Voices of Islam (116 page)
Authors: Vincent J. Cornell
The Prophet said, ‘‘The best of your leaders are those you love and they love you, you pray for them and they pray for you. The worst of your leaders are those
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who anger you and you anger them and you curse them and they curse you.’’ We replied, ‘‘O Messenger of Allah should we not remove them at that?’’ He said, ‘‘No, as long as they establish the prayer amongst you
...
.’’
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These source texts are clear evidence that whoever lives under a particular government must obey the ruler and live peacefully. They are prohibited from taking up arms against him. Uprising or violence by any group against the ruler is completely rejected in Islam and was prohibited by the Prophet and will be a cause of death on the way of ignorance (
jahiliyya
). Thus, Islam considers rebellion against the ruler a great iniquity. These hadiths affirm that one must be patient with one’s ruler, even if he commits oppression. These hadiths refer to the leader of a nation, not the leader of a small group. Therefore, groups that take up violent struggle against their regimes are prohibited in Islam and are by default illegal and blameworthy.
In fact the true path to correction of the mistakes of a ruler is according to the hadith ‘‘a most excellent Jihad is when one speaks a word of truth in the presence of a tyrannical ruler.’’
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Note here the hadith does not mention fighting the ruler, but rather praises the one who corrects the ruler by speech. Armed and violent opposition to a state regime can never be recognized as Jihad in the way of God, despite the claims of many groups. Unfortunately we see today countless individuals and groups who label their rulers and their governments apostates or unbelievers, thereby giving themselves the excuse to declare ‘‘Jihad’’ against them, asserting that this is because they do not rule by what was revealed to the Prophet. Even worse, they go further by terrorizing and killing government offi members of the armed forces, and public servants, simply because they are easy targets. These groups use a ‘‘militant Islamic’’ ideology to justify such felonious action, declaring the ruler, the government, and its officers to be criminals standing in the way of ‘‘true Islam,’’ who must be eliminated. Thus, those who are innocent of any crime, but who are earning a living and raising their families, such as officers and officials of ministries and departments, county and city officials, and police, become targets of these extremist ideologues. Such groups do not hesitate to kill them in surprise attacks, terrorizing the entire nation by blasting here and there, and harming the innocent.
If the ruler commits a mistake, it is not permitted to label him an apostate, nor to indoctrinate people to use militancy to oppose him. In the time of the Prophet after the conquest of Mecca, a Companion named Hatib ibn Abi Balta assisted some of the enemies by supporting them extensively and passing them secret information. It may be that no one today supports a tyrannical ruler as Hatib supported the unbelievers at that time.
When questioned as to his motives, Hatib replied:
O Prophet of God! Don’t hasten to give your judgment about me. I was a man closely connected with the Quraysh, but I did not belong to this tribe, while the other emigrants with you had their relatives in Mecca who would protect
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their dependents and property. So, I wanted to compensate for my lacking blood relation to them by doing them a favor so that they might protect my depend- ents. I did this neither because of disbelief nor apostasy nor out of preferring dis- belief (
kufr
) to Islam.
The Prophet of God said, ‘‘Hatib has told you the truth.’’
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We see here that the Prophet, though fully aware of Hatib’s actions, never considered him to be outside the fold of Islam, nor did he infl ct any punishment on him. Regarding Hatib and his support of the unbelievers God revealed the following verse:
O you who believe! Do not take My enemy and your enemy for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth, driving out the Messenger and yourselves because you believe in God, your Lord?
(Qur’an 60:1)
Though the verse reprimands Hatib showing him to be in the wrong, nonetheless God did not take him out of the state of faith, but yet continued to address him with the honorable title ‘‘O you who believe,’’ despite his assisting the enemies of Islam.
This constitutes proof that even if someone assists a regime that does not support Islam, one cannot harm that person as the Prophet did not infl ct any punishment on Hatib. One wonders then how today so many groups freely label those working for the government as renegades and apostates and issue fierce edicts to kill them? Their work with the government might be for their livelihood or for building a bridge of trust for the Islamic community to ensure a better future relationship or a better understanding of Islam. Such actions are baseless in Islam and are founded on an extremist ideology, far removed from the middle path which always constitutes this blessed religion of God.
THE INNER JIHAD
Islam is not a rhetorical religion, but it is based on unity, love, and rational action. Soon after the Prophet’s death, Islam radiated outwardly from its earthly center, the Ka‘ba, the physical symbol of Divine Unity (
tawhid
). 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 transcending the self. Referring to this, the Prophet said while returning from battle:
We are now returning from the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad, the Jihad against the self.
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The Prophet is reported to have said during the Farewell Pilgrimage:
...
The Fighter in the Way of God is he who makes Jihad against himself (
jahada nafsahu
) for the sake of obeying God.
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God says in the Holy Qur’an,
Those who have striven for Our sake, We guide them to Our ways.
(Qur’an 29:69)
In this verse, God uses a derivative of the linguistic root of the word ‘‘Jihad’’ to describe those who are deserving 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 selfi promptings of the ego for God’s sake. The most obligatory Jihad is that against the base side of the ego, desires, Satan, and the lower world.
The great Sufi Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd 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 (i.e. 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 whoever is defeated by them, his enemy defeats him.
CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
It is apparent that the understanding of Jihad as a concept is dismally blurred by the ongoing rhetoric employed by fi cially empowered Islamist activists and extremist scholars. Disregarding centuries of classical scholarship, using a simplistic, literal approach to the Qur’an and holy traditions of the Prophet, they have built a convincing picture of Jihad as militant, continuing warfare between the Muslims and the non-Muslims—a situation they contend will persist until the end of time.
The only way to dispel the false notions of Jihad put forth by the extrem- ists, who are massively funded by external sources, is an equally strong effort put forth by Muslim governments in the reeducation of their populations, in particular the youth, with a correct understanding of this concept. Such efforts must be sustained and ongoing and must have the support of modern, moderate Muslim scholars in each nation.
We propose the following recommendations for each nation engaging in these reeducation efforts:
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follow-on discussions to create a response to the current abuse of the term Jihad;
development and staging public presentations to educate the public based on the information and discussions in (1);
publish literature detailing the accurate definition of Jihad and distributing this literature in large quantities;
encourage modern, moderate scholars to stand up and speak up in opposition to the extremists;
create a national podium for modern, moderate scholars;
publish in public media the proceedings of the above-mentioned debates and discussions by modern, moderate scholars.
NOTES
Musnad
of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Similar
ahadith
are narrated in Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi.Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
Zad al-Ma‘ad.Muqaddima,
Ibn Rushd (known in the Western world as Averroe¨s), 259.Muhammad Sa‘id R. al-Buti,
al-Jihad fil-islam
(Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1995). 5. Ibid., 44.
6. Ibid., 16.
Imam Malik bin Anas,
al-Mudawwana al-kubra,
180.Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
Zad al-Ma‘ad.Nawawi,
al-Minhaj,
210.Imam al-Dardir,
Al-Sharh al-Saghir.Mansur bin Yunus al-Bahuti,
Kashf al-qina‘a,
33.Buti,
Al-Jihad fil-islam,
16.Musnad
Ahmad. Similar ahadith are narrated in Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi.Sayyid Sabiq,
Fiqh al-Sunna,
2nd ed., vol. 3 (Beirut: Daru’1-Fikr, 1980).Ibn Majah reported it in his
Sunan,
from ‘Abd-Allah bin ‘Amr.Narrated by Abu Dawud, ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, and Ahmad.
Buti,
al-Jihad fil-islam,
108–109.Ibn Qudama,
al-Mughni,
vol. 9, 184.Dardir,
al-Sharh al-Saghir,
vol. 2, 274.Abu Bakr al-Jaza‘iri,
Minhaj al-Muslim,
chapter on Jihad.Tahanui,
Kashf al-qina‘a,
vol. 3, 41.Qirafi,
al-Ahkam fi tamyiz al-fatawa,
24.Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali al-Mawardi,
al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya,
1st ed. (Beirut: Daral-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 1990), 52.al-Sarakhsi,
al-Mabsut,
vol. 10, 3.Sharbini,
Mughni al-muhtaj,
vol. 4, 210.Shehzad Saleem in ‘‘No Jihad without a State,’’
Renaissance Monthly,December 1999.
Jihad in Islam
255Bukhari.
Fiqh al-Sunna,
30. Cited by Shehzad Saleem in ‘‘No Jihad without a State,’’Renaissance Monthly,
December 1999.The complete text of the
Hadith
is:Makhul narrates from Abu Hurayra who narrates from the Prophet: ‘‘
Jihad
is obligatory upon you with a Muslim ruler whether he is pious or impious, and the prayer is obligatory upon you behind every Muslim whether he is pious or impious even if he is guilty of the major sins.’’ (
Sunan Abu Dawud,
No. 2171)Zafar Ahmad ‘Uthmani,
Lila al-Sunan,
3rd ed., vol. 12 (Karachi: Idarat al-Qur’an wa al-‘Ulum al-Islamiyya, 1415
AH
), 15–16. Cited by Shehzad Saleem in ‘‘No Jihad without a State,’’
Renaissance Monthly,
December 1999.
Imam Farahi,
Majmu‘a tafasir-i-farahi,
1st ed. (Lahore: Faran Foundation, 1991), 56. Cited by Shehzad Saleem in ‘‘No Jihad without a State,’’
Renaissance Monthly,
December 1999.Dardir,
al-Sharh al-Saghir,
vol. 2, 274.Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi.
Sayyid Sabiq,
Fiqh al-Sunna.Bukhari.
Sayyid Sabiq,
Fiqh al-Sunna.Muhammad Sa‘id al-Qahtani,
al-Wala’ wa al-Bara’a,
trans. Omar Johnstone.The singular exception to this consensus being the opinion of Imam Shafi‘i.
A mass-transmitted hadith narrated by Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, an-Nasa’i, Ibn Majah from Abu Hurayra.
Buti,
al-Jihad fil-islam,
58.Bukhari.
Buti,
al-Jihad fil-islam.
43. Ibid., 92.
Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali,
Warathat al-Anbiya’,
chap. 8, 37–38.Bukhari reported it from Ibn ‘Abbas.
Ahmad recorded it in his
Musnad,
from Fadala ibn ‘Ubayd.Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
Zad al-Ma‘ad.Related by Muslim and Bukhari.
Muslim, Abu Dawud, and Tirmidhi.
Muslim and Bukhari recorded it.
Bukhari, Abu Dawud, and an-Nisa’i. Tirmidhi graded it sound.
Sayyid Sabiq,
Fiqh al-Sunna.Ibn Qudama,
al-Mughni,
vol. 12, 691–693.Abu Dawud narrated it in his
Sunan
from Anas bin Malik.Narrated in the
Sunan
of Abu Dawud from Rabih ibn Rabi‘, and Tabari narrated a similar tradition in his
al-Awsat
from Ibn ‘Umar. Similar narrations are related in Ibn Majah, and Ahmad from Hanzala.Cited in
Ta’rikh al-Tabari,
vol. 3, 226–227.256
Voices of the SpiritAbu Dawud narrated it in his
Sunan,
from Muhammad ibn Hamza al-Aslami from his father.Narrated in Bukhari.
Cited in
Ta’rikh al-Tabari,
226–227.Reported by Abu Awana in his
Mustakhraj
from the hadith of Thabit ibn al- Dahhak. A similar hadith is reported by Abu ‘Imran by al-Bazzar but its chain contains Ishaq ibn Idris who is rejected as a Hadith source.Bukhari.
Reported by Bukhari, 5778.
Bukhari (5778) and Muslim (109 and 110).
Muslim.
The first narration is by Baqi ibn Makhlad in his
Musnad
narrated from Ibn Ishaq. The second is from Thumama, from Anas. Both are cited by Hafiz Ibn Hajar in
al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba,
vol. 1, 279–280.Bukhari and Muslim.
Ibn al-Nujum,
Al-Ashbah wal-nadha’ir,
205.Al-Bahjuri,
Sharh Sahih Muslim,
vol. 2, 259.Imam Abu Hanifa,
Sharh al-‘aqa’id al-nasafiyya,
180–181.Al-Bahjuri,
Hashiyyat al-Bahjuri ‘ala sharh al-Ghizzi,
vol. 259.Islahi, Amin Ahsan,
Da‘wat-i-Din awr us ka Tariqah-i-kar
(Urdu), chap. 14, 241–242.Al-Bahjuri,
Sharh Sahih Muslim.Ibid.
Bukhari and Muslim.
Narrated in Darimi’s
Sunan,
and a similar hadith is related in
Musnad
Ahmad.Narrated by Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri in Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi.
Bukhari.
Ghazali in the
Ihya’.
‘Iraqi said that Bayhaqi related it on the authority of Jabir and said: There is weakness in its chain of transmission. According to Nisa’i it is a saying by Ibrahim ibn Ablah.Tirmidhi, Ahmad, Tabarani, Ibn Majah, and al-Hakim.
Related on the authority of Abu al-Darda by Ahmad, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Ibn Abi al-Dunya, al-Hakim, Bayhaqi, and Ahmad also related it from Mu‘adh ibn Jabal.