- Jihad
a. Although the Arabic term jihad
means “struggling,” or more
specifically, “Struggling in the
path of God,” it is normally trans-
lated in English as “holy war.”
b. The translation is not entirely
inaccurate. While the Quranic
term is broad enough to cover a
variety of efforts on God’s behalf,
it certainly includes the use of
force against God’s enemies.
c. The Quran is circumspect on the
subject of violence and generally
appears to counsel its avoidance,
then permits it in a defensive envi-
ronment (Q: 2:190, 22:39-40). But
under the threat of annihilation,
Muhammad’s followers were final-
ly permitted to resort to force (Q
2:191, 217).
d. Muslim jurists used these texts to
divide the world into the “Abode
of Islam” (Dar al-Islam), where
Islamic law and sovereignty pre-
vailed, and the “Abode of War”
(Dar al-Harb), lands that were not
yet subjected to the moral and
political authority of Islam.
e. In theory, the Abode of Islam is
always in a state of war with the
Abode of War until the latter
submits. Jihad is the instrument
by which subjection will occur.
HOLYWAR
While the Bible is filled with
accounts of what are unmistak-
ably “holy wars,” many of them
fought by God’s direct com-
mand, many with God’s own
assistance, the Jews forfeited
all sovereignty after the insur-
rections of 66-70 and 132-135
CE, which were likewise, for
some, holy wars. Absent a
Jewish state, subsequent rab-
bis did not much theorize
about war, sacred or profane,
just or unjust. Christian theolo-
gians, on the other hand, who
from the fourth century on lived
under the aegis (or the shad-
ow) of the Christian Roman or
Holy Roman Empire, did so
speculate. In their eyes, the
defense of God’s rights cer-
tainly justified the use of force
on the part of the state—it was
never a question of the
Church’s use of such—as did
the more secular concern of
the defense of sovereignty.
The Quran is clear on the sub-
ject: all killing is forbidden except
in the name of religion, and so
holy war (jihâd) was in effect the
only just war that the community
of believers (umma), which is at
the same time the state, may
wage. In the West, Church and
State had been, if not separate,
then different from the beginning,
and from the 16th and 17th cen-
turies onward, with the growth of
a natural law tradition and
increasing revulsion at Europe’s
long and terrible religious wars,
religion was no longer regarded
as a legitimate cause of war.
“Crusade” no longer falls easily
from Western lips.LECTURE TWELVE