Islam at War: A History

ISLAM AND JIHAD 227

and make a jest and sport of your religion. But keep your duty to Allah if

ye are true believers.

Surah V, 80.Thou seest many of them making friends with those who dis-

believe. Surely ill for them is that which they themselves send on before

them: that Allah will be wroth with them and in the doom they will abide

[italics added].

Surah V, 82.Thou wilt find the most vehement of mankind in hostility to

those who believe (to be) the Jews and the idolaters[italics added]. And

thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be)

those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among

them priests and monks, and because they are not proud.

Surah IV, 144.O ye who believe! Chose not disbelievers for (your) friends

in the place of believers. Would ye give Allah a clear warrant against you

[italics added]?

Surah III, 118. O ye who believe!Take not for intimates others than your

own folk[italics added], who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love

to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance) of their mouths, but

that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the

revelations if ye will understand.

Surah III, 28.Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in

preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah

unless (it be) that he but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were)

security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself[italics added]. Unto

Allah is the journeying.

Surah V, 57, in speaking of “those who received the Scripture before
you” is specifically pointing at Christians and Jews. Surah V, 80, essen-
tially states that if you make friends with a nonbeliever, which includes
the Christians and Jews, you will abide in “doom.” Surah V, 82, reflects
what may have been a great stress between the Hebrew tribes and the
early Muslims and lumps the Jews with the idolaters as the greatest ene-
mies of Islam.
When Islam began its expansion the first groups that it encountered in
any numbers were the Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. The invasion of
the Middle East by the Muslim Arabs was not an uplifting experience for
the victims. It came with death and destruction—not evangelism. The
inhabitants of any town captured, be they Christian or Jew or other, were
either killed or lead off into slavery. Those that remained were reduced to