I came home this evening to be greeted with front page news of bomb blasts with gory images. My thought pattern was why can't the Govt take decisive action on this boko menace-why is islam a ready made haven for terrorist-why not Christianity,Atr,hinduism and other religions? My head almost exploded with self inflicted questions. I had to turn to google for a quick search. Let it be known that I enjoy listening to khalid yasin audio tapes to draw from beauties in islam and also listen to Yusuf of Acadip throw shades at Christians. Is holy war against Christians and Jews
—“infidels”—a perversion of Islam? Here’s the
evidence, from Islamic texts and history.
by Mark Hartwig, Ph.D.
For Westerners, the Arabic word jihad has long had
an ominous ring—conjuring up a host of images,
from turbaned warriors swinging scimitars to wild-
eyed fanatics waving Kalashnikov rifles. We
instinctively associate the word with “holy war.”
Given the history of Western-Islamic relationships,
that’s not surprising. In the century immediately
following the death of Muhammad (632), Muslim
forces conquered lands stretching from the borders
of China and India to Spain’s Atlantic coast. Historian
Bernard Lewis notes:
For almost a thousand years ... Europe was under
constant threat. In the early centuries it was a
double threat—not only of invasion and conquest,
but also of conversion and assimilation. All but
the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm
had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast
majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and
Arabia were converts from Christianity. North
Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had
been Christian countries, in which Christianity was
older and more deeply rooted than in most of
Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened
the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe.
[1]
It is not surprising, then, that the word jihad would
be understood by most Westerners to mean “holy
war.” But is that what it really means? And how does
that square with the claim that Islam is a peaceful
religion?
WHAT’S IN A WORD?
Muslims claim that jihad does not mean holy war.
Technically, they are correct.
In Arabic, the word jihad literally means “struggle” or
“striving.” It is related to the word, jahada, defined as
“exerting one’s utmost power, efforts, endeavors or
ability in contending with an object of [disapproval]
.”[2] In the Quran, the word is often part of a larger
phrase “jihad in the path of God.”
Jihad may be waged against a variety of targets: a
human enemy, one’s own evil desires, even Satan.
Contemporary Muslim societies often use the word
jihad the way Americans use the word crusade.
Hence, authorities in a Muslim country might
declare, say, a “jihad against drugs.”
So there are several kinds of jihad recognized within
Islam: “Jihad of the heart,” which is the struggle
against oneself; “jihad of the tongue” or “jihad of the
pen,” which involve persuasion, exhortation and
instruction for the cause of Islam; “jihad of the
sword;” and so on.[3]
Still, the primary meaning of jihad is physical
combat. According to Reuven Firestone, professor of
medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College
in Los Angeles, “When the term is used without
qualifiers such as ‘of the heart’ or ‘of the tongue’ ... it
is universally understood as war on behalf of Islam
(equivalent to “jihad of the sword”), and the merits of
engaging in such jihad are described plentifully in the
most-respected religious works.”[4]
JIHAD IN EARLY ISLAM
Jihad as physical warfare features prominently in the
earliest Islamic writings. The Quran alone contains
many verses about it.
Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik, a Muslim, points out
that “the Quranic injunctions cover the causes and
object of war; its nature and characteristics; limits
and extents; dimensions and restraints.”[5] The
Quran even goes into strategy and tactics, and
critiques some Muslim battles.
Taken at face value, the verses in the Quran about
warfare seem ambiguous and contradictory. In some
places, for example, the Quran urges Muhammad
and Muslims to confront opposition with patience
and persuasion. These have been called “Verses of
Forgiveness and Pardon”:[6]
Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and
beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways
that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord
knoweth best, who have strayed from His path,
and who receive guidance. (16:125)[7]
Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel (evil)
with what is better. (41:34)
In other places, it gives them permission to engage in
retaliatory or defensive fighting:
To those against whom war is made, permission
is given (to fight), because they are wronged—and
verily, God is most powerful for their aid—(They
are) those who have been expelled from their
homes in defiance of right (for no cause) except
that they say, “our Lord is God.” (22:39-40a)
In yet other places, the Quran seems to command
offensive warfare against unbelievers:
Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it.
But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is
good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad
for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not.
(2:216)
But when the forbidden months are past, then
fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them,
and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for
them in every stratagem (of war); but if they
repent, and establish regular prayers and practice
regular charity, then open the way for them: for
God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. (9:5)
Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last
Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been
forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor
acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they
are) of the People of the Book (Christians and
Jews), until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing
submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29).
Early Islamic scholars resolved the conflict by
appealing to a kind of progressive “revelation” that
was tailored to fit Muhammad’s and his followers’
circumstances.
When Muhammad first began to receive “revelations”
from God, in 610, he lived in Mecca, a major center
of polytheistic worship. As he preached his
monotheistic message, he encountered indifference
and then growing resistance. Over 13 years,
persecution against him and his small band of
followers eventually became so severe that they
finally left Mecca and emigrated to Medina (then
known as Yathrib) about 220 miles to the north.
In Medina, Muhammad gathered many followers—
along with political and military power. After eight
years of raids and battles, he conquered Mecca and
instituted Islam in place of the city’s polytheism.
According to Firestone, “Muslim scholars came to the
conclusion that the scriptural verses regarding war
were revealed in direct relation to the historic needs
of Muhammad during his prophetic mission. At the
beginning of his prophetic career in Mecca when he
was weak and his followers few, the divine
revelations encouraged avoidance of physical
conflict.”
After the intense persecutions that caused
Muhammad and his followers to emigrate to Medina,
however, they were given leave to engage in
defensive warfare. As the Muslim community grew in
strength, further revelations broadened the
conditions under which war could be waged, “until it
was concluded that war against non-Muslims could
be waged virtually at any time, without pretext, and in
any place.”[8]
The later verses, known as the “Sword Verses” (9:5
and 9:29), were considered by Muslim scholars to
have cancelled the previous verses mandating
kindness and persuasion. Expansionist jihad became
the explicit norm.
Rudolph Peters, professor of Islamic Law and Law of
the Middle East at the University of Amsterdam,
observes, “The crux of the doctrine is the existence of
one single Islamic state, ruling the entire umma
[Muslim community]. It is the duty of the umma to
expand the territory of this state in order to bring as
many people under its rule as possible. The ultimate
aim is to expand the territory of this state in order to
bring the whole earth under the sway of Islam and to
extirpate unbelief.”[9]
After the initial, massive conquests of Islam ended in
the eighth century, Muslim jurists ruled that the
caliph (the supreme Muslim ruler) “had to raid
enemy territory at least once a year in order to keep
the idea of jihad alive.”[10]
This was the dominant view of jihad until modern
times. If anything, the last Islamic empire—the
Ottoman Empire—was even more zealous about
expansionist jihad than the early empires.[11]
CONVERT OR DIE
The Quran teaches that people should not be
converted by force: “Let there be no compulsion in
religion” (2:256a).
Nonetheless, the doctrine of jihad has led many to
allege that Islam was spread by the sword. This is a
fair charge, but it needs to be qualified.
Muslims follow not only the Quran, which they
believe is a literal transcript of God’s words, but also
the Hadith, accounts of Muhammad’s words and
deeds. These words and deeds are considered
inspired by God and an example for Muslims to
follow. According to one widely accepted hadith,
whenever Muhammad would send an out expedition,
he would admonish his appointed commander:
When you meet your enemies who are
polytheists, invite them to three courses of action.
If they respond to any one of these, you also
accept it and withhold yourself from doing them
any harm. Invite them to [accept] Islam; if they
respond to you, accept it from them and desist
from fighting against them. ... If they refuse to
accept Islam, demand from them the jizya. If they
agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off
your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek
Allah’s help and fight them.[12]
The jizya, a kind of tribute, was part of a larger deal
in which non-Muslims submitted to several
conditions. In addition to paying the jizya, non-
Muslims were also required to wear distinctive
clothing and mark their houses (which must not be
built higher than Muslims’ houses), must not
scandalize Muslims by openly performing their
worship services, nor build new churches or
synagogues. Those who owned land were also
required to pay a land tax.[13]
According to some Muslim jurists, the jizya had to be
paid by each person at a humiliating public
ceremony, in which the person was struck on the
head or the nape of the neck. According to historian
Bat Ye’or, this ceremony “survived unchanged till the
dawn of the twentieth century.”[14]
Both the jizya and the land tax were often extorted
through torture, and were frequently so exorbitant
that whole villages would flee or go into hiding.
Technically, then, Christians and Jews were not
forced to accept Islam at the point of a sword. But
their treatment nonetheless placed them under
severe pressure to convert.
And many idolaters were not even allowed to pay the
jizya. They were forced to either convert or die.
BLUNTING THE SWORD
By the late 1600s, the Islamic Ottoman Empire had
pushed the frontiers of Islam as far west as Austria.
After being repelled from the walls of Vienna in 1683,
however, the empire became less and less of a
threat.
With the rise of Western power, expansionist jihad
became harder to maintain. Historian Bernard Lewis
observes that defense eventually “became the pattern
of jihad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as
one Muslim country after another was threatened
and then conquered by Christian European
powers.”[15]
In addition to being put on the defensive militarily,
Muslims were increasingly confronted with Western
institutions and ideas. Some Muslim thinkers, notes
Peters, were “convinced of the superiority of the
West and Western culture [and] tried to show that
Islam was a ‘respectable’ religion that fostered the
same values as Christendom and Western
civilization.”[16]
Other Muslims were less impressed with Western
ideas and resented what they perceived as unfair
criticism from Western scholars who viewed Islam as
an aggressive religion. After all, during their
lifetimes, they had only seen Islam on the retreat.
They sought to defend Islam from what they
perceived as colonialist propaganda.
Both groups of Muslim thinkers reinterpreted jihad
as defensive warfare: The Sword Verses commanding
Muslims to slay the pagans were directed not at
unbelievers in general, but at the hostile Jews,
Christians and Arab polytheists who fought against
Muhammad because they hated his religion.
By this view, the Sword Verses do not abrogate the
other verses. Rather, according to one of the leading
Muslim scholars of the mid-1900s, the Verses of
Forgiveness and Pardon remain “fixed and
unassailable.”[17]
This is considered a "modernist" interpretation of
jihad, and those who embrace it consequently attach
a great deal of importance to the nonmilitary forms
of jihad (e.g., jihad of the heart, pen and so on).
It is unclear, however, just how many people
subscribe to this view. For one thing, some of the
writings were designed to make Muslims look better
to their colonial rulers. In India, for example, the
British tended to favor Hindus over Muslims partly
because of the doctrine of jihad. Some Muslim
writers tried to counter that problem by denying
expansionist jihad—and even some aspects of
defensive jihad.[18]
Moreover, these writings exist side by side with other
writings that expound the traditional view. Such
traditional writings euphemize expansionist jihad,
but include it as a legitimate option. One often-cited
text calls it warfare for “idealistic” reasons, and
justifies it by arguing, “Every nation has its own ideals
which constantly inspire it. The deeper a nation is
convinced of them, the greater is its effort to realize
them. ... It is this mission to uproot godlessness and
[polytheism] that is referred to in Islamic literature
by the expression, ‘in the path of God,’ which we have
translated as ‘idealistic’ reasons for waging war.”[19]
THE REVOLUTIONARIES
The modernist interpretation is also taking heat from
growing numbers of Islamic fundamentalists, who
contend that those promoting that interpretation
suffer from “defeatist and apologetic mentalities.”[20]
They have recast jihad as an ongoing “Islamic world
revolution.”[21]
The intellectual father of Islamic fundamentalism is
Sayyid Qutb (1903-1966). According to Bassam Tibi,
professor of international relations at the University
of Göttingen, his writings “can be compared, in terms
of spread and influence, with the Communist
Manifesto.”[22]
An Egyptian teacher, Qutb came to New York and
Greeley, Colorado in 1948-1950 for further training.
During his stay he was stung by Americans’ anti-Arab
sentiments and repulsed by their materialism and
sexual looseness.
As a result of this experience, Tibi said, Qutb
“returned to Egypt as a furious anti-American and
anti-Western Muslim intent on laying the groundwork
for a vision of Islam that would offer an alternative to
that of the West.”[23] His writings captured the
imagination of many Muslims, and his status only
grew when the Egyptian government executed him in
1966 for subversion.
Qutb believed that “mankind today is on the brink of
a precipice ... because humanity is devoid of those
vital values which are necessary not only for its
healthy development, but also for its real
progress.”[24]
He asserted that mankind will never find salvation in
manmade laws—whether those of Western Europe
and North America or those of the Communist
countries. Salvation can only be achieved by
replacing manmade laws and institutions with God’s
rule alone. Mankind must adopt Islamic law in total,
and give up such notions as democracy, which
derives its authority from people rather than God.
Qutb declared that anyone who doesn’t accept God’s
law in every respect—including professed Muslims—
is an unbeliever: “Whoever observes something other
than God’s revelations in his judgment not only
rejects a particular aspect of Godhead but also
claims for himself certain qualities of Godhead. If
that is not unbelief, I wonder what is. For what use is
a verbal claim of being a believer ... when such action
denies such a claim?”[25]
As unbelievers, such people may be fought by
physical means. Indeed, they must be fought because
they will not peaceably relinquish the ability to
legislate for themselves:
It is not that Islam loves to draw its sword and
chop off people’s heads with it. The hard facts of
life compel Islam to have its sword drawn and to
be always ready and careful. God knows that
those who hold the reigns of power are hostile to
Islam and that they will always try to resist it.[26]
This was the ideology followed by the militants who
assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981.
It is also the ideology that is behind most Islamic
terrorism today—including that of Osama bin Laden
and his al-Qaida network.
THE REAL THING
Modernist interpretations notwithstanding, it is clear
that military jihad—even in its expansionist form—is
an authentic part of Islam.
No matter how you cut it, Muhammad was not only a
religious leader, but a military leader who waged war
against his enemies as soon as he had the means.
Following his example, Muslims quickly carved out
an enormous empire. And what ended Muslim
expansion was not a change of heart or doctrine, but
European military might.
Furthermore, the traditional doctrine of jihad
remains alive to this day.
This means that Christians should not accept the
sweeping claim that Islam is a religion of peace.
There’s just too much contrary evidence.
On the other hand, Christians shouldn’t jump to the
conclusion that their Muslim neighbors are bomb-
toting fanatics: Even Muslims who believe in militant
jihad don’t necessarily like violence.
Instead of fearing or hating Muslims, Christians
should view them in light of our duty to preach the
gospel. For as 2 Tim. 1:7 reminds us, “God has not
given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and
of a sound mind.”[27]
Mark Hartwig, Ph.D., has followed Islamic issues for
several years. In 1999, he traveled on assignment to
Sudan, to cover the war that the Islamic government
was waging against its people in the south. Please do share your thoughts. |
