Editorial:
Reclaiming the Moral Vision of Islam
S Parvez Manzoor
Islam we always maintain is a
transcendent faith and not a secular
ideology As such it is inalienably
committed to upholding the sover
eignty of the good to a moral view of
the world It proclaims that man’s ulti
mate home is beyond the realms of
worldly kingdoms and his destiny
beyond the tribunals of history The
immensity of matter the infinity of
space the eternity of time may be
beyond man’s comprehension but his
existence is not without meaning or
purpose For the human condition
does afford an everpresent possibility
of selftranscendence It offers a path
to redemption though righteousness
In this Issue
• Reclaiming the Moral Vision of Islam
by S Parvez Manzoor
• Towards a New Beginning
by Najah Kadhim
• Islam and the Question of Violence
by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
• Neither Violence nor Peace an Absolute Value in Islam
by Sherman Jackson
• Jihad a Misunderstood Concept
by S Hisham Kabbani & S Seraj Hendricks
• A Crisis of Interpretation
by Abdulaziz A Sachediona
• Framing on Terror
by Dalia Mojahed
• The Evolution of Jihad
by Farish A Noor
• Jihadi Suicide Bombers
by Ahmed Rashid
• The Spirituality of Jihad
by S Parvez Manzoor
• Suggested Reading
devotion and selfless love This is the
gift of faith and the meaning of
‘peace’ that is coterminous with
‘islam’
Our tragedy is that the traditional
vision of transcendence has been
devoured by a modern heresy a god
less nihilism that too justifies itself in
the language of faith All the moral
horrors of our times have now
acquired Islamic trappings Or in
plainer language the obscenity of ter
ror suicide bombing fratricide and
the idolization of senseless violence in
general today haunt us as the spec
tres of a nondescript unfathomable
transcendence Little wonder that
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10
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 transcendence and nihilism appear indistin
guishable to our sceptical age For our critics
they represent two faces of the same demi
urge or the two phantoms of the unenlight
ened mind that modernity has finally dis
pensed
Behind every moral obscenity every defile
ment of human sanctity every act of terror
however lurks an intellectual failure an abdi
cation of the true calling of reason to save man
from ignorance and ungodliness Only when
transcendence is severed from its religious
morality does it devolve into selfworship that
revels in the antipolitics of terror and suicide
Only the soul which does not kneel before the
Truth which is Satanic in its pride may aspire
to be a norm unto itself The original act of sur
render to God’s will heralds the birth of moral
ity in the human heart No messianic state no
redemptive politics no cult of history no ‘the
www.islam21.net
ology of power’ can ever annul that contract
Politics as a human bid for the creation of
order in the historical world can therefore have
no Islamic legitimacy if it conceives statecraft
as a sovereign regime beyond the adjudication
right and wrong Nay Islam’s bonds with the
moral are indissoluble
The original rationale of Islam we will do
well to remember is enshrined in a primordial
contract between man and God (Qur’an: :)
It is this awesome challenge of bringing moral
ity to the earth that inaugurates the human
enterprise in history Man enters history the
realm of politics proper after accepting the
moral preconditions of his existence (Qur’an:
: ) Islam is nothing but the elaboration of
Adam’s contract with God Hence it is to the
realisation of Adam’s mission humanity’s man
date of amana and khilafa that the Umma is
committed not to any politics of triumph and
glory not to any Kulturkampf and ‘clash of
civilisations’ Like Islam’s affiliation with
morality the Umma’s bonds with humanity
are indissoluble
Alas Islam today is incapable of articulating
Issue 48 - 49
itself morally All we can do is to champion
Muslim causes or speak to our own historical
tradition but of addressing humanity in an
idiom that transcends our selfinterests we
have no inkling Instead of moral insights we
trade in trite slogans Without doubt this is
due to the a failure of Islamic reason not of
2 Islamic faith
One requisite of a revival of Islamic reason
ing we believe is to allow the claims of
humanity and history a legitimate place in our
discourses Anything that pretends to have an
Islamic quotient must also justify itself in the
name of humanity And any expression of
Islamic ethics whether expressed as a as a legal
injunction or not must be fully cognizant of
the reality of the historical world Only a delib
eration of the claims of humanity and history
can act as a counterpoise to the sterile literal
ism of the tradition and enhance our moral
consciousness
Of course all visions of Muslim politics
must take into account the claims of power or
the reality of powerlessness And yet Islam
must not be allowed to become a function of
‘Muslimness’ For if our faith has any meaning
the distinction between norm and history
indispensable for any moral view of the world
must not be disowned Instead we must pur
sue a politics of humanity utopian yet practi
cal Muslim as well as cosmopolitan Islamic
experience shows that for the glories of the
world man does not have to ‘kill God’ We
must also demonstrate that for creating order
and peace in the city of humanity he does not
have to kill fellowhumans either
Islam  which has been revamped as
Islam Monitor will make its contribution
towards the promotion of a moral discourse 
universal humanitarian global  that is fully
resonant with the ethical sensibility of our
transcendent faith The acutest moral crisis of
our times terrorism and the war against it has
made a reexamination of the ethics of war and
peace inescapable It is incumbent upon us that
the votaries of modern nihilism Muslim in
name but not in deeds do not appropriate our
heritage for the gratification of their murder
ous passions But there are other compelling
reasons for articulating a Muslim stance The
prevalence of asymmetrical warfare the ethos
of humanitarian interventionism the lure of
preemptive strikes the return of torture have
all put under strain the nature of legal order
that is supposed to bring order and amity
among nations and peoples Fortunately
intense reflection both pragmatic and utopian
on these issues is also under way We must join
this conversation if only for the sake of pre
venting it from becoming delusional and self
serving
 Towards a New Beginning
Najah Kadhim
Modern insights in psychology alert us to
the fact that one trait of human nature is to
wield power The questions that arise then are:
Has the exercise of political power throughout
history always manifested itself in the form of
domination or control of man by his fellow
man? Or has it been utilized by religious
authority in the name of truth? Or by colo
nialism in the name of liberation? Or by
empires in the name of civilising mission and
so forth?
It is patently manifest that religious domi
nation in particular expresses its authority as a
right to the interpretation of the sacred scrip
ture(s) It is also in the nature of this logic that
the political authority being religious in
nature relies by default on an inward looking
process which sustains its control and thus
prevents the outward forms of learning from
other sources which otherwise may provide it
sustenance and dynamism
The problem is that domination cannot be
achieved without violence as violence is syn
onymous with control and inseparable from
the ‘game’ of politics itself! A great deal has
been said about the source of violence in man
Hobbes in his famous statement once said "A
man is a wolf to his fellow man" His belief was
that violence is part of the essential makeup
of man JeanJacques Rousseau on the other
hand tried to downplay the role of violence in
human nature emphasizing instead the influ
ence of environment and other factors for the
The problem is that domina
tion cannot be achieved
without violence as vio 
le n c e i s sy n o n y m o u s w i t h
control and inseparable
from the ‘game’ of politics
itself
presence of human violence
Contemporary violence however may be
likened to a disease or epidemic of which radi
calised politics is its main symptom This vio
lence becomes endemic when it has universal
pretensions and applied at random Some pre
fer to call it "strategic violence" as it spreads
collectively and in an organized manner One
has just to look at Iraq the main theatre of sui
cidebombing to realize its destructive power
However though AlQaeda is still influential in
Iraq it seems to have lost its sting It appears as
if it has packed it bags and shifted the locus of
www.islam21.net
activities elsewhere probably to Afghanistan
or Pakistan
The culture of violence that is backed up by
the religious conviction of its (AlQaeda’s) fol
lowers which derives from their ultimate
vision and hence appears absolute is not likely
to be adaptive it will not be able to see new
facts or absorb new ideas Such a culture is not
able to adjust mentally to the demands of a
changing dynamic reality Hence it still
upholds the idea of the total subjugation of the
other It is the psychological urge of their
innerselves to dominate the other physically
or mentally in order to assure themselves of
their being in power and feeling superior to the
other It is this urge for controlling the other
that necessitates the employment of violence
The other in this ideology has no place in a
pragmatic historical world; it has either to
vanish or to ‘join their belief community’ Not
inconsistently this violence is collective and
‘universal’ ie it is indiscriminate and must be
applied to anyone It seeks to produce "collec
Issue 48 - 49
tive fear" for the sake of bringing the other
into submission The strategic aim of such vio
lence in other words is the generation of col
lective fear hence its reliance on terror No
wonder that the prejudices against Islam in the
nonMuslin world derive no longer from igno
rance but rather from fear
3
 What aids the violence of religious or cultic
groups like AlQaeda or Taliban and others of
their ilk are in my opinion the undigested and
literal readings of the sources of medieval clas
sical fiqh (Jurisprudence) This gives them the
required legitimacy or stamps of approval for
their horrific acts of murder and destruction
Classical Fiqh is a mixture of the good and the
false For many moderns however the whole
legacy and the basic tenets of the classical Fiqh
are problematic inasmuch as this tradition
today appears to be out of touch with the
political realities of our times Even from a
purely theoretical point of view it remains
contentions as it is often seen to contradict the
Quran and Sunna of the Prophet
The basic tenets of Fiqh need to be con
fronted reexamined and must be cleansed of
www.islam21.net
all its references to violence The killing of an
apostate or stoning to death of some one who
has committed fornication (neither of which is
not mention in the Quran) are cases in point
Having said that it must also be pointed out
that even classical Fiqh does not condone the
indiscriminate use of violence as practised by
AlQaeda and its franchised JihadiSalafi
groups There is never any sanctioning of the
destruction of worship for Muslims or non
Muslims or of the burning down of others
architectural monuments
Because of the human tendency for vio
lence (whether a part of the inherent nature of
man or due to environmental and other rea
sons) the nonviolent or pacifist approach to
politics has been more often than not on the
A religious belief that lacks
emphasis on love beauty
and reasoning basic necessi 
ties of men will necessarily
produce isolationism and
Issue 48 - 49
radicalism To this may be
added the propensity for
violence for achieving polit 
i c al go als so m et h i n g t h at
can only enhance the animal
side of man
4 human logic
losing side Man is responsible for his actions
and there cannot be any moral responsibility
until these actions are based on freedom and
free choice Otherwise we human beings
would be like robots
A religious belief that lacks emphasis on
love beauty and reasoning basic necessities of
men will necessarily produce isolationism and
radicalism To this may be added the propensi
ty for violence for achieving political goals
something that can only enhance the animal
side of man and degrade the uniquely human
part of man’s nature The psychology of vio
lence may even gradually adapt itself to such
animal drives in order to justify such bestial
behaviour as the beheading of the other as a
path to the realisation of the political goal Al
Qaeda’s ideology and cult of violence is totally
contrary to the spirit of Islam and the procla
mations of the Qura’n which says "We sent
you (the Prophet) but a mercy to the world" or
"in the name of Allah the compassionate and
merciful" which Muslims utter before starting
any action humble or grand mundane or
sacred A reinterpretation of Islamic thought
through enlightened intellectual resources and
backed by a humane approach can be our fore
most weapon in our fight against the medieval
forces of darkness and terror
Islam is entering a new phase After
years during which time its mission was to ini
tiate bold and fresh ideas we may express with
some satisfaction that there are now a sizeable
number of people and groups who today
endorse our vision and have joined our ranks
Hence it is time for the next stage of monitor
ing the spread of enlightens ideas
Islam Monitor as this publication will be
known henceforth will report on as many as of
these ideas and promote them in an attempt to
confront the ideology of violence propagated
by the radicals and their lackeys The new pub
lication will serve as a kind of a network to
facilitate the dissemination of ideas & concepts
that celebrate life & revere it It will resolutely
seek to defeat any cult of death that is being
celebrated in the name of religion but which
negates the spirit of our faith and defies
 Islam and the Question of Violence
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Despite the presence of violence in many
regions of the world ranging from Ireland to
Lebanon to the Pacific Basin and involving
many religions from Christianity to Hinduism
the Western world associates Islam more than
any other religion with violence The Muslim
conquest of Spain the Crusades  which were
not begun by Muslims  and the Ottoman
domination of eastern Europe have provided a
historical memory of Islam as being related to
force and power Moreover the upheavals of
the past few decades in the Middle East and
especially movements using the name of Islam
and seeking to solve problems of the Muslim
world created by conditions and causes
beyond the control of Muslims have only rein
forced the idea prevalent in the West that in
some special way Islam is related to violence
To understand the nature of Islam and the
truth about the assertion often made of
Islam's espousal of violence it is important to
analyze this question clearly remembering
that the word islam itself means peace and
that the history of Islam has certainly not
been witness to any more violence than one
finds in other civilizations particularly that of
the West In what follows however it is the
Islamic religion in its principles and ideals with
which we are especially concerned and not
particular events or facts relating to the
domain of historical contingency belonging to
the unfolding of Islam in the plane of human
The word islam itself means
peace and that the history
of Islam has certainly not
been witness to any more
violence than one finds in
other civilizations particu 
larly that of the West
history
First of all it is necessary to define what we
mean by violence There are several dictionary
definitions that can be taken into account
such as 'swift and intense force' 'rough or
injurious physical force or action' 'unjust or
unwarranted exertion of force especially
against the rights of others' rough or immedi
ate vehemence' and finally 'injury resulting
from the distortion of meaning or fact' If
these definitions are accepted for violence
then the question can be asked as to how
www.islam21.net
Islam is related to these definitions As far as
'force' is concerned Islam is not completely
opposed to its use but rather seeks to control
it in the light of the divine Law (alshari'a)
This world is one in which force is to be found
everywhere in nature as well as in human
society among men as well as within the
human soul The goal of Islam is to establish
equilibrium amidst this field of tension of var
ious forces The Islamic concept of justice
itself is related to equilibrium the word for
justice (al'adl) in Arabic being related in its
etymology to the word for equilibrium
(ta'adul) All force used under the guidance of
the divine Law with the aim of reestablishing
an equilibrium that is destroyed is accepted
and in fact necessary for it means to carry out
and establish justice Moreover not to use
force in such a way is to fall prey to other
forces which cannot but increase disequilibri
um and disorder and result in greater injustice
Whether the use of force in this manner is
Issue 48 - 49
swift and intense or gentle and mild depends
upon the circumstances but in all cases force
can only be used with the aim of establishing
equilibrium and harmony and not for personal
or sectarian reasons identified with the inter
ests of a person or a particular group and not
the whole 5
 By embracing the 'world' and not shunning
the 'kingdom of Caesar' Islam took upon itself
responsibility for the world in which force is
present But by virtue of the same fact it lim
ited the use of force and despite all the wars
invasions and attacks which it experienced it
was able to create an ambiance of peace and
tranquillity which can still be felt whenever
something of the traditional Islamic world sur
vives The peace that dominates the courtyard
of a mosque or a garden whether it be in
Marrakesh or Lahore is not accidental but the
result of the control of force with the aim of
establishing that harmony which results from
equilibrium of forces whether those forces be
natural social or psychological
As for the meaning of violence as 'rough or
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injurious physical force or action' Islamic Law
opposes all uses of force in this sense except in
the case of war or for punishment of criminals
in accordance with the shari'a Even in war
however the inflicting of any injury to
women and children is forbidden as is the use
of force against civilians Only fighters in the
field of battle must be confronted with force
and it is only against them that injurious phys
ical force can be used Inflicting injuries out
side of this context or in the punishment of
criminals according to the dictum of the shar
i'a and the view of a judge is completely for
bidden by Islamic Law
As far as violence in the sense of the use of
unjust force against the rights of others and
laws is concerned Islam stands totally
opposed to it Rights of human beings are
defined by Islamic Law and are protected by
By embracing the 'world'
and not shunning the 'king 
Issue 48 - 49
dom of Caesar' Islam took
upon itself responsibility for
the world in which force is
present But by virtue of
the same fact it limited the
use of force
6 the secular it concerns itself with force and
this Law which embraces not only Muslims
but also followers of other religions who are
considered as 'People of the Book (ahl al
kitab)' If there is nevertheless violation in
Islamic society it is due not to the teachings
of Islam but the imperfection of the human
recipients of the Divine Message Man is man
wherever he might be and no religion can neu
tralize completely the imperfections inherent
in the nature of fallen man What is remark
able however is not that some violence in
this sense of the word does exist in Muslim
societies but that despite so many negative
social and economic factors aggravated by the
advent of colonialism overpopulation indus
trialization modernization resulting in cultur
al dislocation and so many other elements
there is less violence as unjust exertion of
force against others in most Islamic countries
than in the industrialized West
If one understands by violence 'rough or
immoderate vehemence' then Islam is totally
opposed to it The perspective of Islam is based
upon moderation and its morality is grounded
upon the principle of avoiding extremes and
keeping to the golden mean Nothing is more
alien to the Islamic perspective than vehe
mence not to say immoderate vehemence
Even if force is to be used it must be on the
basis of moderation
Finally if by violence is meant 'distortion of
meaning or fact resulting in injury to others'
Islam is completely opposed to it Islam is
based on the Truth which saves and which
finds its supreme expression in the testimony
of the faith la ilaha illa 'Llah (there is no divin
ity but the Divine) Any distortion of truth is
against the basic teachings of the religion
even if no one were to be affected by it How
much more would distortion resulting in
injury be against the teachings of the Qur'an
and the tradition of the Prophet!
In conclusion it must be emphasized that
since Islam embraces the whole of life and
does not distinguish between the sacred and
power which characterize this world as such
But Islam in controlling the use of force in the
direction of creating equilibrium and harmo
ny limits it and opposes violence as aggres
sion to the rights of both God and His crea
tures as defined by the divine Law The goal of
Islam is the attainment of peace but this peace
can only be experienced through that exertion
(jihad) and the use of force which begins with
the disciplining of ourselves and leads to living
in the world in accordance with the dicta of
the shar'ia Islam seeks to enable man to live
according to his theomorphic nature and not
to violate that nature Islam condones the use
of force only to the extent of opposing that
centripetal tendency which turns man against
what he is in his inner reality The use of force
can only be condoned in the sense of undoing
the violation of our own nature and the chaos
which has resulted from the loss of equilibri
um But such a use of force is not in reality
rendering the human will to the divine Will
From this surrender (taslim) comes peace
(salam) hence islam and only through this
islam can the violence inbred within the
nature of fallen man be controlled and the
beast within subdued so that man lives at
peace with himself and the world because he
lives at peace with God
Source:http://wwwalislamorg/al
serat/IslamAndViolenceht

Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr one of the
world's leading experts on Islamic science and
spirituality is University Professor of Islamic
Studies at George Washington University
www.islam21.net
Professor Nasr is the author of numerous
books including Man and Nature: the Spiritual
Crisis of Modern Man (Kazi Publications
violence as usually understood It is the exer ) Religion and the Order of Nature
tion of human will and effort in the direction (Oxford 
) and Knowledge and the Sacred
of conforming to the Will of God and in sur (SUNY )

The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity

By Seyyed Hossein Nasr. HarperOne, 2004. Pp. 352 pages. ISBN 978-0060730642

HarperCollins which commissioned this book ‘to cut through misinformation and
give American readers a clear sense of just what Islam is and what
it isn't’ informs A firsttier Islamic scholar Nasr (George
Washington Univ) speaks for traditional Muslims (as distinct from
"modernists" and "puritan reformers") and it is hard to imagine a
better introduction to the faith Nasr does not sidestep the issues
that nonMuslims have on their minds but he addresses them
within the context of the vitality and vision of Islam more gener
ally In the process he conveys both the "outer sense" of the
Qur'anic scripture and sacred traditions that shape the faith as a
social phenomenon and the "inner sense" that is the root of its
Issue 48 - 49

spiritual power Nasr does a very good job of expounding the com
monalties and contrasts of Islam with other faiths especially
Judaism and Christianity Rather than seeing Islamic strength as a
threat he argues that Islam and other religions share values that
commit them to opposing the deadening effects both spiritual and
literal of secularism and globalization Recommended for all academic and public
libraries Steve Young McHenry Cty Coll Crystal Lake IL
7
 Neither Violence Nor Peace
Is An Absolute Value in Islam
Sherman Jackson
Elsewhere on this forum I have men
tioned that the modern Western moral and
political framework within which Islam is
forced to express itself tends to force it into
apology and misrepresentation The present
question is representative of what I had in
mind
Islam obliges its followers to pray five
times a day – every day; does that make
Islam a “spiritual religion”? Muslims are
required to abstain from food drink and sex
www.islam21.net
from dawn to dusk every day for an entire
month every year; does that make Islam an
“ascetic religion”? Most people myself
included would answer these questions in
the negative insisting that Islam is simply a
religion with spiritual and ascetic elements
But if Islam sanctions the use of organized
violence in response to perceived threats to
its integrity it is deemed “a violent religion”
that holds violence to be both an absolute
good and the preferred means of propaga
tion In the present atmosphere many
Muslims will feel pressured not only to refute
this erroneous conclusion but to preclude its
very possibility by making what are often
The fact is that Islam holds
neither violence nor peace to
be absolute values Both are
conditioned by geopolitical
reality and the Muslim assess
ment of which is most consis
Issue 48 - 49
tent with a dignified exis
tence Many in the West have
been misled to believe that
this “dignified existence” can
only obtain when the world is
emptied of all nonMuslims
8 human life and the teachings of the religion
desperate and facile counterclaims such as
“Islam is a religion of peace” by which they
mean that any time a Muslim engages in vio
lence s/he is acting contrary to “true Islam”
The fact is that Islam holds neither vio
lence nor peace to be absolute values Both
are conditioned by geopolitical reality and
the Muslim assessment of which is most con
sistent with a dignified existence Many in
the West have been misled to believe that
this “dignified existence” can only obtain
when the world is emptied of all non
Muslims This makes for good fearmonger
ing and sells lots of books But we should
remind ourselves that at the height of
Muslim power  with no United Nations and
no Amnesty International! – Jews thrived in
Morocco Christians in Cairo and even
Zoroastrians in Shiraz Meanwhile one could
not be a Muslim in Paris London or the
Chesapeake Bay before the th century!
In the interest of honest communication
and meaningful global dialogue I think that
all of us should abandon our hypocritical
claims to passivism and honestly lay out the
circumstances under which we will sanction
violence and those under which we will
accept peace At the very least this could
provide us with an opportunity to recognize
our respective contributions to peace and
violence in the world instead of always see
ing our violence as noble and justified and
our enemy’s violence as gratuitous and bar
baric
Of course many will see this as a veiled
indictment of American action in the world
In point of fact however I see Muslims as
being just as guilty of highhanded arrogance
and blatant disregard for both the sanctity of
they profess I am actually writing this mis
sive from the gulf state of Qatar where I
have spoken with numerous Muslims who
bemoan what they describe as a frightening
and deepseated sickness that seems to have
gripped a segment of the Muslim population
They recognize the horrific political social
and economic conditions under which this
segment lives But they do not condone their
wanton publicly directed violence and ter
ror; and they do not recognize it as part of
their religion
In fact just a few days ago the top cleric
in Qatar Shaykh Yusuf alQaradawi gave a
Perhaps it is time we
expand our investigation
sermon at the Friday Congregational Prayer
in which he condemned the recent bombings
in Morocco as “brutal crimes and unIslamic
acts” He went on to say “I would like to ask
those suicide bombers to show me a single
ruling from the Holy Qur’an or the Prophet’s
tradition which condones such violent acts…
It is very strange that they kill innocent peo
ple and then describe themselves as jihadists
They make themselves into a deity who
grants life and takes it away It seems that
these people see humans as flies and mosqui
toes”
And yet violence  senseless gratuitous
meanspirited violence  continues to haunt
us in the East and in the West Perhaps it is

beyond Islam and ask if
there is something about
Modernity that pushes so
many of us to seek
redemption in publicly
directed violence
www.islam21.net
time we expand our investigation beyond
Islam and ask if there is something about
Modernity that pushes so many of us to seek
redemption in publicly directed violence
And God knows best

Sherman Jackson
Co-founder, American Learning Institute for Muslims

Sherman A Jackson is a professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies a visiting professor of law
and a professor of AfroAmerican Studies at the University of Michigan  Ann Arbor  He has
served as Executive Director for the Center of Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) in Cairo  Egypt  is
a member of the USMuslim World Advisory Committee of the HYPERLINK
"http://wwwusiporg/" US Institute of Peace  and a cofounder of the American Learning
Institute for Muslims (ALIM)

Source: http://newsweekwashingtonpostcom/onfaith/sherman_jackson//
/neither_vio
lence_nor_peace_is_ html
Issue 48 - 49

9
 Jihad: A Misunderstood Concept
S Hisham Kabbani & S Seraj Hendricks

It cannot be overemphasized that Islam upholds the values of reason balance

and responsibility in the conduct of its worldly affairs There is nothing arbitrary
about its legal provisions relating to matters of war peace international relation 
ships and the rule of law In this area there is considerable agreement between
Islamic law and the legal systems currently practiced throughout the world In addi 
tion to the real possibility that these legal systems were profoundly influenced by the
legal heritage of Islam this commonality can be explained by the fact that the pro
tection and endorsement of basic human rights form the cornerstone of Islamic leg
islation

Jihad in History and Law be guided by the interests of the people and
Jihad in Arabic means “to strive for some that the interests of the collectivity has in
objective” Thus the common assumption that some cases precedence over the interests of
www.islam21.net

Jihad is combat is incorrect In fact Jihad in its the individual

technical meaning has several branches
among which are the combative forms of
Jihad
Ibn Rushd in his Muqaddimaat divides
Jihad into four kinds: “Jihad by the heart; Jihad
by the tongue; Jihad by the hand and Jihad by
the sword” He defines “Jihad by the tongue” as
“to commend good conduct and forbid the
: ]
wrong like the type of Jihad Allah (swt)
ordered us to fulfill against the hypocrites in
His Words “O Prophet! Strive hard against the
unbelievers and the hypocrites” [:] So the
Prophet (s) strove against the unbelievers by
sword and against the hypocrites by tongue”
One form of Jihad usually overlooked in
today's pursuit of newsworthy headlines is the
Jihad of presenting the message of Islam?
da`wah Thirteen years of the Prophet's (s) 
year mission consisted purely of this type of
Jihad Contrary to popular belief the word
Jihad and related forms of its root word jahada
are mentioned in many Makkan verses in a
Issue 48 - 49
Jihad and Islamic Propagation
God states in the Qur’an “Invite (all) to the
Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful
preaching; and argue with them in ways that
are best and most gracious: for thy Lord
knoweth best who have strayed from His
Path and who receive guidance” [
Calling people to Islam and making them
acquainted with it in all its aspects through dia
logue and kind persuasion is the first type of
Jihad in Islam in contrast to the imagined
belief that Jihad is only of the combative form
This is referred to in the Qur’an where Allah
(swt) says “so obey not the disbelievers but
strive against them (by preaching) with the
utmost endeavor with it (the Qur’an)” [:]
Here the word “strive” jaahidu is used to mean
struggle by means of the tongue—preaching
and exhortation—and to persevere despite the
obstinate resistance of some unbelievers to the
beliefs and ideals of Islam

noncombative context
Combative Jihad in the technical usage of
Islamic law means “the declaration of war
against belligerent and aggressive nonMuslim
powers or against fellow Muslim transgres
sors” It is not a haphazard decision taken by
anybody The principles of Islamic jurispru
10 dence state that the actions of the leader must
Imam Nawawi in his book alMinhaj when
defining Jihad and its different categories said
“one of the collective duties of the community
as a whole (fard kifaya) is to lodge a valid
protest to solve problems of religion to have
knowledge of Divine Law to command what is
right and forbid wrong conduct”
 The explanation of Jihad in Imam alDardir's
book Aqarab alMasalik is that it is propagating
the knowledge of the Divine Law commending
right and forbidding wrong He emphasized
] and [
will tell you is seriously flawed The Qur’an
clearly states “There is no compulsion in reli
gion the path of guidance stands out clear
from error” [:
:] In this verse
that it is not permitted to skip this category of
Jihad and implement the combative form say
ing “the first [Islamic] duty is to call people to
enter the fold of Islam even if they had been
preached to by the Prophet (s) beforehand”
Similarly Imam Bahouti commences the chap
ter on Jihad in his book Kashf alKinaa by
showing the injunctions of collective religious
duties (kifaya) that the Muslim Nation must
achieve before embarking on combative Jihad
including preaching and education about the
religion of Islam dismissing all the uncertain
ties about this religion and making available all
the word “rushd” or “path of guidance” refers
to the entire domain of human life not just to
the rites and theology of Islam
There is no debate about the fact that pre
Islamic Arabia was a misguided society domi
nated by tribalism and a blind obedience to
custom In contrast the clarity of Islam and its
emphasis on reason and rational proofs exclud
ed any need to impose it by force This verse is
a clear indication that the Qur’an is strictly
opposed to the use of compulsion in religious
faith Similarly Allah addressed Sayiddina
Muhammad (s) saying “Remind them for you
the skills and qualifications which people
might need in their religious secular physical
and financial interests because these constitute
the regulations of both this life and the life to
come Hence da`wah—performing the activi
ties of propagating Islam and its related fields
of knowledge—is the cornerstone of the 'build
ing' of Jihad and its rules; and any attempt to
build without this 'stone' would damage the
meaning and reality of Jihad
Forced Conversion?
So the foundation of Jihad is Islamic propa
gation (da’wah) The question often asked is
whether Islam condones and teaches the
forced and armed conversion of nonMuslims
This is the image sometimes projected by
Western scholars and as any Muslim scholar
No single group can
autonomously declare war
or fight nor can any one
group make peace by itself
but the entire Muslim
nation must make peace A
peace treaty can be made by
the nations’ leader and all
subjects of the nation are
bound by that decision
are only one who reminds” [: ] Allah
www.islam21.net
addresses the believers urging them to obey
the injunctions of Islam “Obey Allah and obey
the Messenger and beware (of evil): if you do
turn back then know that it is Our Messenger's
duty to proclaim (the message) in the clearest
manner” [:] However this verse makes it
clear that the Messenger's duty is only to pro
claim and preach the message; it remains to
each individual to accept and to follow
Conditions for Combative Jihad
The ruler the Imam is completely answer
able to the people and their legal apparatus
the most important representatives of whom
are the scholars The position of the law is that
only at such a time when it can be reasonably
proven that;
there are aggressive designs against Islam; and
• there are concerted efforts to eject
Muslims from their legally acquired prop
erty; and
• that military campaigns are being
launched to eradicate them
Issue 48 - 49
At such a time the ruler can declare and exe
cute the provisions of Jihad It is a condition
that there be a leader of the Muslims an Imam
to declare combative Jihad In alMughni Ibn
Qudama states “declaring Jihad is the responsi
bility of the Imam and is his independent legal
judgment” AlDardir says “proclaiming Jihad
comes through the Imam's assignment of a 11
 leader” Abu Bakr AlJazaa'iri states that the
pillars of Jihad are: “A pure intention and that
it is performed behind a Muslim Imam and
beneath his flag and with his permission it is
not permissible for them to fight without an
Imam”
Similarly the ruler the political leader of the
whole country has the power to ratify peace
treaties if they are consistent with the inter
ests of the Muslims Conscription has to be
confined to young men of sound health on
condition that they have parental permission
to engage in combat The exception is where
the enemy has already entered the borders of a
Muslim state in which case Jihad becomes
unconditionally incumbent on every able man
Islamic Terms of Ratifying Peace
www.islam21.net
Allah said “Enter into peace completely and
towards Muslims or show clear intent to do so
(alhirabah) because of their religion with a
clear intention to destroy the Islamic nation as
a whole In the second eventuality it is the
duty of the Muslim ruler to declare the Jihad as
a defensive action to repel such attacks
It is evident from the Qur’an and other
sources that the armed struggle against the
polytheists was legislated in the context of spe
cific circumstances after the Prophet (s) had
migrated from Makkah to Madina Persistent
refusal of the Makkan leadership (the Prophet
being in Madina at the time) to allow the
peaceful propagation of Islam in Makkah This
is in fact the most basic reason for armed Jihad
Makkans themselves starting off military cam
paigns against the Muslims at Madinah with
the sole objective of eradicating Islam These
conditions for Jihad involving armed struggle
were then clearly specified in the Qur’an:
do not follow the steps of Satan” [:] The
Prophet (s) said after establishing the Islamic
state in Madina that the way of the Muslims is
one No single group can autonomously
declare war or fight nor can any one group
make peace by itself but the entire Muslim
nation must make peace A peace treaty can be
made by the nations’ leader and all subjects of
the nation are bound by that decision regard
less of whether the leader was appointed or
elected The final decision is up to the ruler
after his consultation with others
This verse mentions a fundamental principle
of Islam regarding Muslim/NonMuslim rela
tionships Muslims are enjoined to act kindly
and justly towards members of other faiths
except in two circumstances; firstly if they dis
possess Muslims of their legitimate landrights
and; secondly if they engage in hostilities
Thus one finds the principles
of the spiritual Jihad are
Issue 48 - 49
based on eliminating the
ugly selfish and ferocious
characteristics of the ego
through spiritual training
and mastery of dhikr the
Remembrance of God
12
“And fight in the way of Allah those who
fight against you and do not transgress [lim
its] for Allah likes not the transgressors”
[: ] and “Will you not fight a people who
have violated their oaths and intended to expel
the Messenger while they did attack you first?”
[: ]
The Inner Jihad
Islam is not a rhetorical religion it is based
on unity love and rational action Soon after
the Prophet’s (may the peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) death Islam radiated out
wardly from its earthly center the Ka’aba
implacable symbol of the faith Jihad was the
dynamic of this expansion Outwardly it
embodied the power of Islam against error and
falsehood while inwardly it represented the
means of spiritual awakening and of tran
scending the self Referring to this the Prophet
(may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him) said while returning from battle: “We are
now returning from the lesser Jihad to the
greater Jihad  the Jihad against the self” The
Prophet (s) is reported to have said during the
Farewell Pilgrimage “ The Fighter in the Way
of Allah is he who makes jihad against himself
(jahada nafsah) for the sake of obeying Allah”
The means of the combative Jihad the
sword was adopted and internalized by Islam
as the charismatic symbol of sacred warfare It
symbolizes the qualities of strength and vigi
lance indispensable for the spiritual wayfarer
in his quest for illumination and the beatific
vision This symbolism deeply inspired Muslim
artists and craftsmen In calligraphy for exam
ple one finds the swordmotif embossed in
gold and silver as the initial letter of the testi
mony of faith the shahada Historical evidence
and current practice indicate that this symbol
often forms a central feature of cultural events
of the Muslim world such as folkdancers
sporting gleaming blades as they chant and
move to rhythmic Sufic recitation
Allah says in the Holy Qur’an “Those who
have striven for Our sake We guide them to
Our ways” [:
] In this verse God uses a dhikr the Remembrance of God This remem
derivative of the linguistic root of the
word”Jihad” to describe those who are deserv
ing of guidance and has made guidance
dependent on Jihad against the false desires of
the soul Therefore the most perfect of people
are those who struggle the most against the
selfish promptings of the ego for God's sake
The most obligatory Jihad is that against the
base side of the ego desires the devil and the
lower world
The great Sufi AlJunayd said: “Those who
have striven against their desires and repented
for God's sake shall be guided to the ways of
sincerity One cannot struggle against his
enemy outwardly (ie with the sword) except
he who struggles against these enemies
inwardly Then whoever is given victory over
them will be victorious over his enemy and
Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
Chairman Islamic Supreme Council of America
Shaykh Seraj Hendricks
Mufti Cape Town South Africa
The authors annunciate their ethical stance in the form of a judicial ruling or legal opin
ion (fatwa)  Abridged Please go to the source :
whoever is defeated by them his enemy
defeats him”
Dhikr: the Remembrance of God
The Prophet peace be upon him said: “Shall
I tell you something that is the best of all
deeds constitutes the best act of piety in the
eyes of your Lord elevates your rank in the
hereafter and carries more virtue than the
spending of gold and silver in the service of
Allah or taking part in Jihad and slaying or
being slain in the path of Allah?” They said:
“Yes!” He said: “Remembrance of Allah”
Thus one finds the principles of the spiritual
Jihad are based on eliminating the ugly selfish
and ferocious characteristics of the ego
through spiritual training and mastery of
www.islam21.net
brance takes many forms: each school of
Sufism focuses on a different form of ritual
dhikr to enable the seeker to approach the
Divine Presence varying from individual silent
recitation and chanting to vocal group ses
sions It is this spiritual struggle that raises
humankind and instills in him the sense of rela
tionship with His Creator and the proper per
spective in relating to all creation always call
ing for love between humanity and striving in
Allah’s Way for better understanding between
various communities of all faiths Through this
spiritual Jihad the effect of the selfish ego on
the soul of the seeker will be removed uplift
ing his state from depression anxiety and lone
liness to one of joy satisfaction and compan
ionship with the Most High
Issue 48 - 49
http://wwwsunnahorg/fiqh/jihad_judicial_rulinghtm 
 
for a detailed fully annotated version of this text

13
 A Crisis of Interpretation
Abdulaziz A. Sachedina
There is a crisis of interpretation in Islamic
religious sciences This crisis is the result of a
selfcultivated dislocation between theology
ethics and law in Islamic tradition Unless the
doctrinal and ethical presuppositions of the
early juridical tradition are investigated and
expounded afresh the crisis will continue to
produce apologetic intellectually impover
ished and most importantly ethically insensi
tive Islamic scholarship Moral sensibilities and
demands of Islamic revealed texts can work
together to resolve the epistemological crisis
Lack of historicism in analyzing the primary
www.islam21.net
materials with sharp ethical tools has led to
devaluation of human life caught in the cross
fire of political conflicts
The Qur’an deals not only with individual
religious freedom but also with the creation of
a just social order Under certain conditions the
Qur’an gives the state as the representative of
society the power to control "discord on
earth" a general state of lawlessness created
by taking up arms against the established
Islamic order The eradication of corruption on
earth taken in the light of the Qur’anic princi
ple of instituting good and preventing evil is a
basic moral duty to protect the wellbeing of
the community In the Islamic polity where
religion is not divorced from the public agenda
leaving adherents of competing doctrines free
to pursue their beliefs engenders an inherent
tension between religious communities that
has to be resolved through state regulation
The Qur’an deals not only
with individual religious
freedom but also with the
Issue 48 - 49
creation of a just social
order Under certain condi 
tions the Qur’an gives the
state as the representative
of society the power to
control “discord on earth”
14
The "millet system" in the Muslim world
provided the premodern paradigm of a reli
giously pluralistic society by granting each reli
gious community an official status and a sub
stantial measure of selfgovernment The sys
tem based on the millet which means a "reli
giously defined people" was a "group rights
model" that was defined in terms of a commu
nitarian identity and hence did not recognize
any principle of individual autonomy in mat
ters of religion And this communitarian iden
tity was not restricted to identifying non
Muslim dhimmis the millet's selfgoverning
status allowed it to base its sovereignty on the
orthodox creed officially instituted by the mil
let leadership Under the Ottoman administra
tion this group status entailed some degree of
state control over religious identification
overseen by the administrative officer respon
sible to the state for the religious community
In addition the system allowed the enforce
ment of religious orthodoxy under the state
patronage leaving no scope for individual dis
sent political or religious Every episode of the
individual exercise of freedom of conscience
was seen as a deviation from the accepted
orthodoxy maintained and enforced by the
socioreligious order
Although the Qur’anic respect for the
founders of the other Abrahamic religions cre
ated a relatively more tolerant attitude among
Muslims the policies of discrimination against
the millets in the Muslim world remained in
force because the Shari‘a never accepted the
equality of believers and nonbelievers
Contrary to the pluralistic spirit of the Qur’an
Muslim jurists encouraged a statesponsored
institutionalization of the inferiority of non
Muslims including the monotheist ahl al
dhimma as necessary for the wellbeing of the
Muslim public order
It was precisely this kind of evaluation of
the religious "other" that led to the contemp
tuous attitude towards nonMuslim minorities
in Muslim societies But this negative attitude
arising from the spirit of enforced uniformity
in the community also extended to fellow
believers who failed to meet the criteria of
pure faith unsullied by the accretions and
)
innovations that the ultrapious believed had
corrupted the authentic Islam of the Prophet
and his companions The pious restoration of
the faith meant intolerance toward individual
freedom of conscience and hence the removal
of the cornerstone of Qur’anic pluralism
"Heresy" (ilhad that is questioning the ortho
dox doctrinal position) and "apostasy" (irtidad
that is changing one's socioreligious affilia
tion) were promulgated as punishable crimes
in the Shari‘a Given the Qur’an's endorsement
of pluralism and individual autonomy and
agency in matters of faith one must wonder
whether the Muslim penal code's provisions on
apostasy lead to an enforced religiosity that
runs counter to the letter and spirit of the
Qur’an
Is Apostasy a Religious or Civil Offense in
Islam?
Muslim jurists have not engaged in a
conceptual investigation of the ethicallegal
presuppositions of certain commandments in
the Qur’an For instance the Qur’an assigns
Muslim public order the obligation of control
ling "discord on earth" This phrase is part of a
long verse that prescribes the severest penal
ties for rebellion
The punishment of those who fight against
God and His Messenger and hasten to do cor
ruption creating discord on earth: they shall
be slaughtered or crucified or their hands and
feet shall alternately be struck off or they shall
be banished from the land This is degradation
for them in this world; and in the world to
come awaits them a mighty chastisement
Eradication of corruption
on earth is a moral com 
mandment to protect the
wellbeing of a communi 
ty But this need not con 
tradict the freedom
afforded to individual con 
science in matters of faith
except for those who repent before you lay
your hands on them (K :
Eradication of corruption on earth is a
moral commandment to protect the wellbeing
of a community But this need not contradict
the freedom afforded to individual conscience
in matters of faith This essential distinction
between the civil and moral is not only absent
in the exegetical literature on the foregoing
verse but it is also lacking in the classical juridi
cal corpus
In Islam the distinction between the reli
gious and the temporal or between the moral
and civil is not de jure but de facto The cate
gorization of religiously ordained Godhuman
(‘ibadat) and interhuman (mu‘amalat) rela
tionships in Islamic sacred law the Shari‘a is
perhaps the most explicit expression of the two
realms of religious and temporal in human
www.islam21.net
activity on earth Whereas Godhuman rela
tions are founded upon individual autonomy
under the divine regulation interhuman rela
tions are within the jurisdiction of human insti
tutions founded upon political consensus with
the purpose of furthering justice and equity in
society The same distinction rules out the
authority of the Muslim state to regulate reli
gious matters except when the free exercise of
religion for any individual is in danger
That the Qur’an presents comprehensive
commandments in which moral and civil are
not always easy to distinguish is demonstrated
by the equal gravity under civil law accorded to
moral and religious transgressions by Muslim
jurists The conceptual distinction aside
Islamic law treats these transgressions as
affecting not only humans but also God There
is a sense in which both humans and God may
have claims in the same infringement even if
the event seems to harm only one of them
Although punishment of crimes against reli
gion are beyond human jurisdiction the juridi
cal body in Islam is empowered to impose sanc
tions only when it can be demonstrated
Issue 48 - 49
beyond doubt that the grievous crime included
an infringement of a human right (haqq adami
 private claim)
The underlying principle in the penal code is
that the punishment should fit the crime and
the character of the offender because the pur
pose of punishment is the prevention of any
conduct that might undermine public order 15
 The supreme duty of the Muslim ruler is to pro
tect the public interest function for which the
law afforded him an overriding personal discre
tion to determine how the purposes of God
might best be achieved in the community
Since criminal law in Islam was a system of
private law that fell under the ratifying and
enforcement powers of the established politi
cal regime prosecutions for offenses like false
accusation of unlawful intercourse or theft
crimes that offend against both God's will and
just human relations take place only if initiat
ed by the victim and the plaintiff must be pres
ent both at trial and the execution In the case
of unlawful intercourse the witness plays a
crucial role There must be four witnesses to
the actual act of intercourse Moreover at the
time of punishment if the witnesses are not
present (and if the punishment is stoning if
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they do not throw the first stones) the punish
ment is not carried out If the thief returns the
stolen object before an application for prosecu
tion has been made the prescribed punishment
lapses; repentance for highway robbery before
arrest causes the punishment to lapse; and if
an offense is treated a misdemeanor (jinayat)
and the complainant is willing to pardon
bloodmoney may be paid instead or the pun
ishment remitted altogether In the cases of
offenses against religion that are not sanc
tioned by specific punishments apostasy for
example (for which there is no definite punish
ment in the Qur’an)  the effects of repen
tance are even more farreaching
The treatment of apostasy as an impinge
ment on the right of God and humanity in Islam
presents an interesting case of interdependency
between the religious and civil in the laws that
govern in the Muslim community To begin
with there is a fundamental problem in render
The treatment of apostasy
as an impingement on the
Issue 48 - 49
right of God and humanity
in Islam presents an interest
ing case of interdependency
between the religious and
civil in the laws that govern
in the Muslim community
16
ing the Arabic word irtidad as "apostasy" The
term irtidad meaning "rejection" or "turning
away from" was historically applied to the bat
tles that were fought against those Muslims
who had refused to pay taxes to the Muslim
political authority after the Prophet's death
Hence the murtaddun were those who had
rebelled against the established order Compare
this with the way the term apostasy is under
stood in Christianity where it suggests histori
cally an abandoning of exclusive and institu
tionalized religion for another In this sense
apostasy occurs when different religions com
pete with one another in one public arena
Irtidad on the other hand occurs within the
communal order in the form of internal subver
sion which is no longer merely a religious
offense I have dealt elsewhere with the prob
lem of the legal definition of apostasy in Islamic
jurisprudence Here I am once again confronted
with the complexity of the question of aposta
sy in Islam especially in the light of consistent
and obvious Qur’anic treatment of that offense
as being beyond human jurisdiction It is evi
dent that the Qur’an supports full freedom of
religion not merely tolerance of religions other
than Islam The irtidad or ridda of the Qur’an is
apparently a "turning away" from God and
hence is punishable by God alone; in jurispru
dence the irtidad depending on its public man
ifestation and its adverse impact on the Muslim
public order denotes turning away from the
community in which case The determination
of the gravity of the offense is strictly under the
jurisdiction of the legitimate Muslim public
order The extent of punishment depends on
the civil interpretation of the act by the politi
cal and juridical authority
Consequently although classified as a capi
tal offense (hudud crime) in the Islamic penal
code apostasy was and remains the only crime
that presented Muslim legal authorities with a
serious dilemma The verse of the Qur’an that
provides the jurists with the original ruling
unambiguously characterizes apostasy as a
noncapital offense The Qur’an says:
And whosoever turns (yartadid) from his
religion and dies disbelieving  their works
have failed in this world and the next; those
are the inhabitants of the Fire; therein they
shall dwell forever (K : )
Clearly the problem is that while the
Qur’an favored an overall tolerance of religious
pluralism the social ethics delineated by the
Muslim jurists regarded pluralism as a source
of instability in the Muslim public order The
socalled wars of "apostasy" (ridda) under the
first caliph Abu Bakr (d

CE) in the after insists that no human agency can negotiate an
math of the Prophet's death in
 CE served as individual's spiritual destiny  and legitimate
a grave reminder to the jurists to provide
measures that would deter disruptive activity
in the community
Moreover in an Islamic context the Muslim
political authority is solely responsible for
determining that the act of ridda (as in the
"rejection of" or "turning away from" the
Muslim public order) is regarded as meriting
certain punishment The reason is that in the
absence of the “church” and the “ecclesiastical
body” it is the responsibility of the civil
authority to determine the ridda's criminality
and take appropriate action to deal with it
Since its determination as ridda was restricted
to the political authority required to protect
the common good of the community a num
ber of Muslim jurists classified irtidad as part of
the ta`zir ("chastisement" "deterrence")
crimes that "infringe on private or community
interests of the public order" and for which
punishment is instituted by the legitimate
political authority Consequently the burden is
placed on the public authority to lay down
rules that penalize all conduct that seems con
trary to the public interest social tranquility
or public order
Hence civil considerations surrounding the
question of sedition and civil strife have shaped
Abdulaziz A. Sachedina
Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia
His publications include numerous articles in academic journals and these books: Islamic
the interpretation of the act of apostasy in
Islam The harsh treatment of apostates in
Islamic law was promulgated without making
an indispensable distinction between the
Qur’anic doctrine of freedom of religion which
concerns about the Muslim public order As
long as apostasy remains a private matter and
does not disrupt the society at large there is no
particular punishment in the Qur’an However
when it violates sanctity and impinges on the
rights of Muslims to practice their belief then
it is treated as a physical aggression towards
the faith At that point it is no mere apostasy;
it is rather treated as an act of sedition that
causes discord and threatens the unity of
Islamic community It is only in this case that
apostasy is punishable by the severest penal
www.islam21.net
ties framed as selfdefense against a violent
rebellion against God and the Prophet to be
countered in turn with violence if necessary
There is a selfevident problem in any
Islamic criminalization of apostasy defined in
the strict sense of public abandonment of an
institutionalized religion for another; a mere
expression of religious dissent against the
established community which the Qur’an
grants as a basic individual right cannot con
stitute a criminal act punishable in this world
The Muslim civil authority has the ultimate
responsibility for using its discretionary power
to assess the level of discord created by a pub
lic declaration of an apostasy and to lay down
the appropriate measures to deal with it
Messianism ( ) Human Rights and the Conflicts of Culture ( ) The Just Ruler in
Shiite Islam ( ); The Prolegomena to the Qur'an ( ) and The Islamic Roots of
Issue 48 - 49

Democratic Pluralism ()

This is an abridged version The complete text may be accessed at the original source:
http://newsweekwashingtonpostcom/onfaith/abdulaziz_a_sachedina///a_crisis_o
f_interpretationhtml

17
 Framing War on Terror
DALIA MOGAHED
Are the mental models guiding post / pol
icy leading to actions that help to eliminate or
inadvertently increase extremism?
More and more US policymakers and intel
lectuals are drawing an analogy between the
Cold War and the war on terror and are rec
ommending analogous strategies since both
conflicts were fought on the battlefield and
over people's minds and hearts However
recent research by The Gallup Organization on
Muslim public opinion around the world points
to serious flaws in the "Cold War II" paradigm
www.islam21.net
and the real danger in confusing these two
very different conflicts America's trials and tri
umphs in its own internal "clash of cultures"
the civil rights struggleis a more appropriate
analogy
At the heart of Cold War II is a belief that
religious fanaticism fuels extremism and there
fore replacing Muslims' worldview with
Western liberalism is the path to victory
against terrorism To understand the danger of
this diagnosis we must first look at the factors
that do and do not drive sympathy for vio
lence
As a starting point Muslims hold no monop
oly on extremist views Although
percent of group's responses were markedly secular and
the American public thinks attacks where civil
ians are targets are "completely justified" in
Lebanon and Iran this figure is  percent and
in Saudi Arabia
percent In Europe Muslims The real difference between those who con
in Berlin Paris and London are no more likely
Issue 48 - 49
The real difference between
those who condone terrorist
acts and all others is politics
not piety
18
than their general public counterparts to
believe that such attacks are justified and are
at least as likely to reject violence even for a
"noble cause"
After analyzing survey data representing
more than  percent of the global Muslim
population Gallup found that despite wide
spread antiAmerican sentiment only a small
minority sympathized with the attacks of / 
Even more significant there was no correla
tion between level of religiosity and extremism
among Muslims
Gallup went even further and asked both
those who condoned and condemned extrem
ist acts "Why do you say that?" The responses
fly in the face of conventional wisdom For
example in Indonesia the largest Muslim
majority country many of those who con
demned terrorism cited humanitarian or reli
gious justifications to support their response
One woman said "Killing one life is as sinful as
killing the whole world" paraphrasing verse
: in the Qur'an
On the other hand not a single respondent
in Indonesia who condoned the attacks of /
cited the Qur'an for justification Instead this
worldly One respondent said "The US gov
ernment is too controlling toward other coun
tries seems like colonizing"
done terrorist acts and all others is politics not
piety For example those who sympathize
with terrorism cite "occupation and US domi
nation" as their greatest fear for their country
and only a small minority agree the US would
allow people in the region to fashion their own
political future or that it would support
democracy in the region Also among this
group's top responses was the view that to bet
ter relations with the Muslim world the West
should stop imposing its beliefs and policies
Although this group is as likely to say that
better relations with the West is of personal
concern to them they are much less likely to
believe that the West reciprocates this concern
and therefore much less likely to believe that
improved relations will ever come In short
those who sympathize with extremism are
characterized by perceptions of being under
siege and by lack of faith in nonviolent means
of change
The Cold War II characterization also
assumes that Muslim grievances are rooted in
a rejection of modernity and Western values
not specific policies Empirical evidence indi
cates otherwise
For instance while the US and Britain are
generally viewed unfavorably Muslim opin
ions of France and Germany are relatively pos
itive even when compared with respondents'
opinion of other Muslim nations This suggests
that negative sentiment is drawn along policy
not cultural or religious lines
Moreover despite intense political anger at
some Western powers Muslims do not reject
Western values wholesale Citizens of coun
tries from Saudi Arabia to Morocco from
Indonesia to Pakistan express admiration for
Western technology and democratic values
such as freedom of the press and government
accountability In fact terrorism sympathizers
are more likely than the majority to say that
 Watts riots
greater democracy will help Muslims progress
From many Muslims' point
of view the conflict with the
United States is about poli
cy not principles Through
Muslim eyes it looks like a
global civil rights struggle
much more than another
clash between superpowers
Defining the current conflict as a battle
between Western values and "radical Islam"
misses the root cause of terrorism while ener
gizing the very perceptions that fuel sympathy
for itthat Islam itself is under attack These
findings begin to expose the danger of acting
on the Cold War II analogy The current war is
about not appearing to denigrate Islam or pro
mote Western imperialism because it is these
very perceptions that fuel extremist sentiment
Most importantly many have claimed that
"blue jeans and Playboy" brought down the
Soviet Union as much as strong military deter
rence In sharp contrast it is precisely
America's military power and popular culture
and their perceived threat to Muslims that
extremists exploit to gain support In short
www.islam21.net
much of what worked in the Cold War will
have the exact opposite effect now
From many Muslims' point of view the con
flict with the United States is about policy not
principles Through Muslim eyes it looks like a
global civil rights struggle much more than
another clash between superpowers When
viewed through this new perspective seeming
ly inexplicable crises such as the Muslim reac
tion to the Danish cartoons come into sharper
focus as does a more effective strategy for
ward
Thoughtful observers have drawn a compar
ison between the Danish cartoon controversy
and an incident from America's own cultural
relations struggle: the 
Looking at the cartoon controversy through
the analogous lens of race relations uncovers
some revealing insights In both cases violent
riots broke out in reaction to what seemed to
outsiders as a "petty offense" In the case of the
Issue 48 - 49
Watts riot white police officers in a predomi
nantly black neighborhood pulled over two
black males whom they believed were driving
while intoxicated In the case of the car
toons a Danish newspaper followed by other
European newspapers printed a cartoon
depicting Islam's most venerated figure the 19
 Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist Danish cartoons were simply the "trigger"
As a result of the Watts riots 
people igniting the combustible fuel of widespread
were officially reported killed and more than perceptions of Western injustice and disre
 people injured The Kerner Commission spect
was set up by President Lyndon B Johnson in Several developments followed the commis

 to study the riots that hit many US cities sion's report and the violence that initiated it:
each summer since 

and to provide recom Greater attention was paid to the grievances
mendations The resulting report pointed to identified by the commission which were not
the distinction between the "trigger" (a petty rendered void simply because people chose a
act) and the "cause"a long list of problems violent way to protest them Significantly
identified by the commission These included change occurred in two major areas The first
poverty job and housing discrimination and was policy: Laws were passed and some
unequal education as well as a deep sense of changed to address these issues such as the
racism and disrespect on the part of a powerful Civil Rights Act of 
 prohibiting discrimina
and affluent white America toward a power
less and poor black America as personified by
the white police officers' treatment of the
www.islam21.net
black men
Like those who rioted in Watts and in other
American cities during the civil rights struggle
Muslim rioters were not angry because they
 which the National Association for the
did not understand the value of free speech in
principlemany cite this liberty as among the
most admired aspects of the West Instead the
Lessons learned from
America's civil rights strug
gle can help clarify how to
begin to bridge the divide
between the United States
and the Muslim world
Dalia E Mogahed is executive director of The Center for Muslim Studies at the Gallup
Organization and coauthor with Prof John L Esposito of the frecently published book : Who
tion concerning the sale rental and financing
of housing The second was a greater cultural
sensitivity: It was already slowly becoming less
socially acceptable to use racist images of
blacks in media For example CBS had with
drawn reruns of the Amos 'n' Andy show in

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had
been protesting since the s
Lessons learned from America's civil rights
struggle can help clarify how to begin to bridge
the divide between the United States and the
Muslim world Thus a twopronged approach
outreach to the moderate majority through
job creation and support for those who wish to
address widely held grievances peacefullycan
help diminish the appeal of those who advo
cate violence
Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think Galluip Press 
Issue 48 - 49

Source: Islamica Magazine

http://wwwislamicamagazinecom/Issue/FramingtheWaronTerrorhtml

20
 The Evolution of ‘Jihad’ in Islamist
Political Discourse:
How a Plastic Concept Became Harder
Farish A. Noor
Islamist discourse like any other political
discourse is full of plastic concepts and ideas
that are meant to serve politically utilitarian
and instrumental purposes But what is impor
tant for us to remember is that the instrumen
tal use of such plastic concepts (including
‘democracy’ ‘human rights’ ‘justice’ etc)
invariably leads to their contestation as well as
they come to serve as tools for political mobil
isation
The word ‘Jihad’ has now entered the space
of international political and media discourse
along with those other wellknown favourites
‘Fatwa’ ‘Mullah’ and ‘Shariah’ Yet this entry
has also been a disabling one that has robbed
the word of some of its meaning while stretch
ing the limits of its signification even further
‘Fatwa’ for instance has now come to mean
‘death penalty’ thanks to the fatwa against the
British Muslim author Salman Rushdie But
those who have some knowledge of Islamic
jurisprudence will tell you that ‘Fatwa’ really
means ‘judicial ruling’ and these rulings can
range from grave matters like the death penal
ty to mundane everyday concerns like the
proper price of sheep in the market The latest
casualty in the war over meaning is the word
‘Jihad’
That the term ‘Jihad’ has become such a
plastic concept is hardly surprising Plasticity is
after all a normal feature of language and sig
nifiers invariably lose their roots as they find
themselves translated from one context to
another But without falling into the trap of
narrow essentialism it is nonetheless useful
for us to get to grips with the concept of Jihad
itself and understand how it came into being 
If only to see just how far the term has been
abused of late
‘Jihad’ can be loosely translated as ‘to strug
gle’ or ‘to expend effort’ towards a particular
cause The term was originally used to refer to
one’s personal struggle against one’s own mor
tal failings and weaknesses which would
include battling against one’s pride fears anx
ieties and prejudices The Prophet Muhammad
himself was reported to have described this
www.islam21.net
personal existential struggle as the ‘Jihad
Akbar’ (Greater Jihad) Alongside this notion of
the Jihad Akbar was the concept of ‘Jihad
Asgar’ or ‘Lesser Jihad’ This refers to the strug
gle for selfpreservation and selfdefence 
which has always been regulated by a host of
ethical sanctions and prerogatives
The Qur’an does stipulate clearly that
Muslims have to engage in a Jihad when they
are under attack but the conditions for such a
jihad are clearly laid out and are strictly
defined within certain ethical prerogatives
Muslims cannot engage in conflict for the sake
of mere territorial expansion for instance
(which brings into question the legal status of
the early Arab conquests which were motivat
ed mainly by considerations of realpolitik)
Muslims also cannot engage in acts of terror
and indiscriminate violence where civilians are
targeted (In fact numerous Muslim leaders
like the early Caliphs even warned their troops
not to burn the fields of their enemies or kill
their livestock) A proper Jihad for the sake of
selfdefence was therefore a complicated and
Issue 48 - 49
highly regulated matter  and the rulers had to
consult the jurists as well as their own popula
tions before such an enterprise was undertak
en
But Islam it must be remembered also hap
pens to be a faith that does not possess a cleri
cal class or a supreme leader like the Pope On
the positive side this lends the creed an egali 21
 tarian outlook which puts all Muslims on par
with each other But on the negative side the
absence of a centralised hierarchy also means
that the Muslim world is full of selfproclaimed
‘leaders of the faith’ like the Taliban and their
unwanted guest Osama bin Laden
It is this absence of a clerical order and the
plasticity of religious discourse that allows con
cepts like ‘Jihad’ to be hijacked by such self
appointed defenders of orthodoxy Coupled
with this is the predicament of a Muslim world
that feels itself increasingly threatened and
marginalised by the forces of globalisation
leading to the defensive posture being adopted
by many Muslim leaders themselves
‘Jihad’ has now been taken  by Muslims and
nonMuslims alike  to refer to an aggressive
attitude that is rooted in a reactionary dis
www.islam21.net
the term itself has been used and abused by the
very same people who have resorted to the use
of violence in their name
The task that lies before the Muslim com
munity today is to reclaim the concept of
‘Jihad’ and to invest it with other meanings dif
ferent to those imposed by the Mullahs and
militants Cognisant of the painful realities
that stand before the Muslim world at present
Muslim intellectuals must jump into the fray
and regain control of the discourse of Islam
which has for too long been regarded as the
exclusive purview of the dogmatic Mullahs
We have to break down the rigid pedagogical
structures that have kept Islamic discourse in
such a static mode by bypassing traditional
institutions of learning and indoctrination
Everything  from the universities to the media

course of authenticity and purity giving it a
militant edge that it did not possess While it is
true that the international media has done
some damage to the understanding of ‘Jihad’ it
is also important for Muslims to realise that
It is this absence of a clerical
order and the plasticity of
religious discourse that
allows concepts like ‘Jihad’
to be hijacked by such self
appointed defenders of
orthodoxy
 will have to be used as the new sites of Islamic
thought and education in order for us to
spread our message across to the wider public
Muslim intellectuals need to show that our
struggle in the presentday has more to do
with striving for economic development mod
ernisation and the creation of civil society
Rather than thinking of ‘Jihad’ in exclusive and
defensive terms we need to redefine the con
cept in proactive terms that link it to the actu
al economic social and cultural needs of the
Muslims of today ‘Jihad’ we need to show is
useless unless it brings us closer to a more pros
perous liberal and tolerant society where
Muslims are at ease with themselves and the
Other For liberal and progressive Muslims at
least this Jihad has only just begun

Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist He has
taught at the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue University of Malaya and the Institute for
Islamic Studies Frie University of Berlin He is currently is a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam
School of International Studies Nanyang Technological University Singapore This Article
Issue 48 - 49

originally published by the Social Science Research Council

Source: (The American Muslim)

http://theamericanmuslimorg/tamphp/features/articles/the_evolution_of_jihad_in_isla
mist_political_discourse/

22
 Jihadi Suicide Bombers: The New Wave
Ahmed Rashid
After September    readers around
the world quickly learned about the basic
tenets of jihad and its distortion by alQaeda
Now the shelves of Western bookshops are
again filled with books on the subject which
gives no sign of going away Jihad which
means struggle is "recommended" rather than
obligatory for all Muslims but its interpreta
tion is literally an open book—the lesser jihad
to purify one's soul and perform good deeds
for the community the greater jihad to
defend Islam when it is under attack Each
major collection of Hadith or the sayings of
the Prophet Muhammad that were compiled
by several Muslim scholars well after the
Prophet's death contains its own descriptions
of jihad with the result that the discussion of
jihad has always been a matter of differing
interpretations rather than literal observance
Yet the young men who trained in these
camps were not educated in the Islamic
schools called madrasas and they were
inspired less by extremist Islamic ideology
than by their desires to see the world handle
weapons and have a youthful adventure It
  a sui
was a boy's world of reality games "I realized
that I had dreamed of this moment for years"
writes Nasiri—a nom de plume
Nobody in the West seemed to suspect at
the time how extensively bin Laden had
already distorted Islam His tactics had hardly
anything to do with religion and everything to
do with gaining political power and influence
Jihad was no longer a defensive manoeuvre
but an offensive weapon that elevated mar
tyrdom Every religion has had its martyrs—
think of the early Christians and Jews defying
the Roman Empire—and Islam too has its pan
theon of martyrs But the Koran categorically
forbids suicide Until alQaeda began turning
religious texts on their heads martyrdom was
accepted only as the last resort of a cornered
www.islam21.net
Muslim warrior and not as a wilfully planned
death This radical change in the concept of
martyrdom has been viewed by many com
mentators as the license for modern Islamic
terrorism
Suicide attacks have been made possible by
the new training and indoctrination provided
by alQaeda as well as the booming drug
trade which has provided the Taliban and al
Qaeda with enormous funds to compensate
the families of young suicides Even more
tragic women and children are now consid
ered fair game On November
cide bomber struck in Baghlan in northern
Afghanistan killing seventytwo Afghans
including five members of parliament and
fiftynine schoolchildren Another ninety
three children were wounded Afghan schools
are now regularly bombed by the Taliban and
Every religion has had its
martyrs—think of the early
Christians and Jews defying
the Roman Empire—and
Islam too has its pantheon
of martyrs
some six hundred out of a total of  have
Issue 48 - 49
been forced to close down sending 
students home Over  teachers and stu
dents have been killed
The production of suicide belts in the tribal
Pashtun region has become a cottage indus
try not very different from local handicraft
production elsewhere in the third world 23
 One household makes the detonator
another sews the belt a third molds ball bear
ings and so on These are then collected and
paid for by the Taliban who claim in their
propaganda that they have hundreds of will
ing youngsters lined up to carry out suicide
bombings Their main problems they say are
finding good targets and the lack of sufficient
explosives While in Pakistan most suicide
bombers are Pakistanis in Afghanistan they
include Afghans Pakistanis Kashmiris Central
Asians Chechens and most recently a
The production of suicide
belts in the tribal Pashtun
www.islam21.net
Germanborn Turk Cuneyt Cifici who on
March  rammed his explosiveladen car into a
US military outpost near Khost in eastern
Afghanistan killing two American soldiers and
wounding another fifteen Two Afghan civil
ians were also killed
A similar human conveyor belt carries
Africans Arabs and Europeans to Iraq just for
the purpose of blowing themselves up This
year there has been an average of eighteen
suicide attacks a month in Iraq compared to
eight to ten a month in  according to a
US military spokesman in Baghdad in April
The suicide cult has become so accepted that
ordinary alQaeda fighters are now wearing
suicide belts as part of their equipment when

region has become a cottage
industry not very different
from local handicraft pro
duction elsewhere in the
third world
they fight conventional battles with US forces
The belts prevent them from being taken
alive allow them to kill Americans even as
they die but above all satisfy a desire to con
stantly live with and embrace the idea of mar
tyrdom

Ahmed Rashid is a wellknown Pakistani journalist and bestseller author writing for such
publications as The Washington Post Wall Street Journal Far East Economic Review etc He
appears regularly on international TV and radio networks such as CNN and BBC World
His works include The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? St Martin's
Press 
; Taliban: Militant Islam Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia Yale University
Issue 48 - 49

Press  and Jihad:: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia Yale University Press 

Excerpted from The New York Review of Books Volume  Number  June  
Source: http://wwwnybookscom/articles/


24
 The Spirituality of Jihad
S Parvez Manzoor

Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice By Michael Bonner Princeton

University Press Princeton & London   Pp  ISBN:    


The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism Christianity and Islam Ed By Joseph
Hoffmann Prometheus Books New York 
 Pp  ISBN:   
Today terror and counterterror religious
fanaticism and secular restraint imperial fury
and sectarian malice progressive universalism
and retrograde parochialism indeed even
Islam and the West present themselves as
Manichaean dualities And the obscenity of the
everescalating senseless and overbearing
political violence perpetrated for reasons of
state or for those of faith makes a mockery of
any claim about our humanity having pro
gressed from barbarity to civilization Little
wonder that the moral man appears markedly
distressed at times even panicstricken To
him the future of humanity looks bleak For
some however it is too tempting not to
impute the breakdown of the ‘moral order’ the
violent rejection of the neoliberal utopia in
plainer terms to the resurgence of religious
passions in worldpolitics ‘Religion’ after all is
a creation of ‘the secular’ and is meant to rep
resent its antithesis both morally and intellec
tually It stands accordingly for both unreason
and inhumanity
Within the modernist discourse it is of
And the obscenity of the
everescalating senseless
and overbearing political
violence perpetrated for
reasons of state or for those
of faith makes a mockery of
course the Biblical tradition which has been the
principal target of the secularist wrath
Christian consciousness has had to accommo
date this assault by renouncing all claims to the
guidance and governance of the political
realm Little wonder that the most visible
www.islam21.net
emblem of modernity is quite simply the
absence of religious consciousness from the
public square Today however with newer
tensions and new challenges to the authority
of the dominant narrative of modernization
secularist ideologues have discovered further
reasons for renewing their calling To their
polemical repertoire they have gleefully added
‘Islam’ which for them merely represents a
mirrorimage of the same Biblical bellicosity to
which they have been thoroughly exposed
Not unexpectedly most of their claims about
‘Islam’ have been made without any real famil
iarity with the Islamic texts and with no close
encounter with its moral tradition
One such collection of texts which despite
the touchingly ‘ecumenical’ neutrality of its
pacifist vision comes across as a myopic tract
is Hoffmann’s edited volume on Just War and
Jihad Notwithstanding the promise of the
title it is in fact a piece of extended polemics
against the Biblical tradition in general and
against its Western interpretations in particu
Issue 48 - 49
lar Islam has been included in this work appar
ently to make it more relevant to the current
discussion on terror Out of the fifteen contri
any claim about our human
ity having progressed from
barbarity to civilization
butions only one –  pages by a nonspecialist
– deals directly with Jihad; the rest is intra
Western debate and polemics In line with the
professed motto of the publisher Prometheus
Books namely to be critical of ‘religion’ and to 25
 expose the folly of its ways it is a singlemind
ed effort; a formidable charge sheet and an
unending indictment that has no room for the
ambiguities and paradoxes of the human con
dition! All of humanity’s woes if one is to
accept its unflinching rationale have their
cause in the avowal of the monotheistic con
sciousness and all the cures in the renunciation
of that consciousness
It is to the credit of the editor and his secu
lar conscience that he does not as is de rigueur
with political pundits in general produce an
apology for the current imperial order He is as
critical of the official rhetoric when it dons the
clerical robe be it Christian or Islamic Some
examples: ‘The “just war” calculus of the
NeoconservativeEvangelical alliance is suffi
cient to render a term like “statesponsored
www.islam21.net
terrorism” if thought only to apply to violent
excursions against the West by Islamic mili
tants indefinable’ (p ); ‘The pursuit of free
dom and democracy globally has become a
method of distracting a credulous public from
the pursuit of the Magnalia Dei Americana –
the mighty acts of God wrought on behalf of
America’ (p ) However when Hoffmann
recognizes that ‘the leviathan god of monothe
ism is the source and model for concepts of
sovereignty and absolute monarchy’ ( ) he
needs to become more alert to the fact that it
is secularism which now lays claims to the sov
ereignty of the state and reinforces wittingly
or unwittingly the doctrine of the amorality of
political power However if one were to accept
political power as (morally) sovereign if one
were to construe it as beyond good and evil
the whole problem of the legitimacy and ille
gitimacy of violence becomes redundant Little
Today when the claims of
inviolability and legal sover
Issue 48 - 49
eignty have been enshrined
in the secular state when
warfare itself has been secu
larized it has neither been
eradicated nor its obsceni 
ties become more tolerable
26
wonder that Islamic conscience has always
construed the state’s claim to sovereignty as an
anathema!
Violence and the sacred it has long been
recognized have an intimate bond Inasmuch
as the sacred has a claim to being inviolable it
marks the boundary between peace and war
between violence and nonviolence Force
comes into play when this inviolability is flout
ed when the boundaries of the sacred are
transgressed Nor may we ignore the essential
identity and indivisibility of law and force: vio
lence is only that force which is not sanctioned
by the law Violence and War therefore are
endemic to human societies part of the human
condition as it were and not gifts of monothe
ism Today when the claims of inviolability
and legal sovereignty have been enshrined in
the secular state when warfare itself has been
secularized it has neither been eradicated nor
its obscenities become more tolerable Secular
polemics would gain in cogency when it adopts
an evenhanded approach towards human suf
fering and allows the inviolability of its own
secular claims to come under moral scrutiny as
well It will have more relevance for religious
conscience when even the modern agents of
warfare  states and jingoist ideologies; science
and murderous technologies  are arraigned
before the tribunal of its moral conscience
Only a candid and forthright dialogue which is
universally moral and not tribally political
which is genuinely critical and not disingenu
ously polemical will help us discover those
visions of a just worldorder which may claim
the allegiance of the religious and secular con
science both Islamic conscience it is our plea
must welcome such a debate
Far more scholarly sober and accessible dis
cussion on Jihad is found in the synoptic state
ment that is the work of Michael Bonner
Professor of Islamic history at the University of
Michigan The present volume which original
ly appeared in French marks a welcome addi
tion to the list of those notable works which
for all their commitment to the exercise of crit
ical judgment do not allow themselves to
become partisan pamphlets in the current
political debate Bonner is a historian whose
allegiance to the historical vision removes all
temptations to philosophize with a hammer
There’s no attempt to apprehend the martial
or the spiritual ethos of an entire civilization
with the aid of a few epigrammes The diversi
ty of human responses and opinions even on
matters of doctrine and norm that require
straightforward answers which the historian
uncovers through his research preclude facile
generalisations Boner’s work is strong on his
tory and (deliberately) weak on theory
However he also reveals the limitations of the
historical approach which blurs all ideological
normative distinctions and replaces them with
an ethic of mediation For instance while Jihad
for certain Islamophobic writers represents the
essence of Islam as the ideology of violence
and domination just as for others mostly
Muslim theorists it signifies a peaceful indi
vidual and spiritual inner strivings for Bonner
it is neither He cogently demonstrates that
‘those who argue that Jihad means only vio
lence or only peace are both wrong’! The
 p 
) Even according to Jean
colour of his portrait of Jihad is neither black
nor white: it is grey! Alas the historian’s vision
the great leveller: it relativizes is There is not a
single ‘only’ in the historian’s vision; it is
always ’only this’ or only that’ 
There are however a number of insights
many essentialising ‘experts’ or Muslim ‘fun
damentalists’ who posit a nearly complete
identity of practice and norm history and doc
trine in the civilisation of Islam whether con
ceived as an ideal construct or a historical lega
cy! Or another paradoxical development of
the jihad ethics: Bonner accepts the suggestion
made by Albrecht Noth that the jihad’s focus
on individual spiritual reward ‘could and often
did result in a disregard for the actual outcome
of war’ In fact another political analyst also
admits that 'Jihad ignores the ABC of war
according to Clausewitz … Jihad in fact
knows no political space no state…; it is a
symbolic space that one traces in an ascending
direction … Jihad knows no borders; it has an
instrumental vision of the state which ends up
being devalued The state … exists only in
crises and is not institutionalized The ethical
www.islam21.net
model that is at the heart of the notion of jihad
prohibits political structures' (Oliver Roy: The
Failure of Political Islam Harvard University
Press 
Paul Charnay the source of Roy's insights
above jihad is an affair between the believer
and God and not between the believer and his
enemy It is an act of faith and a passion of
penitents which is essentially religious and
mystical and not political (JeanPaul Charnay:
that according to Bonner are inevitable: Jihad
 pp
refers first of all to a body of legal doctrines
However the more notable feature of the
Jihad theory is that ‘like Islamic law in general
this doctrine of jihad was neither the product
nor the expression of the Islamic State: it
developed apart from that State or else in
uneasy coexistence with it’ Of course this
puts a big question mark on the assumption of
Jihad is an act of personal
piety not a strategy for col
lective combat: it is beyond
any political calculus of vic 
tory and defeat Hence as
such it can only be internal
spiritual and peaceful
L'Islam et la guerre Paris Fayard 
ff) In short jihad is an act of personal piety
not a strategy for collective combat: it is
beyond any political calculus of victory and
defeat Hence as such it can only be internal
spiritual and peaceful A violent individual
jihad would be a contradiction in terms The
communitarian struggle which alone may
entail violence and militancy is on the other
hand a more mundane matter a legal regime
that must take into account the political calcu
lus of the common good (Maslaha)!
Issue 48 - 49
———————————————————
This review was earlier published in a
slightly different form in The Muslim World
Book Review vol  issue  (Spring ) pp

27
 Suggested Reading

Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent Is Vital to
Future of Shari`a By Abdullahi Ahmed An Islam and America  By Anouar Majid
Na`im Harvard Univesity Press 
Muslim scholar and human
rights activist AnNa'im has
written extensively on law
and human rights in the
Islamic world Here he turns
to the subject of the state's
coercive enforcement of
ShariaKoranbased Islamic
lawin predominantly
www.islam21.net
Muslim societies arguing that its promulga
tion of Sharia is contrary to the Koranic insis
tence on the voluntary acceptance of Islam
and the freely chosen adherence to its com
mandments
 William P Collins (Library Journal )
Two debates pervade almost all discussions
about Islam Muslim societies and the role of
both in the  st century The first revolves
around the shari'a a kind of comprehensive
Muslim guide to good conduct and its appli
cability within Muslim majority states The
other frames capitalism socialism and secular
ism as antipodes to what Islam cannot or
should not be This book engages both argu
ing that secularism is not as an unwelcome
counter force to 'true' Islam but is the indis
pensable path to reclaiming Islam to advance
pluralism human rights women's rights civil
society and citizenship Abdullahi AnNa'im is
a public intellectual known far beyond the
Issue 48 - 49
academy and the American continent In
Africa in Asia and throughout the Middle East
his is a courageous voice for secular Islam
There is no book like this one: brilliant com
pelling and optimistic
 Bruce B Lawrence Duke University
28
University of Minnesota Press 
A Call for Heresy discovers
unexpected common ground
in one of the most inflamma
tory issues of the twentyfirst
century: the deepening con
flict between the Islamic
world and the United States
Moving beyond simplistic
answers Anouar Majid
argues that the Islamic world and the United
States are both in precipitous states of decline
because in each religious political and eco
nomic orthodoxies have silenced the voices of
their most creative thinkers—the visionary
nonconformists radicals and revolutionaries
who are often dismissed or even punished as
heretics
The United States and contemporary Islam
share far more than partisans on either side
admit Majid provocatively argues and this
“clash of civilizations” is in reality a clash of
competing fundamentalisms Illustrating this
point he draws surprising parallels between
the histories and cultures of Islam and the
United States and their shortsighted suppres
sion of heresy (zandaqa in Arabic) from
Muslim poets and philosophers like Ibn Rushd
(known in the West as Averroës) to the free
thinker Thomas Paine and from Abu Bakr Razi
and AlFarabi to Thomas Jefferson and
Abraham Lincoln He finds bitter irony in the
fact that Islamic culture is now at war with a
nation whose ideals are losing ground to the
reactionary forces that have long condemned
Islam to stagnation
The solution Majid concludes is a long
overdue revival of dissent Heresy is no longer
a contrarian’s luxury for only through encour
aging an engaged and progressive intellectual
tradition can the nations reverse their decline
and finally work together for global justice and
the common good of humanity
Anouar Majid is founding chair and profes
sor of English at the University of New
England and the author of Freedom and
Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post
Andalusian Age; Unveiling Traditions:
Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World; and
Si Yussef a novel He is also cofounder and edi
tor of Tingis a MoroccanAmerican magazine
of ideas and culture
Torture and Islamic Law An article by Sadiq
Reza of New York Law School; Boston
University School of Law in Chicago Journal of
tive actors at various periods and places of the
premodern Muslim world Nevertheless sta
tistical analysis indicates little or no correlation
between the absence or practice of torture in
today's Muslimmajority countries and the
degree of commitment these countries profess
to Islamic law Instead this article concludes
the absence or practice of torture in a given
Muslimmajority country today (and the will
ingness of Muslimmajority countries to join
international covenants that ban torture) cor
relates with the same factor with which it cor
relates in a given nonMuslimmajority coun
try: the presence or absence of democratic
government
International Law Vol  No  pp  

Islam and Jihad: Prejudice Versus Reality By

www.islam21.net
; NYLS Legal Studies Research Paper No
A G Noorani  pages Zed Books  ISBN
/



This article considers the relationship

“A graceful and compelling attempt to show
between Islamic law and the absence or prac
how Islam can be modern and true to its tradi
tice of investigative torture in the countries of
tions Through gentle probing questions
today's Muslim world Torture is forbidden in
Noorani offers a frank assessment of ossified
the constitutions statutes and treaties of
traditionalism and suggests a rationally satisfy
most Muslimmajority countries but a number ing way of being Muslim in the contemporary
of these countries are regularly named among world His analysis echoes the disquiet many
those in which torture is practiced with appar Muslims feel about fanatical fundamentalism"
ent impunity Among these countries are sev
 Ziauddin Sardar author of The Future of
eral that profess a commitment to Islamic law
Muslim Civilisation and Introducing Islam
as a source of national law including some that
identify Islamic law as the principal source of
law and some that go so far as to declare them Peace and the Limits of War: Transcending
selves “Islamic states” The status of investiga Classical Conception of Jihad By Loay M Safi
tive torture in Islamic law has long been unset Pp
 International Institute of Islamic
tled: most early classical jurists forbade it but Thought  Pp
 ISBN  


some later classical jurists permitted it in at
least certain circumstances The permission This book provides a sys
some jurists gave the practice in Islamic tematic analysis of the
Issue 48 - 49

jurisprudence (fiqh) was matched and aug Qur’anic reference and the
mented by a broader license jurists gave execu prophetic traditions on peace
tive actors in the realm of governance or and war Examines the views
administration (siyasa) a realm seen as neces
of classical and modern
sarily less constrained by jurisprudential limita
Islamic scholars in light of the
tions Historical evidence indicates that inves
original intent of the Shar’ah
tigative torture was indeed practiced by execu 29
 With God on Our Side: Politics and Arkoun Fethullah Gülen Fatima Mernissi
Theology of the War on Terror Ed By Aftab Chandra Muzaffar Tariq Ramadan
Ahmad Malik Amal Press  Pp
 ISBN Abdolkarim Soroush and others



   Mehran Kamrava is Professor of Political

In the “War against
Terrorism” everyone believes
that they have God on their
side Osama bin laden regular
ly invokes God as does
Science at California State University
Northridge (USA) His publications include The
Modern Middle East: A Political History since
the First World War () Politics and
Society in the Developing World () and
Democracy in Balance: Culture and Society in
President George Bush the Middle East ( )
Whereas Bush views the
world in terms of “good” and Muslim under NonMuslim Rule: Ibn
“evil” and regularly expresses Taymiyya By Yahya Michot Pp  ISBN
foreign policy in theological terms bin Laden 



believes he is fighting a global jihad against the
crusading enemies of Islam When religion is
The / Commission
used to construct a black and white worldview
www.islam21.net

Report explicitly names Ibn

such an oversimplification can spawn radical
Taymiyya as the wellspring of
ideologies as the extremist evangelical fringes
Islamic militancy particularly
of Christianity and Islam have proven
its AlQaeda brand To label
Ibn Taymiyya an extremist is
The New Voices of Islam Ed By Mehran this book shows grossly
Kamrava I B Taurus London   Pp   unjust It is a rigorously refer
ISBN 
 X enced study through which
Michot does his academic duty to check the
incompetence of recent professional scholar
Over the last decade at a
ship on Ibn Taimiyya Nevertheless his work
time when the forces of
does also carry the burden of relevance for cur
‘Islamic fundamentalism’
rent events If ‘Islamic terror’ really is as
appear to be the dominant
unthinking as it is made out to be then outdo
face of Islam in the West a
ing it in atrocities will not deter it But a better
vibrant and equally significant
grasp of traditional Islam might do so Ibn
discourse has emerged from a
Taymiyya’s texts that are presented here show
number of prominent Muslim
a Muslim thinker deeply attuned to Qur’an
thinkers who wish to reformulate some of the
and Sunna working his way through the tan
main premises of Islamic theology and jurispru
gle of ideals and realities of his age: the hero of
dence The central goal of these ‘New Islamists’
a victorious jihad against foreign invaders
is to reinterpret popular notions of Islam that
(Tatars)  against domestic abuse of power he
are consistent with the tenets of modern life
urged only honest speech and forbade violence
Their work touches on three broad themes:
and revolt For his own outspokenness he was
Issue 48 - 49

Islamic hermeneutics; Islam’s relationship with

modernity; and the relationship of Islam with
democracy and civil rights
The thinkers whose work is showcased in
this book represent some of the most notable
Muslim intellectuals of our time They include
Nasr Abu Zaid Laila Ahmed Mohammed
30
incarcerated but bore his imprisonment with
patience until death released him
Yahya Michot is one of the world’s leading
authorities on Ibn Taimiyya and Avicenna He
is Lecturer in Islamic Theology at the theology
faculty of Oxford University and a fellow of
the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
 The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in al war with no end in sight
Different Traditions Ed By Richard Sorabjo &
David Rodin
Torture and Democracy By Darius Rejali
Princeton University Press  Pp 

After the traumatic experi ISBN 
 


ence of / and subsequent
invasions of Afghanistan and
’Darius Rejali has given the
Iraq have left many people
world an extraoridnary work
baffled and concerned This
of scholarship and persoanl
interdisciplinary study of the
passion that no one wants to
ethics of war provides an
hear about but that everyone
excellent orientation not only
to present but to future con must learn abouot Torture
flicts It looks both back at historical traditions and Democracy exposes the
and forward to contemporary and emerging core issues facing every nation
issues whose deppest values fo
human dignity are defiled by its statenation
This study traces how different cultures
hood ’violenceworkers’ Beyond platituides
involved in present in conflicts have addressed
this pioneering expert descends into the tor

similar problems over the centuries Various
academics reflect how the GraecoRoaman
world Byzantium the Christian just war
reflection Islam Judaism Hinduism and
Geneva Convention have addressed recurrent
ethical problems of war According to the pub
lisher ’cuttingedgeessays by prominent mod
ern theorists address vital contemporary issues
including asymmetric war preventive war
human rights and humantarian intervention’
Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human
Rights to Sell War By Jean Bricmont Monthly
Review Press New York 
 Pp  ISBN Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From
www.islam21.net
ture dungeons aroudn the world to reveal the
strategies and tactics secretly used to break
human will A vital book for anyone wanting to
understand the whys and hows of torture
being practised today’
Philip Zimbrdo author of The Lucifer Effect
Darius Rejali is professor of poltiical science
at Reed College and an internatioanlly recog
nized expert on modern torture He iss the
author of Torture and Modernity: Self Society
and State in Modern Iran



 Algiers to Baghdad  By Marina Lazreg
Princton University Press  Pp  ISBN
Jean Bricmont’s book is
    
both a historical account of
this development and a pow
erful political and moral cri
tique It seeks to restore the
critique of imperialism to its
rightful place in the defence of
human rights It describes the
leading role of the United
 
 By
States in initiating military and other interven
tions but also on the obvious support given by
European powers and NATO Bricot a profes
sor of theoretical physics at the University of
Louvain Belgium argues with great calm for
establishing a firm basis for resistance to glob

This study looks at ‘the inti
mate relationship between
torture and colonial domina
tion through a close examina
tion of the French army’s
Issue 48 - 49
coercive tactics during the
Algerian war of 
tracing the psychological cul
tural and political meanings
of torture at the end of the French empire
Marina Lazreg also sheds new light on the
United States and its recourse to torture in Iraq
and Afghanistan’ 31
The International Forum for Islamic Dialogue (IFID)
IFID was established in 
as a democrats in propagating a mod
UK based nonprofit organization It ern understanding of Islam and it’s
is an independent voice calling for an values focusing on human rights
enlightened and modern understand democracy pluralism nonvio
ing of Islam We believe that Muslim lence civil rights modern institu
democrats can potentially become a tions and in identifying future
stabilizing and a constructive force in trends and strategies
developing institutions modernizing
Muslim societies and playing their full IFID Objectives:
role in world peace The key to a bet
 The "Friday Note"  whereby con
ter future for Muslim nations lies in
cise articles by known Muslim
developing interpretations of Islam
writers from a number of coun
Muslim thought and attitudes that
tries address contemporary
are compatible with the contempo
Muslims concerns These are
rary world
emailed on Fridays to our online
IFID was founded by Dr Laith community Each year a collection
Kubba who served as it’s first execu of these articles are published in
tive director ( 
to ) He was book form
succeeded by Dr Mansoor AlJamri
IFID’s current director is Dr Najah
Kadhim
IFID aims to:
• Identify encourage and introduce
new enlightened Muslim writers
to engage in debate and discussion
 To publish the quarterly "Islam "
on key Islamic issues and establish
a network for the sharing of ideas
and experiences on the challenges
faced by Muslims today
• Initiate innovative ideas that pro
voke contemporary Islamic
thought and generate much need
ed debate and dialogue
 To publish the quarterly Islam
• Assist and strengthen the efforts
of enlightened and liberal Muslim
 To improve and update
"Islam net" Web site
 To produce an "educational guide"
catering to the needs of Muslims
that is modern scientific and flex
ible  to be used by teachers of
religion and by Imams
journal focusing on specific
themes
 To host Seminars addressing spe
cific topics relevant to current
Muslim reality and to publish and
circulate them to individuals and
organizations
Youth focusing on Muslim
Identity from a youth perspective