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Originally Posted by Vinterland  The general rule is that a non-fundamentalist Muslim doesn't take the Koran any mor eliterally than a non-fundamentalist Christian reads the Bible literally. You're assuming that all Muslims believe in literal creationism. |
To be clear, I should have said Islam, not Muslims. Furthermore I mean majority scholarly opinion of Islam, there is no good in learning about Islam from a Muslim who does not read about his own religion. Nevertheless, overwhelming evidence in scripture (Biblical too) would suggest Allah created Adam "from dust" and furthermore he was created in Paradise. Even if you took that as a metaphor, in my view it doesn't fit well with human evolution.
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One verse states suicide is forbidden while others say martyrdom is fine. Since martyrdom is suicide, this appears to be an obvious contradiction.
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In Islam, martyrdom is not necessarily suicide. For example, it is true that in some cases of suicide bombing, scholars do consider it to be martyrdom, but generally martyrdom is non-suicide deaths. A woman dying while giving birth is considered a Muslim martyr, or a Muslim unwillingly dying in war (in defence of the Islamic state) and many other situations. The Qur'an does say that it is martyrdom to die in war, but as far as I am aware it does not specify suicidal tactics. Such tactics are acts of desperation and are done by any overwhelmed side in a war.
Now to explain my understanding of the thinking behind why scholars don't regard 'suicide bombing' as plain suicide. When the Qur'an talks about suicide it means taking your own life because you are depressed, or in pain, or any reason in order to avoid some hardship, this is made more clear in hadith. However if you commit suicide for the benefit of Islamic nation (sake of Allah) then it becomes a form of martyrdom, so the
intent of the suicide is the key. There is a 'selfish' suicide, which is sin, and then there is martyrdom.
For example, if you witness some armed terrorists planting a nuclear weapon in a city and rather than running away to save yourself, you run up to the group to smash the control panel just before they manage to arm it. They kill you but cannot arm the bomb now. One could call that suicide, but martyrdom would be more appropriate because you died for your country. When it is said to die for the sake of Allah or Islam, remember the context is that Muslims are living as one nation of Muslims, thus dying for your country is dying for your religion.