Clerics: Suicide bombers go to hell, unless they do it for the right reasons

For a moment there they almost sounded...human.

On Wednesday, top Islamic clerics at the Supreme Council of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, perhaps the most important in the Islamic world, said that the Islamic rule (Shaaria) forbids suicide, the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

The clerics determined that a connection was mistakenly made between suicide and a "sacrifice to defend religion and the homeland". The clerics stressed that the faith of those who commit suicide is no less than hell.

"Those who commit suicide bombings in the name of religion are not Muslims but rather people who sold their soul to the devil," Islamic clerics ruled. "They didn't understand the principle of the religion according to which there is no killing allowed, except by law."

"There is a difference between jihad and terror, between sacrificing yourself and suicide," said Dr. Mohammad Rafat Othman, a member ofthe Jurisprudence Research Committee of the Islamic Research Academy, Al-Azhar.

Alas, it all fell apart in the end:

"Those using suicide bombing against the enemy, the land robbers, and the occupier of nations, are martyrs," he concluded.