Are Suicide Bombings Permissible in Islam?

The concept of Jihad in Islam is often misunderstood these days, particularly due to misuse of the term by extremist Muslim militant groups that claim to be conducting a ‘Jihad’ against infidels when they blow themselves up in crowded places killing scores of people.

The question that needs a clear answer is “Is suicide bombing allowed in Islam? Does Islam propagates or even accepts this type of a war?”

The following are the requirements of the holy war that are totally absent in these bombings.

1)      A fair warning of the start of hostilities must be given before conducting a Jihad.

2)      Jihad cannot be conducted against an unarmed, uninformed enemy who means no harm to the Muslims.

3)       Muslims cannot kill women, children or the elderly

4)      Indiscriminate slaughter of people is not permissible in Islam.

5)      Islam has categorically declared that one who kills an innocent person is as guilty as if he had killed all man kind

6)      A Muslim cannot start hostilities against an innocent, unarmed person unless he is attacked first.

The classical jurists of Islam never considered the possibility that Muslims can resort to indiscriminate killing of innocent people. There are no precedents of such mass killing of unwarned, unarmed and innocent humans in Islamic history.

Most Muslims do not interpret the Jihad commands according to the radical school of thought. Like most Christians and Jews do not think that it is their duty to kill the infidels like the Biblical Joshua.Almost all major scholars, belonging to different sects of Islam have declared these bombing to be against the Sharia Law. Before labeling the suicide bombings as Islamic, a through study of the Islamic law should be made, which would clearly reveal that  Islam has never propagated these kind of terrorist attacks.