The Islamic Doctrine of Martyrdom Until the End of Companions’ Era

This study aims to explore the attitude of the early Muslims to the concept of martyrdom and then present a hypothesis for evolving this doctrine from the beginning when the term was used in its famous meaning and Muslims saw martyrdom as the highest value and ideal that only could be achieved on the battlefield, until they gradually came to believe that there would be another way to achieve such an ideal. It discovers the historical trajectory of the issuance of Islamic narrations about martyrdom through assuming the validity of these narrations. As we will see, the dominion of the examples of martyrdom was extended in the time of the Prophet (PBUH). Then in the last days of his time and afterwards at the age of Islamic conquers, martyrdom was considered a way to find the heresy of the sin of hypocrisy. After conquers, the way to reach martyrs’ rank was extended. Finally, in the age of Companions, some prayers and religious deeds were regarded as the way to martyrs’ position so that the value of martyrdom was used to spread other rituals.