Knesset Library - Topics on the Public Agenda - The Evolution of Jihad in Islam

The Evolution Of Jihad In Islam

Elhanan Goldberg

The rise of radical Islam combined with terror attacks leads the average person to attach the concepts of Jihad and Martyrdom¹to these terror events and conclude that Islam is a militant bellicose religion for which the sword is the only way to resolve conflicts.²
This is a fundamentally mistaken view. We should try to understand the phenomenon by examining the following issues: The motives for terror attacks, the nature of the ideology of radical Islamic movements, what caused these movements to be created and the different messages their ideology conveys from both an historical and a contemporary vantage point. This should be done in order to find common parameters, if such exist, while cognizant of the fact that the term Jihad does not refer to religious war alone, but rather contains a wide range of spiritual, religious and physical meanings and connotations.
Space constraints and an overabundance of material will limit this essay to basic concepts and trends that run like a thread throughout the ideologies of the various radical Islamic movements in the 20^th century. Our aim is to clarify for the average reader central tenets of Islam as well as concepts that arouse great sentimental and religious emotions. Some concepts have multiple connotations, such as: Jihad³, Kital ⁴, Dawa⁵ and Umma (6)⁶. These appear again and again in radical Islamic thought and connect the reader to classical Islam. In doing so they arouse associations with the glorious Golden Age of nascent Islam; they maintain a kind of sentimental and mental background music in the heart of the believing Moslem enabling him to deal with a complex world full of meanings and interpretations - the world of Islam. This generates an effect that must be explained to someone not familiar with the nuances of the Moslem world.

In order to understand the significance of Jihad as well as other concepts connected to it (such as: Kital and Dawa) we must first examine its emergence in Islam. Early Islam did not emerge in a vacuum. It drew ideas from the customs, the people and the concepts that were already extant.
Islam developed as a demanding religion that obliged the believer to perform numerous fasts and prayers and required the self-sacrifice of the individual in the service of God, without compromise or hesitation. This devoutness found its expression in the very phraseology of Islam: "The submission of Man before his Creator". This is what guided Mohammed in his actions, an absolute faithfulness to God. It is also what coalesced Islam as a religion that works for and on behalf of God.

The central benchmark event in Islam is when Mohammed moved (Hijra) to Yathreb north of Mecca. Yathreb latter became Medina (literally the Prophets country). As a respected and recognized figure Mohammed was requested by two Bedouin tribes in this area (Aws and Hazraj) to mediate between them. This move in 622 AD signified the transformation of Islam from a persecuted religion to a triumphant religion. From a religion with a small number of followers to a religion with a wider nucleus of followers, a religion that wishes to spread the word of Islam - the word of God in its view - to the rest of the world, in order that "the word of God shall be supreme".⁷ Thus crystallized the concept of Dawa, literally a calling to Islam by preparing the hearts of men for Islam through religious propaganda - or "gaining souls for Islam". This was a necessary precondition before setting out on war - to call upon the opposing force to accept Islam. If not, his judgment would be that of an "infidel" in Islam, in other words a judgement of death.

The move to Medina, known as the Hijra, became the foundation year in the Moslem calendar and its implications are felt up to the present time. When we speak about the unity of the Arab world (Umma Arabia and Wahda Arabia) we come back to the Hijra. When Mohammed arrived in Medina he composed "The National Contract" (Ahd Elumma) and in this way converted all connections of tribal fanaticism into religious connections - to the nation (of Islam) on the one hand and to himself on the other as the leader of the Moslem community and sole arbitrator of internal disputes. Now the religion and the state were intertwined. Mohammed was the religious leader (the Imam - the one who leads the worshipers in prayer), as well as the political leader with the last word and absolute authority. Islam was now underway as a religion in which State and Religion were essentially one.

During the formative stages of Islam Jihad did not represent a clear-cut command for armed war, but rather was the beginning of logical stages of development. During their stay in Mecca, Mohammed and his handful of followers had to demonstrate their fidelity to their faith. As an oppressed group they had need of an internal Jihad against the human desires that disconnected them from the faith of the creator. They had to defend themselves against their oppressors (a more external Jihad) and they had to cultivate patience and steadfastness in the face of various torments (Sabr) (General Jihad). All of these constituted in themselves various kinds of Jihad. Afterwards when Mohammed and his followers moved to Medina, the Jihad was different: It became a legal Jihad that defined how the individual members of the group would relate to one another and issued judicial decisions in this regard. This occurred parallel to the military Jihad against the Meccan aristocracy, who had recently become Mohammed's enemy. Later on, it related to the diffusion of Islam (Jihad and Dawa) by way of conquest, trade and the transmission of the word of Islam to other peoples.⁸

During this period, Moslem civilization crystallized as an integral part of the religion. The civilized world was considered to be Dar El Islam (the House of Islam) - the house in which Islam resided, where the law of Islam reigned and which an Islamic government ruled. Opposed to this was Dar El Harb (the House of War) inhabited by infidels that had not yet accepted the Moslem faith or surrendered to Moslem rule.⁹ In this context, the Jews and Christians and later the Zoroastrians lived as tolerated infidels - Dhimmi or Ahl El-Dhimmi, "people of the Covenant." They had to pay a head tax (Jizya) in return for internal autonomy in managing their own affairs.¹⁰

In fact, Islam found a provisional solution for the "People of the Book" for various reasons. The Jews believed in one God and were not polytheists at all. Even though Christianity was problematic because of its concept of the "Holy Trinity" it had a very powerful empire behind it at the time (the Byzantine), while the Persians (Zoroastrians) were difficult to conquer from a geographical point of view. These three peoples were impossible to prevail over by way of the sword and thus required a separate legal status.

These central motifs of classical Islam continue to characterize Islam's relationships with other peoples with the intertwining of religion and politics having great affect on these relationships. If this is the case, then what caused the Islam of today to become so extreme and radical, supporting internal and universal terror? ¹¹

The turning point occurred in 1683 with the final defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna, thus inaugurating the period of European Imperialism on Islamic soil. ¹² Later in 1729 the Turks established a printing shop, and in 1755 a royal Ottoman Mosque was built in the Italian Baroque style.¹³ These developments led to reactionary movements that found expression as early as 1742 with the destruction of the first Turkish printing shop¹⁴ along with the development of a trend towards regional autonomy led by local notables (Ahyan) as well as several rebellious Pashas who exploited the lack of centralized government.

In the 19^th century we see that the Ottoman Sultan was forced to sign a rights charter that gave a seal of approval to excessive privileges throughout the empire.¹⁵ The collapse of the Ottoman Empire as an Islamic Empire that denoted the unity of the Moslem World, alongside the inroads of foreign European ideas into the very spirit of Islam, into the "House of Islam", into the heart of hearts of Islam - into the Ottoman Sunni Empire that denoted the unity of Islam. These changes led to a head-on confrontation between European and Moslem countries, between the East and West, between Christians and Moslems, between Dar El Harb (the House of War) and Dar El Islam and between believers and non-believers (infidels). This collapse aroused internal reverberations and a soul-searching by Moslems, since a situation was created wherein the Christians (the infidels) conquered ever widening expanses of territory within the Moslem world.¹⁶

In the 20^th century¹⁷ when once again the Christian European world penetrated into the very heartland of the Moslem world, an Arab awakening had also begun. Today we are witness to numerous Fatwas (religious legal opinions) that the common people obey without question. This pattern came about because from the point of view of Islam the ability to make traditional religious legal rulings called Ijtihad ended in the 10^th century because the legal corpus of Islam had already been established, as well as out of fear of political considerations interfering with religious legal rulings.¹⁸

The special status of legal religious rulings passed into the hands of religious sages, far from governmental factors. This is similar to Rabbinic rulings in Judaism. The Fatwas common in the Islamic world today contain elements that were not extant at the beginning of Islam. For example, there is the call to women to participate in Jihad despite the fact that women in early Islam never took part in active fighting. An additional example is the simultaneous permitting and forbidding of cloning.

All Fatwas are proper since four schools of religious thought exist in Islam. All are considered to have appropriate religious authority. An article that appeared on May 24, 2003 in "El Quds" newspaper (pg.16) under the headline "Suicide Bombings: From Ijtihad to Fatwa" stresses the strict rules for fighting the enemy at the beginning of Islam (for example the prohibition on killing innocents). This is in light of the current dilemma in which innocents are also killed because military inferiority requires steps to restrain the enemy¹⁹ by non-conventional means such as suicide bombings.

The article also addresses the dilemma of women being active in Jihad, and on the strict Fatwas deriving from the view that Islam itself is strict and does not change in accordance with reality. The author of the article, Dr. Abd Es-Sattar Kasem, suggests that there is a need to change the term Ijtihad that implies hard legal proof, to the term Er-Ray (opinion) that carries a non-obligatory implication.

CONCLUSION

Developments in the meaning of the term Jihad, in conjunction with its many-layered and deep connotations, along with increased European involvement and the spread of the nationalist idea in the last several centuries (especially the 20^th) have created a dynamic amongst many Moslems that has often manifested as radicalism. This is especially so, given the complexity of the concept "State-Religion" in Islam at its inception. This complexity reflected and continues to reflect a purist religious thought dedicated to preserving the glory of early Islam amongst many Moslems and religious leaders whose religious legal opinions are seen as binding by the Moslem masses.

¹ In classical Arabic the literal meaning is to bear witness while some interpret it to mean to die a martyr's death or that God and his angels will testify he has a place in paradise. See Eytan Kolberg's article "Martyrdom and Self Sacrifice in Classical Islam", Peamim, 1998 (73-76) pgs 5-27. The term Shahid was applied to one who had fallen in a holy war who bears witness by his death to his faith and is thus entitled to enter paradise immediately. Later the term was applied to one who had died during the pilgrimage to Mecca (El-Haj) or to one who had defended his property, see Hava Lazarus-Yaffe (Ed.) Chapters in the History of the Arabs and Islam (Heb), Reshafim, Tel Aviv, 1967 pg 67
² While we might consider the "idea of Harb" foreign to any kind of logic, the concept of Horma (war to the bitter end) appears in the Bible - especially in connection to Amalek - see: "On Shaul and Amalek and on 'Renovated Revolutionaryism'" by Israel Rozen: http://www.herzog.ac.il/main/megadim/9rzn.html The concept of Horma reminds one of the prohibition or Haram to enter Mecca - a holy place of Islam (Mecca and Medina being the two holy cities of Islam).
³ In paragraph 8 of the Hamas Charter, published in 1988, it is written: "Allah is the goal, the emissary is the model, the Koran is the Law, Jihad is the way, and death for Allah is the sublime ambition" (see Roni Shaked & Aviva Shaabi, The Hamas, Keter, Jerusalem, 1994, pg 107 (emphasis is mine). The connotation is religious in that the reward is in the world to come: "Do not think of those who have fallen for God as dead. They live and are receiving their compensation from their
sovereign lord" (Koran, Sura 3, 169)
⁴ The expression Jahidu fi sabil Allah ("make an effort for Allah") appears 17 times in the Koran. The expression Katilu fi sabil Allah ("Fight for God") appears five times. There is therefore a linguistic association between the two expressions amongst Moslems. Frequently radical Islamic groups use the expression fi sabil Allah in order to give religious legitimacy to their actions.
⁵ "The fundamental mission of our society is Ed-Dawa ila Allah may he be blessed and praised and we will not restrain any effort toward this end" (the official website of the Moslem Brotherhood in Syria: http://www.jimsyr.com/09da3wa/trbia/dawa.htm )
⁶ The Moslem Nation was created with the flight (Hijra) of Mohammed to Medina and the formation of Ahd El-Umma - foreseer of the nation that I will refer to below
⁷ Koran - Sura 40,9
⁸ For more information about this interesting period see Lazarus Yaffe, pgs 27-124
⁹ See Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: Two Thousand Years of History,Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1955 pg 231. Also the Koran - Sura 129,9 - the Jizya paragraph -- "Fight against those who have been given the book you have received and still do not believe in Allah....until they surrender and pay you the Jizya - the surrender tax - and recognize your government". It must be stressed that there is no necessary connection between the idea of Jihad and terror. The idea of Jihad as a holy war had already existed in the Middle East. It appears many times in the books of Deuteronomy and Judges denoting a war for God and the Faith. This connotation was also used by the Byzantine Christians in their wars to repulse the Persians, the Arabs and the Turks from the Holy Land - Lewis, pg 197
¹⁰ Ibid, pg 179
¹¹ Ibid, pg 197
¹² Ibid, 231
¹³ Ibid, pg 259
¹⁴ Ibid, pg 260 - it should be noted that this indicates the other significance of Jihad - confronting external factors that are able to have an evil influence on the Moslem soul. This is how one should understand the reaction against the European spirit - not as an act of terror (in the sense of murder and killing of people) but rather as a manifestation of the confronting the foreigner, the different, in order to drive him out of the "House of Islam" and by doing this to strengthen Arab unity and to prevent negative influences on Islam and on Moslems.
¹⁵ Ibid
¹⁶ The phenomenon of conflict as a result of the uniqueness of state religion in Islam led, according to some European researchers, to raising the level of importance of Jerusalem for various reasons. This was during periods when it was controlled by non-Moslem peoples such as the Crusaders. From the 1150's on there arose a tradition of "The Praises of Jerusalem" into codes in order to stress its religious importance in connection to Mecca and Medina. This occurred again after the Six Day War in 1967 when one discussed the religious status of Jerusalem. But it must also be noted that throughout history, Jerusalem was the first city Moslems prayed towards and the third city in importance for Moslems. It did not however have the same status as regards haram. Regarding the idea of the holiness of Jerusalem throughout history see Emmanuel Sivan Arab Political Myths, Am Oved, Tel Aviv Pgs 85-121
¹⁷ During which time many important events occurred: Sykes Picot Agreements after WWI that divided the Turkish Empire between the British and the French; when the industrial world was divided into two blocs Democratic and Communist; when in 1918 Wilson presented his 14 points in which he recognized the rights of Asian and African Nations to participate in determining the government of their own countries. On the background of such and other events many military takeovers occurred throughout the Arab World, such as in Egypt in 1952 and in Syria in the 70's.
¹⁸ In regards to this interesting period see Lazarus Yaffe, pg 172 as well as pages 156-176 about the developments of the Oral Torah and the Halacha.
¹⁹This motif of Jihad as a kind of "no choice war" and using any means appears in many websites of these radical movements. They use quotes from the Koran. An interesting example is the Qaradawi site www.qaradawi.net in the Arab language. This is a well-known Mufti who operates out of Saudi Arabia and who recieved a wide religious education from the Alazahar University in Cairo. He has ruled that the activities of the Martyrs is the greatest face of Jihad and connotes filling the enemy with terror. According to him this view is justified in the Koran in the Sura 60,8 "Prepare an army and cavalry against your enemies to the greatest extent in your power in order to frighten and deter others". On the same site he writes that Jihad in its most general meaning is an obligatory commandment for every Moslem (man or woman) at all times, in all places according to his or her ability. There are many kinds of Jihad four of which are: 1. Jihad of the Soul and against Satan; 2.Jihad against the exploiter and corruption; 3. Jihad against the Infidel and the hypocrite and 4. Jihad of the sword. This last is only one amongst 13 types of Jihad.