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Dying in the Path of God: Reading Martyrdom and Moral Excellence in the Quran
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Afsaruddin, Asma |
| Copyright Year | 2016 |
| Abstract | It is often popularly assumed today that martyrdom, especially in the military sense, is fundamental to the Islamic worldview and therefore it must be a well-developed concept in the Quran, Islam’s foundational text. But a firm acquaintance with the Quran reveals that martyrdom is at best an inchoate concept within it, not encapsulated by any single, specific term. The term shahīd used almost exclusively in later literature to refer to a martyr, military or otherwise, does not occur in the Quran in this sense. In the Quran shahīd, and its cognate shāhid, refer to a legal witness or eyewitness, and it is used for both God and humans in appropriate contexts (for example, Q 3:98; 6:19; 41:53). Quranic phrases commonly understood to refer to the military martyr include man qutila fī sabīl Allāh/alladhīna qutilū fī sabīl Allāh (“those who are slain in the path of God”) (cf. Q 2:154; 3:169)1 and variations thereof. These phrases are therefore not without ambiguity and do not clearly refer to the military martyr, although the Quranic contexts for a number of verses employing these phrases suggest it, as does the exegetical literature. In order to retrieve some of the earliest meanings assigned to being “slain in the path of God,” this chapter focuses on a discussion, first, of two critical Quranic verses (Q 2:154 and 3:169) which employ this expression or a variant thereof – based on a survey of their exegeses by some of the most important Quran commentators through time. This is followed by a discussion of two verses (Q 3:157–8) which refer to the moral excellences of both those who die naturally and those who are slain in the path of God. A diachronic survey of the exegeses of these critical verses allows us to assess how military martyrdom in particular was read into these specific Quranic verses and construed by leading exegetes over time as a meritorious act of religiosity and piety, reflective of the greater moral excellence of the brave warrior. In this essay we are primarily looking at Sunni works – first, because of the constraints of length, and second, because of the fact that martyrdom acquired certain connotations exclusive to the Shiʿi tradition and requires separate |
| Starting Page | 162 |
| Ending Page | 180 |
| Page Count | 19 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004333154_009 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://brill.com/previewpdf/book/edcoll/9789004333154/B9789004333154_009.xml |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004333154_009 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
