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Islam and War: Tradition versus Modernity
By
Joseph S. Spoerl
ENDNOTES
(1) Rudolph Peters, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 8, s.v. “Jihad,” 88-91, and Jihad
in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, NJ: Marcus Wiener, 1996), 1; David Cook,
Understanding Jihad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 1-2.
(2) The following summary is based on R. Peters, “Jihad,” and Jihad in Classical and
Modern Islam,1-8; John Kelsay, “Religion, Morality, and the Governance of War: The
Case of Classical Islam,” The Journal of Religious Ethics, 18 (1990): 123-139 and Islam
and War (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993); Ahmad ibn Naqib alMisri, The Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, trans.
Nuh Ha Mim Keller, rev. ed. (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 1994), 599-609; D.
Cook, Understanding Jihad, pp. 1-72; Yohanan Friedmann, “Islam is Superior…,’” The
Jerusalem Quarterly, 11 (1979): 36-42 and Tolerance and Coercion in Islam (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003); Patricia Crone, God’s Rule: Government and Islam
(New York: Columbia University Press), 358-385; Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic
History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 3-66; Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and
Christians Under Islam, trans. David Maisel et al. (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press,1985), 43-110; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford:
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Clarendon, 1982), 130-3; Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 1-22.
(3) A collective or communal duty is one that God requires of the whole community, not
of each member, such that if a sufficient number undertake it, the sin is lifted from all the
group’s members. See al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 33. The notion that offensive
jihad is a collective duty was first put forward by the great scholar al-Shafi: see Bonner,
Jihad in Islamic History, 107; see also al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 600.
(4) Crone, God’s Rule, 364-5.
(5) Crone, God’s Rule, 370-1; al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 603, 607.
(6) Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, 43-77; Lewis, Jews of Islam, 3-66; al-Misri, Reliance of the
Traveller, 607-9.
(7) Crone, God’s Rule, 372-3.
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(8) Al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 602. James Turner Johnson notes that the
authority to wage offensive war in Islam can rest on two distinct sources, the first “by
line of succession through the recognized caliphs, according to the concept of legitimacy
defined by the jurists,” the second, as in the case of the early Ottoman Turks, “by
demonstrably possessing the Prophet’s baraka, according to the concept of legitimacy
defined by the ghazi tradition,” James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea In Western
and Islamic Traditions (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1997),
154-5; cf. 165-6. Radicals like Osama bin Laden arguably stand in this ghazi tradition.
(9) Al-Misri asserts that “necessity excuses one from any rule whatever;” Reliance of the
Traveller, 765; see also Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law, 84, 200 and Bassam Tibi,
“War and Peace in Islam,” in Terry Nardin ed., The Ethics of War and Peace (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996), 133.
(10) Al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 604.
(11) Al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 606.
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(12) Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History, 84-6.
(13) Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History, 92; cf. Crone, God’s Rule, 359 and Khadduri,
Islamic Law of Nations, 10-13.
(14) al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 604-5.
(15) A personal or individual duty is an act required of each and every morally
responsible person: al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 32. On defensive jihad as a
personal duty, see al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 601.
(16) “…[L]ands once Islamic are always properly part of the dar al-islam and Muslims
are justified in retaking them as part of the individual duty of defense. Specific
authorization by the supreme religious leader…is not needed for such jihad, for the
authority to wage this war lies in the personal obligation of each and every Muslim to
defend Islam against invaders.” Johnson, The Holy War Idea, 151.
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(17) David Powers, “The Exegetical Genre nasikh al-Qur’an wa mansukhuhu,” in
Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 117-138.
(18) These verses specify the three groups to be targeted in jihad: pagans or idolaters,
people of the book, and apostates, respectively. “And when the sacred months are over
slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush
everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow
them to go their way” (9:5). “Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were
given as believe in neither God nor the last Day, who do not forbid what God and His
apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, until they pay tribute out of
hand and are utterly subdued” (9:29). “Prophet, make war on … the hypocrites and deal
harshly with them… [T]hey uttered the word of unbelief and renounced Islam after
embracing it” (9:73-4). Unless embedded in other texts, quotations from the Qur’an are
taken from N. J. Dawood trans., The Koran (New York: Penguin, 1999).
(19) Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press/Perseus
Books, 2007), 50.
(20) R. Peters, “Jihad,” 89 and Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 2; Powers, “The
Exegetical Genre…”, 130-1; D. Cook, Understanding Jihad, 10; Friedmann, “’Islam is
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Superior…’”, 38 and Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, 102; Jane Dammen McAuliffe,
“Fakhr al-Din al-Razi on ayat al-jizyah and ayat al-sayf,” in Michael Gervers and Ramzi
Jibran Bikhazi eds, Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in
Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval
Studies, 1990), 114; Crone, God’s Rule, 373; Reuven Firestone, Jihad: The Origins of
Holy War in Islam, 48-50, 88 and “Disparity and Resolution in the Qur’anic Teachings
on War: A Reevaluation of a Traditional Problem,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 56
(1997), 1-3, 14-15; Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History, 24-6; Kennedy, Great Arab
Conquests, 49-51; F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1994), 308 n. 19; Uri Rubin, “Bara’a: A Study of Some
Qur’anic Passages,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 5 (1984),18-19; David
Bukay, “Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam,” Middle East Quarterly, 14 (2007): 3-11.
(21) David Cook, Understanding Jihad, 30.
(22) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 6.
(23) Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Heart of Islam (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 262-3.
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(24) Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2002), 2.
(25) A.G. Noorani, Islam and Jihad: Prejudice versus Reality (London: Zed Books,
2002), 56.
(26) Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (New
York: Random House, 2005), 84-5.
(27) Tariq Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of
Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 98.
(28) Louay M. Safi, Peace and the Limits of War: Transcending the Classical
Conception of Jihad, 2nd ed. (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003),
vii.
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(29) Noorani, Islam and Jihad, 56; Aslan, No god but God, 85; Nasr, Heart of Islam, 49,
262; R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 62-70; Ramadan, In the Footsteps
of the Prophet, 116; Safi, Peace and the Limits of War, 24.
(30) John Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 34-5.
(31) Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (New York:
HarperCollins, 1992), 209.
(32) Peters, “Jihad,” 89.
(33) Kate Zebiri, Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993), 4; cf. Kate Zebiri, “Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut: Between Tradition and Modernity,”
Journal of Islamic Studies, 2 (1991), 210.
(34) Nasr, The Heart of Islam, 262.
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(35) Zebiri, “Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut,” 212-3.
(36) Zebiri, Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism, 4. Zebiri stresses Shaltut’s
popularity: “By all accounts Shaltut was a very popular choice for the position of Shaykh
al-Azhar” (13); Shaltut’s “funeral procession included several high-ranking members of
Government, and was attended by huge numbers of mourners” (15).
(37) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 59.
(38) Nasr, The Heart of Islam, 262.
(39) Zebiri, Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism,169.
(40) Zebiri, “Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut,” 213.
(41) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 60-1; cf. 80-1.
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(42) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 61. For a general treatment of
Shaltut’s approach to interpreting the Qur’an, see Zebiri,, Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic
Modernism, 150-80.
(43) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 62-70.
(44) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 75-6.
(45) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 76-7.
(46) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 92.
(47) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 94-100.
(48) Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History, 37.
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(49) F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, 49.
(50) Alfred Guillaume trans., The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat
Rasul Allah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), xiv, xvii.
(51) W. Montgomery Watt, Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1990), 15.
(52) F. E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies, 23 (1991), 304.
(53) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 256.
(54) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 363.
(55) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 248.
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(56) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 250, 254, 257, 269; the charge is aimed at Christians
on 277.
(57) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 260, 363.
(58) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 376, 667.
(59) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 438.
(60) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 94-5, 463.
(61) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 592-3.
(62) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 239.
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(63) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 369, 547, 597-8, 628, 629-30, 645, 676.
(64) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 547.
(65) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 629.
(66) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 645.
(67) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 646.
(68) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 655.
(69) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 615-6.
(70) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 668-9.
13
(71) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 689; cf. 523, 525.
(72) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 643.
(73) On the onerous nature of the jizya in Islamic history, see S. D. Goitein, A
Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the
Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Vol II, The Community (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1971), 380-1, and “The Jews Under Islam, Part I: 6th-16th Centuries,” in
Elie Kedourie ed., The Jewish World (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 180-1.
(74) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 67.
(75) “If We [God] abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We will replace it by a
better one or one similar” (2:106). “When We [God] change one verse for another (God
knows best what He reveals), they say: ‘You [Muhammad] are an impostor.’ Indeed most
of them have no knowledge” (16:101). “Never have We [God] sent a single prophet or
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apostle before you [Muhammad] with whose wishes Satan did not tamper. But God
abrogates the interjections of Satan and confirms His own revelations” (22:52).
(76) al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 1095-6.
(77) Powers, “The Exegetical Genre…”, 123-4.
(78) Powers, “The Exegetical Genre…”, 125.
(79) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 165-6. The “Satanic verses” were verses permitting
Muslims to pray for the intercession of certain pagan Arab deities. Muhammad said that
Satan tricked him into believing these verses to come from God; when he realized his
mistake, the verses were struck from the Qur’an; see Rodinson, Muhammad, trans. Anne
Carter (New York: The New Press, 1971), 106-8. Armstrong (Muhammad, 111) states
that the incident of the “Satanic verses” “is not mentioned by Ibn Ishaq in the earliest
and most reliable account of Muhammad’s life,” but is recounted by the later historian
Tabari. However, she appears not to be aware that Alfred Guillaume has reconstructed
Ibn Ishaq’s original text as far as possible by adding to Ibn Hisham’s recension those
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passages of Ibn Ishaq quoted by other Muslim scholars, in this case Tabari; see
Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, xxx-xxxiii.
(80) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 684-5.
(81) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 326.
(82) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 326.
(83) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 617.
(84) This is the date given by Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, 284. Uri Rubin discusses
contradictory traditions that date the proclamation of the opening verses of Sura 9 one
year later in “The Great Pilgimmage of Muhammad: Some Notes on Sura IX,” Journal of
Semitic Studies, 27 (1982): 241-60. If true, this would tend only to strengthen the
arguments being presented here.
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(85) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 617.
(86) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 619.
(87) Rodinson, Muhammad, 284.
(88) Firestone, Jihad, 88-9.
(89) F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, 244.
(90) D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (New York and London: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1905), 430.
(91) Rubin, “The Great Pilgrimmage of Muhammad,” 249-50.
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(92) Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Rochester, VT:
Inner Traditions, 1983), 323.
(93) See Q 22:39-41; Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 212-3.
(94) See Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 566-617.
(95) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 592-7.
(96) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 597.
(97) Rubin, “Bara’a: A Study of Some Quranic Passages,” 20.
(98) W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1956), 79.
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(99) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 627-8.
(100) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 629.
(101) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 631.
(102) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 76-7.
(103) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 212-3.
(104) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 324.
(105) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 324 n. 3; Firestone, Jihad, 85-6; Friedmann,
Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, 97-8.
(106) Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, 97-8.
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(107) See also Tor Andrae’s gloss on Q 8:39 (which he numbers as 8:40): “The thought
grew in him that the world must be compelled by force to obey Allah’s words and
commandments, if preaching did not succeed: ‘Fight then against them till strife be at an
end, and the religion shall be wholly God’s’ (8, 40). Thus, even at this time, shortly after
the battle of Bedr [Badr], the principle is formulated which for a season made the sword
the principal missionary instrument of Islam.” Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and
His Faith, trans. Theophil Menzel (New York: Scribner, 1936), 206.
(108) R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 97.
(109) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 531-40 (Muta); 602-9 (Tabuk); 652, 678 (Usama’s
raid).
(110) Rodinson, Muhammad, 255.
(111) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 607-8.
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(112) W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1961), 218-9.
(113) Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, 48.
(114) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 644.
(115) F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, 240. Peters, unlike Watt, asserts
that the most probable reason for the expedition to Tabuk is that it was “a predatory
‘fishing’ expedition” aimed at booty; if true, however, this also shows that it was not
defensive in nature.
(116) For a critique of Waqidi’s reliability as a source, see Michael Cook, Muhammad
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 63-4.
(117) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 113, 191, 222, 243, 452, 454, 639, 658-9.
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(118) Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 452.
(119) Elias Shoufani, Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1973), 111.
(120) Shoufani, Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia, 152, 163.
(121) Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests, 2; cf. 71.
(122) F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Rise of Islam, 231-2.
(123) al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, 700.
(124) Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the
Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 25.
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(125) W. Madelung, The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 4, s.v. “Isma,” 182-4.
(126) See e.g. F.E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” 301-3.
(127) See e.g. Michael Cook, M. Cook, Muhammad, 61-76.
(128) F.E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” 301.
(129) Firestone, Jihad, 50.
(130) Firestone, Jihad, 64-5.
(131) Firestone, Jihad, 134.
(132) Firestone, Jihad, 78-9.
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(133) Michael Cook, The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 126.
(134) Aaron W. Hughes, Situating Islam: The Past and Future of an Academic Discipline
(London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2007).
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