ABSTRACT
“The storm of airplanes will not stop, and there are thousands of young people who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to living”. Those who died in the god’s service, undergoing a violent death either by battle or by sacrifices, had entry into his realm. The hero will be welcomed with feasting and hospitality because he died fearlessly. This is from the myths of the ninth century Norsemen of Europe, not from the creed of al-Qaeda. But Osama bin Laden in his fatzva of 1996 used almost the same words, describing how his ‘young men’ knew they would go directly to Paradise after sacrificing themselves in destroying the enemy. Christianity also has this theme of transfiguration through death and usually contains it in the person of Christ symbolically expressed in the ‘Sacrifice of the Mass’.
