THREE
STAGES OF
JIHAD
“Surely Allah has bought of the believers
their persons and their property for this,
that they shall have the garden; they fight
in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain.”
-
Qur’an 9:111
“Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah,
and those who are with him are severe
against disbelievers, and merciful among
themselves.”
-
Qur’an 48:29
STAGE ONE
When Muslims are completely outnumbered and
can’t possibly win a physical confrontation with unbelievers, they
are to live in peace with non-Muslims and preach a message of
tolerance. We see an example of this stage when Muhammad and
his followers were a persecuted minority in Mecca. Since the
Muslims were entirely outnumbered, the revelations Muhammad
received during this stage (e.g. “You shall have your religion and
I shall have my religion”) called for religious tolerance and
proclaimed a future punishment (rather than a worldly punishment)
for unbelievers
STAGE TWO
When there are enough Muslims and resources to defend the Islamic
community, Muslims are called to engage in defensive Jihad. Thus,
when Muhammad had formed alliances with various groups outside
Mecca and the Muslim community had become large enough to begin
fighting, Muhammad received
Qur’an 22:39 - 40:
Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made
because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to
assist them; Those who have been expelled from
their homes without a just cause except that they say: our Lord is Allah. . .
Although Muslims in the West often pretend that Islam only
allows defensive fighting, later revelations show otherwise.
STAGE THREE
When Muslims establish a majority and achieve political power in an area,
they are commanded to engage in offensive Jihad. Hence, once Mecca
and Arabia were under Muhammad’s control, he received the call the fight all
unbelievers. In Surah 9:29, we read:
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden
which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the
Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah
with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Notice
that this verse doesn’t order Muslims to fight oppressors, but to fight those who
don’t believe in Islam (including the“People of the Book”—Jews and Christians).
Not surprisingly, we find similar commands in Islam’s most
trusted collections of ahadith (traditions containing Muhammad’s teachings).
Sahih al-Bukhari 6924 — Muhammad said: “I have been ordered to fight the
people till they say: La ilaha illallah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah),
and whoever said La ilaha illa llah, Allah will save his property and his life from me.”
Sahih Muslim 30 — Muhammad said: “I have been commanded
to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is
no god but Allah.”
Here again, the criterion for fighting people is that the people believe something
other than Islam.
It’s clear, then, that when Muslims rose to power, peaceful verses of the Qur’an
were abrogated by verses commanding Muslims to fight people based on their beliefs.
Islam’s greatest scholars acknowledge this. For instance, Ibn Kathir (Islam’s greatest
commentator on the Qur’an) sums up Stage Three as follows:
“Therefore all people of the world should be called to Islam. If anyone of them refuses
to do so, or refuses to pay the Jizyah, they should be fought till they are killed.”
Assessment
Is Islam a religion of peace? No. Islam is a religion that pretends
to be peaceful when Muslims are too weak to win a war.
When Islam is dominant, Muslims are commanded to subjugate or kill
everyone around them. (Just look at how non-Muslims are treated
in Muslim countries; compare this constant abuse and persecution
with what is being proclaimed about “peaceful” Islam by
Westernized Muslims.) Of course, there are many Muslims who
aren’t violent. Many Muslims in the West love peace and tolerance.
But they didn’t get these values from Islam. They got
them from the West, and now they’re reinterpreting Islam based
on their Western values. For dedicated Muslims, however, there
are only two possible situations to be in: (1) fighting unbelievers,
and (2) pretending to be peaceful while preparing to fight unbelievers.
Either way, conquering the world in the name of Allah is always the goal.