Page 7 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

The Age of Peace

life as granted to him by the Creator, that he is able to play the
role assigned to him in this world.
Indeed, both killing and giving life pertain directly to God
Almighty. Once a person understands the seriousness of this
matter, he will never dare to kill anyone.
Thinking on these lines, I started to ponder over the case
of those who committed suicide bombings. Suicide is held
illegal in all religions and legal systems of the world. There
is a tradition of the Prophet of Islam according to which one
who committed suicide would have to face eternal Hell. I
shuddered at this thought and tears began to flow from my
eyes when I thought about how those who committed suicide
would endure eternal pain in the world Hereafter, when I
myself was not able to endure a temporary pain of a much
lesser intensity?
A companion of the Prophet once narrated the following
tradition:
‘We were accompanying the Prophet in a war (ghazwa).
Along with us was a person named Quzman who had
already embraced the faith. During the war he suffered
a serious injury. People began to praise him before the
Prophet for the bravery he had exhibited in the war. But
the Prophet said: Innahu min ahl an-naar. That is, “He is
surely one of the people of Hell.” The companions were
taken aback by the Prophet’s words, so he asked them
to go and investigate the matter. It was then learnt that
Quzman had indeed been severely injured during the
war and when he could not bear the pain any more,
he killed himself with his own weapon [Quzman’s case
was that of suicide]. When the Prophet was told about
this, he uttered these words: “God is great and I bear
witness that I am His messenger.”’
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