The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (6 page)

Jihad is the highest duty of Muslims: “Do ye make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Sacred Mosque, equal to the pious service of those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and strive with might and main in the cause of Allah [
jihad fi sabil Allah
]? They are not comparable in the sight of Allah: and Allah guides not those who do wrong. Those who believe, and suffer exile and strive with might and main, in Allah’s cause [
jihad fi sabil Allah
], with their goods and their persons, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah: they are the people who will achieve salvation” (Qur’an 9:19–20). In Islamic theology,
jihad fi sabil Allah
refers specifically to taking up arms for Islam.

Paradise is guaranteed to those who “slay and are slain” for Allah: “Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth” (Qur’an 9:111).

One may attempt to spiritualize such verses, but there is no doubt from the historical record that Muhammad meant them literally.

PC Myth: The Qur’an teaches tolerance and peace

But wait a minute: Doesn’t the Qur’an
really
teach tolerance and peace? Sure, there are a few bad verses here and there, but there are also a lot of verses that affirm the brotherhood of man and the equality and dignity of all people, right?

No. The closest the Qur’an comes actually to counseling tolerance or peaceful coexistence is to counsel believers to leave the unbelievers alone in their errors: “Say: O disbelievers! I worship not that which ye worship; nor worship ye that which I worship. And I shall not worship that which ye worship. Nor will ye worship that which I worship. Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion” (Qur’an 109:1–6). Of course, they are to be left alone so that Allah can deal with them: “And have patience with what they say, and leave them with noble dignity. And leave Me alone to deal with those in possession of the good things of life, who yet deny the Truth; and bear with them for a little while” (Qur’an 73:10–11).

Above all, no Muslim should force anyone to accept Islam: “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy handhold, that never breaks” (Qur’an 2:256).

But is this really tolerance the way that modern Westerners understand it? It might be a reasonable facsimile if that were all the Qur’an has to say about the subject. But it isn’t.

PC Myth: The Qur’an teaches believers to take up arms only in self-defense

At this point, Islamic apologists might grant that the Qur’an doesn’t leave relations between believers and unbelievers at the live-and-let-live stage. They may admit that it counsels believers to defend themselves, and will argue that it is somewhat akin to the Catholic Church’s just-war theory.

There is support for this view in the Qur’an: “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.” So Muslims are, in this verse at least, not to start conflicts with unbelievers. Once hostilities have begun, however, Muslims should wage them furiously: “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. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you there then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”

And what is to be the conclusion of this war? “And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah” (Qur’an 2:190–193). This would seem to indicate that the war must continue until the world is Islam—the “religion is for Allah”—or under the hegemony of Islamic law.

Consequently, there is a problem with the interpretation that jihad warfare can only be defensive. The South African mufti Ebrahim Desai repeated a common teaching in Islam when he answered a question at “Islam Q & A Online.” The questioner asked, “I have a question about offensive jihad. Does it mean that we are to attack even those non-Muslims which don’t [sic] do anything against Islam just because we have to propagate Islam?” Desai responded:

You should understand that we as Muslims firmly believe that the person who doesn’t believe in Allah as he is required to, is a disbeliever who would be doomed to Hell eternally. Thus one of the primary responsibilities of the Muslim ruler is to spread Islam throughout the world, thus saving people from eternal damnation. Thus what is meant by the passage in Tafsir Uthmani [a commentary on the Qur’an] is that if a country doesn’t allow the propagation of Islam to its inhabitants in a suitable manner or creates hindrances to this, then the Muslim ruler would be justifying in waging Jihad against this country, so that the message of Islam can reach its inhabitants, thus saving them from the Fire of Jahannum [Hell]. If the Kuffaar [unbelievers] allow us to spread Islam peacefully, then we would not wage Jihad against them.
¹

Just Like Today: Jihadists cite Muhammad’s battles to prove jihad is not just defensive

I
n an article titled “The True Meaning of Jihad,” posted in 2003 at the website Khilafah.com, which is affiliated with the jihadist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, one Sidik Aucbur cites the example of Muhammad against those who would argue that jihad is purely defensive:

Moreover some will say that Jihad was only defensive; this is incorrect. A quick study of the Life of the Prophet (SalAllahu Alaihi Wasallam) shows us something different:

The Battle of Mut’ah was instigated by the Muslims against the Romans; the Muslims were 3,000 faced against a Roman army of 200,000.

The Battle of Hunayn was inevitable shortly after the Muslims had conquered Makkah.

The Battle of Tabuk was also instigated to finally destroy the Romans.

We see from the ijmaa (Consensus) of Sahaba [the companions of Muhammad], that they too instigated Jihad, through As-Sham, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and North Africa. Moreover, the status of Martyr in Islam is of the highest, so how can it be that Jihad is reduced to anything lower that that.
²

In other words, if a country is perceived to be hindering the spread of Islam, Muslims are obliged to wage war against it. This would, of course, be a defensive conflict, since the hindrances came first. Here then is another illustration of how elastic and essentially meaningless the concept of fighting only in self-defense has become. What constitutes a sufficient provocation? Must the defending side wait until the enemy strikes the first military blow? These questions have no clear or definitive answers in Islamic law, making it possible for anyone to portray virtually any struggle as defensive without violating the strict canons of that law. But this also renders meaningless the oft-repeated claims that jihad warfare can only be defensive.

The Qur’an’s tolerant verses: “canceled”

What’s more, the Qur’an’s last word on jihad is not defensive, but offensive. The suras of the Qur’an are not arranged chronologically, but according to length. However, Islamic theology divides the Qur’an into “Meccan” and “Medinan” suras. The Meccan ones come from the first segment of Muhammad’s career as a prophet, when he simply called the Meccans to Islam. Later, after he had fled to Medina, his positions hardened. The Medinan suras are less poetic and generally much longer than those from Mecca; they’re also filled with matters of law and ritual—and exhortations to jihad warfare against unbelievers. The relatively tolerant verses quoted above and others like them generally date from the Meccan period, while those with a more violent and intolerant edge are mostly from Medina.

Why does this distinction matter? Because of the Islamic doctrine of abrogation (
naskh
). This is the idea that Allah can change or cancel what he tells Muslims: “None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?” (Qur’an 2:106). According to this idea, the violent verses of the ninth sura, including the Verse of the Sword (9:5), abrogate the peaceful verses, because they were revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career: In fact, most Muslim authorities agree that the ninth sura was the very last section of the Qur’an to be revealed.

Alexis de Tocqueville on Islam:

“I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.”

In line with this, some Islamic theologians have asserted that the Verse of the Sword abrogates no fewer than 124 more peaceful and tolerant verses of the Qur’an.
³
Tafsir al-Jalalayn
, a commentary on the Qur’an by the respected imams Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahalli (1389–1459) and Jalal al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Suyuti (1445–1505), asserts that the ninth sura “was sent down when security was removed by the sword.”
⁴
Another mainstream and respected Qur’an commentator, Isma’il bin ‘Amr bin Kathir al Dimashqi (1301–1372), known popularly as Ibn Kathir, declares that sura 9:5 “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term…. No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah [the ninth sura] was revealed.”
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Ibn Juzayy (d. 1340), yet another Qur’an commentator whose works are still read in the Islamic world, agrees: The Verse of the Sword’s purpose is “abrogating every peace treaty in the Qur’an.”
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