THEY WANT TO DIE

Interesting story that suggests I am actually wrong about the Hajj. It’s even more death-seeking than I believed:

The death of 251 Muslims in a stampede shocked no one, with many pilgrims certain that those who die on the hajj enter paradise and the Saudi authorities pointing to the “will of God”.
“I wish I was among the pilgrims who died on Sunday,” Kamal Shahada, an Egyptian pilgrim, said.
“I would have gone to heaven, because dying in these holy sites of Islam would assure one a place in heaven,” he said, echoing a widespread conviction in the Islamic world.

Of course, this is the sign of a certain kind of real faith. There is a huge difference between seeking holy death or being indifferent to death as a spiritual matter, and suicide bombing. Christ, after all, chose death when he could have stayed alive. Martyrdom is not a uniquely Muslim concept. But it is useful to remember that Western liberalism’s attachment to life faces here an ancient and powerful enemy. If harnessed to a political movement, the indifference to death is the biggest and most potent weapon of mass destruction the world knows. Because it cannot be deterred.