Jihad

Jihd is an Arabic word commonly translated "holy war," but literally meaning "striving," as in the Qur'anic phrase "striving in the path of God." Some Muslims, particularly in more recent times, interpret the duty of jihad in a spiritual and moral sense. The overwhelming majority of early authorities, citing relevant passages in the Qur'an, commentaries, and the traditions of the Prophet, discuss jihad in military terms. Virtually every manual of Islamic law has a chapter on jihad, which regulates in minute detail matters such as the opening, conduct, interruption, and cessation of hostilities and the allocation and division of booty. Fighters in a jihad are enjoined not to kill women and children unless they attack first, not to torture or mutilate prisoners, to give fair warning of the resumption of hostilities after a truce, and to honor agreements. Islamic law prescribes good treatment for noncombatants but accords the victors extensive rights over the property and also over the persons and families of the vanquished, who could be reduced to slavery.

According to Islamic law, it is lawful to wage war against four types of enemy: infidels, apostates, rebels, and bandits. Although all four types of war are legitimate, only the first two count as jihad. The rules for jihad are different from those regulating other forms of warfare; they are also different when fought against apostates and infidels. Renegade Muslims must be ruthlessly excised and, according to most authorities, put to death if captured. Some say they may be pardoned if they recant; others maintain that God may forgive them in the next world, but no human authority can do so in this world. As regards non-Muslims, there is a distinction between those who follow what Islam recognizes as a revealed monotheistic religion and the rest. Idolaters and polytheists must be given a choice between conversion and death; the latter sentence may be commuted to enslavement. Recognized monotheists—which in practice meant Jews and Christians—could be permitted to practice their own religions and run their own affairs, provided that they recognized the supremacy of the Muslim state and accepted certain restrictions.

Jihad is a religious obligation. In offense, it is an obligation of the Muslim community as a whole—that is, it may be discharged by volunteers or professionals; in defense, it becomes an obligation of every able-bodied individual. This obligation is, in principle, unlimited and will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds—booty in this one, paradise in the next. Those who are killed in the jihad are called martyrs.

The historical jihad began in the lifetime of the Prophet with the wars of the Muslims against the pagans in Arabia. It continued with the wars of conquest, which brought first the Middle East and then much of south and central Asia, North Africa, and, at different periods, parts of southwestern and southeastern Europe under Muslim rule. The jihad against Christendom eventually provoked a Christian response in kind, known as the Crusades.

Like the word crusade, the word jihad is often used nowadays in a figurative sense, to denote a peaceful campaign for some good cause. Unlike the word crusade, it is still also used in many parts of the Muslim world in its original sense. In modern times, the term jihad has been used by the Ottoman Empire in its struggles against its European enemies and by religiously motivated independence movements in the British, French, Russian, Dutch, and Italian empires.

Bernard Lewis