Offensive jihad
Robert Houghton
peace and that only defensive warfare is permitted to Muslims. This is
false, but so widespread is the falsity broadcast that it is difficult to
field a refutation, especially because those who touch on the issue are
often disingenuous, or mealy-mouthed Islamophiles. John L. Esposito, a
strongly Islamophile scholar who is staunchly defensive of Islam is to be
saluted for his report on the issue in his book "Unholy War: Terror in the
Name of Islam":
"Islamic law stipulates that it is a Muslim's duty to wage war not only
against those who attack Muslim territory, but also against polytheists,
apostates, and the People of the Book (at first restricted to Jews and
Christians but later extended to Zoroastrians and other faiths) who refuse
Muslim rule.... Muslim jurists saw the jihad as a requirement in a world
divided between what they called the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb (land
of war). The Muslim community was required to engage in the struggle to
expand the dar al-Islam throughout the world so that all humanity would have
the opportunity to live within a just political and social order." (p34).
Esposito's statement, coming from an Islamophile scholar, will perhaps be
accorded weight.
Beowulf
"Robert Houghton" <robe...@f2s.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:000001c6f35e$f7089cd0$4101a8c0@rhdt...
> One hears endlessly from Muslims and others that Islam is a religion of
coming from an Islamophile scholar, will perhaps be
Salvé
With all due respect where does it say these things in the Qur'an? Or is it
a hadeeth? if so where(and who) does it make those statements?
Beowulf
Robert
Esposito is basing his assertions on the rulings of classical Islamic
Jurists, derived from the Koran and hadith. It is quite difficult to
get at these. In a recent Wikipedia article there was an extensive list
of quotations from the classical jurists establishing Esposito's
points; unfortunately, this article has been replaced by one that is
less frank.
You must bear in mind that Esposito is openly Islamophile and
polemically defensive of Muslim positions. His academic centre of
Islamic studies is munificently financed by a Saudi prince.
Hajj abujamal
kleinecke wrote at soc.religion.islam:
> I am curious about who invented the two houses model
> of the world (Dar al-Islam versus Dar al-Harb).
No muslim invented this dialectical formulation, it is a
distortion cut from our traditional characterization of regions
differing in their political posture (vis-a-vis the muslims) into
three categories:
Darul-Islam, established territories wherein a muslim
constitutional federal republic guarantees to each federated community
its liberty to govern itself according to its own law with its own
political, juridicial, religious, and civic institutions, as is
demanded of the muslims by shari'ah law. It is worthwhile to note
that this constitutional federal republic, established at Madina by
the prophet sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam, was the introduction into
human affairs of the constitutional federal republic. And
Darul-Harb, territories wherein politically organized forces act
against the formation of such a federal republic and prepare and wage
aggression against any such federal republic that may be established
elsewhere (i.e., that continue in a state of war against any such
establishment of that shari'ah federal republic); and
Darul-Sulh, territories ruled independently of the shari'ah
federal republic who have not waged aggression against the shari'ah
federal republic, its federated communities, or the muslims within
their borders, or who enjoy a treaty relationship with the shari'ah
republic precluding aggression against any party to such a treaty. It
is worthwhile to note that this is the presumptive character of any
territory not federated into the muslim shari'ah republic that has not
initiated hostilities against the muslim republic. It is also
worthwhile to note that this was the beginning of what we see today as
international diplomatic relations and "international law."
Territories of this third variety include those nations wherein
muslims are free to reside and to practice Islam in community without
oppression or suppression by the nation's political order, and find,
in the constitutional foundations and laws of those nations and in
their domestic conduct, established religious liberty for people of
all faiths including muslims. Muslims, by choosing to live in those
nations, extend comity toward those nations, respecting the right of
the people of those nations to govern themselves according to their
own beliefs, and implicitly accord a respect of such constitutions and
laws as elements of a treaty by which they are bound by shari'ah.
After the expulsion of the Roman/Byzantine occupation of the
Promised Land and the defeat of the Persian aggression against the
Promised Land in the first century of Islam, this immigration, usually
for trade purposes, is the manner in which Islam initially spread to
the nations of the world. The introduction of muslim minorities into
virtually every nation examplifies this, with the South American
countries of Guyana and Surinam among the most illustrative.
Muslims who go to live in those "Darul-Sulh" nations for the
purpose of waging war against them ~ that is, to form "fifth column"
forces to overthrow or influence those nations' established political
orders by aggressive, subversive, and violent means or otherwise in
violation of their hosts' constitution and laws (i.e., violating the
"treaty" implied by their immigration) ~ have departed from the
shari'ah, endanger muslims everywhere, and are guilty of "fitna."
Where they produce bloodshed, that fitna is a capital crime.
The Roman/Byzantine empire of the first century of Islam
repudiated any presumptive "Darul-Sulh" status by attacking the muslim
federal republic established at Madina, seeking to extend their
colonization of the Promised Land (see
http://www.muslimamerica.net/gr/promised.gif for a map). They thus
became a Darul-Harb and were accordingly reduced to the Dark Ages,
thereafter persisting in that state of aggression against successor
muslim kingdoms and satrapies through the end of World War I, the
dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and the division of formerly
muslim territories into contemporary nation-states under foreign
domination. It is worthwhile to note that this was the intention of
Temple Israel in formulating Pauline "Christianity" and foisting it on
the pagans of Europe, to pit the eventual inheritors of the revelation
of Islam (after the collapse of the two Semitic dispensations) against
the terminally collapsed millennial muslim world.
Notwithstanding this, a Darul-Sulh territory can transform itself
into a Darul-Islam by federation or declaration, or into a Darul-Harb
by oppression or aggression. Either circumstance is recognized in
shari'ah law, and marked by required declarations and/or repudiation
of comity in order to come into effect. A territory established as a
Darul-Sulh ~ however that status is established ~ remains such unless
and until an authoritative and open declaration of any such change is
made.
The postulation of only those two (Darul-Islam and Darul-Harb) of
these three categories of territory (omitting Darul-Sulh) is a
subversion of shari'ah political administration ("siyasa") imported
from Europe along with the dialectical materialist political theories
of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky, and other anti-colonialist political
strategies, however they may have been reformulated in Arabic and
muslim-like terminology by such populist writers as Maudoodi and 'Ali
Shari'ati. The Darul-Sulh have been recognized by shari'ah and
accorded their appropriate adab since the earliest days of Islam.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
klei...@astound.net
Robert Houghton wrote:
> John L. Esposito, a
> strongly Islamophile scholar who is staunchly defensive of Islam is to be
> saluted for his report on the issue in his book "Unholy War: Terror in the
> Name of Islam":
>
> "Islamic law stipulates that it is a Muslim's duty to wage war not only
> against those who attack Muslim territory, but also against polytheists,
> apostates, and the People of the Book (at first restricted to Jews and
> Christians but later extended to Zoroastrians and other faiths) who refuse
> Muslim rule.... Muslim jurists saw the jihad as a requirement in a world
> divided between what they called the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb (land
> of war). The Muslim community was required to engage in the struggle to
> expand the dar al-Islam throughout the world so that all humanity would have
> the opportunity to live within a just political and social order." (p34).
Well, John L. Esposito may well be a scholar. He might even be
Islamophilic, but I gather he is not a Muslim. Quoting him as a source
is no way to conduct an argument.
I am curious about who invented the two houses model of the world (Dar
al-Islam versus Dar al-Harb). It is not in the Qur'an and, so far as I
know, it is not in any hadith. Who then, what Islamic scholar coined
these colorful terms? What reason did he offer and what precisely did
he mean?
This is a serious question. Any innovation in Islam (as opposed to the
statements of the Qur'an) must be carefully evaluated. It may well be
that a glance at the history of the two houses will show in an instant
that they are not an essential part of Islam. It may well be that all
we have here is a bit of wartime patriotic enthusiasm left over from
the days of Harun al-Rashid or maybe Saladin.
Loosely describing the two houses as "Islamic Law" begs a number of
questions. If indeed it is part of the fiqh of one of the schools then
it should be easy to reference. Is it perhaps a Wahabbi formulation?
Somehow I have trouble visualizing the mainline Hanibalis using this
formulation. If non-Wahabbi Hanibalis were using the formulation it
should be easy to provide a reference.
I am considering Wahabbis because the old original Wahabbis were at war
with everyone who disagreed with them. Their Dar al-Islam was a small
territory in the midst of the Arabian desert and their Dar al-Harb was
all the rest of the world - especially the Ottoman empire. Considering
this puts things into a better perspective.
Robert
klei...@astound.net
Hajj abujamal wrote:
> Salaam!
>
> kleinecke wrote at soc.religion.islam:
>
> > I am curious about who invented the two houses model
> > of the world (Dar al-Islam versus Dar al-Harb).
>
> No muslim invented this dialectical formulation, it is a
> distortion cut from our traditional characterization of regions
> differing in their political posture (vis-a-vis the muslims) into
> three categories:
>
> Darul-Islam,
> Darul-Harb,
> Darul-Sulh, territories ruled independently of the shari'ah
> federal republic who have not waged aggression against the shari'ah
> federal republic,
This expands on the two houses model, but does not explain its origin.
Who invented this three houses model?
This formulation sounds very recent to me as does the concept of
"shari'ah federal republic". I wonder if any great number of Muslims
are thinking along these lines. I believe the two houses model goes
back to medieval days and was indeed invented by Muslims. Who but a
Muslim would use Arabic terms for the houses?
There is no evidence of a "shari'ah federal republic" at any time in
Islamic history, so far as I can tell. The so-called Constitution of
Madina is an interesting document but it is not a constitution in any
useful sense of the word constitution.
I observe that Ibn Ishaq, who preserved the Constitution of Madina for
us, does not integrate it into his biography of Muhammad. He simply
presents it and makes no comment about the fact that the status of the
Jews in the Constitution differs completely from their status in his
own history. It seems to me that already by Ibn Ishaq's day the
Constitution was not understood except as an old document mentioning
Muhammad.
As to the interpretation of the rise of Islam you run through I suggest
you stop using it because all it will do is incite ridicule. The notion
that two great empires - Roman and Sassanian - attacked the Islamic
state is contrary to all the historical records including the Islamic
ones. There is no serious doubt that the early Muslims were the
aggressors.
Nima Rezai
> The notion
> that two great empires - Roman and Sassanian - attacked the Islamic
> state is contrary to all the historical records including the Islamic
> ones. There is no serious doubt that the early Muslims were the
> aggressors.
Hello,
again a posting of yours drew my attention to some interesting question:
The battle of Mutah and the expedition to Tabuk.
It seems obvious that in both cases the muslims were the "aggressors". As
far as I remember Tabari does not even claim that the muslims were
"responding" to any byzantine aggression.
These are the questions that are crucial in my opinion:
1. What was the Prophets intention behind these two military expeditions?
2. Did he mobilize the maximal number of fighters for these ventures?
3. Did he intend to attack the Byzantines directly or were the Ghassanid
vasalls his real target?
4. Was there any need to "react" to something?
5. Were the attempted attacks pre-emptive, resulting from military-political
considerations?
6. Was the Prophet aware of the potentially devastating consequences of a
possible widescale byzantine counter-attack?
7. Apparently none of the "top" companions took part in either mission. Why?
8. Regarding Mutah, did really an only 3000 man strong muslim army meet a
100000 man strong byzantine army?
9. Mutah: It is said that the first 3 muslim commanders were killed, and
then Khalid ibn Walid organized a respectful "retreat". While this portrayal
of the events seems to be a white-washing of a clear military defeat and
subsequent flight from the battlefield, the question is whether these 3
commanders were the only muslim casualties. Did they fall in single combat
and the muslim army decided to "retreat" or did they fall during full scale
battle? Given the alleged numerical superiority of the Byzantines it can be
assumed that much more muslims were killed.
I am grateful for any useful and credible explanations/responses and/or
addition of further questions.
Nima
klei...@astound.net
Nima Rezai wrote:
> again a posting of yours drew my attention to some interesting question:
> The battle of Mutah and the expedition to Tabuk.
My favorite topic.
> It seems obvious that in both cases the muslims were the "aggressors". As
> far as I remember Tabari does not even claim that the muslims were
> "responding" to any byzantine aggression.
Tabari is good. Ibn Ishaq is better. Everything I say in the rest of
this post is from Ibn Ishaq.
> 1. What was the Prophets intention behind these two military expeditions?
We don't know what was behind most of the prophet's raids. It doesn't
seem likely they were made at random, but in most cases we have no
record as to why he made them. Muta was not a "prophet's" raid but,
like the other raids Muhammad ordered, it is not motivated by Ibn
Ishaq. So far as I know, nobody has ever come up with a plausible
theory about his strategy.
> 2. Did he mobilize the maximal number of fighters for these ventures?
For Muta no. For Tabuk yes. The story about the men who did not go to
Tabuk proves he wanted all his fighters for that raid. The raid on
Muta, though, was not such a big deal.
> 3. Did he intend to attack the Byzantines directly or were the Ghassanid
> vasalls his real target?
It is hard to tell who his "real" targets were in either expedition. If
we assume that the raid led by 'Usama ibn Zayd was a duplicate of the
raid made by Zayd then it appears that the raid that ended at Muta had
no real target. It would have been a reconnaisance in force rather than
an attack on any place. Ibn Ishaq says that the raid on Tabuk was
described by Muhammad as an attack on the Byzantines and not on their
allies. But the raid never went near any Byzantine forces, so just
exactly what was intended remains vague.
> 4. Was there any need to "react" to something?
So far as the record goes, there was no trouble brewing in Syria - not
even among the Ghassanides.
> 5. Were the attempted attacks pre-emptive, resulting from military-political
> considerations?
No evidence of pre-emption is offered by Ibn Ishaq,
> 6. Was the Prophet aware of the potentially devastating consequences of a
> possible widescale byzantine counter-attack?
Ibn Ishaq does not discuss this. The orthodox Muslim comment would be
that Muhammad would have trusted in Allah and ignored any consideration
of counter-attack because he would not have attacked unless told to do
so by Allah.
> 7. Apparently none of the "top" companions took part in either mission. Why?
I believe Zayd ibn Haritha should be considered a "top" companion. His
reputation has been eclipsed because he did not survive. So far as I
can tell Abu Bakr and 'Umar are assumed to have gone to Tabuk. They are
consistently Muhammad's right and left hand men. All material about
'Ali I assume to have been a later interpolation into the history. For
some reason he is not said to have gone to Tabuk. A minor raid like the
one to Muta only called for one leader.
> 8. Regarding Mutah, did really an only 3000 man strong muslim army meet a
> 100000 man strong byzantine army?
The size of both arnies is sheer guess work. The only thing we can be
sure about is that Muta was a serious defeat. Reading between the lines
it appears that the Muslim broke and ran and only Khalid ibn al-Walid's
organizing skill kept them together and brought them home.
> 9. Mutah: It is said that the first 3 muslim commanders were killed, and
> then Khalid ibn Walid organized a respectful "retreat". While this portrayal
> of the events seems to be a white-washing of a clear military defeat and
> subsequent flight from the battlefield, the question is whether these 3
> commanders were the only muslim casualties. Did they fall in single combat
> and the muslim army decided to "retreat" or did they fall during full scale
> battle? Given the alleged numerical superiority of the Byzantines it can be
> assumed that much more muslims were killed.
What actually happened at Muta is hard to say. Neither Ja'far ibn Abu
Talib nor Abd Allah ibn Rawaha seem to be intrinsic to the story and,
in my opinion, were not actually there. These two men disappeared from
the record around this time and Muta offered a place where they could
become glorious martyrs. Both of them are politically important -
Ja'far as 'Ali's brother and Abd Allah as an Ansar hero comparable to
all the Qurayshi heroes.
As described, the battle started with Zayd as both standard bearer and
commander. But this dual position is militarily impossible. I think we
are supposed to imagine that Zayd, as standard bearer, led an attack
into the midst of the enemy where he was killed. But this is
contradicted by the fact that the standard could be recovered. The same
comment applies to both Ja'far and Abd Allah.
It is possible that the enemy made a point attack against the standard
and killed Zayd (and the others) there. But no instance of this appears
to have been reported for any other battle so it would have been
exceptional tactics.
Ibn Ishaq gives the names of all the Muslims who were killed at Muta.
There were a total of eight. My guess is that Zayd was killed before
the battle was really begun, perhaps by an arrow, and the Muslims lost
heart. Khalid pulled them together and managed a retreat. A half-dozen
of them were killed.
10. I doubt that the raid on Tabuk ever happened.
The reason I doubt is that there is no poetry about it in Ibn Ishaq.
All the other non-trivial raids are represented by poetry. By Ibn
Ishaq's time poetry was being replaced by hadiths as the source of
historical information and all the surviving poetry was a generation or
more old. The idea that there had been a raid on Tabuk arose after
writing poetry about the raids had stopped. The motivation seems to
have been to explain old covenants apparently signed by Muhammad that
were being advanced by towns in the Tabuk area at the court in
Damascus. These covenants were, of course, fraudulent
The raids of Muhammad (Ibn Ishaq says there were 27) need a great deal
more research. They have been largely ignored by every Muslim scholar
since al-Waqidi.
Abdelkarim Benoit Evans
Islam. Jihad is all-encompassing and is the struggle waged to establish
God's religion and God's peace throughout the world. Jihad is a
personal, inner struggle against the lower self and an outer struggle
against evil in the world. However, it is not necessarily and certainly
not exclusively military in nature. Indeed, today military jihad is not
a very attractive option, in view of the development of modern weapons
and the tendency on all sides to commit wholesale slaughter of innocents
and to carry out the entire destruction of an adversary's civilian
infrastructure (things the Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him,
prohibited). With the advancement of technology and communications, we
now have tools that are much better than the sword. One of them is the
pen (which includes modern means of communication, like the Internet).
The Prophet said, "The ink of scholars is as precious as the blood of
martyrs."
In the last hundred years, jihad has rarely occurred on the battlefield
and overwhelmingly in the social, political and intellectual spheres of
life. Certainly, if a Muslim community is directly, physically invaded
and attacked, it must defend itself by force of arms and drive the
invader out.
Since jihad is all-encompassing, it is, at the same time, both defensive
and offensive. It is defensive in its protection of state power in
order to apply Islam in the space-time continuum of our existence, and
it is offensive in its attacks on opposing ideologies. Such attacks are
not against the homeland of the opponent. Furthermore, the purpose of
such attacks is not to coerce the opponent to relinquish his principles
but rather to undermine the governmental (politico-ideolgical) powers
that sustain those principles.
Jihad is a struggle between ideologies, and Muslims have an obligation
to defend Islam as well as to attack non-Islamic principles. Jihad in
the contemporary world is a struggle to establish the peace of Islam and
the predominance of Islam over all other systems. However that does not
mean that jihad is the imposition of the religion of Allah by force and
against the will of others. It is instead to change the hearts and minds
of men so that they gladly accept Islam as their way of life. To make of
jihad a form of military conquest used to subjugate unwilling men and
women would be a violation of Allah's direct commandment, found in sura
al-baqarah:
"laa ikra fii aldiin" [Let there be] no compulsion in religion.
--
Peace to all who seek God's face.
Abdelkarim Benoit Evans
Zuiko Azumazi
news:1161664458.7...@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
<snip> ...
> Well, John L. Esposito may well be a scholar. He might even be
> Islamophilic, but I gather he is not a Muslim. Quoting him as a source
> is no way to conduct an argument.
<snip> ...
Comment:-
I doubt very much if many subscribers have directly read much of what
Professor Esposito has written about Islam or Muslims. But that isn't the
underlying point of the original message, I would expect.
The locus of these derogatory remarks is the attempt by the stridently
anti-Islam lobby to curtail and silence academics who teach "Middle Eastern
Studies" in American universities. This kind of malignant smear campaign is
well orchestrated and financed by neo-con ideologue. They even developed and
published a McCarthy style 'blacklist' which backfired on themselves when
many prominent academics, who resented these attacks on "free speech" and
academic freedom, asked to be included on it. See these links for the
essential ideological background:-
http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/lockman_interv.html
http://hnn.us/articles/1218.html
http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=7&Itemid=34
What is obvious is that this ad-hominem attack on Professor Esposito - and,
implicitly Muslims and Islam - would never have arisen in SRI, if the
originator of this thread had not been such a "Dhimmi/Jihad Watch"
sycophant. Professor Esposito is a "hot topic" that frequently appears in
their malignant diatribes.
But as always they strenuously argue that they believe in "free speech" just
so long as it rigidly coincides with their own ideological outlook. Sounds
like duplicitous behaviour to me.
Ironically, I would expect that Professor Esposito is a devout Christian, I
wonder why the anti-Islam lobby never mention it? Certainly, this
biographical link reveals that his higher education was attained in well
regarded Christian colleges and universities.
http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/jle2/
--
Peace
--
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive
themselves. [Eric Hoffer]
Zuiko Azumazi
zuiko....@gmail.com
Abdelkarim Benoit Evans
"Zuiko Azumazi" <azu...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Ironically, I would expect that Professor Esposito is a devout Christian, I
> wonder why the anti-Islam lobby never mention it?
"Esposito was raised a Catholic in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn,
New York City, and spent a decade in a Catholic monastery. After taking
his first degree he worked as a management consultant and high-school
teacher. He then studied for a masters in theology at St Johns
University. He earned a PhD at Temple University, Pennsylvania in 1974,
studying Islam for the first time. Esposito then taught religious
studies (including Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam) at the College of the
Holy Cross.
"Esposito's organization is the recipient of a $20,000,000 endowment
from Prince Alwaleed Bin Tala of Saudi Arabia to promote
Muslim-Christian dialogue."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Esposito