Views of Jihad Throughout History

Asma Afsaruddin*University of Notre Dame

Abstract

The Arabic term jihad has primarily come to mean “armed struggle/combat” andis frequently translated into English as “holy war.” But a close scrutiny of theoccurrence of this term in the Qurwan and in early hadith literature demonstratesthat this exclusive understanding of the term cannot be supported for the earliestperiod of Islam (roughly mid-seventh through the late eighth centuries). The essaytraces the transformations in the meanings of jihad – and the related concepts ofmartyr and martyrdom – from the earliest period of Islam through the late medievalperiod and down to our present time.

The basic and general meaning of the term jihad is “struggle,” “striving,”“exertion.” In the Qurwan, the term is frequently conjoined to the phrase“fi sabil Allah” (lit.“in the path of God”). Thus, the full locution, al-jihad fisabil Allah, means “struggling/striving for the sake of God.”This translationpoints to the potentially different meanings that may be ascribed to jihad indifferent contexts, since the phrase “in the path of/for the sake of God” allowsfor human striving to be accomplished in multiple ways. The Qurwan oftenrefers to those who “strive with their wealth and their selves” (e.g., 8:72).

Contextualizing the Qurvan

Many of the Qurwanic pronouncements on jihad cannot be properlyunderstood without relating them to specific events in the life of theprophet. A significant number of Qurwanic verses are traditionally understoodto have been revealed in connection with certain episodes in the prophetMuhammad’s life. According to our sources, from the onset of the revelationsto Muhammad in ca. 610 CE until his emigration to Medina from Meccain 622 during the period known as the Meccan period, the Muslims werenot given permission by the Qurwan to physically retaliate against theirpersecutors, the pagan Meccans. While recognizing the right to self-defensefor those who are wronged, the Qurwan maintains in this early period thatto bear patiently the wrong doing of others and to forgive those who causethem harm is the superior course of action (42:40–43; cf. 29:59; 16:42).Patience and forbearance (Ar. sabr) are thus important components ofjihad. The verses cited above underscore the non-violent dimension of jihad© Blackwell Publishing 2006

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during the Meccan period which lasted thirteen years compared to theMedinan period of ten years. The introduction of the military aspect of jihadin the Medinan period can then be appropriately and better understood asa “last resort” option, resorted to when attempts at negotiations and peacefulproselytization among the Meccans had failed during the first thirteen yearsof the propagation of Islam.

In 622 CE, which corresponds to the first year of the Islamic calendar,the prophet received divine permission to emigrate to Medina, along withhis loyal followers. There he set up the first Muslim polity, combining thefunctions of prophecy and temporal rule in one office. The Medinan verses,accordingly, now have increasingly more to do with organization of thepolity, communitarian issues and ethics, and defense of the Muslims againstMeccan hostilities. A specific Qurwanic verse (22:39–40) permitting fighting(Ar. qital) was revealed in Medina, although its precise date cannot bedetermined. When both just cause and righteous intention exist, fightingin self-defense against an intractable enemy may become obligatory(2:216). The Qurwan further asserts that it is the duty of Muslims to defendthose who are oppressed and cry out to them for help (4:75), except againsta people with whom the Muslims have concluded a treaty (8:72).

Three major battles and a number of minor campaigns were foughtbetween 624 and 632 CE during the prophet’s lifetime. Some of the mosttrenchant verses exhorting the Muslims to fight the unbelievers were revealedon the occasions of these military campaigns (e.g., 9:5; 9:29). The Qurwanin other verses (e.g., 2:93; 2:193; 8:61), however, makes it clear that shouldhostile behavior on the part of the foes of Islam cease, then the reason forengaging them in war also lapses.

Views of Jihad in the post-Prophetic Period

The scholarly literature from the first three centuries of Islam reveals thatthere were competing definitions of how best to strive in the path of God,engendered by the polyvalence of the term jihad. Recent rigorous researchhas established that there was a clear divergence of opinion regarding thenature of jihad and its imposition as a religious duty on the believer throughthe first century of Islam and into the second half of the second century.1

Jurists from the Hijaz, like Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 778), were of the opinionthat jihad was primarily defensive, and that only the defensive jihad may beconsidered obligatory on the individual. Other early Hijazi jurists tendedto place greater emphasis on religious practices such as prayer and mosqueattendance and did not consider jihad obligatory for all. On the other hand,Syrian jurists like al-Awzawi (d. 773) held the view that even aggressive warmay be considered obligatory. No doubt this last group was influenced bythe fact that the Syrian Umayyads during his time were engaged in borderwarfare with the Byzantines and there was a perceived need to justify thesehostilities on a theological and legal basis.

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By the early Abbasid period, roughly mid-late second/eighth century,the military aspect of jihad would receive greater emphasis in many circles,and in the opinions of some jurists, was understood to override the otherspiritual and non-militant significations of this term. The jurist al-Shafivi (d.820) is said to have been the first to permit jihad to be launched againstnon-Muslims as offensive warfare, although he qualified non-Muslims asreferring only to pagan Arabs and not to non-Arab non-Muslims. He furtherdivided the world into dar al-islam (“the abode of Islam”) and dar al-harb(“the abode of war,” referring to non-Muslim territories), while recognizinga third possibility dar al-ahd (“the abode of treaty”) or dar al-sulh (“the abodeof reconciliation”), referring to non-Islamic states that may enter into apeace treaty with the Islamic state by rendering an annual tribute.2 Al-Shafivi’sperspectives on jihad were, in many ways, a marked departure from earlierjuristic thinking and reflects a further development of the Syrian school ofthought on this issue. This is quite evident when his views are comparedwith those of jurists from the earlier Hanafi school of law, eponymouslyfounded by Abu Hanifa (d. 767). Hanafi jurists, for example, did notsubscribe to a third abode of treaty, as devised by al-Shafivi, but were of theopinion that the inhabitants of a territory which had concluded a truce withthe Muslims and paid tribute to the latter became part of the abode of Islamand entitled to the protection of the Islamic government.3 The Hanafis alsoadhered to the position that non-believers could only be fought if theyresorted to armed conflict, and not simply on account of their disbelief.4

This remained a principle of contention between later Shafivi and Hanafijurists.

In juridical and administrative literature, jihad essentially became reducedto qital or fighting by roughly the ninth century and the term is usedexclusively in this sense. However, many non-juridical sources, such ashadith and ethical works, continue to preserve for us a much broaderspectrum of meanings assigned to the term jihad and the multiplereligio-social commitments and duties signified by it.5

It is worth emphasizing that the concepts of dar al-islam and dar al-harbhave no basis in the Qurwan nor in the sunna. The invention of these termsand the resulting aggrandizement of the military aspect of jihad were basedrather on ad hoc juristic interpretations of particularly verses 9:5 and 9:29,largely in deference to realpolitik in the Abbasid period. These legalpostulations are, therefore, not doctrinally binding in any way. And, in fact,by the fourth century of Islam (tenth century of the CE), these terms beganto fall into disuse because they no longer accurately described contemporaryhistorical and political reality. Accordingly, juristic thinking in this period,in accommodation of these changed realities, came to regard the caliph’s“duty” of waging jihad, as theorized by an earlier generation, to haveessentially lapsed.

Over time the term dar al-islam also underwent significant changes, sothat by the twelfth century some jurists were of the opinion that non-Muslim

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territory in which Muslims were free to practice their religion could besubsumed under the rubric of dar al-Islam.6 By the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, reform-minded scholars such as Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) andlater his student, Rashid Rida (d. 1935), would recognize that the bipolardivision of the world had been defunct for a while and explicitly affirm thatpeaceful coexistence was the normal state of affairs between the Islamic andnon-Islamic worlds.7 Mahmud Shaltut (d. 1963), who like Abduh becamethe rector of al-Azhar University, was of the opinion that only defensivewars are permissible in response to external aggression.8

The terms dar al-islam and dar al-harb and the concept of an offensive jihadhave been revived, however, in the contemporary period by religiousmilitants to justify their political goals,9 predicated on an assumed basicincompatibility between the Western and Islamic worlds.10

Short Biography

Dr. Afsaruddin received her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in1993 and is currently associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at theUniversity of Notre Dame, Indiana. She previously taught at the JohnsHopkins and Harvard universities. Her fields of specialization are the religiousand political thought of Islam, Qurwan and hadith studies, and Islamicintellectual history. Professor Afsaruddin is the author of Excellence andPrecedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 2002); the editor of Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiation of Female“Public” Space in Islamic/ate Societies (Cambridge, Massachusetts, HarvardUniversity Press, 1999); and co-editor of Humanism, Culture, and Languagein the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff (Winona Lake, Indiana:Eisenbrauns, 1997). Her articles and reviews have been published innumerous scholarly journals and she has lectured widely in this country andabroad on various aspects of Islamic thought. Afsaruddin is the recipient ofa research grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for 2003–2004, and was named a Carnegie Scholar for 2005 by the CarnegieCorporation of New York. She is currently the co-editor of Religion Compass’Islam section, along with Yousef Meri.

Notes* Correspondence address: Department of Classics, 304 O’Shaughnessy Hall, University of NotreDame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.1 Roy Mottahedeh and Ridwan al-Sayyid,“The Idea of the Jihad in Islam before the Crusades,”in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, eds. Angeliki E. Laiou andRoy Parviz Mottahedeh (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,2001).2 Al-Shafivi, Kitab al-umm (Cairo, 1321), 4: 103–4; Al-Shafivi, al-Risala, ed. Ahmad Shakir (n. pl.,1891), 430–32.3 See Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar, trans. and ed. Majid Khadduri(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 12–13; idem., War and Peace in the Lawof Islam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955), 145.

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4 As did the Hanafi jurist Ahmad al-Tahawi (d. 933) in his Kitab al-Mukhtasar, ed. Abu al-Wafaal-Afghani (Cairo, 1950), 281.5 See Asma Afsaruddin, “Competing Perspectives on Jihad and ‘Martyrdom’ in Early IslamicSources,” in Witnesses to Faith? Martyrdom in Christianity and Islam (Aldershot, UK: AshgatePublishing, 2006).6 Khaled Abou El Fadl,“Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Discourse on MuslimMinorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law andSociety 1 (1994): 161.7 Art. “Jihad,” Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed. John Esposito (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995), 2: 369–73.8 See Mahmud Shaltut, “Koran and Fighting,” in Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and ModernIslam (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996), 60–101.9 For examples of such rhetoric, see Osama Bin Laden, Messages to the World: The Statements ofOsama bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence and tr. James Howarth (London, 2005).10 The “clash of civilizations” thesis resonates with both Christian and Muslim right-wing camps.The polarizing religiously colored rhetoric emanating from both sides tend to be a mirror imageof the other; for this discussion, see Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion afterSeptember 11 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003).

Bibliography

Afsaruddin,A, 2006, “Competing Perspectives on Jihad and ‘Martyrdom’ in Early Islamic Sources,”in B Wicker (ed.), Witnesses to Faith? Martyrdom in Christianity and Islam, Ashgate Publishing,Aldershot, UK.

El Fadl, KA, 1994, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Discourse on MuslimMinorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law andSociety, vol. 1, p. 161.

Al-Shafivi, Kitab al-umm (Cairo, 1321), 4: 103–4; Al-Shafivi, al-Risala (ed.), Ahmad Shakir (n. pl.,1891), 430–32.

Art. 1995,‘Jihad’, J Esposito (ed.),Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, vol. 2, pp. 369–73,Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Bin Laden, O, 2005, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, B Lawrence (ed.),and James Howarth (tr.), London,Verso.

Khadduri, M, 1966, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar, tr. and ed. Majid Khadduri,pp. 12–13, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Khadduri, M, 1955, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, p. 145, Johns Hopkins University Press,Baltimore, MD.

Lincoln, B, 2003, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11, University of ChicagoPress, Chicago.

Mottahedeh, R, & al-Sayyid, R, 2001, “The Idea of the Jihad in Islam before the Crusades,” inAngeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (eds.),The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantiumand the Muslim World, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,Washington, DC.

Shaltut, M, 1996, ‘Koran and Fighting’, in Rudolph Peters (ed.), Jihad in Classical and ModernIslam, pp. 60–101, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, NJ.

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