AS far as the anointed go, saints in the Sufi tradition have it easy. You could be declared one in life and then continue to dispense generosity and blessings from the afterlife. Martyrdom, on the other hand, has a significant drawback: it must be earned with one’s life, as the ‘immortal’ status can only be awarded posthumously, in all traditions. It’s strange, then, that martyrdom, a status considered far higher than any other, can be granted to anyone these days.

The right-wing, MAGA influencer Cha­r­lie Kirk, who was shot dead at a rally on the University of Utah campus in September this year, is being fashioned as a martyr. The NYT recently ran a piece on the req­uired ingredients for a good martyr, especially for conscription into an immediate political purpose. It listed public, dramatic, and innocent deaths, a cause attached to them, and a movement to glorify and capitalise on them, as a must for this recipe.

The word ‘shaheed’(martyr) inspires awe, passion, admiration, and absolute respect. Before any competing words, tropes, and honorifics are introduced, consider the context of this piece: the transcendence of this Arabic word into not just the vocabulary of non-Arabic speakers but also into their body politic, narratives, identities and........

© Dawn