Date: 15th Rabi Al-Thani 1442
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين اللهم صلى وسلم على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وأصحابه و من ول و بعد
In the name of God The Infinitely-Good The Merciful, all praise to God, The Lord of all creation. Oh God grant blessing and peace to our master Muhammad and his family and his companions and the righteous and those who come after.
A common question I get from both Muslims(1) and non Muslims in some form or another is: “Why do Muslims perform Jihad?” or “Why does Allah command Jihad?”.
Herein, I will attempt to provide an answer written for a western audience. Therefore, I will make references and offer examples which I hope are easily accessible by such an audience. This will not be an in depth legal explanation, rather a introduction to the concept so that honest western-minded people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, can begin to understand the concept of Jihad and Jihadi fighters in light of Islam.
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Intro
Muslims perform Jihad because it is a command of Allah[reference]. Why Allah(2) commands anything is because in His infinite wisdom and justice He has deemed that the best command. Jihad is a part of Islam, and one of the meanings of Jihad(3) is fighting against non-Muslims. In this answer I will only speak of the “lesser Jihad” - which is the physical fighting against non-Muslims.
Context
Media
The main factor which controls what people think when they hear words like “Jihad” is the media. The media has waged a massive campaign against the term Jihad and the concept of Jihad itself. Sadly, this makes it extremely difficult to discuss anything. I ask the reader to please put aside any emotionally-charged, trigger-word, conditioned responses, and try to approach this as an objective outsider.
History
One key aspect which the media always leaves out is history. All we see is criminal activity attached to the name Jihad and Islam. A lot of the world is in a dangerous and precarious state today. However, the present is not an island - isolated from everything else. Rather, the present is a consequence of the events of the past. Things today can be made more clear through the lens of history.
Muslims have been a religio-political society for nearly 14 centuries. The Caliphate has only collapsed less than a hundred years ago. On March 3rd 1924 it finally dissolved officially, and many attempts to revive the independence of Muslims have been attempted in the last 95 years. Sadly, today we have zero Islamic polities out of 50 Muslim Majority nation-states. How did all of this happen?
There was a period of history which is extremely dark for the human family. The rise of the European powers is not a romantic story. Between the enslavement of entire races of people, and multiple genocides including the unprecedented genocide of 400 million people over the course of 5 centuries in the North and South American continents, the end of the 2nd millenia Common Era was arguably the darkest in human history. The Muslim world was a major victim of the colonial period with over 200 years of ruthless crimes against humanity being commited against her people generation after generation. To this very day, of those 50 divided Muslim majority nation-states many of them have foreign occupiers and puppet leaders who oppress their people at the behest of their European backers. Even the borders of these nation-states were drawn by European masters. Sadly, this context of colonial slavery and exploitation is the context we must consider much of the modern Muslim world.
If we saw an example of a government today who was enacting Islamic Jurisprudence I could simply point to it. However, Muslims have neither power nor representative authority anywhere in those 50 nation-states. We are lucky to see the toleration of Muslims, and to imagine an empowered Muslim community is just that - an exercise of the imagination. The world today is in recovery of the mass enslavement and colonial era.
I mention this so that we can consider whatever dysfunction we might see in certain areas, we can understand it in the context of history, and not as an island - isolated from any relationships.
Contemporary
I do not want to get into politics. A major question today, as in every time, is what governments are legitimate or not. If a militia gathers against their government, whether that is legitimate or not is quite controversial - often depending on who wins. However, it is far less controversial to say a people have a right to gather arms against an invading or occupying army. Because of the intense media bias, as well as nationalism and exceptionalism, most people take for granted the idea that Muslims do not have this right of self defense. Most - if not all - Muslims who gather arms against invading armies are labeled as “terrorists”. I would propose that this is totally inappropriate and dehumanizing. Media and sensationalism has historically proven that this trend of dehumanizing certain groups of people can lead to horrible atrocities.
Regarding the occurrence of crimes including murder and war crimes - I may repeat myself often here, but I feel a need due to the emotional charge of this topic - they are exactly that, crimes, and should not be conflated with war or Jihad. Whether these crimes are committed by individuals, paramilitaries, or national armies they are illegal, unethical, and not sanctioned by any religious organization except the odd, radical cult.
Comparison
So, Islam really venorated their martyrs who die fighting in the name of Allah? Absolutely. Being a martyr is one of the highest stations in Islam. It is hard to imagine that my beloved home country, the USA, would be the most vocal in condemnation of the concept of Jihad. However, that seems to be the case. The USA is an avid perpetrator of war. In my culture we nearly worship soldiers, the military, and police. There is a very cultish attitude around war in the USA. Soldiers have a sacred status. They are universally celebrated. They get discounts on everything from movie tickets, to coffee, to getting an oil change. They get to cut in line at airports and every special treatment you could imagine. To speak one word against a soldier, veteran, let alone someone who died serving his country would make that person a pariah, and possibly the victim of mob violence. How could it be so hard for anyone who practices this attitude toward their own military have anything to say Jihad being a part of Islam or martyrs being honored?
A soldier is a brave man or woman who fights for the security of his people. Jihad is exactly that. Muslims fight for the security and way of life which the Muslims have - or had. Some people try to attack Jihad as a defensive war, saying that it is not defensive at all. What should we think of the USA, which we are told is the most powerful nation in the world, invading the poorest nations in the world and decimating the population, economy, and infrastructure? We call it the Department of Defense. So much for pre-emptive strikes.
I mention this only to stimulate some reflection in the reader. It is my hope that one could rid themselves of double standards and consider things fairly. If what my nation did is to be considered defensive wars, then certainly the Caliphates in the past who attacked not weak, but strong foes in pre-emptive strikes have more right to be called defensive wars.
However, I am not too sure Jihad is strictly defensive. In Islam there is a concept of Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam. Dar al Harb is the realm of repeated injustice and perpetual crimes against humanity. Dar al Islam is the realm of peace and justice. We see today the same ideology among the colonizers. The European powers have absolute moral supremacy, and they decide which nation is legitimate. If they decide to invade a nation, topple its government and install “democracy” they will do that. They have every right to invade and enforce their own political ideology on any nation they please. Just look at the cold war, and the continuation of it today. Perhaps they do not really have the moral authority they think they do, but would it be so hard for them to imagine that Muslims are not very different from them in this respect? Both the secularists and Islamists believe that they have a right to invade other nations and force their ideology on that nation, because they both believe they have absolute moral supremacy.
Laws of War
In fact, the USA and other world powers (including Muslim majority countries) could learn a lot about what Islamic law has to say about warfare. Here I would like to address the Islamic Rules of Engagement.
Firstly, Jihad does not allow forcing of an ideology on anyone, unlike the secular war-hawks. Jihad has several aims: 1) Enact the Shariah in those lands; 2) Provide security to all citizens of the caliphate - Muslim and non Muslim; and 3) Provide security to the citizens of other nations - in the case of atrocities which are so common in Dar al Harb, a capable Muslim nation can intervene and save the people from suffering.
The Shariah protects all people, majority and minority, and allows them to largely live by their own autonomy. The central state mainly provides only security and ensures the rule of law. The security and peace living under an Islamic government provides is something which should be spread, and with this in mind Jihad is a communal obligation. We all have a collective obligation to make the world a safer and more just place. That is the meaning of Jihad. The non-Muslim citizens of an Islamic government are protected, and history shows they have been the only protected minority in history. Today, minorities are not protected.
Secondly, Jihad does not allow for killing civilians or non-combatants. The concept of collateral damage which the USA allows for in its wars is not allowed in Jihad. If we add up all the civilian casualties each year and count how many are caused by “terrorism” - which I define here the way the media defines it, any murder commited by a Muslim - and all the civilian casualties caused by wars of the powers that be we see that the main threat to innocent lives is not Muslims committing crimes. Murder is not Jihad. Crimes are not Jihad. Jihad is a war, conducted by a Muslim government - of which there are none today - following very strict rules of engagement.
Thirdly, Jihad does not allow for destruction of the economy or infrastructure. This includes but is not limited to destroying roads, buildings, irrigation, trees, or livestock. How much of modern warfare is terroristic, with bombs destroying entire cities, and civilians making up the overwhelming majority of casualties. Many political theorists have made it clear that racism accounts for the fact that one death in the west is cause of media outrage while millions of dead innocents in Muslim countries are nameless and forgotten.
Fourthly, Jihad does not allow for blockades or sanctions. Sanctions which have become a go-to in the toolbox of crimes against humanity are extremely harmful to innocent people. The number of deaths caused by sanctions are hard to estimate, but they are in the tens of millions. Access to medicine and food during Jihad was often provided by the Muslims themselves, who would give medical treatment and send food to their enemies.
Fifthly, Jihad does not allow for torture. Torture has always been commonplace in Europe and only saw a very brief period of being outlawed before being recently reintroduced as a viable method to deal with “terrorists”. In Jihad, POWs (Prisoners of War) are to be forgiven and set free. While it is necessary to hold them they are to be given treatment equal to the soldiers and generals of the Muslim army itself. Shariah regarding Jihad not only predates the Geneva convention by over a thousand years, it is also far more humane, far reaching, and comprehensive.
I hope by this point it is clear: 1) the media concept of Jihad is propaganda; 2) the condition of a region is explained by the history of that region; 3) veneration of Jihad and Jihadi soldiers/martyrs is common among non-Muslims; 4) Jihad as a legal system is desperately needed as a viable, historically proven solution to the problems of modern warfare and crimes against humanity.
Authority
So, how can we implement Jihad? Well, it is not that easy. Jihad cannot be engaged in the modern state of the world. First, there is no Islamic government which could declare a Jihad. Secondly, in order to apply the rules of engagement as outlined above, we need an exceptional society. Modern society is deep in vice and a stranger to virtue. Engaging in Jihad is something which requires exceptional restraint and self control. You are putting your life at risk, and expected to act with valor and honor. I will again mention my country because it is what I know. In the USA police kill over 4000 civilians each year, while only 50 police officers are killed each year in the line of duty. The majority of deaths on duty are caused by car accidents. The fact that civilians are 100 times more likely to be killed by police than an officer being killed by a criminal is an off-putting statistic to say the least. However, the number of civilian victims is so high because the police officers are totally terrified. They are in an - albeit irrational - emotional frenzy and ready to kill first and ask questions later without consequences. This is “playing it safe” “better them than me” kind of attitude. This fear needs to be replaced with an attitude of service and sacrifice. Each soldier of an army of Jihad needs to prefer death to sin. Faith in the afterlife must be more real to the society than the life of this world. Therefore, before Jihad could ever be considered, we need to see a massive shift in the consciousness of the people.
I would not suggest that the spiritual Jihad is better, worse, or equal to the physical Jihad, however it is self-evident that in order to conduct physical Jihad the army needs to be of exceptional ethical caliber. Profound faith and inner transformation must occur before physical Jihad can occur.
The concept of vigilante justice or vigilante jihad is totally alien to Islam. Such an attempt to take crime-and-punishment or jihad into one's own hands would be a crime. People who form militias and carry out violent attacks against civilians are criminals and rightly called terrorists. Anyone who commits crimes or violent acts without authority are certainly guilty. However, this article has pondered war as a legitimate act of a legitimate government. There can be no war without a legitimate government. Jihad as the most moral and ethical form of war is never-the-less a war, and requires legitimate authority. Also, simply because a legitimate government declares a war - even if they call it a Jihad - does not necessarily make it a legitimate war or Jihad.
Pacifism
To anyone who considers that war is a legitimate expression of a government I think the above should be satisfactory to at least show that Jihad is not a strange doctrine. Rather, Jihad is that same concept of warfare being a facet of politics, and Shariah puts very strict controls on what can be rightly called Jihad and how it must be conducted. However, there has been no answer to pacifists. What about the person who ethically thinks there is no justification to killing, neither human nor animal? Someone who does not agree with killing in self defense or to enforce law and justice? Perhaps that will be another article. I am sorry if you feel unsatisfied with this answer.
To those who agree that there should be a rule of law, and that use of force is justified when a legitimate government uses it in an ethical means for an ethical end, please consider what the perfection of such an ideal would look like. This is called in Western academia “just war theory”. Allah has given us the laws for all aspects of life, including how a government should act in war.
Arabic words used:
1. Muslims - lit. “one who has submitted”. It is anyone who follows any of the prophets sent by God, especially used to refer to followers of the Prophet Muhammad (s)↩
2. Allah - lit. “The God” or “The Love” it is the proper name of The One Creator↩
3. Jihad - lit. struggling or striving, especially used to refer to Muslims fighting non-Muslims↩
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Anything I said here which is true, is from Allah. Anything I said here which is false if from myself. I ask forgiveness for my shortcomings. I seek refuge in Allah from knowledge which does not benefit. May Allah grant us understanding of things as they are. May Allah bless and grant peace to our master Muhammad and his family.