Jihad Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Literally jihad means “effort” and in Islamic tradition it has been interpreted as “striving for God.” According to the Quran and hadiths (narratives of sayings and doings of Prophet Muhammad), jihad is a duty that may be achieved in four main ways: by the heart, the tongue, the hand, and the sword. The first is known also as the greater jihad and describes the inner struggle to control one’s bad inclinations against seduction and enticement by earthly pleasures and achieve spirituality; while the lesser jihad describes the armed struggle against unbelievers and the defense of Islam. Which of these is more meritorious has long been a point of dispute among scholars, though one may, in general, say that this depends on the socioeconomic and political context in which the discourse on, and call for, jihad has taken place.

Meaning And History Of Jihad

Jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam (which are profession of faith, prayer, fasting, giving of charity, and pilgrimage) and instead constitutes a collective duty to fight under certain circumstances, such as when Muslim lands are occupied by non-Muslims and when Islam is in danger. Jihad is often equated with a “holy war.” This is wrong because military action is only one possible manifestation of spiritual effort. In fact the Arabic word for holy, muqqaddas, is never applied to war, harb, in the classical texts. And because there has never been a cohesive centralized theological authority in the Islamic world, there never was a consensus about the virtue of religious warfare, though there are several references to jihad and warfare in the Quran. For example: “And fight in God’s cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression—for, verily, God does not love aggressors” (2:190).

In premodern times (when Muslim lands had not come under the direct or indirect rule of the European powers), the legal theory of jihad came to be articulated in the context of a distinction between dar-ul-harb (the domain of war) and dar ul-Islam (the domain of peace), making jihad appropriate only to the former. During this period, another juridical category relating to jihad emerged called dar-ul-ahd (the domain of treaties) that allowed for peaceful trade and social interaction between Muslim and non-Muslim territories. In the premodern period, most jurists stipulated that it was permissible according to sharia (Islamic religious law) for Muslims to live as subjects under a non-Muslim ruler (generally a Christian) as long as they could practice their faith openly. This of course has resonance with the situation of Muslims living in the contemporary West under non-Islamic laws whereby they can practice their religion.

Jihad In The Modern Period

In the modern period (the period when most Muslim lands came under direct or indirect European rule, from the eighteenth century onward) the doctrine of jihad was reformulated. Many, though not all, jurists stipulated that Muslims living under non-Muslim governments (and therefore according to sharia in dar ul-harb) were not to undertake jihad as long as they could practice Islam and maintain its central institutions. Nevertheless, Muslim revolts against colonial rule sometimes invoked jihad, and in recent years militant Islamists have raised jihad to the level of an individual religious duty. But these usages have not had the support of most Muslim jurists, for the legal preconditions of jihad, as argued by many Muslim scholars, must include both the presence of a genuine threat to Islam and the likelihood of success in opposing it.

There are minor differences in the doctrine of jihad in the two major traditions of Islam, the Sunni and Shia, and in the subbranches of these. According to classical Shia scholars, jihad can only be waged under the leadership of the imam (religious leader).

Historically, fatwas (religiously sanctioned proclamations) for jihad have been issued by state and nonstate actors in differing political and ideological contexts. In the modern period, jihad has been invoked to resist Western colonial domination; among others, by the Faqir of Ipi against the British in the 1930s in what is now the northwest frontier of Pakistan. This jihad took the form of guerrilla warfare and a major war against the British in 1936 and 1937. Earlier in the 1820s, Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi called for a jihad against the British and the other non-Muslim rulers of India. In the 1830s and 1840s, Abd al-Qadir carried out a jihad against the French occupation of Algeria. In Egypt Ahmed Urabi’s rebellion against the British in the closing decades of the nineteenth century was proclaimed as a jihad. In the early part of the twentieth century in Libya, the Sanusi order of Sufis (Muslim religious mystics) proclaimed a jihad against the occupying Italian forces and inflicted a defeat on them in 1915. Probably the most unusual fatwa calling for jihad was under the Ottoman Turks. The Sultan of Turkey in November 1914 declared war against Britain, France, and Russia, which was accompanied by a fatwa, extolling not only subjects of the Sultan, but all Muslims living under European colonial rule. This fatwa was translated into Arabic, Persian, Tataric, and Urdu. In the 1930s, Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam led a jihad against the British and Zionists in Palestine. In the 1980s, Afghan mujahideen declared a jihad against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. Other groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as the Iraqi insurgents, have declared jihad against the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

The doctrine of jihad and the terms related to it, such as dar ul-harb and dar ul-Islam, are not part of a transhistorical world view. The doctrine belongs to an elaborate political vocabulary in which jurists or ulema (men of religious learning) and modernist reformers argued in response to varying circumstances. But what has connected the discourses on and practices of jihad, in spite of differing circumstances in which these have been located, is resistance to perceived dangers to Islam and Muslims.

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Asad,Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Mastnak,Tomaz. Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
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