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The basic law underlying
inter-community relations in Islam is peace and reconciliation (sulh).
Ideally, the relations that a Muslim state should enjoy with other
states in the world should be based on peaceful reconciliation. At
the same time, however, the Quran gives Muslims permission to fight
under some circumstances. It mentions that fighting is permitted to
those who have been made the target of war by others and because
they are oppressed.
As the Quran very rightly points out,
‘Tumult
and oppression are worse than slaughter.’ (Quran 2:217). In the same
Quranic verse, Muslims were for the first time instructed to take to
fighting in the following words:
Fight in the cause of Allah those who
fight you but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not
transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them
out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression
are worse than slaughter.
From these Quranic verses, it very
clearly emerges that Islam regards war as, being in essence,
something bad or negative. At the same time, it concedes that war
might sometimes become essential for eliminating what it calls
fitna. This is why, following the
Battle of Badr, the Quran, in Surah Anfal, ordered Muslims to fight
the pagans of Mecca so that the religious persecution and oppression
by the latter came to an end and the hurdles that the Meccans had
put in the path of inviting people to Islam in Arabia were removed.
The Quran went further in exhorting Muslims to wage war:
“Against them make ready your strength
to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike
terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies
and others besides whom ye may not know but whom Allah doth know.”
(Quran 8:60).
After this, the Quran exhorted Muslims
to spend their wealth in making preparations for war, but, at the
same time as it inspired them to take to the battlefield, it also
proclaimed:
“But if the enemy incline towards
peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah: for
He is the one that heareth and knoweth (all things). Should they
intend to deceive thee― verily Allah sufficeth thee.”
(Quran 8:61-62).
The particular background and specific
context of the revelation of the above-quote verse needs to be
noted. Just before this verse, other verses exhorted the believers
to make preparations to wage war against the oppressors. On the
other hand, this verse instructed them to accept peace if their
enemy inclined towards it. Now, it could be possible that doubts
could arise as to the intention of the enemy in suing for peace, for
the enemy might use this as a deceptive stratagem. In response to
this, this verse says that Muslims should incline towards peace and
place total trust (tawwakul)
in God, adding that this trust alone is the true support for the
believers.
These verses of the Quran were
revealed with regard to the Jewish tribes of Medina or the pagans of
Mecca with whom the Muslims were then at war with. They were stiff
opponents of Islam. They had conspired to extirpate Islam and
destroy the citadel of Islam, Medina. The Jewish tribes were
hand-in-glove with the Meccan pagans in this venture. The actual aim
of these verses was to exhort Muslims to go to war in defence, but
yet, in the same context, the Quran advised Muslims that if their
enemies inclined towards peace, they must do the same, and place
their trust in God. At the same time, it also suggested that,
despite this, Muslims should make suitable preparations since the
enemy was untrustworthy and that it was possible that it could
renege on its promise and betray them.
On the basis of these verses, we can
say that it is wrong to suppose that peace between Muslims and
others is conceivable only when the Muslims’ position is so weak
that they are unable to wage war. The background of these verses
that speak about the need to accept the offer of peace of the enemy
indicates that the Muslims’ position at that time was certainly not
weak. In fact, the verses exhorted Muslims to fight. One of these
verses even declares:
O Prophet! Rouse the Believers to the
fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering,
they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a
thousand of the Unbelievers: for these are a people without
understanding
(Quran 8:65)
It must be
remembered that these verses were revealed after the grand victory
of the Muslims at the Battle of Badr. So, if at such a time Muslims
were ordered to accept the offer of peace made by such a fierce
enemy, it obviously indicates that it is completely wrong to believe
that peace can only be accepted when Muslims are weak and that it
should not be accepted when Muslims are in a strong position. This
argument is completely bogus, because at the time when this Quranic
verse was revealed the Muslims were not under any compulsion.
Why, then is Peace Considered to be
Merely Temporary in the Corpus of
Fiqh?
The above-mentioned verses clearly
indicate that when the possibilities for peace exist, Islam teaches
that peace must be accepted. Yet, at the same time, the corpus of
fiqh or Muslim jurisprudence developed
by Muslim scholars after the Prophet does not, in general, reflect
this notion that the basic principle of Islam underlying
inter-community relations is peace. Instead, the books of fiqh
create the impression that peace is something to be accepted only as
a temporary measure.
The reason for this must be located in
the particular historical context when the corpus of
fiqh came to be developed, including
the then prevailing level of civilization and inter-communal and
political situation. It must be remembered that at that time the
concept of permanent peace simply did not exist anywhere in the
world. In both practical as well as ideological terms, the notion of
such a peace was completely foreign for governments and states in
that age. The state of human civilization at that time was such that
if any state found it possible or feasible to declare war and
capture the territory of another state, it considered it its duty to
do so.
There was another aspect of the then
prevailing system of inter-community relations because of which the
ulema of that period felt it their
duty to warn Muslim rulers to accept peace only when they were
compelled to do so. This had to do with the fact that, in those
days, every state was closely allied to and identified with one or
the other religion. In fact, every government was based on some or
the other religious ideology. Naturally, in that period it was
simply inconceivable that any non-Muslim government would open the
doors to Muslims to call people in the lands they controlled to
God’s path. It was simply not possible. Almost every non-Muslim
government resisted, sometimes through force, this mission of Islam
in their territories. In this way, they became a major hurdle
between God and His slaves, preventing the latter from hearing and
accepting God’s message. In such a context, accepting peace as the
permanent norm would naturally have meant that Muslims would have to
abstain from their duty of calling others to God’s path and His
service. Obviously, it was impossible for the Muslim ummah to accept
this, for that would have gone completely against the basic role and
duty of the ummah. This is why the ulema and scholars of fiqh of
those times expressed the view that Muslim states should accept
peace with non-Muslim states only on a temporary basis and simply
out of pragmatism and the compulsion of circumstance. [Obviously,
the conditions in today’s age are very different, where freedom to
practice and propagate religion, including Islam, is generally
allowed in most countries.]
The Quran’s insistence that war can be
declared to overcome the
fitna of the agents of falsehood that
use force to damage or block the mission of the prophets of God and
that are a barrier between God and His slaves is undoubtedly
correct. Other than for this, however, it must be noted, peace
remains the basic principle underlying inter-community relations,
according to Islam.
Some people claim that the
above-quoted verse that speaks of making peace with enemies has been
abrogated, and that it was replaced by other verses that were
revealed after it that command Muslims to wage war against the
polytheists. However, most Quranic commentators do not agree with
this claim. For instance, with regard to this verse Ibn Jareer
Tabari writes:
‘If they [the enemies] agree with you
to stop fighting and accept peace, and, irrespective of whether they
accept Islam or pay the
jizya or reconcile or establish peace
in any other way, you [Muslims], too, should incline towards peace
and do what you want and give what you want.’
With regard to those who claim that
these verses have been abrogated, Ibn Jareer Tabari writes that:
‘No proof of this [claim] can be
advanced from the Quran or the Sunnah or from reason (aql)
or nature (fitrat).’
In actual fact,
the two different types of Quranic verses (exhorting Muslims to
fight, and ordering them to make peace) were revealed for different
conditions and circumstances. The verses that talk of peace relate
to a situation when the opponent wishes to cease fighting and accept
peace. On the other hand, the verses that exhort Muslims to fight
relate to a situation when their opponents had unleashed a
full-fledged war against the Muslims. In that situation, obviously,
for Muslims to sit back and not take action would have been
tantamount to weakness and accepting degradation. That is why this
was forbidden, and the Quran declared:
Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying
for peace. When ye should be Uppermost: for Allah is with you and
will never put you in loss for your (good) deeds
(Quran 47:35).
An Important Clarification
In the above-mentioned verses, Muslims
were exhorted to fight the Meccan pagans so that
fitna and religious persecution could
be ended and religion was for God alone. The Arabic word fitna means
to harass, oppress and to force someone. Those commentators who have
wrongly interpreted fitna to mean simple shirk or polytheism have
done so because, once a series of wars had broken out between the
Muslims and the pagan Arabs, the Muslims were ordered to continue
fighting until the very roots of polytheism were uprooted from
Arabia. In actual fact, however, fitna does not mean polytheism
alone.
A major clarification needs to be made
here. This relates to the point made in the Quran that war should
continue till religion is for God alone. This certainly does not
mean that people must be forced, through war, to accept Islam. The
fact that the Quran allows Muslims to take
jizya from non-Muslims and then enter
into a peace treaty [to protect them] clearly suggests that
non-Muslims are not to be forced to become Muslim. Further, it also
does not mean that the concept of jihad is based on the notion that
only Muslims, and no other community, have the right to establish an
independent government of their own.
In actual fact, the order of fighting
the polytheists [till religion exists only for God] applied only to
the Arabian Peninsula, where Muslims were told not to allow any
government but that based on Islam to exist. The Quran very clearly
indicated that the status of Mecca was like an ‘Abrahamic and
Ismaili endowment’ [because of its historical association with the
Prophet Abraham and his son Ismail] and that the entire land
inhabited by the descendants of Ismail—the Arabs—must be reserved
only for Islam, the religion of Abraham, so that it could be the
centre for the Abrahamic call to faith (da‘wat).
Accordingly, the final objective of the series of wars in the
Arabian Peninsula was to make the whole of that territory to come
under the religion of God.
From this detailed discussion, it
clearly emerges that if any non-Muslim community sincerely wants to
establish peace with Muslims, its offer of peace must be accepted.
This also means that if any non-Muslim state agrees to be at peace
with Muslims, and allows for the peaceful practice and propagation
of Islam in its territories, and does not engage in any force or
fitna in this regard, Muslims must
accept this offer and use peaceful methods, exerting all their
efforts in this path of inviting others to the faith, so much so
that the ‘proofs’ (hujjat) of God are established. After this, in
accordance with His established ways (sunnat), God will open a way.
That He will certainly do when all ‘proofs’ have been established.
If something leads to distance from God,
It causes
knowledge to be
fitna;
Children, Wealth and Lands to be fitna;
The sword that
is wielded for the oppressed to be
fitna;
Not just the sword, but even the call ‘God is the Greatest’
[Allahu Akbar]
to be
fitna
This is a translation of excerpts from Yahya Nomani's Urdu book,
al-Jihad
[Lucknow: Al-Mahad al-Ali Lil Darasat al-Islamiya, 2009.
Yahya Nomani works with
the Lucknow-based Urdu Islamic monthly, al-Furqan
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