Beschreibung:
<jats:p> The 1979 Islamic revolution gave rise in Iran to a new social actor, the revolutionary martyr. This article attempts to illustrate how different types of martyr emerged at different periods of the revolution and that one type - numerically small but sociologically significant - is the martyropath: one who seeks death on the battlefield, overwhelmed by despair at the non-arrival of the Islamic utopia. This type of martyr presents a particular image of the body, of politics, of life and of the world, an image which culminates in a mortiferous (or death-wishing) form of religion. Mortiferous Islam is the consequence of the failure of the Iranian revolution to bring about an Islamic utopia. Martyropaths seek refuge in a sacred death in order to escape being crushed by the intensity of their guilt. Their religiosity sacralizes their despair. Islamic power makes use of such people to destroy political opposition, exploiting both their aggression and their hate for those who oppose them. The role of the Guide in Khomeini's revolution is crucial in this process, in that the Guide exhorts would-be martyrs to die, and in so doing encourages their existing death wish. The Guide becomes, paradoxically, the spokesman for the group as a whole. </jats:p>