Jihad is an issue that has bugged me since the very beginning of my academic interest in Islam. So much so that it propelled me to write an (unpublished) article on it at the tender age of fifteen! And then a book on the same topic at the age of 28. I’ve narrated this at length under my long bio in the about me page.
The traditional doctrine of jihad as described by the orthodox experts of Islam is basically this:
(1.a) Muslims are commanded to peacefully preach Islam and its laws to the non-Muslims with the aim of converting them to Islam and ultimately establishing the supremacy of Islam across the world. This is a fact that no traditional scholar or preacher of Islam can deny. Islam aims to be the supreme ideology on earth. Here are some verses of the Quran which say that Muhammad was sent as the final messenger of God to establish Islam as the dominant religion on earth.
Surah Saff (chapter 61), verse 9 of the Quran says:
He (Allah) it is Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with the Guidance and the Religion of Truth so that He may cause it to prevail over all religions, much as the polytheists may dislike it.
Surah Muhammad (chapter 48), verse 28 calls out:
It is Allah Who has sent His Messenger with the Guidance and the Religion of Truth so that He may make it prevail over all religions, and Allah is sufficient as a Witness in this regard.
(1.b) Thus, as long as the non-Muslim laws are not forced upon the Muslims and they are allowed to practice and preach Islam, the Muslims are commanded to live in peace with the non-Muslim communities. But, if the Muslims are obstructed from practicing or preaching Islam, they are asked to take one of the following courses of action:
(i) If there is an established Islamic state, it is expected that this state will ask the ruler of the hostile non-Muslim nation to allow its Muslim residents to practice and preach Islam. If the negotiations fail and the nation doesn’t oblige, then the Islamic state is supposed to invite the ruler of the nation to accept Islam, if not accepted then the Islamic state would ask the non-Muslim nation to accept the over-lordship or authority of the Islamic state and pay Jizyah (tax) to the Islamic state as a sign of its political subjugation. If this proposal is also rejected, then the Islamic state is commanded to wage war against this non-Muslim nation and subdue it by force to enable Islam to flourish in that nation.
This is unabashedly acknowledged in Tafhimul Quran, the popular commentary on the Quran 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. See his commentary on surah Taubah the ninth chapter of the Quran, footnotes 26, 27, 28.
Another contemporary orthodox scholar who expressed similar sentiments is Muhsin Khan from the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia, the giant institution whose Wahhabi/Salafi brand of Islam has in the last hundred year or so gained deep roots and a wide subscriber base of hundreds of millions across the globe! (See Note 2 at the end of the article for the commentary from Muhsin Khan and related commentary from Sayyid Abul Alaa Maududi.)
(ii) If the above course of action is not feasible because of the absence of an established Islamic state then the Muslims are supposed to bear the ‘oppression’/ ‘persecution’ with fortitude as much as possible and use armed resistance as a means of self-defense only, if necessary.
(iii) If even option (ii) too is not feasible due to extremely negative circumstances, then the Muslims are asked to leave the unfavorable land and migrate to a friendly nation where they might be allowed to freely practice and preach Islam.
Points (ii) and (iii) make absolute sense, but point (i) reeks of an imperialist regime change policy, because an Islamic state is not supposed to allow the preaching of other religions in its land, missionaries of other religions are punishable as criminals, and Muslims who convert to other religions are punishable by death (according to the overwhelming majority of classical scholars); but on the contrary, Islam expects the non-Muslim lands to allow the unbridled preaching and proliferation of Islam, and the non-Muslim nation which doesn’t allow this will be subjected to the action outlined in point (i)!
(1.c) This narrative is blatantly unjust from a common sense humanitarian perspective and it breeds extremism and ultimately terrorism as I’ve argued in the second chapter of my book (and as also argued by several Islamic scholars like Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and Maulana Wahiduddin Khan for example).
(1.d) It thus pained me to see such an unjust law in my beloved religion! How could a God who claims to be supremely merciful and forgiving be so cruel that he would use humans against humans to propagate His Religion by the dint of force?!!? Is Islam really so evil? Or is this doctrine of Jihad an interpretational error?
(1.e) One answer to this disturbing question is that the traditional narrative stands on an erroneous interpretation of the Quran and the Islamic history, as argued by Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and several others.
Ghamidi saab’s theory of Jihad in the light of Itmam-e-hujjat or ‘the decisive completion of the proof (of Islam)’ is an academically convincing (at least to me) alternative narrative that eliminates the apparently unjust elements of the traditional jihadist doctrine. (See Note 1 for more on this.)
(1.f) Then there’s another way of looking at the traditional doctrine. I developed that perspective as a consequence of my studies on peace and conflict in general, and then I eventually realized that it is actually an advanced feature of the Islamic law! Let’s uncover it stepwise.
(2.a) In my agnostic days, I wrote an article to argue that conflicts, especially the ideological ones, can be reduced in Godless (agnostic or atheistic) societies through the Platinum Rule of Ethics. I elaborated therein that the fundamental reason behind conflicts is clash of interests, and one of the breeders of clash of interests is competition which could be due to genuine needs or due to plain ambition.
(2.b) Two shops in the same street or two firms in the same market could genuinely compete for the same set of customers. This competition or clash is economic in nature and could be simply due to their genuine economic needs or due to the ambition to grab the top spot in the market. If the competition turns nasty, there would be a conflict. Competitions tend to turn nasty because the growth of one company generally comes at the expense of the other. If there are a hundred homes in a market, then most of them being loyal to only one shop means that the other shops would run losses or have much less profits; thus competitors generally consider each other to be their enemies! There is real mutual fear of the other. If this fear is left unbridled, the competition becomes unhealthy or unfair and leads to real conflict.
Analogous to this is the competition between different ideologically charged communities, like the Muslims and Pagans in the Arabia of Muhammad’s era.
(2.c) So what all are the logically possible natural ways of dealing with such a competition between two entities (say A and B)?
There are only four plausible ways:
(2.c.i) Mutually agree to respect and not encroach upon the spheres of influence/ domains/areas/boundaries of each other. This can be achieved through ceasefires/ treaties/MOUs/etc. This approach would entail abandoning all hostilities between the concerned parties. And the definitions and scope of ‘hostile’, ‘friendly’, ‘neutral’, ‘grey’ and all such relevant aspects of the relationship would also have to be mutually decided by A and B for the agreement to be effective.
(2.c.ii) Else, one of the two accepts the other party to be superior to itself and hence doesn’t even consider itself to be a genuine competitor of the other party. It merely wishes to survive for as long as it can. In such a scenario, the superior party, say Amazon, eventually wipes off the small businesses who don’t even stand a chance of giving any competition to Amazon!
(2.c.iii) Or else, the inferior/smaller/weaker entity merges with the superior/bigger/ stronger entity and becomes one with it. Like big businesses acquiring small businesses which accede to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in order to survive in the business instead of completely shutting down!
(2.c.iv) Or else, as a final option, compete openly, either fairly or otherwise: Use all ethical or unethical means to develop and showcase your idea/system/product/ service to be the best and hence attract prospective subscribers/followers/ customers/adherents.
(2.d) Surprisingly, Muhammad followed nothing but only these four logical options to deal with his opponents and hence the Islamic law prescribes nothing but only these four ways of dealing with other communities. Let’s see how!
(2.e) Muhammad made two historic treaties when he was in Madinah/Medina. One with the people of Madinah in what is famously called the Charter of Medina; and the other with the Pagans of Makkah/Mecca in the path-breaking Treaty of Hudaibiyyah.
(2.f) In the treaty with the Arab and Jewish tribes of Madinah, the latter had accepted Muhammad as the head of the new political state of Madinah and pledged to coexist peacefully, and whenever the need be, unitedly defend the city from invasions.
(2.g) And in the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, the parties had agreed to abandon hostilities for a period of ten years. The most remarkable clause of the treaty being that any Medinan Muslim apostatizing from Islam and turning to Makkah to seek refuge with the Pagans would be free to do so, but on the contrary, a Meccan Pagan embracing Islam and willing to emigrate to Madinah would not be allowed to do so, Muhammad would not grant such persons refuge in Madinah! It was clearly an unfair deal for the Muslims but Muhammad’s agreement on this paved the way for the posterity of Muslims to forge strategic treaties with non-Muslims even if the treaty were apparently unfair to the Muslims! Hence, a fair deal wherein both the Muslims and the non-Muslims get the freedom to practice and propagate their respective religions definitely stands a chance to be inducted into treaties between Islamic and non-Islamic states of today!
Thus, this was Muhammad practicing option no.(2.c.i), the first logical way of dealing with inter-community competitions.
(2.h) The second option is embedded into the doctrine of Jihad itself as it asks the parties in conflict with the Muslims to accept the Islamic state as its head and live as protected second class citizens under the Islamic state. This is the essence of the commandment that the non-Muslims pay jizya with subdued submission as a tribute and tax to the Islamic state. This is for those non-Muslim states that don’t have treaties with Muslims but nevertheless want to reside as non-Muslims within the political domain of an Islamic state after abandoning the hostilities they once had against Islam and the Muslims.
(2.i) Then the third option, that too is subsumed by the law of Jihad as it asks the people who were once hostile towards Muslims but eventually seek to live as first class citizens of an Islamic state that they embrace Islam and become brothers in faith to be equal to the Muslims in all aspects of the social-economic-political- military strata of the state.
(2.j) And for those who want neither treaties (option 2.c.i), nor want to accept Islam to live as equals with the Muslims of an Islamic state (option 2.c.iii), nor want to live as subordinates to the Muslims of an Islamic state (option 2.c.ii), an open call to compete on the battlefield is given to them (option 2.c.iv) in the doctrine of Jihad as implemented by Muhammad and his immediate followers.
(2.k) I had to go through a long and arduous intellectual journey as a student of philosophy to discover this perspective, but amazingly, Muhammad promulgated it without any talent, interest, and training in the philosophy of peace and conflict. Thus, coming from a man who was not an expert on peace and conflict, it’s nothing short of a miracle, an advanced feature that’s akin to the advanced literature of the Quran which cannot be explained in any way other than ascribing it to a Divine origin as reasoned out at length in my articles 9, 10, and 11.
(2.l) Thus, far from being an unjust law, the traditional framework of Islamic Jihad turns out to be the most natural and logical way of dealing with communal competitions and tensions! Emerging out from a defensive position thus, I now stand on an assertive opinion regarding the ethical validity of the Islamic Jihad! From a position of weakness to a position of strength! But as with all ideas and propositions, this assertion of mine too could face some logical objections pertaining to Muhammad’s implementation of the four options, especially option (2.c.i). Let’s continue to Note 1 below for the discussion on this!
Note 1 : Discussion on the plausible objections to Muhammad’s Jihad
(3.a) After the injunctions of surah Taubah were declared towards the end of Muhammad’s life, the permission of treaties with non-Muslims (option 2.c.i) was abolished and replaced with the directives of surah Taubah which calls for no treaties with the non-Muslims but either of options (2.c.ii) to (2.c.iv) only, that is, retain their Christian or Jewish faith but live as subordinates and pay jizyah as a symbol of their subordination (option 2.c.ii), or accept Islam and become equals with Muslims (option 2.c.iii), else fight in the battlefield (option 2.c.iv).
(3.b) As regards the pagans/polytheists, option (2.c.ii) was not made available to them; they had no option of paying jizyah and living as subordinates in Muhammad’s Islamic state; they had only two options, either accept Islam (option 2.c.iii) or fight in the battlefield (option 2.c.iv)! This was practiced by Muhammad and his companions, the first generation of Muslims, and the successive generations of Islam who militarily invaded and Islamized the nations of Iraq, Iran, Shaam (which includes modern day countries of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel), Asia minor (which includes Turkey), North Africa (which includes Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) and others. Hence this is the narrative that scholars of Islam have traditionally held on to since the last fourteen centuries! (For a more detailed orthodox Islamic take on that, do read Note 2 below.)
(3.c) So the objection that could be forwarded is this:
If the legal validity of treaties with non-Muslims was abolished by surah Taubah then the current Islamic law on Jihad as practiced by Muhammad and his companions towards the end of Muhammad’s mission and also after his death, cannot be considered to be correct since it is not conforming to the four natural ways of dealing with communal competitions!
In response to this objection, three approaches can be taken.
(3.d) Firstly, even if the orthodox traditional jihadist narrative is taken to be the true Islamic perspective on this, that is, even if it is considered that surah Taubah indeed nullified forever the legal validity of treaties with non-Muslims, yet Muhammad’s practices on this matter in the first 20 years of his mission would still be considered to be amazing as the directives of surah Taubah came into effect merely 2-3 years prior to Muhammad’s death; up until then he was dealing with the non-Muslims as per the four natural ways only! That being the case, a non-expert of conflict and peace implementing concepts that comes only to professionals of the field is indeed wonderful irrespective of how long and till when and where those concepts were implemented!
(3.e) Secondly, there is no consensus regarding surah Taubah abrogating the legal validity of treaties with non-Muslims forever, although a large section of Muslims believes so. Thus the above objection is not a definitive one, it is a reasonable yet indefinite objection to say the least.
(3.f) And finally, as a consequence of the above mentioned lack of consensus regarding the effect of surah Taubah, comes the Ghamidian narrative on Jihad in the light of Itmaam-e-hujjat or ‘the decisive completion of the proof (of Islam)’. It proposes that the entire jihadist narrative was applicable only to those communities and nations of the world who had direct encounter with Muhammad. Thus, history tells us that the immediate companions of Muhammad implemented it only upon those very nations that encountered Muhammad directly. The rationale behind this is as follows:
(3.g) Messengers of God come with unassailable proofs of their Prophethood that is clearly recognized and internalized by his addressees. When the Truth of the Messengerhood is indisputably established, it comes to be called ‘itmaam-e-hujjat’ or ‘the decisive completion of the proof (of the Message)’. After this stage, the nation of the messenger has no legitimate excuse to deny him. If they reject the messenger despite this, their indifference or arrogance is punished with a large-scale Divine retribution, in this world itself, and the punishment comes in the form of natural disasters or processes which could also be social-economic-political humiliation at the hands of the messenger and his followers.
(3.h) In case of Muhammad the latter mode of punishment was adopted. Arabia (outside of Makkah and Madinah), the Byzantine Empire, the Persian Empire, Egypt, and others that denied him despite his prophethood becoming clear to them beyond any doubt, were afflicted with politico-military defeat and humiliation. This is the essence behind the abolishment of treaties with them since there can be no treaty with people who were going to be punished militarily and politically! Hence their only option was to either fight the Muslims and taste defeat or pay jizya with submission as prescribed for the Jews and the Christians of Arabia, Egypt, and Byzantium. And for the pagans of Arabia and Persia the options were to either embrace Islam or fight the Muslims and face defeat!
(3.i) And needless to say, these mighty nations were indeed defeated and taken over by the half trained and ill-equipped Muslim minnows of Arabia, a politico-military feat that has continued to baffle analysts ever since this ‘miracle’ occurred on the face of this planet! The Quran was repeatedly warning these nations that if they reject Muhammad despite recognizing him as a true Prophet of God, then they would be punished at the hands of Muhammad and his half naked barefooted followers who would soon remove the Caesars, the Khosraus, and their likes from their seats of power and authority! And this is what exactly transpired in just twenty years of Muhammad’s death! It was an event that would be analogous to the Eskimos in their primitive state of existence, (hypothetically) coming out of Siberia and challenging Russia, China, India, and the European powers and then actually defeating them to take over their lands and become the masters of their destiny! The first generation of Muslims had actually pulled off something similar to this and it’s not possible to explain such ‘miraculous events’ through naturalist narratives. Thus the only way is to accept it as what it claims to be: an exemplary Divine punishment meted out to the deniers of Truth through the hands of the bearers of Truth. This is one of the evidences of the truth of Islam and I would cover this at length in a separate article.
(3.j) Once the nations that had direct contact with Muhammad were punished under this Divine scheme, this entire method of jihad lost its scope of application and thus the later generations of Muslims were not supposed to conduct jihad in this way as this entire system was God’s prerogative, only His way of inflicting Divine Judgment on stubborn nations on Earth! This is the entire Ghamidian narrative on Jihad. Needless to say it’s indeed humanitarian in the most modern sense of the term. It disallows the traditional way of jihad in any era other than the period of Muhammad and his immediate companions. And even in its Muhammadan era application, it was the most natural and logical course to follow as I’ve argued in this article, so much so that coming from an untrained man it’s nothing short of a miracle that cannot be explained except by ascribing it to a Divine origin!
(3.k) So here it ends, I would say, my almost 20 year old tryst with the topic of terrorism and Jihad! It has come full circle I would say. Starting with the first article that I wrote in 2004, unpublished but still with me in its hand written hard form, arguing for the blame of modern day terrorism to be put exclusively on the hegemony of the West. It was thus a denial of any role of Islamic scriptures and laws whatsoever in the phenomenon of terrorism. But then, 12 year later, I wrote my book that conceded to the big role that the Quranic interpretations and consequently the orthodox Islamic concept of Jihad play in providing basis and legitimacy to the menace of Islamist terrorism! Although in the first chapter of the book, I still charged the American and European political policies as another key reason behind the birth and spread of Islamist terrorism; thus still holding on to my decade old position but definitely with more depth and detail.
(3.l) In my book, I had also developed a remarkable addition to my views on terrorism and jihad in the form of my proposal of the Platinum Rule of Ethics (PRE) as a means of dealing with religious extremism and conflicts. Again, building upon that work, I wrote two more articles on the PRE, elaborate ones, the first one arguing for the use of the PRE as a natural basis for morality in Godless societies, and the second one arguing for the use of the PRE as a tool to minimize ideological conflicts. The second one was thus a deeper and more detailed work on what I had proposed for the first time in my book, that is, to use the PRE as a tool to deal with ideological extremism and conflicts. So the second paper was thus a culmination of my ideas expressed in my book on terrorism! A full circle within the bigger full circle so to say! And the big full circle obviously comes in the form of this article as it finally settles all my disturbing thoughts regarding the apparently evil role of Islamic interpretational approaches in fomenting the phenomenon of modern day Islamist terrorism!
Note 2 : Commentaries on Surah Taubah by Muhsin Khan and Sayyid Abul Alaa Maududi
(4.a) 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.”
(4.b) 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)
(4.c) 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.”
(4.d) 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.
(4.e) Maulana Maududi 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)