An article today from Psychology Today lists "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature." Among them: "Most suicide bombers are Muslim." She goes on to say that the prevalence of polygny (men with multiple wives) in Muslim societies caused increased competition for mates and can cause some men who don't have mates to become despondent and resort to violence. Okay, that's fine. In fact, it makes some sense: domestic violence rates are so high among Appalachian men because their poverty causes helplessness and what they perceive to be a loss of masculinity (the man, without a good job, can't provide for his family and fulfill his traditional Christian role as head of the household, the breadwinner, etc.). They get over this loss of masculinity by beating their wives.

What isn't fine is one of the ways the author bolsters her point:

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

I'm so sick and tired of people repeating this "72 virgins" thing! This insistence that a Muslim who martyrs himself for Islam will receive 72 virgins in Paradise is what made me read the Qur'an in the first place. After a thorough reading, I concluded that it ain't in there! The Qur'an does promise believers that they will be rewarded with virgins in Paradise, but there's no set number, and there's no specific actions mentioned that will get you those virgins.

Years later, I read Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Jurgensmeyer. Deep in the back of the book, in his endnotes, is the reference to the original "72 virgins" statement. Guess where it comes from? A Hamas training manual from the mid-1990s.

For the last ten years, politicians, pundits, and even academics have been repeating that the Qur'an, or some nebulous doctrine of Islam, promises martyrs 72 virgins in heaven. The fact is that Hamas made this up to recruit suicide bombers and militants.