Suicide - What, If You Were Bushra Bibi !! ?

(By - Kashif Sarmad)





I was reading the news paper and suddenly I glimpsed over the nerve-racking news that one woman jumped before the fast train with her two child. She did suicide because of hunger and poverty crisis within her home boundaries. I was shocked to read the story and astonished that how she did it? Before that I tried to ferret out what actually suicide means?

Suicide (Latin suicidium, from sui caedere, to kill oneself) is primarily the act of intentionally ending one's own life, though it is also used as a metaphor for the "willful destruction of one's self-interest" either as an individual or as a group. Suicide may occur for a number of reasons, including depression, shame, pain, financial difficulties, or other undesirable situations. Nearly one million people worldwide die by suicide annually. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million attempted suicides every year.


The History of suicide defines, in general the pagan world, both Roman and Greek, had a relaxed attitude towards the whole concept of suicide, a practice that was only finally outlawed with the advent of the Christians, who condemned it at the Council of Arles in 452 as the work of the Devil. In the Middle Ages, the church had drawn-out discussions on the edge where the search for martyrdom was suicidal, as in the case of Martyrs of Cordoba. Despite these disputes and occasional official rulings, Catholic doctrine was not entirely settled on the subject of suicide until the later 17th century. For instance, John Donne's Thoughts on Emergent Occasions is a long argument in favor of suicide as divinely appointed opportunity.


There is some echo of later Christian hostility in ancient Greek thinkers. Pythagoras, for example, was against the act, though more on mathematical than moral grounds, believing that there was only a finite number of souls for use in the world, and that the sudden and unexpected departure of one upset a delicate balance. Aristotle also condemned suicide, though for quite different, far more practical reasons, in that it robbed the community of the services of one of its members. A reading of Phaedo suggests that Plato was also against the practice, inasmuch as he allows Socrates to defend the teachings of the Orphics, who believed that the human body was the property of God, and thus self-harm was a direct offense against divine law. Yet, it's not quite so simple, because after Socrates says than no man has a right to suicide, this is then qualified by the statement "...unless God sends some necessity upon him, as has now been sent upon me."


In Rome suicide was never a general offence in law, though the whole approach to the question was essentially pragmatic. This is illustrated by the example given by Titus Livy of the colony of Massalia (the present day Marseilles), where those who wanted to kill themselves merely applied to the senate, and if their reasons were judged sound they were then given hemlock free of charge. It was specifically forbidden in three cases: those accused of capital crimes, soldiers and slaves. The reason behind all three was the same - it was uneconomic for these people to die. If the accused killed themselves prior to trial and conviction then the state lost the right to seize their property, a loophole that was only closed by Domitian in the first century AD, who decreed that those who died prior to trial were without legal heirs. The suicide of a soldier was treated on the same basis as desertion. If a slave killed her or himself within six months of purchase, the master could claim a full refund from the former owner.


But the Romans fully approved of what might be termed "patriotic suicide"; death, in other words, as an alternative to dishonour. For the Stoics, a philosophical sect which originated in Greece, death was a guarantee of personal freedom, a way out of an intolerable existence. And so it was for Cato the Younger, who killed himself after the Pompeian cause was defeated at the Battle of Thapsus. This was a 'virtuous death', one guided by reason and conscience. His example was later followed by Seneca, though under somewhat more straightened circumstances. A very definite line was drawn by the Romans between the virtuous suicide and suicide for entirely private reasons. They disapproved of Mark Antony not because he killed himself, but that he killed himself for love.

In Islam, like other Abrahamic religions, views suicide as sinful and highly detrimental to one's spiritual journey. For those who formerly believed, but ultimately rejected belief in God, the result seems unambiguously negative.


A verse in the fourth chapter of the Quran, An-Nisaa (The Women) instructs; "And do not kill yourselves, surely Allah is most Merciful to you." (4:29)


The prohibition of suicide has also been recorded in authentic statements of hadith. For example; "He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell-fire, and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself, he shall keep stabbing himself in the Hell-fire.


After reffering these papers I was wondering why Bushra Bibi committed suicide with her two innocent childern? Didn’t she know that committing suicide is prohabited in Islam and Law? She knew, I guess.


I thought as a Bushra Bibi who couldn’t feed her childern for many days, she couldn’t faced the worst financial hurdles, she was unable to buy medicines for her children, she was not capable to send her kids to school. She was not able to earn to meet her financial needs. These were enough reasons to commit suicide.


After one month government gave gant to Bushra Bibi’s husband as compensation. Was that really enough for her husband to forget his dead family? No!! Government should provide relief to those people who cannot afford to buy food for their family. Government should make turn Pakistan as welfare state where people can get better health facilities, cheap food and affordable shelter instead of giving them so called compensation.


I wonder what NGO’s and Societies are really doing to transport relief to needy people. There are thousands of NGO’s and other welfare societies are operating in Pakistan and very few of them are working up-to-mark. Most of them are used as political tools in the hands of most influencial political entities. Are NGO’s are only left to hold the banners before press clubs and doing fake workshops cum seminars in the five star hotels to get aids from donor agencies?


I request not only to government but also to civil society to prevent these sort of incidents instead of curing it through compensations. Its because any one can earn the money but its hard to bring back the dead family or loved ones. I am sure that no one wants to be Bushra Bibi who sacrificed her precious life for the sake of meal.