jihad and war: delving into connections and...

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Akademik Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, Yıl: 4, Sayı: 30, Eylül 2016, s. 220-247

Yayın Geliş Tarihi / Article Arrival Date Yayınlanma Tarihi / The Published Date

03.07.2016 10.09.2016

Yrd. Doç. Dr. İsmail ACAR

Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, İlahiyat Fakültesi, İslam Hukuku

[email protected]

JIHAD AND WAR:

DELVING INTO CONNECTIONS AND DISTINCTIONS IN THE

PRIMARY SOURCES OF ISLAM

The purpose of this article is to explore definitional and hermeneutic connections

between jihad and war in the primary sources of Islam, and to shed light at some

developments related to later contestations on the subject. To begin with I shall

examine the term jihad as an independent concept operating as a singular theory in

its own right, then I will relate it to the doctrine of warfare in Islam. By paying a

close attention to the foundational framework of jihad, I aim to uncover the extent

to which jihad exhibits clear connections or distinctions definitional and

theological circumscriptions of war. How do the primary sources of Islam, then,

delimit the relationship between these two seemingly transposable notions?

Keywords: Jihad, War, Jihad-War

Jihad and war: Delving into connections and distinctions in the primary sources of Islam

The Journal of Academic Social Science Yıl: 4, Sayı: 30, Eylül 2016, s. 220-247

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CİHAD VE SAVAŞ KAVRAMLARININ TEMEL KAYNAKLARDA

BİRLEŞEN VE AYRILAN NOKTALARI ÜZERİNE BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Bu makalenin amacı tanım ve anlam alanı bakımından cihad ile savaş arasındaki

ilişkiyi temel kaynakları esas alarak ortaya koymak ve bu çerçeveden sonraki

gelişme ve yorumları değerlendirmektir. Öncelikle cihad kavramını bağımsız bir

terim olarak ele alıp inceledikten sonra onun savaş kavramı ile bağlantısı üzerinde

durulacaktır. Cihad kavramının temel prensiplerini yakından inceledikten sonra bu

terimin savaş kavramı ile bağlantılarını veya ayrıldıkları noktaların açığa

çıkarılması çalışmamızın önemli noktalarını oluşturur. Kısacası birbirinin yerine

kullanılmaktan çekinilmeyen bu iki kavramın varsayılan bu ilişkisini İslam'ın temel

kaynakları ne kadar onay veriyor onun üzerinde durulacaktır.

Anahtar kelimeler: Cihad, Savaş, Cihad-Savaş

The complicated and controversial topic of jihad in much of the Anglo-American academy

has understandably received multi-faceted and unsettling discussions thus far. The real bone of

contention in most of these discussions seems to center around the unsatisfactory and

problematic issue of the very meaning, and translation of the term jihad into English as ‘holy

war’. Indeed, this translation may inevitably mislead many by unfairly assuming a direct and an

unquestionable correlation between the concept of jihad and holy war. Textual evidence

demonstrates the total absence of this adjectival construct of ‘holy war,’ al-ḥarb al-muqaddasa

in classical Islamic sources.1 Those contemporary scholars who have freely deployed the idea of

holy war have been primarily interested in facilitating the theoretical conception of this term

from Arabic, and to a great extent, they have genuinely attempted to make sense of jihad

tradition to a western post-Christian readership.2 Furthermore, they have arguably underscored

the fact that the notion of ‘holy war’ has its own archeology of ideas in European Christian

culture all the way to its theological and political appropriations by the crusaders in the middle

ages as they ventured to restore ownership of the Holy Land.3 On this account alone such

inadequate translation not only generates serious misunderstanding in the minds of those

1 K. Abou al-Fadl, The Place of Tolerance in Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 13; Abu al-A’lā Mawdudi, Jihād

in Islam: Speech on Iqbal Day, (Lahore: Islamic Publications Limited, 1976), 6; W. Shepard, Introducing Islam (New

York: Routledge, 2009), 39; M. Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2006), 5; J. Kelsay, “al-Shaybani and the Islamic Law of War,” Journal of Military Ethics 2/1

(2003): 63–75: 63; M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, “Qur’anic ‘jihād’: A Linguistic and Contextual Analysis,” Journal of

Qur’anic Studies 12 (2010): 147–166: 147; G. Marranci, Jihad Beyond Islam (New York: Berg, 2006), 17-18; A.

Özel, “Cihad” in TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: TDV Yayinlari, 1993), 527-531: 531. 2 Ali Muhammad Sallābi, Salaḥuddin al-Ayyubī wa Juhūduhū (Beirut: Dar al-Marifa, 2008), 29, 40-43, 116, 135;

Qutub critiques addressing jihad with “holy war”: al-harb al-muqaddasa. Sayyid Qutub, Fī Zilāl al-Qur’ān (Beirut:

Dar al-Shurūq, 1986), III, 1444; Qaradawi uses al-harb al-mukaddasa, (Y. Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah (Fiqh al-Zakah)

Translated by Monzer Kahf, (Jeddah: King Abdulaziz University, 2005), II, 662. 3 R. G. Boling, Jashua: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 28-31, 37,

67, 72, 133, 150-151; J. T. Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (University Park, PA:

Penn State University Press, 1997), 34; Armstrong, Karen. Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s

World (New York: Anchor Books, 2001),147-199; R. Firestone, Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1999), 14; R. L. Rubenstein, “Holocaust and Holy War,” Annals of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science 548 (The Holocaust: Remembering for the Feature 1996), 23-44.



222

unfamiliar with the semantic genealogy of the term in primary Islamic sources, but it does less

justice to distinguishing the theological and historical specificity of each of these formulations.

This scholarly conversation whose aim has been to come terms with this odd pairing of

terms, has, in most cases, tried to grapple with the historic and semantic evolution of jihad and

the extent of its associations with violence and warfare. Khadduri, for example, considers the

term jihad relatable to holy war4. Watt scrupulously delves into the various layers of the

semantics of jihad, but in the end he leaves himself with no other option but to translate jihad as

holy war.5 Kahrl on the other hand makes a more courageous leap of critical analysis by arguing

that holy war is nothing but an invention of the West and the idea of jihad in Islam has so little

to do with war, (let alone its holiness!), as understood in the modern military lexicon of

warfare.6 Peters goes further to claim that since there are multiple meanings for the term jihad, it

makes sense to avoid translating it as holy war.7 Bonner makes this point even more

conspicuous by stating transparently that “the word jihad does not mean ‘holy war’.”8 Hallaq, in

his response to the disavowing reactions in the west against the politics of jihad, he defines jihad

without using the term holy war.9Afsaruddin avoids using holy war and translates jihad as

simply striving. She finds substantive affinities between the core moral values of Islam like

sabr/patience/forbearance - which are in essence driven by the raw emotions of eagerness,

craving, or self-restraint, deep devotion and vigor, and the thrust of hermeneutic flexibility in

the jihad tradition.10

Beyond the daunting issue of accurate translation or signification, some scholars have shed

light on a wider application of jihad by looking at both primary Islamic texts and at the classical

narrative literature in order to distinguish a history between war/holy war and the doctrine of

jihad. Johnson examines the translation of jihad vis-à-vis holy war and states that “applying the

term to jihad assimilates two quite different religious concepts to each other, along with their

respective social, political, and historical associations.”11 He further examines various ways of

correspondence between holy war and jihad, and he finally seems to find some well-grounded

similarities.12 Abou Fadl responds to such reading by claiming that “Johnson ends up projecting

the Western symbolism of holy war upon the Islamic tradition anyway… [and] consistently

speaks of the Islamic concept of holy war.”13Abou Fadl’s remark points out to an underlying

tension in the very approach used to dismantle the two concepts. This notion is also seen in

Firestone’s analysis; he brings together a vast discussion on the application of jihad in Islamic

4 M. Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), 71. 5 M. Watt, “Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War,” In The Holy War, ed. T. P. Murphy (Columbus: Ohio State

University Press, 1976), 141-156: 145. 6 S. J. Kahrl, Introduction to The Holy War, ed. T. P. Murphy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976), 4;

Mawdudi, Jihad, 6. 7 R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996), 1. 8 Bonner, Jihad, 2. 9 W. Hallaq, Sharī‘a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 324; L. See

for details on the subject: Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an: The Truth from the Source (Birmingham: Luna Plena

Publishing, 2009), 23. 10 A. Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God: Jihād and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2013), 11, 179-204. 11 Johnson, Holy War, 31. 12 Johnson, Holy War, 42. 13 K. Abou Al-Fadl, “The Use and Abuse of Holy War,”

http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/journal/14/review_essays/216.html (February 18, 2016).

http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/journal/14/review_essays/216.html



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texts; he sees some intersection between the concepts of jihad and holy war as it is so clear from

the very title of his book: Jihād: the Source of Holy War in Islam. Even though he

unequivocally stresses that “the term ‘holy war’ is a European invention” he still manages to

draw a conceivable comparison between “European expressions of holy war” and “the Islamic

expressions of holy war” to describe jihad in Islam.14

Another significant source of tension paradoxically lies in classical legal scholarship. With

the exception of a few cases, a substantive majority of Muslim jurists associated jihad with the

concept of warfare; they unambiguously discussed war and jihad as if they were one term or one

doctrine. This particular hermeneutic deviation from core sources was a matter of circumstantial

necessity; jurists evidently responded to the historic conditions of their time (they had

voluntarily suspended the relevance of other types and structures of jihad) - and focused more

on the jihad tradition of warfare that would respond and justify their predicament of imminent

conflict with uncompromising polytheists. In fact, only a handful of classical jurists have

managed to insist on a sober disassociation between jihad and war.

Then, what remains curious and perhaps even disconcerting among contemporary scholars of

jihad is markedly their tendency to lapse back into the habit of collapsing jihad and war/holy

war.15 What is really at stake - when we recognize the limitation of our translation, and we

pinpoint precarious semantic and historically cultural collusions, yet we fall back into the pitfall

of making so little a distinction between the epistemological, semantic and historic structures of

jihad, war, and holy war? Looking at a consensus of earlier classical jurists and some of the

ambivalent renderings in modern scholarship on jihad, we are likely still facing a perplexing

epistemic crisis in our understanding of jihad. Therefore, how can one be pedagogically

conclusive enough to reach a break with the heritage of untranslatability and miscomprehension

between the tradition of Islamic jihad and the current scholarly attempt to discern some subtle

alterity?

I suggest a closer and more critical examination of the discursive appearance of the modality

of jihad and its connection to war in the very foundational sources of Islam may yield more

nuanced answers. I argue that the Qur’an and much of the Sunna narratives use the term jihad to

refer to a limited military action; this small space of crossing, understandably enough, has been

widened for various ideological purposes, and has materialized at uneven junctures of Islamic

history. However, the convergence between them may not be strong enough to warrant the use

of these as two transposable terms.

By delving into a system of discursive manifestations of these two appellations in the Qur’an

and in the hadith literature, I will demonstrate that (1) jurists used jihad and war interchangeably

in order to respond to specific contextual circumstances; (2) the Qur’an and the Sunna, when

read cross referentially, focus more exclusively on what may be called the scheme of moral

conduct in cases of war; (3) and finally a number of dimensions of jihad in primary sources

perceivably show no correlation with what one finds in the scheme of moral conduct related to

14 Firestone, Jihad, 14-15, 17. 15Marranci, Jihad, 17.



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war. All of these lines of argumentation may be outlined in a table and chart system of

distinctions and connections showing that the spaces of intersection and devolution of jihad and

war are subtle and may only be measured by a discursive analysis of these seemingly locked in

traditions in the primary sources.

I. Jihad and War in Legal Texts

As a basic principle, Muslim jurists considered all physical struggles of Muslims in a combat

zone as jihad, and interpreted related verses and hadith narratives with this connection in

mind.16 Therefore, in juridical writings, jihad and siyar17 always referred to military campaigns

by the ‘Adobe of Islam’ against the ‘Adobe of War’; the latter is defined as any territory

inhabited and ruled by non-Muslims.18 Muslim jurists mostly employed jihad and war as

homologous in their juristic analysis because their immediate historic urgency was one of

consolidating Islam’s new message of absolute universal monotheism, and helping a growing

expansion beyond Arabia.19

In Hanafī legal school such perspective developed much later since its earlier jurists were

more cynical about equalizing jihad and warfare in their legal work. Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798)

and Muhammad al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805), co-founders of the school and authors of the earliest

Hanafī legal texts have implied that jihad may not be substitutable to war because of its

contents. Al-Shaybānī, for example, discusses booties, taxes, concepts of dhimmīs (non-Muslim

subjects living in an Islamic state), and musta’mans (grant of safety) as issues related more to

warfare in his book al-Aṣl under the title of kitāb al-siyar.20Abū Yūsuf narrates accounts

regarding physical parameters of warfare in the chapter bāb al-ghazwa al-jaysh in his book al-

Āthār without linking them to the sphere of jihad.21 The only place the term jihad appears in

relationship to warfare is in his book al-Kharāj.22 By the same token, Qāsim b. Sallam (d.

224/838) analyses structural conditions related to warfare in his book, Kitāb al-amwāl without

even deploying the sphere of jihad.23Taḥāwī (d. 321/933) covered similar questions in the

16 A. Afsaruddin, “Views of Jihad Throughout History,” Religion Compass 1/1 (2007): 165–169: 168. 17 Peters, Jihad, 1. “Deriving from the root s-y-r, which carries the notion ‘to walk,’ the term siyar connotes the act of

marching with the assumption that the march embodies a military expedition directed toward the enemy. In non-legal

works, the term commonly used was al-maghāzī, indicates the act of riding.” Hallaq, Sharī ‘a, 324, fn.1. 18 Hallaq, Sharī ‘a, 325. 19Muhammaad b. Idris Shafi‘ī, al-Umm, ed. Muhammad Zuhrī (Beirut: Dar al-Marifa, 1984), IV, 170; Abdusselam b.

Saīd al-Tanūkhī Saḥnūn, Mudawwana al-Kubrā, ed. Zakariyya Amirat (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1994), I,

496; Abu Bakr Muhammad Sarakhsī, Mabsūt: Sharḥu Kitāb al-Kāfī, ed. H. A. Mannan (Jordan: International Ideas

Home, 2010), I, 1197-1200; Alauddīn Abu Bakr b. Maṣud Kāsānī, Badāi‘ al-Ṣanāi‘ fī Tartīb al-Sharāi‘ (Beirut: Dar

al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1999), VII, 98,127; Abu Omar Yūsūf Ibn Abdilbarr, al-Kāfī fī Fiqhi Ahl-i Madina, ed.

Muhammad Ahid (Riyadh: Maktaba al-Riyadh.1980), I, 462; Muwaffaquddīn Abdullah b. Ahmad Maqdisī, al-Kāfī fī

Fiqh Imam Aḥmad (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1994),IV, 116. 20Muhammad Shaybānī, al-Aṣl, ed. Mehmet Boynukalin (Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm, 2012), VII, 421-538. 21Yakub b. Ibrahim Abū Yūsuf, al-Āthār, ed. Abū al-Wafa al-Afghānī (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Imiyya, 1355), 192-

218. 22Yakub b. Ibrahim Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, ed. Tāhā Abdurra‘ūf Sa‘d (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya li’t-

Turāth, 1999), 17, 38, 95, 162. 23Abu Ubayd Qāsim b. Sallam, Kitāb al-Amwāl, ed. K. M. Harras (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1988), 1-729.



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chapter of kitāb al-siyar and cites jihad only at the end of the entry.24 When Jassās (d. 370/980)

wrote his commentary on Taḥāwī’s book al-Mukhtaṣar, he cited siyar and jihad together, and

titled the chapter on warfare as kitāb al-siyar wa al-jihād. In this commentary, Jassās changed

the place of jihad from its original location at the end to the beginning.25

Samarqandī (d. 373/983) entitles one chapter bāb al-siyar in his book, Uyūn al-Masāil and

here he cites topics related to warfare by examining the concept of jihad in terms of a legal

requirement for a person to seek permission for any physical engagement in battle.26 Here

Samarqandī uses jihad to refer directly to war. Qudūrī (d. 428/1036) begins with the topic of

jihad in the chapter, kitāb al-siyar in his famous book al-Mukhtasar. He defines military jihad

as a collective duty and then he turns into examining technical matters related to warfare.27

Sarakhsī (d. 483/1090) provides a comprehensive explication of almost all questions of warfare

in al-Mabsūt, his magnum opus, under the title, kitāb al-siyar. According to him jihad here

really means war.28 This perspective is particularly clear in his commentary on Shaybānī’s al-

Siyar al-kabīr where he replaces jihad with the term warfare.29

Other Sunnī legal schools used jihad and war as undifferentiated from the very start of their

intellectual foundation. Imam Mālik (d. 179/795), the founder of the Mālikī school, cites

narratives related to issues of warfare in the chapter of kitāb al-jihad in his famous book al-

Muwaṭṭa’.30 Sahnūn (d. 240/854), who collected the earliest legal opinions in Mālikī school

after al-Muwaṭṭa’ employed military terms in his chapter on kitāb al-jihād of his book

Mudawwana.31 Imam Shafi‘ī (d. 204/820) depends on similar pattern of analysis by explaining

the duty of fighting on the basis of verse 2:216 in al-Baqara. In this verse only “fighting” qitāl

(a general term for warfare) is cited, but he considered this particular use to refer to the overall

sphere of military jihad. Therefore Imam Shafi‘ī’s usage here of jihad and war keeps them as

two indistinguishable concepts.32

By equalizing them, the doctrine of jihad in Islamic legal literature had become the

cornerstone shaping the relationship between the concept of jihad in Islam and the idea of holy

24Abu Jāfar Tahāwī, Ikhtilaf al-Ulamā’: Ikhtasara Abū Bakr al-Rāzī al-Jassās, ed. A. N. Aḥmad (Beirut: Dar Bashāir

al-Islamiyya, 2014), 509-510. 25Abu Bakr al-Rāzī Jassās, al-Ahkam al-Qur’ān, ed. M. Kamhāwi (Beirut: Dar Ihya al-Turas al-Arabi, 1985), VII, 5. 26Abu al-Layth Samarqandī, ‘Uyūn al-Masāil, ed. S. al-Nāhī (Baghdad: Matbaatu Asad, 1965), 413; see also,

Bukhārī, Saḥīh, Kitāb al-Jihād, 136; Abu al-Husayn Muslim b. Hajjāj, Saḥīh al-Muslim, ed. M. F. Abdulbaqi (Beirut:

Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, 1972), Kitāb al-Birr, 1. 27Ahmad b. Muhammad Qudūrī, Mukhtasar al-Qudūrī fi al-Fiqh al-Ḥanafi, ed. K. Muhammad (Dar al-Kutub al-

Ilmiyya, 1997), 296. 28 Sarakhsī, Mabsūt, I, 1197-1199. 29Abu Bakr M. Sarakhsī, Sharḥ al-Siyar al-Kabīr, ed. A. M. Hasan (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1997), I, 188-

191. According to him, the rationale behind military jihad and the need to read jihad in these terms, is to keep the

Muslim community stronger first, then to eliminate their enemies. As Heck notes: “The first Islamic dynasty, the

Umayyads (660-750) inaugurated the idea of jihad as conquest in the service of expanding the adobe of Islam […]

The so called classical form of the doctrine of jihad was hammered out during the early Abbasid period by jurists in

the service of the state.”, “Jihad Revisited,” Journal of Religious Ethics 32/1 (2004): 95-128: 103-104, 106-108. 30Abu Abdillah al-Asbahī Malik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭa’, ed. M. F. Abdulbaqi (Egypt: Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi,

1985), III, 629-670. 31Sahnūn, Mudawwana, I, 496. 32Shafi ‘ī, al-Umm, IV, 167-170.



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war in Western culture.33 The inquiry of the comprehensive rules and parameters involved in

military jihad and warfare outlined by legal scholars is not the primary concern of this paper,

but the point I want to stress here is the fact that these legal texts reflect more an understanding

of a certain legal temporal approach specific to the circumstances of the eight to eleventh

centuries of warfare and conflict. Jurists who lived within the formative constraints of building a

faith and monotheistic empire interpreted jihad and war from their position of confronting

organic historic transformations. On this account these legal interpretations should be treated for

what they really are; subjective, transitory and provisional serving the political and religious

conditions of a determinative and germinal span of an emerging world faith.34

Despite their idiosyncratic character in relation to the foundational claims of primary texts on

jihad tradition, these legal writings have an important merit as historiographical documents

helping us understand the political and intellectual mood and conditions of their times.

Therefore, it is perhaps safe to say that such academic value does not make these legal opinions

in any way universal or trans-historical; in the end their parochial perspective may not measure

up to the orthodox consensus on the reliability of the Qur’an and much of the authenticated

prophetic tradition to close the gaps we may have on the jihad tradition.

In the midst of the jurists’ hermeneutic labor, perhaps Qur’anic verses, and most hadith

narratives may have been teaching a kind of jihad less infected by the circumstances of

expediency or the growing pains of a civilization, and more driven by a well-defined system of

discriminating balance between moral theology and ‘futūhāt’ (openings) theology. Therefore,

the Qur’an and hadith provide a restrained perspective on the jihad tradition if read contextually

and systematically. These texts have intriguingly - and in essence, avoided the conceptualization

of jihad and war as two sides of the same coin. No doubt these sources have admittedly -

(considering the very situatedness of revelation in history), outlined the common denominator

between jihad of a certain type and war. But such marginal space of intersection may not

designate the presence of war, that is the use of armed violence, as the center of all the sphere of

jihad; the exception in the rule should not be locked in as the driving rule that explains all

conditions and forms of indiscriminate violence.

II. The Relationship between Jihad and War in the Qur’an and Hadith

The word jihād is the adjectival noun (masdar) which derives from the root verb radicals j-

h-d. The basic Arabic verb denotes effort, exertion, strive, and struggle towards a certain goal.

The third form of j-h-d (jāhada) is not different from the first basic form in terms of meaning.

For example, carrying a heavy rock which denotes extreme effort was expressed by Arab people

by using the verb “jāhada.”35 In its transitive form the verb jāhada takes prepositions along with

its complement or object to infer various contexts. For example, the Qur’an uses the root of

jihad, jāhada, with the following prepositions bi (with/by); fī ̕(in); li (for); ma‘a (with); ʻalā (on;

33 Firestone, Jihad, p. 14. 34 Afsaruddin, “Views of Jihad,” 168.

See for counter argument: M. C. Bassiouni, “Is Jihād a Just War?” The American Journal of International Law, 96/4

(2002), 1000-1005: 1003. 35M. M. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-Arab (Beirut: Dar al-Sadr, 1955), III, 133.



227

over) to address conspicuous distinctions between categories of jihad. Prepositional verbs of

jihad here add specific information to the act of striving by, for example, qualifying an effort in

the yielding of one’s possessions, giving one’s life or striving by using the proof of the Qur’an.

On this account, we note in the discursive system that when the verb of jihad is used without

any preposition it tends to cover generalizations about the need to take an initiative, to be

galvanized for a goal. Interestingly enough the various codifications around jihād/jāhada or

mujāhada are around thirty verses of the whole Qur’an.36 Charting such codifications reveal

specific conceptual generalizations and mainly historically conditioned modalities that show the

open borders of jihad, the circumscribed boundaries of war, and the marginal space in between.

The table also shows to what extent the Qur’anic text gives supplementary information

about all types of prepositioned jihads, and clearly distinguishes them from incomprehensive,

general and more flexible forms of jihad that usually constitute a moral system of conduct

coherent with Hadith codifications of jihad. For the sake of clarity, I have divided up these into

three codifications of meaning: first prepositional jihad in two parts, second, concentrated

prepositional jihad of wealth and life, and third non-prepositional jihad. To make a distinction

between the systems of moral conduct embedded in the conceptual generalization of jihad, and

the historic context (i.e. reasons of revelation) the table also underlines the rhetorical modalities

involved in each textual occurrence of the jihad sphere and tradition. At the end of each

reference, I have made note only of the Arabic original occurrences of the prepositions in the

word jihad and its associated derivatives.

Jihad: Its Codifications and Modalities in the Qur’an

Categories

Various Occurrences of Jihad in the

Qur'an37

Conceptual Generalization within each Modality and Context of

Occurrence38

Prepositional

Jihad 1:

with/ for/

over/in

25:52- ‘So [prophet] do not give into

the disbelievers: strive hard against

them by means of this [Qur’an’] with

utmost striving.’

(jāhidhum bihī jihādan kabīran)

29:6 - ‘Those who exert themselves

do so for their own benefit – God

does not need His creatures.’

(yujāhidu li nafsihī)

29:8 ‘We have commended people to

be good to their parents, but do not

25:52- Imperative; this jihad commands using the

Book for rational contestation (to respond to the claims

of unbelievers). It is addressed specifically to the

prophet during his earlier career in the 7th year of

Meccan period when the hostilities against the

message of Islam was at its peak.

29:6 Affirmative; this jihad affirms the benefit of

striving to maintain personal character and inner

strength. Revealed in the 10th year of Meccan period

when Khadija and the prophet`s uncle died.

29:8 Imperative; this jihad commands believers to

resist authority if not founded on knowledge. Same

36 It could reach 41 in 36 verses if we counted all j-h-d roots not related to jihad. For more details, see: E. Landau-

Tasseron, “Jihad,” in Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān, ed. J. D. McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill. 2001) III, 35-42; III, 35. 37M.A.S Haleem, The Quràn: A new Translation (Oxford - New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), and M.

Asad, The Message of the Qur`ān (England: The Book Foundation, 2003). Both versions are used as necessary. 38 Muhammad b. Omar Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, ed. M. Jones (Beirut: Dar al-Alami, 1989); for the chronology of

revelation of verses, I refer to tafsīrs and modern chronology by Y. Demirkiran, Kurànìn Nuzul Sureci (Seyr-è

Tehevvol- è Kor`ân by M. Bâzargan) translated (Ankara: Fecr Yayinevi, 1998); for reasons of revelation I use Ali b.

Ahmad Waḥidī, Asbāb al-Nuzūl al-Qur'ān, ed. B. Zaghlul (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1991), and other

classical commentators.



228

obey them if they strive to make you

serve, beside Me, anything of which

you have no knowledge: you will all

return to Me, and I shall inform you

of what you have done.’

(jāhadāka li tushrika bī)

31:15 - ‘If they [parents] strive to

make you associate with Me anything

about which you have no knowledge

[spiritual proof, then do not obey

them…’

(jāhadāka ʻalā an tushrika

bī)

conditions of revelation as 29:6. in Meccan period.

This verse was revealed about one of the close

companions Sa ‘d ibn Abi Waqqas and his mother.

When he embraced Islam, his mother asked him by

swearing that she will never eat, drink, and take shelter

under the shade until he reverted to his old religion.

This verse was revealed as a response to this occasion.

31:15-Imperative; this jihad commands believers to

resist authority if not founded on knowledge. Revealed

in the 12th year of Meccan period while the Muslim

community is establishing an agreement with

delegations from Medina.

Prepositional

Jihad 2:

in /with

5:35 - ‘You who believe, be mindful

of God, seek ways to come closer to

Him and strive for His cause, so that

you may prosper.’

(jāhidū fī sabīlihī)

22:78 - ‘Strive hard for God as is His

due: He has chosen you and placed

no hardship in your religion, the faith

of your forefather, Abraham. God has

called you Muslims.’

(jāhidū fī ̓ lillah)

2:218 - ‘But those who have believed,

migrated and striven for God’s cause,

it is they who can look forward to

God’s mercy.’

(wa jāhadū fī sabīlillahi)

8:74- ‘Those who believed and

emigrated, and struggled for God`s

cause, and those who gave refuge

and help-they are the true believers

and they will have forgiveness and

generous provision.’

(wa jāhadū fī sabīlillahi)

9:19- ‘Do you consider giving water

to pilgrims and tending the Sacred

Mosque to be equal to the deeds of

those who believe in God and the

Last Day and who strive in God’s

path?’

5:35- Imperative; this jihad commands believers to

seek mindfulness, closeness to God, and to strive for

His supremacy unlike those who ‘wage war against

God and his messenger and strive to spread

corruption’ (5:33). Revealed in the 9th year of the

Medinan period during the Tabuk expedition and

destruction of the Masjid al-Dirar which belongs to

the hypocrites.

22:78- Imperative; this jihad commands full

commitment to God’s cause because of his

deservedness especially in His mercy to make religion

accessible. There are two narratives regarding

revelation: (1) in the 8th year of Meccan period when

the discussion had reached the top in terms of who had

the right to be worshipped; (2) in the early years of

Medinan period when fighting was just allowed.

2:218- Affirmative; this jihad is sequenced in the

context of belief in God and displacement for His sake.

Migration here refers to the travel of the prophet to

Medina escaping the persecution in Mecca. The 2:218

is revealed in 9th year of Medinan period while the

Prophet ordered to collect zakah; This is also the year

of the Tabuk expedition.

8:74- Affirmative; this jihad cites the benefits of

embarking on emigration and struggle for the sake of

declaring the oneness of God. Revealed in the 3rd year

of Medinan period while the Uhud war was taking

place.

9:19-Affirmative through rhetorical questioning; this

jihad is directly associated with the belief in God and

the day of judgment. Revealed in the 9th year of

Medinan period as a result of a discussion among the

companions of the prophet on what amounts to a

supreme deed of devotion.



229

(wa jāhada fī sabīlillahi)

29:69 - ‘But We shall be sure to guide

to Our ways those who strive hard for

our cause: God is with those who do

good’

(jāhadū fīnā)

5:54‘You who believe, if any of you

go back on your faith, God will soon

replace you with people He loves and

who love Him, people who are

humble towards the believers, hard

on the disbelievers, and who strive in

God’s way without fearing anyone’s

reproach.’

(yujāhidūna fī sabīlillahi)

9:24- ‘Say [Prophet], ‘If your fathers,

sons, brothers, wives, tribes, the

wealth you have acquired, the trade

which you fear will decline, and the

dwellings you love are dearer to you

than God and his messenger and the

struggle in His cause, then wait until

God brings about His punishment.’

(wa jihādan fī sabīli-hi)

60:1 - ‘You who believe, do not take

My enemies and yours as your allies,

showing them friendship when they

have rejected the truth you have

received, and have driven you and

the Messenger out simply because

you believe in God, your Lord- not if

you truly emigrated in order to strive

for My cause and seek My good

pleasure.’

(jihādan fī sabīlī)

9: 86- ‘When a sura is revealed

[saying], ‘believe in God and strive

hard alongside His messenger,’ their

wealthy ask your permission [to be

exempt], saying, ‘allow us to stay

behind with the others.’

(wa jāhidū ma ‘a rasūli-hi)

29:69- Affirmative; this jihad is associated with God in

a very general sense. Revealed in the 11th year of

Meccan period when the prophet had engaged in his

heavenly journey; this is also a year when Musab b.

Umayr was sent to teach the Qur’an in Medina.

5:54- Affirmative; this jihad is also associated with the

most essential ‘covenant’ between God and the

believers, the absolute bind of belief in one God.

Revealed at the end of Medina period in the 10th year.

During the last days of revelation and the end of

prophecy; around days of the Farewell sermon.

9:24 -Affirmative warning: This jihad is part of a

sequence of warnings against breaking away from

commitment to God through the temptations of

affiliations, ownership, and wealth. Revealed in the 8th

year of Medinan period during the Hanayn and Taif

expeditions after the conquest of Mecca.

60:1- Imperative: This jihad is linked to the duty to

consistently stand for God against enemies of faith.

Revealed in the 10th year of Medinan period in

response to a letter in favor of Meccans leaked by one

companion of the prophet to a lady who traveled from

Medina to Mecca. He wrote in this letter: ʻFrom Hatib

to the people of Mecca: The Messenger of Allah, Allah

bless him and give him peace, is about to attack you,

so take precautions.’

9: 86 Descriptive: This type of jihad describes those

who reject the duty of jihad very likely in this verse of

one’s life. Revealed in the 7th year of Medinan period.

Cross referenced with 9:73.



230

Concentrate

d

Preposional

Jihad:

With

Property and

Life

9:41- ‘So go out, no matter whether

you are lightly or heavily [armed],

and struggle in God's way with your

possessions and your persons: this is

better for you if you only knew.’

(was jāhidū bi amwālikum wa

anfusikum fī sabīlillah)

9:20- ‘Those who believe, who

migrated and strove hard in God's

way with their possessions and their

persons, are in God's eyes much

higher in rank…’

(wa jāhadū fī sabīlillahi bi

amwālihim wa anfusihim)

9:88- ‘But the Messenger and those

who believe with him strive hard with

their possessions and their

persons…’

(jāhadū bi amwālihim wa anfusihim)

49:15- ‘The true believers are the

ones who have faith in God and His

Messenger and leave all doubt

behind, the ones who have struggled

with their possessions and their

persons in God's way: they are the

ones who are true.’

(wa jāhadū bi amwālihim wa

anfusihim fī sabīlillahi)

8:72- ‘Those who believed and

emigrated [to Medina] and struggled

for God's cause with their

possessions and persons, and those

who gave refuge and help, are all

allies of one another.’

(wa jāhadū bi amwālihim wa


9:44- ‘Those who have faith in God

9:41- Imperative. Jihad here is a call to contribute in a

war against enemies; such contribution may include

possessions or one’s life. The word armed here is

bracketed because the original Arabic does not use this

term, but describes the state in which jihad of this type

takes place; the phrase ‘infirū khifāfan aw thiqālan’

may refer to any state of existence one finds himself in

whilst called for military jihad. Thus the modality of

jihad here denotes some physical engagement but does

not underline the idea of armed violence. This verse is

revealed in the 3rd year of Medinan period while the

battle of Uhud was taking place.

9:20- Affirmative. This jihad with one’s life and one’s

possessions. Revealed in the 8th year of Medinan

period. Cross referenced with 9:16, 24.

9:88- Affirmative. This is an affirmation a complete

package which includes striving with both one’s

wealth and one’s life. Revealed in the 7th year of

Medinan period. Cross referenced with 9:73.

49:15- Affirmative. Cross referenced with 9:88.

8:72- Affirmative. This jihad is revealed in very first

year of Medinan period. Cross referenced with 47:31.

9:44- Affirmative. This jihad affirms the unity and

brotherhood of all those who submit to the entirety of



231

and the Last Day do not ask for the

exemption from struggle with their

possessions and their persons – God

knows exactly who is mindful of Him

– (45- ) only those who do not have

faith in God and the Last Day ask

your permission to stay at home: they

have doubt in their hearts and so they

waver.’

(an yujāhidū bi amwālihim wa

anfusihim)

9:81- ‘Those who were left behind

were happy to stay behind when

God's Messenger set out; they hated

the thought of striving in God's way

for their possessions and persons.

They said to one another, 'Do not go

[to war] in this heat.' Say, 'Hellfire is

hotter.' If only they understood!’

(an yujāhidū bi amwālihim wa


61:11- ‘Have faith in God and His

Messenger and struggle for His cause

with your possessions and your

persons – that is better for you, if

only you knew – and He will forgive

your sins, admit you into Gardens

graced with flowing streams, into

pleasant dwellings in the Gardens of

Eternity.’

(wa tujāhidūna fī sabīlillahi bi

amwālikum wa anfusikum)

4:95- ‘Those believers, who stay at

home, apart from those with

incapacity, are not equal to those

who commit themselves and their

possessions to striving in God's way.

God has raised such people to a rank

above those who stay at home –

although He has promised all

believers a good reward, those who

strive are favored with a tremendous

reward…’

(al-mujāhidūna fī sabīlillahi bi

amwālihim wa anfusihim)

the migration and jihad, which again involves striving

with one’s possessions and one’s life. Revealed in the

4th year of Medinan period while a couple of

expeditions were taking place.

9:81- Affirmative. This jihad affirms and admonishes

at the same time. It scolds all those who found excuses

not to give up their possessions and their lives in times

of need. Revealed in the 7th year of Medinan period.

Cross referenced with 9:73.

61:11- Affirmative. This jihad affirms the advantages

of striving with one’s possessions and life; such

engagement brings forgiveness and admission into the

hereafter. Revealed during the very first year of

Medinan period while the prophet was settling in

Medina and establishing a covenant with faith

communities.

4:95- Affirmative. Revealed in the 8th year of Medinan

period while the prophet was dealing with Mu`ta

expedition and re-conquest of Mecca followed by

Hunayn expedition.



232

Non-

preposional

Jihad

66:9- ‘Prophet, strive hard against

the disbelievers and the hypocrites.

Deal with them sternly.’

(jāhid al-kuffāra wa al-munafiqūn)

9:73 - ‘Prophet, strive against the

disbelievers and the hypocrites, and

be tough with them.’

(jāhid al-kuffāra wa al-munafiqūn)

47: 31- ‘We shall test you to see

which of you strive your hardest and

are steadfast; we shall test the

sincerity of your assertions.’

3:142 - ‘Did you think you would

enter the Garden without God first

proving which of you would struggle

for His cause and remain steadfast?’

9:16- ‘Do you think that you will be

left untested without God identifying

which of you will strive for His cause

and take no supporters apart from

God, His messenger, and other

believers?’

(al-mujāhidīn minkum)

(jāhadū minkum)

16:110- ‘But your Lord will be most

forgiving and most merciful to those

who leave their homes after

persecution, then strive and remain

steadfast.’

(thumma jāhadū)

66:9- Imperative: This jihad is related to the

consequences of disbelief and disobedience of

hypocrites and the unbelievers. Revelation date and

occasion of revelation are not clearly mentioned in the

literature.

9:73-Imperative: This jihad is likely related to rational

contestations against hypocrites and the unbelievers. It

is clear that Muhammad did not mean to infer any

physical act against hypocrites. Revealed in the 7th

year of Medinan period while the prophet was sending

delegations to the neighboring states like Byzantium

and Sassanid to call their leaders to embrace Islam, and

in clash with some communities.

47: 31; 3:142 - Affirmative. This jihad for the cause of

God is stressed through rhetorical questioning.

As all other deeds the act of jihad will be questioned.

47: 31 was revealed in the first year of Medinan period

while the prophet was settling in Medina and

establishing a covenant between new Muslim

community and rest of the Medinan people. 3:142 was

revealed in the 3rd year of Medinan period while the

first war was taking place between Muslims and

Meccan idolaters. 9:16 was revealed in the 8th year in

Medina while the prophet was dealing with conquest

of Mecca followed by the Hunayn and Taif

expeditions.

16:110- Affirmative. This jihad stresses the rewards

for those who migrate and strive in forbearance for the

cause of God; such jihad is usually contrasted to the

behavior of unbelievers who are worldly and heedless.

Revealed in Mecca, when Ammar b. Yasir’s family

was killed he did not lose his faith and remained

steadfast. Later he immigrated to Abyssinia.

These categories are structured around modalities of straight forward discursive command

to give up everything for the sake of consolidating, spreading the new message of monotheism,

or through affirmative statements describing the metaphysical benefits of such commitment.

Doubtless, all reasons of revelation reflect specific situations of jihad appropriate to their

contexts of the prophet’s significant journey of migration from Mecca to Medina, and the now

irreversible mission to spread the new message of submission to one God. We note that there

could be no connection between jihad and war in verses revealed in Mecca because permission

to fight was not granted yet in a clear revelation during this period (22:39-40).39 There are nine

imperative verses of jihad and only one of them relates to warfare. Among the nearly twenty

affirmative verses, only eight of these relate to warfare.

39 Afsaruddin, “Views of Jihad,”166.



233

War in Arabic is simply known by one word, ḥarb, which means battle, confrontation or

conflict. Although fighting, qitāl has more specific meaning than war regarding actual combat,

fighting and war have been used almost synonymously.40 War (ḥarb/ḥāraba) is repeated eleven

times, fighting (qitāl/ qatala/ qātala, or muqātala) around a hundred and seventy times in

hundred and twenty verses in the Qur’an. These numbers indicate that the notion of fighting in a

battle is preferred, and seems to stand on its own two feet as an independent historic concept in

the Qur’an. As Johnson concedes, "when the Qur’an provides a direct injunction to Muslims to

fight, the word used is not jihad but qital (‘fighting’) or another word built from the same

root."41

Declarations of war and codes of conduct during wartime have their own specific rules,

which are beyond my interest in this study. Despite counter arguments, for the Qur’anic text,

war always operates according to circumstantial conditions, and its main goal is the ultimate

attainment of a peaceful situation.42 Therefore, fighting for the sake of God within an actual war

is to be justified first: “And fight in God’s cause against those who fight against you, but do not

overstep the limits, God does not love aggressors” (2:190) According to this verse, it appears

that the Muslim community is called into action to defend itself against offenders. Also, this

verse warns Muslims against exceeding the limits of justice even in self-defense.43 Nevertheless,

if a war starts between Muslims and their aggressors, then the Qur’an encourages Muslims to

fight: “And slay them wherever you may come upon them, and drive them away from wherever

they drove you away — for oppression is even worse than killing” (2:191). As Bonney points

out: “In view of the preceding ordinance, the most debatable injunction to ‘slay them wherever

you may come upon them’ is valid only within the context of hostilities already in progress in a

war”44 or basically justifiable by legal ruling deliberated among expert jurists. The statement in

verse “fight in God’s cause against those who fight you” clearly denotes fighting back against

aggressors or oppressors. A war of liberation from oppression could be understood as a war “in

God’s cause”; this interpretation points to some connection between war and a certain category

of jihad. However, this is another category related to necessary violence and connects with jihad

tradition from a different perspective which is beyond our examination at this point.

Looking at the Hadith tradition on jihad, it is clear that prophetic reports address a set of

categories that are said to be more flexible. On the one hand, the prophet used the term jihad to

refer to fighting in a combat; during the battle of Uḥud, for example, Amr ibn Jamūh, a disabled

man, came to the prophet and claimed that his sons did not allow him to join the campaign, then

the prophet replied “You are excused; jihad (fighting in a battlefield for the sake of Allah) is not

your responsibility.”45 On the other hand, the prophet considered pilgrimage, hajj, as an act of

jihad for women. As hadith narratives explain in the case of Aisha, wife of the prophet, she

40 E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (Beirut: Librairie Du Liban, 1968), I, 510.

http://www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/lane/ (July 28, 2015) 41 Johnson, Holy War, 35. 42R. Rida, Tafsīr al-Manar, X, 168. 43 Sarakhsī, al-Mabsut, I, 1197-1199. 44R. Bonney, Jihād from Qur’ān to bin Laden (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 29. 45Abdulmalik, Abu Muhammad Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, ed. M. Saka-I. Abyarī-A. Shalabī (Egypt:

Mustafa al-Babī al-Halabī, 1955), II, 92; Muhammad b. Omar Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, ed. M. Jones (Beirut: Dar al-

Alami, 1989), I, 264.

http://www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/lane/



234

asked: “We see jihad (joining battle) as the highest deed; should we join it?” He replied: “But,

the best jihad (for a woman) is the pilgrimage which is performed as it should be, hajj al-

mabrūr.”46 This hadith indicates that Aisha used “jihad” in lieu of fighting in a battlefield for

the sake of God; the prophet stressed another layer of jihad through performing the required

pilgrimage. Other categories and explanation of jihad in relation to warfare in hadith literature

will be covered later in types of jihad.

Although the prophet used flexible dimensions of jihad, he did not use jihad and war

interchangeably in his lifetime. Instead, he used terms of warfare to describe war. As Cook

states, he “never formally declared a jihad – not, at least using that term” from beginning to end

in his prophethood.47 In the first conflict between new Muslim converts and Meccan idolaters,

the prophet called this confrontation, the battle of Badr. He did not use the term jihad to address

this war. The prophet used the term jihad to address individual striving of a Muslim in a battle

field as one of the dimensions of jihad. When Jarir b. Abdullah embraced Islam, the prophet

asked him to perform the military jihad as one of the requirement of a Muslim.48 The prophet

took jihad to mean giving up one’s person, jihad with one’s life in this incident.

A systematic and cross referential approach to the Qur’anic verses and hadith literature on

the subject in terms of relation between jihad and war reveals that these two concepts have

limited and well defined injunction. As al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) states only justifiable wars could

be considered legitimate, and would relate to jihad based on genuine intention.49 Therefore any

juristic formulation that equalizes jihad and war or maintains that shedding blood to please God

could not incontrovertibly be seen as part of jihad in Islam.50 If we consider various categories

of jihad and war in the Qur’an and Sunna in a chart they may likely reflect clear spaces of

intersection and those of devolution.

46Bukharī, Saḥīh, Jihād, 1, 62; Muhammad b. Yazid al-Qazwīnī Ibn Maja, Sunan Ibn Māja, ed. M. F. Abdulbaqi

(Cairo: Dar al-Hadith, 1998), Hajj, 7; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. Musnadu Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, ed. Sh. al-Arnaut (Beirut:

Muassasat al-Risala, 1993), V, 288. 47 D. Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 2. 48 Ibn Ishaq, Sira, p. 291. 49Abū Nāsir al-Fārābī, Fusūl al-Mutanazzi ̔a, ed. F.M. Najjar (Iran: Maktaba al-Zahra, 1405), 76-77. 50 L. Ali Khan, “An Islamic View of the Battlefield: God Loves not the Transgressors,” Barry University Law Review

7 (2006), 15.



235

JIHAD WAR

War has

its own

Rules in

the Qur’an

and Hadith

Literature.

1. Intellectual Jihad/ using logic

and reasoning

2. Jihad with

Property/

possessions/ one’s

wealth

4. Jihad against ego/ Instinct/ carnal desires and emotions/ Jihad

through service.

3. Jihad with one's life to defend the

sanctity and Oneness of God:

Depending on the fighter’s intention,

fighting may be considered jihad.

Chart 1: Jihad and War Intersection

The intersectional space by the circle in the middle with a discontinuous line represents the peripheral relation between jihad and war. Beyond this intersection a big portion of jihad excludes acts of violence, confrontational fighting or fully fledged warfare. Only jihad with one’s life as a whole would conceptually mean physical fighting and can be

operating specifically in a justifiable and legitimate war. Conceivably, some part of jihad with

property or one’s wealth could be related to fighting as seen in the small triangle in the chart.

The chart demonstrates that intellectual jihad or jihad through deploying scientific logic and

reasoning, and jihad against the desires of the ego are totally unrelated in any way to warfare.

The chart therefore shows that only a limited space of armed struggle would be counted as

jihad.

III. Levels of Congruence between Categories of Jihad and War

Because of various codifications of jihad in the Qur’an and the Hadith literature, scholars

have categorized jihad into multiple conceptual clusters of specific designation. Al-Iṣfahānī (d.

502/1109), for example, divides jihad into three subcategories: jihad against enemy, jihad

against Satan, and jihad against ego, nafs.51 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) divides jihad

into four categories: jihad against egotistical desires, jihad against Satan, jihad against

unbelievers and hypocrites, and jihad against tyrants. Moreover, he adds that the prophet



236

Muhammad performed jihad using his heart, his spirit, his calling, his explanation, his tongue,

and as a last resort, his sword.52 There could be more ways in which the believer may fulfill the

obligation of jihad, but such obligation seems to dominate his entire belief system; he is,

therefore, accountable to its core moral force in everything he does.53 I will examine jihad and

its connection to war through the four categories to investigate to what extent is the jihad

tradition relatable to war and violence.

1. Jihad with the proof of the Qur’an

As a part of striving with the evidence of the Qur’an as inimitable revelation and divine in

origin, intellectual jihad is mostly forgotten by contemporary Muslims. The Qur’an calls this

type of striving as greater jihad, jihādan kabīran which involves logic, contestation and the

exercise of rationalization using the very language, rationalistic and rhetorical structure of the

Qur’an: “So [prophet] do not follow the unbelievers: strive hard against them by means of this

[Qur’an’] with utmost striving.’ (25:52). God asks the prophet Muhammad to reason with

others, who opposed him, by deploying rational signs from the Qur’an. This verse was revealed

in Mecca at the critical juncture when the prophet was engaged in the initial and primary

struggle of convincing his opponents that the idea of monotheism was more tenable and

logically compelling than polytheism.54

Almost all commentators including Tabarī (d. 310/922), Zajjāj (d. 311/923), Ibn Abī Ḥātim

(d. 324/936), Qurtubī (d. 671/1272) and Rāzī (d. 606/1200) interpreted the Qur’anic phrase

“jihādan kabīran” (with utmost striving) as an indication of struggle against enemies through

the coherence of the Qur’anic message; that is, through an unequivocal presentation of divine

truth.55According to Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah this phrase tells us that the prophet must call

people to God not necessarily and always through emotional appeal but on the basis of the

tangible and language based miracle called the Qur’an.56

In light of the Qur’anic command for greater jihad, a certain type of intellectual struggle is

expressed by the term ijtihād, (providing novel legal interpretation).57 The term ijtihād comes

from the same root as jihad; in Islamic law it refers to a great effort made to resolve a legal

problem faced by the Muslim community.58A qualified jurist must exercise all of his scholarly

skills in order to reach a decision consistent with the limits and creative provisions in Islamic

law; the idea of jihad here highlights the indispensability of creativity and willingness to expand

the epistemological horizons of Islamic judicial hermeneutics. “And the believers should not all

51R. al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt fī Ghārīb al-Qur’ān (Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, 1992), I, 208. 52 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zād al-Maʿād fī Hadyi Khayri al- ‘Ibād (Beirut: Muassasat al-Risala, 1994), III, 5. 53Khadduri, War and Peace, 56-57. M.F. Abdulbaqi, al-Mu‘jam li Alfāẓ al-Qur’ān al-Karīm (Istanbul: Cagri

Yayinlari, 1986),182-183. Qaradawi widens these categories by stating: “Jihad may be educational, journalistic,

social, economic, or political jihad as much as military jihad.” Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah, II, 67. 54 Abu Hasan Muqātil, Tafsīru Muqātil b. Sulayman, ed. A. M. Shahhata (Beirut: Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, 1423),

III, 237; 55Ibn Jarīr Tabarī, al-Jāmi ‘al-Bayān, ed. A. M. Shakir (Muassasat al-Risala, 2000), XIX, 281; Abu Muhammad Ibn

Abī Ḥatim, Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-Aẓīm, ed. A. M. Tayyib (Riyadh: Maktaba Nizar Mustafa al-Bāz, 1999), VIII, 2707;

Abū Abdullah Qurtubī, al-Jāmi‘li Ahkām al-Qur’ān, ed. A. al-Barduni-I. Atfiyash. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-

Mastriyya, 1964), XIII, 58. 56 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zād al-Maʿād, III, 5-7. 57Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, III, 286. 58 W. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16/1 (1984): 3-41: 3.



237

go out to fight. Of every troop of them, a party only should go forth, that they (who are left

behind) may gain sound knowledge in religion, and that they may warn their folk when they

return to them, so that they may beware.” (9:122). Alongside this commandment, the prophet

himself chose not to join many battles and war expeditions because the community was in need

of his presence, support, and advice.59 In other words, at times the mere act of speaking,

advising is as valid and legitimate exercise of jihad, or as one hadith commands, “strive against

associates, mushrikūn, with your possessions, with yourself, and with your tongue.”60

This perspective on intellectual jihad is supported further by other textual evidence. The

verse “Strive in the Way of Allah as you ought to strive…” (jāhadū fillahi haqqa jihadi-hi)

(22:78) stresses the idea of sincerity for the sake of God.61 God asked the prophet to perform

this jihad against unbelievers and hypocrites: “O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers

and the hypocrites, and be hard against them.” (9: 73; 66:9) We do not know if the prophet

engaged in armed struggle against hypocrites, but he likely engaged in reasoning with them

using rhetorical skills of persuasion to begin with.62According to Ibn Qayyim, this type of

rational jihad against the arguments and claims of hypocrites seems to be more demanding in

many ways than the military actions and war, since matters of faith are more forceful when they

evoke the side of volition and sincere devotion than force.63

The prophet has favored the impact of intellectual jihad by declaring: “The best jihād is

[speaking] a word of justice to an oppressive ruler.”64During his mission, the prophet was

mobilizing all his rationalistic skills to share the Qur’anic message no matter what it cost. He

further encouraged his followers to do the same for the sake of righteousness, truth, and justice.

Therefore, the prophetic tradition increasingly reflects more conceptual facets rooted in a system

of moral conduct and responsibility in addition to the fundamental duty of communicating the

message rather than fighting under the banner of a jihad of aggression.65

These definitions and articulations of intellectual striving are meant to encourage Muslims to

interpret the notion of jihad in the Qur’an in terms of a holistic, flexible and multi layered

approach. Indeed, since this type of jihad merits the ultimate measure of ‘greatness’, it is

structurally intersected with the rest of other categories of jihad outlined in my chart. Its

presumed greatness comes from its structuring of a moral system of comprehending, taming

one’s emotional impulses, and performing jihad. Therefore, it is unswervingly alienated from

the earthly materialism and violence of warfare. On this account both the definitional singularity

59 Sarakhsī, Mabsūt, I, 1197; Kāsānī, Badāi ‘al-Ṣanāi‘, VII, 98. 60Sulayman b. Ash’as al-Sijistānī Abū Dāwūd, Sunan Ebī Dāwūd, ed. Sh. al-Arnaut (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Arabi,

2009), Jihād, 18; Abu Abdurrahman Ahmad Nasāī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā, ed. H. A. Shalabī (Beirut: Muasasa al-Risala,

2001), Jihād, 1, 48. 61Abu al-Layth Samarqandī, Bahr al-Ulūm (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1993), II, 472. 62Tabarī, al-Jāmi‘al-Bayān, XIV, 73; Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Andalūsī Abu Hayyan, al-Bahral-Muhīt, ed. S. M.

Jamil (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1420), V, 463-470; Muhammad b. Ali Shawkānī, Fath al-Qadīr, (Beirut: Dar Ibn Kathir,

1414), II, 443-445; M. H. Yazir Elmalili, Hak Dini Kur’an Dili (Istanbul: Eser Neşriyat, 1979), II, 687-699; Abdel

Haleem, "Qur’anic jihād," 148. 63 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zād al-Maʿād, III, 7. 64AbūDāwūd, Sunan, Malāḥim, 17; Abu Isa Tirmīdhī, al-Jāmi‘al-Saḥih: Sunan al-Tirmīdhī, ed. A.M. Shakir-M.F.

Abdulbaqi- I.A. Iwad (Egypt: Mustafa al-Bābī al-Halabī, 1975), Fitan, 13; Ibn Maja, Sunan, Fitan 20. English

translation of the hadith by Firestone, Jihad, 17. 65 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawjiyyah, Zād al-Maʿād, III, 5.



238

of jihad (in its moral coding emphasized) and its theological removedness from war in particular

are defined and outlined in primary sources with a great degree of nuance and gradation.

2. Jihad with one’s property/ wealth

Another structure of jihad pertains to giving away money and property known as jihad by

one’s wealth/material possessions, jihād bi’l-māl. Jihad by one’s wealth is mentioned before

jihad by one’s life, jihād bi’l-nafs in the Qur’an. For example, several verses66 repeat the phrase

or similar ones “jāhadū bi amvālihim wa anfusihim fī sabīlillah” (those who struggled for the

sake of God with their wealth and lives). It seems that the former one would be a prerequisite

for the latter. 67 Verses that relate striving to ‘’ones wealth’ was interpreted as financing of a

Muslim army,68 but helping the poor, giving charity to people in need, and spending money to

advocate the path of submission to one God would be included within this category of jihad.69

Rāzī interprets the phrase ‘jāhadū bi amvālihim’ (those who struggle with their possessions)

in 8:72 as follows: “Even though the companions of the Prophet emigrated with him and left all

their possessions in Mecca, they spent their wealth for the sake of God.”70 Therefore, leaving

property for the sake of God may also be considered as jihad with possessions. Commentators

such as Waḥidī (d. 468/1075), Tabarī, Naḥḥās, and al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1143) and others

have not elaborated in detail on the question of what is determined as struggle using one’s

wealth or material possessions.71

A number of prophetic reports tend to signal that any type of service for the sake of God

would be recognized as jihad with possessions. It is reported that “A man came to the prophet

asking his permission to go on jihad, the armed struggle. The prophet asked him, ‘Are your

parents alive?’ He replied, ‘Yes’. The prophet said to him, ‘then exert yourself in their

service.’”72 The prophet used the phrase ‘fa fīhimā fa jāhid’ (employ yourself for your parents)

to encourage this person to be available to minister his parents first. Jihad is therefore almost

always circumstantial and must operate according to ethical priorities; the prophet advises this

man to pay more attention to his immediate condition by spending time, energy, and emotional

allegiance to his family and parents instead of joining a war.73

The prophetic tradition cites examples of financing armies of an Islamic state as military

jihad: “He who prepares a ghāzi, warrior, going in Allah’s Cause is given a reward equal to

664:95; 8:72; 9:20,41,44,81,88; 49:15; 61:11 67 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zād al-Maʿad, III, 6. According to Ibn Qayyim al-Jawjiyya, jihād al-nafs, struggle

against one’s ‘demons’ is an integral part of jihad; the former one is necessary for the latter. 68Tabarī, al-Jāmi‘, XIV, 414; Jassās, Ahkām, IV, 318; Fahruddin Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, (Beirut: Dāru Ihyā al-

Turath al-Arabī, 1420), XVI, 119. 69Tabarī interprets verse 57:11, which speaks of the idea of “a good loan”, “qardan hasanan”, to cover financial

support of needy people as a form of jihad. Tabarī, al-Jāmi ‘, V, 282. 70Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, XIV, 515. 71Muhammad b. Ali al- Nisābūrī Waḥidī, al-Wajīz fī Kitāb al-Azīz, ed. S. A. Dawudi (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam,

1415), I, 458; Tabarī, al-Jāmi‘ al-Bayān, XIV, 173; Abū Jafar Naḥḥās, I‘rāb al-Qur’ān, ed. A. H. Ibrahim (Beirut:

Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 2000), II, 113; Amr b. Ahmad Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf an Ḥaqāiq Ghawāmiḍ al-Tanzīl,

(Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Arabi, 1407), II, 256; Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, XIII, 15. 72Bukhārī, Sahīh, al-Jijād, 56, 138; Muhammad Shaybānī, al-Kasb, ed. S. Zakkār (Damascus: Abdulhādi Harsūnī,

1980), 58. 73 Sarakhsī, Sharḥ al-Siyar al-Kabīr, I, 190-195.



239

that of ghāzi; and he who looks after properly the dependents of a ghāzi going in Allah’s Cause

is (given a reward equal to that of) ghāzi.”74 It is obvious that the first part of this hadith openly

relates financial support of a Muslim warrior to jihad with property, but the rest of the hadith

states that taking care of needy people is a valid form of jihad. Another narrative from the

prophet states: “Jihad consists of ten units; nine of them are related to seeking permissible,

halāl, and money earned legitimately to support his family and to give it to the people in need,

infāq…”75The latter one openly declares that helping people in need for the sake of God is jihad

with possessions. This meaning could be seen in the verse “Seek ways to come closer to Him

and strive for Him.” 5:35 which covers any type of activity for the sake of God.76 Both the

Qur’an and Sunna seem to agree that jihad with property is not limited to military

circumstances.77

3. Jihad with one’s life

Jihad with one’s life, jihād bi’l-nafs is usually mentioned just after the jihad with property in

the Qur’an. With certain rules, this category is counted as fighting for the sake of God, qıtāl fī

sabīlillah.78 For example: “Fight in God’s cause against those who fight you, but do not

overstep the limits…” (2:190); “Fight in the way of God, and remember that God hears and

knows everything.” (2:244). Although the term jihad is not used in these verses, the phrases at

the very beginning “Fight in God’s cause…” and “Fight in the way of God” (qātilū fī sabīlillah)

deal with military jihad against enemies. Some verses clearly state the intersected meaning of

jihad and war by using the terms of jihad and warfare in the same verse: “Those who were left

behind were happy to stay behind when God’s Messenger set out; they hated the thought of

striving in God’s way [jihad] with their possessions and their persons. They said to one another,

‘Do not go [to war] in this heat.’…” (9:81) Verses 86 and 88 of the same chapter have a parallel

meaning regarding jihad with one’s life and fighting for the sake of God.

It is obvious that when ‘jihad bi’l-nafs’ is used as a phrase it means jihad with one’s life or

fighting in a combat. For example: “So go out, no matter whether you are lightly or heavily

armed, and strive hard in God's way with your property and yourself; this is better for you, if

you know.” (9:41) and “Those who believed and emigrated [to Medina] and struggled for God’s

cause with their possessions and persons, and those who gave refuge and help, are all allies of

one another…” (8:72) affirm that fighting in a war may be seen as jihad.

74Bukhārī, Sahīh, al-Jijād, 38. Other hadith collections also have separate chapters on the issue of jihad. “Ghazwa,

comes from gh-z-y, which means expedition or campaign would have some connections to jihad. However, there is a

hadith in Bukhari which indicates a neutral meaning for the ghazwa. Related part of the hadith reads as follow:

“yaghzū jayshan al-Ka’bata…” “an army heads to Ka’ba ‘to destroy’.” In this phrase the prophet used the term

ghazwa to address the army who intended to destroy the Ka’ba. Muhammad b. Ismail Bukhārī, Saḥīh al-Bukharī

(Istanbul: al-Maktaba al-Islamiyya, 1310) al-Buyu’ 49, al-Hajj, 49. 75Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 48; Sulayman b. Ahmad Tabarānī, al-Mu’jam al-Kabīr, ed. H. Abdulmajid (Mosul: Maktaba al-

Ulūm, 1983), XVIII, 309. 76Shawkānī, Fath al-Qadīr, VI, 372. 77 According to Qaradawi, “the majority of scholars in the four schools of jurisprudence restrict this share [fī

sabīlillah] to financing fighters and defenders of Islam.” Qaradawi, Fiqh al-Zakah, II, 67. 78For more details on the armed jihad see: A. Al-Dawoody, “Armed Jihad in the Islamic Legal Tradition,” Religion

Compass 7/11 (2013): 476–484.



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However, just joining a war declared by a Muslim leader or an Islamic state does not qualify

the warrior as practicing jihad. This type of physical action has some conditions attached to it in

order to be measured as approved jihad.79According to Hadith narratives, sincerity and genuine

intention are preconditions for this category of jihad; without the exhaustive fulfillment of these

requirements even the most sacrificial fighting for the Muslim community will not be counted

as jihad. The following hadith makes this point clearer:

Abū Hurayra narrates “I heard the messenger of Allah say: The first of people against whom

judgment will be pronounced on the Day of Resurrection will be a man who died a martyr. He

will be brought and Allah will make known to him His favors and he will recognize them. Allah

will say: And what did you do about them? He will say: I fought for you until I died a martyr.

Allah will say: You have lied; you did but fight that it might be said of you: ‘He is courageous.’

And so it was said. Then he will be ordered to be dragged along on his face until he is cast into

Hellfire….”80

This hadith argues that the quality of sincerity and commitment of those who claim to

fight for the sake of Allah is paramount to jihad involving physical violence. If a Muslim

warrior, for example, intends to join a war, declared by Muslims, to achieve material or

political gains, then prophetic teaching is clear that he would not be accepted as engaging in

jihad with his own life, and therefore should expect no rewards in heaven. One companion

asked the prophet: “Apostle of Allah, a man wishes to take part in jihad in Allah’s path

desiring some worldly advantage? The prophet said: He will have no reward.”81 The

companion repeated his question for a third time and the response was the same from the

prophet: “He will have no reward.” Sarakhsī concedes that this hadith determines clearly

that the innermost intent to unconditionally serve God in a conflict remains the absolute

priority, and is a the ultimate prerogative of God to appraise.82

Another prophetic hadith from al-Bukhārī further explains this point within one

occasion when ‘Uthmān ibn Maẓ ‘ūn, one of the close companions, passed away. The

woman who was taking care of him said: “I testify that Allah has blessed you.” The prophet

said to her, "How do you know that Allah has blessed him? [...] As regards ‘Uthman, by

Allah he has died and I really wish him every good, yet, by Allah, although I am Allah’s

Messenger, I do not know what will be done to [me] him. [...]”83‘Uthmān was one of the

earliest Muslims who converted to Islam in Mecca. He devoted his life to worshiping and

fasting and would be hailed as one of the earlier ascetics in Islam. He joined the first war,

Badr, fighting alongside the new Muslim community of Medina against the Arab idolaters.

‘Uthmān lost his life after a couple of months of this war.84 However, this hadith implies that

joining a war declared by the prophet in itself may not be enough to engage in jihad with

79Bukhārī, Sahīh, Ilm, 45; Muslim, Sahīh, al-Imāra, 42; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, XXIII, 68, 381; Ibn Maja, Sunan,

Jihād, 15, Zakāh, 49; Abū Dāwud, Sunan, Jihād, 38. 80 Muslim, Sahīh, Imāra, 43. Translation of this hadith is done by M. M. Khan, The Translation of the Meanings of

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1984) 81Abū Dāwud, Sunan, Jihād, 24; Aḥmad. b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, IV, 170-171. 82 Sarakhsī, Sharḥ al-Siyar al-Kabīr I, 25-26. Also Sarakhsī adds: “thinking of the material advantages of engagement

as secondary or supplementary, like booties, may be acceptable and could indeed allow the sincere martyr both

rewards.” 83Bukhārī, Sahīh, Janaiz, 3, Shahādāt, 30. 84Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, 151; Izzuddīn Ibn Athīr, Usd al-Ghābah fī Ma‘rifah al-Sahābah, ed. A. Muhammad-A.

Ahmad (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1994), III, 589.



241

one’s life. The final judgment of who truly qualifies to be counted as practicing jihad seems

to be more relegated to the discerning verdict of God himself. The chart below demonstrates

some of the major parameters of jihad with one’s life:

Chart 2: Jihad Inside War: Fighting For The Sake Of God

Thus, what amounts to the measure of jihad has less to do with the ability or availability to

join a war declared by an Islamic state. Sincerity and bona fide intention to engage in jihad

purely for the sake of God are mandatory moral prerequisites.

4. Jihad against the self

Striving against carnal desires and egotistic tendencies is another category of jihad, which is

generally considered by the Sufis as ‘the greater jihad.’ In Sufi literature, this jihad is described

as the very act of righteousness or ‘being mindful of God,’ taqwā, which is the essence of

Islamic piety. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) is reported to have said that the best jihad is

combating selfish urges, mukhālafa al-hawā.85Qushayrī (d. 4565/1072), a leading Sufi master,

states that because desire is the original spring of all enemies, struggling against egotistical

compulsions is the supreme level of jihad. On this account it is only through ascetic discipline

of self-denial that the human soul is ready to eliminate the deceit and duplicity of desire.86

Striving against the ego, jihād al-nafs may have some connection to the Qur’anic term

mujāhada, but as a phrase, jihād al-nafs is not spelled out in the Qur’an. Jihad al-nafs is

emphasized more predominantly in hadith reports. The hadith dealing with striving against ego

“we have returned from lesser jihad to greater one” is not mentioned in earlier sound hadith

85Manṣur b. M. Abū Muẓaffar, Tafsīr al-Qur’ān, ed. Y. Ibrahim (Riyadh: Dar al-Watan, 1997), IV, 194.



242

collections.87 For a number of reasons the Qur’anic call for greater jihad of intellectual striving

had gained less prominence than the greater jihad of inner struggle attributed to Hadith.88

Some commentators have interpreted the Meccan verse 29:69 “We shall be sure to guide to

Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause…” as a jihad against selfish yearnings.

According to them the phrase strive hard for Our cause is the jihad of the heart, which means

striving against carnal cravings, the temptations of the devil, and sinful inclinations.89 The

Qur’anic verse “strive hard for God as is His due…” (22: 78) may be stressing this connotation.

Prophetic reports, being concerned about a scheme of moral responsibility to administer all

categories of jihad, unequivocally endorse the importance of internal jihad as indeed the actual

point of departure for all other norms, practices and manifestations of jihad: “The most virtue of

jihad is struggling against egoistic desires….”90Another narrative states: “The mujāhid (the

performer of jihad) is one who strives against his lower self in obedience to Allah.”91 These

hadiths intend to ground intrinsic jihad as the very basis of external engagement in any form of

hostility, confrontation and combat.92 On the basis of such moral administration, armed jihad is

managed as a discourse of equilibrium between the inviolability of human beings, and the

material and the concrete need to defend one’s faith. By every measure, if these hadiths were

taken to supplement the semantic field of jihad tradition, they would really stress the importance

of striking a balance between the moral imperative to control the inner impulses of destruction

involved in the use of force, and the affirmative mission to spread faith in one God.

The prophet declared this dictum during his farewell pilgrimage: “The one, who does jihad,

al-mujāhid, is he who struggles against his selfish desires for the sake of Allah.”93 Palpable

intention (piety with taqwā) is the major part of good work, amal al-sāliḥ.94 Hadith reports and

Sufi literature elucidate that jihād al-nafs has its basis in any action performed for the sake of

God. They underline that without this scheme of moral conduct, it is impossible to regulate a

sanctioned armed battle in the name of God. This inner striving to contain the self-centered,

self-interested ambitions of an individual, a nation or a sovereign state, (in today’s lexicon, the

use of diplomacy or political alternatives in international situations of conflict) remains the

moral precondition for all other spheres of jihad codified in the Quranic text.

86Abdulmalik Qushayrī, Laṭāif al-Ishārāt, ed. I. Basyūnī (Egypt: Ammali’l-Kitab, 1981), I, 161. 87 Ismail b. Muhammad Ajlūnī, Kashf al-Khafā’ (Cairo: Maktaba al-Qudsī, 1351), I, 424-425. See also, Ibn

Taymiyya, Majma’ al-Fatāwā’, ed. A. M. Qasim (Madina: Malik Fahd Abdulalaziz, 1995), XI, 197; Ibn Qayyim al-

Jawjiyyah, Rawḍa al-Muḥibbīn wa Nuzhat al-Mushtāqīn, (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1992), 478. 88 Badruddīn ͑Aynī, Umdat al-Qārī Sharḥ Saḥīh al-Bukharī, (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1998), XXXIII, 285. 89Abu Ishāq Zajjāj, Ma‘āni al-Qur’ān wa I ‘rābuhū (Beirut: Alam al-Kutub, 1988), IV, 174;AbūManṣūrMāturīdī,

Ta’wīlātu Ahli al-Sunna, ed. M. Baslum (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 2005), VIII, 246; Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb,

XXV, 77. Although the permission of fight (war) was not given in Meccan period, Tabarī interprets this verse as

military jihad, jihad al-qitālī. Tabarī, al-Jāmi‘ al-Bayān, XX, 63. For more details see Firestone, Jihad, p. 17-21. 90Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 87. 91Tirmīdhī, Sunan, Faḍāil al-Jihād, 2; Nasāī, Sunan, al-Raqāiq; Shaybānī, al-Aṣl, 87.) The last part ‘in obedience to

Allah’ is recorded by Ahmad b. Ḥanbal in Musnad, XXXIX, 386-387. 92Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zād al-Maʿād, III, 6. 93Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, 1993: XXXIX, 381. 94Bukharī, Sahīh, Bad’u al-waḥy, 1; Abū Dāwud, Sunan, Zuhd, 26.



243

Conclusion

To examine the concept of jihad exclusively in relationship to its incommensurable

equivalent of ‘holy war’ is indeed a vital reason why jihad is widely misunderstood and

misrepresented in Anglo-American academy. Translating jihad as ‘holy war’ in English is a

serious misnomer that reduces the complexity of this concept in original and authentic sources

of Islam into stereotypical images of innate violence, religious terror and the ‘crusading’ nature

of Islam. Yet, what is of greater significance is to examine jihad tradition by handling the

discursive manifestations in a system of substantive divergence between war and jihad. The

pedagogical advantage of such reading is to mark to what extent the scheme of moral conduct,

accentuated in the primary sources, remains the driving moral theology of executing all

categories of jihad. On this account jihad is minimally associated with warfare, defense and

conflict; it is also shuttered into several, historically conditioned, forms, modes and

codifications; and when it is reducible to warfare, it is unmistakably circumscribed by well-

defined stipulations. The nuance of the jihad tradition lies deep in an alterity. The primary

sources seem to suggest a measured balance between the need for a moral theology and a

theology of ‘futūhāt’ (openings) to spread the new message of an immaculate monotheism.

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