Essays on islam
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=============== APPENDIX B.
There are two great divisions of the world — Daru'l-Islam, where Muslim law and rule are supreme, and Daru'l-Harb, where non-Muslims exercise supreme authority. Strictly speaking, Muslims in a Daru'l-Harb should fight; but as this is in most cases difficult to do, the law doctors have laid down certain conditions under which a Daru'l-Harb becomes, for all practical purposes, a Daru'l-Islam, and so a place where Muslims can live in peace. Speaking generally, a country is regarded as Daru'l-Islam when the public prayers, the namaz, are said without let or hindrance, and the two great feasts, the 'Idu'l-Fitr and the 'Idu'l-Adha, are openly celebrated. There are verses in the Qur'an which speak kindly of Jews and Christians, but these have been abrogated
THE LAW OF JIHAD 407 by later ones.1 Thus, the verse: "They who follow the Jewish religion and the Christian and the Sabeites, whoever of them believeth in God and the last day and doeth what is right, shall have their reward with their Lord: fear shall not come upon them, nor shall they be grieved" (ii. 59), is said to have been abrogated by "Whoso desireth any other religion than Islam, that religion shall not be accepted from him, and in the next world he shall be among the lost" 2 (iii. 79). So also, "Dispute not, unless in kindly sort, with the people of the book (i.e., Jews and Christians), save with such as have dealt wrongfully with you" 3 (xxix. 45), is abrogated by the famous "verse of the sword," — "When the sacred months are passed, kill those who join gods with God, wherever ye find them, and besiege them and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush; but, if they repent and observe prayer and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way" (ix. 5). Other verses which inculcate the duty of jihad are: "Fight for the cause of God" (ii. 245), and "O Believers! what possessed you that, when it was said to you 'March forth on the Way of God,' ye sank heavily downwards? What! prefer ye the life of this world to the next?" (ix. 38).4 The duty, being based on clear texts of the Qur'an, is then a fard one, that is, one incumbent on all. The law-books are also clear on the point. In the Hidaya we read, "The destruction of the sword is incurred by the infidels, although they be not the first aggressors." The Kifaya, a commentary on the Hidaya, is plainer still: "Fighting against the infidels who do not become converts to Islam and do not pay the capitation tax is incumbent, though they do not first 1 On this point, see The Historical Development of the Qur'an (ed. 1905), pp. 204-7. 2 The Historical Development of the Qur’an, pp. 98-9. 3 Ibid, pp. 93, 124, 181. 4 Ibid, pp. 186, 193-204. 408 APPENDIX B attack." This is supported by the text, "Fight against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's" (viii. 40).1 The Sair-i-Qabir, a Turkish law-book, states it to be the duty of the Sultan "to see that the Musalman frontiers are never lessened, that the infidels are called upon to embrace Islam, that true believers are urged to strive in the jihad."2 The summons to jihad must be based on a legal foundation, and one leading principle is that the country in which it takes place should be Daru'l-Harb. This has led to much controversy. Some years ago, preachers of a jihad gave much trouble in India, and quiet orderly Musalmans who did not wish to rebel, and yet found it difficult to resist the religious obligation resting upon them, at last met the difficulty, not by disputing the lawfulness of jihad in the abstract, but by denying that India was a country in which it could lawfully be made. The subject was duly considered and authoritative decisions were arrived at. Two distinct sets of legal opinions have been given by the Sunni' authorities and set forth by the Muhammadan Literary Society of Calcutta. One set of Maulavis decide that India is Daru'l-Harb, the other that it is Daru'l-Islam, and then curiously enough both parties declare that jihad in it is quite unlawful. Those who say it is Daru'l-Harb maintain that, as Muslims in India enjoy full religious liberty and have no strength to fight, jihad is not lawful. The following is this fatwa, dated July 17, 1870:— "The Musalmans here are protected by Christians, and there is no jihad in a country where protection is afforded, 
1 Baidawi explains this as لا يوجد فيهم شرك وتضمحلّ عنهم الادبيان الباطلة "Till there is no polytheism found in them and vain religions are weakened by them" (vol. 1, p. 367). 2 "The Muslims cannot do without an Imam who shall occupy himself with the enforcing of their decisions, and in maintaining their boundaries and guarding their frontiers, and equipping their armies THE LAW OF JIHAD 409 as the absence of protection and liberty between Musalmans and infidels is essential in a religious war, and that condition does not exist here; besides, it is necessary that there should be a possibility of victory to Musalmans and glory to the Indians. If there be no such probability, the jihad is unlawful." The second condition — a probability of victory — leaves the question open, and guards the Maulavis from the charge of weakness in declaring jihad unlawful. It is not legal now; that is all they assert. The question was also referred to the leaders in Mecca of the three principal Sunni sects. The question was thus put:— "What is your opinion (may your greatness continue for ever!) on this question: Whether the country of Hindustan, the rulers of which are Christians, and who do not interfere with all the injunctions of Islam, such as the ordinary daily prayers, the prayers of the 'Ids; but do authorise departure from a few of the injunctions of Islam, such as the permission to inherit the property of the Muhammadan ancestor to one who changes his religion and becomes a Christian, is Daru'l-Islam or not? Answer the above, for which God will reward you." The Mufti of Mecca, the head of the Hanifi sect, answered:— "As long as even some of the peculiar observances of Islam prevail in it, it is the Daru'l-Islam." The Mufti of the Shafi'i sect said:— "Yes, as long as even some of the peculiar observances of Islam prevail in it, it is Daru'l-Islam." The Mufti of the Maliki sect said:— "It is written in the commentary of Dasoki that a country of Islam does not become Daru'l-Harb as soon as it passes into the hands of the infidels, but only when all or most of the injunctions of Islam disappear therefrom." ... and maintaining the Friday services and the Festivals" (An-Nasafi, quoted in Macdonald's Muslim Theology, p. 313.) 410 APPENDIX B They all call India Daru'l-Islam, but they carefully abstain from saying whether jihad is lawful or not. Apparently they still leave it an open question. The Calcutta Muhammadan Society has gone further, and has definitely stated that jihad can by no means be lawfully made in a Daru'l-Islam, which they declare India to be. They support their position by a reference to the Fatawa-i-'Alamgiri, which states the conditions under which a Daru'l-Islam becomes a Daru'l-Harb. They are — "(1) When the rule of infidels is openly exercised, and the ordinances of Islam are not observed. "(2) When it is in such contiguity to a country which is Daru'l-Harb that no city of Daru'l-Islam intervenes between that country and Daru'l-Harb. " (3) That no Musalman is found in the enjoyment of religious liberty, nor a Dhimmi (an infidel who has accepted the terms of permanent subjection to Musalman rule) 1 under the same terms as he enjoyed under the government of Islam." 2
THE LAW OF JIHAD 411 In any case, the uncertainty of the law and the varying fatwas afford great opportunity to fanatics to give trouble to the ruling power, and to peaceably-minded Muhammadans. This difficulty is, however, got rid of by the latest attempt to deal with the subject. Maulavi Cheragh 'Ali 1 maintains that all the wars of Muhammad were defensive, and that no argument for jihad can be deduced from the Qur'an at all.2 This is delightfully simple, and if the 'Ulama of Constantinople, and the learned professors in the great College of al-Azhar in Cairo, would discard Abu Hanifa and his teaching, and cast away their legal text-books, it would, no doubt, be a blessing to many a land and many a home. I have already shown 3 this writer's attitude towards the canonical law, and so I need now quote only the following statement: "All the fighting injunctions in the Qur'an are, in the first place, only for self-defence, and none of them has any reference to making war offensively. In the second place, they are transitory in their nature. The Muhammadan Common Law is wrong on this point where it allows unbelievers to be attacked without provocation." 4 Maulavi Chenagh 'Ali next deals with the meaning of the word jihad itself. It is said that the classical meaning of jahada and jáhada is that a person "laboured vigorously," and that the meaning of "fighting an
412 APPENDIX B enemy" is a post-classical and technical one. The classical age 1 is that of the poets before the time of Muhammad, after whose death foreign words crept in and the language became more or less corrupt. It is maintained that jahd, jihad, and their derivatives are to be rendered according to the classical usage of the term, when it would not mean "fighting in warfare," for which the Arabic words harab and qital do service. Jahd and its derivatives occur in thirty-six verses. Setting aside those which cannot possibly refer to war, the rest are said to be of two kinds. First, those which occur in the Meccan Suras, and secondly, those in the Suras which were delivered at Madina. Maulavi Cheragh 'Ali asserts that those in the second class, which are generally interpreted to mean "fighting," should be used in the sense of "strenuous exertion," as is done in the earlier Suras. "I fully admit," he says, "that in the post-classical language of the Arabs, the word jihad was used to signify warfare;" but "the subsequent corrupt or post-classical language cannot be accepted as a final or even a satisfactory authority upon the point." 2 The argument used is that a purely conventional meaning of the word jihad came into use after the time of Muhammad, and that the Canonical Legists have affixed that meaning to the word in the Qur'an, and so have built up an entirely wrong system. A careful analysis of all the texts bearing on the subject is made. Some present great difficulties, but it is laid down as a principle of interpretation that those which seem to declare the duty of jihad must be read in connection with other passages in which the permission or the call to fight is only conditional. Thus: "When two commandments, one conditional and the other general or absolute, are found on the same subject, 1 Muslim writers call this " the days of ignorance.'' 2 Critical Exposition of the Jihad (ed. Calcutta, 1885), pp. 168. THE LAW OF JIHAD 413 the conditional is to be preferred, and the absolute should be construed as conditional." 1 It is further stated that the wars of Muhammad were defensive, and that, therefore, the verses referring to them "are strictly temporary and transitory in their nature," for the circumstances were purely local. The ninth Sura is generally supposed to have been given at the end of the ninth year of the Hijra, but Maulavi Cheragh 'Ali, in opposition to Nöldeke, one of the greatest Qur'anic scholars of the day, considers that the opening verses were delivered in the eighth year, while Muhammad was marching against Mecca, and that, therefore, they have a limited and local application, and not a general one forming a rule for all time. This is very ingenious, but it is in striking opposition to the law doctors, who hold them to be of general application, and to whom it matters little whether they were revealed in the eighth or the ninth year. The next step in this most recent treatment of the subject is to substitute other readings for some of the words in the Qur'an.2 The verse, "Whoso fight for the cause of God, their works He will not suffer to miscarry" (xlvii. 5), is disposed of by the suggestion of another reading, Qutilu 3 — "those who are killed" (or fought) — for the word in the text, Qatalu — "those who kill or fight." If this explanation is not accepted, then it must be interpreted by other verses which mean fighting in self-defence, such as, "Fight for the cause of God against those who fight against you; but commit not the injustice of attacking them first " (xl. 186).
In order still further to prove the defensive character of the wars of Muhammad, a different reading of another verse is adopted. For "have fought" — Yuqatiluna, —the words "have been fought" — Yuqatalhum —are substituted, so that the verse reads not "a sanction is given to those who fight," but "a sanction has been given to those who have been fought" (xxii. 40). The passive form is adopted by the Qaris Nafi' of Madina, Ibn 'Amir of Syria and Hafs, the Rawi of 'Asim of Kufa. 1 All the other Qaris retain the active form. In the commentary of Jalalu'd-din, this very verse is quoted as the first verse which descended from heaven to authorise jihad, so that there is good authority for Yuqatiluna — "have fought." However, it is only fair to say that Maulavi Cheragh 'Ali does not rest his case on a disputed reading, and the loss of the support he thought he had from these two verses will not affect it much. Such is a very brief outline of the ablest work on jihad, which I have yet seen. It is undoubtedly the best position for enlightened Musalmans to adopt, although it brings them into conflict with all the canonists of preceding ages, and with the views of commentators and theologians of all the various sects.
INDEX
416 INDEX
INDEX 417
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