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Murder by Suicide: Episodes from Muslim History

Author(s): Karin AndrioloSource: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Sep., 2002), pp. 736-742Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3567251

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U KARIN ANDRIOLOM u r d e r y S u i c i d e pisodes f r o m M u s l i m H i s t o r yABSTRACT Suicide errorism nd otheroperations hat consumethe killer'sifeemploybeliefsandpracticesntended o reconcilethe killerwith hisor herown death.Thisarticle eviews hreeepisodesfrom Muslim istory:he Assassins f Syria ndPersia,uramen-tadointhe Philippines,ndHusayn'smartyrdomt Karbala. ach f these episodesmanifestsa different ymbolic tratagem:he neu-tralization f transition nxiety, he sacrificialusionof murder ndsuicide,andthejustifyingprojection f the pastonto the present.[Keywords:uicide errorism,slam,MiddleEast, ran,Philippines]

W ARENOWall too familiarwith murderby sui-cide, as executed in the destruction of the WorldTradeCenter,by Palestinian suicide bombers, and by com-mandos in Lebanon against U.S. targets and Israeli mili-tary installations. Although Muslim groups are stronglyrepresented among organizations that recruit, train, andassign members to suicide missions, they are not the onlyones that steer the human potential for self-sacrificeintopolitical violence. For example, the Liberation Tigers ofTamil Eelam (Hindu) have assassinated several high-rank-ing politicians, including Rajiv Gandhi and PresidentRanasinghe Premadasaof Sri Lanka (see Hoffman 1997;Taheri1987; Wright 1985).In these and similar acts, suicide is part of a publicagenda. It is linked to a group and its program, and it ismotivated, planned, and executed within the organiza-tional frameworkof this group. The highly private, indi-vidual, and volatile progression toward ending one's lifemarches to the beat of an ideological movement seekingviolent recognition. The partnershipbetween martyrandmovement seems functionally mismatched. However, ittakes effect in extreme situations, and the conditions forits success do not necessarily correspond to the require-ments for mainstream social action. In particular, thispartnership draws strength from contingencies that, inlessexceptionalcircumstances,would constitutethe weakestlink between structure and agency. Written into the mur-der-by-suicide script is a fundamental paradox: Whileagency soars toward the moment of radical choice, struc-ture needs to control its every move. The martyr mustfreely embrace his death in order to achieve self-martyr-dom. He must also be bound to his death in orderfor themovement's agenda to succeed. Such incongruous de-mands might derail a rational program. In the symboliczone, however, they might pose a galvanizing challenge:

How to recast the control, which the movement imposes,as the martyr'sfreedom from the world; and how to con-vert the commandedaction into the martyr'sultimate desire.This article explores the imaging and ritualizationthat contribute to the effectiveness of the murder-by-sui-cide script. Three episodes from Muslim history articulatesymbolic constructs that synchronize the interests of mar-tyr and movement.THEASSASSINSA notorious precedent for the murder-by-suicide scriptwas enacted by the Nizari state, two loosely connectedclusters of mountain fortresses in Syriaand Persia,whichexisted from the 11th century into the 13th century. Factand fiction about the Syrianbranch first reached Europein the tales of returning crusaders,and one of the namesfor their operatives, assassins, ound a permanent placein Western languages.Travelers o the FarEast,like MarcoPolo, embellished the emerging picture with local hearsayabout the Persian Nizari. With the inclusion of Muslimsources, modern scholarship has sorted substantiated his-tory from speculativedilation. Ourbrief excursionwill dipinto both. Recent historical studies inform the sketch ofthe Nizari'sposition and interests,' followed by gleaningsfrom the speculativereportsof their contemporaries.The Nizari State was the domain of Shi'is,2and one ofthe very few places in which they held political power. Inthe attempt to bring down Sunni rule in the Middle East,an elite corps of young men were trained and ordered toassassinate prominent officials from among the Sunni es-tablishment. They were boys from the countryside, takento a fortressfor extensive training in weaponry, languages,and whatever knowledge and skills would allow them tolater pass undetected in various disguises. Their mission

AMERICANNTHROPOLOGIST04(3):736-742. COPYRIGHT? 2002, AMERICANNTHROPOLOGICALSSOCIATION


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Andriolo * Murderby Suicide 737was to come so close to a highly placed and well-protectedtarget, that they could dispatch him surely with a dagger.Frequently, this involved inching their way into a confi-dential position, and sometimes several men were set toclose in on the same quarry.Assassinsdid not give heed totheir survival and took pride in dying defiantly with theirvictims (Lewis 1968:127).

Throughout their regime of more than two hundredyears, the Nizari pursued clear and unchanging goals andstrategies.If a mighty and long-entrenched hegemony wasto fall at the hands of the righteous few, the thrust was notto be made on the battlefield, which favored the resourcesof superpowers.Surgicaloperations would take out leadersand cause disruption, a climate of fear, and shifting alli-ances. They aimed high and succeeded in murdering twocaliphs, and several vizirs, sultans, emirs, administrators,judges, and clerics. They did not fell their most illustriouspray, Sultan Saladin, who survived at least two assassina-tion attempts (Lewis 1976a). However,Saladindid enter addtente agreement with the Syrian Nizari, supposedlyswayed by the demonstration that his two most trustedbodyguardswere, in fact, planted assassins(Lewis1976b:x,237). (This intriguing tale may not be as factual as are thereportedattempts on his life.)The death-embracing mindset of the assassins, whoare also called fida'isin some sources, increased their effec-tiveness on technical and psychological grounds. Themurdererwho is not distractedby the hope or plan for hisown survival is more likely to succeed in his task, onwhich he can concentrate his skill, fervor, and improvisa-tional versatility. Furthermore,the assassins'disregardfortheir own life forecloses the possibility of influencingthem with threats or promises. The certainty of theirdeath places them beyond reach. They can only be feared,not guardedagainst.The Nizari belonged to the Ishma'ili minority withinthe Shi'a, and stated their political goals in the exaltedlanguage of a millenarian programintent on smashing thewrongful rule and bringing about the triumph of justice.The nobility of their moral-religiousmission was impressedon the young men and stoked by effective ritualization.BernardLewis observes that the act of killing had a ritual,almost sacramentalquality (1968:127). Only a daggerwasused, although other means might have proven more effi-cient at times. The daggerwas handed over ceremoniouslyby the leaderwhen the chosen man was sent on his mission.In the end, the Nizari did not weaken Sunni hegem-ony, and later in the 13th century the Mongols redrew thepolitical map of the Middle East.The planning, discipline,and duration of their political violence, however, had noprevious or subsequent match (Lewis1968:129).Much in the Christianaccounts about the Nizari lackshistorical support. The hearsay they report may or maynot describe reality. Even imaginary systems can indicatereal needs that require responses. In other words, theymay give fictional answers to actual questions. Indeed, thequestion that many rumors seem to address is still asked

today with equal curiosity: What binds the fida'is withsuch intransigence to the self-destructive completion oftheir assignment? The early sources mention the promiseof paradise,which conforms to the traditional Islamicbe-lief that those who die on the path of Allah will enterparadisewithout having to atone in hell for the sins theyhave committed earlier.This promise is connected to otherthemes of local provenance. Much is made of the fierceloyalty that binds the fida'is to their master, whose holdover them is conditioned during their secluded residenceand training in his fortress.Forexample, if asked by theirmaster to do so-even if only for the purpose of demon-stration-assassins would instantly jump to their deaths(Lewis1976b:x, 236).3The master's expectation of complete loyalty and thefida'is' desire for paradise are functionally linked in thestipulation that the master'shelp is needed, or at least ex-peditious, for an assured entry into the heavenly gardenreservedfor martyrsand prophets. Furthermore,the mas-ter supposedly employs devious means to program theyoung men's overridingdesire for this place of bliss. Suchstorieswere told to Marco Polo on his way through Persia.A lovely, secretgardenhas been constructed in the fortressand staffed with experts in providing all manners of sen-sual delights. From time to time, fida'is are drugged andtransported into the garden, which they believe to beparadise.After a while, they areremoved again in druggedslumber (Polo 1926:52-55). Thus, they become addictedto pleasures that they hope to gain instantly and foreverwhen they die completing their assignment. They also be-come convinced of their master's gatekeeperrole. An im-pressive plot, but it is as unsupported as are the rumorsofthe assassins' hashish habit, which led to a now-rejectedtheory about the derivation of their name.Whether these stories are fact or fiction need not con-cern us here. Eitherway, they make an excellent point. Fortaking on a suicidal assignment, the promise of paradisemay have great purchasing power. However, it needs sup-plements that can neutralizethe fearfulexpectation of im-pending death, of leaving behind the known and enteringthe darkpassagebetween this world and the hereafter.Thelegerdemain ascribed to those who masterminded the as-sassins' training addresses this very problem. The occa-sional transportinto and from the illusory paradisefamil-iarizes the fida'is with the transition from life to death.What would otherwise loom threateningly as the greatun-known, the black hole, has been experienced already andrepeatedly.Upon death, exactly the same will happen onelast time. The known gatekeeperwho has arranged or theeasy journey before will do so again. Giving tempting real-ism to the pleasuresof paradiseis a useful design, but tak-ing the edge off transition anxiety is ingenious.Thus,the old fables about the assassinshave told us thatmurder-by-suicidescriptsought to combat transition anxi-ety. Indeed,we can now recognize n variousMuslimimagesof self-martyrdomthe same concern. A different method,however, effects the bridging of the void: Immanence


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738 American Anthropologist * Vol. 104, No. 3 * September 2002

replaces familiarity; the time between death and entryinto paradisemust shrink to near zero. A traditional Mus-lim image for speeding up the transition is the flyingwhite horse that transportsthe martyrto heaven. Today,the elitist horse has gone out of fashion in most places.The symbol favoredby Palestinian suicide bombers is thatof green birds, often shown on a purple background.These are the birds of paradisethat, accordingto a sayingof the Prophet, carry n their bosom the soul of martyrstoAllah (Hassan2001:39).Nasra Hassan conducted numerous interviews in Gazabetween 1996 and 1999 with men who are in waiting formartyrdom operations or did not succeed in their assign-ment, and with those who train the recruitsin small cellsof two or three young men. All of them emphasize thatmartyrsmust focus on paradise,must imagine it from theinside and feel themselves in the presence of Muhammadand Allah. Especially n the last days before the operation,they must concentrate on the immediacy of reaching it(Hassan2001:36, 40). The conquest of transition anxietyby means of accentuating immediacy, particularlyin itscontemporary, explosive form, is poignantly describedbya man who was arrestedbefore he could carryout his mis-sion: [Paradise] s very, very near-right in front of oureyes. It lies beneath the thumb. On the other side of thedetonator (2001:40).

During Iran's war with Iraq, all the horses and birdswould not have sufficed for the martyrtransportonce theAyatollahKhomeini enticed young boys over the age of 12to enlist even without the permission of their parents.Running ahead of the soldiers in the battle zone, they ex-ploded the mines and died by the thousands. They hadbeen issued plastic keys to paradise,made in Taiwan,to letthemselves in without delay (Taheri1986:280).JURAMENTADON THEPHILIPPINESThe second episode, based on ethnographic records,is setamong the Muslim minority in the Philippines. There weencounter a highly structured version of murder by sui-cide, together with its opposite, suicide by murder. Thiswill lead us to examine the seeming inversion of the two.4In the 16th century, Islam rapidly spread into thePhilippines, replacing Hindu-Buddhism and various na-tive religions. It was soon eclipsed by the expansion ofSpanish rule and Catholicism, and only in the southern is-lands of the Sulu Archipelagodid a number of ethnicallydifferent tribes continue to adhere to Islam. They werecalled Moros by the Spanish and formed pockets of resis-tance throughout the 300 yearsof Spanish colonialism.Philippine Muslimspracticedtwo forms of suicidal at-tacks on the hated Christians. In the arena of warfare,infighting the Spanish army, some men volunteered forfront-line placement and chargedinto enemy troops withwild abandon, until they were mowed down. In the pri-vate version of this jihad, a man entered a Christiansettle-ment armed with a kris,and sometimes also a short spear,

and attacked whoever crossed his path. Non-Christians,women, and children were sometimes spared.The surpriseand frenzy of his onslaught generally left several victimsin his wake, before he was killed himself. Occasionally, anumber of men joined together by previous agreement forsuch a rampage.The suicidal attackwas only the final partof an estab-lished practice, which carried different local names andwas called in Spanish juramentado (having sworn anoath). The man who intended to swear the oath first

sought permission to do so from his parents and, sub-sequently, from a local or higher authority. A formal oathsupplemented this request. Next, he attended to his weap-ons and then engaged in a series of ritual preparations.These include the washing, prayers, and purification thatcustomarilyreadied a body forburial,which had to be per-formed while he was still alive enemy, since his corpsewould not be recovered. Other procedures functioned togive his body strength and endurance and involved amu-lets and incenses, shaving his head and plucking his eye-brows, and binding his penis in an upright position.The main provisions needed for the man's rampagehad been supplied by his culture all along: a facility withweapons, an inclination for violence, and an ardorfor re-dressing perceived wrongs. To paraphraseThomas Kiefer,who did fieldwork in the late 1970s among the Tausug,the major ethnic group of the Sulu Archipelago:Violencesprings up easily in response to even a minor theft, an in-appropriate remark, a contemptuous glance, a debt notpaid in time. It quickly escalates into killing among menwhose standardclothing includes an ammunition belt, arifle, and a bladed weapon. An insult that is not retaliatedis shaming, and any death must be avenged (Kiefer1972:52-59, 68-70, 75-77).

Reports on juramentado are few in number and re-stricted to core features.They agree on the obligatory rit-ual sequence and on the framingbeliefs, which stem fromorthodox Islam and are tempered by local notions. Theman killed in fulfilling juramentado will be instantlytransportedinto paradiseon a flying white horse and willnot have to atone in hell for the sins he has previously ac-cumulated. This is predicated on having died an inno-cent death (Kiefer1972:133), which is defined, in turn, asa death at the hands of an evil enemy. The Spanish quali-fied for the part of evil enemy, since they aggressivelyurged religious conversion. Once they were defeated in1898, neither Americans nor Filipinos measuredup to therole of Islam's foe, and the frequency of juramentado de-clined. Later,it was briefly directed against the Japaneseand, in the recentpast, sporadically gainstFilipinosoldiers.Juramentado differs from the assassins' operations inseveral structuralaspects. It is not organized from the topdown by a leadercommanding supremeand exclusive loy-alty from his recruits,who are trained and indoctrinatedin sectarian seclusion until assigned a mission. The jura-mentado steps out from amidst his regularlife in the vil-lage and does so by his own choice and on his own time.


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Andriolo * Murder by Suicide 739Eventhough his action is extraordinary, e is not an isolatedoperative, disconnected from the community. The firstmove in his endeavor takes him to his parents, the head-man, close kinsmen, and sometimes the sultan, who wasthe administrative and religious authority for the Muslimcommunities in the Sulu Archipelago during the Spanishpresence there. He declares his intention and they givetheir formal approval.What he is about to do will be doneby one of them, by a son, a kinsman, a villager, a Muslim.The variants of juramentadoreviewed so far-warfareor sudden rampage by one or more men-all qualify asacts of jihad, carried to the extreme by the insistence ondying in the process. Two additional forms deviate fromthis prototype-that is, from its motivational aspect, al-though not from the proceduresof ritual preparationandexecution. A man who has committed a serious religiouscrime and is held for sentencing might volunteer or beurged by the headman or sultan to seek his death by goingjuramentado,ratherthan awaiting execution (Ewing1955:151; Kiefer 1972:133). This variant lacks the voluntarismof all other forms of juramentado,since the convict's onlychoice is that between two manners of death.5The second variant seems to invert the orderof priori-ties in the murder-by-suicidescenario. A man who wishesto end his life because he has been shamed, is unhappy inhis marriage,or distressed for other reasons can go jura-mentado (Ewing 1955:149). Islam condemns suicide and,accordingly, hell awaits those who commit it.6PhilippineMuslims, however, do not equate the sinful deed withtheir militant way of opting out of life.

Folding one's suicide into the performance of jihadnot only neutralizes the stigma attached to the act but alsocloaks it with the prestige of commendable conduct andits celestial rewards.Like in other culturesthat permit suchmasked suicides (Andriolo 1989, 1998), the individual'sdeath wish is not hidden.' It is a recognized componentthat does not diminish the merits of the act, even thoughthe man who commits suicide by murder inverts the endand means of jihad. That he can get away with it and, fur-thermore,straight nto paradise, hat the differencebetweenself-centered and religious-communal motives does notseem to matter, is vexing-unless I have imposed a differ-ence that is actuallyirrelevantfor juramentado.The primesuspect for such an ethnocentric projection is, I think, theend/means distinction, which applies to the psychologicalmotivation only. Some arebrought to the threshold of ac-tion by the wish to escape disappointments or painingtangles; others are swept forward by the rhetoric of re-venge, justice, or prowess. Forunderstanding the institu-tion of juramentado,however, we have to look past inter-nal motivations into the zone that men enter, once theirdecision has crossed the line from private to public. Thedisclosure to parents and leaders and their formal recogni-tion progressivelyturn an internal resolution into a state-ment to the world, a statement that is sealed by the oath.The oath locks the juramentadointo his death. Whathas been solemnly promisedto God must not be reclaimed.

Theself-sacrifice,oluntaryuntil then,has become anob-ligation.8Palestinian uicide bombersswearan oath onthe Qur'an Hassan 001:37),and thehijackers f Septem-ber 11 were instructedto confirm on the penultimate dayin a mutual pledge that they would die in the attempt tocarryout their mission (Makiyaand Mneimneh 2002:18).The oath handcuffs the man to the deed he pledged.What preciselyis this deed? Forservingthe cause of Islam,he has to fight its enemies and kill as many as he can. Forbecoming a martyr,he has to die at the hands of his ene-mies. Thus, dying and killing merge into a singular goal:neither is an end in itself or means for the other.9 The en-visioned destruction of self and other clinch tighter thecloser he moves toward the realization. Throughout hisritual preparations he evokes simultaneously the deathshe will give and receive, as he strengthens his body magi-cally for the jihad and also preparesit ritually for burial.Killingand being killedbecome one single, swelling desirethat will drive him to frenzy on his ultimate run throughtown. It might culminate in a scene like the one here de-scribed,which conveys a stunning image of terminalfusion:Eye-witnesses have repeatedly informed me that theyhave seen juramentado eize the barrel of a rifle, on beingbayoneted, and drive the steel into themselves further, inorder to bring the soldier at the other end of the piecewithin striking distance and cut him down (Worcester1898:176).Juramentado rasesthe distinctionbetween suicideand murder.The unity of purposepropelsthe man for-ward and focuses him on the burst of violence he will un-leash; it splices into a closed circuit of desire the sacrificialvictim he will slaughter and the sacrifice he will come tobe. Modern echnologyprovides quipment hatgivester-rible visibility to the deadly fusion: The human bomb ex-ploding herself while she presses close to the enemy; theman in the pilot seat of the fuel-saturatedplane crashinginto the tower that teems with lives.MARTYRDOM TKARBALAThe fusion of suicide and murder in juramentado consti-tutes the most radical linkage of the two basic compo-nents of Muslim martyrdom:suffering and fighting. Thethird and last episode traces the Shi'a connotations ofmartyrdom to its foundation narrative, the slaughter ofthe Prophet's grandson Husayn at Karbala.1o he practiceof living the present through the iconic exemplars of thepast has facilitated the persisting pertinence of the narra-tive and its message.These were the events that led to Karbala:Muhammadhad died in C.E. 632 without a son, and the succession tohis spiritual and political leadership had become the hubof conflict. Contenders and their supporterschampionedeither closeness of kinship with the Prophet or connec-tions with the leading families of Medina, the base fromwhich Muhammad had united Arabiapolitically and relig-iously. In the subsequent ivedecades,three of Muhammad's


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five successors were murdered, Muslim armies marchedagainst each other, and the factionalism of regional inter-ests proliferatedwith the first great wave of Arabexpan-sion over most of the Middle East.

Significant in the unfolding of events was the fourthsuccessor, or caliph, All. Multiple social bonds with theProphet made Ali the perfect successor in the eyes ofmany. Muhammad had adopted his paternal parallelcousin Ali in a son's stead and marriedhim to his favoritedaughter Fatima.Ali was assassinated in the fifth year ofhis rule. The caliphatewent to anotherclan, the Umayyads,and turned from an elected position into a hereditaryone.Nearly two decades later, Ali's second son, Husayn, con-tested this turn of events, and in C.E. 680 deceitful assur-ance of support led to his slaughter,together with his en-tourage of 72 men, at Karbala literally, placeof sorrow )in Iraq.The treacherous murder of Husayn sealed the emerg-ing schism between Sunnis and Shi'is. The Sunnis re-spected the caliphate of the Umayyads.The Shi'is (a nameshortened from the party of Ali ) insisted that the right-ful leader must descend from the Prophet's immediatefamily. Disagreements on the characteristicsof leadership,metaphysical postulates, ethical demands, and manyother aspects of religious doctrine and social conductcleaved the two groups and proliferated and deepenedover time. Orderrankedhighest in the political cannon ofthe Sunni majority, and sedition was the foremost threatthat needed to be squashed. The Shi'is, who remained inthe minority, considered justice to be the principal man-date of rulershipand tyranny the arch foe that needed tobe wrestled down (Lawrence 1998:173).The Karbala narrative circumscribes martyrdom, adominant element in the Shi'a ethos, and offers to its in-terpretersthree principal themes: Husayn's suffering, itsintentionality, and its combative setting. Husayn's suffer-ing is foregrounded by dwelling on every detail in the un-folding of his tragicdestiny: How he pleaded for water forthe infant son in his arms,whose throat was piercedwithan arrow nstead;how he faced his killers after all his com-panions had been mowed down in the protractedmock-battle of too few against too many; how he died pierced by70 arrows;how his severedhead, en route to the Umayyadcaliph, was slapped across the mouth by a provincial gov-ernor.Shi'a tradition asserts that Imam Husayn freely chosehis martyrdom in full awareness of its every detail andending, and did so for a purpose beyond politics and suc-cession. During the reign of the Umayyads, Islam hadveered toward a preoccupation with power and wealth,and the doors were thrown open for corruption and tyr-anny. Husayn intended his sufferingand death as a wake-up call that would shake the believers from their compla-cency and rouse the voice of their own conscience. Hissacrifice was to reroute them toward the pursuit of justiceand the reestablishment of the Islamic community (Ajami1986:142-143, Loeffler1988:97-99, 176).

Lastly, Husayn's martyrdomtook place on the battle-field where he fought the forces of evil. He did not turnthe other cheek; he did not restrain his supportersfromcharging at the enemy. The hagiography, which richlyembroidersevery inch of the Karbalanarrative,assures usthat Husayn was a formidable warrior,who could neverhave been defeated until he himself decided to refrain romresistance, so that his martyrdom could be completed(Loeffler1988:41-42).The Shi'achurned the narrative about redemptive suf-fering and the fight against injustice into an enduring andmotivating constellation, the Karbalaparadigm in Mi-chael Fischer's(1980:13, 21) formulation. The memory ofKarbalaseparates and ennobles the Shi'a. It is a sacredwound, kept open ever since, like a well from which todrink identity and purpose. Its staying power derives fromco-opting remembrance and identification.Ritual reenactments of the events at Karbala takeplace every year throughout the month of Muharram ntowhich falls Ashura, the day of Husayn's slaughter. Theyinclude recitations in privatehouses, commemorations atthe mosque, stylized dramatizations of the events, andpublic processions that carrya replica of Husayn's tomband arefrequently accompanied by flagellants,who mighteven cut their foreheads with swords (Momen 1985:240-243; see also Chelkowski 1979). These are not frozenritualsbut splendid illustrations of MirceaEliade's mythof eternal return (1954). They siphon the past into thepresent and confirm its enduring pertinence. They kindlea mood of generic readiness that lasts beyond the ritualperformances.As it is said, one should live as if Everydayis Ashura,and every place is Karbala Ajami1986:141).During the Muharramevents, past and present flowinto each other. They coexist within the believers-intheir minds and also in their flesh. Participants n the pro-cession yearn to feel and endure on their own bodies thepreciousness of Husayn's pain and, simultaneously, theavenging ardor to strike with mighty and just wrath atthose who caused his anguish. Grief,lamentation, and ag-ony saturateeye and ear as the procession moves along.The impulse for retributionnests just below the skin andcould be released on the slightest provocation. The IndianwriterVikramSeth conveys this volatile state and its readyexplosion. In his novel A SuitableBoy, set in India in theearly 1950s, a mournful Husayn procession accidentallycollides with a joyous Ramaprocession, and the pent-uptension between Muslim and Hindus erupts furiously anddraws blood (1993:1049-1062).Under the fierce guidance of the AyatollahKhomeini,the IranianRevolution of 1979 and the government it en-gendered used to full advantage the two instances of sym-bolic fusion that render practice from the Karbalapara-digm: suffering and fighting, past and present. In Iran,which has a uniquely largeShi'amajority,11he year beforethe revolution began with the police massacre of approxi-mately 70 victims at a student demonstration. This radical-ized the political discontent, which had been fermenting


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Andriolo * Murder by Suicide 741for many years. (Khomeini, the most outspoken critic ofthe Shah's government, was already exiled 13 years ear-lier.) Demonstrations and more deaths occurredthrough-out the year, building up momentum as it reached its lastmonth, Muharram (Momen 1985:282-286). Wall graffitiplaced the Shah, the government, and those unwilling torise up against them into the role of the Umayyad caliph,whose rule had been contested by Husayn, with whom, inturn, were identified all those who would give their livesin the struggle.Word went out to substitute political dem-onstrations for the Karbalaprocessions. Demonstratorswore white shrouds to symbolize their willingness to die(Fischer 1980:214), and young men placed themselves upfront as sacrificialbuffersagainst the police. On the day ofAshura, more than a million people took to the streets ofTeheran.Fewerthan two months later,Khomeini returnedin triumph (see also Swenson 1985).Khomeini did not succeed with his master plan, theexport of the Iranian Revolution into the Muslim world.However, his grafting of suicide onto martyrdom (Kramer1987b:7-8; Zonis and Brumberg1987:56), perfected dur-ing the war against Iraq and retooled by Hezbollah intosuicide terrorism,spread widely. In Lebanon in the 1980s,Shi'i militants drove their exploding trucks into Americanand Israeli installations and, in turn, inspired the opera-tions of the Palestinian Hamas.

Like their Shi'i counterpart, Sunni martyrstransposetheir actions into a justifying and fortifying past. Theirsa-cred time predates that of the Shi'i, however, since theyenvision themselves amidst the prophet and his compan-ions. This is reflected in the manual given to the hijackersinvolved in the September 11 attacks,containing practicaland spiritualinstructions for their mission. KananMakiyaand Hassan Mneimneh analyze the four pages of the textthat are publicly available: Themythical environment inwhich the hijackersview their action (2002:18), they ob-serve, is the ten-year period between Muhammad's flightto Medina and his death. During this period the Prophetconsolidated his position by raids o which he assignedcommunal rather han personalbenefits.They arereenactedin the hijackers'raid on the World Trade Center and thePentagon, with the intent to renew history in the spiritofthe Prophet (Makiyaand Mneimneh 2002:18). In the ex-ternal reality, the hijackers are boarding a plane; in themythical reality, they move on the battle ground amidstMuhammad's ompanions Makiya nd Mneimneh2002:19).

CONCLUSIONThe symbolic constructs in the murder-by-suicidescript,encountered in three historical episodes, share one charac-teristic: They attempt to erase differences that matter inthe daylight world-differences between self-destructionand the destruction of others;between departureand arri-val; and between past, present, and future. The fusion ofsacrifice and sacrificerconsecrates the juramentado. The

suicide bomber's thumb pressingthe detonator simultane-ously clocks him into paradise. The assassin has alreadyvisited her future-it is safely familiar. The present actionsof those who merge into the heroic past will draw from itrighteousness and strength.The cognitive-ritual removal of borderlines is not ex-clusive to Muslim suicide terrorism. The erasure of thosedistinctions that structure he lives of the multitudefiguresamong the standard eccentricities of millenarian move-ments, sects, and certain utopian communities, and alsoinspires ritualsof reversals.This erasure has a specific anda general agenda. In the murder-by-suicide script bothagendas addressthe deaths that complete the operation.Each historical episode articulates a different specificagenda. The assassin's transition anxiety is neutralizedbymeans of closing the gap between now and the hereafter.Juramentado strips murder and suicide of their profanemoral and physical connotations by fusing them into onesacrificialoffering.The evocation of Karbalaor of Muham-mad's raids protects operatives against moral doubts andthe lure of domesticity by cloistering them in a justifyingand magnifying history.The general agenda, ironically, articulates a funda-mental distinction, that between the righteous few andthe blind, weak, or corruptedmultitude; it correlateswithdrawing a spuriously sharp line between good and evil.The same globescape stencil is applied by Manichaeanworldviews, millenarian movements, and manipulativepolitical rhetoric.However,forthose enacting the murder-by-suicide script, the self-image of exceptional purity, ofbeing a saint-in-training, additionally papers over a crackin the movement's practice. Suicide terrorismrequiresthecontinuance of some members and the discontinuance ofothers. Those valued only for their self-termination needto feel elevated not only above the corruptworld but alsoabove their survivingcomrades.

KARIN NDRIOLOepartmentof Anthropology,StateUniver-sity of New York,New Paltz,New Paltz,NY12561NOTES1. The following synopsis of the Naziri state is based on Daftary1990, Hodgson 1955, and Lewis1968, 1976a.2. With referenceto Shi'aIslam, I am using three terms:Shi'a re-fers to the religioussystem or religiousorganization;Shi'isrefers othe believers;Shi'i s used for the adjectiveform, that is, belongingto religious system, organization,or believers.3. Initially,their reputationof loyalty gave such a positive spin tothe word assassin, that Provengaltroubadoursreferred to them-selvesby this name to expressthe depth of devotion to their lady;Dante used the term in the same context (Lewis1976c:xi,573).4. The following synopsis is based on Ewing 1955, Kiefer1972,and Saleeby1963.5. In transculturalperspective, institutionalized forms of suicidetend to slide into involuntaryversions, as is the case with sati inIndia and seppuku n Japan.6. The Qur'andoes not referunambiguouslyto the act of self-kill-ing. However, nterpretershave pointed out fourpassages hatveryarguablyadmit such a reading.Suicide is un-Islamic,because it is


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742 American Anthropologist * Vol. 104, No. 3 * September 2002clearlystated so in sharia aw and in hadith, raditionalaccountsofthe sayings of the Prophet and the imams (Rosenthal 1990:xii,240-243). By the 8th century, if not earlier,Islam had come tocondemn suicide as a gravesin (Rosenthal1990:243).7. Forexample, among the Crow and other Native Americans ofthe GreatPlains, a man tormented by grief, humiliation, or an-guish could pledge his death for the next season of warfare,whenhe would charge recklesslyinto enemy lines. In the interval be-tween his pledge and his death he held the status of Crazy-Dog-Wishing-to-Die. An aura of drama, heroism, finality, and desireshroudedhim, and he was allowed to consume with urgencythatwhich was usuallyrationedor withheld: attention, praise,and thelove of young, even married,women. The recastingof the deathwish in a heroic idiom not only neutralized the stigma of suicide,but addedgloryto the man's life and memory (Lowie 1922).Incidentally,suicideby killingor threateningto do so also comesin highly improvisationaland unappreciated orms. Lawenforce-ment officers in majorAmerican cities reportwith increasingfre-quency a phenomenon they have labeled suicideby cop. A per-son threatens apoliceman with a gun, who might use deadlyforcein self-defense. The officers involved in such incidents cannot rec-ognize early enough the suicidal intention of the person, whomight pursueit with ambivalence and hesitancy (Gellerand Scott1992:193, 194, 222, 315).8. In transculturalperspective, he solemn promiseto commit sui-cide often carried he obligation to complete it. Sati was a case inpoint, as was also the requestof elderlyEskimofor assisted suicide(Andriolo 1993:48-50).9. Two quotes from Thomas Kiefer'sethnography supportthe as-sumption that killing and getting killed are looped together: Thepurposeof ritualsuicide was not so much to kill Christiansas to bekilled by them (1972:133), the goal was to bring as many non-Muslims with him as possible (1972:132).10. The synopsis of the Karbalanarrativeand its significanceforthe Shi'a is based on Ajami 1986, Ayoub 1978, Daftary1990, andMomen 1985.11. The Shi'amajorityin Iran constitutes 90 percent of the totalpopulation. In the 16th century, the ruling dynasty had imposedShi'a Islam as the state religion. Iraqand Bahrain have between50-60 percentShi'is,followed by Lebanon with around 30 percent(Momen 1985:282).REFERENCESITEDAjami,Fouad1986 The Vanished mam:MusaalSadr ndthe Shiaof Lebanon.Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress.Andriolo,Karin1989 MaskedSuicideandCulture. nTheRelevance f Culture.MorrisFreilich, d.Pp.165-186. New York:BerginandGarvey.1993 SolemnDeparturesndBlunderingEscapes: raditionalAtti-tudestowardSuicide n India. nternationalournalofIndianStudies3(1):1-68.1998 Genderandthe CulturalConstruction f Good and BadSui-cides.Gender,Culture ndSuicidalBehavior,hemeissue,Sui-cide andLife-Threateningehavior 8(1):37-49.Ayoub,Mahmoud1978 Redemptive ufferingn Islam:AStudyofthe DevotionalAs-pectsofAshuranTwelverShi'ism.RelgionandSocietySeries,10.TheHague:Mouton.Chelkowski,Peter,ed.1979 Ta'ziyeh:Ritual ndDramanIran.New York:UniversityPress.Daftary,Farhad1990 TheIsma'ilis: heirHistoryandDoctrines.Cambridge: am-bridgeUniversityPress.Eliade,Mircea1954[1949] TheMythof the EternalReturn r,Cosmosand His-tory.WillardTrask,rans.BollingerSeries, 6. Princeton:Prince-ton UniversityPress.Ewing,Franklin1955 Juramentado:nstitutionalized uicideamongthe Morosofthe Philippines.AnthropologicalQuarterly8(4):148-155.

Fischer,Michael1980 Iran:FromReligiousDispute oRevolution.Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress.Geller,William,and MichaelScott1992 DeadlyForce:WhatWe Know.Washington,DC:PoliceEx-ecutiveResearch orum.Hassan,Nasra2001 An Arsenal fBelievers.NewYorker,November19:36-41.Hodgson,Marshall1955 The Order f Assassins: heStruggle f the EarlyNizariIshma'ilis gainst heIslamicWorld.'s-gravenhage:Mouton.Hoffman,Bruce1997 InsideTerrorism. ewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress.Kiefer,Thomas1972 TheTausug:ViolenceandLaw n aPhilippineMoslemSoci-ety.New York:Holt,Rinehart ndWinston.Kramer,Martin,ed.1987a Shi'ism,Resistance nd Revolution.Boulder:WestviewPress.Kramer,Martin1987b IntroductionnShi'ism,Resistance nd Revolution.MartinKramer,d.Pp.1-18. Boulder:WestviewPress.Lawrence,Bruce1998 Shatteringhe Myth: slambeyondViolence.Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress.Lewis,Bernard1968 TheAssassins:ARadical ect nIslam.New York:BasicBooks.1976a[1953] Saladin nd theAssassins.nStudies n Classical ndOttomanIslam 7th-16th Century).Pp. x, 239-245. London:Variorum.1976b[1966] Kamal l-Din'sBiography f Rasid l-DinSinan. nStudiesnClassical ndOttomanIslam 7th-16th Century).Pp.x, 225-267. London:Variorum.1976c[1971] Assassins f Syria nd Isma'ilis f Persia. nStudies nClassical nd OttomanIslam 7th-16thCentury).Pp.xi,573-580. London:Variorum.Loeffler,Reinhold1988 Islam n Practice:ReligiousBeliefsn aPersianVillage.Al-bany:StateUniversityofNewYorkPress.Lowie,Robert1922 Takes-the-Pipe,CrowWarrior.nAmerican ndianLife.E.C.Parsons, d.Pp.331-334. NewYork:Huebsch.

Makiya,Kanan,andHassanMneimneh2002 Manual ora Raid. ewYorkReviewofBooks.49(1):18-21.Momen, Moojan1985 An Introduction o Shi'i slam:TheHistoryandDoctrinesofTwelverShi'ism.Oxford:GeorgeRonald.Polo,Marco1926 TheTravels fMarcoPolo.ManuelKomroff, ev. rans.ofMarsden.New York:TheModernLibrary.Rosenthal,Franz1990[1946] OnSuicide n Islam. nMuslim ntellectual ndSocialHistory:A CollectionofEssays.Pp.xii,239-259. Hampshire,UK:VariorumReprints.Saleeby,Najeeb1963[1908] TheHistoryof Sulu.Manila:FilipinianaBookGuild.Seth,Vikram1993 ASuitableBoy.New York:HarperCollinsPublishers.Swenson,Jill1985 Martyrdom:Mytho-Cathexis nd Mobilization f theMasses n the IranianRevolution.Ethos13(2):121-149.Taheri,Amir1986 TheSpirit f Allah:Khomeiniandthe IslamicRevolution.Be-thesda,MD:Adlerand Adler.1987 HolyTerror:nside he WorldofIslamicTerrorism. e-thesda,MD:AdlerandAdler.Worcester,D. C.1898 ThePhilippine slandsand TheirPeople.New York.Wright,Robin1985 SacredRage:The Crusade f Modern slam.NewYork: i-mon and Shuster.Zonis, Marvin,and DanielBrumberg1987 Shi'ismasInterpreted yKhomeini.InShi'ism,Resistanceand Revolution.MartinKramer,d.Pp.47-66. Boulder:WestviewPress.

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