Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs [Paperback]

Farhad Khosrokhavar (Author), David Macey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2005

In the West, the suicide bomber has become a familiar image in newspapers and on television. In Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere, the results of suicide bombing have been devastating. What drives young men and women to become suicide bombers? This is not a question that is often addressed. This remarkable book provides some of the answers, and explores how the suicide bomber relates to the concept of the martyr in fundamentalist Islam. Farhad Khosrokhavar contrasts it with the idea of the martyr in Christianity. Most importantly, he offers a clear insight into the different ways in which the concept is viewed within Islam, including divisions within Islamic fundamentalist groups, which change according to the political situation of the country in which they are based.Drawing on extensive interviews with jailed Islamist militants, Farhad Khosrokhavar examines differing attitudes towards the 'sacred death' in various Islamic countries, including Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt. He also investigates transnational networks such as Al-Qaeda, offering portraits of various prisoners who belong to the group.Farhad Khosrokhavar distinguishes between two types of martyr: those from the developing world, who are excluded from what modernity has to offer; and the minority who live at the heart of the Western world – a mainly middle-class diaspora from the Middle East and the Maghreb who are at ease with several cultural codes, but whose experience of the West is still marked by racism and discrimination.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Farhad Khosrokhavar is Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has published more than ten books on Iran, Islam and the West. He is currently researching and writing about prisons and religion in France, and he speaks regularly at conferences in the UK.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (February 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745322832
• ISBN-13: 978-0745322834
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Lonely Witnesses, August 17, 2007

By 

Nicholas Bourqui (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Paperback)

This book, which I comment on as a general reader, is written from the perspective of a sociologist or behavioural scientist. Sprinkled with Arabic terms and clearly based on years of fieldwork, it has 3 sections, entitled:

Islam

The Impossible National Community; with subsections on martyrdom in Iran and Palestine

The Transnational Neo-umma; Al-Qaeda's Martyrs

"Islam" surveys the concept of jihad, the active struggle against injustice or ignorance which is enjoined on Muslims; and that of martyrdom, which has a particular emphasis in the Shiite world. Apparently widespread martyrdom is a phenomenon of our own times, dating in large part from the Iranian revolution. This section also briefly describes the ideas of some "radical" Islamist thinkers, such as Mawdudi, Qutb, and (on the Shiite side) Shariati and Khomeini, who have re-interpreted martyrdom and jihad in a more activist way, appealing to individual self-sacrifice, and also moving away from the quietist view (acceptance of separation between Sharia and the state) which has mostly prevailed down the centuries.

"Martyrdom in Iran" looks at the period from the Islamic revolution up to the end of the war with Iraq, and the death of the luminous and quasi-sacred figure of Khomeini. It examines the deadly vogue for martyrdom which took hold during those years, and the inner needs and motivations of the Bassidji brigades' members. The writing on Palestine conveys vividly (in 32 pages) the feeling of humiliation, anxiety about Israeli attacks, and the boredom and passivity caused by chronic unemployment and a situation where any hint of activism will likely lead to arrest. It explores both Israeli and Palestinian perceptions and the way in which the more extreme, utopian visions of both sides result in mutually destructive relations between them. The author finds that martyrs are not recruited by coercion, although obviously they are used for propaganda after the event. Instead, the lonely decision to be a martyr is taken by the individual, "in almost every case" against the wishes of family and friends.

The last section, while devoted to trans-national groups such as al-Qaeda, also addresses the whole spectrum of radicalisation. The encounter of Islam with "modernity" (Western consumerism, greater sexual freedoms, and the anonymity, crime and chaos of city life), a theme never far away in this book, is explored from the viewpoint of Muslim immigrants living in Western societies. The vast majority accept their host countries' societies and live at peace, often enduring economic marginalization or prejudice. A tiny minority however, often well-educated, develop an implacable view of Western society as defiling and hostile to Islam.

This book steers away from political comment; a proposition such as "in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine .. an alliance of of Christians and Jews has put Islam in a position which can only lead to jihad", is left to the reader to judge. Instead, it offers a searching analysis of the social phenomena and the psychological mechanisms at work. Some of the language is a little abstruse and theoretical, but the book rewards perseverance. It is also helpfully divided into subsections between one and a 10-15 pages in length, many of which can be read and pondered stand-alone. My one criticism is that there are few direct quotations from the testimonies of martyrs and radicals.