[Romulus]

I've read that jihad is a bedrock principle of Islam, and that sometimes it's interpreted spiritually, other times as a fanatical call-to-arms. But all these varieties of religious militancy (a symbolism that Christianity sometimes employs, lest we forget) seem distinct from the cult of explicit self-martyrdom. Maybe some knowledgable person will have something to say about this.

[bvw]

Martyrdom, as we respect it, is not the selfish "self-martyrdom" and murder by self-bombing, that the muslim extremists are engaging in. The martyrs we remember and respect are nearly always killed by others who would attempt to make them deny G-d.