This is an excelent question, and one that I was intending to ask myself, but did not get around to. The focal point is: is it actually true? Do Muslims actually believe that people buried in pigskin - through no fault of their own - cannot go to Heaven? If they do, it sounds like a great idea, because it would likely work. I don’t think any of the objections mentioned here are valid. If it is not true, than the whole issue is moot.
Unfortunately, the whole idea sounds very farfetched, and I am skeptical as to whether it is true. What we need however, is one of our Islamic scholars to weigh in.
A lot of Muslim theology is based on Hebrew/Jewish belief, as Muslims regard themselves as inheritors and, to some degree, co-religionists, Allah and Jahweh are the same God.
It is clear in Jewish theology and law that the law does not supercede humanity: if the comission of what would otherwise be a blasphemy would save a life, the blasphemy is rendered moot. Put oversimply, if eating a ham sandwhich will save your neighbors life, not only are you forgiven for eating the sandwhich, you are obligated to do so.
Certainly, in Islam as in other religions, there are those who lose sight of this humanity, who uphold the letter of the law above the spirit. A parallel might be the despicable notion of infant damnation, the idea that a baby unbaptized would be damned to eternal hellfire. Cruel men worship cruel gods, in thier image.
To paraphrase Hillel, “Love is the Law, everything else is commentary.”
Hey Blalron- How about if we do the same thing to families of anti-abortion terrorists. If someone blows up a clinic or shoots a doctor we burn his family’s house down.
As I understand it, for the serious hardline psychotic fundamentalists there aint many sins greater than coming into contact with pork, pigskin, pigs blood etc… If you do that then you’re pretty much condemned to hell. At least, that’s what the zealots believe AFAIK. Assuming that the article is accurate when it says:
Then I believe it would be an excellent deterrent because future ‘martyrs’ would be in less of a rush to kill themselves and others because they would spend eternity in hell as a ‘reward’. That’d certainly put me off.
boy, that big pork gang that has been giving all that campaign contributions to Bush has really got you all brainwashed. Don’t you guys see what will happen. Russia buys more pork, the Muslims get a bunch of lard smeared on them .Some Muslim priest thinking that all is lost says that pork isn’t bad for Muslims anymore now you have a whole new market those billions of former non pork eating Muslims
I don’t know if you can compare one circumstance to another. The specific problem with suicide bombers is that any conceivable “punishment” is impossible - they’re dead. So this idea is a grasp at a deterrent that might work (again, asuming this claim is true) even under such circumstances. In the case of abortion clinics, such desparate measures are not necessary.
Further, the idea of wrapping these guys in pigskin is not an afront to innocent Muslims (to the exent that they don’t symphathize with the bombers) - the bodies of these guys are not sacred to Muslims. By contrast, any random Bible is considered holy by many people.
I actually thought it might be a good idea to feed the remains of the suicide bombers to pigs - independent of any religious considerations, it is possible that the simple indignity of it might deter some. There is apparently a lot of glory in dying to kill as many people as possible - I don’t know if being fed to a pig is as glorious.
I honestly have not found any solid information as to whether this is widely believed or not. Snopes considered it undetermined ( referring to Pershing supposedly doing this in the Phillipines ). However my educated guess on the matter is as Elucidator said - It would be considered justified by a true fanatic as a necessary evil and would not prevent martyrdom. Snopes notes Israeli settlers threatened this and Hamas seemed to dismiss the threat, which I guess would be pretty close to the final word re: the modern situation. Snopes link:
Actually the Israelis have made use of this tactic with little visible in stopping terrorism, far as I can tell. Their are posters on this board that disagree, but I consider it a pretty useless policy that probably provides more motivation than deterrence.
Although this a widely quoted event, it does not appear to be entirely accurate. Vlad Tepes indulged in a number of these mass impaling. His big impaling of Turkish POWs in 1461 ( closer to 25,000 actually ) was done in the course of an offensive by Vlad into Ottoman territory, rather than during a defensive stand. And the mass impaling that supposedly may the Sultan Mehmed II ‘shudder’ ( a notable achievement, as this was one of the more bloody-minded Sultans ) was actually of 20,000 Bulgarian peasants in 1462 and didn’t actually dissuade the Turkish offensive. It was actually encountered after the Sultan had arrived at the capital to find it deserted witth the gates wide open ( mostly rural Wallachia had few urban centers and Vlad did not depend on them, thus weakening the Turks usual strategy ). Mehmed was frustrated by his failure to come to grips with the elusive Vlad. However, after a detachment of the Wallachian army was finally run down and slaughtered by one of his generals, Wallachian resistance began to collapse andthe Turks laid waste to the countryside, compellung Vlad to flee to Transylvania. Mehmed installed his brother Radu in Wallachia and Vlad, a former vassal of the Turks as well, entered negotiations to return to the fold as such, offering to conquer Trannsylvania and Hungary for the Sultan. However negotiations broke down and Vlad was seized by Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and spent the next 14-odd years in prison, before briefly resurrecting his career in his twilight years.
But this isn’t any normal sort of desecration. This is a kind of desecration that, if the article is accurate, may dissuade their cohorts from killing anyone.
At any rate: A) There is no indication that this story is anything but apocryphal. I’ve yet to find any sort of government confirmation and it may just be a bit of tabloid journalism - Something I understand Russia has no shortage of these days. Insomuch as Russia still courts its former satellites in Central Asia, it seems doubtful they would deliberately employ such tactics as a matter of policy.
B) From a practical standpoint there is no indication that this would work and a few reasons to believe it would not. As the Snopes link I posted above notes in its little news snippet, Hamas at least seems dismissive of such tactics and I suspect that in this regard they can probably be considered somewhat representative of this brand of fanatic.
C) Even if it had some limited efficacy ( which I doubt ), it would still be barbaric IMO. Not as high on the list as torture ( which I consider morally unacceptable even if it were effective ), but still pretty nasty.
The urge to want to spite such wanton murderers is pretty understandable, but this particular method seems more likely ( in my view ) to enrage, rather than dissuade.
Would you be able to provide me with a link which substantiates this? I’ve tried looking but haven’t found anything. I’m not doubting your word but if you could find it it would be great because that’d basically nullify any of the arguments for this scheme.
Hmmm…Well on a little digging, the only source for the story, Moskovsky Komsomolets, does seem to be a widely read tabloid-style newspaper. One of their speculations in the 1990’s seems to have been that the U.S.'s Kosovo campaign stemmed from Bill Clinton’s sexual frustration after ending the affair with Monica Lewinsky. Hey, it could be :D.