FWD: Suicide or Martyr?

Dave Monroe davidmmonroe at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 13 19:13:25 CDT 2002


I've always thought of martyrdom as something someone
else had to, er, bestow on you ...

Main Entry: martyr
Function: transitive verb
Date: before 12th century
1 : to put to death for adhering to a belief, faith,
or profession
2 : to inflict agonizing pain on : TORTURE 

But ...

Main Entry: mar·tyr 
Pronunciation: 'mär-t&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, from Late
Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys, literally, witness
Date: before 12th century
1 : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the
penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a
religion
2 : a person who sacrifices something of great value
and especially life itself for the sake of principle
3 : VICTIM; especially : a great or constant sufferer

Main Entry: mar·tyr·dom 
Pronunciation: 'mär-t&r-d&m
Function: noun
Date: before 12th century
1 : the suffering of death on account of adherence to
a cause and especially to one's religious faith
2 : AFFLICTION, TORTURE

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Well, in general, Chrsitianity, at least, doesn't give
one the option of martyrdom by suicide, so ... so I
suspect that there's an Arabic/Islamic term involved
which, as with perhaps any translation, isn't QUITE
fully commensurable with the English/Christian term
being claimed for it here, is what's going on ...  

--- KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34571-2002Apr11?language=printer

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