Sara Mattar Al-Hayat Every time I read about or watch a young man exploding himself killing a number of innocent people and leaving behind victims who have never expected to die in this tragic way, I ask if the reason for this brutal act was the wish of the suicide bomber to reach the houris (nymphs) in paradise very quickly. Is it at all possible that a young man with life just starting to run in his veins will booby trap his soft flesh with a number of bombs to explode himself and kill others? We have never known the shape of these bombs or how they are made except from the Hollywood films or the cartoon series. The bombs were never our favorite toys in our country. We have never been taught any lessons in the art of war. The bombs were also not our secret world where we hide our future hopes and expectations. Our dreams were extremely humble and too slow than necessary. I have never met any young man who was dreaming to own a planet or manufacture a war missile. Our dreams were as simple as our souls and those of our fathers. Our dreams were focused on love and more of it and the ability to be the masters of our own fate. We wanted our bank accounts to be filled with riyals, we looked for the wife who would feed our souls. We dreamed of a small office to sign papers like some elite employees. We should admit that we had never expected the son of our neighbors, who still had to go a long way to become a man, to join terrorist organizations such as Daesh (so-called IS) to sabotage his own country and kill his siblings, cousins and tribesmen in cold blood. Never in our wildest dreams had we expected a citizen of this country to kill his uncle like Abdullah Al-Rasheed had done. He had betrayed the man who brought him up and showered him with love and care like his own father. Instead, Abdullah had repaid his uncle, Col. Rashid Al-Sufian, an officer of the Interior Ministry, with four bullets in the head. The uncle's continuous favors never for an instant crossed the mind of the murderer who came back again to stab him ten times and stole his car to explode a security outpost. The pictures are not complete in front of me. They seem to be part of the imagination of an author or a moviemaker. They only reveal a spirit and a body void of any compassion, which has always characterized us. It is only those with no mercy in their hearts or who have lost their ways and gone astray can commit such a bloody act. We are part of a society, which is shaken by any crime let alone the killing of relatives. Instead of Abdullah thanking his uncle and naming the child he may be dreaming of after him, he kills him in the last night of Ramadan. Al-Sufian was preparing to welcome the Eid with his family including his sister, Abdullah's mother, when vengeance and anger simmered up in the murderer's heart so he rewarded his substitute father by taking out his soul. Did Al-Sufian deserve to die in this way? The answer is definitely NO Mr. Abdullah. We cannot control the world around us. We cannot also read what is going on in the heart and mind of every young man whether in the country or outside but as a Muslim nation we strongly believe that Abdullah's heinous crime was against all heavenly religions. I am puzzled and confused by the claims that these young terrorists explode themselves to expedite their meeting with the houris. This is a naive, shallow and totally unjustified thinking. There are matters far beyond the houris, which awaken anger and explosions in the hearts and minds of these young terrorists. May Allah have mercy on Al-Sufian's soul. May He also have mercy on the souls of all our martyrs. May Allah protect our country and the Muslim nation from the evils of the Daesh members and the instigators of evil and murder.
