Concepts Of Jihad, The Charge Of Takfir And The Interpretations Of Islam In The Sunni Conceptual Framework
By Robert Rabil
Aug 31,
2018
The
concepts of jihad and the charge of unbelief on a Muslim or non-Muslim known as
Takfir have evoked mixed and dreaded reactions among many in Western countries,
where the concepts often make headlines and are presented without context to
those who may not have personal interactions with mainstream interpretations of
Islam.
In the
context of public discussion in the United States and Europe, jihad and takfir
have in some cases become equated with “holy war” and decapitation of
“infidels” respectively. Yet these perceptions are grounded in the assumption
that the terms as defined by terrorist groups also reflect broader Sunni and
Shi’a conceptions of the concepts. This mischaracterization both hinders the
public understanding of Islam as a multifaceted religion and U.S. security
understanding of terrorist threats motivated by specific and extremist concepts
of jihad and Takfir.
Jihad in the Earliest Years of Islam
In Arabic,
the word “jihad” broadly means “to strive” or to make a “determined effort,”
and a Mujahid is someone who strives or engages in jihad. Jihad is often expanded
to the term Jihad Fi Sabil Allah
(jihad in the path of God) to distinguish the term from pre-Islamic usage and
to assert that the “determined effort” is carried out in accordance with God’s
divine mandate. However, the specifically religious connotations of the word
have different shades of meaning even in the Koran, where the connotation of
jihad shifts along with the changing sociopolitical environments under which
Prophet Muhammad developed Islam.
During
Islam’s earliest ‘Meccan’ period, the Prophet Muhammad’s message of jihad
focused on propagating Islam against a prevailing order more or less
characterized by idolatry, paganism, and polytheism. Following the Prophet’s
forced hijra (migration) from Mecca to Medina in 622 and the consolidation of his
umma (community of believers), jihad took an activist sense dedicated to both
defending and expanding the religion. Already, the earlier “passive” jihad of
the Koranic Meccan verses contrast with the “active” and/or “aggressive” sense
of jihad in the Koranic Medinan verses.
Consequently,
jihad developed into conceptions of both inward and outward struggles.
According to an often repeated (though not universally accepted) hadith, or
recorded sayings of Prophet Muhammad, jihad could be a struggle against one’s
sinful proclivities, also known as “greater jihad”, or a struggle against
injustice, known also as “smaller jihad.” Significantly, many references to
jihad in the hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari assume jihad to mean armed
action.
The
expansion of Islam during the Umayyad (661-750) and Abbasid (750-1258)
dynasties gave rise to a conception of jihad as a form of warfare, related to
the division of the world into Dar al-Islam (Abode of Islam) and Dar al-Harb
(Abode of War). Jurists envisioned perpetual warfare between Muslims and
non-Muslims until Dar al-Islam prevailed under the establishment of religiously
legitimate Muslim rule, whereby Islam superseded other faiths and created a
just socio-political order.
In this
context, jihad developed offensive and defensive forms. Offensive jihad aimed
at expanding the territory of Islam as a collective duty. Jihad did not,
however, imply conversion by force—the Koran specifically states that “there is
no compulsion in religion.” Defensive jihad made it an individual duty for
every Muslim to resist foreign aggression. Notably, jurists did not expect
Muslims to wage endless war in either case, and allowed for truces and peace
treaties with other parties.
With the
1258 defeat of the Abbasid Caliphate by the Mongolian leader Hulagu and the
Mongolian elite’s subsequent conversion to Islam, jihad further transformed in
some interpretations into a sanction of revolt against nominally Muslim rulers.
The medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyyah affirmed that it was permissible to rebel
against a ruler who fails to enforce Islamic law, concluding that jihad against
the Mongols was acceptable as superficial Muslims who did not govern according
to Islamic law. Arguably, Ibn Taymiyyah’s conclusion marks a rift in views on
when jihad is acceptable—from the fourteenth century onwards, whereas
mainstream Islam continued to promote submission to political authority as a
means to prevent Fitna (strife) within the Ummah, dissident scholars sanctioned
jihad against a corrupt ruler even within Dar al-Islam.
In sum,
jihad in premodern times had, depending on the context, referred to a) an
obligatory effort to defend and/or expand the abode of Islam; b) an essential
feature to dispense with corrupt rule; and c) a self-regulatory means to
promote individual welfare. This multivalence of jihad has only deepened in the
past century, initially developing as a response to colonial governments.
The Jihad of Anti-Colonialism
Against the
backdrop of early Islamic anti-colonial movements, the Sunni Indian-Pakistani
jurist Abu Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) sharpened the definition of jihad as a
movement of liberation throughout the world to allow Islam to reign supreme and
furnish justice for all. Mawdudi wrote:
Islam
requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet—not because the
sovereignty over the earth should be wrested from one nation or several nations
and vested in one particular nation, but because the entire mankind should
benefit from the ideology and welfare programme or what would be truer to say
from ‘Islam’ which is the programme of well-being for all humanity. Towards
this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a
revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is ‘Jihad’.
Thus, jihad
became under this definition an all-embracing world revolution. Mawdudi also
reinterpreted the term Jahiliyyah so as to fit with his world revolution:
originally used to refer to pre-Islamic Arabia, it became any time or place in
which the Islamic state has not been actualized. In other words, Mawdudi split
the world between a divinely-ordained Islamic world and a Jahili (infidel)
world to be overtaken through jihad. As such, Mawdudi’s jihad required
employing all possible means and forces to about a universal all-embracing
revolution leading to his vision of an Islamic world.
Significantly,
Mawdudi’s divinely ordained world excluded the Shi’a. In his book Ar-Riddah bayn al-Ams wal-Yaum (Apostasy
in the Past and the Present) the author labels them as non-believers, stating
that even the Imami Ja'fari Shia, "despite their moderate views (relative
to other sects of Shi’ism), they are swimming in disbelief like white blood
cells in blood or like fish in water." Two Muslim Brotherhood
leaders—Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb—would build on this interpretation of
jihad and its emphasis on establishing an Islamic state.
Sayyid
Qutb
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Sayyid Qutb and the Islamism of the Muslim
Brotherhood
Qutb drew
on both Mawdudi and Ibn Taymiyyah to argue that a state of Jahiliyyah dominated
any Muslim society living under corrupt rulers. Therefore, righteous Muslims
have a duty to bring about God’s sovereignty (Hakimiyah) over society. Qutb
perceived the entire modern world as steeped in Jahiliyyah, stating:
If we look
at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that
the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyyah, and all the marvellous material
comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this ignorance. This
Jahiliyyah is based on rebellion against Allah's sovereignty on earth. It
transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of Allah, namely sovereignty,
and makes some men lords over others.
According
to Qutb, this modern Jahiliyyah required the same treatment as the Prophet’s
uprooting of the original Jahiliyyah and its replacement with an Islamic state.
This mid-century argument represents a radical departure from the longstanding
traditional view of leadership. Under this framework, Muslim leaders become
unbelievers/takfir [kuffars] by virtue of their impiety, and must be
excommunicated from society. Qutb denounced the extant leadership of the Arab
world and rejected their claims to either Islam or political power.
Qutb then
professed that under current circumstances, jihad was legitimate and justified
against said leadership. Throughout his writings, particularly Milestones
(ma’alim fi tariq), Qutb reinterpreted traditional Islamic concepts to
legitimize a violent takeover of the state. His unique conception of jihad thus
became a central component of his overall ideology as the catalyst to reinstate
God’s sovereignty over mankind through political transformation. It is this
expansive definition of jihad that has influenced most subsequent radical Sunni
groups and sparked a number of modern religiously-driven efforts for political
change.
For
example, the assassins of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat justified jihad
against corrupt and/or superficial Muslim rulers and the imperative of
establishing an Islamic state in their pamphlet Al-Faridah al-Gha’ibah (The
Neglected Duty). Its author Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj argued that leading
Muslim scholars had neglected jihad, and that “there is no doubt that the idols
of this world can only be made to disappear through the power of the sword.”
Faraj drew on the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir, among other
sources, to contend that jihad as armed action is the cornerstone of Islam. He
also declared that rulers who “do not rule by what God sent down” are kuffars
(unbelievers) and apostates. He called on Muslims to exert every conceivable
effort to establish the Islamic government, restore the caliphate, and expand
the abode of Islam.
According
to the line of thought established by Mawdudi, Qutb, and Faraj, Sunni Islamists
transformed the context and regulations against which jihad was to be carried
out, mandating jihad—previously a concept bound to communal obligations—into an
individual obligation for all Muslims. These views ran directly in the face of
mainstream Islamic thinkers’ emphasis on submission to political authority,
regardless of how the state is governed, and the circumscribing of jihad as an
aggressive action only in the case of its declaration under specific conditions
by a legitimate and recognized Islamic ruler of state (caliph).
The Centralization of Jihad in Jihadi Salafism
While
traditional definitions of jihad continued to hold sway for many Muslims, the
new expansion of jihad’s role in Islam developed in strains of the puritanical
Salafi school of Islam, which seeks to create a utopian Islamic state by
returning to the authentic beliefs and practices of the first generations of
Muslims—the “righteous ancestors.” It was these strains that influenced Osama
Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden developed Qutb’s focus on
colonialist structures into his fury at the “blatant imperial arrogance of the
United States,” especially during its involvement in Saudi Arabia—the
cornerstone of the Islamic world. Bin Laden addressed his message to Muslims
throughout the world, expanding the interpretations that had developed in the
Arabian peninsula into a numerically small yet global movement.
Thus,
certain Salafists developed a doctrine emphasizing the primacy of jihad. These
“Salafi-Jihadis” assert that only jihad in the path of Allah can bring about an
Islamic state. In contrast, quietist Salafism seeks to create the Islamic state
through education and indoctrination of individuals, as seen in the Wahhabi
model of Saudi Arabia. Activist Salafis work within existing political systems
to bring them closer to an idealized Islamic state, as modelled by the Muslim
Brotherhood’s previous engagement with elections in Egypt. While each strain
seeks the broader implementation of an Islam based on their own views, only
Salafi-Jihadis use a violent version of jihad in an attempt to actualize these
ends.
Jihad as Terrorism Comes to the Fore
However,
violence has allowed jihadi Salafism to create an outsized visibility of their
worldview internationally. Al-Qaeda’s focus on the United States was designed
as a means to an end: a way to reduce U.S. support of “apostate” regimes in the
Middle East that prevent the creation of this Islamic state. Consequently, Bin
Laden’s organization al-Qaeda and its off-shoot the “Islamic State” (IS) have
both dramatically shaped public views in the Western world of what ‘jihad’
means and looks like.
IS shares
al-Qaeda’s ideology, but has focused on an alternate shot-term
goal—establishing a functioning Islamic government according to IS ideals. As
with Faraj’s Neglected Duty, IS selectively promotes controversial verses from
the Koran and citations from classical and contemporary scholars in order to
legitimize its rule. In reviewing fifteen issues of the Islamic State’s Dabiq
magazine issued from June 2014 to July 2016 demonstrate the continued relevance
of Ibn Taymiyyah’s thought to creating a particular understanding of jihad.
Islamic
State publications have also focused on promoting controversial passages of the
Koran to the exclusion of other sentiments. Dabiq publications regularly cite
Al-Ma’ida Number 5, Verse 51, which reads: “O you who have believed, do not
take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one
another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of
them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.”
At-Tawbah Number 9, Verse 5 reads:
And when the sacred
months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and
capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of
ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give Zakah, let them
[go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
Clearly,
the Islamic State not only tried to justify the centrality of jihad and takfir
but also relies on the concepts to develop its ideology into a religious
triumphalist movement. In other words, the radicalist interpretations of jihad
and takfir that began with Ibn Taymiyyah in the fourteenth century have found
their conclusion in the Islamic State’s triumphalist ideology, which has
dehumanized, bastardized, and “apostasied” both the Muslim and non-Muslim
“Other.” Under this worldview, the “Other” has become a target for death, but
observers should recognize that this concept is a religious offshoot that has
been separated from the mainstream Islamic jurisprudence since the 14th
century.
It is
important to note that most Muslim religious establishments have condemned IS
and categorically reject the organization’s interpretation of jihad, espousing
instead the concept of defensive jihad exclusively. These figures also cite the
Koran, demonstrating the Koran’s emphasis on the defensive nature of
jihad—exemplified by such verses as chapter 2, verse 190: “And fight in the way
of God with those who fight you, but aggress not: God loves not the
aggressors.”
Salafi-Jihadis
have allowed their disgust with the ‘Other’—anyone operating outside the
framework Salafi interpretations of Islam and consequently a ‘Kufar’—to drive
their declarations of jihad. In this worldview, ‘jihad’ has transformed into an
expansive religious triumphalist ideology dedicated to exterminating anyone who
does not subscribe to it. The expansion of this ideology has been helped both
by its ability to ‘cloak’ itself in the sanctity of the sacred and the history
of authentic Islam and by a reluctance of many Westerners to understand the
nuances behind Salafi-jihadism that make it so dangerous.
Thus, while
it is easy for outsiders to legitimate Salafi-Jihadis’ conflation of jihad with
terrorism, its meaning is not nearly so specific. Jihad is a malleable concept
with many potential meanings. Nevertheless, both Sunni and Shi’a extremist
conceptions of jihad have had a tremendous impact on the West. While the Sunni
version is a triumphalist religious ideology incapable of co-existing with
Western values or societies, the Shi’a version animates regimes hostile to the
West as well.
Original Headline: Contextualizing Jihad and
Takfir in the Sunni Conceptual Framework
Source: The Washington Institute