Suicide Bomber Denied 72 Virgins; Forgot To Yell ‘Allahu Akbar’

He will be allowed to watch as others are provided their allotment of six dozen virgins.

Rafah, Egypt, July 1 – Mustafa Ali Al-Masri, 22, blew himself up in this Egyptian border town today, injuring six paramilitary police, but will not be permitted to enjoy the full extent of Paradise because he neglected to yell, “God is great” as he committed the act.

Al-Masri, who joined the local Islamic State affiliate in the Sinai last year, had attempted to inflict as many casualties as possible on Egyptian government forces as part of a larger wave of simultaneous attacks over the last day that have killed dozens. Wearing a vest outfitted with explosives, he jumped from a moving vehicle into a group of assembled police, detonating the explosives as he landed. Heavenly sources said Al-Masri must have been focusing exclusively on the physical feat of jumping properly at the right moment, and simply forgot to shout the declamation necessary for admission to all the sumptuous delights of the Afterlife.

“Mr. Al-Masri will be welcomed into Heaven, for he has performed a feat of courage and dedication,” explained the Archangel Gabriel. “However, his final deed was lacking in completeness, which betrays an unfortunate lack of complete devotion. That devotion would have been demonstrated and enhanced by declaring the greatness of Allah while dying in His name.”

Instead, explained the angel, Al-Masri would be allowed to watch as others were provided their allotment of six dozen virgins. “This young man almost got it right, so he will almost receive what he was striving to achieve,” added Gabriel. “He came tantalizingly close to the shahid ideal, and will therefore be rewarded with a tantalizingly close experience of virgins.”

The Al-Masri episode represents the fifth time in as many months that incoming martyrs have failed to arrive in Islamically perfect fashion. The most prominent case occurred in April, when a dozen Islamic State fighters drove explosives-laden pickup trucks into a Kurdish stronghold in northern Iraq. The battle plan called for the explosives to detonate simultaneously, blasting a large hole in Pesh Merga defensive fortifications, but the commander of the operation, wielding the remote control, did not advise the drivers of the Toyota Hilux vehicles before exploding them. Those fighters were granted admission to Paradise and allowed to partake of the delectable white grape, but nary a virgin was allotted to them.

Calls to reform interpretation and implementation of the 72-virgin reward system have generated little response from Heavenly administration. “We see no reason for people who so zealously promote unquestioning obedience to the Quran and Hadith while living an earthly existence to suddenly begin questioning divine judgment,” said an official statement.