How can we really be interested to know whether it is haram or halal? When the same Ulema declare alcohol to be harm, we look the other way. When they declare interest to be haram, half of us shake our heads in bafflement. When they declare music and dancing as haram we run around and bring out incomplete scriptures titled “Khuda ke liye” to prove that the Ulemas saying so are half-learned dim-wits (Sorry respectable Ulemas, but I had to be a little direct). But now, when we want suicide attacks to be declared haram, we sit all respectful, wide-eyed and hands demurely folded in laps, audience to the same Ulema. As if, when the declaration comes, the suicide attacker will say ‘Oh, really? I am sorry…’ and take off his suicide jacket and go home, just like we dropped our bottle of alcohol, or called off our banker from interest schemes, or replaced our music collections with nasheeds. That is what we did, right? And that is what we expect the potential suicide bombers to do, right?
Coming back to whether suicide attacks are halal or haram. I pose you a similar question. Was the invention of a bullet right or wrong? You would say, or most of you would say, it depends who is being incapacitated with it. Then why is it that when the topic of discussion is suicide attack the first reason given for its ineligibility is that it kills innocents. That is not the issue under debate. The question is, is a suicide attack, by the nature of its technique, halal or haram? For example, if the affected of 9/11 were offered a suicide attack on Osama, they would be happy to allow it. But my question is yet different. I am not asking about its legality or illegality based by virtue of its target. I am asking about it as a technique in itself. The way we have international laws of war which declare bullets and similar to be lawful and chemical and biological warfare to be illegal. Similarly, by the Book of Allah SWT, is suicide attack allowed as a war technique?
Another reason given for the illegibility of suicide attacks is that they are wrong within Pakistan but allowed in Iraq and Palestine and such. For within Pakistan you would be killing your Muslim brethren but in those other places is the non-Muslim enemy. Duh! I know it is not allowed for a Muslim to kill another Muslim. I knew it even when the Lal Masjid was attacked and Muslim soldiers killed Muslim students. I wondered then why there came forth no Fatwa that this attack is haram. Contrarily, Muslim policemen kill Muslim murderers. Of course! Here the sanctity of the Muslim life will not be honored because he violated it in the first place and deserves to be punished.
To sum up, yes innocents should not be killed, neither in a suicidal attack nor in a non-suicidal attack. Sadly, the tragic reality is that however much targeted a war attempt is, some number of innocents do get in the way. Such happened in all the wars ever happened in history and is happening in current guerilla wars. I guess then all wars of the past should be renamed to Terrorist World War I, Terrorist World War II, and so on.
Second sum, yes a Muslim should not kill another Muslim (non-Muslim neither). But what if the Muslim has become a criminal? What if the Muslim has become anti-Islam? What if the Muslim has become an ally to the enemy?
So, coming back to my question a third time, minus all the diversions. Is a suicide attack, as war technique within itself, halal or haram?
I remember a national hero from my childhood textbooks, Rashid Minhas. He was a jet-fighter officer. He was practicing one day with his coach, Mati-ur Rehman, a Muslim. The coach suddenly hit him with an iron rod, knocking him unconscious. When he gained consciousness, he saw the coach steering the airplane towards the enemies’ borders. The coach held Pakistan’s important defence information with him. Rashid Minhas understood that the coach had become a turncoat. It was now up to him to save the information from getting across the borders. He tried to contact the control tower for help, but meanwhile the plane was about to cross the borders. Left with no choice, Rashid Minhas chose to give up his life in the cause of the nation’s defence. He took hold of the airplane gear and turned it full force toward the ground below, crashing the plane, Mati-ur-Rehman and himself to death and burying the sensitive information to safety with it. He was awarded Tamgha’e Jurrat, the highest military award of Pakistan for bravery.
I also remember three other soldiers of the Pakistani army. The Indian tanks were approaching. The soldiers tied bombs with themselves and lay in the mud pretending to be dead. The Indian soldiers saw three bodies lying lifelessly in the mud and maliciously drove over them. They got blasted away but so did the Pakistani soldiers. Was it suicide? I have forgotten the names and place of this episode but I am sure many of you readers have read this episode in history. Them soldiers were much applauded for their bravery and sacrifice.
Why was a Fatwa not passed then? Or is a Fatwa being dodged now?
