The True Meaning of Jihad in the Qur'an

The Qur'anic View of War

…God is All-Gentle, Most Merciful to mankind. (Qur'an, 2:143)

In the Qur'an, war represents an "unwanted obligation" which has to be carried out with strict observance of particular humane and moral guidelines and which must not be resorted to except when it is absolutely inevitable.

In one verse of the Qur'an, it is explained that those who start wars are the disbelievers and that God does not approve of wars:

…Each time they kindle the fire of war, God extinguishes it. They rush about the Earth corrupting it. God does not love corrupters. (Qur'an, 5:64)

In the case of a conflict, before engaging in a war, believers must wait until fighting becomes compulsory. Believers are allowed to fight only when the other party attacks and no other alternative except war remains:

But if they cease (fighting), God is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Qur'an, 2:192)

A closer examination of the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) life reveals that war was a method resorted to for defensive purposes only in unavoidable situations.

The revelation of the Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) continued for a period of 23 years. During the first 13 years of this period, Muslims lived as a minority under a pagan order in Mecca and faced much oppression. Many Muslims were harassed, abused, tortured, and even murdered, their houses and possessions plundered. Despite this, however, Muslims led their lives without resorting to violence and always called the pagans to peace.

A view of present-day Madinah, the city to which the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the Muslims emigrated and established their own polity.

When the oppression of the pagans escalated unbearably, the Muslims emigrated to the town of Yathrib, which was later to be renamed Madinah, where they could establish their own order in a freer and more friendly environment. Even establishing their own system did not prompt them to take up weapons against the aggressive pagans of Mecca. Only after the following revelation, the Prophet (pbuh) commanded his people to prepare for war:

Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged – truly God has the power to come to their support – those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying, "Our Lord is God"…(Qur'an, 22:39-40)

In brief, Muslims were allowed to wage war only because they were oppressed and subjected to violence. To put it in another way, God granted permission for war only for defensive purposes. In other verses, Muslims are warned against the use of unnecessary provocation or violence:

Fight in the Way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits. (Qur'an, 2:190)

After the revelation of these verses, several wars occurred between the Muslims and the pagan Arabs. In none of these wars, however, were the Muslims the inciting party. Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) established a secure and peaceful social environment for Muslims and pagans alike by signing the peace agreement of Hudaybiya which conceded to the pagans most of their requests. The party who violated the terms of the agreement and started hostilities once again were the pagans. With rapid conversions into Islam, the Islamic armies mustered a great force against the pagan Arabs. However, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) conquered Mecca without bloodshed and in a spirit of compassion. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did not take revenge on pagan leaders in the city. Yet, he did not do harm to any one of them, forgave them and treated them with the utmost understanding. Many of pagans, who would later convert to Islam of their own free will, could not help admiring such nobility of character in the Prophet (pbuh).

Not only during Mecca's conquest, but also in the course of all the battles and conquests made in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the rights of innocent and defenseless people were meticulously protected. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) reminded believers numerous times about this subject and by his own practice became a role model for others to follow. Indeed, he addressed believers who were about to go to war in the following terms: "Go to war in adherence to the religion of God. Never touch the elderly, women or children. Always improve their situation and be kind to them. God loves those who are sincere."2The Messenger of God (pbuh) also clarified the attitude Muslims must adopt even when they are in the middle of a raging battle:

Do not kill children. Avoid touching people who devote themselves to worship in churches! Never murder women and the elderly. Do not set trees on fire or cut them down. Never destroy houses! 3

The Ka'aba, to which almost two million Muslims come every year from the four corners of the world, is a symbol of the peace and compassion that are an integral part of Islamic teaching.

The Islamic principles God proclaims in the Qur'an account for this peaceful and temperate policy of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). In the Qur'an, God commands believers to treat the non-Muslims kindly and justly:

God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you over religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them. God loves those who are just... (Qur'an, 60:8-9)

In the above verses, how Muslims should behave towards others is stated: A Muslim should treat all non-Muslims kindly. In a case where this enmity causes violent attacks against Islam and Muslims, that is, where they wage a war against them, then Muslims should respond to them justly by considering the humane dimensions of the situation. All forms of barbarism, unnecessary acts of violence and unjust aggression are forbidden by Islam. In another verse, God warns Muslims against this and explains that no condition should not cause them to fall into injustice:

You who believe! Show integrity for the sake of God, bearing witness with justice. Do not let hatred for a people incite you into not being just. Be just. That is closer to heedfulness. Heed God (alone). God is aware of what you do. (Qur'an, 5:8)

The True Meaning of Jihad in the Qur'an

There is no killing in the jihad in the Qur'an. There is no raining bombs down in the jihad in the Qur'an. There are no suicide bombers or cowardly attacks on the innocent. There is no hatred or cursing people in the jihad in the Qur'an. The children of the Prophet Abraham (pbuh), of the Prophet Jacob (pbuh) and the Prophet Moses (pbuh) are not accursed in the jihad in the Qur'an. There are no threats and intimidation in the jihad in the Qur'an. Islam is not that kind of faith. There is no slaughter, death, hatred and rage in Islam, nor in Christianity or in Judaism.

Therefore, if someone says, "I learned from the Qur'an that I must kill, bomb and curse people" then he is lying, or has been mistaught. A radical who says he is a Muslim follows a faith invented solely for the purpose of killing, bombing and cursing. That invented faith does not stem from the Qur'an. The Holy Book they kiss and touch to their foreheads and hang on the wall may never actually have been read.

That is the kind of faith in which everything is dark. It offers hatred instead of love, anger instead of affection, enmity instead of brotherhood, afflictions instead of beauty and ignorance instead of art, beauty, science and culture. It is easy to put a gun in the hand of someone who believes in such a faith. It is easy to say, "That community are your enemies." It is easy to stir such a person up. It is easy to produce communities of rage. This terrible scourge, which exists not only in Islam but also in all the true faiths and even in Marxism, Satanism and materialism, in short in all religions, ideologies and ways of thinking, is the scourge of radicalism.

One of the main purposes of terrorist bombings, arson attacks and other such vicious acts is to create fear, anxiety, insecurity and a sense of panic in people.

Why does radicalism exist? Because that is what many people are taught. They know no other faith. That is all the radicals who appear in the name of Islam know as Islam. They have been left in ignorance, in a ghetto. They have been turned away from society, art and science. They have always been misinformed about the concept of "jihad" and have applied it wrongly because that is what they were taught. They have always imagined that by acting on what they were taught they were doing a good thing. They never even imagined they were actually harming themselves, their faith, their own families, their own peoples and, of course, others.

Yet the jihad in the Qur'an is different to what they imagine. The word jihad comes from the Arabic word – "jahd." Its meaning is: 1. To work, strive, labor, make sacrifices. 2. To control one's own lower self. In Islam, it is to inform the other side, to teach good morals, and to strive to turn people away from evil with love and compassion. In other words, what a Muslim engaged in "jahd" needs to do is to strive to spread love, peace and affection and to teach people in an altruistic manner to turn them away from evil. A Muslim's second jihad is waged with himself. It involves becoming a good person by turning his back on evil, hatred and rage and training his own lower self.

Radicals are ignorant of this. There is therefore no point in condemning, cursing, threatening, imprisoning or exiling someone who imagines that by killing he is waging jihad. None of that false information in his brain can be eradicated through weapons or menaces. Even if the person is eliminated, his ideas will not. That mistaken idea will continue to produce mistaken people. You can only neutralize ideas with other ideas. There is no other way. The problem is lack of education. And in order for such a person to be properly educated, you need teachers who will always support the truth, love and peace. These people need to act in the light of a method that has never yet been tried or applied. They need to speak a new language, "the language of peace."

And do not kill yourselves. God is Most Merciful to you. (Qur'an, 4:29)

It is easy to curse people in a moment of anger. But the language of peace is different. There are no "terrorists" in the language of peace, only falsely educated, ignorant people. This is important, because it becomes harder to teach such a person; the more he is called a terrorist the more he becomes to believe he really is one. There is no destructiveness or bullying in the language of peace. There is no rude talk. There are no angry words, no provocative words in the language of peace, even if the conditions are ripe for anger and hatred. There are no angry people who say, "You are a traitor, a killer" in the language of peace, only teachers who say, "You have been wrongly taught and are misinformed." We need special people, special groups of people who have abandoned the language of anger used for so many years and that merely increases hatred and killing, and who use that special language of peace instead, which requires wisdom, altruism and superior virtues. Instead of joining the hordes of the cursers, who have never solved anything, we need to find solutions to these tragedies as superior people who employ that special language of peace.

No nations or communities have ever tried this because they have known only one way: to brand and curse the aggressors before them. And so new generations have grown up living in anger and aggression and constantly cursing others, as if that were an answer. They have never sought to realize that ignorance is the real problem. Of course, as with all communities, there have been evil people within these communities. But if the ignorant people who constitute the majority of a society can be taught properly, the evil will have no power. However, it must not be forgotten thatignorance can only come to an end through careful and scrupulous education by those who use only the language of peace. Once ignorance comes to an end, there will be nobody left to talk into killing, launching rockets or becoming suicide bombers. Bombs and killing will lose all their logic. Of course, it calls for special virtues and maturity to keep the language of peace alive in a community that lives in aggression. But solutions in hard times have always come from achieving what is difficult. Teaching the radicals with the language of peace is a solution. And, whether they like it or not, it is the only solution.