There is no compulsion in religion…………. (Quran, 2:256)
….………..kill the polytheists wherever you find them……………. (Quran, 9:5)…………….Fight against those who don’t believe in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, and those who don’t acknowledge the religion of truth (i.e., Islam) amongst the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued (Quran, 9:29).
Aren’t these verses contradictory? How can the Quran talk about religious tolerance as well as fighting, killing, and subduing the disbelievers at the same time? Are the Muslims supposed to kill or subjugate the non-Muslims whenever they get a chance to do so? Is Islam a religion of peace or an ideology that perpetuates war?
To sum it all up, the chief technical question here is: Is the warfare type of jihad in Islam only defensive in its scope or is it also offensive/expansionist in nature?
Modernist-reformist voices claim the former while all classical Muslim scholars upheld the validity of offensive-expansionist jihad in the sense that an Islamic state is allowed/encouraged/obligated to wage war against another nation to remove any obstacles in the way of the spread of Islam or simply to expand the ‘daar-al-Islam’ (the political dominion of Islam)!
Under Note 1, I’ve quoted one scholar each from the Salafi and the Jamaat-e-Islami/Ikhwani groups of Muslims, two of the largest and most influential movements of the 20th and 21st century world of Islam, that echo the same sentiments.
As Dr.Ahmed Al-Dawoody states in his paper ‘Armed Jihad in the Islamic Legal Tradition’:
“The majority of classical and contemporary Muslim jurists including the Hanafīs, Mālikīs, and Hanbalīs agree that the Islamic justifications for armed jihad are aggression of the enemies and the religious persecution of the Muslims. These justifications render armed jihad as a defensive war, although they added the prevention of Muslim preachers from calling people to Islam in non-Muslim territories as one of the justifications for going to war.
Grounding their opinion on the theory of abrogation that texts 9:5 and 9:29 abrogated all previous texts on the subject, a minority of the classical Muslim jurists including al-Shāfi‘ī (d.204/820)…..and Ibn Hazm (d.456/1064)…..maintain that armed jihad is justified against non-Muslims until they believe in Islam or pay the jizyah. (Afsaruddin 2007, p.167)………..Peters’ PhD thesis on the subject, which is published under the title Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (1979), is also very authoritative because he…….studies many classical and modern Islamic legal sources. The aim of jihad, Peters concludes, is “the expansion—and also defense—of the Islamic state.” (Peters 1977, p.3)” (End quote) (Emphasis mine)
So the key question that arises is as follows.
What spawns the classical offensive interpretation?
It stems from the following approaches:
i. Supremacist mindset: Having a superiority complex that screams ‘Islam is the only truth and we have the right to govern the world according to the system of truth. Those who oppose the spread of truth must be shown their place!’
ii. Plus holding on to the theory of abrogation: the idea that parts of the Quran revealed later can nullify/abrogate previously revealed parts, for instance a later militant/offensive surah/chapter of the Quran, surah at-Taubah, is believed to have abrogated the previous peaceful/humanitarian/defensive verses of the Quran as in surah Baqarah (chapter no.2) and many others.
iii. Plus treating the ahadith/akhbar-e-ahaad corpus as a primary source of Islam: hence taking in conjunction with surah Taubah those ahadith1,2,3,4,5,6,7 that mention the Prophet was commanded by God to fight non-Muslims until they converted to Islam and followed its primary laws! That is, they don’t restrict this command to the Prophet alone but go on to take it upon themselves too and apply it to non-Muslims of later generations also.
I’ve written in detail about the theory of abrogation and its impact on the doctrine of Jihad in chapter two of my book. I’ll present a recap of the same content below to demonstrate how different opinions on the theory of abrogation lead to different viewpoints on the issue of defensive versus offensive jihad.
The modernist opinion: Held by several Muslim scholars like Javed Ahmad Ghamidi asserts that jihad is supposed to be defensive only.
i. Comes from a more humanitarian and/or defensive mindset: in sync with modern realities wherein Muslims don’t have the political and military upper hand that they had until the 18th century C.E.
ii. Plus taking the Quran as a whole: rejecting the doctrine that humanitarian and peaceful verses of the Quran were abrogated by surah at-Taubah.
iii. Plus not taking ahadith as a primary source of Islam: hence interpreting ahadith in light of/under the broader humanitarian and peaceful framework of the Quran, instead of taking ahadith as independent sources of foundational principles and primary laws parallel to the Quran.
Thus they argue that the reports talking about fighting with the non-Muslims, listed above, were applicable exclusively to the Prophet and not to all Muslims in general, as contended by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi’s doctrine of ‘itmam-e-hujjat’ (or the ‘decisive completion of the proofs of Islam’) that explains why offensive jihad was the sole prerogative of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w). I’ve also explained this in some detail in my article #12 on jihad.
Mufti Kamran Shahzad is another expert on Islam who holds a similar opinion, that in the world after the Prophet, no offensive jihad is to be conducted except against ‘fasaad-fil-ardh’ (oppression and injustice on earth).
The theory of abrogation/‘naskh’ and its impact on the debate of defensive versus offensive jihad
‘Naskh’ is the concept which says that some verses of the Quran were abrogated/repealed/cancelled/abolished/annulled (Quran, 16:101) and replaced by verses revealed later (Quran, 2:106), as also the Prophet was made to forget some verses that were meant to be abrogated (Quran, 87:6,7).
The verse which abrogates is termed in Arabic as ‘Naasikh’, and the one which is abrogated is called ‘Mansookh’.
This concept plays an important role in the derivation of laws from the Quran, because obviously the verse or verses that are abrogated, cannot be used to derive laws from, hence it is important to determine the Naasikh and the Mansookh verses in the Quran if any; but, there is a wide scale difference of opinion amongst the scholars on this issue!
Yasir Qadhi in his book ‘An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quraan’, gives a list of the scholars who have most extensively dealt with this topic of Naskh, and then draws a table of the conclusions drawn by them, in page 251, as follows:
Scholar | Number of verses investigated as possible cases of Naskh | Number of verses concluded as cases of Naskh | |
Classical scholars | Aboo Bakr ibn al Arabee (d.543 A.H) | 297 | 105 |
| Ibn al Jawzee (d.597 A.H) | 247 | 22 | |
| Ibn Hazm (d.456 A.H) | 214 | 214 | |
| Makkee Ibn Abee Taalib (d.437 A.H) | 200 | 0 | |
| Aboo Jafar an Nahaas (d.338 A.H) | 134 | 20 | |
| Jalaluddin as Suyuti (d.911 A.H) | 21 | 20 | |
| Shah Waliullah ad Dehlawi (d.1176 A.H) | 5 | 5 | |
Modern scholars | Mustafa Zayd | 283 | 6 |
| Az Zarqaani | 22 | 12 | |
| Ash Shanqeeti | 7 | 7 |
From ‘An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quraan’, by Yasir Qadhi, pg.251.
The table shows a big difference of opinion amongst the scholars, with the concluded number of naskh cases varying from 0 to 214!
The reasons for such great disagreement are as follows:
(a) It is difficult to determine the cases of naskh with certainty, because the Quran doesn’t categorically specify which verse is abrogated by which verse! So it’s the scholars who try to determine the naasikh and its mansookh counterparts when they see apparent contradictions between verses dealing with the same topic.
As long as the apparent contradiction can be reconciled and resolved, naskh is not considered to have occurred; only if there seems to be no reconciliation possible, only then is naskh said to have occurred.
So, it is obvious that this is an ambiguous and subjective issue, as some scholars would be able to perform great mental gymnastics and stretch their minds to the limit to try to resolve an apparent contradiction, while others might not be as imaginative and hence unable to find a solution to an apparent contradiction would term it a case of naskh, thus rendering the associated mansookh/abrogated verse(s) unfit to derive laws from.
So this matter depends on the differential analytical abilities of the individual scholars, hence a subjective and disputable domain!
(b) One of the conditions of naskh is that the naasikh verse must have been revealed after the mansookh verse. This chronology is determined from the ahadith (records of the traditions and sayings of Muhammad), if not mentioned in or inferred from the Quran itself. This again is quite an ambiguous task because neither the ahadith nor the Quran provide the chronology of revelation of all the verses which seem to be possible cases of naskh.
(c) Now, there are various possible types of naskh.
According to Yasir Qadhi’s book ‘An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quraan’, chapter 13, they are as follows:
(i) Quranic verse abrogating a Quranic verse.
(ii) Quranic verse abrogating a hadith.
(iii) Mutawaatir (widely narrated) authentic hadith abrogating Quranic verse.
(iv) Ahaad (not widely narrated) authentic hadith abrogating Quranic verse.
(v) Mutawaatir hadith abrogating mutawaatir hadith.
(vi) Mutawaatir hadith abrogating ahaad hadith.
(vii) Ahaad hadith abrogating ahaad hadith.
(viii) Ahaad hadith abrogating mutawaatir hadith.
Note that the mutawaatir ahadith (which are widely narrated) have a higher degree of authenticity and acceptability than the ahaad ahadith (as they are not so widely narrated).
To get more details into the world of ahadith and what the various types of ahadith mean and stand for, read my articles #22 and #23.
Now, according to Yasir Qadhi again, there is difference of opinion amongst the scholars regarding the naskh cases (ii), (iii), (iv) and (viii).
Most scholars reject case (iv), while some consider it valid, like Ash-Shanqeeti (last name in the above table). The reason for those who reject it is that they consider the authority of ahaad ahadith to be less than the Quranic verses.
Case (iii) is allowed by most, like the greats Imam Aboo Haneefah, Imam Maalik, and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (according to one of the two opinions narrated from him), while rejected by the uber influential Imam Shafii. The reason for those who allow this is that they consider the mutawaatir ahadith to be as authoritative as the Quranic verses.
Case (ii) is allowed by almost all except Ash Shafii, the ultra-influential imam; thus there is a considerable degree of difference regarding it.
Case (viii) is rejected by most, while some allow it, like Ash-Shanqeeti.
Going forward, it is obvious that cases (i), (iii) and (iv) directly affect the rulings/laws drawn from the Quran.
Impact of ‘naskh’ on the Quranic interpretation of the concept of offensive jihad
Having understood the ambiguities/problems with the doctrine of naskh, we will now analyze a classic example of the ambiguity regarding naskh, the case of the ‘verse of the sword’ (elaborated under Note 1 below) that has a direct bearing on the issue of offensive jihad.
As per Yasir Qadhi’s book, pg.251-254, the number of verses in the Quran that are abrogated by the ‘verse of the sword’ is widely debated by the scholars, different scholars giving different views, for example according to Abu Bakr Ibn Al Arabi there are 75 verses of the Quran that were abrogated by the ‘verse of the sword’! Similar is the opinion of Ibn Hazm and some others; whereas according to many, it abrogates very few or none of the verses of the Quran, like the scholars in the table who have cited less instances of abrogation.
This disagreement has drastic implications on answering the most crucial question here, that is, is offensive war against non-Muslim nations encouraged by Islam as a means of ideological and/or political expansionism, or is war allowed only for self-defense?
Below are some verses of the Quran that talk about peace, religious tolerance, inter-community harmony, instructing the Muslims to be generous towards the non-Muslims, fighting only in self defense, etc. Let’s term these verses as ‘the peace exhorting verses’ that show the humanitarian side of Islam.
To paraphrase the Quran:
None can be compelled to accept Islam (2:256).
You walk your way, I’ll walk mine. Let’s agree to disagree! (Chapter 109)
Even Allah doesn’t force the non-believers to believe! So who the hell are the Muslims to do that! (10:99)
Absolute freedom to believe or disbelieve. (18:29)
Don’t curse the gods of the polytheists. (6:108)
Be good to those who are good to you. (60:8-9)
Be good to even those who are bad to you, and win them over, somewhat like the sayings of Jesus and Gandhi that if they slap you on one cheek, forward the other one as well. (41:34)
Many of the Jews and Christians wish that they could turn us into disbelievers after we have believed, even after the truth (that Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger) has become manifest to them. But we should forgive and overlook, till Allah brings His Command. (2:109)
Don’t kill the innocent. (5:32)
Fight only in self-defense. (22:39-40)
Fight those who fight against us without committing aggression. Fight and drive them out from where they drove us out. There should be no more hostility except against those who had been guilty of cruelty and brutality. (2:190-193)
Those who break their covenant every time, if we gain mastery over them in war, punish them severely in order to disperse those who are behind them, so that they may learn a lesson. But if they incline to peace, we must also incline to it. (8:55-62)
The above verses impress upon us that the non-believers must not be forced to believe, Islam must be preached to them, but they should be left free to believe whatever they feel like. While preaching to them, if they misbehave with the Muslims, the Muslims should bear that with fortitude, forgive them, and be good to them, so that they might eventually become friends with us.
If the Muslims are persecuted and tortured because of their religion, then in an overwhelmingly unfavorable situation, they should migrate to a friendly place, where they could follow Islam peacefully. If forcefully evicted out of their homes and fought against, then they could raise arms against the persecutors as a measure of self-defense.
Abusing the non-Muslims and their gods is forbidden. Killing the innocents is forbidden.
All this is surely very reasonable, portraying Islam as a tolerant religion which doesn’t believe in forced conversions and allows war only in self-defense. But the analysis below paints a different picture altogether!
The disturbing verses of the Quran: embodied by the doctrine of offensive jihad is well understood by the material presented under Note 1 below, as in the quote from Muhsin Khan:
“It was previously enjoined upon the Muslims to only preach their religion to the non-Muslims, and bear every kind of torture patiently, behave well with the non-Muslims and try to win them over to Islam. When the torture upon the Muslims grew too much to bear, then the Muslims were permitted to leave Makkah and migrate to some other place where they could practice Islam peacefully (so they migrated first to Abyssinia, now Ethiopia in Africa), then they were ordered to migrate to Madinah. In Madinah, the Muslims were at first permitted to fight against only those non-Muslims who initiate fighting against the Muslims, i.e.; fighting only in self-defense…….Then Allah revealed in surah At-Taubah (Bara’ah) (Chapter IX) the order to discard all the obligations (covenants, treaties, etc.) (in the ‘verse of the sword’, 9:5) and commanded the Muslims to fight against all Mushrikin (polytheists/pagans) as well as against the people of the Book (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam and don’t pay the Jizyah with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (as revealed in verse 9:29). So, Muslims were not permitted to abandon ‘the fighting’ against them (Pagans, Jews, Christians) or to reconcile with them, for an unlimited period while they (the Muslims) are strong and are able to fight against them (non-Muslims). So, it is now obvious that at first ‘the fighting was forbidden’, then it was permitted, and after that it was made obligatory against (1) those who start ‘the fighting’ against the Muslims……. (2) Those who worship others (other gods) along with Allah yet don’t pay jizyah………..” (End quote) (Emphasis mine)
This is the imperialist/expansionist policy that most traditional strands of Islam follow in order to achieve ideological and/or political supremacy in the land!
Those who oppose this, for example the Sufi Muslims, cite as evidence the ‘peace exhorting verses’ listed above!
The dilemma therefore is: that the verse 9:5 is a part of one of the very last revealed sets of Quranic verses, 9:1-37, revealed in the 9th year of the Islamic calendar (9 A.H.), just one year prior to the death of the Prophet, and being a very later revelation it could logically have abrogated the previous humanitarian verses talking about nice treatment of the non-Muslims!
Hence according to several classical scholars of Islam, this verse abrogates all or most of the ‘peace exhorting verses’, for example, as related from Yasir Qadhi above, according to Abu Bakr Ibn Al Arabi, 75 verses of the Quran were abrogated by the ‘verse of the sword’; an opinion similar to what was held by Ibn Hazm too!
So, the scholars who believe that these verses (9:1-5,29) abrogate the ‘peace exhorting verses’, the only course of action they would recommend is to kill the polytheists/pagans and other non-Muslims who refuse to accept Islam or its dominance (and hence don’t pay jizyah), as stated by Muhsin Khan above!
Or at least to dislodge the non-Muslim rulers and replace them with Islamic rule, as asserted by Abul Alaa Maududi (under Note 1 below)!
But, as discussed above, the exact number of abrogated verses in the Quran is disputed by the scholars, hence many scholars don’t believe that all the peace exhorting verses were abrogated by 9:1-37, as a result they are able to argue that Islam allows war only for self-defense and not to spread Islam or its political boundaries, hence they manage to project a rosy humanitarian picture of Islam to the world, portraying Islam as a peaceful-merciful religion which doesn’t allow expansionist war!
To conclude
The ambiguous nature of the theory of abrogation makes it impossible to definitively determine whether the ‘verse of the sword’ in particular and surah Taubah in general abrogated the ‘peace exhorting verses’ of the Quran. If surah Taubah reigns then offensive jihad is the thing, else not.
But, the prior mindset of the reader (and his take on the ahadith) determines his stance on surah Taubah and hence his ultimate stance on offensive jihad, or vice versa, as I’ve argued in my articles #25 and #30 that all persistent disputed matters emanate from the interpretable nature of the Quran as it gives in to the prior mindset/ inclinations of the reader!
Thus, a scholar who has a supremacist mindset readily accepts the classical narrative of offensive jihad, having no problem accepting surah Taubah as the final word on the treatment of non-Muslims, thereby further strengthening his offensive worldview, at the same time being vindicated by the history of Muslims who up until the 18th century militarily invaded and ruled the non-Muslim nations of the world whom they labelled ‘Daar-al-Kufr’ (the dominion of disbelief)!
While a defensive-humanitarian scholar who acknowledges the current economic-political-technological-military inferiority of the Muslims, rejects the classical narrative of offensive jihad and hence doesn’t accept surah Taubah as the last word on all Muslims’ relations with the non-Muslims. His hermeneutics involves looking at the Quran as a whole such that the ‘peace exhorting verses’ reign for all times and places whereas surah Taubah applied only to the Prophet’s generation. Thus his reading of the ahadith/history doesn’t lead him to blindly emulate the wholesale offensive actions of the Muslims from the 7th to the 18th centuries C.E.!
Thus there’s a positive feedback loop involved in this story:
Supremacist mindset takes surah Taubah as the bottomline plus ahadith/history on the practices of the early Muslims as a primary source of Islam that altogether reinforces and further strengthens the supremacist mindset. Whereas a humanitarian mindset rejects the universal application of surah Taubah and the ahadith thereby reinforcing the humanitarian mindset.
And there is no objective criteria to determine which approach is wrong and which one is right, since there is no objective criteria that could decide which mindset and which take on ahadith is correct! Hence, each party zealously believes its own interpretation to be correct, accusing the other of misunderstanding or even distorting the message of the Quran! But since the Prophet is no longer alive amongst us to judge which interpretation is correct and which one is wrong, nor can we receive any such decisive communication from God again, the Quran being the last revelation; we cannot definitively decide which party is correct and which is wrong!
The choice that we make then depends on our individual mindset/ inclinations and/or convenience as I’ve argued in my article #25.
My personal take based upon my modernist-universalist- rationalist-naturalist-humanitarian-Ghamidian mindset
Even if we concede that offensive war is to be waged only to remove any impediments in the way of the Islamic da’wah (propagation), that is, only against those nations that disallow the preaching/teaching of Islam in their lands, and not merely to force people into Islam or merely for the expansion of the Islamic state; it would still be problematic/controversial, because a Muslim state will not allow the preaching of any religion/ideology/ism other than Islam within its boundaries since Muslims are largely exclusivists who consider Islam to be the only true religion hence they cannot allow falsehood (other religions/ideologies/isms) to be propagated in their realm! Therefore, to expect that other nations allow Islam to be preached in their lands while Muslims disallow others from preaching their religion in Muslim lands, and then if they don’t oblige then they face the sword, is clearly hegemonic!
Hence I have dared to go a step ahead to argue in my article #32 that any offensive jihad after the Prophet (and his immediate companions) is wrong as it is a violation of the Golden Rule that I believe is a naturally objective criterion of ethics to decide whether something is right or wrong.
I’ll quote myself here:
“Propagation of Islam as was practised by the Prophet Muhammad was solely his prerogative as per his special and exclusive status as the ‘Rasool’ of God or the one who embodied unassailable living proof(s) and judgment(s) of God upon his nation (the Arabs primarily, and the adjoining nations, that is, the Eastern Roman empire and the Persian empire, by extension).
Other than his immediate companions, the succeeding generations of Muslims had no divinely sanctioned right to conquer other nations for the sake of Islam. What they did merely reflected the prevalent imperialist-expansionist mindset of that day and age wherein territorial expansions through military conquests was considered normal. That era is over.
Assuming that parts of history compensate for other parts of it, and that the whole of the global Muslim population is one body and the whole of Europe is one body; the Ottoman conquests of Europe have been balanced by Colonialism. Tit for tat done; scale is balanced, and the slate is clean again.
Now, if the Europeans (or the Americans, or the Israelis) carry on with their imperialist policies and mechanisms to control and manipulate the Muslim nations then that’s to be condemned and resisted with full might.
Likewise, if some Muslims harbour this secret desire of taking over the European lands with their ‘Khilafah’ styled political Islam, then that too must be condemned and resisted. Muslims cannot cry over Islamophobia while at the same time fantasize about or work towards making hardline restrictive forms of Islam the dominant ideology of the Western lands, obliterating their local culture and religion in the process!
The current Muslims have no excuse at all for any attempts at conquering other nations by force. The goal now must be peaceful mutual coexistence; not expansion!” (End quote)
Note 1: Offensive jihad and the commentaries on Surah Taubah by Muhsin Khan and Sayyid Abul Alaa Maududi
In the English translation and interpretation of the Quran by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Taqiuddin Al Hilali, ‘Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Quran’, summarized version, published by the world famous Darussalam Publishers and Distributors of Saudi Arabia, and certified by the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia (one of the top 3 Islamic universities of the world), and also certified by the ex-grand mufti (judge) of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baaz, Head of the Presidency of Islamic Research, Ifta, Call and Propagation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; in Appendix III titled ‘The Call to Jihad in the Quran’, it is stated that:
“It was previously enjoined upon the Muslims to only preach their religion to the non-Muslims, and bear every kind of torture patiently, behave well with the non-Muslims and try to win them over to Islam. When the torture upon the Muslims grew too much to bear, then the Muslims were permitted to leave Makkah and migrate to some other place where they could practice Islam peacefully (so they migrated first to Abyssinia, now Ethiopia in Africa), then they were ordered to migrate to Madinah. In Madinah, the Muslims were at first permitted to fight against only those non-Muslims who initiate fighting against the Muslims, i.e.; fighting only in self-defense.”
Then in Pg. 879 and 880, the book says:
“Then Allah revealed in surah At-Taubah (Bara’ah) (Chapter IX) the order to discard all the obligations (covenants, treaties, etc.) and commanded the Muslims to fight against all Mushrikin (polytheists/pagans) (in the fifth verse, the ‘verse of the sword’) as well as against the people of the Book (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam and don’t pay the Jizyah with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (as revealed in verse 9:29). So, Muslims were not permitted to abandon ‘the fighting’ against them (Pagans, Jews, Christians) or to reconcile with them, for an unlimited period while they (the Muslims) are strong and are able to fight against them (non-Muslims). So, it is now obvious that at first ‘the fighting was forbidden’, then it was permitted, and after that it was made obligatory against (1) those who start ‘the fighting’ against the Muslims……. (2) Those who worship others (other gods) along with Allah yet don’t pay jizyah………..” (End quote)
Now let’s take a look at the famous ‘verse of the sword’ (chapter 9 verse 5 referred to by Muhsin Khan above). The verse tells the Muslims to kill the idol worshippers/polytheists/pagans wherever they are to be found:
“Then, when the months made unlawful for fighting expire, kill the polytheists wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and establish Salaat (Islamic prayer) and pay the Zakaat (Islamic tax) dues, then let them go their way for Allah is Forgiving and Compassionate.”
To get the complete context of the verse 5, preceding verses one to four must also be looked at:
1. Freedom from (all) obligations/treaties (is declared) by Allah and His Messenger, to those of the Mushrikoon (polytheists, pagans, idol worshippers, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) with whom you made a treaty.
2. So travel freely (O Mushrikoon) for four months (as you will) throughout the land, but know that you cannot escape (from the Punishment of) Allah, and Allah will disgrace the disbelievers.
3. And a declaration from Allah and His Messenger to mankind on the greatest day (the 10th of Dhul-Hijjah – the 12th month of Islamic calendar) that Allah is free from (all) obligations/treaties with the Mushrikoon and so is His Messenger. So if you (Mushrikoon) repent, it is better for you, but if you turn away, then know that you cannot escape (from the Punishment of) Allah. And give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful torment to those who disbelieve.
4. Except those of the Mushrikoon with whom you have a treaty, and who have not subsequently failed you in any, nor have supported anyone against you. So fulfill their treaty to the end of their term. Surely Allah loves Al-Muttaqun (the pious).
5. Then when the forbidden months (the four months of time given to them according to 9:2) have passed, then kill the Mushrikoon wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salaat (prayer/namaaz), and give Zakaat, then leave them free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Similar sentiments have been expressed by the uber influential 20th century scholar Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami and recipient of the King Faisal International Prize, for his service to Islam, the most prestigious award of the Islamic world; in his comments on these verses, in his Tafhimul Quran, under the heading ‘Problems of the Period’:
“……………….Now that the administration of the whole of Arabia had come in the hands of the Believers, and all the opposing powers had become helpless, it was necessary to make a clear declaration of that policy which was to be adopted to make her a perfect Daar-ul-Islam (Nation of Islam). Therefore the following measures were adopted: A clear declaration was made that all the treaties with the mushriks (polytheists) were abolished and the Muslims would be released from the treaty obligations with them after a respite of four months (verses:1-3). This declaration was necessary for uprooting completely the system of life based on shirk (polytheism) and to make Arabia exclusively the center of Islam so that it (polytheism) should not in any way interfere with the spirit of Islam nor become an internal danger for it……………….In order to enable the Muslims to extend the influence of Islam outside Arabia, they were enjoined to crush with sword the non-Muslim powers and to force them to accept the sovereignty of the Islamic State. As the great Roman and Iranian Empires were the biggest hindrances in the way, a conflict with them was inevitable. The object of Jihad was not to coerce them to accept Islam, they were free to accept or not to accept it, but to prevent them from thrusting forcibly their deviations upon others and the coming generations. The Muslims were enjoined to tolerate their misguidance only to the extent that they might have the freedom to remain misguided, if they chose to do so, provided that they paid Jizyah (verse 29) as a sign of their subjugation to the Islamic State………” (End quote)
Also see the footnotes 26, 27, 28, in the commentary on surah Taubah:
“The second reason why Jihad should be waged against them is that they did not adopt the Law sent down by Allah through His Messenger…..This is the aim of Jihad with the Jews and the Christians and it is not to force them to become Muslims and adopt the Islamic Way of Life. They should be forced to pay Jizyah in order to put an end to their independence and supremacy so that they should not remain rulers and sovereigns in the land. These powers should be wrested from them by the followers of the true Faith, who should assume sovereignty and lead others towards the Right Way, while they should become their subjects and pay jizyah. Jizyah is paid by those non-Muslims who live as Zimmis (proteges) in an Islamic State, in exchange for the security and protection granted to them by it. This is also symbolic of the fact that they themselves agree to live in it as its subjects. This is the significance of “….. they Pay jizyah with their own hands”, that is, with full consent so that they willingly become the subjects of the Believers, who perform the duty of the vicegerents of Allah on the earth. At first this Command applied only to the Jews and the Christians. Then the Holy Prophet himself extended it to the Zoroastrians also. After his death, his Companions unanimously applied this rule to all the non-Muslim nations outside Arabia.”
Other References
Let’s Talk Religion: What is Jihad?
The scourge of terrorism: Does Islam promote it?
GPT analysis on Defensive versus Offensive jihad: What do the scholars say?