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JIHAD
The conventional wisdom prevailing in university campuses today is that Islam does not have a system of holy war. As a Religion of Peace, Islam champions (now and always) non-violence, with war only ever advocated in self-defence.
This contention cannot be supported on either theological or historical grounds. This essay will examine the theology and application of Islamic holy war (jihad) in order to demonstrate that a unique doctrine of holy war exists within the orthodoxy of Islamic teaching.
“Jihad” in Arabic means something akin to “struggle”. Modern apologetic literature seeks to cast jihad as a sort of inner struggle for spiritual peace, but throughout history the dominant understanding of jihad among Muslims has been one of physical struggle – warfare – against unbelievers. The Arabic root word of jihad, jahada, appears in the Qur'an forty times, and thirty-six of these use derivations of the verb form jahida, which refers to physical fighting. References to a tradition of Muhammad in which he refers to a “greater” and “lesser” jihad are dismissed by many Muslims, including the great jurist Ibn Taymiyya, (see no.71) who wrote that this tradition “has no source, nobody whomsoever in the field of Islamic Knowledge has narrated it. Jihad against the disbelievers is the most noble of actions, and moreover it is the most important action for the sake of mankind.” Thus the primary understanding of jihad became one of literal holy war.
The Islamic understanding of this holy war can be best summed up by the orders given by caliph Umar, who ruled the Muslims from 634-644 AD, after he invaded Iraq in 636. According to the Muslim historian al-Tabari (838-923), Umar commanded his lieutenant: “Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.”
This idea is based on the Qur'an and Islamic tradition, and has been enforced throughout Islamic history. The Qur'an commands: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29)
The jizya was a special tax paid by non-Muslim subjects of an Islamic state. Such subjects became dhimmis, “protected peoples”, who lived under Islamic rule, although not with equal dignity and rights to their Muslim masters.
Below are two examples demonstrating the consensus understanding of 9:29 among Muslim scholars. The first comes from Ibn Kathir (d.1373), a renowned commentator whose works are still read and respected today:
“This honorable Ayah [verse] was revealed with the order to fight the People of the Book, after the pagans were defeated, the people entered Allah's religion in large numbers, and the Arabian Peninsula was secured under the Muslims' control. Allah commanded His Messenger to fight the People of the Scriptures, Jews and Christians...
“Allah said, 'until they pay the Jizyah', if they do not choose to embrace Islam, 'with willing submission', in defeat and subservience, 'and feel themselves subdued', disgraced, humiliated and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated.”
This view is reaffirmed in the modern era by Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi (d.1979), one of the most influential Islamic thinkers of the twentieth century:
“The purpose for which the Muslims are required to fight is not as one might think to compel the unbelievers into embracing Islam. Rather their purpose is to put an end to the sovereignty and supremacy of the unbelievers so that the latter are unable to rule over men. The authority to rule should only be vested in those who follow the true faith; unbelievers who do not follow this true faith should live in a state of subordination…Jizyah symbolizes the submission of the unbelievers to the suzerainty of Islam. To pay the jizyah of their own hands “humbled” refers to payment in a state of submission. “Humbled” also reinforces the idea that the believers, rather than the unbelievers, should be the rulers in performance of their duty as God’s vicegerents...
“The simple fact is that according to Islam, non-Muslims have been granted the freedom to stay outside the Islamic fold and to cling to their false, man-made ways if they so wish. They have, however, absolutely no right to seize the reigns of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. For if they are given such an opportunity, corruption and mischief will ensue. In such a situation the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.
“One of the advantages of jizyah is that it reminds the Dhimmis every year that because they do not embrace Islam…they have to pay a price—jizyah—for clinging to their errors.”
The hadith, the written traditions detailing the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, simply elaborate on and explicate this command to wage war on unbelievers. One tradition, which is repeated several times in the hadith collection Muslims consider to be most sacred and reliable, depicts Muhammad saying: “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah” (Sahih Bukhari v.1, b.2, no.24, and others)
The choice of conversion, subjugation as dhimmis or death comes from another canonical hadith tradition:
"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 withold 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." (Sahih Muslim b.19, no.4294)
In the following centuries, Muslim jurists and theologians used these passages and others like them to construct a developed superstructure of jihad war against unbelievers. The rules of offensive jihad to propagate Islam became a part of Islamic law, the sharia. All the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree on the necessity and basic principles of this war. The consensus of the four main Sunni schools – Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi'i – is demonstrated below.
The Maliki jurist Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (d. 996) said:
"Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. Its performance by certain individuals may dispense others from it. We Malikis maintain that it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them."
The Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) said:
"Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought...As for the People of the Book and the Zoroastrians, they are to be fought until they become Muslims or pay the tribute (jizya) out of hand and have been humbled. With regard to the others, the jurists differ as to the lawfulness of taking tribute from them. Most of them regard it as unlawful to take it from heathen Arabs."
From the Hidaya of the Hanafi school (1100s):
"It is not lawful to make war upon any people who have never before been called to the faith, without previously requiring them to embrace it, because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith, and also because the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war...If the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do."
And finally, the Shafi'i scholar Abu'l Hasan al-Mawardi (d.1058) said:
"The mushrikun [infidels] of Dar al-Harb (the House of War) are of two types: First, those whom the call of Islam has reached, but they have refused it and have taken up arms. The amir of the army has the option of fighting them...in accordance with what he judges to be in the best interest of the Muslims and most harmful to the mushrikun...Second, those whom the invitation to Islam has not reached, although such persons are few nowadays since Allah has made manifest the call of his Messenger...it is forbidden to...begin an attack before explaining the invitation to Islam to them, informing them of the miracles of the Prophet and making plain the proofs so as to encourage acceptance on their part; if they still refuse to accept after this, war is waged against them and they are treated as those whom the call has reached."
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), a renowned Muslim philosopher and sociologist who was also a legal theorist, summed up the consensus of Sunni Muslims regarding jihad: “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universality of the [Muslim] mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force...The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense...Islam is under obligation to gain power from other nations.”
Indeed, even Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d.1111), a highly revered Sufi mystic, stressed the necessity for jihad against unbelievers:
“One must go on jihad (i.e. warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year...one may use catapults against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the ahl al-kitab [People of the Book] is enslaved, his marriage is automatically revoked...One may cut down their trees...One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide...they may steal as much food as they need...”
The Shi'ites also agree with the basic premise of jihad war, as demonstrated by this quote from a popular Persian manual of Islamic law written by the Shi'a theologian Muhammad al-Amili (d. 1621): “Islamic Holy war (jihad) against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax.”
In the centuries following Muhammad's death in 632, the Muslims swept out of Arabia and launched an astonishingly swift and brutal invasion of the surrounding peoples. Within only six years they had captured the holiest city of Christendom, Jerusalem. In the following centuries, they expanded their empire as far West as Spain and as far East as India. Every country they invaded, they Islamised. The society of the invaders became based on the rules of the sharia, and the conquered peoples were offered Muhammad's triple choice of conversion, subjugation or death. Many were converted to Islam (often by force), while others were sold into slavery. Both Muslim and non-Muslim sources testify to the brutality of the jihad conquests and the suffering of the non-Muslims who fell victim to them.
This jihad carried on almost unabated for a thousand years, until the Muslims were beaten back from the gates of Vienna on September 11th, 1683. After this crushing defeat, Islam fell into a state of weakness in which it was not capable of waging jihads of the scope that had helped it to expand its hold on two thirds of the Christian world and the whole of Persia and the Indian subcontinent. Although jihad continued, it never reached the ferocity of the first waves, and jihad was de-emphasised in Muslim societies in theory and practice while Islam passed through its period of decline.
By the twentieth century, however, jihad was beginning to reassert itself. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, millions of Armenian dhimmis were slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire in a genocide which the Turkish government still refuses to recognise to this day. In 1965, Indonesian Muslims waged a jihad against the Communists, exterminating between a hundred thousand and five hundred thousand. In 1968, an assembly of Muslim scholars and jurists convened an Islamic conference at the Al-Azhar Academy of Islamic Research. Here, they called for an annihilationist jihad against Israel. Sheik Abdullah Ghoshah, Chief Judge of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, said: “Jihad is legislated in order to be one of the means of propagating Islam. Consequently non-Muslims ought to embrace Islam either willingly through wisdom and good advice or unwillingly through fight and jihad...War is the basis of the relationship between Muslims and their opponents unless there are justifiable reasons for peace, such as adopting Islam.”
In 1979, the Shi'ite theocracy of Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran. Khomeini saw jihad as a “central pillar of faith and action”, fought as part of a “sacred struggle to cleanse the region and the world of Muslim and non-Muslim infidel blasphemy.” The same year, the Afghan jihad to repel the Soviet invasion began, funded by Saudi Arabia and Iran – as well as aid from the United States. Following the forced withdrawal of the Soviets, jihadists from all over the Islamic world declared their intention of creating a global Islamic army. Fighters were sent regularly from Afghanistan to India, Bosnia, Palestine and Africa to further jihad campaigns in those regions.
On the back of this jihad resurgence, numerous Islamic countries adopted sharia-based legal codes in the 1980s and 1990s. Even long-time secular countries like Algeria and Turkey faced hardline Islamic challenges. By the mid-90s the jihad was in full flow. Muslims began to wage formal jihads in India, Thailand, Kashmir, Senegal and Uganda. In Somalia and Sudan, jihads were declared against the Christian populations. Today, jihads are being waged all over the world, and the jihad network has expanded to consist of hundreds of multi-national jihad groups, boasting hundreds of thousands of members.
The institution of Islamic jihad was formulated centuries ago, based upon the words and deeds of Muhammad and his message, the Qur'an. The historical record shows that this jihad theory was put into practice, continuously, across three continents, for more than a millennium. Today, after a temporary period of weakness, jihad is making a comeback, waged by a global network of Muslims who have openly declared their intention to destroy the West. If this jihad is allowed to continue unchecked, without resistance or even recognition, the large-scale conquest and Islamisation of the Dar al-Harb may once more become a brutal reality. All Westerners must understand the uniquely Islamic and orthodox institution of jihad, or the West will not survive.
But it is Muslims themselves who have the most power to resist the jihad. The many millions of peaceful Muslims in the West and in the Islamic world must engage in some self-reflection and take responsibility to end the violence. All civilisations and religions have had to engage in this kind of self-criticism at one time or another; it is not unreasonable or unfair that Islam should do the same. Muslims must work for a reform of Islam, so that the power of the jihad ideology will be blunted and the ever-expanding jihad network will be stopped in its tracks.
On this, everything depends.
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