VIOLENCE AND NON-VIOLENCE IN ISLAM
Jihadi, Just-War, and Active Non-Violence
Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf1
Introduction
Memories of Islamic conquest and the Crusades in the middle ages have been refreshed by the recent September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The spread of Islamic extremism in response to the enduring campaign against terrorism by the United States has associated Islam with terrorism. This does not only create the perception that links Muslims with violence, but also the perception that Islam itself, in a special way (as compared to other religions), is inherently violent or has a unique propensity for violence. This perception does not only ignore the Islamic faith and morality that has continuously inspired Muslims around the world to work for peace and justice. It also ignores the fact that there is no religion in the world that is “pure” or free from violence. Even Buddhism, which is often seen as the most peaceful religion, has been a driving force in the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka and a supportive institution of the oppressive military regime in Burma.
In order to clarify this misperception, it is essential to understand Islam’s sacred teachings, the Qur’an and the practices of Muhammad as well as how various groups within Islam understand them in the current geo-political and social context. What rationale makes a religious group or individual come to a decision to engage in war or violence? Or in other words, what situations bring religious people to come to a belief that war or violence is religiously justified? And more importantly, what arguments and situations can prevent or constrain them from engaging in war or violence?
Needless to say, ideology is not the only source of a decision for violence and non-violence. Even those Muslim groups with a fundamentalist mindset are not monolithic; they
1 Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf was a Fulbright Scholar and graduated with an MA in Conflict Transformation and Organizational Leadership in 2006. He is currently on staff at the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies, Graduate School, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.
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operate in different strategies that range from political activism, nonviolent missionaries, militancy, and armed struggle or terrorism. Geo-political and geo-strategic factors have often been the most powerful determinants to drive an Islamic group to violence. Muslim Brotherhood, for example, initially conducted nonviolent political activism, however, repression and dissatisfaction with Anwar Sadat’s policies led some of its activists to assassinate Sadat. Differently, in Pakistan, Abul A’la Al-Maududi’s Jemaat Islami, which held the same ideology as Hassan Al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, remained nonviolent until his death (it was deviant groups of Jemaah Islami’s youth and university activists who participated in several riots). This evidence supports John L. Esposito’s argument that Islamic radicalism and extremism are not solely driven by religious zealotry, but can also be driven by frustration and anger at U.S. foreign policy.2 In support of this connection, ideologically the early Muslim brotherhood and Jemaah Islami, under Mududi’s leadership, believed in equally extreme ideology—to totally replace the secular system with Islamic system—but the strategy does not necessarily need be translated into the tactic of violent action. In the same vein, Oliver Roy insisted that “the evolution of Islamism is not solely based on ideological factors, but also in keeping with the geo-strategic context of the Muslim world.”3 This argument also finds evidence in Christianity. Is there any ideological change that will stop Rev. Michael Bray or his followers from attacking abortion clinics in the US? The answer is likely to be “no.”
2 John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3 Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.: 1994), 107.
4 Ted Robert Gurr, “Psychological Factors in Civil Violence,” in Anger, Violence, and Politics, ed. Ivo K. Feierabend, Rosalind L. Feierabend and Ted Robert Gurr (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), 51.
However, this does not mean that ideology does not have a role in driving human beings to commit or to eschew violence. Ideology, according to Ted Robert Gurr’s analysis of civil violence, “serves to define and explain the nature of the situation, to identify those responsible for deprivation and to specify courses of action.”4 Ideology provides legitimacy, moral support, and rationalization for both violent and/or nonviolent action.
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5 Adam L Silverman, “Just War, Jihad and Terrorism: A Comparison of Western and Islamic Norms for the Use of Political Violence,” Journal of Church and State (2002) http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/
In the context of Christianity and the Western tradition, a primary rationale or moral justification of war and violence is the just-war theory. This theory is based on the writings of western philosophers and theologians like Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Just-war theorists examined how Christians are occasionally asked to break the law for a higher purpose; therefore, they believe they could undertake violent actions for a just cause. With regard to just cause, the occasion and violent action that are justified, Christian just-war theory makes three interconnected sets of criteria for justification of war and violence.
The first criterion is called bellum justum. This requires: (1) that war is conducted to outweigh a higher potential of harm; (2) the probability of success must outweigh the probability of defeat; and, (3) all possible alternatives for peace must be exhausted prior the decision to resort to violence. The second criteria, called jus ad bellum, comprises the authority and cause to initiate just-war: (a) war must be initiated by a competent authority; and, (b) just cause must be individual or collective self defense or protection of one’s rights. The last criteria, jus in bello, deals with the conduct of a just war: it should use proportional utility; and, it should discriminate in its targets and tactics (noncombatants must be protected).5
Moral Justification of Violence in Islam
Throughout the Qur’an, one will easily find passages that command and give permission to fight back against the aggressors. This ranges from offensive war to defensive war. In offensive matters, the Qur’an, for example, commands: “Fight in the name of God and the path of God. Combat those who disbelieve in God.” In defensive matters, the Qur’an says: “To those against whom war is made, permission (to fight back) is given to those who have been driven from their homes for no other reason than saying Our Lord is
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6 Silverman, 6.
God” (surah al-Hajj 22:39-40). However, in other places the Qur’an gives a strong emphasis on peace being preferable to war and violence. The Qur’an says: “Oh you who believe…let not the hatred of some people who (once) have prevented you from the sacred mosque lead to transgression (and hostility on your part) help one another in righteous and piety” (QS. 5:2). In the same vein, Allah commands to do whatever possible to avoid war and violence, “Repel evil with which is the best, then you will find that your enemy will become your warmest ally” (QS. 41:34).
However, Muslim understanding of these verses is diverse. Mainly they are understood in two ways: jihadi and just-war. The first category is the militant concept of jihad. The prominent theoretician of this paradigm is Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyah (d. 1328 CE)—the founder of Islamic Puritanism or Islamic Protestantism by his call to return to the basic sources of Islam, Qur’an and Sunnah. followed by his successors like Hassan al-Banna (the founder of Muslim Brotherhood), Sayyid Qutb (member of Muslim Brotherhood who played a central role in redefining the political and social roles of the organization, especially putting resistance against the West into practice), l-Mududi (the founder of Jemaah Islami, a copy of Muslim Brotherhood in Pakistan), and others. They believe that holy war is permitted in both offensive and defensive situations. They refer to the historical practice in which war has been a means for the establishment of an Islamic state in which the ruler was Muslim. This is part of the obligation to “command good and forbid evil.” This is especially the case in the condition where there is the authority of a Muslim ruler in so called dar al-Islam (the territory of Islam). A Muslim ruler has the authority to initiate war, conquer the dar al-kufr, (the territory of the infidels), to establish the rule of God. However, they ignored the injunction against compulsion in religion. Abu Bakar was the one who first did this by sending his troops out beyond the border of Islam in order to subdue this area and bring Islam to the inhabitants. Umar and Uthman, his successors as caliph, then followed his lead in expansion and conquest.6
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In geo-political situations where Muslims are not in power, violence or war can still be a legitimate means to fight back. Sanction for self-defensive war is given in two situations: (1) when Muslims are tyrannized, and (2) when Muslims are driven from their homes unjustly only because they practice Islam (QS: 22:39-40).
However, many groups that may belong to this category tend to have a xenophobic mentality that leads them to an overbroad understanding of defensive parameters. They would, for example, define the contemporary world where Muslims are repressed in many places, Islamic law is not applied, and their belief in a Christian-Jewish anti-Islamic conspiracy as dar al-harb. Therefore the obligation of holy war is applicable. Terrorism is legitimate against American facilities, for example, or any regime that oppresses Muslims.
Islamic Just-War Theory
In the current situation, where Muslims are scattered within and crossing the nation-state system, the idea of offensive war or conquest no longer exists. This is the unique challenge of the proponents of just war. They understand that in Islam, offensive war—in the sense of conquer—can only be carried out by a Muslim caliphate. Today when this system is no longer exist, jihad as an offensive war is no long applicable. Therefore, Muslim attention is given to those who live under oppressive regimes—Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, and Maluku. Muslims with this would not necessarily be directly involved in the armed struggle to defend their oppressed brothers, but would accept or understand armed struggle as legitimate from those experiencing oppression. They condemn terrorism but support armed struggle to free Muslims from the oppression of a local regime. For example, these just war advocates are sympathetic to the Palestinian intifada, but condemn the tactics of Al-Qaeda. They find support for this view in the Qur’an.
Study of the Quranic conduct of war will find similar criteria to Christian just-war theory. The Qur’an mentions several situations that allow Muslim’s to take up arms (bellum justum). This includes situations where Muslim’s are wronged or expelled from their homes.
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This refers to the same verse used by the jihadis (QS 22:39:40) and other verses that allow Muslims to fight back and take up arms to defend themselves against aggressors. In surah 2:190, for example, the Qur’an commands: “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress limit.” With these criteria, Muslims would find situations where violent self-defense is unavoidable.
These verses also imply jus ad bellum, that war must be carried out for a right intention, namely, to liberate Muslims from aggressors. In the conduct of war (jus in bello), violence should be proportional (22: 60), and there should be discrimination of targets, especially civilian noncombatants, women, slaves, the environment, the elderly and religious building should not be targeted (2:190), and always open to a peaceful solution; war should always be the last resort (8:59).
The primary character of this category is the view that war and violence are: (1) only legitimate in self defense; (2) excessive violence should be avoided; and, (3) that violence with a purpose to impose faith on others is not legitimate. However, people with this view sometimes tend to understand the criteria in ways that allow taking up arms in a thoughtless manner. This mindset can lead people to rush toward declaring criteria of “unavoidable violence” and “last resort.” This just war view—that that violence is permissible in certain condition, e.g, to remove injustice and repression—however, only examines examples of (violent) war in Islamic history and overlooks nonviolent strategies exemplified by Muhammad, especially in the period of his life in Mecca.
This model may also refer to medieval Muslim theorists who, according to Rabia Terri Harris, understand the Islamic law of war as a rationalization of an imperial “fact on the ground.” Just war advocates, according to Harris, make an analogy between the suffering of Muslims today and the beleaguered vulnerable community around the prophet. They analyze the prophet’s successful jihad to find strategies that will again liberate the oppressed. This, according to Harris, is an inappropriate analogy. The current situation does not resemble the community of the prophet. Just war advocates “produce real
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7 Rabia Terri Harris, “Non-Violence in Islam: The Alternative Community Tradition,” in Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, ed., Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Non-Violence in Religious Tradition (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1998), 106.
8 Gene Sharp, 198 Methods of Nonviolence, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations.php3?orgid=88&typeID=15&action=printContentTypeHome
oppression for the sake of imagined liberation . . . or redefining ‘the enemy’ to signify something the Prophet never would have allowed.”7
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