Previous: Justification for
Violence in Islam, Part I: Introductory Remarks
[4] Islam emerged in seventh-century Arabia in the midst of a
serious socio-economic imbalance between the rich and the poor, and
between extreme forms of individualism and tribal solidarity.
Moreover, it arose in the very spirit of populism of the Abrahamic
faiths, that is, as a moral challenge to humanity to rise above its
personal grudges and pettiness and to respond to God by affirming
belief in God's plan for the whole of humanity and working for its
ultimate realization. Abrahamic faiths tended to dominate the
common expectations founded on the ordinary moral needs and
abilities of the common people. This outlook may be summed up as
"looking to justice in history through community." All the prophets
had stressed just action as the most meritorious religious
activity.1
[5] Accordingly, as a religion with a set of beliefs, decisions,
and practices, Islam embarked on creating its own public order that
would translate the Islamic revelation into a specifically
religious-moral social universe. In this sense, Islam inherently
functioned as an "activist" ideology within a specific
social-political order which it constantly evaluated, calling upon
its adherents either to defend and preserve or to overthrow and
transform. In addition, Islam as a religious ideology is both a
critical assessment of human corporate existence and also a divine
blueprint that awaits implementation to realize God's will on earth
to the fullest extent possible and, if necessary, through
force.
[6] Nevertheless, in view of its recognition of human volition
and innate disposition in negotiating its spiritual destiny, Islam
did not overlook the problems of disbelief and the tensions and
inner stresses it caused in human beings. Rejection of truth and
impairment of moral consciousness were problems that in large
measure had to be resolved by means of appeal to the innate
disposition of human beings--the conscience--which was divinely
guided and which possessed knowledge of good and evil, of godly
existence and impiety. But there were times when this abnormal
condition of human rejection of faith became a threat to the
corporate well-being of the society and caused the spread of
corruption on earth, a corruption that involved more than the
damaging of the individual conscience. Unbelief came to signify not
only a denial of truth, but a threat to the community of the
faithful. Moreover, it came to be identified not only as a
religious wrong, to be punished in the hereafter, but also a moral
wrong, to be corrected in the here and now - by use of force if
necessary. Thus the Qur'anic command:
O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near you, and let
them find in you harshness; and know that God is with the
godfearing. (9:124)
The successive revelation of the Qur'an points to a growing
awareness in the Muslim community that it would have to engage in
armed resistance to the threat posed by those who did not share its
faith and the socio-political implications of that faith.
[7] More immediately, the pre-Islamic Arab tribal culture had
institutionalized military power on which depended the security of
a tribe and even its existence. Primacy among the tribes belonged
to those which were able to protect all their clients, and to
avenge all insults, injuries, and deaths through their military
strength. The Semitic system of retaliatory justice based on 'a
life for a life' in the circumstances of desert life could not
always ensure that crime would not be committed lightly and
irresponsibly. In fact, show of military prowess through warlike
expeditions in order to gain ascendancy among the tribal groupings
was quite common in the pre-Islamic Arabia. Against this
background, the legitimate use of force prescribed by the Qur'an
was merely to provide appropriate moral restrictions on the use of
military power to resolve conflicts.2
[8] Inasmuch as the Qur'an introduced the injunction
legitimizing the use of force through the instrumentality of jih_d,
it was responding to moral-religious and political conditions
prevalent in the seventh century Arabia. The following passage of
the Qur'an illustrates the moral restrictions and religious
sanctions that were being introduced to curb prevalent violence in
the tribal society:
O believers, prescribed for
you is retaliation, touching the slain; freeman for freeman, slave
for slave, female for female. But if aught is pardoned a man by his
brother, let the pursuing be honorable, and let the payment be with
kindliness. That is a lightening granted you by your Lord, and a
mercy; and for him who commits aggression after that - for him
there awaits a painful chastisement. (2:178)
[9] To be sure, the Qur'anic legitimation of jih_d in the
meaning of fighting in the verse 2:193 where the commandment is
declared in no uncertain terms: "Fight them (i.e. those who fight
with you), till there is no persecution and the religion be only
for God" is concerned with the problem of eradication of unbelief
that causes a breakdown in the Islamic public order.3
Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but
begin not hostilities. Lo! God loveth not aggressors. And slay them
wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they
drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter.
(2:190-191)
The permission to fight in the above passage was a response to
the problem posed by the powerful Meccan tribes. The Qur'an
indicates that although unbelief is a religious problem, to be
construed as one dimension of the work of God, unbelief can be, and
in the case of the Meccans was, malicious - a willful act on the
part of human beings who seek to deceive God or to deprive God of
God's rights.
[10] This was a prescriptive measure to arrest the harm caused
to the people at large and to redress the wrongs suffered by the
weak at the hands of those who perpetrated immoral conduct in order
to defeat the divine purposes on earth. In other words, the
"struggle" and the "striving" (primary signification of the word
jih_d) by means of force, as far as the religious attitude was
concerned, underscored the divinely sanctioned endeavor as a
response to actively hostile unbelief. It is not unbelievers as
such who are the target of force, but unbelievers who demonstrate
their hostility to Islam by, for example, persecution of the
Muslims. In other words, it is not merely the negative attitude to
religion per se that sanctions the use of force; it is the
hostility to which it leads that makes it a prior moral offense and
which requires a response with force.
[11] The need for the use of force first became evident when the
Muslims under the leadership of the Prophet established the first
Islamic polity, in Medina. As willful disobedience, the unbelief of
the Meccan tribes became a problem with moral as well as religious
dimensions for the public order. The Qur'an indicates that various
kinds of action were appropriate for the Prophet and the community
to deal with this situation. The important point to underscore here
is that the more the Qur'an stresses the moral aspects of the
problem of unbelief (e.g., Meccan persecution of the Muslims, their
expulsion of the innocent from their homes) the more the use of
force is justified.
[12] The use of force, then, as far as the Qur'an is concerned
is defensive, and limited to the violation of interpersonal human
conduct. For the Qur'an it is crucial to emphasize its defensive
strategy in dealing with the problem of human violence stemming
from human rejection of faith. Nonetheless, in the historical
development of the relationship between Islam and power, Muslim
jurists regarded this explicitly Qur'anic principle of defensive
warfare as abrogated. They maintained that fighting was obligatory
for the Muslims, even when the unbelievers had not begun
hostilities.4
This accommodation with the historical practice of jih_d is not
uncommon in the works of the jurists.
[13] What happens when unbelief among the Peoples of the Book
(Jews and Christians), who are otherwise tolerated as non-Muslim
monotheists, takes the form of disregard for the moral standards
prescribed by the Islamic public order? The Qur'an prescribes:
Fight those who believe not
in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what God and His
Messenger have forbidden - such men as practice not the religion of
truth, being those who have been given the Book - until they pay
the tribute out of hand and have been humbled.
(9:29)
[14] There is no other place in the Qur'an than this above-cited
verse where there remains room to interpret its directive to combat
disbelief as going beyond the consistent defensive posture that
must be adopted by the Muslim public order. And, yet it is the
moral clause in the verse ("do not forbid what God and His
messenger have forbidden") which is within the jurisdiction of the
community to assess its negative impact and respond accordingly.
Although Muslim community, according to the Qur'an, was one among
many divinely guided communities such as the Jewish and Christian,
all equally sharing in their blessed Abrahamic origin, soon after
the establishment of Muslim political power, Muslim community saw
Islam as a political ideology that was first to rule over and then
to supersede all other communities. Islam was to usher the true and
uncorrupted divine guidance to humankind, creating the world-wide
society in which the Qur'an and the Prophetic paradigm, the Sunna,
would be the everyday norm of all the nations. Islam, Muslims
believed, must guide the practical policies of a cosmopolitan world
under its sphere of influence, the d_r al-isl_m.
Next: Justification for
Violence in Islam, Part III: Jih_d as a Defensive Strategy or a
Means of "Calling"?
© February
2003
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 3, Issue 2
1 Marshall G. S. Hodgson, on "The World Before Islam,"
Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) I,
103ff provides one of the most detailed introductions to Islam by
undertaking the discussion of the Abrahamic roots of the Islamic
tradition and highlighting the populist as well as confessional
characteristics of Islam that it shares with the other Semitic
religions.
2 See our joint venture entitled: Human Rights and the
Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious
Liberty, co-authored with David Little and John Kelsay (University
of South Carolina Press, 1988) for the justification and
restriction in use of force.
3 According to Mumammad b. JarAr al-mabarA, TafsAr
(Beirut: D_r al-Ma&=javascript:goNote(39_rif, 1972), takes the
word fimna ('dissension') to mean shirk, that is, a form of
disbelief in which a person would ascribe divinity to things not
worthy of such ascription. Other Qur'anic exegetes agree with
mabarA on this point. See, for instance, al-BaymawA, Anw_r
al-tanzAl (Cairo, 1887), p. 41.
4 See the article "Djih_d" in Encyclopedia of Islam
(London: E. J. Brill, 1970), 2nd edition, 2/538 for the opinions of
Muslim jurists.