Saddam the Martyr? --
Will Saddam Be More Dangerous Dead
Than Alive?
April 7, 2003
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2003 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
Iraqi dictator and would-be successor to the great empires of Babylonia and Assyria, Saddam Hussein, now huddles in his bombproof bunker, as U.S. troops close in on him.
No longer able to flee, Saddam has two options: surrender or die fighting - or at least die in a manner that can be interpreted as dying in battle.
Saddam will choose to die a "hero" and "martyr" fighting to the last "with a sword in battle," according to a noted author and biographer of the one-time Iraqi strongman, Said Aburish
Aburish has written on the life of Saddam, as well as several other volumes on developments in the Near East. Aburish's statements are cited in a recent article in the Italian news daily, La Stampa.
While ultimately sympathetic to Saddam Hussein, Aburish, however, reveals the possibility of a dangerous challenge to the reconstruction of Iraq - the legend of Saddam the martyr -- which is not discussed by other sources.
Aburish acknowledges that many Iraqis are welcoming coalition forces, but he believes that after two months of military occupation the Iraqis will begin to ask of coalition forces, "Who put you here?" at which point the ghost of Saddam the martyr will take on real - and possibly deadly - proportions.
"Saddam is not afraid to die," asserts Aburish. "There is no one more preoccupied with what sort of page he will occupy in the history of his country than Saddam. He will go down with the ship fighting, he will be recorded in Arab history as a martyr," declared Aburish.
Although he wants to be a "martyr," Saddam is not and has never been a devout Muslim. Saddam has sought to use Islam for his own political purposes, but without any personal conviction.
Saddam is a whisky drinker, he boasts of his domination of women, he shuns traditional Arab dress, and has "an attitude of profound irreverence toward religion," Aburish states.
Despite his many obvious faults, Saddam could still become a "martyr" in the eyes of Muslims, should he die in a struggle which many Muslim leaders characterize as a fight between infidels and Muslim believers.
Mohammed Sajjid Tantawi, religious leader of the Sunni branch of Muslims, declared that "the door of Holy War is open," as he urged fellow Muslims to aid Saddam and Iraq, according to the German news daily Der Spiegel.
Shiite Muslim leader Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah is not only seeking help for Saddam, but also calls for resistance to "any man…which America seeks to establish as governor [of Iraq]."
Abdel Moati Bajumi, a member of the Islamic Research Center in Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, described the scene in which Saddam may play out his "martyrdom."
Saddam's end will come in Baghdad, which "is a particularly religious symbol for Muslims," said Bajumi.
Baghdad was the center of the Arab world from 750 to 1258 A.D., when it was the capital of the Abbassid caliphate, a combined secular and religious office which extended back to Mohammed.
A Mongol invasion destroyed the caliphate forever, and plunged the Arab world into a decline which some authorities believe the Arabs never fully recovered.
Copyright 2003
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