drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage’’ (Sura 2:190–
191).
Yet the Koran also contains more openended
exhortations to jihad:
Fight against those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold
that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor
acknowledge the religion of truth, from among the People of the Book, until
they pay the jizya [the special tax on nonMuslims] with willing submission, and
feel themselves subdued (Sura 9:29).
The ‘‘People of the Book’’ to which the Koran refers
are, of course, primarily Jews and Christians. On the basis of
this verse and others, the influential Shafi’i school of
Muslim jurisprudence rejects the idea that jihad should only
be defensive. The Shafi’i school holds sway today at
AlAzhar University in Cairo, Egypt, the Islamic world’s
oldest, most respected institution of higher learning and the
school of some of the greatest minds of Islamic theology.
Other verses enjoin Muhammad to
fight in Allah’s cause . . . and rouse the believers. It may be that Allah
will restrain the fury of the unbelievers. . . . They only wish that you would
reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing as they. So do not take
friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah from what is
forbidden. But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them . . .’’ (Sura 4:84,
89; see also Suras 9:73 and 47:4).
There is also justification in the Hadith for the use of
lethal force against nonbelievers.[26]
It is also crucial to realize that the interpretation of the
Koran and Hadith is not undertaken only by Islamic