Christianity and Islam are both cults of martyrdom.

We’ll say no more just now about Christians seeking and applauding martyrdom. We’ll just let the gorgeous picture below tell its own story of Christians being tortured to death by Muslims and their souls winding their way to a weird sort of heaven.

But here’s a tale of Muslim martyrs that feeds our prejudice and endorses our judgment against the Muslim Brotherhood. It comes from Gatestone, and is written by Raymond Ibrahim:

New evidence indicates that some of the pro-Morsi protesters reportedly killed by the Egyptian military, after the Muslim Brotherhood president’s ouster, were actually killed by fellow pro-Morsi protesters. They did this, according to the report, to frame the military, incite more Islamist violence and unrest, and garner sympathy from America, which has been extremely critical of the military, especially in the context of the post-Morsi violence.

“Garner sympathy from America”. It’s an old Arab trick. They condemned generations of their fellow Arabs to a life of misery as “Palestinians” in order to “garner sympathy” from the West. They largely succeeded too. The West has been complicit in keeping them as beggars – the West’s way (these days) of dealing with beggar nations being to put money in the outstretched left hand while quaking at the threatening right hand raised in a fist.

The Arabic satellite program, Al Dalil, (“The Evidence”) recently showed the evidence, which consisted mostly of video recordings.

One video records events on July 8, during pro-Morsi protests in front of the Republican Guard building in Cairo, where Morsi was being held, and where the bloodshed between the military and Brotherhood began. The video shows a young man with a shaven head and a Salafi-style beard approaching the Republican Guard barrier; he gets shot, collapses to the ground, and dies — as other protesters fly into a rage against the military.

At first watching, it seems that he was shot by the military. But when the video is played “in slow motion and in zoom” it becomes apparent –

– that someone from behind him, from the pro-Morsi throng, shot him. The whole time he falls, in slow motion, he is still facing the Republican Guard. Yet when the camera zooms in, the bullet wound and blood are visibly at the back of his head; his front, facing the military even after he falls, does not appear to have a scratch. Considering that the military was facing him, it seems apparent that a fellow Morsi-supporter shot him from behind.

On the same day this man in the video and others were killed, Muhammad Mahsoub, a former Brotherhood member and politician tweeted the following: “The Brotherhood sacrifice their youth in the streets, even as the sons of their leaders are at the beach resorts …  Allah curse the hypocrites [based on a Koran verse];” and “I repeatedly warned al-Baltagi against his plan to antagonize the military in order to implicate it [in] an attack on the protesters, but he insists on his plan…”

Baltagi is a Brotherhood leader who has been especially vocal about “getting back” at the military; he apparently also enjoys close relations with the widely disliked U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson. 

Whose sympathies were long ago garnered by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another video shown on Al Dalil is even more obvious. An armored vehicle appears slowly driving by a group of pro-Morsi protesters, many easily discernible with their Salafi-style beards. A shot is heard and the man nearest the passing vehicle collapses. Again, at first it appears that the men in the armored vehicle shot him.

Played, again in slow motion, however, it becomes apparent that the man in a gilbab [long Muslim style robe] standing directly behind the murdered man is actually the one who shot him, then walked over to another man near him, gave him the weapon, and then quickly walked off the scene. Even the man on the roof who is taping this scene is heard to be asked, “Did the car [armored vehicle] shoot?” only to reply, “No, no.”

Even so, the desired effect of all these “human sacrifices” by the Brotherhood was accomplished: as with the other man, shot in front of the Republican Guard, many other pro-Morsi protesters rushed to the fallen man, screaming Islamic slogans and vowing relentless war on the military, as it supposedly “shot first.” 

This second incident prompted the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, to call for “an uprising by the great people of Egypt against those trying to steal their revolution with tanks.”

To many Islamists, killing an ally to empower Islam is legitimate, especially in the context of two Islamic ideas: 1) jihad [war in the service of Islam], in Islamic jurisprudence — for its function, under Muhammad, of making Islam supreme — is considered the “pinnacle” of Islam; and 2) Islam’s overarching juridical idea that “necessity makes the prohibited permissible” – in other words, that a pious end, such as empowering Islam, justifies the use of forbidden means. All that matters is one’s intention, or niyya.

Thus, killing fellow Muslims, lying, prostitution, even sodomy all become permissible, so long as they are seen as ways of advancing and empowering Islam. Those who commit or promote even the most horrific crimes are exonerated, and those “sacrificed” to empower Islam — as those pro-Morsi supporters killed by the Brotherhood — are deemed martyrs who will achieve the highest level of paradise.

The Ten Thousand Martyrs on the Mount Ararat by Vittorio Carpaccio, 1515

A passing thought: “Carpaccio” is also the name of a dish made of sliced raw meat.