Why Do Young People Commit Suicide?

Before answering this question, we should first ask two questions. Why does a person commit suicide? How can young people at the age of fifteen or sixteen take the chance of death for the sake of Satan, when they are in the spring of their life without any responsibilities, when they do not have to worry about earning a living, when they have no financial worries, when they should be clinging to life?

 It is wrong to ascribe young people’s suicides for the sake of Satan to a single reason. There might be numerous reasons. For a Satanist, to die for the sake of Satan or to take the chance of dying when necessary are sacred ways of dying. In other words, Satanists regard dying for the sake of Satan as a glorious act, in the same light that mainstream religions regard martyrdom. In addition, dying for Satan is a sign of loyalty to him. Therefore, a young person who dies for the sake of Satan proves his or her sincerity to the cause. Moreover, some young people are led into confusion when they chat on the Internet. They are drawn toward dead ends and complications with words like “Satan wants to sacrifice you!” Some young people end up committing suicide. Some are chosen to be sacrifices by ill-intentioned people and encouraged to commit suicide or threatened with death if they fail to do so. It is in this way that Satanists make their sacrifices.

The notes left by young people who have committed suicide contain messages like, “We have sold our souls to Satan.” “Satan sent us a message and ordered us to die.” “We understood that life is empty and it would be meaningless to live here any more.” One of the three suspects who were accused of having killed Sehriban C. as a sacrifice for Satan in Ortakoy, Istanbul, said in the trial at the Second Criminal Court that he had been receiving messages from Satan: “There is a certain agreement between Satan and me. At first, I was hearing voices. I thought they were all in my head for a long time. Then Satan started to talk to me. He gave me orders. He has been leading me for a year. Once I didn’t carry out his order and he punished me. My arm became swollen. I have no religious beliefs. Satan told me that I was his messenger. And I do not belong to this world. I’m fed up with life. ‘Take me,’ I said. He said, ‘First prove yourself, then I’ll do it.’ One day he ordered me to sacrifice a girl. I had to prove that I was the messenger of Satan. I did it with Zinnur and Omer. Satan congratulated me. I passed a great test.”

 This statement reveals that such young people are suffering a spiritual emptiness, have psychological problems, and were not brought up in such a way that would enable them to become aware of the realities of society and values. Here a question springs to mind: Do people really receive messages from Satan? Indeed, Satan can inspire people. One does not have to be Satanist to be inspired. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said, “Every person has a Satan.”[1] Also, the Holy Qur’an mentions that the evil ones inspire their friends (6:121). Satan has no authority over people. His sole duty is to encourage people to do evil and to deny God (14:22). He cannot influence good people, however, to follow Satan or not is a matter of human will. Thus, Satan can inspire not only Satanists but also any other person whose willpower is weak. The question is whether one heeds Satan’s inspirations and misinformation.

The fact that young people who drift toward Satanism and attempt or commit suicide for its sake in Turkey are mostly children of wealthy families and are in general better educated than the norm, according to Turkish standards, leads us to the question: “Is there something wrong with the Turkish educational system?” I believe that we can find the answer to similar questions in the words of a young graduate of a foreign school in Turkey who had attempted suicide and was saved at the last moment:

“At school we had difficulty answering questions like ‘Who am I? What do I expect in life? Where will I go? What’s the meaning of life?’ Using drugs... having meaningless conversations... Listening to foreign pop music and memorizing the lyrics... Living in this music and atmosphere as if it were real. These were our favorite pastimes.”

This person also mentioned that the deaths of two of his friends had been covered up. He underlined the fact that they were living in a world of emptiness, away from Europe and isolated within Turkey in the following words:

“Our high school was like an island. Children who had everything lacked sincerity and real friendship. We lived a certain jargon, a subculture in this frame of odd estrangement. We weren’t yet interested in politics. On the other hand, our school taught us how to think. In English and German classes we discussed the meaning of life after reading Kafka, Camus; but the world our foreign teachers took us to was far away. We weren’t living in Europe. We also were completely isolated from Turkish society. If we had been living in Germany, we would have learned individualism, egoism, how to protect our interests from nursery school on. However, everything we wanted was procured immediately, even our breakfast. Our Turkish teachers would enter our classes, yet they were not of the same status as us, and they felt inferior. Foreign teachers would come for a period of 4-5 years and were familiar with neither Turkey nor the Turkish mentality.”

As is evident in these words, some young people read books by writers like Kafka and Albert Camus, books based on existential philosophy. These books tell of how human beings fall in this world and criticizes the meaninglessness of life, encouraging young people to think about the values of the community in which they live. This can be a dangerous thing if a young person does not come from a family with deeply rooted values, or lives in a society where there are no healthy alternatives offered to traditional values.

These young people are brought up in isolation from the history, culture, national and spiritual values of their society, causing them to rebel against their own identity and personality. Such circumstances push young people, if they lack spiritual support, into a spiritual emptiness and finally into a dead end, where the only way out may be suicide. One of the fundamental reasons for such suicides is that these children are being taught nihilist ideals and are being brought up in an artificial environment, an environment which has been transplanted from the West, but one in which only the outward trappings have been taken, and the roots, i.e. the values, have been left behind. This can in no way be a healthy situation; the environment that these children find themselves is foreign to the environment in their families and neighborhoods, and is lacking in everything that supports a young person when growing up. Is it any wonder then that these children end up as suicides?

[1] Tirmidhi, Adab, 78.