<p>Martyrdom is the execution of a religious believer who has chosen death over apostasy. This is the ideal type, or pure form, of martyrdom, so this definition is much narrower than the broad conception of martyrdom as dying for a cause. Martyrdom is thus distinguished from other ways of dying for a cause such as suicide terrorism, protest suicides, battle deaths, and ordinary executions. Drawing from Donald Black’s theories of law and social control and Jason Manning’s theories of suicide and self-sacrifice, I argue that martyrdom arises from intercultural and intercollective conflicts, and that it is more likely when the group enacting the punishment is more organized than the targeted group, when the two groups are distant along one cultural dimension but closer on others, and when the perpetrator and target groups are each highly solidary.</p>