-Gordon Nickel has a PhD in the earliest commentaries on the Koran and teaches in British Columbia.
Published: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 in National Post
The problem of Muslim radicalization has been on the agenda of all nations since 9/11. But Canada faces a unique dilemma because the doctrine of multiculturalism is seen as intrinsic to our national identity. The recent disruption of an alleged homegrown Islamist terror plot has caused many Canadians to ask: How can multiculturalism — which preaches tolerance above all else — be squared with a militant, intolerant creed that demonizes non-believers? This week, the National Post presents a week-long series of articles examining this question. In today’s second instalment, Gordon Nickel examines the claim that Islam is inherently a ‘religion of peace.’
Since the London bombings of 7/7, there has been a renewed effort
among Muslims in the West to present Islam as a religion of peace. This
has come in response to persistent probing of the relationship between
Islam and violence. Here in Canada, this issue recently leapt to the
front pages following news that all 17 suspects in an alleged
Ontario-based terror plot are Muslim.
For some Muslims, the rise of homegrown terror has meant an interest
in re-examining the foundational texts that extremists have used to
justify their attacks — the Koran, the Hadith (traditions of what the
prophet of Islam said and did), the Sira (earliest biography of the
prophet), and works of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Some are
challenging classical interpretations of these texts that have held
sway for centuries.
When the Koran is cited by Muslims in response to questions about
violence, it is often discussed in such a way as to shut down a
meaningful exploration of the text. One or two mild passages are
usually offered, as if these fully represented the contents of a
scripture containing 6,000-plus verses. But the Koran — literally
"recitation" — is a collection of diverse materials that include
polemic, praise, eschatology, law, narrative, battle calls, and details
of the domestic life of the Prophet.
In particular, the sourcebooks contain a great deal of material
relating to violence. This article reviews that small part of the
material that is directly relevant to any debate about the link between
Islam and terror: the commands to fight and kill.
The Koran contains five commands to kill and 12 commands to fight
(literally, "try to kill"). Most are found in the second (verses 190,
191, 193, 244), fourth (vv. 76, 84, 89, 91) and ninth (vv. 5, 12, 14,
29, 36, 123) suras.
The commands address a number of different situations, from
"fighting those who fight you" to "fighting totally." The objects of
the fighting and killing include the unbelievers, the "associators"
(mushrikin, or polytheists) and "the friends of Satan."
In classical Muslim discussions of these verses, two verses
attracted more attention than any others. They came to be known as "the
sword verse" (9.5) and "the verse of tribute" (9.29).
The verse of tribute concerns the "people of the book" — generally
understood by Muslims to be faith communities possessing a scripture,
especially Jews and Christians. The command is to fight those who have
been given the book "until they pay the tribute (jizya) out of hand and
have been humbled." The command in the sword verse is to "kill the
associators (mushrikin) wherever you find them, and take them, and
confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush." At
face value, therefore, polytheists appear to be at greater risk than
Jews or Christians.
The Arabic verb in all of these verses is not the verb related to
jihad. Rather, it is the verb qatala in its first ("to kill") and third
("to fight, try to kill") forms. The Koran contains many other verses
using forms of qatala which — though not imperatives — appear to
encourage fighting or killing. Among these is 61.4: "Allah loves those
who fight in his way."
These are the commands. But what do they mean? That is, of course, a
matter of interpretation. Those who want to give a peaceful
interpretation to these verses face challenges from both the classical
medieval Muslim consensus and the interpretations of popular figures
within the 20th-century Islamic revival.
Muslim scholars have produced lively commentaries (tafsir) on the
verses of the Koran from the second Islamic century up to the present.
The earliest complete commentary on the Koran was written by Muqatil
ibn Sulayman (d. 767). Muqatil seems to take the commands to fight and
kill at face value.
One of the interpretive principles that Muqatil and later
commentators used was to link passages in the Koran with events in the
story of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. These events are arranged in a
continuous narrative in the Sirat Rasul Allah of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767).
Muslim scholars assigned each of the Koran’s 114 suras to initial
recitation by Muhammad in either Mecca or Medina; and within those main
divisions, they gave each sura a place in a definite chronology. The
establishment of such a chronology permitted the concept of abrogation
— by which recitations originating later in time took precedence over
apparently contradictory passages recited earlier.
The classical Muslim understanding that developed from these
principles was that the commands to fight and kill could be arranged
chronologically in the prophet’s lifetime — from the initial
permission Muhammad gave to his followers to fight, to instructions on
defensive warfare, to conditional aggression, to open unrestricted
warfare as the Prophet’s forces grew stronger later in his life.
Peaceful passages in the Koran were considered to be superseded by
materials with a warlike tone, especially Sura 9.
David S. Powers, professor of near eastern studies at Cornell
University, has noted that Muslim scholars of abrogation such as Ibn
Salama (d. 1020) claimed the "sword verse" cited above (9.5) had
abrogating power over 124 other verses, including "every other verse in
the Koran which commands or implies anything less than a total
offensive against the non-believers." U.S.-born historian John
Wansbrough found that the sword verse "became the scriptural prop of a
formulation designed to cover any and all situations which might arise
between the Muslim community and its enemies." Influential Islamist
authors such as ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, Maulana Maududi and Sayyid Qutb
have all expressed their agreement with the classical interpretation of
the commands to fight and kill.
A famous illustration of this Islamist tendency is in the pre-9/11
communiques of Osama bin Laden. His "Declaration of War" of October,
1996, makes prominent use of Koranic commands to fight and kill. His
Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders of February, 1998, opens with the
sword verse and applies it directly to those he considers to be the
modern enemies of Islam.
Indeed, one of the greatest challenges facing peace advocates in
Muslim nations is that the Islamist voices that seem to have the
greatest appeal to youth are those that portray the Koranic commands to
kill as clear and unequivocal. Some of these Islamists have already
carefully processed Western criticisms and have deliberately reasserted
the classical understandings. For instance, Egypt’s Sayyid Qutb, a
guiding force of the Muslim Brotherhood (from which al-Qaeda sprang),
wrote that the tendency to interpret the Koran as if it enjoins only
defensive war is an error of Muslims minds "defeated by the pressure of
unfavourable conditions and the treacherous propaganda of the
orientalists."
But this need not be the only way of interpreting these texts. One
alternative — quite common in some faith communities — might be to
decide that these were commands for a very particular set of
circumstances, but that they no longer apply to modern believers in
this time. Another option, advanced recently by the Turkish scholar
Israfil Balci, is to reject the classical interpretations of these
commands as a product of the political tensions of the period.
Muslims are not the only scriptural community to face challenges of
interpretation. Jews and Christians who regard the Hebrew scriptures as
the Word of God must deal with the conquest of Canaan, the commandment
of total cherem destruction, the violence of judges like Samson and the
bloodshed of kings like David — among many other materials that
suggest Godly approval for aggressive warfare against non-believers.
Conversely, warring Christians who accept the authority of the
Gospel must deal with the apparent prohibition of violence in the
teachings and life example of Jesus. This discussion has been going on
among Christians at least since the Crusades, when critics were heard
to say "that it is not in accordance with the Christian religion to
shed blood in this way, even that of wicked infidels. For Christ did
not act thus."
Within the Christian community, one interpretive option is to read
the Hebrew scriptures through the prism of the Gospel. According to the
Gospel, Jesus said that he had come not to abrogate the Law and the
Prophets, but to fulfill them. Jesus then immediately replaced the law
of retaliation with non-resistance, and commanded love for enemies
(Matthew 5:17, 38, 39, 44). This way of dealing with difficult
materials raises many questions, but it has allowed Christians to
pursue pacifism while holding to the authority of the Hebrew scriptures.
Unfortunately, the Islamic principle of abrogation runs in the
opposite chronological direction in relation to violence. Because the
commands to fight and kill in the Koran are considered by Muslims to be
among the recitations made very late in the life of the prophet of
Islam — at a time when his conquest of Arabia was almost complete —
Muslims scholars have been inclined to read the peaceful texts as
subordinate to the later ones.
In other words, Muslims seeking to find a peaceful message in the
Koran must fight not only the plain meaning of the Koran’s text and the
current fashion for militancy, but also the arrow of Muslim history.
Interpreting the words of Muslim scripture so that they pose no
threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers thus seems a large
challenge. In view of the high stakes in the world today, however, it
is certainly a challenge worth taking up. Otherwise, Canadian
proponents of multiculturalism will have a harder time arguing that
traditional Islam is just another peaceful element in Canada’s
multicultural quilt.
Endnotes
‘FIGHT IN THE WAY OF ALLAH THOSE WHO FIGHT YOU’
What follows are selected Koranic references to fighting and killing infidels.
– Baqara (2):190 – "And fight (qaatiloo) in the way of Allah those who fight you."
– Baqara (2):193 – "Fight them (qaatiloohum), till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s"
– Baqara (2):244 – "So fight (qaatiloo) in the way of Allah, and know that Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing."
– Nisaa’ (4):76 – "Those who are believers fight (yuqaatiloona) in
the way of Allah, and the unbelievers fight in the idols’ way. So fight
(qaatiloo) the friends of Satan; surely the guile of Satan is ever
feeble."
– al-Anfaal (8):39 – "Fight them (qaatiloohum), till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s entirely."
– al-Taubah (9):12 – "But if they break their oaths after their
covenant and thrust at your religion, then fight (qaatiloo) the leaders
of unbelief."
– al-Taubah (9):29 – "Fight (qaatiloo) those who believe not in
Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger
have forbidden — such men as practise not the religion of truth, being
of those who have been given the Book — until they pay the tribute out
of hand and have been humbled."
– al-Taubah (9):123 – "O believers, fight (qaatiloo) the unbelievers
(kuffaar) who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness
(ghilza)."
– Baqara (2):191 – "And slay them (aqtuloohum) wherever you come upon them"
– Baqara (2):191 – "But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they
should fight you there; then if they fight you, slay them (aqtuloohum)
— such is the recompense of u- Nisaa’ (4):89 – "then, if they turn
their backs, take them, and slay them (aqtuloohum) wherever you find
them"
– Nisaa’ (4):91 – "If they withdraw not from you, and offer you
peace, and restrain their hands, take them, and slay them (aqtuloohum)
wherever you come on them; against them we have given you a clear
authority."
– al-Taubah (9):5 – "Then when the sacred months are drawn away,
slay (aqtuloo) the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and
confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush."
– Nisaa’ (4):74 – "So let them fight (yuqaatil) in the way of Allah
who sell the present life for the world to come; and whosoever fights
(yuqaatil) in the way of Allah and is slain, or conquers, we shall
bring him a mighty wage."
– Muhammad (47):4 – "When you meet the unbelievers, smite (darba)
their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie
fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the
war lays down its loads."
Compiled by Gordon Nickel
© National Post 2006