Q&A: Messianism as a Source of Inspiration for Shahidism
Messianism as a Source of Inspiration for Shahidism
Question
Hi Michi,
I’m interested to know your opinion about the following insight of mine:
This morning, while polishing off my porridge of legumes with nuts, an insight that I’d had for a long time—but that hadn’t been clear enough even to me—suddenly became much sharper:
It occurred to me that the idea that gave rise to Gush Emunim—namely, that the messiah will come as a result of fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel, which requires practical action in agriculture, building houses, and paving roads—but has mysticism at its foundation, inspired Muslims to adopt the mystical approach and translate it into the Muslim conceptual world. There it is not a matter of an end-of-days vision—“and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb”—but rather of 72 virgins waiting for the shahid.
My argument is based on the timing of when the phenomenon of suicide bombings began.
I assume that only careful historical research will one day be able to confirm or refute my argument, and even so—does it sound reasonable to you?
All the best and happy holiday
Answer
I didn’t understand the thesis.
Discussion on Answer
A crazy speculation. Muslim shahidism in all generations and places was also because of Gush Emunim.
In Shiite Islam, suicide attacks were common; not among Sunnis!
According to Wikipedia [and also according to my memory]—
Suicide attacks in Israel [edit source code | edit]
Memorial to victims of terror in Afula. Afula served as one of the main targets of suicide attacks in Israel.
Until the 1990s, most attacks carried out in Israel were ones whose planning included the possibility of a safe retreat for the attacker—planting bombs with delayed-action mechanisms, bargaining attacks that used hostages as a negotiating card, shooting attacks from ambush with an escape route, and the like. A prominent exception was the massacre at Lod Airport in 1972, in which terrorists were sent to carry out the action with the clear intention that they would not survive. For that operation, terrorists of Japanese origin were recruited—a culture in which there is an age-old tradition of self-sacrifice for the sake of the goal.[4]
In the 1990s, suicide attacks became the primary method of struggle of the Palestinian terrorist organizations operating against Israel.
The first suicide attack against Israeli civilians was inside the Green Line.
Exactly the opposite. In any case, are the Sunnis going wild all over the world because of Gush Emunim? Are you serious?
Come on, Michi.
If the prophet Muhammad hadn’t gotten inspiration from the God of the Jews, then the angel Jibril wouldn’t have conveyed Allah’s word to him.
So we’re to blame in any case. The same applies to Christianity, which took a few ideas from Judaism and…
And I return to your words:
“Are the Sunnis going wild all over the world because of Gush Emunim?”—the Sunnis would be going wild in any case, only maybe they wouldn’t have been so quick to kill themselves.
Bizarre. As far as I’m concerned, that’s like blaming Gush Emunim for the murder of Julius Caesar.
At the base of the settlement movement was not only the commandment of settling the Land of Israel; rather, it stemmed from the point of departure that as a result of settling the land, redemption would come, and with it the messiah. In other words—a religious commandment translated into secular action [which on a global scale is small], but this small action is supposed to bring about a global transformation—redemption.
As I understand it, any act where there is no direct connection between carrying it out and its result is mystical. The Muslims took the mystical assumption and changed its target—the act—murdering Jews while sacrificing oneself is aimed not only at the salvation of the Palestinians, but also guarantees the shahid a reward that is not at all connected to the nature of what he carried out. Therefore I argue that here too the foundation is mystical.
And I argue that this mysticism here was inspired by the settlement enterprise, which wanted to hasten the coming of redemption.