There is no period since the beginning of Islam that was characterized by large-scale peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims.
There was no time when mainstream and dominant Islamic authorities taught the equality of non-Muslims with Muslims, or the obsolescence of jihad warfare. There was no Era of Good Feeling, no Golden Age of Tolerance, no Paradise of Proto-Multiculturalism. There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad.
Nor is jihad in Islamic theology primarily, or even prominently, anything but warfare against unbelievers.
The Qur’an contains numerous exhortations to fight against the infidels, as do all the hadith collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds. It directs Muslims to “fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, nor practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).
Nor does Muhammad mention any other pretext for an attack when he expands upon this passage with more detailed instructions on fighting against unbelievers: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war; do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children.
When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm.
Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.
This triple imperative of conversion, subjugation, or death is reinforced in Islamic law. One manual of Islamic law that some of Sunni Islam’s foremost authorities have certified as conforming to the “practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community” states flatly that the “lesser jihad” means “war against non-Muslims.”
The Muslim community is directed to make war “upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.”
Most Muslims are Sunnis. There are four schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence: the Shafi’i, Hanafi, Hanbali, and Maliki. These are not brick and mortar schools, but schools of thought, of interpretation of Islamic law. The legal manual quoted above originated with the Shafi’i school; a Hanafi authority, meanwhile, states that the infidels must first be called to embrace Islam, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.”
It adds that Muslims must not wage jihad in order to enrich themselves, but only for the cause of Islam. And when the infidels hear the call to Islam, they “will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”
However, things will go badly for the non-Muslims who choose not to convert or pay the tax. Muslims must “make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.”
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a Maliki jurist as well as a pioneering historian and philosopher who authored one of the first works of historiography, likewise notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
And the Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”
These are old authorities, but none of these Sunni schools of jurisprudence have ever reformed or rejected these directives. The Shi’ite schools teach much the same things. Jihad as a spiritual struggle is a secondary concept at best for both, even though it bears the designation “greater jihad.” Only in our strange age has this quite obvious fact been controverted, with those who point it out being excoriated as bigots. Nonetheless, the historical record speaks for itself, even more loudly and clearly than it usually does. It is my hope that readers with an open mind and a willingness to consider unwelcome facts, as rare as those people may be nowadays, will see this record for what it is, and ponder carefully its implications for the future of free societies around the globe.
By Robert Spencer
