Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

Edited by Margo Kitts

The first collection analyzing foundational legends and theologies related to religiously sanctioned suicide
Examines the contradicting religious perceptions of suicide as cowardly or heroic
Features essays from experts in religious traditions from around the world

Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

Edited by Margo Kitts

Description

Suicide in the forms of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, or self-immolation is perennially controversial: Should it rightly be termed suicide? Does religion sanction it? Should it be celebrated or anathematized? At least some idealization of such self-chosen deaths is found in every religious tradition treated in this volume, from ascetic heroes who conquer their passions to save others by dying, to righteous warriors who suffer and die valiantly while challenging the status quo. At the same time, there are persistent disputes about the concepts used to justify these deaths, such as altruism, heroism, and religion itself. In this volume, renowned scholars bring their literary and historical expertise to bear on the contested issue of religiously sanctioned suicide. Three examine contemporary movements with disputed classical roots, while eleven look at classical religious literatures which variously laud and disparage figures who invite self-harm to the point of death. Overall, the volume offers an important scholarly corrective to the axiom that religious traditions simply and always embrace life at any cost.

Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

Edited by Margo Kitts

1. Introduction: On Death, Religion, and Rubrics for Suicide
Margo Kitts
2. To Die For: The Evolution of Early Jewish Martyrdom
Shmuel Shepkaru
3. Performing Christian Martyrdoms
Gail Streete
4. Collective Martyrdom and Religious Suicide: The Branch Davidians and Heaven's Gate
Catherine Wessinger
5. Martyrdom and its Contestations in the Formative Period of Islam
Asma Afsaruddin
6. The Death of Musa al- Kazim (d. 184/799): Knowledge and Suicide in Early Twelver Shi'ism
Najam Haider
7. Apologia for Suicide: Martyrdom in Contemporary Jihadist Discourse
Mohammed M. Hafez
8. Hindu Ascetic Death
Mary Storm
9. Sati
David Brick
10. Dying Heroically: Jainism and the Ritual Fast to Death
Anne Vallely
11. The Tropics of Heroic Death: Martyrdom and the Sikh Tradition
Louis E. Fenech
12. The Meanings of Sacrifice: The LTTE, Suicide, and the Limits of the Religion Question
Benjamin Schonthal
13. To Extract the Essence from this Essenceless Body: Self-Sacrifice and Self-Immolation in Indian Buddhism
Reiko Ohnuma
14. Reflection on Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Traditions
Jimmy Yu
15. Relinquishing the Body to Reach the Pure Land: Buddhist Ascetic Suicide in Premodern Japan
Jacquelyn I. Stone

Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

Edited by Margo Kitts

Author Information

Margo Kitts is Professor and Coordinator of Religious Studies and East-West Classical Studies at Hawai'i Pacific University. She is the author or editor of six books and over 30 articles dealing with ancient literature and/or religion and violence. She edits the Journal of Religion and Violence, and co-edits the monograph series, Cambridge Elements of Religion and Violence.

Contributors:

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Islamic Studies at Indiana University.

David Brick is Senior Lecturer of Sanskrit at Yale University.

Louis E. Fenech isProfessor of History at the University of Norther Iowa.

Mohammed M. Hafez is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Najam Haider is an Associate Professor of Religion at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Margo Kitts is Professor and Coordinator of Religious Studies and East-West Classical Studies at Hawai'i Pacific University.

Reiko Ohnuma is Professor of Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College.

Benjamin Schonthal is Senior Lecturer in Buddhism and Asian Religions at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Shmuel Shepkaru is the Schusterman Professor of Jewish Intellectual and Religious History at the University of Oklahoma.

Jacqueline Stone teaches Buddhism and Japanese Religions in the Religion Department at Princeton University.

Mary Storm has an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in South Asian Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gail P. Streete is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Rhodes College.

Anne Vallely is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Catherine Wessinger is Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions at Loyola University New Orleans.

Jimmy Yu is an Associate Professor at Florida State University teaching Buddhism and East Asian religions.

Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

Edited by Margo Kitts

Reviews and Awards

"...this anthology offers a rich survey of attitudes toward suicide in the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish texts, early Christian traditions, several periods of Islam, Indian traditions including Buddhism, Jainism, and the Sikhs, Chinese Taoist and Buddhist traditions,and Pure Land Buddhism in pre-modern Japan. ...Kitts' anthology constitutes a rich source for undertaking such analysis in a broad, comparative perspective." -- Eugene V. Gallagher,, Nova Religio

"Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice and Self-Immolation is a superlative volume which belongs in personal libraries as well as institutional ones." -- Margaret Cormack, Journal of Religion and Violence

"Kitts has recruited a first-rate lineup of scholars who cover a vast array of classical and contemporary texts. The volume, however, remains tightly focused and cohesive... [T]his book, with copious works cited lists for each chapter, is recommended for scholars researching the nexus of religion and voluntary death." --Christopher Denny, Reading Religion

"Why would people want to kill themselves on behalf of God? Behind the troubling scenes of suicide bombers and burning monks are complex religious histories of martyrdom. This remarkable collection of authoritative essays covers all aspects of this perplexing topic in every religious tradition, ranging from early history to the present. This important volume forces us to think anew about the awesome power of the religious imagination."-Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence