Are Muslim martyrs crazy?

Every time I’ve tried to understand what drives suicide bombers, I come up empty.

It’s not that I don’t have a single inkling about fanatical religious groups. Getting religion thrown at you inside a one-room, asbestos shingle-sided non-denominational Pentecostal Church in South Arkansas by a part-time preacher who was a full-time guts bucketer at an area slaughter house can give one a close-up view of fanaticism, squared.

(First, a brief side note to those that will argue there’s no such thing as a “non-denominational Pentecostal Church.” Yes, there is. We can argue about it but I would win.)

The intellectual side of me understands that some folks would die for their religion. I don’t personally get that notion very often, but obviously, other folks think nothing of strapping a vest of explosives to their bodies and hieing off into a crowd of heathens and detonating the durn thing.

These “lucky” ones become instant martyrs and that’s supposed good if you are a believer in the extremist faction of the Muslim faith.

“Martydom” is defined as “the suffering of death on account of adherence to a cause and especially to one’s religious faith.” Blow yourself up and take some infidels with you and, voila!, you go directly to “paradise.” What exactly awaits the new, decidedly dead martyrs is up to interpretation by various clerics or religious groups.

What Muslim sects espouse appears to be like homegrown Baptists and Church of Christ doctrine: The individual interpretation of the scripture is the key to the overall message.

One major league Arab Muslim cleric noted, “The (martyr) receives … 70 virgins, no torment in the grave, and the choice of 70 members of his family or confidants to enter paradise with him.” There’s a couple or three other gimmes thrown about – 80,000 servants and a “dome with pearl, aquamarine and ruby …” but they pale in comparison to the big three listed.

Another Muslim cleric claims the reward for blowing one’s self up for a fanatical cause is “72 virgins, plus 70 wives, all waiting in decorated gardens and (for the new martyr) fine garments.” In other words, paradise offers “everything to satisfy the soul and gladden the eye.” Oh, yeah, there’s also “life everlasting.”

There’s scant mention about what women “martyrs” get.

Saying that one does not understand the extremist fringe of the Muslim faith because the believers are whacked is just too simple. Snake-handlers, poison-drinkers and tongue-talkers, while not commonplace, are evident in select fundamentalist groups throughout the United States.

It’s hard, though, to compare blowing one’s self up and taking a bunch of innocent people with you and dancing around with a couple of snakes.

It’s hard not to be reminded of the story told by gospel singer and comedian Windy Bagwell about attending a snake-handling service. He was offered a big ol’ water moccasin to hold . . . and politely declined.

The pastor looked him in the eye: “If the Lord asked you to take up this serpent, would you?”

Bagwell: “Yessir, I would. But He didn’t and I ain’t!”

Would be nice if more would-be Muslim martyrs would take that same, sane approach with Allah.