III. Jihad


The goal of Islam is the attainment of peace, inwardly and outwardly, and this is only possible through Jihad. The concept of Jihad cannot be rendered simply by the current erroneous translation of “Holy war”. Jihad is derived from the Arabic root “Jahada” that means to strive or to exert oneself. So, Jihad would be rendered more exactly by “striving: or “exerting oneself” in the path of Allah, or to please Allah, and this is not necessarily through war.
Its translation into “Holy war” combined with the erroneous notion of Islam, prevalent in the West, as the “religion of the sword”, has helped to eclipse its inner and spiritual significance and to distort its connotation.
To understand the spiritual significance of Jihad and its wide application to nearly every aspect of human life as understood by Islam, we should know that Islam bases itself upon the idea of establishing equilibrium within the being of man, as well as in the human society where he functions and fulfils the goal of his earthly life.
This equilibrium, which is the terrestrial reflection of Divine Justice and the necessary condition for peace in the human domain, is the basis upon which the soul takes flight towards that peace. But to remain in equilibrium in the face of the contingencies of life requires continuous exertion. It means carrying out Jihad at every stage of life: for example, to fight our bad tendencies, to be good with the others, to do our best for the world community, etc…. This continuous exertion of the self to please God would prevent the ever-present danger of loss of equilibrium, which leads to disintegration on the individual level and chaos on the scale of community life. This continuous exertion would also allow the realization of unity “al Tawheed” or total integration of the individual to the Divine order of the universe and thus, realizing peace inwardly and outwardly.
This meaning of Jihad explains why Muslims, both as individuals and members of the Islamic society must carry out Jihad and exert themselves at all moments to fight a battle, at once both inward and outward, against those forces that, if not combated, will destroy that necessary equilibrium.
In its most outward sense, Jihad came to signify the defense of Dar-al-Islam, that is, the Islamic world, from invasion and intrusion by non-Islamic forces. The earliest wars of Islamic history, which threatened the very existence of the young community, came to be known as Jihad, par excellence, in this outward sense of “Holy war”. But upon returning from one of these early wars, which were of paramount importance for the survival of the newly established religious community, the Prophet said to his companions that they returned from the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad: the inner battle against all forces which would prevent man from living according to his primordial and God-given nature.
To defend their Islamic world, Muslims may use force. All force used under the guidance of the divine Law with the aim of re-establishing an equilibrium that is destroyed is accepted and in fact necessary for it means to carry out and establish justice. Moreover, not to use force in such a way is to fall prey to other forces that cannot but increase disequilibrium and disorder and result in greater injustice. The force used here can be swift and intense or gentle and mild, depending upon the circumstances. But force would be used only to establish equilibrium and harmony and not for personal or sectarian reasons, and this will be done not by individuals but by the consensus of the free will of the Muslim scholars and leaders. The Islamic concept of justice itself is related to equilibrium, the word for justice “al-3adl” in Arabic being related in its etymology to the word for equilibrium “ta-3adul”.
Force is to be found everywhere in the world, in nature as well as in human society, among men as well as among the human soul. By embracing the “world” and not shunning the kingdom of man, Islam took upon itself responsibility for the world in which force is present but Islam limited this use of force.
The concept of Jihad is badly presented to the Western people consciously or unconsciously. Among scholars who propagated a distorted image about Jihad is Bernard Lewis, who views Islam “as a militant, indeed as a military religion, and its followers as fanatical warriors, engaged in spreading their faith and their Law by armed might” (The Political Language of Islam, Univ. of Chicago press, 1988, p.71).
Moreover, since the breakdown of the former Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, an orientalist school of thought has flourished in the West, best represented by Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington and Daniel Pipes. This school deems that hostility is a deep rooted feature of the Muslim psyche, thanks to the distorted theory of Jihad, and that Islam has replaced communism as the new world threat. Unfortunately, these three persons are or were advisors on the Middle East policy in the Department of Foreign Affairs, USA. This explains some of the USA foreign policy towards the Islamic World.
If we go back to the Islamic Laws “Shari3a” dealing with the doctrine of Jihad, we will find that peace is the rule and war is the exception, and that no obligatory state of war exists between Muslims and the rest of the world, nor is Jihad should be waged until the world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state, as those who are distorting the concept of Jihad want the Westerner to believe.
In the Jihad doctrine, a defensive war can be launched with the aim of establishing justice, equity and protecting basic human rights. Accordingly, Islamic humanitarian law strictly lays down a number of humane rules compatible with those established by international humanitarian law governing the conduct of war and the treatment of enemy’s persons and property.
What is happening today in the Islamic World concerning the human rights violation, not even the rights of the enemies of Islam, but those of the very Muslim citizens by their own governments is an aberrant accident in the history of Islam.

IV. Is Islam “the Religion of the Sword” as it is said?


No, Islam is not the religion of the sword by any mean. It is true that the sacred history of Islam began as an epic with the rapid spread of the Arabs outside of Arabia in an event that changed the world history forever. But this rapid expansion did not mean forced conversion of Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians or others who, still to that day, live with the Muslims. In Persia three hundred years after Islamic rule, much of the country was still Zoroastrian and the same is true for the other indigenous religions in all the other provinces conquered by the Muslims, be it Syria, Egypt, Iraq, North-Africa, Spain, etc… It took them centuries to have a Muslim majority or to become Arabic speaking. Up to this day, there is a Coptic-Christian minority in Egypt claiming to go back to the Pharos and to be the pure blood Egyptians. No body forced them to change their religion. The early Islamic conquests were meant to liberate the indigenous populations in these countries from the Byzantines and the Persians who were oppressing and persecuting them. The indigenous populations were welcoming the Arab armies and that is why the conquests were so rapid. The populations did not resist them and the Arabs had to fight just one battle in almost every country before the country was surrendering. There was no resistance but cooperation from the populations of these countries.
I would like to quote here Michael the Elder, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, approving the welcoming attitude of his ancestors co-religionists at the advent of the Islamic armies in the 7th century and seeing the finger of God in the Arab conquests even after the Eastern Churches had had five centuries of experience with the Islamic rule. After recounting the persecutions carried on by Heraclius against what he was considering as Christian heretics, Michael the Elder wrote: “This is why the God of Vengeance - Who alone is all-powerful, and changes the empires of mortals as He will, giving it to whomsoever He will, and uplifting the Humble-beholding the wickedness of the Romans, who, throughout their dominions, cruelly plundered our churches and our monasteries and condemned us without pity – brought from the region of the south the sons of Ishmael, to deliver us through them from the hands of the Romans… It was no slight advantage for us to be delivered from the cruelty of the Romans, their wickedness, their wrath and cruel zeal against us, and to find ourselves at peace” (quoted by T.W. Arnold in the Preaching of Islam, Dwarf Publishers LTD, London, 1986, pp.54-56).
While for the West, the spread of Islam is associated with the sword, hardly anyone ever mentions the brutal manner in which Northern Europeans were forcefully converted to Christianity, and the older European religions destroyed. Even the Crusades, carried out in the name of Christianity, did not succeed in changing the Western image of Christianity as the religion of peace and Islam as the religion of the sword. The atrocities of the Inquisition against the Muslims and the Jews of Spain and against all kind of the so-called “heretics”, the violent conversion of the Muslim Phillipinos who survived the horrors of slaughtering the Muslim population of Manila by the Spaniards, the eradication of whole ethnic groups in the newly discovered world of the Americas and Australia, because they were not Christians, the wars and colonization carried out in Asia and Africa by the Christians, all these violence were not enough to tarnish the reputation of Christianity as a religion of peace nor that of Islam as the religion of the sword!