Offering for a cause

Suicide bombings and human sacrifice


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Offering for a cause
by Shahriar Zahedi
13-Jan-2008
 


Suicide terrorism continues to be one of the most misunderstood and under-examined phenomena in our recent history. A lack of objectivity coupled with an inherent repugnance of this concept on the part of the intellectual elite has rendered the Western World helpless in fully comprehending the dynamics at play in suicidal attacks. Often times naïve and minimalist interpretations are offered to explain the motives and the thought processes of the suicide bombers. They are portrayed as fundamentalist zealots who have nothing in life to look forward to and thus partake in these actions hoping to reap benefits in the afterlife.

The reality is that the suicide bomber is taking part in an act of self-sacrifice. He is killing himself (and the mostly innocent around him) as an offering to the gods. The gods in this case are nothing but his cause or the cause of his people. He and his people live in a time of unprecedented calamity. Unlike the subjugated peoples of the past, the suicide bomber is aware of his predicament and also knows the perpetrators. Thanks to the Information Revolution, the oppressed are no longer blessed by ignorance. They are world-savvy and often educated.  By offering himself the suicide bomber is attempting to convince the gods to change for the better the circumstances under which he lives.

The practice of human sacrifice is as old as humanity itself. From the time our early ancestors had mustered up enough consciousness to be able to plan and engage in ritualistic activities, they began making human offerings to appease the deities who, in their view, controlled their world and their destinies. Times of natural calamity and war were especially prone to the prevalence of these practices in prehistoric times.

From the Egyptians to the Mongols and from the Celts to the Romans and the Chinese, the Indians and the Hebrews, all across the world, factual and mythological records of human sacrifice are to be found practically in every culture. Recent discoveries point to the existence of this practice among the Mesoamericans as late as in the 15th century. Elsewhere, one account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan as part of his account of an embassy to the Volga Bulgars in 921 claims that Norse warriors were sometimes buried with enslaved women with the belief that these women would become their wives in Valhalla. Adam von Bremen recorded human sacrifices to Odin in 11th century Sweden, at the Temple at Uppsala, a tradition which is confirmed by the Norse sagas. Historians also give us the account of the first anniversary of Chengiz Khan’s death when 40 virgins were killed and buried next to the Khan for his pleasure in the afterlife

Starting around 4000 years ago, cultures of the ancient world, one by one, began to realize the cruelty of human sacrifice and decided to end the practice. The Hebrews give us the tale of Abraham and his son Isaac to memorialize this turning point in their history. God orders Abraham to unbind Isaac and slaughter a ram in his stead. This act denotes the precise moment the Children of Israel abandon this ritual. Through the words of the Torah, this tradition is passed on to the Christians and then the Moslems (albeit with minor modifications).

The Greeks present a similar mythological story. Agamemnon is about to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the God Artemis. Artemis sends down a deer to be used instead and Iphigenia is thus saved.

In Chinese history Ximen Bao of Wei who lived between 5th century BC and 2nd Century BC, demonstrated to the villagers that sacrifice to river deities was actually a ploy by crooked priests to pocket money. In Chinese lore, Ximen Bao is regarded as a folk hero who pointed out the absurdity of human sacrifice.

Not much is known about this practice among the Iranian peoples. The fact that no viable evidence of human sacrifice has been found on the Iranian Plateau does not necessarily mean that such practices did not exist among the Iranian tribes. It could very well be that they had abandoned the practice before landing on the plateau or did so shortly after their arrival. In the absence of any mythological or other record relative to this subject, an interesting development in the transformation of the Iranian word for ‘sheep’ may be pointed out to draw a probable connection to our theme.

The obsolete Iranian word “choop’, meaning sheep,  which still survives in the compound word ‘choopan’ meaning shepherd or ‘one who watches over the sheep’, bears reasonable resemblance to the German ‘schafe’ or Dutch ‘schapen’ or even the English ‘sheep’. At some point in history, most probably after the separation of the Iranians from those of their kinfolk who were to later comprise the Germanic tribes on the Steppe, the Iranian word for this animal changes to ‘goospand’ while the Germanic languages continue to maintain the old term to this day. This new Iranian word is comprised of ‘goo’ or ‘gao’ meaning cow and ‘spant’ meaning sacred. So this is the point where ‘choop’ is transformed into ‘sacred cow’.

But what is the reason for this change? Could this also signify the start of a new era for the Iranians when they made the switch from human sacrifice to sacrificing the sheep which was now designated (by some religious authority) as the sacred cow and as such fit for sacrifice?

In the context of the evolution of human consciousness, attempts by the civic and religious establishments to subdue the collective urge to perform ritualistic killings started to be made only relatively recently (i.e. within the last 4000 years). The act of making human offerings to the gods had been running unabated for well over 100,000 years prior to the advent of recorded history. Science tells us that behaviors repeated for hundreds of generations leave an organic imprint in the human brain; an impression nearly impossible to erase. Like instincts, the urge to engage in these behaviors may be domesticated but not completely eradicated. Given a strong enough stimulus and the right circumstances, the impulse could reemerge as strong as ever.

In the case of the suicide bomber, the right conditions and the required stimulus have been provided and the deep-seated urge to sacrifice has reawakened. Odds are that this behavior will continue until the improvements sought by the oppressed of the world are realized.


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more from Shahriar Zahedi
 
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I was wondering what the

by Ye Irani (not verified) on

I was wondering what the difference is among the words : Suicide-bombing, Kamikaze, Aggression?
They are tools employed to kill and destroy. They all are a form of war and have common derivative - Rage. The difference is only the words employed to define. In any case the expression holds:
Forget the bird;
remember the flying;

Peace to all mankind!


Zion

Farsi shekar ast

by Zion on

What has that got to do with an islamist like you? Shouldn't you be concerned about Arabic and leave Farsi alone. It doesn't relate to you. It might increase the sugar in your blood. ;->


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Zion Israeli pig

by Mehran (not verified) on

Hey pig with a big belly and big nose...OUT. Or I will bring someone to scare the shit out of your pants... Aus Scheißeausländer!


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Zion answer this one too

by XerXes (not verified) on

bachehaa baa in zion beh zabun khodemun harf bezanim. bache juje esrael-ee umadeh zer zer mikoneh. farsi shekar ast.


Zion

How many?

by Zion on

Dear Gol-dust, 

 How many people do you consider yourself to be? To how many does the "we" refer to? I'd be grateful if you could elucidate more. Schizophrenia must be quite painful, I'm curious how you cope?

Anyways you gotta be careful my dear, cause if you keep exposing me like this, I'm gonna come and eat your babies too. Ok?

 

 

 

 


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More Mariah please!

by Critic (not verified) on

The problem is that the ever self-promoting Mr Zahedi is making another pretentious attempt to fill us with his patchy knowledge of things. This time, probably aspired by his online mentor, Guive Mirfendereski, he is having a stab at the psychology, mythology and lest we forget philology, of suicide bombing. Charting the psychology of an average suicide bomber by an armchair, Champaign sipping, pseudo-intellectual, as one commentator put it, is akin to having a lecher lecturing on the joy celibacy!! In Zahedi’s simplistic model, the suicide bomber’s taking his own life, (plus those of some bystanders) with a pointedly homicidal objective is likened to a range of sacrifices from that of Abraham or Agamemnon to Genghis khan’s horde of virgins who were to cohabit with him in the Mongolian version of Hades! Mr Zahedi, please do us a favour – just write about Mariah Carey and her tits :)


Mehdi

Falsehood Falsehood Falsehood

by Mehdi on

Psycho-babble. Typical of all psychology-oriented writings, full of falsehood backed up by rare incidences which COULD be mistaken as proof. All cultures did NOT practice human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was NEVER "common." A few medicine-men/priests/high-priests/charlatan "religious leaders" here and there manipulated some leader and brainwashed them into thinking that such a practice was necessary and that it would make things better by appeasing to gods and such nonsense. That's all. There is NO imprint of such nonsense in human brain. What a crock. Psychology and Psychiatry's NEVER-PROVEN THEORY that humans are animals is FALSE. Quit selling this horse shit to the world in an attempt to then put yourselves in charge of them as "authority on human behavior." You know JACK about human behavior. You know only a small few brainwashing techniques. These techniques are currently the ones used to create the so-called suicide-bombers; these have NOTHING to do with religions. The same techniques are used to create school-shooters in the West. These are psychological "research" done mainly during the Cold War, all geared towards the control of populations by creating fear in the society so that a police state and a super powerful government can be justified; so that the taking away of civil rights can be justified. Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri is currently the most active person in training such suicide bombers. He was also training torturers in Evin prison in Iran. He is a psychiatrist trained in Moscow university. He is using Psychiatry in brainwashing his victims NOT Islam -- he is NOT abusing psychiatry, it IS psychiatry he is using, the same one used in the insane asylums. Although he is considered Bin Ladan's "second" man, it wasn't before Bin Ladan met with Al-Zawahiri that he became such a brutal murderer pretending to be a freedom fighter.


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Wrong premises with no evidence

by Zion (not verified) on

This article has several unsupported premises that are not correct. It is not true that all human societies contained human sacrifices. We only know of certain places were human sacrifice was performed. There is also a distinction between burying women alive to marry the dead hero and the killing (shedding the blood and hence the blood's life force) to feed/tame a certain god.
More over, and more to the point, there is a distinction between cultures where human sacrifice took place routinely, and other places that this act might have taken place a few times for certain peculiar reasons. The meso-american civilization of Aztecs and the Canaanite civilizations are two such cases. The story of Abraham is indeed an indication of rejection of this practice, but Abraham is the beginning of the "Hebrew" culture, and Abraham is clearly portrayed as a newcomer to a new land (hence the religious interpretation of the term Hebrew (Ivrit) , he who crossed the river that is, he who is from the other side). So it is incorrect to assume that this was a turning point in Hebrew sacrificial practices. The Hebrew identity BEGAN by such rejections, and remained isolated for many many centuries afterwards because of that. This is relevant becuase we know that the pagan Canaanites and even teh philistines continued to perform human sacrifices, especially of their young to gods like Moloch (who was most probably the same as Chemosh), even to the time of Solomon, about a thousand years if not more after the eponymous figure of Abraham. This is relevant because it is again in this precise location, with cultures that are the remnants of those of the canaanites that the suicide bombing take place. It is also a mistake to assume that this is because of any mixture of oppression and information. It is easy to see that because the Jews or Gypsies, or the Slaves that were truly oppressed in the middle of modern Europe, in the middle of the 20th century, had access to a lot of information and education and definitely were capable of identifying their oppressors, yet no such thing as suicide bombers ever took place among them. What you had were partisan forces fighting, but no suicide bombers in middle of German town and market places and buses.
The reason is that the suicide bomber, just like his human sacrificing ancestors, does not do this in reaction to any oppression, but for its own sake. It is a great value of itself to die and shed this imperfect world of changes behind to reach perfection with the gods. They themselves are very honest about the death cult nature of their believes" " We love death as much as they (Jews) love life."
It is also not surprising that this new cult of human sacrifice first started among the shiites of southern Lebanon and their blood-cousins inside Iran and Iraq. After all, all the story and passion of Hussain, just like that of Jesus before them, is superimposed on the much more ancient cult of the dying gods like dimuzid and baal. It is from christianity and later southern lebanese types of shiitism also that the term shahid (martyr=witness) originates,
It is a culture and value system of its own. Of fearing life and longing for death. That is precisely why it is so dangerous.


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Dear Shahriar:

by Anonymous4now (not verified) on

I just discovered that you are both Zahedi and Zangeneh. Your two most recent articles seem diametrically opposed in the presentation of your opinions and your quest to share your accumulated knowledge with everyone else. You can obviously have your opinion but when you offer it as a plausible explanation of beastly behavior such as suicide bombing, and in such scientific garb, then it must stand rigor. I tried to point out the inconsistencies in your theory. Sorry for the harsh words but you struck a very sensitive nerve with me, in that article.


Shahriar Zahedi

Dear

by Shahriar Zahedi on

Dear  Anonymous4now,

 

What I expressed in this piece is my opinion. If you don't like it, I have others


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killing does not solve anything!

by Tahirih (not verified) on

A few, who are unaware of the reality below the surface of events, who cannot feel the pulse of the world under their fingers, who do not know what a massive dose of truth must be administered to heal this chronic old disease of falsehood, believe that the Faith can only be spread by the sword, and bolster their opinion with the Tradition, “I am a Prophet by the sword.”
If, however, they would carefully examine this question, they would see that in this day and age the sword is not a suitable means for promulgating the Faith, for it would only fill peoples’ hearts with revulsion and terror.
According to the Divine Law of Muḥammad, it is not permissible to compel the People of the Book to acknowledge and accept the Faith. While it is a sacred obligation devolving on every conscientious believer in the unity of God to guide mankind to the truth, the Traditions “I am a Prophet by the sword” and “I am commanded to threaten the lives of the people until they say, ‘There is none other God but God’” referred to the idolaters of the Days of Ignorance, who in their blindness and bestiality had sunk below the level of human beings.
A faith born of sword thrusts could hardly be relied upon, and would for any trifling cause revert to error and unbelief. After the ascension of Muḥammad, and His passing to “the seat of truth, in the presence of the potent King,” the tribes around Medina apostatized from their Faith, turning back to the idolatry of pagan times.
It has now by the above irrefutable proofs been fully established that the Faith of God must be propagated through human perfections, through qualities that are excellent and pleasing, and spiritual behavior.
If a soul of his own accord advances toward God he will be accepted at the Threshold of Oneness, for such a one is free of personal considerations, of greed and selfish interests, and he has taken refuge within the sheltering protection of his Lord. He will become known among men as trustworthy and truthful, temperate and scrupulous, high-minded and loyal, incorruptible and God-fearing.
In this way the primary purpose in revealing the Divine Law—which is to bring about happiness in the after life and civilization and the refinement of character in this—will be realized. As for the sword, it will only produce a man who is outwardly a believer, and inwardly a traitor and apostate


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You are a true

by Anonymous4now (not verified) on

You are a true pseudo intellectual. Having no knowledge and relying on your innate human intelligence is far better than having a little knowledge, and your case clearly proves it. The human brain evolved from a reptilian core to its present form where Grey Matter or the cortex functions to suppress the reptilian urge. Most people would sacrifice their lives to save other lives. Such is the suppressive power of higher intellect. Many suicide bombers have testified that faced with the reality of confronting the humanity of their victims they have snapped out of the trans created by their systematic brain washing and have given up their mission. No such "historical imprint", such as you suggest is evident from such aborted missions. You failed, very conveniently, to explain why there have been no such “offerings” from any of the other cultures you mentioned above, and why no such "imprints" may not have the same effect in such cultures. Further more, you failed to make the direct and congruent relationship between such behavior and Islam, and explain why all suicide bumbers, without an exception, have beem Moslems. You are, in your feeble mind, looking for an excuse for the barbaric and self indulgent act of “martyrdom” at the expense of the lives of the innocent, by the “oppressed” of the world. This is nothing but a bunch of leftist, Islamic apologist diatribe disguised in scientific garb. We got fooled once, but it won’t be that easy to fool us again. Shame on you.