We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Samson said: “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple … Thus he killed many more people when he died than when he lived.
Judges 16:30When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained … each of them was given a white robe, and told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed was completed.
Revelation 6:9, 11Martyrdom means witness. Witness is the most powerful form of advertisement, because it communicates personal credibility and experience to an audience. Therefore, it is not surprising that the world's missionary religions have developed the art of the promotional martyrdom into a process that is identifiable and fairly constant through different faiths. Before dealing with the specific commonalities of Islamic martyrdom (Chapter 2) we will first examine the narrative progression that historically attested martyrs and stories of their martyrdoms have laid down for us: the portrayals of the enemy, the nature of the audience participation and subsequent commitment expected from it, and the form of the martyrdom narrative, which is the method of eternalizing the act and its pathos.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
