Historically, a martyr is a person who dies for their convictions or religious faith, such as during the persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire. Sometimes the term is applied to those who use violence, such as dying for a nation's glory during wartime (usually known under other names such as "fallen warriors"). The death of a martyr is called martyrdom.

History

Martyr is from μαρτυρ, the Greek word for "witness". During the early Roman Empire, the independent cities of Asia Minor made efforts to reward benefactors for their services, and to promote further civic generosity by means of public acclamations, eulogistic honorific decrees were addressed to the Roman authorities and read in public places before an audience. Such commendations are usually referred to in epigraphic sources as martyriai. Christians adopted the phrase "martyrs" in the "testimonies" for the act, suffering and self-sacrifice of the persecuted.

In Judaism

See also: Persecution of Jews

Martyrdom in Judaism is referred to by the Hebrew phrase Kiddush Hashem, meaning sanctification of God's name.

A historical account by Rabbi Ephraim ben Yaakov (1132 - c. 1200) describes Crusaders' massacres of Jews, including the massacre at Blois, where approximately forty Jews were murdered following an accusation of ritual murder:

"As they were led forth, they were told, 'You can save your lives if you will leave your religion and accept ours.' The



Jews refused. They were beaten and tortured to make them accept the Christian religion, but still they refused. Rather, they encouraged each other to remain steadfast and die for the sanctification of G-d's Name."

In Christianity

See also: Persecution of Christians

Other than Jesus, Eastern and western liturgical Christians revere Saint Stephen as the first martyr, or protomartyr.

Christians in the first three centuries A.D. were crucified in the same manner as Roman political prisoners or fed to lions as a games spectacle. They were recognized as martyrs because they followed Jesus' teaching of nonresistance to evil, preferring to die than to renounce their faith (i.e.apostatize). The Christian writer Tertullian (AD 200) asserted that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church." And through time, Christians considered holy people as a sign of contradiction, people who are attacked and spoken against.

With the Constantinian shift and the identification of the term Christianity with the Roman Empire, the tables were turned and pagans sometimes became martyrs if they refused the Roman Emperor when ordered to change their beliefs to the Roman Empire's version of Christianity. It didn't take long before Augustine of Hippo authorized the use of force against heretics and Christians who refused to fall in line with Roman orthodoxy. Persecution of heretics and the martyrdom that sometimes went with it became institutionalised in the office of the inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church, and in the political systems of the State, such as that of the English Queen Mary I (who became known as Bloody Mary), when she had nearly three hundred Christians tortured and killed (recorded in Foxe's Book of Martyrs) for refusing to denounce their reformist beliefs and for refusing to

Some Christian sects such as Anabaptists as well as non-Christian sects, who began as Christians yet changed their beliefs, trace their origins to widespread persecution and martyrdom at the hands of the Catholic Church trying to suppress their break away sects. The Anabaptists have embraced this part of their heritage to such an extent that the book Martyrs Mirror, which describes the deaths of Anabaptist Martyrs in the 16th and 17th century, is still widely owned and read in Mennonite and Amish households (see Anabaptist persecution for more).

The 20th century again saw large numbers of Christians martyred by non-Christians, in persecutions by political authorities that have antipathy directed towards particular faiths, or religion in general. Allegedly this has included the Soviet Union and early People's Republic of China. The Russian Orthodox Church in post-Soviet times termed many of those who died for this faith "New Martyrs", meaning that it was the 2nd greatest persecution of Christians since I-III AD. The Taliban regime had been known as well to mount another wave of persecutions, although this has received less international attention, given its scale.

Many church historians believe that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in the first 19 centuries combined. This claim is clearly difficult to confirm.

In Islam

See also: Persecution of Muslims

In Arabic, a martyr is termed "shaheed" (literally, "witness"). The concept of the shaheed is discussed in the Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad; the term does not appear in the Qur'an in the technical sense, but the later exegetical tradition has read it to mean martyr in the few passages that it does appear in. The first martyr in Islam was the old woman Sumayyah bint Khabbab, the first Muslim to die at the hands of the polytheists of Mecca (specifically, Abu Jahl). A famous person widely regarded as a martyr - indeed, an archetypal martyr for the Shia - is Husayn bin Ali, who died at the hands of the forces of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I at Karbala. The Shia commemorate this event each year at Aashurah.

Muslims who die in a legitimate jihad bis saif (struggle with the sword, or Islamic holy war) are typically considered shahid. This usage became controversial in the late 20th century, when (due to the Islamic strictures against suicide) it began to be applied to suicide bombers, e.g. those belonging to Islamist and Palestinian nationalist groups, whose victims often included civilians.

The concept of heroic martyrdom is termed "Istish-haad".

Martyrdom today

The term has since been used metaphorically for people killed in a historical struggle for some cause, or those whose deaths served to galvanize a particular movement. In this sense, people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. can be regarded as martyrs, as they were assassinated trying to change the status quo through nonviolent means.

Other examples include (some disputed):

• John Brown
• Che Guevara
• Patrice Lumumba
• Harvey Milk

See also

• Christian anarchism
• Martyrology
• List of martyrs Màrtir

Martyr Märtyrer Mártir Martiro Martyr מרטיר Martyr Vértanú Martelaar 殉教 Martyr Martyrologia Martir Мученик Marttyyri Martyr