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Abstract
The Arabic term jihad has primarily come to mean “armed struggle/combat” and
is frequently translated into English as “holy war.” But a close scrutiny of the
occurrence of this term in the Qurwan and in early hadith literature demonstrates
that this exclusive understanding of the term cannot be supported for the earliest
period of Islam (roughly mid-seventh through the late eighth centuries). The essay
traces the transformations in the meanings of jihad – and the related concepts of
martyr and martyrdom – from the earliest period of Islam through the late medieval
period and down to our present time.
The basic and general meaning of the term jihad is “struggle,” “striving,”
“exertion.” In the Qurwan, the term is frequently conjoined to the phrase
“fi sabil Allah” (lit. “in the path of God”). Thus, the full locution, al-jihad fi
sabil Allah, means “struggling/striving for the sake of God.”This translation
points to the potentially different meanings that may be ascribed to jihad in
different contexts, since the phrase “in the path of/for the sake of God” allows
for human striving to be accomplished in multiple ways. The Qurwan often
refers to those who “strive with their wealth and their selves” (e.g., 8:72).
during the Meccan period which lasted thirteen years compared to the
Medinan period of ten years. The introduction of the military aspect of jihad
in the Medinan period can then be appropriately and better understood as
a “last resort” option, resorted to when attempts at negotiations and peaceful
proselytization among the Meccans had failed during the first thirteen years
of the propagation of Islam.
In 622 CE, which corresponds to the first year of the Islamic calendar,
the prophet received divine permission to emigrate to Medina, along with
his loyal followers. There he set up the first Muslim polity, combining the
functions of prophecy and temporal rule in one office. The Medinan verses,
accordingly, now have increasingly more to do with organization of the
polity, communitarian issues and ethics, and defense of the Muslims against
Meccan hostilities. A specific Qurwanic verse (22:39–40) permitting fighting
(Ar. qital) was revealed in Medina, although its precise date cannot be
determined. When both just cause and righteous intention exist, fighting
in self-defense against an intractable enemy may become obligatory
(2:216). The Qurwan further asserts that it is the duty of Muslims to defend
those who are oppressed and cry out to them for help (4:75), except against
a people with whom the Muslims have concluded a treaty (8:72).
Three major battles and a number of minor campaigns were fought
between 624 and 632 CE during the prophet’s lifetime. Some of the most
trenchant verses exhorting the Muslims to fight the unbelievers were revealed
on the occasions of these military campaigns (e.g., 9:5; 9:29). The Qurwan
in other verses (e.g., 2:93; 2:193; 8:61), however, makes it clear that should
hostile behavior on the part of the foes of Islam cease, then the reason for
engaging them in war also lapses.
Short Biography
Dr. Afsaruddin received her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in
1993 and is currently associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the
University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She previously taught at the Johns
Hopkins and Harvard universities. Her fields of specialization are the religious
and political thought of Islam, Qurwan and hadith studies, and Islamic
intellectual history. Professor Afsaruddin is the author of Excellence and
Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 2002); the editor of Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiation of Female
“Public” Space in Islamic/ate Societies (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard
University Press, 1999); and co-editor of Humanism, Culture, and Language
in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff (Winona Lake, Indiana:
Eisenbrauns, 1997). Her articles and reviews have been published in
numerous scholarly journals and she has lectured widely in this country and
abroad on various aspects of Islamic thought. Afsaruddin is the recipient of
a research grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for 2003–
2004, and was named a Carnegie Scholar for 2005 by the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. She is currently the co-editor of Religion Compass’
Islam section, along with Yousef Meri.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Department of Classics, 304 O’Shaughnessy Hall, University of Notre
Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
1 Roy Mottahedeh and Ridwan al-Sayyid,“The Idea of the Jihad in Islam before the Crusades,”
in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, eds. Angeliki E. Laiou and
Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
2001).
2 Al-Shafivi, Kitab al-umm (Cairo, 1321), 4: 103 –4; Al-Shafivi, al-Risala, ed. Ahmad Shakir (n. pl.,
1891), 430–32.
3 See Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar, trans. and ed. Majid Khadduri
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 12–13; idem., War and Peace in the Law
of Islam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955), 145.
© Blackwell Publishing 2006 Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 165–169, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2006.00015.x
Views of Jihad Throughout History . 169
4 As did the Hanafi jurist Ahmad al-Tahawi (d. 933) in his Kitab al-Mukhtasar, ed. Abu al-Wafa
al-Afghani (Cairo, 1950), 281.
5 See Asma Afsaruddin, “Competing Perspectives on Jihad and ‘Martyrdom’ in Early Islamic
Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law and
Society 1 (1994): 161.
7 Art. “Jihad,” Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, ed. John Esposito (Oxford: Oxford
Osama bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence and tr. James Howarth (London, 2005).
10 The “clash of civilizations” thesis resonates with both Christian and Muslim right-wing camps.
The polarizing religiously colored rhetoric emanating from both sides tend to be a mirror image
of the other; for this discussion, see Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after
September 11 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003).
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