I would like to understand the standards you introduce, however. Westerners are raised on literature which often uses a similar theme: a greater evil than murder is the temptation of the soul. My assumption (which may well be quite wrong, of course, for I know little of Islamic beliefs) would be that if the Islamic supremacist was right and the mosque & worshippers should be destroyed, indeed, if the true God commanded the destruction of the mosque, the man’s neighbors, wife, and children, wouldn’t the man who brought down the suicide bomber to save those around him be already alienated from the true God? Wouldn’t his tradition, his mosque, his beliefs be wrong in the sight of those who would destroy them all? Mine may be a quite Western way of looking at this, so I am interested in an explanation that would help me understand the distinctions if such this version does not apply and other standards are used.

In this case, not only did the Iraqi man lay down his life to stop the suicide bomber, he also willingly put his immortal soul in jeopardy. For all he knew, the bomber and the Islamic supremacists who sent him might have been correct that Allah was, in fact, on their side, in which case his actions would have condemned him to eternal damnation in addition to a gruesome death. (Indeed, the latter consequence would be a pittance next to the former.) This is basically soul sacrifice – an altogether different level of heroism, I would argue, from the others you’ve described.

James