This is an archived copy (retrieved from www.archive.org) of the
web page which was formerly at
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/06/Columns/Columns.34250.html

The Jerusalem Post (internet edition)

FROM A DISTANCE: Mass murder, sex and paradise
By Naomi Ragen

(September 6) Just this week as I was standing by the door waiting
to say good-bye to my son who was going to school after the long
summer vacation, I heard the news that yet another Muslim suicide
bomber had detonated himself in the center of Jerusalem, only a few
streets from where my son passes each morning.

The human explosive chose a spot near Bikur Holim Hospital, with
its maternity wards and intensive-care wards; a spot right near the
Lycee Francais, where little girls, the children of journalists and
diplomats, were just entering the front gate. The bomber was prevented
from getting any closer to these spots by the courage of two border
policemen, who risked their lives. One of them is in intensive care.
The other was interviewed from his hospital bed with light injuries.
What he remembered most, he told reporters, was the little smile
on the corner of the bomber's face as he turned and detonated
himself.

Time after time, the families of suicide bombers are being interviewed
by weepy reporters from CNN and BBC to explain the noble motivation
of the boys who strap on explosives and behead little babies,
pregnant women, and innocents of all kinds. One thing that the
reporters miss, though, is that it's not nationalistic fervor, or
outrage at their "persecution" that is motivating these young men,
as much as the Muslim religious teachings that promise each of them
unlimited free sex with virgins in paradise as a reward for spilling
innocent blood.

Thus, the little smile.

From my own experience with many good people abroad, this information
is not well known. Recently, Bob Simon interviewed Muhammad Abu
Wardeh on Sixty Minutes. His remarks in Arabic were translated on
the program as: "God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing
his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you
70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness."

Now, Arab Americans are claiming in outrage that this is not only
a mistranslation, but absolutely false. Maher Hathout, a Muslim
"scholar" with the Islamic Center of Southern California, wrote in
the Atlanta Constitution: "There is nothing in the Koran or in
Islamic teachings about 70 virgins or sex in paradise. This is
ridiculous, and any true Muslim knows that."

Oh, really?

Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, head of the Cultural Institute of the
Italian Islamic Community, and a true Islamic scholar, had this to
say: "The only ridiculous thing is that someone who claims to be
an 'Islamic scholar' makes public declarations which prove beyond
any possible doubt that he has never read the Commentary of Ibn
Kathir and 'Sunan' of Imam at-Tirmidhi, which are basic books for
the knowledge of Islam. Unfortunately, this attribution of chairs
to ignoramuses seems to be the rule in American Islamic Centers
controlled by the fundamentalist network of the 'Muslim Brotherhood.'
"

According to Islam, Palazzi goes on to say, there are 72 wives for
every believer who is admitted to Heaven, and not only for a martyr.
The proof is a hadith which is collected by at-Tirmidhi in "Sunan"
(volume IV, chapters on "The Features of Heaven as described by the
Messenger of Allah," Chapter 21: "About the Smallest Reward for the
People of Heaven," hadith 2687).

It is also quoted by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir (Koranic Commentary)
of Surah ar-Rahman (55), ayah (verse) 72: "It was mentioned by Daraj
Ibn Abi Hatim, that Abu al-Haytham Abdullah Ibn Wahb narrated from
Abu Sa'id al-Khudhri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad (Allah's
blessings and peace be upon him) saying: 'The smallest reward for
the people of Heaven is an abode where there are 80,000 servants
and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls,
aquamarine and ruby, as wide as the distance from al-Jabiyyah to
San'a.' Ibn Kathir explained in 'al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah' that
al-Jabiyyah is the name of a suburb of Damascus.  "That those 72
wives are virgin is proved by the ayah 74 of the same Surah: "No
man or jinn has ever touched them before."

In conclusion, whether or not the remarks on Sixty Minutes are a
mistranslation isn't the point. The point is this: Horny Arab
teenagers are being convinced the way to sex in the puritanical
Arab world (where fathers routinely murder daughters who are even
suspected of losing their virginity), is through hate-filled mass
murders.

Too bad you missed that, CNN, BBC.

Takes away from the "nobility" of the "sacrifice," huh?