Question:

Many people talk about acts of “martyrdom” that are carried out in Palestine and other places. So what is the ruling of actions like these?

Answer:

Regarding such actions, I heard the honorable Shaykh Abdul-Azīz Ibn Bāz, may Allāh have mercy on him, pass a religious verdict that they are considered nothing but suicide and that it’s forbidden for a person to strap explosives to himself and then detonate them because this is suicide combined with murder.3

NOTES

1 ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Ar-Rājihī: One of the leading scholars and instructors of Saudi Arabia today.

2 This fatwā was taken from a book called “al-Fatāwá al-Shar’iyyah fī al-Qadhāyā Al-‘Asriyyah,” a collection of various rulings by Muhammad Ibn Fahd al-Ḥusayn.

3 Taken from his explanation of al-Ibāanah al-Sughrá by Ibn Baṭṭah