The Attitude to Suicide in some Major Religions – A Brief Survey

This article is motivated by two previous articles of mine here at read.cash: Suicide is not Painless, which is a text about health, and, above all, Seppuku, Ritual Suicide, which is a part of my series about Japanese cultural history.

No doubt, the Japanese attitude to suicide is spectacular. But how is it in other cultures?

I am not pretending to exhaust the subject, let's just look at a few interesting points.

Secular Society

Contemporary Western, secularised society increasingly tends to accept suicide as a personal choice of the individual, although that is strongly linked to the diminishing influence of religion in those societies, and such acceptance is less or none in circles or places where religion is still strong. Most major religions have strong opinions about suicide, however, and general acceptance is low. But there are exceptions, special situations when suicide is permitted.

Christianity

The Christian view is that suicide is a sin and that those having committed it where not allowed a regular funeral, or even to be buried amongst others. They had to be buried outside the regular graveyard, or they had to be taken into the graveyard by stealth. It is, we can say, the Catholic view, reflected also in Protestantism. This, however, originated with the thinkers of the Middle Ages, such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. We find only parts of it in, for instance, Byzantine (Orthodox) Christianity, and some Christians completely deny that the sixth commandment applies to suicide. This is a question about how to interpret the sixth commandment, a question I will not discuss further here.

Judaism

Judaism is not altogether consistent either. It does condemn suicide while at the same time accepting it as a form of martyrdom in certain cases. There are even examples of mass suicide, for example the well-known Siege of Masada in the year 73 BC, when the 960 inhabitants committed mass suicide in the face of entering Roman troops.

Islam

Islam is very clear on the point of suicide. In the Qur'an, An-Nisaa' 4:29, it is explicitly stated:

“And do not kill yourself...”

There are also a number of Ahadith about suicide. Bukhari relates:

Abu Hurairah narrated:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hellfire and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself shall keep on stabbing himself in the Hellfire."

Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak narrated:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "…whoever commits suicide with a piece of iron will be punished with the same piece of iron in the Hellfire.”

Jundab narrated:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him.

Hinduism

Hinduism rejects suicide, although in certain special cases it accepts Prayopavesa, the right to end one's life by starving oneself to death. It also traditionally accepts and encourages Sati, that the widow of a man should kill herself by burning on his funeral pyre.

“A wife who dies in the company of her husband shall remain in heaven as many years as there are hairs on his person.”

(Garuda Purana 1.107.29)

Having been outlawed for a long time, this practise has gradually disappeared from modern India.

According to various historical travellers (14th & 15th century), the practice of Sati was once also observed in Champa (in present Vietnam), Cambodia, a large part of present Indonesia, Megui (in present Burma), and the Philippines. Probably it spread along with other aspects of Indian and Hindu culture.

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