He states, "The Muslims of Europe are between the rock of assimilation and the hard place of multiculturalism. They'll have to find a middle path, which I suspect will more closely resemble a truly integrationist policy of shared rights and privileges."  Kepel insightfully describes "multiculturalism" as synonymous "apartheid." The question posed by the international Islamic community in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center, Kepel says, is whether the populations tempted by jihad will grow or shrink; whether the terrorists will gain converts or lose them. Kepel believes that by promising to re-establish social justice on the model of the first state, the Islamists held out a vision of utopia. Khomeini triumphed because he was able to unite the merchants, the poor, and even the middle class, who believed that they could easily oust the Shah of Iran. Part of the success of the Islamists was also driven by the fact that by making concession after concession, the governments created a reactionary climate of re-Islamization that the Islamists exploited.

In her 2004 book “Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making,” Elizabeth Castelli compares the deaths of early Christian martyrs Perpetua and Thecla to that of a modern American martyr. Cassie René Bernall was an American student who was killed in the Columbine High School massacre, where 11 more students and a teacher were killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then committed suicide. It was reported that Bernall had been asked whether she believed in God, and she said "Yes", before being shot during the massacre. The deaths of Bernall and fellow student and Christian Rachel Scott during the Columbine massacre led both to be subsequently depicted and remembered by groups of evangelical Christians as Christian martyrs. The author sympathetically links the disenfranchised perpetrators of the massacre at Columbine, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, to the plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East. Harris and Klebold were intelligent young men, but because they were not athletically inclined, they were barred from admission to Columbine High School’s pantheon of super-jocks. In Palestine, disenfranchisement is the rule, rather than the exception. Contemporary Palestinian ideology glorifies and celebrates the deaths of every young person who is willing to martyr themselves, despite the inability of this irrational technique to improve the lives of Palestinians.

Tolerance and pluralism are not only championed by the more liberal elements of a belief system. Conservatives and fundamentalists can be tolerant of other belief systems when circumstances warrant. Examples of this are Moorish Spain and Moghul India. Islamic views of the afterlife became adjusted in these settings because of the heterogenous nature of the populace the Muslim authorities governed. Moorish Spain embraced a philosophical tradition that recognized universal truths that are implicit in every religion. Aristotelianism had logically precluded any possibility of a personal afterlife. During the Islamic rule in Spain, Jews, Christian Ibero-Romans, Muslims Berbers, Almohads and Almoravids from North Africa, Arabs (Syrian warriors), slaves recruited from non-Muslim Europe and eventually freed, mercenary Slavs, Muwalladun (Christian and Jewish converts to Islam), all coexisted together. The Arabs suddenly appeared in Spain to fill her with their activity and genius. They endowed her with glamor, building an edifice of light which sent its rays into Europe and inspired it with the passion for study, freedom and respect. Art, science, philosophy, trade, industry and agriculture were possible framed in the Islamic principles of freedom and respect for the values and religious beliefs of the non-Muslim people groups.

The native populace of Moghul India were Hindus, and therefore resistant to being regarded as “people of the book.” Islamic conceptions of the afterlife in Moghul India were deemphasized to the point of nonexistence. Babur was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur through his father and Genghis Khan through his mother. Babur was an acclaimed writer. His affinity with noted writers ofn the Italian Renaissance was noted by a man once marked for extermination by the forces of radical Islam, Salman Rushdie:

The Western thinker whom Babur most resembles is his contemporary, the Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli,’ he wrote in his brilliant essay on the Baburnama. ‘In both men, a cold appreciation of the necessities of power, of what would today be called realpolitik, is combined with a deeply cultured and literary nature, not to mention the love, often to excess, of wine and women.

Babur, a pragmatic poet/potentate, wrote a Persian couplet that urged the faithful to enjoy the pleasures of this world because alternate world does not exist. Early in his travels Babur, referencing a king from the Shahnama, carves on a rock: “Like us many have spoken over this spring, but they were gone in the twinkling of an eye. We conquered the world with bravery and might, but we did not take it with us to the grave.” During his brief (6 years) reign over the subcontinent, Sufi mystics were actively working to link their mystical experiences with those of their Hindu neighbors. Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (1542-1605 CE), popularly known as Akbar the Great, and also as Akbar I, was the third Mughal emperor. Akbar’s professed belief in pantheism and șulh-i kul suddenly threw open orthodox beliefs to criticism on the most delicate issues of ethics and theology. Internally, it created within Islam, a recognized niche for the emerging Shi’ite movement despite current animosities between Sunnis and Shi’as. It provoked the restatement of the orthodox Islamic position, but it also generated renewed interest in reason and science. Akbar’s inclusivist perspective motivated Muslims to more closely study Brahmanical texts and the Vedānta to better understand “truth” as perceived by Hindus. A realpolitik accommodation to reality, but a departure from the typically intolerant attitudes of most fundamentalist groups.

Swiss philosopher and writer Tariq Ramadan recently published a book titled “Taking Back Islam” which bewails the intransigent, defensive attitudes displayed by world Islam, and looks to the Muslim diaspora communities of Europe and the United States to offer a moderate, multicultural alternative that is not based on the demonization of every non-Muslim. Caroline Fourest excoriated Ramadan for his oblique defense of his grandfather’s (a founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) ideas in her 2008 book, “Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan:”

Far from expressing any reservations regarding the fanaticism that is an integral part of al-Banna’s ideology, he accuses those who would point to the unsavory aspects of his political and family heritage of conspiracy or post-colonial racism.

Ramadan began to lose credibility in 2008 when a woman publicly accused him of brutally raping her in a hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland. The once formidable Islamist leader now finds himself alone and abandoned by the people who once stood by his side.

A hallmark of cultural pluralism is its recognition that it is permissible to express doubts about one’s religious beliefs, and about the religious beliefs of others. Fundamentalists, in contrast, have successfully banished every doubt, and regard their victories as triumphs of truth over untruth. Such absolute certainty permits fundamentalists to justify any crime or violation of human rights, a textbook definition of fanaticism. The author concludes Chapter 15 with the following words:

Most Americans are optimistic about life and grateful for the standard of living and political freedom and stability that have existed here. And so they have banished hell and given heaven to all as a kind of entitlement, regardless of religious allegiance. This suggests, perhaps, that whether the religion is liberal or conservative, the strategy that leads to cultural pluralism is two-fold: limiting conversion to members of one’s own religion and imagining oneself globally as the member of a minority. The result of this revisioning should therefore yield a world in which everyone acknowledges each other’s rights as a way of safeguarding one’s own.