Jihad
(Holy War)

Jihad is fighting in the cause of Allah; that is defending the religion of Allah along with everything it represents, especially justice among people. Defending justice enjoins combating injustice and oppression. Jihad does not aim to impose Islam on people through force and coercion; it seeks to repel injustice and oppression against Muslims :

"Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for Allah loveth not transgressors".

This verse was quoted earlier.

From this we realize that fighting in the cause of Allah is not aggression; it is repelling aggression. Therefore, Jihad is defense, not offense. Islam sanctions war, it even enjoins it:

"Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah heareth and knoweth all things", [The Cow : 244],

and

"And strive in His cause as ye ought to strive", [The Pilgrimage : 78].

This Jihad has one and only goal : exalting the Word of Allah; that is, upholding lawfulness and repelling injustice.

The verses which call for Jihad in the cause of Allah, and exhort the believers to take heed of the Hereafter abound in the Quran; of these we will mention the following :

"Let those fight in the cause of Allah who sell the fight of this world for the Hereafter, to him who fighteth in the cause of Allah - whether he is slain or gets victory - soon shall we give him a reward of great (value)", [Women : 74].

Furthermore, Islam forbids fighting for the sake of upholding injustice and oppression :

"Those who fight in the cause of Allah and those who reject faith fight in the cause of Evil : so fight ye against the friends of Satan : feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan" [Women : 76].

Evil is oppression, and every evil deed brings forth yet more evil, tyranny, corruption and injustice.

As we have said earlier, the Prophet had sent letters to a number of kings, princes and potentates, calling upon them to embrace Islam. Through this action, he was expounding openly the message which Allah - the Great and Almighty - had commanded him to propagate; so he chose peaceful means to do it.

War in Christianity

Researchers and religion experts are agreed that Christianity, or the Christian religion, does not sanction war; on the contrary, it strictly forbids it. They base their opinion on some of the sayings of Christ - Prayer and peace be upon him - and his Commandments to the disciples, apostles and followers.

In reality, Christ neither forbade war nor sanctioned it; he had never made mention of it, whether positively or negatively. The son of Mary was widely known as the Messenger of love, kindness and forgiveness.

Among the sayings of Christ on the issue of war, which is of interest to us here, we will mention the following (in fact most of these verses have already been quoted in previous chapters) :

Jesus said to Peter, the High Priest : "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think I cannot now pray to My Father and He will provide Me with twelve legions of Angels ? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus", [Mat 26].

"But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak too", [Mat 5].

"But I say to you : Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you", (Ibid.).

These words make it clear that Christ did tackle the relationships between people as members of the human society, and as single individuals responsible for what concerns them individually, and not for what concerns society as a whole, or the people or the nation to which they belong.

The person who takes a slap on his right cheek has been exposed to an offense; it is up to him to return the offense or to forgive the offender. He may even be as much forgiving as he wishes to be, since the matter concerns him only, and since it has nothing to do with his religion, belief and principles, all of which belong to his nation, not to him alone.

So is the case with the man in what concerns his tunic and cloak, for these and all other items of this kind have nothing to do with religion, belief and creed.

Regarding Peter and his sword, it is important that the reader know that Christ was determined to give himself up, of his won accord, to those who had come to arrest him, and that any resistance - whatever its importance and source - was bound to be counter productive, resulting in the opposite of what he had intended to do.

Proof of what we are saying is to be found in the words of Christ himself : "How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus ?" That is, he must be arrested, taken to court and be sentenced to death.

Christ took other stands, quite different from those mentioned above, whenever the matter concerned faith, morals, and the spiritual values which involved the whole of society. The following are some examples :

- One day before Easter, Christ entered the Temple, and he was terrified by what he saw and heard : shouting, arguing, and quibbling amid the pilgrims, money-changers, merchants and venders, who were surrounded by cattle, sheep, doves and all kinds of money-laden tables. Competition between the merchants who wanted to sell at the highest bid and the buyers who wanted to buy at the lowest price grew so fierce that the Temple was turned into a "bazaar" and a market place for selling, buying and bargaining.

Bursting with anger in front of this disgraceful, shocking scene, the son of Mary "drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves", and said to them : "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of thieves". When He sensed some lagging on their part, He assailed them with a whip, and they turned tail.

- Jesus noticed that the scribes and the Pharisees were up to their ears in hypocrisy and falsehood. They would say things which they did not do; they would tie up onerous heavy loads and, without touching the loads themselves, they would have them put on people's shoulders. Jesus did not forgive them their excessive misleading and deceiving of people, their harming the spirit of religion and its inherited truths, and their distorting of facts, values and morals. So, he became very angry with them, and he showered those hypocrites with misfortunes which time has preserved for us, and in which there was no hope for forgiveness, mercy, peace and reconciliation; on the contrary, these misfortunes ooze with anger, rage, vengeance, and the threat to inflict upon them the most severe punishment :

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves; nor do you allow those who are entering to go in(*)."

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses."

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much the son of hell as yourselves."

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of law : justice and mercy and faith."

"Blind guides, who strain out on a gnat and swallow a camel."

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence."

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness."

"Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell ?", [Mat 23].

In fact, Jesus did declare an all-out war on those scribes and Pharisees and such other hypocrites. Whether the weapon used in that war was a sword - like Peter's - or harsh insulting words - such as the aforementioned misfor-tunes - what is important is not the means, but the intentions, the goals and the spirit which was apparent in those means which came as a clear expression of the wrath of the Son of Mary and his rage at those who had harmed the religion, the faith and the values of right and goodness.

- On yet another occasion, Christ said, addressing his words to the disciples and the followers : "I came to send fire on earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ... Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth ? I tell you, not at all, but division", [Luke 12].

Like the life of Mohammed who came after Jesus, Christ's life was a Jihad in the cause of Allah; that is, a war waged against evil in its many facets, such as lying, hypocrisy, injustice, exploiting the weak, the poor and the needy, rejecting faith and all the values it represents, and the tyranny of the oppressors who always seek to stab Truth in the heart.

If, as we have already seen, Christ has commanded forgiveness and pardon, Islam - both Quran and Sunna - has also enjoined them and encouraged the believers to make use of them in more than one verse and Hadith.

The wars of faith or "religious wars", as historians have called them, which Christianity had waged offensively or defensively were numerous throughout history.

The Crusades were offensive wars from the start; that is, the first Crusade (1095-1099) was waged from Europe in response to a call launched by Pope Urbain II in Clermont, France, in 1095.

The main objective of these "offensive" wars was the "defense" of the holy land in Palestine, the most famous of which was the Church of Resurrection. Since its advent to date, Islam has never fought a war of such magnitude, nature, scale and expansion.

If the Crusades were directed against Islam, or Muslim rulers (the  Fatimids, the Seljuks, the Ayubites) who ruled those lands successively, other religious wars were also fought by Christians against other Christians. Most famous of these are the French wars which took place in the sixteenth century (1562-1598) between the Catholics and the Protestants. Known as "Religious Wars", they were so fierce that the violence with which they were fought defies all imagination.

"Never in its history has that sapient nation ever displayed a violence and a savagery of this kind. One could witness mass executions on both sides, the killing of the wounded, and the slaying of the inhabitants whose towns and cities were occupied. Where the Calvin was the master, he would destroy all the paintings and lay waste to the graves and steal all of the holy monies. Against him, there was the Catholic who killed, tortured, and drowned anyone he knew was a follower of this heresy; the dead were so many that streams overflowed with bodies"(*).

If the Gospel contains no texts that permit or enjoin war, the church issued no decision that bans it; on the contrary, we find that the Church did encourage wars at times, and sometimes it supervised their organization and led the alliances which waged them against Islam and Muslims or against a Christian state sometimes.

Pope Julius II (1503-1515) led the League of Cambrai against Venice (1508), then the Saint League against France (1511-1512).

Pope Pius V (1566-1572) gave his blessings and sponsored the war against the Ottoman Empire which ended with the sea Battle of Lépante in October 1571, when the Alliance fleet scored a decisive victory against the Ottoman fleet.

A group of historians have confirmed that the Ottoman Sultan, King Said who was ruling in those days, declared three days of festivities to celebrate the death of Pope Pius V mentioned earlier.

Jihad in the cause of Allah is not confined to Islam; Christianity practised it many times, too, against Muslims and Christians.

If Christianity waged the Crusades against Islam and Muslim rulers, there were two wars at least which it fought against Christians with a violence rarely seen in history.

The first of these two wars occurred in 1204 when the Crusaders invaded a Byzantine city, the capital of the eastern empire, laying waste to it. They entered the Church of Hagia Sophia (Santa Sophia), one - if not the -most important Christian churches of the time, and defiled it. Not only did they destroy its altars, icons, crosses and holy relics, they also plundered its invaluable masterpieces, committed adultery with pretty girls and harlots, killed people and imprisoned many others, and made others homeless. All this because those Crusaders belonged to the Latin Roman Church, and because the emperor of Byzantine, its Patriarch, bishops, priests and people were all Orthodox Romans who "broke away" from Rome.

The second "crusade," which Christianity waged by order from Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) and led by him, took place in 1209. It was declared against a Christian sect known as the "Cathares" or the "Albigeois" whom the Church viewed as heretics, and therefore exterminated them all.

If we draw a comparison between Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the field of religious wars or Jihad, we will find that, in reality, practice and in holy texts, Islam was more moderate, more tolerant and more merciful than the other two religions.

Suffice it here to remind the reader of the opinion of a renowned Christian historian whom we have cited in Chapter 9,  p. 45; we invite the reader to go back to it.

If we carefully examine the events that took place in Al-Andalus (Arab Spain), we will arrive at the following truth acknowledged by all historians, whatever their creed, sect or nationality :During Arab-Muslim rule, there reigned in Al-Andalus an atmosphere of tolerance, freedom and justice which turned that land into a paradise on earth. In the wake of the collapse of Muslim rule, following the fall of Gharnata (Granada) in 1492, the situation was turned upside down, unleashing blind fanaticism. Christianity, which was supposed to be a religion of love and mercy and which preached the love of the enemy, played its worst role in its history.

If Islam had sanctioned war, approved and sometimes enjoined it, it was not with the intention of forcing the defeated peoples to embrace Islam or to prevent them from practising their faith or to deny them the freedom of worship. Proof of this is found in Dr. Philip Hatta's A Detailed History of the Arabs, where he says : "It was not until before the second and third centuries that most of the peoples of Syria, Iraq and Persia converted into Islam. The number of Muslims in Syria during the first century after the conquest was probably no more than two-hundred thousand souls out of a total population estimated at three and a half million people"(*).

Furthermore, how can the Muslims be accused of seeking to impose Islam by the sword through their wars, if we remember that, immediately after al-Qods had opened its gates to him, Omar Ibn al-Khattab made a covenant with the Christians which guaranteed for them their churches and freedom of worship; that Khalid Ibn al-Walid did likewise with the inhabitants of Syrian cities which he had conquered; and that in the wake of the conquest of Egypt, Amar Ibn al-Aas struck a deal with the Copt Patriarch of Alexandria, Benjamin, whereby the Patriarch recovered all the wealth of the Monophysitic Church, which was expropriated by the Byzantines, in return for his support of the Muslims and that of the Christians who were under his spiritual authority ?**

In fact, for a large group from among the Syrian and Egyptian peoples - especially among the Jacobites of Syria - the Arab conquerors were salvagers who saved them from the Byzantines. The statement made by Barr Abraus, their spokesman, bears witness to this; he says : "The God of Revenge has sent us the Arabs to save us from the Romans". We have already quoted this statement in a previous chapter of this book (Chapter 9, p. 45).

It must be acknowledged that, throughout history, some Muslim rulers were characterized by religious fanaticism, which runs against the spirit of Islam, the tenets of the Quran and the recommendations of the Prophet and the Orthodox Caliphs. Those rulers, especially during the Abbasid rule and also during that of the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim bi-Amari-llah, behaved contrary to the spirit of Islam and the Sunna of the Prophet. Their conduct was no different from that of some Christian kings, princes and potentates who forgot or pretended to forget the teachings of Christ who, time and again, preached love, forgiveness and mercy and commanded the disciples and the followers to love their enemies, bless those who cursed them and pray for those who persecuted them.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to find in Islamic history a bloodcurdling battle such as the one fought by the Crusaders in the Mosque of al-Aqsa in the aftermath of their invasion of al-Qods in 1099, and to which we have alluded in Chapter 9 (p. 45).

Christian historians themselves could not contain their condemnation of that butchery committed in the name of the Cross, or rather in the name of Christ, by those fanatic Christians inside the house of prayer and worship in which Muslims - old men, women, children and unarmed men - took refuge.

The Crusaders pounced upon those poor Muslims with swords and daggers and slew them all. Christian historians who witnessed what had happened confirm that the courtyard of the Mosque was swamped with blood which reached the ankles of the crusaders.

The dissimilitude becomes clear when we remember that the Mosque of al-Aqsa is not too far away from the Church of Resurrection in which Omar Ibn al-Khattab declined to pray so that the Muslims would not turn it into a mosque after him.

Likewise, if we remember what the Crusaders did in 1204 in the Church of Santa Sophia, the horrible battle of which we have already mentioned in a previous chapter, we will conclude that Christian fanaticism in those days was not directed only against Islam and Muslims, but also against Christians themselves, or rather against Christianity itself when its religious doctrines were in disagreement with those of its opponents.

Our reaction is exactly the same when we remember the wars waged by the Church against the Cathares in the south of France - as we have already said.

Numerous are the wars and the painful misfortunes which took place among Muslims, of which we will mention the wars between Ali and Moucaouyya, the battles between the Fourth Caliph and the Kharijites and the Battle of  Karbala' - a bloody event in a dark period.

Also worth mentioning are the wars between TalHa and Zubayr, the raids on Makkah and the storming of the Kaaba whose sanctity was violated by Muslims themselves.

The history of Christian Europe, throughout many centuries, is but a record of its wars fought by Christians against Christians from different sects and denominations.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the Muslim world witnessed many shocks and convulsions, all of which were rejected and condemned by both Christianity and Islam.

Impartiality and respect for the truth and fairness compel us to condemn and denounce everything that some Christian and Zionist pens, in good or bad faith, have attributed to Islam, branding it as a religion of violence, and of the sword and coercion, and claiming that Islam has always sought to impose itself on people by force. This, we strongly condemn because it shuns the truth; in fact, the truth is, generally speaking, exactly the opposite of what those pens have written about Islam.

In its spirit and essence, Islam is the religion of mercy and peace. This is what is clearly seen everyday in the Muslim's greeting of people, whatever their religion, when he hastens to say : "as-salamu calaykum" or when he returns the greeting saying : "wa-calaykumu as-salam wa rahmatu allahi wa barakatuh".