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MARTYRDOM AND HOURIS
Ali Engineer, Asghar
Ali Engineer, Asghar
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"The question is why shahadat is used for martyrdom whereas literally it means to witness and to be present. One bears testimony to something which one witnesses and this witnessing is not only in physical sense i.e. witnessing with eye but also in psychological and spiritual sense i.e. to have a vision, vision of future and it is for this vision that one lays down ones life. Thus one virtually witnesses what one is dying for and it is in this sense that shahadat becomes martyrdom and it is in this sense that Qur’an says that a martyr never dies and lives for ever and never dies. Thus martyrdom in Q ur’an is a very noble act of sacrifice of ones life and puts a martyr along with siddiquin wa al-salihin i.e. upholders of truth and doers of good deeds. It is not an act of killing but rather getting killed to uphold truth. Thus martyrdom in Qur’an is to realize and witness oneself virtually what one wants to bring about in this world and to unhesitatingly give ones life for the purpose. The Qur’an divides knowledge of something in two categories namely knowledge of certainty (‘ilm al-yaqin) and eye of certainty (‘ayn al-yaqin) i.e. witnessing something with ones own eye and not only with knowledge of something and the martyr falls into second category i.e. he witnesses it with his own eyes and hence a shahid. This act of shahadah would never involve killing but of sacrificing and if at all any killing it would be of in defense and there is no question of killing indiscriminately as often terrorists do. Terrorism is a killing to destroy whereas shahadat is an act of laying down life to construct a truthful and just order and many of the Prophet’s companions laid down their lives to bring about this truthful and just order."(PG 1)
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With permission of the license/copyright holder