All attempts to kill him proved futile until the boy himself...

All attempts to kill him proved futile until the boy himself gave the king instructions to call the people of the town to a particular location, use the boy’s arrow and while invoking the name of Allah, shoot the boy. The boy was killed but the onlookers acknowledging the power of Allah accepted the religion of Islam declaring “we believe in the lord of the boy” He then ordered a ditch of fire to be built and whoever refused to denounce the religion was thrown onto the ditch.

A mother holding her baby hesitated when it came to her turn but the baby spoke to her giving her courage to stay on the right path and she jumped. In their view, the Muslims who died in this narration died in the interest of their religion and their death is not considered a suicide but they died as martyrs. They narrate various hadiths where companions of the Prophet went into battle knowing that they would probably be killed and the Prophet declared that they had died as martyrs.

For example, in a hadith narrated by Ibn Abi Shaybah a companion of the Prophet, Muadh ibn Afra asked the messenger of Allah “what makes Allah laugh upon his slave and the Prophet replied “the servant immersing himself into the enemy without armor” Muadh then took off his armor and fought until he was killed.

These and other hadiths and verses of the Quran have been interpreted by such scholars to justify their view that though suicide has been prohibited, jihad has some special rules which permit that which is normally prohibited. In their view, suicide bombing has become necessary as the Muslims in these oppressed nations are outclassed militarily.

They don’t have the superior weaponry needed to retaliate in kind to attacks and therefore have no option but to attack with their hands or sacrifice themselves. Hence the resort to suicide attacks. The majority of sunni[^27] scholars[^28] , on the other hand, view suicide bombing as forbidden and going against all the laws of Allah and the traditions of the Prophet.

The verses of the Quran, the hadiths and the various analogies which have been used by the proponents of suicide bombing to legitimize it have been misconstrued and twisted to serve their purposes. For example the verse in Suratul Tauba where Allah SWT states that he has purchased the life of Muslims must be read to the end and not in a vacuum. The verse continues***“.