- Here is an explanation from near the beginning of a book by
H.Montgomery Watt. Professor Watt was very much an apologist for
Islam, but even he made no bones about the fact that Mohammed was not
just a religious leader, but that Mohammed and Islam were inextricably
bound with politics and war.
The Jihad or ʻholy warʼ was a fundamental part of the
mechanism of Islamic expansion both within Arabia and in the
wider world. [...] The Qurʼan now exhorts all Muslims to take part in
the fighting against the Meccans; this is the best way to interpret 5.35/9,
“O believers, fear God... and strive in His way”. There are also verses,
however, which distinguish the Emigrants from the Medinan Muslims
precisely on the grounds that the former are “those who believed and
emigrated and strove with goods and person in the way of God” (8.72/3)
or “those who emigrated after being persecuted and strove and endured
(hardships) patiently” (16.110/1). The word for “strove” here is jahadu, to
which corresponds the verbal noun jihad, properly “striving” or
“the expending of effort”. – From “The Islamic State Under
Muhammad”, Chapter 1 of H. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political
Thought , Edinburgh, 1969, pp.14-16 [emphasis added]. ↵
dana p.
(Dana P.)
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