Chapter 12
ISLAM AND JIHAD: FOR IT IS
ORDAINED UNTO YOU
Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is
smiting of necks until, when ye have routed them, then making
fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom until the
war lay down its burdens. That is the ordinance. And if Allah
willed He could have punished them (without you) but (thus it
is ordained) that He may try some of you by means of others.
And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He rendereth not
their actions vain.
Koran, Surah XLVII, 4The wordjihadoriginates in the Arabic wordjahada,which is translated
by Lane in his Arabic-English lexicon, as “He strove, labored, or toiled;
exerted himself or his power or efforts or endeavors or ability.” Jihad,
however, as a historical tradition and a general practice has come to mean
a “military action with the expansion of Islam and, if needs be, the defense
of Islam.”
Prior to the Islamic period, the Arabs were nomadic shepherds.His-
torically they had been warriors who supplemented their livings by pillage
and the exploitation of settled populations. Injected into this Arabic cul-
ture, Islam would become a war machine, which once started could not
be stopped. Before Islam, the Arabs did not even search for a motive to
conduct their wars; their social organization needed war, and without vic-
tories it would have collapsed. To them war was a natural part of life.