The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

jihad

Literally meaning “struggle,” jihad may be associated with almost any activity by which Muslims attempt to bring personal and social life into a pattern of conformity with the guidance of God. Nevertheless, early in the development of Islam, jihad came to be associated particularly with fighting or making war “in the path of God.” In thinking about jihad, then, we may learn a great deal through a focus on war.

Muslims have written about war in a variety of genres. A.K.S. Lambton once remarked that philosophical treatises, the Mirrors for Princes compiled by court officials such as Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) who were interested in communicating the lessons of statecraft, and the compendia of juridical opinions collected in the schools devoted to shari‘a reasoning constitute three distinctive and important styles of Muslim political writing. One could speak similarly about war. For political thought, legitimation is the great issue: what form of order best coheres with the good, with practical wisdom, or with the guidance of God? And because experience indicates that establishing and maintaining political order often involves the use of military force, discussions of war ordinarily follow. A comparison of world civilizations shows that questions like “When is war justified?” “Who decides?” and “How is war to be conducted?” are typically tied to notions about the purpose of politics and the distribution of power: both are related to ideas about the nature and destiny of human beings, so religion comes into the mix as well.

In tying religion, politics, and war together, Muslims are hardly unique. They continue to speak and write in the distinctive ways previously mentioned. Indeed, Lambton’s list of three types of writing is probably too short. For the fullest possible exposition of Muslim thought about war, one would need to consult the treatises (adab) of men of letters like Jahiz (d. 868 or 869) or the histories compiled by Tabari (d. 923) and others. Works of fiction would have their place in such a survey, as would poetic texts.

Nevertheless, one can speak of the relative importance of certain forms. The compendia of opinions or responses to questions by experts in the practice of shari‘a reasoning constitute a source of inestimable importance for understanding the Islamic experience of war. This is true because the shari‘a (i.e., the “path” or way of living most conducive to human happiness in this world and the next) suggests a focus on the questions of when, who, and how outlined earlier. In addition, the practice of shari‘a reasoning, in the sense of a transgenerational argument about the guidance of God, goes to the heart of what it means to submit or to bring oneself and one’s world into a pattern of behavior consistent with the purposes of the Creator. The attempt to relate the “sources of comprehension” (i.e., the Qur’an, the sunna of the Prophet, and the consensual precedents set by recognized experts) to contemporary situations (by means of reasoning, especially analogy) is perhaps the most characteristic attempt to think about war in an Islamic “voice.” As such, changes in aḥkām al-jihād (the judgments pertaining to armed struggle) across the generations reflect the changing fortunes and political conditions of Muslims, thus opening the door to wider areas of Muslim experience.

Foundational Motifs

In speaking about shari‘a discourse about war, it is useful to be aware of the following issues: (1) the story of Muhammad and his Companions, (2) theological ideas, and (3) accounts of the development of Islam across the centuries.

The Story of Muhammad

While the historical accuracy of traditional biographies of Muhammad may be in question, the outline of the story Muslims tell about the struggles of the Prophet and his Companions are not. Once the Prophet began his public ministry, the primary response in Mecca was resistance. The small community that gathered around Muhammad experienced discrimination and persecution. When this rose to the level of physical abuse, some of the Prophet’s Companions urged retaliation. According to the story told by Muslims through the centuries, Muhammad refused, saying that he had been given an order only to preach.

This was not the final word, of course. Sometime during the negotiations by which Muhammad and his community moved to Medina, God sent the verses recorded in Qur’an 22:39–40: “Those who have been attacked are permitted to take up arms because they have been wronged. God has the power to help them; those who have been driven unjustly from their homes only for saying ‘Our Lord is God.’ If God did not repel some people by means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God’s name is much invoked, would have been destroyed.” The clear import of this text is that the Muslims now had different orders. In Medina, Muhammad added the roles of military commander and statesman to his preaching in the effort to achieve security for the believers.

As the story continues, we understand that the “permission” of Qur’an 22:39–40 evolves into the “destined” or “ordained” of Qur’an 2:216 (“Warfare is a thing written for you, though you do not like it”) and the direct command of Qur’an 2:190–94 (“Fight those who are fighting you, but do not become aggressors”). In Qur’an 4:75, God challenges the believing community: “And why should you not fight in God’s cause and for those oppressed . . . ?” In Qur’an 8:39, the order is to fight until God’s cause succeeds, and in chapter 9, fighting against those who violate treaties or otherwise prove dishonorable is authorized “wherever you find them.” The order of the verses is given in the story so that the intensity and expansiveness of the order to fight mirrors developments in the military and political struggle with unbelievers. When in the end the Muslims prevail, Muhammad proclaims that “Arabia is solidly for Islam.” The narrative of struggle thus ends on a note of hope.

It also ends by reinforcing the message that runs throughout: from the Muslim point of view, the question is not whether the Muslims should go to war or not. Rather, the issue from beginning to end is obedience. When the Companions in Mecca urge retaliation as a means of justice against mistreatment, the response is negative, not because of any direct rebuttal or refutation of their appeal, but because of God’s order. Similarly, when fighting is justified in connection with the migration to Medina, the decisive factor is the command of God. The emphasis on obedience suggests the ongoing importance of ascertaining God’s directives. The development of the shari‘a discourse on judgments pertaining to armed struggle provide a noteworthy attempt to address this issue.

The Natural Religion

This emphasis on obedience has its corollary in the notion that Muhammad’s entire career constitutes a divine summons—a “calling” of humanity to the condition signified by islam, or “submission” to God. Whether by the “beautiful words” of preaching or the strong persuasion of military force, the point is to bring human behavior, both personal and social, into a pattern consistent with the guidance of God.

In this, the story of Muhammad and his Companions suggests a certain view of the nature and destiny of human beings. Qur’an 7:172–73 describes the primordial encounter between God and humanity: “When your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ And they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’” The text goes on to say that the establishment of this covenant means that, on the Day of the Resurrection, no human being will have an excuse. All are bound by the fact that human beings are creatures of God whose very purpose is to serve the divine will. In accepting this—that is, in submitting themselves to their Maker—human beings find happiness, purpose, and dignity. Those who reject the divine calling do harm to themselves. Their fights with one another mirror conflicts within themselves. They suffer in this life, and if they do not make things right, they will also suffer eternal punishment in the next.

The point here is that nothing in Muhammad’s approach to unbelievers is an imposition on or violation of their rights. He is God’s messenger, calling human beings to act in accordance with their true nature and thus their best interests. Like other messengers before him (most importantly, Moses and Jesus), Muhammad summons people to submit to, or obey, God. Even the strong persuasion of war should be seen in this light, with one important proviso. War may create a sphere of security for the practice of true religion. It may be used to enhance such security by bringing non-Muslims under the protection (dhimma) or “superintendence” of Muslims. But it should not be used to bring about faith in the sense of heartfelt acceptance of God’s service. It should not because it cannot—in Islam, as in other faith traditions, unwilling faith is a contradiction in terms. The Prophet and his Companions are a blessing to humanity because they call everyone to live as God intended, according to the “natural” religion. And they give particular groups, with their individual members, as much of the blessing as possible. For those who believe, full participation in the community of Muslims leads to rewards in this world and the next. For those who cannot believe but are willing to accept Muslim governance, the protection of Muslims keeps them secure from the disobedience of others and limits their own errors.

Historical Development

The Prophet died in 632. According to tradition, he sent letters to the Byzantine, Sasanid, and Abyssinian rulers prior to his death and invited them to accept Islam. In this account, acceptance could mean profession of faith or the payment of tribute indicative of the kind of protection or superintendence already mentioned. Failing this, the Prophet’s letter promised to put these rulers and their armies to the test of war.

Muslim accounts take this report to indicate Muhammad’s plan to enlarge his ministry beyond the confines of the Arabian Peninsula. Whether or not such letters were sent, in the generations following the Prophet’s death, Muslim armies conducted campaigns to establish Islam in most of the Middle East and North Africa. Eventually, Islam became the driving force behind a world civilization, with adherents in every part of the globe and with special influence in North Africa, Asia, and central and southern Europe.

Muslim tradition attributes many of that civilization’s most characteristic patterns of political and military organization to the earliest period (632–61) and especially to the leadership of ‘Umar b. al-Khattab (r. 634–44). Again, it matters little whether tradition matches historical fact on this point. Later generations would cite early practice as precedent for a form of governance dedicated to the notion that human beings should administer their affairs according to the guidance of God. In order to fulfill this ideal, Islam should be established as the religion of state. The ruler should be a Muslim and should consult with recognized specialists in the Qur’an and other approved sources in the formation of policy. There should be a clear distinction between those who profess Islam as a faith and those non-Muslims living under the protection of Islam. While both should enjoy basic rights, the former should be viewed as citizens of the first rank, and the latter should pay additional taxes, observe limits on the public expression of religion, and in general behave or be regulated in ways suggestive of the priority of Islam.

We have already noted the theological motifs suggestive of the view that the imposition of such patterns of governance ought to be considered a blessing. Limits on Jewish or Christian religious expression, for example, were construed as a way of “reminding” or “recalling” members of these communities to the true or natural religion. According to this line of thinking, Moses had not founded a religion called “Judaism” any more than Jesus founded “Christianity.” Both had proclaimed Islam. Where contradictions between the practice of Jews or Christians and that of Muslims became manifest, the judgment of Muslim tradition would be that the former had corrupted the preaching of the prophets. Muslim protection thus provided a kind of oversight or superintendence by which corruption could be contained.

It is in connection with these theological views that we may understand the insistence of Muslim tradition that the expansion brought about by Muslim armies was not precisely a matter of “conquest.” Muslim thinking about war proceeded on the assumption that this expansion was a matter of “opening” or “liberating” territory in order to create opportunities for human beings to hear the call to practice Islam. A state led by a Jewish or Christian (or some other non-Muslim) establishment could be viewed as tyrannical by definition or, at the very least, not the best for human welfare. Given this assumption, experts in shari‘a reasoning would develop their teaching on war in connection with a concern for the relations between the “territory of war” and the “territory of Islam.”

Expansion of Islamic governance and of the Islamic profession of faith were not the same thing, although the establishment of a Muslim state did create incentives for conversion. Expansion into more established centers of trade and culture led to disputes and redistributions of power. Thus it was not long before Muslims located in Egypt complained of unjust treatment to the caliph ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan, who had succeeded ‘Umar. ‘Uthman’s assassination in 656 led to the great intra-Muslim conflict known as the first fitna, or “test” of the community. When ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, son-in-law of Muhammad and one of the earliest to profess Islam, pursued reconciliation with those accused of conspiracy against ‘Uthman, the latter’s relative Mu‘awiya used his position as governor of Syria to mount a challenge to ‘Ali’s leadership. The resulting impasse led to further divisions—accounts speak not only of the partisans of ‘Ali and Mu‘awiya but also of a third party, the Kharijis, whose name indicates that they seceded or separated themselves from either side. ‘Ali’s death in 661 at the hands of members of this latter group did not resolve the issues of leadership. The dominance of Mu‘awiya and his family—and thus the hegemony of Damascus in the territories now under Muslim rule—would not be set until the partisans of ‘Ali, now under the leadership of his son Husayn, were defeated at Karbala in Iraq in 680 and opposition in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina quelled by forces under the command of ‘Abd al-Malik in 692.

But matters did not remain settled for long. By the 740s, a disparate yet growing opposition to the Umayyads united under the banner of the Abbasids, whose victory moved the imperial capital once again, this time to Baghdad. The extent of religious difference in Islam can be shown by any number of developments in the period of Abbasid rule, but none made a greater impact on Muslim memory than the miḥna, or the test of scholars with respect to the nature of the Qur’an. Ma’mun (r. 813–33) and his successor determined that all recognized experts in religious matters should publicly adhere to the judgment that the Qur’an is God’s “created” speech. The political import of the test was considerable. Resistance to Abbasid authority on this matter, and the subsequent change of policy so that the contrary view became the official norm, exemplifies the intense competition between adherents of distinctive notions of Muslim practice. Abbasid authorities coveted the legitimacy associated with Islam. But this would be a long time coming; the Abbasids never really obtained control over significant sectors of the population, particularly portions of Egypt and Syro-Palestine. The resulting divisions, in which a consensus associated with “the people of the sunna and of the community” held sway in the Abbasid regions, while Shi‘ism, particularly in its Fatimid/Isma‘ili forms did so elsewhere, would be reflected in Muslim accounts of the progress of the faith for centuries to come.

Thus one might speak of a Sunni version of the expansion of Islam in which the story recounted thus far constitutes the gradual progress of a community elected by God to bring the world into a condition of submission to God’s will. The fitna involving Mu‘awiya and ‘Ali, the Abbasid revolt, the miḥna, and other instances of conflict constitute a series of tests by which God refined the community. The story of Islamic expansion is a story of God’s providential care, in which the believers may for a time become unsettled, but the saying of the Prophet eventually proves true: “My community shall never agree on an error.”

By contrast, one may speak of a minority point of view in which claims of progress are offset by Muslim disobedience. Mu‘awiya’s challenge to ‘Ali was wrong, and the subsequent defeat of Husayn at Karbala was an act of betrayal. In the generations following, Abbasid authorities ignored the claims of those designated by ‘Ali’s successors to lead the community of Muslims. In doing so, they preferred might to right, and their marginalizing or even conspiratorial policies constituted a kind of theft by which the Muslim community was deprived of the wisdom of persons possessing extraordinary piety and knowledge of the esoteric, as well as the exoteric, dimensions of religious practice. While the expansion of Islam throughout the world indicates that God has not rejected the believers, they will not enjoy the success for which they are destined until the family of ‘Ali takes its rightful place at the head of the umma.

The Sunni-Shi‘i divide has had enormous implications for the practice of Islam, not least in connection with the conduct of war. These distinctive modes of Muslim practice achieved political instantiation during the middle periods of Islamic development. The Ottoman and, in a somewhat different way, the Mughal empires reflected the Sunni consensus, while the Safavids constituted a Shi‘i state. The latter in particular allowed for a considerable elaboration of the Twelver or Imami form of Shi‘ism, with its distinctive eschatological emphasis. According to the doctrine of this school, the 12th in the series of imams or designated successors to the Prophet went into hiding in 874. He did so by the will of God and in response to the disobedience of the majority of the Muslims; this served to protect the imam from the fate of his predecessors, almost all of whom became victims at the hands of hypocrites. Imam Mahdi (i.e., the rightly guided leader) remains somewhere “in the Earth” and will do so until God decides that the time is right for his appearance. In his absence, a number of appointed “deputies” serve as guardians of the Shi‘is. By the time of the Safavids (1501–1722), this role largely belonged to the experts in shari‘a reasoning, whose view of the state was similar to that of their Sunni counterparts: an Islamic establishment in the service of adherence to the shari‘a, a Muslim ruler with settled modes for consultation with the religious class, and distinctions between Muslim and non-Muslim citizens reflective of the primacy of Islam. The authority of the Hidden Imam served to relativize the authority of the ruler, however, with important consequences for the justification and conduct of war.

In the modern period (beginning ca. 1750), the decline and ultimate demise of the great empires altered the political standing of Islam. That these changes occurred largely as a result of the advance of European powers, followed in the second half of the 20th century by the United States, only served to reinforce the judgment: the political and military precedents associated with the early expansion of Islam no longer held. Muslim thinking about war reflected the changed situation. Some authors wrote as apologists, arguing that Muslim approaches to war were consistent with the norms of civilization, as defined by the norms of Europe and the United States. Others wrote polemical tracts arguing that Muslim approaches constituted the measure of truly civilized warfare and that Europe and the United States should learn from Islam and thus add a spiritual and moral dimension to their obvious prowess in science and technology. Other interpreters of Islam used their position as diplomats to bring precedents from the history of Islam to bear on international law. In particular, the protocols added to the Geneva Conventions in the 1970s showed the influence of Muslim interlocutors, especially the provisions respecting the status of resistance movements. In this, the diplomatic contributions of Muslims mirrored the strongest trend in 20th-century Muslim thinking about war. Proponents of armed resistance attempted to stretch premodern precedents to fit circumstances in which believers found it possible to ask whether any established state actually constituted a Muslim, and therefore legitimate, form of political order.

Warfare and the Norms of Islam

The earliest compendia of scholarly opinions related to the rules of war seem to be those associated with the Iraqi jurists who styled themselves as working in the tradition of Abu Hanifa (d. 767). A collection of opinions related to jihad and jizya (i.e., to questions about military affairs and taxation in the regions that came under Muslim rule during the postprophetic expansion) is associated with the work of Abu Yusuf (d. 798). Even more significant is the collection associated with Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Shaybani (d. 804), which later generations knew by the title Kitab al-Siyar, or the “book of movements.” As the contents indicate, the movements in question are those between the territory in which Islam is established (dār al-islām) and the territory where it is not (dār al-ḥarb). As the Arabic suggests, the latter is, under certain conditions, the object of war intended to expand the dominion of Islam.

Given this interest, the text is preoccupied with the rules of engagement for Muslim forces: how they should approach the foe, what targets and tactics are appropriate, what is to be done with enemy persons, and how war prizes are to be distributed or managed. The opinions collected in the text are presented as responses to particular questions: Must the Muslim forces issue an invitation to the opposition so that its people have an opportunity to submit voluntarily and thus avoid war? What if the Muslim forces find themselves in a situation in which they must employ tactics that will result in the death of children? Are enemy captives to be killed, or must they be transported to the territory of Islam? May the Muslim fighters keep prizes (horses, money, etc.) they capture, or must they place these at the disposal of their commander?

In these and other cases, the text reports the opinions of Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf, or Shaybani—and sometimes of all three. Answers are crafted in consultation with verses of the Qur’an, reports of Muhammad’s words and deeds, and the practice of the early Muslims, but these scholars also appeal to the notion of “that which is salutary,” meaning (at least in part) “that which works, in order for the Muslim community to carry out its mission.” Here, their interest is in the ability of the Muslim forces to attain victory. Thus, when faced with questions regarding tactics that will result in the death of children, the responses grant considerable latitude in the interests of the Muslims’ ability to carry out their mission. Looking at the text as a whole, we may reconstruct the argument as follows:

1. The Prophet forbade the killing of children (along with a number of other categories of persons whose noninvolvement in fighting classifies them as noncombatants).

2. There are cases in which Muslim armies must employ tactics that would result in the death of children or else stop fighting. These include siege warfare, in which the use of hurling machines does not allow for precise targeting, and cases in which an enemy tries to deter the Muslims by tying children to the city walls, so that archers firing into the city are likely to hit at least some of the children.

3. In cases like those previously mentioned, the Muslim armies should do their best to avoid harming children and other noncombatants. But they cannot be prohibited from doing what is necessary to win. As Shaybani puts it, “If the Muslims stopped attacking the inhabitants of the territory of war for any of the reasons that you have stated, they would be unable to go to war at all, for there is no city in the territory of war in which there is no one at all of these you have mentioned.”

The overriding imperative is the expansion of the dominion of Islam. To drive the point home, the text mentions questions that focus on the possibility that the residents of a besieged city or the children tied to the city walls may be Muslims and then asks whether Muslim fighters deploying tactics that may lead to the death of these innocents should be required to pay blood money or to otherwise make up for the damage. The answer is an unequivocal no.

If such answers suggest the importance of the Muslim mission, others point to a concern that armies conduct themselves in an orderly fashion. Thus the responses make clear that war is authorized by a public authority and follows on an invitation to voluntarily submit. Enemy captives who might pose a threat to Islam—for example, adult males whose physical capacity suggests their ability to fight—should be killed, unless their capture occurs in territory that is already under Muslim control. Women, children, the old, the lame, and other noncombatants must be transported to the territory of Islam, even if this is expensive or dangerous for the Muslim forces. Part of the rationale for this restriction is the concern that fighters abstain from taking “private” booty. All prizes, including potential wives and slaves, must be placed under the administration of the authorities, who will (upon return to Muslim territory) distribute them according to rules governing the shares of various fighters.

Such concerns for regulation suggest the placement of the text in the early Abbasid drive to develop a standing professional fighting force. Tabari’s history relates stories indicative of the way Abu Yusuf, Shaybani, and others crafted some of their opinions in response to questions from the caliph, and biographies compiled by later generations of Hanafi scholars report that these early scholars served in official capacities. Coupled with the fact that Shaybani’s text appends a number of judgments related to the conduct of fighting within Muslim territory (e.g., against rebels or against ahl al-dhimma, “the people of protection,” meaning Jews, Christians, and others living under Muslim rule, when these communities violate their agreement with the Muslims), the evidence suggests a set of opinions that draw on and reflect the condition of an imperial state. The rules of engagement bear comparison with those of Imperial Rome and other states governing an extended territory. The caliph’s authorization makes war a public act, and the rules of engagement crafted by the scholarly community serve as norms for commanders in the field.

The condition of the empire changed, however, and the formulation of norms for the conduct of war shows similar alterations. Mawardi (d. 1058) is famous for his discussion of the ways the caliph can designate “lesser” rulers as his deputies. The powers assumed by those deputized include the authority to initiate war. In this respect, as in the more general question of public authority, Mawardi’s opinion is crafted to serve the cause of continuity, even as it responds to a situation in which the notion of power centralized in Baghdad is at best a useful fiction. Particularly with respect to norms governing war, the idea that the caliph designates a deputy to serve as sultan preserves the idea that war is a public act fought in accord with standing notions of the mission of the Muslim community and for the benefit of humanity.

Mawardi’s contributions do not end with his judgment about authority, however. In response to questions familiar from Shaybani’s Kitab al-Siyar, Mawardi provides judgments that are quite distinct. For example, regarding the questions dealing with tactics that may bring about the death of children and others, Mawardi argues that if the Muslim forces cannot attain victory without killing large numbers of innocents, then they should cease fighting and offer the enemy a chance to surrender. If this does not work, then the Muslim forces should withdraw and wait for a more favorable opportunity. There is no appeal to the overriding importance of victory here. Mawardi maintains the authority of those reports in which the Prophet condemns the killing of noncombatants and thus the notion that Muslim forces should occupy the moral high ground. Given that Mawardi is usually presented as a follower of Shafi‘i (d. 820) rather than of Abu Hanifa, one might suppose this is a difference between schools. However, Shafi‘i is usually more aggressive than Shaybani on questions related to the issuing of an invitation to voluntarily submit and avoid war. For example, Shafi‘i holds that the knowledge of Islam is universal and thus that the Muslim forces need not repeat the summons issued by the Prophet. On questions about the disposition of prisoners taken in the territory of war, Shafi‘i says that all may be killed at the discretion of the commander. Mawardi’s distinctive opinion may thus simply reflect a sensibility that the means employed by fighters must allow Muslim fighters to maintain the moral superiority of the Muslim community.

In any case, it is clear that judgments pertaining to military force are subject to interpretation. In this, the development of norms related to war is consistent with other areas in which scholars issued opinions developed in conjunction with shari‘a reasoning. Finding a “fit” between textual precedents and the particular conditions of one’s age is more an art than a science. Muslim reasoning about war, while indicating the outlines of a set of criteria or touchstones for believers in different times and places, nevertheless provides evidence of various opinions.

A move forward to the time of Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) points to serious debate on a number of questions addressed by Shaybani and Mawardi. Ibn Taymiyya stands at the end of the period in which the imperial model represented by the Abbasids was fading. Not only did the notion of central authority suffer from the rising power of lesser (Muslim) rulers, as suggested by Mawardi’s development of the notion of “designated” authority, but by the 14th century the Crusades and the Mongol invasions posed new military and political challenges. With respect to the Crusades, the Book of Jihad, attributed to Sulami of Damascus (d. 1106), adapted the device of fighting as an “individual duty” to encourage Muslim rulers outside the province of Syro-Palestine to aid those bearing the brunt of the Christian advance. The leadership provided by the Kurdish military leader Saladin (d. 1193) seems in some ways to be a response to this, while in other ways he fits the model outlined by Mawardi. While Sulami’s appeal to individual duty does not seem to be entirely original, it does mark a development by which later figures would discuss the norms of war in relation to conditions of emergency: if the opinions outlined by Shaybani and Mawardi related to conditions in which Muslims held power, what is their purchase in times when Muslim power is threatened or even overcome by foreign invaders?

Ibn Taymiyya issued his opinions in response to questions raised by the Mongol sacking of Baghdad (1258) and subsequent incursions into Syro-Palestine. Working primarily from Damascus, Ibn Taymiyya discussed issues posed when non-Muslim invaders came to dominate the territory of Islam but then converted. He argued that the Mongols continued to rule by a “mixed regime” of Muslim and Mongol law and should thus be regarded as illegitimate. In such a case, the notion of fighting as an individual duty authorized any Muslim authority able to mount resistance to do so. Ibn Taymiyya’s primary appeal was to the Mamluk sultan in Cairo, although his own troubles with that ruler (Ibn Taymiyya served time in a Cairo prison at the order of the sultan) suggest that relationship was not entirely satisfactory. In any case, the collections of Ibn Taymiyya’s opinions show a serious engagement with the set of precedents provided by the Qur’an, the sunna of the Prophet, and the rulings of outstanding scholars like Shaybani and Mawardi. Styling himself as a follower of Ahmad b. Hanbal (780–855), Ibn Taymiyya clearly does not feel bound to simply imitate earlier scholars. He does relate his opinions to theirs, however, and thus discusses a number of standard cases. Who may authorize fighting? Who should serve in the Muslim army? What targets are legitimate? What tactics may the Muslim armies employ? In these and other cases, Ibn Taymiyya’s judgments reflect the quest for a fit between precedent and present circumstance characteristic of the practice of shari‘a reasoning. Thus authority for war rests with an established leader so that fighting is a public act. However, the emergency presented by the advance of the Mongols means that “establishment” may not follow the most obvious lines. The Mamluk sultan’s historic interest in Syro-Palestine suggests he should organize the resistance, but if he fails to do so, nothing in Ibn Taymiyya’s texts suggests that another, more distant leader should not rise to the occasion. As to who should serve in the Muslim army, Ibn Taymiyya cites the standard norms about believers who are physically able and can provide their own weapons, horses, and other equipment. He notes that in ordinary circumstances, those who do not wish to fight may fulfill their duty by providing money or equipment for those who do. But the emergency condition is different. In this case, everyone able should fight—and this could include women and children, at the leader’s discretion. Necessity makes the forbidden things permitted in the sense that every believer can and should support the leader’s efforts at resisting invasion.

Necessity does not affect the question of means, however. Ibn Taymiyya follows established precedents regarding the restrictions on targets, with one exception: he says that women who support the enemy by means of propaganda may be viewed as combatants. That is, they need not actually take up arms, although the opinion does not specify the nature of “propaganda.” Overall, however, Ibn Taymiyya suggests that the standard rules of engagement apply even in an emergency.

New Conditions and Alternative Views

Ibn Taymiyya’s rulings draw on and point to striking changes in the political structure of the areas dominated by Islam. In the centuries that followed, these would include, first, the growth and expansion of the three great dynasties of the middle period of Muslim history and, second, the modern expansion of European power, with its legacy of colonialism.

With respect to the first, the Ottoman and Mughal empires represent the continuation of the standard majoritarian or Sunni discussions of the norms of war. Scholarly discourse sought to build on the opinions formulated by Shaybani, Mawardi, Ibn Taymiyya, and others like them.

The Safavid dynasty and its successor (the Qajar dynasty) represent something a bit different, however. As noted earlier, the Safavids ruled in conjunction with an establishment of Twelver Shi‘ism. They sponsored a discussion of judgments pertaining to war that bears the imprint of the sect’s characteristic doctrines. Particularly with respect to the authorization of war, the Shi‘i view that God appoints one ruler for every generation, coupled with the Twelver notion that all of those so appointed were, from the death of the Prophet forward, prohibited from carrying out his mandate by the unbelief of the Muslim majority, meant that authority for jihad belonged only with the Imam of the Age. According to the compendium associated with Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277), for example, mature men who are physically able and are not slaves are obligated to fight in the cause of expanding the hegemony of Islam. This obligation only holds, however, when the imam or his deputy is present. Since God responded to the unbelief of the majority by taking the Twelfth Imam into hiding, the conditions for jihad seem not to hold. Assuming that the reference to the imam’s “deputy” indicates one of those who, according to Twelver tradition, served as intermediaries during the period of “lesser” occultation (roughly from 874–914), even this authorization may be in question.

The fighting authorized in the absence of the imam or his deputy is defensive in nature. That is, if an enemy attacks, the ruler is authorized to organize a resistance; indeed, in certain cases, any individual may defend himself or herself or even other victims from aggression. In the ordinary case, though, Hilli’s text indicates that the ruler organizes forces in order to deter or preemptively attack a potential enemy.

With respect to other matters, Hilli follows standard precedents in that the Muslim fighters are required to avoid direct attacks on noncombatants. In the case of siege warfare or an enemy’s use of children as shields, his opinion is closer to that of Mawardi than that of Shaybani. In a judgment that runs contrary to one of Ibn Taymiyya’s views, Hilli says that even women or children who provide support to the enemy should be regarded as noncombatants, except in cases of emergency.

The consensus represented by Hilli becomes important in considering the effects of European expansion on Muslim judgments about war. In the early 19th century, Russia’s advance to great power included increasing influence in the affairs of Iran. Shi‘i scholars issued opinions advising the Qajar ruler of his authority as defender of the Shi‘i faith and distinguished between an imposed war (al-difā‘, a war of defense) and the jihad for which authority belongs only to the imam or his deputy. The distinction would appear again following the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The argument of Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–89) that the Shi‘i scholars as a whole, or one of them having the requisite learning and piety, fill the office of deputy is enshrined in the Iranian Constitution. The notion that the scholar or scholars filling this role may authorize active resistance to an established ruler provides important background to the 1979 revolution. With respect to war, Khomeini called on the notion of defense, as well as of resistance to rebels, when he spoke about the war with Iraq (1981–88). Ongoing debates in Iran regarding the state’s role in world affairs, its sponsorship of groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, and its nuclear program all show the import of traditional judgments like those collected in Hilli’s compendium.

On the Sunni side, the erosion of Ottoman and Mughal power set off debates that similarly reflect the attempt to articulate a fit between historic precedents and changing circumstances. When a well-known Sunni scholar (‘Abd al-‘Aziz, grandson of the famous Shah Waliullah of Delhi) declared that the advance of British power rendered India a part of the territory of war rather than of Islam, he may or may not have meant to authorize popular resistance. Some groups in India thought it so, however, and organized the series of uprisings that led to the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. Britain’s brutal suppression of this rebellion suggested to many Muslims that a different strategy would be necessary, and Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1897) advanced his well-known argument that jihad (at least in the sense of armed struggle) is obligatory when the Muslims are strong and not when they are weak. Post-Sepoy India would yield some of the most interesting examples of apologetic and polemical writing regarding jihad, with Syed Ameer Ali’s (d. 1928) best-selling Spirit of Islam presenting the military campaigns of Muhammad as consistent with the highest standard of “humanity,” while Mawdudi’s (1903–79) treatise on jihad argued that fighting to establish a political order in which Islam is established is a duty for Muslims and a boon to an otherwise disorganized and heedless world community. For Mawdudi, the jihad is not only a necessary aspect of Muslim practice; it is also a feature of justice, because polities that are not organized around the norms of Islam tend to fight wars as they conduct domestic affairs—that is, by way of oppression, indiscriminate killing, and genocide.

Analogues to the apologetics of Ameer Ali and the polemics of Mawdudi appeared in other regions of the historic territory of Islam. In Egypt, for example, Mahmud Shaltut’s (d. 1963) treatise on the “fighting verses” of the Qur’an combined a novel reading of the text with an account of the early Muslim expansion that rendered it a campaign of humanitarian intervention. For Shaltut, the account of the “occasions” connected with the revelation of the verses on fighting outlined in traditional biographies of Muhammad does not provide an adequate guide. Instead of reading the verses in relation to an escalating set of tensions between Muslims and their Qurashi rivals, one should read the text as a whole and thereby understand that the Qur’an meant only to authorize wars of defense. Similarly, Shaltut’s understanding of the facts of the early expansion, by which for example the Christians living in Palestine petitioned ‘Umar b. al-Khattab to defend them against their Jewish neighbors, presents a paradigm of one nation coming to the aid of another. In a modern context, Shaltut’s point was that Muslim norms are fully consistent with those of the emergent tradition of international law.

More akin to Mawdudi is the essay on jihad by Hasan al-Banna (1906–49), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Here, jihad is a duty laid upon Muslims for the benefit of humankind: the goal of jihad is the establishment of a state governed by Islamic values. As such values are consistent with the true nature of humanity, the jihad is a beneficent act. Left to their own devices, human beings will prove tyrannical and foolish, as the Qur’an indicates. Governed by Islam, human beings can live with dignity in the context of a political order that makes peace and justice possible.

Apologetic and polemical writing on jihad continued to develop throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. In the work of Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), this type of writing took a new turn, as the Egyptian writer and activist fused the style and arguments of the authors mentioned with arguments pertaining to resistance. In Milestones, Social Justice in Islam, and especially in his commentary on the Qur’an, Qutb argued that Muslims criticized global trends associated with the dominance of Europe and the United States and asserted that Islam alone provides a way of ordering life that accords with true human nature. In this sense, Muslims are always in a condition of resistance, because the way of submission is always opposed to jāhiliyya, that “heedlessness” to which, the Qur’an teaches, humanity is prone.

For Qutb, the notion of resistance becomes a characteristic trait of the Muslim life. Jihad, in the broad sense of struggle to bring oneself and the world into conformity with the path of God, is the principal theme of Muslim ethics. According to Qutb this struggle should focus on building communities of character, small groups of Muslims whose association would encourage personal discipline. These would be the seed from which a Muslim social movement might grow, with the aim of transforming the world. The use of military force would likely be a part of this aim, just as it was in the time of Muhammad. For the most part, however, Qutb focused on the need for these communities of character; as he put it in several places, if tyranny is overthrown and there is no group ready to assume leadership so that a truly Islamic social order might be put in place, the result will only be a new form of tyranny. Muslim devotees must thus undergo a time of purification and preparation, not unlike the Prophet and his Companions during the Meccan period.

Qutb is thus an important transitional figure for modern discussions of war, and many surveys point to his work as a foundation for later discussions of resistance, from the apologia of the assassins of Anwar Sadat (The Neglected Duty, 1981) to the Hamas Charter of Hamas (1988) and the World Islamic Front’s Declaration Concerning Armed Struggle against Jews and Crusaders (1998). Such documents contain echoes of Qutb’s ideas, but their authors also typically cite earlier precedents such as the Qur’an, the sunna of the Prophet, Islamic history, and standard contributors to the discussion of the judgments pertaining to jihad. In the end, texts like those mentioned attempt to develop a rationale for a certain kind of fighting, in conjunction with the establishment of political goals. As such, they make a series of claims and are the subject of much debate among Muslims engaged in shari‘a reasoning.

Thus The Neglected Duty speaks of the duty to struggle for the purpose of establishing an Islamic state, meaning one in which public law is derived according to the sources and procedures characteristic of shari‘a reasoning. Such “government by divine law” is distinguished from other forms, in which “human law” is the measure of political and personal behavior. In the current circumstance, the author writes, such a government does not exist in Egypt. He believes this judgment holds elsewhere in the territory of Islam, but his particular concern is with Egypt. In such a circumstance, Muslims are called to exert themselves to bring about change, and their efforts can include armed force. This is especially so if the ruler fails to heed numerous calls for change. Appealing to the time and judgments of Ibn Taymiyya, the idea is that Egypt, like the territory governed by the Mongols, is governed by a “mixed” legal regime. A truly devoted leader would institute a program of reform and move the state toward fidelity to Islam. But, according to the author, the Egyptian leader has not; he is thus an apostate and deserves punishment by death.

Herein lies the problem of resistance, and the author understands it clearly: who can carry out the punishment when the criminals are in power? Ultimately, says the text, the authority to punish belongs to God, who gives it to the Muslim community as a whole. The recognition of a ruler is a kind of “vesting” of this communal duty and right in a particular person or group. If these become corrupt, however, responsibility devolves to the community as a whole, or to those who understand the situation. Jihad thus becomes an “individual duty” incumbent on every Muslim able to fulfill it. As the author writes, in this case, jihad is like prayer and fasting: everyone must perform as he or she is able or else be complicit in injustice.

In this way, the text calls on Ibn Taymiyya and other historic figures. As described earlier, however, Ibn Taymiyya’s appeal to individual duty was actually aimed at neighboring Muslim rulers. The author of The Neglected Duty thinks more of a mass appeal and of a kind of popular uprising. Not surprisingly, his argument has been controversial, so authorities like Shaykh al-Azhar suggest that the theory of resistance developed in the text is an invitation to anarchic violence. This fear stems not only from the possibility that the argument of The Neglected Duty comes close to suggesting that every Muslim serves as his or her own commander. It is also fostered by the author’s claim that any Muslim who fails to support the uprising is prima facie complicit in injustice and may be killed with impunity. The text does admit that some supporters of a corrupt government may be innocent, or at least affected by factors that mitigate guilt (e.g., coercion or ignorance). In the event some of these supporters die in a military action, however, the author suggests that the “sorting” between innocent and guilty will be done by God. The calling of the faithful is to struggle for justice, and the killing of Sadat, in particular, is understood as an execution or an administering of just punishment.

The Charter of Hamas makes a similar appeal to emergency and argues that in a circumstance where an enemy has occupied territory belonging to the Muslims, jihad becomes an individual duty, akin to prayer and fasting. The focus in this case is Palestine, and the text asserts that Muslim claims to the land are not simply a matter of history or of property wrongly taken from individuals. Rather, it argues that Palestine (and with it, Jerusalem) was given to the Muslims as a trust. Defending this territory, or struggling to restore it to the territory of Islam, is thus a religious duty. Similarly, the enemy is defined in religious rather than ethnic or national terms: “the Jews” are an individual and collective target of resistance, and the struggle is part of a long-term, even eschatological, contest between faith and disobedience.

The Charter does not discuss the details of fighting, so one does not find arguments about combatants and noncombatants or about various tactics or weapons. Hamas has of course used techniques that suggest a lack of concern with traditional shari‘a judgments regarding the distinction between combatants and noncombatants (e.g., the firing of rockets into Israeli villages), and “martyrdom operations” (also known as “suicide bombings”) raise many questions for Muslims. Shaykh al-Azhar, for example, allows that martyrdom operations may be an appropriate tactic, but only if the direct target is military. By contrast, the popular scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi seems to suggest that there are no civilians in Israel, since all men and women between the ages of 18 and 60 are at least eligible for military service.

The clearest example of a Muslim argument that justifies resistance and also connects it with something close to a strategy of total (i.e., indiscriminate) fighting is the World Islamic Front’s Declaration. Published in a London-based Arabic language newspaper in February 1998, the Declaration quickly attracted attention as an attempt by the leaders of a number of resistance movements to advance an argument in the form of traditional shari‘a reasoning. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the text became known as “Bin Laden’s fatwa or normative opinion.” Muslim critics of the document complained that neither Osama bin Laden nor any of the other signatories actually had standing to issue legal opinions. Bin Laden’s subsequent replies make clear that he believed such criticism reinforced one of the basic claims of the Declaration, which is that the contemporary Muslim community, while numerous, is dominated by leaders whose faith is superficial. As with The Neglected Duty and the Charter of Hamas, the Declaration interprets current circumstances in the language of emergency. By way of analogy, rulings offered by historic scholars indicate that such circumstances render fighting a duty incumbent upon “any Muslim able . . . in any country where it is possible.” In this interpretation, one need not wait for authorization from an established ruler; the corruption and/or impotence of those holding power in the territory of Islam renders this point moot.

The Declaration also declares total war on a specified enemy. Fighting as an individual duty targets Americans and their allies, civilians and soldiers alike. This point has proven highly controversial among Muslims, and Bin Laden and other resistance leaders have attempted to respond. The duty to avoid direct harm to noncombatants is a well-established precedent, according to Bin Laden, but it is not absolute. To indicate the possibility of exceptions, he cited rulings that allow the Muslim forces to continue fighting an enemy that hangs children on the walls of a besieged city. The fighters know their tactics are likely to kill at least some of the children, but the children’s blood is on the enemy’s hands. Then, too, Bin Laden and others insisted that killing American and allied civilians is reciprocal justice or repayment in kind for the death of Muslim innocents. Finally, in a document published in November 2002, Bin Laden advanced the claim that the citizens of democratic states cannot claim innocence, since they have the ability to change governments and thus to alter objectionable policies. When Bin Laden released a video aimed at the American people just before the November 2004 presidential election, he reiterated this point, indicating that peace was at hand if the U.S. electorate would just choose the right candidate.

The issue of distinguishing civilian and military targets continues to trouble Muslims, however. Since 2005, this question has divided advocates of resistance: the indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians by fighters associated with the late Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq, brought warnings from several advocates of resistance, including Bin Laden’s associate Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 2009, Mulla ‘Umar, leader of the most important Taliban group involved in fighting in Afghanistan, issued orders that fighters associated with him should avoid the direct killing of noncombatants. It seems that the weight of precedent and the weight of Muslim public opinion complement one another in this matter; at least with respect to fighting in areas inhabited by a majority Muslim population, one might expect fighters to alter the strategy articulated in the Declaration.

The debate over resistance is perhaps the strongest trend in contemporary Muslim argument about the rules of war. Resistance is also the topic of what is generally considered the most significant contribution of diplomats representing Muslim states in international forums.

The record of those agreements constituting the modern law of war shows that Muslim states, and particularly representatives of the Ottoman court, took part as early as the 1856 Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law. The various Hague Conventions also indicate Muslim participation, as does the Geneva Accord. More recently, Muslim diplomats played a part in the development of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

With respect to resistance, the most important contribution of Muslim states may be seen in the 1977 Geneva Protocol I. Together with a second protocol, this agreement responds to changes in the character of armed conflict since World War II. In particular, Geneva Protocol I expands the application of the law of war so that it includes conflicts in which “peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination.” The text also eases the requirement imposed by earlier agreements that combatants “distinguish themselves from the civilian population.” For example, the fourth Hague Convention specified that combatants should fulfill this requirement by wearing a “fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance”; the Geneva Accord reiterates this directive. Geneva Protocol I recognizes that there are times when a combatant cannot do this, “owing to the nature of the hostilities.” Combatants are still required to carry their arms openly. The relaxation of the requirement of emblems, together with the expansion of the scope of application of the laws of war, seems clearly designed to take account of the activities of guerrillas and other irregular or nonstate forces. From the perspective of Muslim states, support for these changes correlates with sympathy for Palestinian resistance to Israel. Such sympathy does not transfer to other conflicts involving Muslim resistance groups, however. Diplomats representing historically Muslim states during a term on the United Nations Security Council have consistently supported the sanctions and other counterterrorism measures adopted since 1999 by the council in its effort to deal with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Conclusion

The centrality of resistance in contemporary Muslim argument about war reflects the larger debate about political authority in which Muslims have engaged since the passing of the imperial states of the middle period (from ca. 1258 until the modern era). In particular, the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate or sultanate set off a great debate over the proper form of government in an Islamic state.

This lack of consensus certainly has an impact on the attempt to regulate war. Historically, Muslims in positions of leadership appealed to shari‘a norms in order to harness war to appropriate ends and to ensure that the harms associated with war (death, destruction of property, etc.) might be proportionate to the goods at which it aimed. Without an agreement over the location of authority, regulation of ends and means alike comes into question. “Who decides?” is always a relevant question, not least with respect to war.

At the same time, one must note the persistence of a number of historic features of Muslim thought about war. Even in a situation characterized by disagreement, some of it deadly, respect for precedent seems very strong. When resistance groups are criticized for violations—for example, in controversies over martyrdom operations and al-Qaeda’s doctrine of total war—the responses point to the enduring appeal of the notions enshrined in tradition: that the means of war should be proportionate to its ends and that fighters claiming to engage in a just war should not themselves engage in injustice.

In all this, Muslim thinking about war bears a strong resemblance to that developed by Christians, Jews, and other groups. This does not minimize the objectionable nature of certain judgments, such as al-Qaeda’s doctrine of total war. But the question of war is present for every historic and contemporary group, and the attempt to regulate it, to see war as a tool that is sometimes appropriate for attaining or defending justice, is difficult. In the end, the question of war for Muslims is this: in what ways, or under what conditions, is war an appropriate means of jihad, in that it is consistent with the guidance of God? And a second question quickly follows: how do human beings comprehend this guidance?