ABSTRACT
This chapter compares and contrasts the concepts of martyrdom in two twentieth-century plays: T.S. Eliotʼs Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and Murder in Baghdad: the Tragedy of Al Hallaj by ʻAbd al-Sabur (1965). The comparison is illuminating because ʻAbd al-Sabur, a well-established Egyptian poet and teacher of literature, was deeply influenced by Eliotʼs modernism, and seems to have conceived his Arabic drama as a companion piece to Eliotʼs. Each writer is concerned to bring out what he conceives to be the essence of genuine martyrdom. Eliot does so as a Christian in the Catholic tradition, while ʻAbd al-Sabur is a Sunni Muslim confronted by a Sufiinfluenced Shia ʻsaintʼ.1 How much do they have in common? In discussing a Christian martyrdom it is necessary to distinguish two separate, but connected, aspects. The first is what the martyr him-or herself was and did. This is a matter of history and biography – that is, of what can be discovered or recovered from the accounts of what happened leading to the martyrdom, together with any available information about the state of the martyrʼs mind at the time of his or her confrontation with death. The second aspect is the process by which, at least in the case of Catholic martyrs, public recognition emerges, leading to the formal canonization of the martyr as a saint. Obviously this second aspect depends heavily on the first, for it requires answers to the question whether the virtues or characteristics of the person concerned qualify her or him for inclusion in the calendar of martyrs. But it also involves theological questions: namely, how far do these qualities measure up to the requirements for martyrdom? What exactly do we mean by ʻmartyrʼ? What tests are to be applied to any particular claim for martyr status? Of course, formal public recognition of martyr status in no way prevents others, who do not become recognized, from being genuine martyrs as well. Anyone whose acts and dispositions leading to death are of the required kind, in the appropriate situation, will be a martyr whether or not the Church knows this. In any case, cults centred on people regarded by a local church as martyrs cannot be prevented from arising. Indeed, it is usually because of such local cults that a formal process of canonization takes place (as in the case of Thomas Becket). Part of the function of the formal process of canonization is to prevent spurious and undesirable claims gaining public
favour. But canonization in no way limits martyrdom status to those who gain favour with the Church ʻauthorities ʼand get their names on the calendar. A question that arises here is whether persons who find themselves in what we may call ʻmartyr situations ʼ may be formally or informally recognized as martyrs even when they are not members of the community of the Christian baptized. This is the question that underlies any consideration of the case of al-Hallaj, who is the protagonist in ʻAbd al-Saburʼs play.
