Are today's Islamic suicides any different from the 800+jews who suicided at Masada to deny victory to Rome?

Question

Acts of Suicide in defense and protest as an individual instrument of politics and religion is the issue of the Q asked here.
TWH08272006

Answer 1

yeah the jews killed themselves, the muslims are trying to kill everyone else that happens to be near them.

Answer 2

Islamic suicides kill people who do not want to be involved in the suicide. It is an attack. What the people at Masada did was a way to avoid being tortured. Not a single Roman was harmed by the Jews atop Masada.

Answer 3

The first question one should ask is if suicide is permissible under Jewish religious law.
The answer is generally "no" unless one is going to be forced to commit either murder, certain sexual sins (e.g. adultery), and idol worship and to avoid such a fate the only solution is suicide.
Since the circumstances under Massada were not that case, then what they did was wrong.
The second question you should be asking is if the people at Massada did in fact commit suicide.
I have my doubts. The only source we have for that is the writings of the historian Josephus Flavius. He was "romanesque" (i.e. he adopted Roman culture and lived there). It was a very Roman thing to commit suicide to avoid being taken captive in battle (see Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar for an example) but a very un-Jewish thing (see above). I think (and some historians) that Josephus lied about how they died. I think they were slaughtered by the Romans.
The third question you should be asking yourself is "why am I mkaing such a nonsensical comparison?".
That is because is the Islamist case, they are comitting suicide in order to kill innocent people. In the Massada case they were (allegedly) committing suicide in order to avoid capture in battle and the only innocents killed were themselves.

And another thing: Although many Israeli soldiers take their pledge on Massada and say "Massada shall not fall again" suicide has never been a policy of anyone in the Israeli army nor has such a thing been ever done.

Answer 4

Well, the only way that they are the same is that the people involved died. In Masada, there was a choice of being overcome by Romans who did not have a reputation of being kind. Jews killed themselves. They were fighting with soldiers.

Islamic shahids (they object to being called suicidal) believe that they are killing in the path of Allah. They are not commiting suicide. They are merely killing as many people as possible who do not believe in Allah nor the last day nor prophet Muhammad. It is a glory and privilege for them to die as a mujahid (fighter in jihad) for the cause of Allah. It does not seem to me that there is any protest of politics or religion --- simply the elimination of others who think differently, plus the direct induction into Heaven for them.

If a person wants to effect political change, he should participate in the legislation process. Similarly, a person may participate in the religion of his choice.

Suicide is not a good method of protest. Buddhists tried it in Vietnam. They imolated (burned) themselves in public harming no one but themselves. It did not change anything.

Killing those who do not agree with a religion or political point of view has been very common throughout history. It seems to work to quell opposition when a leader kills all those who oppose him.

Answer 5

Obviously yes...

When one suicides without hurting no one else, its a lost for human social organisation...

When one suicides as a way out of torture, its a lost for human
social organisation...

When one suicides as a way of killing others... it is a murderer...

A soldier is not a suicidal person... , because that would be totally illogical... then a war would make no logical sence as the enemy would be clearly the victorious one...

Actually, suicide is a pure illogical act and makes no cense..., but would be admissible only if to stop strong endless pain, or as prevention to torture..., then that is the logical way out...

It was actually the normal usual way of Egyptians in the past, and to most humans who believe in reincarnation....

In case of religious beliefs, it has been seen in TEXAS in the 70's where over 50 people, men,women and children, commited suicide on the order given or their spiritual leader who also committed suicide...

People in general may commit suicide by fear, or if trained or brain washed to think that it is THE very highly honorable thing
to do....

Some suicide when they cannot face the loss of their love one, cannot face life without them..., etc...

Actually, does this make humans different than animals?

I never heard of suicides in animals? Have you?

Masada? What year was it anyway? 2000 years ago?

No matter, they did not hurt anyone but their ownselves...

So, yes, Islamic, so called suicides, are simple murderers, killing themselves as well... Nothing heroic here.....

Answer 6

If you are going to look at Masada as suicide for protest and defense - they were headed into direct torture and death or slavery. They were on the frontlines being seiged by the Romans for months (years).

They are in no way akin to the Islamic suicides of today. The only thing that they have in common is death.

Answer 7

Had the Massada Jews not killed themselves they would have been crucified, torchered and taken in chains to Rome where they would be paraded, executed and if lucky, sold as slaves.

Islamic suicide is murdering innocent people and the gutless backers of this oddly never kill themselves and only get simple minded folk including children with the promise of 70 virgins in heaven if they detonate themselves.

Answer 8

This is an interesting question.

It is also known that the Jewish who were defending the city of Jerusalem 3 years prior to that torched the food reserves so that the other Jews couldn't surrender the city and they had to fight to the death. Another form of suicide.

The situation is similar in that the Romans certainly had the same kind of lopsided technological and arms advantages. In fact, as a rule, I consider this defeat by Rome to be the definitive event that negates the whole claim of Jews to any land in the middle east. They had it, they lost it, and it's over.

Answer 9

Yes they are differnet, the jews in masada killed themselves to deny the romans of slaves. The muslim suicides of today are to cause terror and kill innocents.

Answer 10

Their is 2 types of islamic suiciders these days , first type are the hamas and hizbullah suiciders and the second type are qaeeda and the zarqawi suciders in iraq.

First type are really deffending their land and country like pearl harbor.

Second type i think they r a bunch of stupids that some intelligence people move them and give them money to do such stupid things. to bomb urself in a group of innocent people children and women is forbidden in islam.

BUT, the way hamas or hizbullah used this jihad meaning from islam is right because they are deffending their land they really are, when hamas do a suicide operation they do it after israel kill thousands of innocent palestanian civilians.
and hizbullah used it but never on citizens.all their suicide operations where done inside lebanon and into israel soldiers or the american marinez. so they are deffending their land they are not terrorists like qaeeda or those stupid militias.

their is 2 meaning for jihad and suicide acts in islam , The Sunni and the Shia.

qaeeda and the islamic group in egypt represent the Sunni jihad
Hizbullah Represent Shia jihad.

so if the act of suicide if it was done hizbullah way, i think their is no wrong with that , many nations before used this suicide acts.