Editing Shahada (section)

==In Sunni Islam==
There have been times even within the Islamic community when the ideal of martyrdom was “socialized.” Within the larger Sunni tradition, the personal ethos and ideal of martyrdom became quiescent as a religious motif. Even though Sunni  theologians recognized the power of the idea and even perpetuated the veneration of the early martyrs of Islam—such as Hamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muttallib, the original sayyid al-shuhadaʿ (Prince of Martyrs, a title now most familiarly attached to the hero par excellence of the Shiʿi, Hussain ibn ʿAli)—and the veneration of the sacrifices made by the early community as acts of martyrdom, they nonetheless rigorously opposed the cultivation of a contemporary cult of martyrdom in their respective societies by emphasizing the illegality of suicide and equating the seeking of a martyr's death with it. This was no doubt at least partly in response to the activities of rebellious groups such as the Khawarij  ([https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0047.xml Kharijites]) who were disruptive to the greater unity of Muslims, the ahl al-sunnat wa-al-jamaʿat (the people of the [Prophet Muhammad's] tradition and the greater Muslim community, what may be called “catholic Islam”). The same theologians elevated the accomplishment of moral and ethical challenges as equal or even preferable to death: fasting, regularity in prayer, reading the Quran, filial devotion, and rectitude in the collection of taxes. The rank of martyr could thus be sought in the normal acts of worship: the ritual perfection and purity of motive with which these were performed then determined how close a believer might come to being granted the prize of martyrdom. 

In addition, books of hadith list categories of believers whose deaths occur in such a violent or painful way that they are counted as martyrs. According to Wensinck, such a death can be of five, seven, or eight types. The most explicit list is from the Muwattaʿ of Malik ibn Anas (d. 795):

The martyrs are seven, apart from death in Allah’s way. He that dies as a victim of an epidemic is a martyr; he that dies by being drowned is a martyr; he that dies from pleurisy is a martyr; he that dies from diarrhea is a martyr; he that dies by fire is a martyr; he that dies by being struck by a wall falling into ruins is a martyr; the woman who dies in childbed is a martyr. 

Such scriptural raw material would eventually produce doctrine like the following statement from the preeminent Sunni theolog ian, [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gazali-i-biography Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali] (d. 1111):

Everyone who gives himself wholly to God [tajarrada illahi] in the war against his own desires [sg. nafs], is a martyr when he meets death going forward without turning back. So, the holy warrior is he who makes war against his own desires, as it has been explained by the apostle of God. And the “greater war” is the war against one's own desires, as the Companions said: We have returned from the lesser war unto the greater one, meaning thereby the war against their own desires. <ref>Wensinck, p. 95.</ref> 

It is indicative of this transition that none of the “Rightly Guided” Caliphs, the first four caliphs of Sunni tradition, is typically given the rank or title of martyr. This is interesting because Abu Bakr, the first caliph, is the only one of the four not to have been killed in an open act of violence. In keeping with Islam's communal ethos, martyrdom is treated by the fuqahaʿ as not necessarily or most importantly a means for achieving individual salvation or felicity in the next world. Rather, it has the pragmatic value of ensuring the continued existence of the group through communal defense (Klausner).