Enemy As Idiot:
In the third grade, for some reason, my friends and I used to laugh and tell each other "Saddam's Insane" as if we were the most clever of nine-year-olds.

That I didn’t know anything about Saddam Hussein in the third grade other than his insanity and his status as Enemy, makes me nervous now. It makes me nervous because such minimally-informed dislike was somehow instilled not just in my nine-year old mind, but in all the young minds around me—and no adults told us otherwise. We certainly didn’t know much about geo-political strategy, or genocide, or economics and politics of any real substance. We simply knew our Enemy as Enemy. Or actually, our Enemy as Crazy Idiot.

Underestimating Death's Significance:

As almost the entire world knows by now, Saddam Hussein was handed over by U.S. officials to the Shi’a dominated Iraqi government and hanged in the early morning hours of December 30th, the first day of Eid Al Adha, the Sunni Muslim holiday of sacrifice and feast. Despite the U.S. Ambassador’s plea to stave the execution for 15 days and Sunni official’s requests for grace on the Holiday, Iraqi officials continued with the hanging.

Then, to the horror and dismay of almost everyone involved in, or simply observing foreign policy pertaining to Iraq, someone taped the execution.

In that moment, a reprehensible figure in much of the world’s imagination suddenly became human. And for those who were already sympathetic toward the former leader of Iraq, or hovering on the fence of opinion, he instantly became a martyr.

And what will history do with this formerly conceptualized monster now turned martyr? Will he be seen as a sacrifice in the fight against tyranny or a sacrifice to tyranny in another form?

Confusion of Sacrifice:

The confusion of a sacrifice and its intended beneficiaries is part of what deeply separates the religious convictions of the Sunni’s and the Shi’as. One of the less pronounced but yet profound differences in Islamic religious ideology are the concepts of sacrifice and blessing as they are read in the Abrahamic texts of the Qu’ran and the Biblical book of Genesis.

The predominate difference between the Qu’ranic narrative of the story and the Biblical narrative of the story is that the Qu’ran does not define which son was the intended sacrifice. Genesis 22 defines the son as Isaac from whom all of Israel, (and subsequently through the actual sacrifice of Jesus Christ, all Christendom) derives its genetic and/or spiritual heritage. Islamic peoples, on the other hand, trace their genetic and spiritual lineage through the Prophet Muhammad derived from Abraham’s banished son, Ishmael.

Reuvin Firestone magnifies this important discrepency: “Who merits the reward for submitting to God’s will in the person of the intended sacrifice? Was it Isaac with the resulting reward for his merit accruing to his progeny the Jews (or his spiritual progeny the Christians?) Or was it Ishmael, for whose willingness for self-immolation his Arab progeny derive divinely ascribed credit?”

Questions of Merit:

These questions have been a contention between not just Christians, Jews and Arabs, but between Shi’ites and Sunnis as well and partly to blame for the animosity between the latter two.

Many ancient Muslim scholars supported the pro-Ishmael perspective and claimed that Abraham took Ishmael to Mecca, whereby giving the formerly secular location profound religious validity pre-Muhammad. Where Abraham sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael) is just as meaningful to Muslims and Jews and Christians as who he sacrificed. This is yet another symbolic issue Westerners, with weak veneration for geographical locations, overlook in examining regional/religious/political conflicts.

Many Sunni’s, on the other hand, believe that it was Muhammad who was nearly sacrificed by his father Abd al-Muttalib, rather than Abraham sacrificing Isaac or Ishmael and receiving the subsequent blessing. So Abd al-Muttalib becomes the counterpart to Israel (Abraham) and Muhammad is the Islamic counter-part to Isaac.

Conversely, the Shi’ites, hold two readings of the historical narratives that make up Islam. Their writings held biblically-congruent renderings of the Abrahamic sacrifice (that Isaac was the intended sacrifice) AND also asserted that Ali, the closest blood-relative to Muhammad was the rightful heir to the spiritual and political headship of the Muslims. This difference proved fateful shortly after the death of Ali.

After Ali's death, the Shi'a turned to his sons Hasan and Husayn. Hasan stayed out of the fray until his death in 669, but his brother Husayn agreed to claim the right to the caliphate after the death of Ali's opponent, Mu'awiya. The Shi'a began a revolt but it was subdued by Mu'awiya's son Yazid who massacred Husayn and his followers at Karbala (in today's Iraq)in 680. The death of Ali's son, (Muhammad's grandson), Husayn, remembered with great mourning to this day, is considered by Shi'ites to be the most tragic of a continued series of martyrdoms experienced by Shi'ites throughout the generations (Kohlberg, 1983: 121).

Because of the Shi’a’s opposition to the Muslim establishment since the 600’s AD based on the above mentioned issues, they have often been oppressed by dominating Sunni’s. Martyrdom, for both groups, is extremely meaningful.

Making the Martyr:

Current events leave little room for interpreting the “who” and “where” in making modern martyrs. It does, however, leave much room for the interpretation of “why”. This "why" will partly determine the outcome for the violence in Iraq.

Will history reflect on Sadaam as a martyr sacrificed to the greed of U.S. imperialism inciting the rest of the Muslim world to resistance? Will he be held up as an example of international justice working to rectify crimes against humanity? Will his death propel Shi’ites out of the oppressed minority and into the position of the next oppressors? Will it so inflame Sunni's that the violence overwhelms the middle east? Or will he be considered a Martyr at all?

Lois D. Shwoerer outlines three conditions that are commonly met in individuals who become martyrs: 1) an individual must die or endure suffering with great courage on behalf of some cause or principle 2) martyr’s commonly appear at times of political unrest when an established government is subject to sharp criticism or violent resistance but is powerful enough to execute or impose great hardship on its critics. 3) the existence of individuals who survive the one who has died, who admire and love him or her, identify with the martyr’s views, and try to preserve the martyr’s memory.
Sadaam meets counts 1, 2 and 3 for making a martyr. And at this point, the greatest problem is those who survive him (3) creating greater political unrest (2) and resulting in far more martyr’s (1) than the rest of the world can handle.

Recovering the Moral of the Narrative:

It seems to me that one of the greatest morals of the story of Isaac, Ishmael, Abraham, Ali and Muhammad (whatever the interpretation) has been overlooked for thousands of years.

Regardless of who the intended sacrifice was, or where it occurred, or what it resulted in to Jews, Christians and Arabs, the most remarkable point of the narrative is the mercy and grace of God. It wasn’t just his blessing and who got it that defined the story as a cornerstone of three religions and two ethnic groups---it was His mercy and grace in the story which newly defined Himself.

Perhaps Sadaam was insane--there is evidence to prove he was not exactly mentally stable. And maybe Ishmael was the intended sacrifice. Who knows where the intended sacrifice truly occurred? Or if it even occurred? But if there is one thing that could be taken from the story and from the history of those of us who are derived spiritually or genetically from the narrative—it should be the the moral of mercy and dignity. But I think many, many more individuals will die before that lesson is ever learned.