Unlike those of us in the West, Moslems have been conscious of the suicidal dimension of warfare throughout their history. The willingness of the warrior to die in the process of trying to kill an enemy has been an integral part of the Islamic conception.

Suicide bombers, as we know, kill themselves as they are in the process of attempting to kill an enemy. Leaders who send bombers to die are well aware that the death of the warrior is intentional. The bombers themselves know that their own death is part of the deal.

In the West, on the other hand, we rarely conceive warfare as a form of suicide. We take pains to avoid focusing upon the sacrificial dimension. We imagine that the objective of war is winning or defeating the enemy, annexing territory, obtaining material goods, etc.

From this Western perspective, the mutilation of the body or death of a soldier occurs incidentally or accidentally in the process of attempting to achieve “realistic” goals or objectives. We don’t think of warfare as a form of self-destruction—even though the result of every war is massive destruction. We don’t say that the purpose of war is to produce sacrificial victims, even though every war produces sacrificial victims.

On the other hand, however, British General Douglas Haig was aware of the suicidal or sacrificial nature of the First World War. Like Islamic leaders, he understood battle as a form of martyrdom.

Writing in the London Gazette on April 8, 1918, Haig observed that total British casualties in all theaters of the war—killed, wounded, missing and prisoners of war—was approximately 3,076,388. Reflecting on the Battle of the Somme, he stated: “For many soldiers it meant certain death and all must have known this before they started.”

Certain death! The essence of the First World War: a collective sacrificial ritual that resulted in death for many of its participants.

Haig discussed the meaning of “heroic death” by citing a speech by the Moslem Emperor Baber before sending his troops into battle in 1527: “The most High God has been propitious to us—that if we fall in the field we die the death of martyrs; if we survive, we rise victorious avengers of the cause of God.”

Reflecting on this statement made by the Moslem Emperor Baber in 1527—Haig stated that the Emperor’s words “convey the root matter of the First World War.”

What is the difference between the Islamic martyr—a suicide bomber—and British soldiers fighting in the First World War? The number of casualties.

Richard Koenigsberg