Abstract: Leaders who plan suicide attacks are conscious of the fact that they are sending human beings to die for Allah; and suicide bombers know that they are about to die for Allah. 

On the other hand, leaders of the First World War sent young men to run into machine gun fire under the guise that they were attempting to "win battles." The fact that men were slaughtered is conceptualized as a by product or derivative of the desire to defeat the enemy, and thus win the war.

Conventional Western histories are adament in their desire to pretend that the First World War was not a gigantic episode of collective martyrdom. Historians cling to the delusion that the absurd, self-destructive battle strategies of the First World War had something to do with "winning."

A young village merchant speaking to a European sociologist in the 1980s provided a rationale for the religious violence occurring in the Middle-East: “The blood shed by the Iranian martyrs is like the water of an irrigational canal which gives life to the crops. From it the religion will grow.”

The dynamic of Islamic martyrdom expressed in this passage—that bloodshed is like water giving life to crops—is identical to the sentiment that P. H. Pearse expressed in relationship to the slaughter of young men in the First World War:

"It is good for the world to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefield.”

Only the objects of worship differ.

The Iranian martyrs gave their lives and blood for Allah. Soldiers of the First World War gave their lives and blood for entities called “Russia,” “Germany,” “France” “Romania,” “Italy,” “Turkey”—and “the British Empire.”

One may characterize the differences between Islamic martyrs and the soldiers of the First World War as follows:

(1) The quantity of the martrys. Far more blood was shed by soldiers in the First World War than has been shed by all the Islamic martyrs during the 20th and 21st Century. 

(2) The degree to which participants and those who write histories are conscious of the fact that they were performing martyrdom actions. Leaders who plan suicide attacks know that they are sending human beings to die for Allah; and suicide bombers are aware of the fact that they are about to die for Allah. 

On the other hand, the leaders of the First World War sent young men to run into machine gun fire under the guise that they were attempting to "win battles." The fact that men were slaughtered is conceptualized as a by product or derivative of the desire to defeat the enemy, and thus win the war.

Conventional Western histories are adament in their desire to pretend that the First World War was not a gigantic episode of collective martyrdom. Historians cling to the delusion that the absurd, self-destructive battle strategies of the First World War had something to do with "winning."