THE ISLAM

IN
ISLAMIC TERRORISM
The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas,
and Ideology
IBN WARRAQ
 Copyright © Ibn Warraq, 2017
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 There was a time when scholars and other writers in communist eastern
Europe relied on writers and publishers in the free West to speak the truth
about their history, their culture, and their predicament. Today it is those
who told the truth, not those who concealed or denied it, who are respected
and welcomed in these countries. …
Historians in free countries have a moral and professional obligation not
to shirk the difficult issues and subjects that some people would place under
a sort of taboo; not to submit to voluntary censorship, but to deal with these
matters fairly, honestly, without apologetics, without polemic, and, of
course, competently. Those who enjoy freedom have a moral obligation to
use that freedom for those who do not possess it. We live in a time when
great efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to falsify the record
of the past and to make history a tool of propaganda; when governments,
religious movements, political parties, and sectional groups of every kind
are busy rewriting history as they would wish it to have been, as they would
like their followers to believe that it was. All this is very dangerous indeed,
to ourselves and to others, however we may define otherness-dangerous to
our common humanity. Because, make no mistake, those who are unwilling
to confront the past will be unable to understand the present and unfit to
face the future.
—Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West
 To
Peter
A Civilizing Influence.
Preface and Acknowledgements
THE PRESENT WORK was originally 165,000 words. I have cut it down by
a third, as I was advised by many friends that a shorter book is always
better than a longer one. It seems the general, educated public no longer
reads long books, and publishers are reluctant to take on weighty, daunting
tomes. I should have liked to have included a much longer section on India.
I shall perhaps post the long version on my website in a year or two.
All my Koranic citations are given in the following manner; for example,
the citation “Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 256” refers to Sura 2, called al-
Baqara in Arabic, which means the Cow, and the final figure “256” is
number of the verse. However, when I have to a give a long list of suras
from the Koran, my system becomes rather clumsy. For example, I give the
following Koranic references in footnote 167 below: Q2:216; Q2:221;
Q3:28; Q3:85; Q4:101; Q4:144; Q8:39; Q9:14, 17, 23, 28, 29, 36, 39, 41,
73, 111, 123; Q25:52. Imagine how lengthy and cumbersome that would be
if here I were to insist on keeping the following schema: “Q2. al-Baqara,
The Cow, 216”; and so on.
Originally, I had planned to thank everyone who has shown me any
kindness over the last few years. But it all became rather complicated. First,
the list became absurdly long, and while awaiting permission to publish
their names, I kept remembering ever more people I had forgotten to
mention. There is always the possibility I have missed someone. Second, I
am not at all sure that I am doing the people I mention any favors, since,
alas, Ibn Warraq remains “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” I should not
like to embroil anyone not directly involved in the book’s production in any
controversy that may ensue on publication of a work critical of Islam.
Therefore, I shall only name those who have helped me directly with the
book, and whose permission I have received to do so.
It gives me great pleasure to single out my anonymous editor, who, with
her professionalism and patience, did a remarkable job on the original,
unwieldy manuscript, and made it presentable. I am beholden to Rebecca
Bynum, who took on the onerous task of publishing my work though she
was already busy with all her political commitments. Rebecca further
meticulously edited the work, and got it ready to send to the printer in
record time.
 Finally, I should like to thank Nancy and Tom Klingenstein for their
friendship, kindness, and support which made all my research possible.
It is no empty formality to insist that I alone am responsible for the
opinions voiced in the present work.
INTRODUCTION
Consider the following claims:
1. Marc Sageman, a “government counterterrorism consultant,”
asserts that terrorism is not “the result of the beliefs and perceptions
held by the terrorists.”1
2. “The idea of the sacred Koran has existed for 1400 years, give or
take, [but] we have seen Islamic terrorism only over the past 40 or so.
Clearly, the Koran is not the issue.”2
I BELIEVE THAT both of these views are wrong.
To understand the behavior of Islamic terrorists, to make sense of their
motives, we must take their beliefs seriously. The acts of ISIS or the Taliban
or any other jihādist group are not random acts of violence by a mob of
psychopathic, sexually frustrated, impoverished vandals, but carefully and
strategically planned operations that are part of a long campaign by
educated, affluent Muslims who wish to bring about the establishment of an
Islamic state based on the Shari‘a—the Islamic Holy Law, derived from the
Koran, that is the very word of God, and from the Sunna of the Prophet and
the Traditions (ahādīth, pl. of hadīth), which are the sayings and doings of
Muhammad and his companions.
Nor has Islamic terrorism emerged, ex nihilo, in the “past 40 or so”
years. From its foundation in the seventh century, violent movements have
arisen seeking to revive true Islam, which its members felt had been
neglected in Muslim societies, who were not living up to the ideals of the
earliest Muslims. Groups such as the seventh-century Azraqites sought to
revive forgotten beliefs and rituals and to cleanse the body of Islam of the
corrupt practices that had tarnished the pristine Muslim religion. Today,
Deobandi extremists, for example, can only be understood against
developments within Islam during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
in particular the philosophy of Shah Wali Allah, who died in 1762.
What of the religious violence in ninth- and early tenth-century Baghdad
associated with such ideologues as Sahl ibn Salāma, and Barbahārī, and
their rejection of innovations (bid‘a); followed by more religious violence
in Baghdad between 991 CE and 1092 CE? The violent Qādīzādeli
Movement in seventeenth-century Istanbul may well have influenced the
movement launched by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb in Arabia in the eighteenth
century, which in turn has influenced almost every modern terrorist
movement. Wahhābi extremism spread as far as India and we are still
feeling its effects, far beyond Arabia, to this day.
As Barbara Metcalf, professor emerita of history at the University of
California, Davis, has noted, when faced with the decline of their culture,
Muslims “drew on their own traditions for interpretations and patterns of
action.”3 Extremists like the Deobandi in India are drawing upon their own
tradition and their own history of Islamic activism that reaches back to the
foundation of Islam. Similarly, all the other modern Islamist ideologues
from Hasan al-Banna to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini examined in this
book, draw their inspiration from Islamic traditions, the canonical texts,
Islamic history, and seminal Islamic thinkers such as Ibn Taymiyya (also
studied in the present work) to justify their political actions and activism,
which often end in violence.
Madeline C. Zilfi, who specializes in the Middle Eastern and Islamic
history of the last centuries of the Ottoman Empire, writes of the Qādīzādeli
Movement (see chapter 11), “The issues that shaped religious discourse in
seventeenth-century Istanbul indeed echoed those that had arisen in earlier
centuries.”4 But she also points out:
It is my contention that the fate of the ilmiye [the Ottoman religious
institution] between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries, while
reflecting concerns similar to those of its secular counterparts, was
uniquely shaped by ideological conflict within the body of Ottoman
religious. In this regard, it is appropriate to focus on the “high” versus
“folk religion” features of such conflict. This, like ‘ulama’-state
tensions, is endemic to Islamic history.5
Again, one cannot escape one’s past; these concerns recur in surprisingly
similar forms.
In her important 1988 work, The Politics of Piety, Zilfi writes of the
fundamentalist preacher Kadizade: “His views, which he had made plain
countless times before, trumpeted the fundamentalist ethic, the drive to rid
Islam of beliefs and practices that had accumulated since the era of the
Prophet and the original Islamic community at Medina.”6 Zilfi continues:
The newly aroused tensions between innovation and fundamentalism
in large part determined the character of religious politics in the
 seventeenth century. Constraints and austerity on the one hand and
innovation and license on the other are a recurring point counterpoint
in Islam. The appeal of the fundamentalist ethic bears on the
relationship of the Islamic community to its own past, to the austerity
and righteousness of the epoch of the Prophet Muhammad and the
patriarchs.7
Thus the fundamentalists’ acts must be referred back to Islam’s past.
One can argue that the dialectic between innovation and fundamental,
“orthodox” Islam is centuries old. As Zilfi contends:
The reason Islamic fundamentalists receive such enthusiastic
endorsement in the Islamic community lies in that community’s
attitude to its own romanticized past, perceived as a period of
righteousness. Ever since the epoch of the Prophet and his noble
companions, there has been a gradual distancing, it was felt, from its
ideals. Since all human activity is seen as a sacred matter, any change
in behavior, manners or dress, is seen as an unacceptable innovation
that represents a falling away from the norms established by the
Prophet and his companions. As a tradition (hadith) reminds us, every
innovation is heresy, every heresy is error, and every error leads to
hell.8
As the reader will learn in the pages of this book, there is a seamless path
from the acts of the Khārijites in the seventh century, passing, en route, the
violent religious riots in ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-century Baghdad,
fifteenth- and seventeenth-century Istanbul, eighteenth-century Najd
(Arabia), and the nineteenth-century Wahhābis of India known as the
Hindustanee Fanatics, to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the modern jihādists.
Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton
University, writing in 1993 with his customary elegance, also refers to
Islam’s past to underline its relevance today:
No one, least of all the Islamic fundamentalists themselves, will
dispute that their creed and political program are not compatible with
liberal democracy. But Islamic fundamentalism is just one stream
among many. In the fourteen centuries that have passed since the
mission of the Prophet, there have been several such movements—
fanatical, intolerant, aggressive, and violent. Led by charismatic
 religious figures from outside the establishment, they have usually
begun by denouncing the perversion of the faith and the corruption of
society by the false and evil Muslim rulers and leaders of their time.
Sometimes these movements have been halted and suppressed by the
ruling establishment. At other times they have gained power and used
it to wage holy war, first at home, against those whom they saw as
backsliders and apostates, and then abroad against the other enemies
of the true faith. In time these regimes have been either ousted or, if
they have survived, transformed—usually in a fairly short period—
into something not noticeably better, and in some ways rather worse,
than the old establishments that they had overthrown. Something of
this kind is already visibly happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran.9
Thus, fundamentalist movements have been endemic in Islamic history, and
modern jihādists are constantly drawing upon their Islamic tradition to
legitimate, morally and culturally, their acts and programs.
One such movement was that of the Isma’ilis, who emerged from among
the extremist Shi‘a in the first half of the eighth century. The first of many
assassinations for which the Isma’ilis were later renowned occurred on
October 16, 1092. A powerful vizier in the Seljuq empire, Nizam al-Mulk,
was the target. Our source, Rashid al-Din (ca.1247–1318), a Persian
historian in Ilkhanate-ruled Iran (during the Mongolian period), writes that
when Hasan-i Sabbah asked who would rid this state of the evil of Nizam
al-Mulk, “a man called Bu Tahir Arrani laid the hand of acceptance on his
breast, and, following the path of error by which he hoped to attain the bliss
of the world-to-come…struck [Nizam al-Mulk] with a knife, and by that
blow he suffered martyrdom.”10
As Lewis writes in The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (1967), “It
was the first of a long series of such attacks which, in a calculated war of
terror brought sudden death to sovereigns, princes, generals, governors, and
even divines who had condemned Ismaili doctrines and authorized the
suppression of those who professed them” (emphasis added).11 For the
Isma’ilis, the assassins were heroic warriors fighting the enemies of the
imam (Muslim ruler), ready to give their lives killing oppressors, thereby
manifesting their loyalty, faith, and selflessness. The assassins “earned
immediate and eternal bliss.”12
 In sending out their assassins to kill the unrighteous, the Isma’ilis were
able to draw upon an old, and perhaps minor, Islamic tradition which
nonetheless found favor within dissident and extremist sects.
“The ancient ideal of tyrannicide,” Lewis explains, “the religious
obligation to rid the world of an unrighteous ruler,”
certainly contributed to the practice of assassination, as adopted and
applied by the Ismailis. But there was more to it than that. The killing
by the Assassin of his victim was not only an act of piety; it also had
a ritual, almost a sacramental quality. It is significant that in all their
murders, in both Persia and Syria, the Assassins always used a
dagger; never poison, never missiles, though there must have been
occasions when these would have been easier and safer. The Assassin
is almost always caught, and usually indeed makes no attempt to
escape; there is even a suggestion that to survive a mission was
shameful.”13
Lewis, it must be remembered, calls the Assassins “the first terrorists.”14
He quotes an Isma’ili poet: “Brothers, when the time of triumph comes,
with good fortune from both worlds as our companion, then one single
warrior on foot a king may be stricken with terror, though he owns more
than a hundred thousand horsemen.”15
And for a campaign of terror to be sustained, two things were required:
organization and ideology. “There had to be an organization capable both of
launching the attack and surviving the inevitable counter-blow; there had to
be a system of belief—which in that time and place could only be a religion
—to inspire and sustain the attackers to the point of death,” writes Lewis.16
The Isma’ili religion, “with its memories of passion and martyrdom, its
promise of divine and human fulfilment, was a cause that gave dignity and
courage to those that embraced it, and inspired a devotion unsurpassed in
human history.”17
Hasan-i Sabbah has inspired many contemporary Islamic
fundamentalists: he and his Assassins are regarded as “heroes of Islam,”
attracting more disciples than ever.18
***
The desire not to offend Muslims, the wish not to be considered
“Islamophobic,” and the long American tradition of not wanting to question
the religion of fellow citizens have made any criticism of Islam difficult.
This strategy of turning a blind eye to the obvious Islamic component in
Islamic terrorism has been taken to absurd and dangerous lengths.
The centrality of religion in the Islamic world is something that Western
liberals fail to understand or take seriously. Since most liberal are, in this
postmodern world, agnostic, atheists, or simply indifferent to religion, they
have trouble understanding that Muslims really do take the Koran literally
as the word of God, and really do believe that Muhammad, their Prophet,
received God’s message through angels or occasionally directly. As I write
in chapter 4, in the section entitled “Koran”:
The Koran is considered a revelation from God, ipsissima verba, the
very words of God. The Koran is understood, not in an allegorical,
analogical, metaphorical, or Pickwickian sense, but in a literal sense
to be the word of God, and to be obeyed literally. It is a practical
manual. Muslims use the Koran as guide to conduct, both private and
public. The Koran gives details of the moral and legal duties of
believers; it is the basis of their religious dogma, beliefs, ritual, and
one of the sources of their law.
To understand how the doctrines of Islam motivate and direct Islamic
terrorism, one must take the history of Islamic terrorism back to the Muslim
conquests during the first years of Islam. In their rationale, the conquests in
the Sind (India), Iraq, and Iran in the early eighth century bear a close
resemblance to the wars and agenda of modern jihādists; they all depend
upon the religious duty of carrying out a jihād in the name of and for the
cause of God, and to establish Islam. The other central doctrine of Islam
with profound implications for Islamic activism—the doctrine or principle
of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong—has seldom been discussed.
Jihād can be seen as a special case of this principle in action.

1 Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihād: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 22.
2 Anonymous, letter to author, July 2014.
3 Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1982), 3.
4 Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45, no. 4 (1986): 251–52.
5 Madeline C. Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800)
(Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), 14.
6 Ibid., 134.
7 Ibid.
8 Zilfi, “Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism,” 253.
9 Bernard Lewis, “Islam and Liberal Democracy,” Atlantic (February 1993),
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/02/islam-and-liberal-democracy/308509/.
10 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Hasan-i Sabbāh.”
11 Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd,
1967; New York: Basic Books, 2003), 47.
12 Ibid., 48.
13 Ibid.,127.
14 Ibid.,129-30.
15 Ibid.,130.
16 Ibid.,131.
17 Ibid.,131.
18 Amir Taheri, Holy Terror: The Inside Story of Islamic Terrorism (London: Sphere Books, 1987),
34–35.
1- Root Cause Fallacy
IN THE WAKE of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, many
analysts, journalists, and pundits decided, without much thought, that the
United States was targeted because of its foreign policy. Others opined, just
as dogmatically, that we had to dig out the root causes, which were
essentially socioeconomic, with poverty as the favorite explanation. Others
followed with their own preferred explanations, which ranged from the
Arab-Israeli conflict; lack of education of the jihādists, who, it is claimed,
had absolutely no knowledge of Islam; sexual deprivation and frustration, to
the Crusades and Britney Spears, that is Western decadence; and, rather
fatuously, global warming (strange how global warming seems to goad only
Muslims to acts of terrorism).
I argue below that neither poverty, nor the lack education of the
terrorists, nor the Israel-Arab conflict, nor the foreign policy of the United
States, nor Western imperialism, nor the Crusades provide an adequate
explanation for Islamic terrorism.
Islamic Terrorism: Not Caused by Poverty or Lack of Knowledge
of Islam
The most common explanation for Islamic terrorism is the lack of
economic opportunities for the members of the various terrorists groups, in
other words, poverty. The second most frequent claim is that all the
terrorists are totally ignorant of the tenets of Islam and have no knowledge
of, no education in, the contents of the Koran. The thought behind the latter
claim is that the terrorists are not justified in invoking Islamic scripture—if
they had any real knowledge of Islam they would not commit these acts of
terror in its name.
We begin with a study conducted between 1977 and 1979 under the
leadership of an Egyptian sociologist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, of two militant
Egyptian Islamic groups: Al-Takfir wa-l-Hijra (incorrectly translated as
“Repentance and Holy Flight,” or RHF) and Al-Fanniya al-‘Askariya
(“Technical Military Academy,” or MA). I start with this study because
Ibrahim is a serious Egyptian scholar keenly aware of the cultural nuances
of an Islamic country not available to outsiders, which gives his conclusions
more authenticity and weight, and because his study is the first of its kind,
appearing long before Western scholars came on the scene in the wake of
the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Furthermore, Ibrahim addresses both the question
of poverty and the level of education of various members of the terrorist
organizations in general, and the depth of their knowledge of Islam in
particular.
In 1977, “demanding the release of RHF members being detained by the
government,” RHF kidnapped a former cabinet minister “and then carried
out their threat to kill [him] when the release did not materialize.
Crackdowns and shootouts resulted in scores of dead and wounded around
the country.”1 Three years earlier MA had “attempted to stage a coup
d’état.” That plot “was foiled while in process but only after dozens had
been killed and wounded.”2 Although the two leaders of both groups had
been executed, many of their second-echelon leaders were still in prison. At
first distrustful, the jailed militants ultimately decided that Ibrahim’s team
of researchers “seemed honest and credible enough [to allow the team] to
spend approximately four hundred hours interviewing them over a two-year
period,” amounting to “more than ten hours per person for the thirty-three
militants” interviewed.3
MA, RHF, and Education
I shall begin with a word about the similarities between the leaders of the
militant Egyptian Islamic groups under discussion. MA began under the
leadership of Salih Siriya, who turns out to be “a modern, educated man
with a Ph.D. in science education”:
A Palestinian by birth and in his mid-thirties, he had been a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Jordan (known as the Islamic
Liberation Party, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami). After the defeat of 1967 he
intermittently joined various Palestinian organizations, tried to
cooperate with various Arab regimes that claimed to be revolutionary
(Libya and Iraq, for example), spent brief periods in jail, and finally
settled in Egypt in 1971 and joined one of the specialized agencies of
the Arab League in Cairo. It was from that vantage point that he
began to attract the attention of some religious students. Underground
cells, called usar (families) by the group, began to form in Cairo and
Alexandria.”4
Also in his thirties and educated in Cairo, with a B.S. in agricultural
science, RHF founder Shukri Mustafa “had been arrested in 1965, tried, and
jailed for a few years on charges of being a member of the Brotherhood.”5
Both Siriya and Mustafa were seen by rank and file members of their
groups as “extremely eloquent, knowledgeable about religion, well-versed
in the Quran and Hadith, and highly understanding of national, regional,
and international affairs. Both were perceived as virtuous, courageous,
fearless of death, and even eager for martyrdom (istishhad).”6 Mustafa in
particular was considered by RHF members to be “an authority on matters
of doctrinal theology, Islamic jurisprudence, worship, and Islamic social
transaction.”7
Ordinary Muslims
Now we come to the ordinary members themselves. As Ibrahim notes,
“the class affiliation of most members of these militant Islamist groups is
middle and lower-middle class,”8 whose
educational and occupational attainments…was decidedly higher than
that of their parents. All but five…were university graduates or
university students…enrolled in college at the time of their arrest. The
rest were secondary school educated. Occupationally, only…47
percent…were classifiable, the rest being students. Most of these
were professionals…employed by the government: five teachers,
three engineers, two doctors, and two agronomists. Three were self-
employed (a pharmacist, a doctor, and an accountant), and one
worked as a conductor for a bus company. Among those who were
students at the time of their arrest…six majored in engineering, four
medicine, three in agricultural science, two in pharamacy, two in
technical military science, and one in literature….[F]our of [these]
majors require very high grades in Egypt’s statewide examination of
thanawiya ‘amma:9 medicine, engineering, technical military science,
and pharmacy. These four majors accounted for fourteen out of the
eighteen students.…In other words, student members of the two
militant Islamic groups were decidedly high in both motivation and
achievement.10
Incidentally, 80 percent of the members had perfectly ordinary family
backgrounds.
Fifteen years later, Ibrahim’s findings were still considered valid, and
enthusiastically endorsed by Egyptian economist Galal A. Amin, who
called Ibrahim’s work a “pioneer study.”11 Amin wrote, “It is striking how
rare it is to find examples of religious fanatcism among either the higher or
the very lowest social strata of the Egyptian population,”12 and quoted
Albert Hourani, a much respected Arab historian and intellectual who
“reached similar conclusions in connection with the growth of the Muslim
Brothers’ movement in the late 1930s, pointing out that it was ‘spreading in
the urban population-among those in an intermediate position: craftsmen,
small tradesmen, teachers and professional men who stood outside the
charmed circle of the dominant elite.’”13
That same year the Palestinian journalist Khaled Amayreh observed in a
Jerusalem Post article that the claim that “Islamic terrorism in Israel, as
elsewhere, is the product of poverty, backwardness and ignorance” is
“simply nonsense. Islamic fundamentalism (a more accurate term is Islamic
revival) is not a product or by-product of poverty. Several studies have
shown that a substantial majority of Islamists and their supporters come
from the middle and upper socio-economic strata.”14
Amayreh elaborated:
In the Jordanian parliamentary elections of 1994, to cite just one
example, the Muslim Brothers won by landslide margins in such
middle-class Amman districts as Jabal Amman and Shmesani, as they
did in the poorer neighborhoods. Likewise, in the West Bank and the
rest of the occupied territories, the Islamist movement has attained
much more popularity and acceptance in towns like Hebron, Nablus,
and Ramallah than it has in rural areas and refugee camps, which
have a lower standard of living.
Moreover, successive student council elections in West Bank colleges
and universities have consistently shown that city dwellers are more
likely to vote for “Islamic blocs” than are villagers. The fact that city
dwellers, who are generally more educated and better off
economically, have consistently lent more support to Islamists refutes
the widely held assumption that Islamist popularity thrives on
economic misery.15
Poverty and the Plight of Women
Geraldine Brooks, a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal,
wrote about her experiences researching the plight of women in the Middle
East in the late 1980s.16 While in Egypt Brooks was assisted by Sahar, a
well-educated, well-connected (her father worked for an American car
company) Egyptian woman of twenty-five who wore thick make up, stiletto
heels, elaborate hairdos, and elegant dresses. “Then one morning,” Brooks
remembers, “I opened the door and faced a stranger. The elaborate curls
were gone. Wrapped away in a severe blue scarf. The make-up was
scrubbed off and her shapely dress had been replaced by a dowdy sack.
Sahar had adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist….I’d had
assumed that the turn to Islam was the desperate choice of poor people
searching for heavenly solace. But Sahar…belonged somewhere near the
stratosphere of Egypt’s meticulously tiered society.”17
Asked about her decision, “Sahar mouthed the slogan of Islamic Jihād
and the Muslim Brotherhood: ‘Islam is the Answer.’” Imported ideologies
of capitalism and socialism had failed, it was time to “follow the system set
down so long ago in the Koran. If God had taken the trouble to reveal a
complete code of laws, ethics and social organization, Sahar argued, why
not follow that code?”18
As Brooks explains, “Islamic movements were on the ascendant in
almost every university in the Middle East. And the faculties in which they
were most heavily represented were the bastions of the most gifted….The
students who were hearing the Islamic call included students with the most
options…the elites of the next decade: the people who would shape their
nations’ futures.”19
Variations of the Socioeconomic Argument
Brooks’s conclusion puts into question a slightly more refined variation
of the socioeconomic argument the idea that it is a lack of economic
opportunities and means of bettering one’s position in society that is
responsible for young people turning to Islamic terrorism. Martin Kramer,
director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
at Tel Aviv University, for example, surmises that the Islamic world
contains potential members of the elite who get excluded from political
power for one reason or another. “So while they are educated and wealthy,
they have a grievance,” Kramer observes in a letter to Daniel Pipes,
historian and the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its
Middle East Quarterly, “their ambition is blocked, they cannot translate
their socio-economic assets into politcal clout. Islamism is particularly
useful to these people, in part because of its careful manipulation, it is
possible to recruit a following among the poor, who make valuable foot-
soldiers.”20 Kramer goes on to cite the “Anatolian Tigers, businessmen who
have a critical role in backing Turkey’s militant Islamic party, as an
example of this counter-elite in its purest form.”21
Does Brooks’s conclusion that even students who have the world at their
feet, who have not been rejected and yet choose to follow the radical
Islamic path, serve as a counterargument to Kramer’s conjecture that it is
those who have been rejected who comprise the majority of Islamists?
Surely Kramer’s argument cannot account for all educated recruits to the
Islamists’ cause.
In 2008, Marc Sageman, a government counterterrorism expert who had
worked with Islamic fundamentalists during the Soviet-Afghan War, and
had studied their development, wrote in Leaderless Jihād: Terror Networks
in the Twenty-First Century: “In terms of socioeconomic background of the
family of origin, the vast majority of the terrorists [in his sample of more
than 500] came from the middle class.”22 The first wave of the old guards
came from a higher socio-economic status, almost equally divided
between upper class and middle class. An example of the upper class
is of course Osama bin Laden himself, the very wealthy scion of a
construction empire who grew up with royal princes of Saudi Arabia.
A second is his deputy. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who comes from one of
the most prominent families in Egypt, with a grandfather who held
prestigious diplomatic and academic and uncle who was the founding
Secretary General of the Arab League.23
The second wave was young people mainly from the middle class.
As Pipes pointed out in 2001,
wealth does not inoculate against miltant Islam. Kuwaitis enjoy a
Western-style income, and owe their very existence to the West, yet
Islamists generally win the largest bloc of seats in parliament.…The
West Bank is more prosperous than Gaza, yet militant Islamic groups
usually enjoy more popularity in the former than the latter. Militant
Islam flourishes in Western Europe and North America, where
Muslims have an economic level higher than the national averages.
 And… [i]n the United States, the difference between Islamists and
common Muslims is largely one between haves and have-nots.
Muslims have the numbers; Islamists have the dollars.24
Pipes also makes clear that “a flourishing economy does not inoculate
against radical Islam. Today’s militant Islamic movements took off in the
1970s, precisely as oil-exporting states enjoyed extraordinary growth
rates.”25
Land and Wealth: Mistaken Identifiers
In general, observes David Wurmser of the American Enterprise
Institute, Westerners attribute too many of the Arab world’s problems “to
specific material issues” such as land and wealth. This usually means a
tendency “to belittle belief and strict adherence to principle as genuine and
dismiss it as a cynical exploitation of the masses by politicians. As such,
Western observers see material issues and leaders, not the spiritual state of
the Arab world, as the heart of the problem.”26
Islamists themselves seldom invoke poverty as their principal grievance.
Here is an illuminating reply to this kind of explanation from the Ayatollah
Khomeini in an August 24, 1979, speech given in Qom: “Economics is a
matter for the donkey (khar). Our people made the revolution for Islam, not
for the Persian melon (kharboza).”27 Even more conclusive is Khomeini’s
lengthy riposte, uttered in late 1979, in which he spells out the raison d’être
of the Iranian Revolution:
This movement which from start to finish took about fifteen, sixteen
years…in which much blood was given and young people were
lost….[I]t is our belief that this was all for Islam.
I cannot, and no intelligent person can, imgine that it could be said
that we gave our blood so that melons would be less expensive, that
we gave up our young men so that houses would be less expensive….
…It is for Islam that a person can give up his life. Our saints also
gave up their lives for Islam, not for economics….[T]hat a person
would want an economic system and would sacrifice his life so that
the economic situation would be improved! This is not sensible!”28
In the preface to his translation of a work by celebrated Iranian exegete
and historian al-Tabarī’ (839–923 CE), Israeli scholar of Islamic studies
Yohanan Freidmann, echoing Khomeini, summarizes the goals of the early
Muslims as explained directly to their Persian adversaries: “Unlike the pre-
Islamic Arabs, the Muslims do not fight for worldy possessions or in order
to improve their standard of living. Their only objective is to spread the
new faith of Islam.”29
Bringing the argument to February 2015, here is how ISIS recruit Aqsa
Mahmood describes her background and motivations to journalist Beenish
Ahmed in an interview: “The media at first used to [portray] the ones
running away to join the Jihād as being unsuccessful, [and say that they]
didn’t have a future and [came] from broke [sic] down families etc. But that
is far from the truth.” Mahmood elaborates:
Most sisters I have come across have been in university studying
courses with many promising paths, with big, happy families and
friends and everything in the Dunyah [“world”] to persuade one to
stay behind and enjoy the luxury. If we had stayed behind, we could
have been blessed with it all…a relaxing and comfortable life and lots
of money….
…[W]e sacrificed all of that for the best in al-ākhira [the
“Hereafter”]. [We] were not stupid young brainwashed females[;]
we[’]ve come here to [S]yria for ALLAH alone.”30
It is true that some Islamists refer to economic circumstances, including
the poverty of their fellow Muslims, when justifying their acts of terrorism,
but they are thinking only of Islamic justice. Their priority is the
establishment of an Islamic state where God-made laws replace man-made
laws. If they were truly thinking first and foremost of ameliorating the
economic situation of all Muslims, the Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian
militant extremist Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, for example, would
not have bombed the tourist districts of Kuta in Bali in October 2002,
killing 202 people. The Islamic terrorists not only killed thirty-eight
Indonesians, but also slowed the tourist trade on which so many locals
depended; tourism accounts for five percent of Indonesia’s Gross Domestic
Product. In other words, Islamic terrorism was the cause, not the result, of
poverty.
A similar conclusion can be drawn regarding the Luxor Massacre of
fifty-eight tourists and four Egyptian nationals on November 17, 1997. This
massacre, probably instigated by the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian
Sunni Islamist group designated as a terrorist organization by the United
States, was also directly responsible for empty hotel rooms and unemployed
tourist guides. A great many Egyptians depend upon the tourist industry for
their livelihoods; 700,000 people work in travel agencies and hotels, and
many times that number rely indirectly on tourism (as many as 1.5 million
in 2014).31 “We are facing the biggest crisis in the history of tourism in
Egypt,” Tourism Minister Mamdou el-Beltagi reported to the government
daily Al-Ahram. “It would be naive to say that this grisly crime will not
have a major negative impact.”32 There is some evidence to suggest that the
Islamic terrorists responsible for the murders were deliberately targeting the
Egyptian economy, hoping to provoke the government to take repressive
measures, which in turn would have strengthened support for
antigovernment forces.33 Islamic terrorist attacks have had a similarly
devastating effect on the economies of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Aden, and
Yemen.34
Nor by Israeli-Arab Conflict
The existence of Israel is not the cause of Islamic terrorism.
In Terrorism: How the West Can Win (an underrated book he edited and
contributed to), Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes clear
that Islamic terrorism is “not a sporadic phenomenon born of social misery
and frustration.”35 We must avoid simplistic analyses of Islamic terrorism
as “a result of certain ‘root causes,’ such as poverty, political oppression,
denial of national aspirations, etc.,” Netanyahu warns, for “terrorism is not
an automatic result of anything. It is…an evil choice.” He continues: “No
resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe conducted or condoned
terrorist attacks against German civilians, attacking military and
government targets instead. But today’s terrorists need the flimsiest pretexts
to perpetrate their crimes, targeting the innocent with particular relish.”36
Thus,
the root cause of terrorism lies not in grievances, but in a disposition
toward unbridled violence. This can be traced to a world view which
asserts that certain ideological and religious goals justify, indeed
demand, the shedding of all moral inhibitions. In this context, the
observation that the root cause of terrorism is terrorists is more than a
tautology.37
 And so we come to Israel and the Arabs. Writing in 1986, Netanyahu
sets the record straight:
It is argued that the absence of progress toward a peaceful settlement
between Arabs and Israelis induces terrorism. The truth is exactly the
reverse. Arab terrorism is the not the result of breakdowns of peace
negotiations; it is, more than any other factor, the cause of such
breakdowns. (Arab leaders showing the slightest inclination toward
peaceful coexistence risk immediate assassination by the terrorists.)38
What about American support for Israel? According to Netanyahu,
The antagonism of Islamic and Arab radicalism to the West…is
sometimes explained as deriving from American support for Israel.
But the hostility to the West preceded the creation of Israel by
centuries, and much of the terrorists’ animus is directed against
targets and issues that have nothing to do with Israel…. Middle
Eastern radicals…hated Israel from its inception because it is an
organic part of the West. That is, because Israel represents for them
precisely the incarnation of those very traditions and values, formeost
of which is democracy, which they hate and fear.”39 (emphasis in
original)
As early as 1995, Netanyahu had warned: “It is impossible to understand
just how inimical—and how deadly—to the United States and to Europe
this rising tide of militant Islam is without taking a look at the roots of
Arab-Islamic hatred of the West. The enmity toward the West goes back
many centuries.…And this would be the case even if Israel had never been
born.”40 Or as Wagdi Ghuniem, a militant Islamic cleric from Egypt, put it:
“[S]uppose the Jews said ‘Palestine—you [Muslims] can take it.’ Would it
then be ok?…No! The problem is belief, it is not a problem of land.”41
In September 2001 Christopher Hitchens, journalist and political analyst,
wrote in The Nation: “Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from
Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan? It would take a
moral cretin to suggest anything of the sort; the cadres of the new jihād
make it very apparent that their quarrel is with Judaism and secularism on
principle, not with (or not just with) Zionism.”42
In 2012, Yoram Ettinger, Israel’s consul general in Houston, Texas from
1985 to 1988 and minister for congressional affairs—with the rank of
ambassador —at Israel’s embassy in Washington, D.C. from 1989 to 1992,
wrote:
The most-frequently mentioned (supposed) cause of anti-U.S. Islamic
terrorism is U.S. support of Israel and U.S. policy toward the
Palestinians. Nevertheless, 9/11 was planned while former U.S.
President Bill Clinton and then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered
the Palestinians the entire store. The Oct. 12, 2000 murder of 17
sailors on the USS Cole happened when Israel and the U.S. offered
unprecedented concessions to the Palestinians at Camp David. The
Aug. 27, 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
(257 murdered and more than 4,000 injured) took place while Clinton
was brutally pressuring then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The murders of 19 U.S. soldiers in Riyadh and the Khobar Towers, in
1995 and 1996, were carried out while then-interim Prime Minister
Shimon Peres implemented unprecedented concessions for the
Palestinians. The February 1993 World Trade Center bombing (six
murdered and more than 1,000 injured) transpired while Israel
conducted the pre-Oslo talks with the PLO. The Dec. 21, 1988 Pan
Am-103 terrorist attack (270 murdered) took place a few months
following the groundbreaking recognition of the PLO by the U.S. The
1983 murder of 300 Marines and 58 French soldiers in car bombings
at the U.S. Embassy and Marines base, and at the French military
headquarters in Beirut, all occurred while the U.S. military confronted
Israeli tanks in Lebanon and the U.S. administration blasted Israel for
its war against the PLO.43
The passing of time and further reflection has not altered this conclusion:
Islamic terrorism far predates the existence of Israel.
Rival Ideologies
Islamic terrorists see the United States as preaching and practising a rival
ideology: “Islamic rogue regimes view the U.S. as their key moral and
strategic adversary. U.S.-style freedom of religion, expression, markets and
association constitute a lethal threat to all Islamic regimes.”44 Osama bin
Laden confirmed this insight in an interview about the September 11, 2001,
World Trade Center atrocity: “The immense materialistic towers, which
preach Freedom, and Human Rights, and Equality, were destroyed.”45 He
did not call the towers a symbol of capitalism, but of “freedom, human
rights and equality”—and it’s these three fundamental Western principles
that are the targets of the Islamic terrorists.
Barry Rubin, the late director of the Global Research in International
Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center, in Herzliya, Israel, also makes
some valid observations regarding U.S. support for Israel and Islamic anti-
Americanism in his masterly 2001 essay, “The Truth about U.S. Middle
East Policy”:
It is strange that the height of anti-Americanism in the Middle East
came at the height of U.S. proposals to support an independent
Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem….The attempt to
reduce all of U.S. Middle East policy to the phrase “support for
Israel”—and then misrepresent what that stance acutally entailed—
was really an attempt to exploit xenophobia as a tool justifying radical
groups and dictatorial regimes. The real complaint was that the
United States helped Israel survive, then sought a diplomatic solution
that would undermine both the case for Islamist revolution and the
justification for the regimes’ dictatorial rule.46
Neither Ettinger nor Rubin, however, mention two other fundamental
elements of Islamic terrorist ideology that, in themselves, are enough to
explain this hostility to Israel and all those who come to her succour. First,
virulent antisemitism is central to all Islamic doctrine. As Andrew Bostom
points out in his definitive analysis and anthology, The Legacy of Islamic
Antisemitism (2008), “The uncomfortable examination of Islamic doctrines
and history is required to understand the enduring phenomenon of Muslim
Jew hatred, which dates back to the origins of Islam.”47
Antisemitism
Islamic antisemitism is not a modern creed derived from Nazism but is
simply confirmed by it. Modern Islamic terrorists justify this hatred by
copious references to the Koran, the biography of Muhammad, the sunna
and hadīth —in other words all the scriptures and revered texts of Islam.
Jews cannot be trusted, they are the permanent enemies of Muslims, and
must be subjugated, made to pay a tax, or killed, and fought until the Day of
Judgment. In the hadīth, according to Sahīh al-Bukhārī, “The Day of
Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the
Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees
will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill
him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees
of the Jews.”48 (We shall return to this theme when examining the doctrines
of the Islamic terrorists.)
The second Islamic principle concerning Jews and Israel is well-
described by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, director of the International
Christian Zionist Center in Jerusalem: “Once the forces of Islam conquer a
land or territory, it is to remain under Islamic dominion forever, and it is a
mortal affront to the supremacy of Islam when such territories would ever
be lost to the dominion of Islam and revert to previous—infidel—
ownership as was the case in Palestine. It was a Muslim controlled territory
(under the Muslim Turks and later the Muslim Arabs) and reverted by the
decree of the U.N. resolution back to its previous owners: the Jews.”49
Article 11 of the August 18, 1988, Covenant of the Islamic Resistance
Movement (the Hamas Covenant) makes clear the doctrinal issue by using
waqf, a term, according to The Dictionary of Islam, that “in the language of
the law signifies the appropriation or dedication of property to charitable
uses and the service of God. An endowment. The object of such an
endowment or appropriation must be of perpetual nature, and such property
or land cannot be sold or transferred.”50 Here is an essential excerpt from
Article 11 of the Hamas Covenant:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine
is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until
Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or
any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country
nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings
and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they
Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an
Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgment
Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent
Muslim generations till Judgment Day?
This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia
(law) and the same goes for any land the Muslims have conquered by
force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Muslims
 consecrated these lands to Muslim generations till the Day of
Judgment.51
Many Islamists claim that large parts of Europe that were once conquered
by Muslims still belong to them. Hasan al-Banna, founder of Egypt’s
Muslim Brotherhood, argued that “Andalusia [the Muslim name for Spain],
Sicily, the Balkans, south Italy, and the Roman sea islands were all Islamic
lands that have to be restored to the homeland of Islam.…[I]t is our right to
restore the Islamic Empire its glory.”52 Of course, in a culture imbued with
the ethics of shame and honor, the very existence of Israel and the loss of
the land of Palestine is a doubly shameful reminder of Islamic humiliation.
More recently Bernard Lewis is reported to have said that “the only real
solution to defeating radical Islam is to bring freedom to the Middle East.
Either ‘we free them or they destroy us,’” but as Daniel Pipes pointed out,
“There are plenty of born-free Muslims in the West who are Islamists. Take,
for example, the four 7/7 bombers in London. Freedom did nothing for
them.”53
Nor by U.S. Foreign Policy
United States foreign policy is another popular explanation for the
virulent anti-Americanism of the Islamic terrorists that is offerred as a
general cause of all terrorist acts. However, as Barry Rubin very
convincingly argues in his above-cited essay,54 U.S. foreign policy
regarding the Islamic world has been conciliatory and accommodating
rather than confrontational and antagonistic. Rubin writes:
During the 1940s and early 1950s, U.S. leaders wanted to play an
anti-imperialist role in the Middle East. They tended to oppose
continued British and French rule in the region and to voice support
for reform movements. When Gamal Abdel Nasser took power in
Egypt in 1952, American policymakers welcomed his coup....In 1956,
in an unusual break in its close relationship to England and France,
the United States opposed their plot to overthrow Nasser during the
Suez crisis because it thought this action would antagonize the Arab
world and increase Soviet influence.55
Rubin goes on to argue that much of the instability of the region was caused
by the Arab states themselves:
America was dragged into crises when Muslim Iraq attacked Muslim
 Iran, when Arab Muslim Iraq seized Arab Muslim Kuwait, and when
Arab Muslim but secularist Egypt threatened Arab Muslim Jordan
and Saudi Arabia. Usama bin Ladin’s anger was most provoked by
the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia starting in 1990. Yet this
action not only protected Saudi Arabia and freed Kuwait from an
Iraqi threat but was sanctioned by the Arab League. The grievance
most closely associated with bin Ladin’s turn to an anti-American
strategy and the September 11 attacks was clearly based on a U.S.
action that was pro-Arab and pro-Muslim.56
With the help of Rubin’s “The Truth about U.S. Middle East Policy,” let
us consider the many ways the United States has assisted both Muslims and
Arabs.
Palestine. When chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) Yasir Arafat was besieged in Beirut by the Israeli army in 1982, the
United States arranged for him safe passage out of Lebanon and adopted a
conciliatory approach to the PLO, turning a blind eye to terrorism by some
PLO member groups. This policy became unacceptable when the PLO
refused to denounce and renounce violence in 1990. Between 1993 and
2000, the U.S. was in effect Palestine’s patron, even forgiving Arafat’s past
acts of terrorism that killed American citizens, including U.S. diplomats.
Arafat was subsequently invited to the White House on numerous
occasions. The U.S. raised money for the Palestinian Authority (the interim
self-government body established in 1994 following the Gaza-Jericho
Agreement to govern the Gaza Strip and Areas A and B of the West Bank),
which it refrained from criticizing in public.
Several U.S. presidents made symbolic gestures of solidarity with the
Palestinian people and its leaders, as, for example, when President Bill
Clinton spoke in Gaza to the Palestinian leaders in 1998. The U.S. oversaw
negotiations that led to a peace agreement producing an independent
Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem in 2000. And when
Arafat rejected U.S. peace efforts, refusing to implement agreed upon
cease-fires, American leaders still did not criticize him or give up hope.
Despite all efforts, patience, and diplomacy on the part of the U.S., Arabs
and Muslims were jubilant when bin Ladin attacked the U.S. on September
11, claiming that Palestinians themselves had suffered because of American
policies.
Iran. The Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations all made serious
détente efforts with Iran. While it is true that America maintained some
sanctions against Iran in order to discourage Iran’s sponsoring of terrorism,
development of weapons of mass destruction, and ongoing opposition to
Arab-Israel peace efforts, American leaders constantly sought ways to end
sanctions through diplomatic compromise, never interfering in Iran’s
internal affairs.
Afghanistan and Others. Covert aid from the United States saved
Afghanistan from the Soviets in the 1980s, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from
Iraq (the First Gulf War: August 2, 1990–February 28, 1991), the Muslim
peoples of Bosnia from Bosnian Serbs (1992–1995), and Kosovo from the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of the Republics of Montenegro
and Serbia (1998–1999). While the U.S. risked American lives to help
Muslims for humanitarian reasons, bin Ladin and his apologists blamed the
United States for Muslim suffering in Bosnia and Kosovo, as elsewhere.
What mattered to bin Ladin was that Americans—infidels, in other words—
deployed troops on Saudi-Muslim soil and attacked a Muslim nation, Iraq.
Successive U.S. presidential administrations took pains to cushion
Muslim sensibilities, exonerating Islam from any responsibility for terrorist
attacks by using euphemisms and stock phrases such as “A great world
religion has been hijacked by a minority of criminals” and “Islam is a
religion of peace” when addressing these attacks in public statements.
Pakistan and Turkey. Ignoring Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism
against India, the U.S. government backed the Pakistani government. It also
backed Turkey against Greece over the Cyprus conflict, a crisis resulting
from the invasion of the island by Turkey and the eventual illegal
declaration of independence by the Turkish Cypriot assembly in 1983.
Somalia. Similarly, the U.S. intervened in Somalia to protect the Muslim
people for humanitarian reasons, sending U.S. forces to protect Muslims
suffering from anarchy, civil war, and brutal warlords, but because there
were no American interests in play, humanitarian actions were portrayed by
bin Ladin, journalists, Muslim intellectuals in the Middle East, and many
others as American imperialism and aggression against Muslims.
Iraq. When President Saddam Hussein of Iraq began to seek Arab
leadership in 1989 and repeatedly denounced the United States, U.S. policy
makers responded cautiously, in order to avoid offending Arabs, and
continued to provide Iraq with credits and other trade benefits, despite hard
evidence that the money Iraq obtained was being used illegally to buy arms.
Nonetheless the U.S. supported continued sanctions against Iraq because
Hussein refused to cooperate with United Nations inspectors. Since
Baghdad’s government reneged on its commitments to allow UN inspectors
free access to military sites these sanctions were kept in place. Iraq’s
government deliberately allowed its own people to suffer, and using that
suffering as propaganda maintained its aggressive stance toward its Arab
and Muslim neighbors. Bin Ladin and his apologists portrayed American
policy as a deliberate attempt to injure and kill Iraqi people.
The Persian Gulf. The U.S. kept its military forces out of the Persian
Gulf to avoid offending the sensibilities of the Arab and Muslim peoples
there. It entered only when requested,
first to reflag Arab oil tankers and later to intervene against Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait. Its forces never went where they were not invited
and left whenever they were asked to do so by the local states.
American forces also stayed away from Mecca and Medina to avoid
offense to Islam. Once Kuwait was liberated, the United States…
advocated the concept of the Damascus agreement, in which Egypt
and Syria would have played a primary role in protecting the Gulf. It
was the Gulf Arab states that rejected implementation of this idea.
Nevertheless, bin Ladin, other Arabs, and Iran’s government
portrayed the U.S. presence as an imperialist plot to dominate the area
and subjugate its people.
The United States rescued Egypt at the end of the 1973 war by
pressing Israel to stop advancing and by insisting on a cease-fire. The
United States became Egypt’s patron in 1980s, after the Camp David
peace agreement, providing large-scale arms supplies and other
military and financial assistance while asking little in return….[N]one
of this help gave the United States any leverage over Egyptian
policies, or even goodwill in the state-controlled Egyptian media and
in the statements of that country’s leaders. Bin Ladin and his allies,
however, portrayed Egypt as a puppet of the United States.57
Setting the Record Straight
 It is important to record at least some of the ways that the United States
has not reacted to events in the Middle East, despite deliberate provocation
on the part of Middle Eastern regimes:58
• The United States has not attacked Iran despite the overwhelming
evidence that Iran has sponsored terrorist attacks on Americans—attacks
that have cost hundreds of American lives in Lebanon and Iraq. Following
the Iranian revolution of 1979, the U.S. demanded economic sanctions to
change specific policies. They were expanded in 1995 to include firms
dealing with the Iranian government. In 1979 Iran was in violation of all
international laws when it took American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran—strictly speaking an act of war—but President Carter sought
diplomatic means to resolve the situation.
• Similarly, when Syria was shown to have participated in anti-American
terrorism, the United States did not coerce or seek to subvert it. The U.S.
tried to win over Syria during the First Gulf War, which was a consequence
of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and in the subsequent peace
process. Even when Syria walked out, the U.S. did not apply pressure, but
sought diplomatic ways to gain Syria’s cooperation.
• Nor did the United States seek to destroy Arafat and the PLO even
when they were known to have been responsible for anti-American
terrorism and to have aligned with the USSR. The U.S. refrained from
criticizing the PLO when they broke agreements and cease-fires promised
in 2000 and 2001.
• The U.S. did not threaten or punish when Egypt purchased missiles
from North Korea in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and refused to
cooperate with the War on Terror in 2001.
• Nor did the United States retaliate when Jordan supported Iraq during
the First Gulf War. Jordan continues to receive American aid—amounting
to $1,211,821,880 in 2013 and in $772,939,966 in 2014.59
• “When the U.S. companies’ holdings were nationalized and oil prices
were raised steeply, the United States did not try to overthrow regimes or
force or threaten them to lower prices.”60
• The U.S. “did not take advantage of the USSR’s disappearance as a
superpower to impose anything on anybody and certainly not to establish
American domination in the region. Despite having won the Cold War, the
United States did not seek to take revenge on regimes that had supported
the losing side.”61
U.S. Aid
It is important as well to point out that the U.S has spent billions of
dollars in aid to the Middle East.
In 2013, Face the Facts USA, a project of George Washington
University, reported that “[o]ver the last six decades, the U.S. has invested
$299 billion in military and economic aid for Middle East and Central
Asian countries currently in turmoil. Egypt tops a list of 10 nations,
receiving $114 billion since the end of World War II. Iraq comes in second,
getting nearly $60 billion from the U.S. (over and above war costs).”62
As Rubin points out, the United States bent over backwards to maintain
good relations with Muslims and Arabs even after several thousand
Americans were murdered in the terrorist attacks of 9/11: “U.S. leaders
spent much of their time urging that there be no retaliation against Muslims
or Arabs in the United States. American policy makers repeated at every
opportunity that they did not see Islam as the enemy and tried everything
possible to gain Arab and Muslim support or sympathy for the U.S.
effort.”63
Both the Bush and Obama administrations reiterated on every relevant
occasion that “Islam is a religion of peace, and terrorism has nothing to do
with the tenets of Islam.” Consider these quotes from President George W.
Bush on Islam and terrorism. “I believe that Islam is a great religion that
preaches peace,” Bush stated in 2007 on an Arabic speaking television
station,64 recalling language he used during remarks made to reassure
Muslims and Americans not long after 9/11 at the Islamic Center of
Washington, D.C.:
These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental
tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow
Americans to understand that. The English translation is not as
eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran,
itself: In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who
do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to
ridicule.
The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam
 is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace.
They represent evil and war.65
Although the United States has handled relations with the Middle East
with political restraint and humanitarian generosity, the Middle East has
neither recognized America’s protection, nor acknowledged its
responsibility for acts of terrorism against Americans—and for squandering
billions in American aid. As Rubin sums it up: “[I]f the root cause of this…
anti-Americanism” is “internal, it is dependent on those needs and forces
rather than anything the United States actually does.... Those who have
declared war on America are playing the dangerous game of exaggerating
outside menaces to justify their incompetence at home and aggressiveness
abroad. They deliberately misunderstand American policy and society,
successfully soiling them also in the eyes of others.”66
All the states of the Middle East, including Turkey and Iran, see
themselves in modern history as passive victims of Western imperialist
manipulation. This attitude and the attendant conspiracy theories with
which the Middle East is awash are a means to avoid taking responsibility
for its present lamentable state. Its anti-Western, anti-American rhetoric is a
convenient way to cover up its own failures.
The True Victims
Historically, the image of the West slowly picking the Ottoman Empire
to pieces during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and driving into
World War I to hasten its demise in order to seize its lands is nonsense. As
Efraim Karsh, professor and head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme,
King’s College, University of London, wrote,
[T]he Ottoman Empire was not a hapless victim of European
imperialism but an active participant in the great-power game; the
destruction of this empire was predominantly self-inflicted; there was
no Arab yearning for regional unity; the European powers did not
break the Middle East’s political unity but rather over-unified the
region; Britain neither misled its Arab allies nor made simultaneous
contradictory promises regarding post-war settlement in the Middle
East; and the creation of the post-Ottoman regional order was no less
of the making of the local actors than of the great powers.67
What, for example, has U.S. foreign policy to got to do with the armed
conflict between Islamist groups (such as the Islamic Armed Movement and
the more hard-line Armed Islamic Group) and security forces between 1991
and 2002 that left over 150,000 Algerians victims and more than 6,000
missing?68 As I wrote ten years ago, many of the victims of Islamic
fundamentalism are Muslim—Muslim men, women, and children, Muslim
writers, intellectuals, and journalists.69 The Algerian armed groups have
everything essential in common with all other Islamic terrorist groups, a
fact obscured by the reality that in this case the victims have been largely,
though not entirely, fellow Muslims.
Nor by Western Imperialism
It is still claimed by many analysts and experts in the West, and even by
Muslim intellectuals and Muslim states, that one of the reasons the United
States was attacked is its imperialist past. But of course, the United States
has never been an imperialist power in the Middle East. Indeed it played an
anti-imperialist role, as for example, when President Eisenhower intervened
during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Eisenhower dissuaded the European powers
from launching a military operation against Egypt, when the latter seized
and nationalized the Suez Canal in which Great Britain had heavy economic
investments.
Fifteen of the nineteen Islamic terrorists involved in the September 11,
2001, attacks on America were Saudi nationals. But Saudi Arabia has never
been colonized by any Western power. The coastal strip known as the Hijaz,
which contains the holy sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina, was, in fact, a
part of the Ottoman Empire. These holy sites were attacked and captured by
the fundamentalist and violent Islamic group, the Wahhābis in 1803 and
1804, who destroyed various shrines such as the one built over the tomb of
Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter.
The Wahhābis also massacred thousands of Shias. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,
the founder of Wahhābism, was not motivated by anticolonial animus—he
was not even aware of any Western presence in the Islamic world. He was
mainly concerned with saving Muslim souls and purifying Islam of its
impious accretions.
The British left Egypt in 1956, but Islamic acts of terrorism began in
1970s and were directed at various Egyptian governments and leaders. The
French departed Algeria in 1962, but since that date Islamic terrorists have
targeted fellow Algerians, leaving, as noted above, more than 150,000
Algerians dead. More than fifty years later, the terrorism continues, with
attacks perpetrated by such groups as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-
Murabitun, and Jund al-Khalifa on Algerian government interests in 2013,
2014, and 2015.
Putative neocolonialism through multinationals controlling the
production of oil is also inadequate as an explanation. The Arab oil-
producing countries were totally incapable of extracting the oil on their
own, and had to rely on the scientific and technological know-how and
experience of American, British, or Dutch companies. But since the
nationalization of many of these hitherto foreign companies, Arab countries
have regulated the prices themselves and have become enormously rich.70
As Tawfik Hamid, a former Egyptian Islamist, wrote, “No, colonialism
did not spark jihād. On the contrary, when Islamic nations were colonized
[by the West], Sharia- and Islamist-based crimes tended to drop
significantly. In fact, Islamic nations in many respects were more civilized
under occupation than they are now; we virtually never heard of suicide
bombings or attacks against, or kidnapping of, tourists during that
period.”71
On the other hand, Islamic imperialism destroyed thousands of churches,
synagogues, and temples in lands they captured in a most brutal fashion;
whole civilizations such as the Pre-Islamic cultures of Iran (Zoroastrians)72
and the Assyrians were exterminated.
Nor by the Crusades
Ian Richard Netton, Sharjah Professor of Islamic Studies at the
University of Exeter, summarizes the Crusades rather narrowly as “[a]
series of conflicts which took place in mediaeval times, often in Middle
Eastern soil, between Europe and the Muslim East.”73 The European
Christians were essentially trying to defend their persecuted fellow Oriental
Christians and the Christian holy places such as Jerusalem from Muslims,
who had been waging ceaseless jihād for several hundred years. The first
crusade resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. But the Crusades were
also wars against all European heretics, even unorthodox Christians such as
the Cathars.
On the Crusades as an explanation for Islamic terrorism I have already
described in Sir Walter Scott’s Crusades and Other Fantasies (2013) how a
new generation of Western scholars of the Middle Ages has been trying to
put to right misconceptions that have arisen about the Crusades.74 As the
late Jonathan Riley-Smith, a historian of the Crusades and Dixie Professor
of Ecclesiastical History and Fellow of Emmanuel College at Cambridge,
has argued, “[M]odern Western public opinion, Arab nationalism, and Pan-
Islamism all share perceptions of crusading that have more to do with
nineteenth-century European imperialism than with actuality.”75
Muslims in particular have developed “mythistories” concerning the
putative injuries received at the hands of the Crusaders. The first point that
needs emphasizing is that the Crusades “were proclaimed not only against
Muslims, but also against pagan Wends, Balts and Lithuanians, shamanist
Mongols, Orthodox Russians and Greeks, Cathar and Hussite heretics, and
those Catholics whom the Church deemed to be its enemies.”76
Second, the Crusades were not “thoughtless explosions of barbarism.”77
Their underlying rationale was relatively sophisticated and elaborated
theologically by Christian nations threatened by Muslim invaders who had
managed to reach into the heart of Europe, central France in the eighth
century and Vienna in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
Crusades were a response to the desecration of the Christian shrines in the
Holy Land, the destruction of churches, and the general persecution of
Christians in the Near East.
A crusade, to be considered legitimate, had to fulfill strict criteria. “First,
it must not be entered into lightly or for aggrandizement, but only for a
legally sound reason, which has to be a reactive one.” It was, in other
words, waged to repel violence or injury and to impose justice on
wrongdoers. Never a war of conversion, a crusade was a rightful attempt to
recover Christian territory injuriously seized in the past. “Second, it must be
formally declared by an authority recognized as having the power to make
such a declaration. Third, it must be waged justly.”78
Crusaders were not colonialists, and the Crusades were not undertaken
for economic reasons, as many Western liberals and liberal economists have
assumed; most crusaders would have laughed at the prospect of material
gain. In fact, crusading became a financial burden as the expenses
associated with warfare increased. Crusaders were far more concerned with
saving Christendom from Islam, as well as their own souls. The role of
penance (an act of mortification or devotion to express repentance for sin,
performed voluntarily or imposed by a church official) has often been
overlooked when examining crusading thought and practice; many
crusaders believed that by enlisting in a crusade they were able to repay the
debt their sinfulness had incurred.
Nineteenth- and even early twentieth-century Europeans unashamedly
used crusader rhetoric and a tendentious reading of crusader history to
justify imperial dreams of conquest. For example, after World War I the
“French Mandate in Syria generated a wave of French historical literature,
one theme of which was that the achievements of the crusaders provided the
first chapter in a history that had culminated in modern imperialism.”79 As
we shall see, the newly emerging Arab nationalists took nineteenth-century
rhetoric seriously.
A second strand in erroneous modern interpretations of crusader history
was furnished by European romanticism, manifested, for example, in the
novels of Sir Walter Scott. As Riley-Smith summarized:
The novels [of Scott] painted a picture of crusaders who were brave
and glamorous, but also vainglorious, avaricious, childish and
boorish. Few of them were genuinely moved by religion or the
crusade ideal; most had taken the cross out of pride, greed, or
ambition. The worst of them were the brothers of the military orders,
who may have been courageous and disciplined but were also
arrogant, privileged, corrupt, voluptuous and unprincipled. An
additional theme, the cultural superiority of the Muslims, which was
only hinted at in the other novels, pervaded the The Talisman
[1825].80
Many believe that modern Muslims have inherited from their medieval
ancestors memories of crusader violence and destruction. But as Riley-
Smith writes, nothing could be further from the truth.81 In the Islamic
world, by the fourteenth century the Crusades had almost passed out of
mind. Muslims “looked back on the Crusades with indifference and
complacency. In their eyes they had been the outright winners. They had
driven the crusaders from the lands they had settled in the Levant and had
been triumphant in the Balkans, occupying far more territory in Europe than
the Western settlers had ever held in Syria and Palestine.”82
The Muslim world began to take a renewed interest in the Crusades in
the 1890s, but only through the prism of Western imperialist rhetoric and
European romantic fantasies concocted by Sir Walter Scott, who
encouraged the myth of the culturally inferior crusaders faced with
civilized, liberal, modern-looking Muslims. And from Scott the Muslims
derived the equally false idea of a continuing Western assault. Many Arab
nationalists believed “their struggle for independence to be a predominantly
Arab riposte to a crusade that was being waged against them. Since the
1970s, however, they have been challenged by a renewed and militant Pan-
Islamism, the adherents of which have globalized the Nationalist
interpretation of crusade history.”83
As a consequence, modern Islamists such as Osama bin Laden often
invoke the Crusades: “For the first time the Crusaders have managed to
achieve their historic ambitions and dreams against our Islamic umma,
gaining control over the Islamic holy places and the Holy Sanctuaries, and
hegemony over the wealth and riches of our umma,”84 and, “Ever since
God made the Arabian Peninsula flat, created desert in it and surrounded it
with seas, it has never suffered such a calamity as these Crusader hordes,
that have spread in it like locusts, consuming its wealth and destroying its
fertility.”85 The battle, according to bin Laden, is between Muslims—
people of Islam—and “the Global Crusaders.”86
The idea that Christians—hence all Westerners—continue to wage a
Crusade against Islam and Islamic civilization has taken hold of the
imagination of all Muslims, not just the Islamic terrorists. This has less to
do with historical reality than with Islamist reinterpretation of Crusader
history. It rather ingeniously helps Muslims, moderate and extremist alike,
to place the exploitation they strongly feel they have suffered historically in
a real context, and at the same time to satisfy both their feelings of
humiliation (Muslims being defeated and ruled by infidels is the ultimate
degradation) and superiority (the Muslims did, after all, drive the Crusaders
out of Islamic lands).

1 Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups: Methodological Notes and
Preliminary Findings,” in Egypt, Islam and Democracy: Critical Essays (1996; Cairo: The American
University in Cairo Press, 2002), 2. First published under the same title in International Journal of
Middle East Studies 12, no. 4 (December 1980): 423–53.
2 Ibid., 3.
3 Ibid., 6.
4 Ibid., 14.
5 Ibid., 14-15.
6 Ibid., 15.
7 Ibid., 16.
8 Ibid., 18.
9 Thanawiya ‘amma means “General Secondary” in Modern Standard Arabic. It refers to a series of
standardized tests in Egypt that lead to the General Secondary Education Certificate for public
secondary schools and serves as the entrance examination for Egyptian public universities. In the
context of Egypt’s education system, it refers to the general (as opposed to technical or vocational)
secondary education track, the completion exams at the end of the track, and the diploma a student
earns by passing the exams.
10 Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups,” 18–19.
11 Galal A. Amin, Egypt’s Economic Predicament: A Study in the Interaction of External Pressure,
Political Folly and Social Tension in Egypt, 1960–1990 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 137.
12 Ibid., 136.
13 Ibid.,137, quoting Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber,
1991), 349.
14 Khaled Amayreh, “Reality Behind the Image,” Jerusalem Post, February 24, 1995.
15 Ibid.
16 Geraldine Brooks, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (1994; New York:
Anchor Books, 1996).
17 Ibid., 7-8.
18 Ibid., 8.
19 Ibid., 164.
20 Martin Kramer, letter to Daniel Pipes, August 2, 2001, cited in Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam
Reaches America (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002), 57.
21 Ibid.
22 Sageman, Leaderless Jihād, 48.
23 Ibid., 49.
24 Pipes, Miltant Islam, 58, quoting Khalid Duran, “How CAIR Put My Life in Peril,” Middle East
Quarterly 9, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 43.
25 Ibid., 58.
26 David Wurmser, “The Rise and Fall of the Arab World,” Strategic Review 21, no. 3 (Summer
1993): 33–46; quoted in Daniel Pipes, “God and Mammon: Does Poverty Cause Militant Islam?”
National Interest, no. 66 (Winter 2001/2002): 14–21.
27 Quoted in Saïd Amir Arjomand, After Khomeini: Iran under His Successors (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 56.
28 Quoted in Suzanne Maloney, Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015), 84. Mavaz’-e Imam Khomeini, ed. Mohammad Reza Akbari
(Isfahan, Iran: Payam-i ‘Itrat, 1999), 1:243–44.
29 The Battle of a-Qadisiyya and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, trans. Yohanan Friedmann,
vol. 12 of The History of al- Tabarī (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), xvi.
30 Beenish Ahmed, “How a Teenage Girl Goes from Listening to Coldplay and Reading Harry Potter
to Joining ISIS,” Think Progress, February 24, 2015,
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/24/3626720/women-isis/.
31 Kevin Rushby, “Can Middle East Tourism Ever Recover?” Travel, Guardian, November 24, 2015,
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/nov/24/can-middle-east-tourism-ever-recover-terrorist-
attacks-egypt-tunisia
32 Douglas Jehl, “Massacre Hobbles Tourism in Egypt,” International Business, New York Times,
December 25, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/25/business/international-business-massacre-
hobbles-tourism-in-egypt.html
33 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Vintage
2007), 256–57.
34 Rushby, “Can Middle East Tourism Recover?”
35 Benjamin Netanyahu, “Defining Terrorism,” in Terrorism: How the West Can Win, ed. Benjamin
Netanyahu (New York: Farrar, Starus, Giroux, 1986), 7.
36 Benjamin Netanyahu, “Terrorism: How the West Can Win,” in Netanyahu, Terrorism, 203.
37 Ibid., 204.
38 Ibid.
39 Benjamin Netanyahu, “Terrorism and the Islamic World,” in Netanyahu, Terrorism, 62–63.
40 Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and
International Terrorism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 82; quoted in Douglas Murray,
Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (New York: Encounter Books, 2006), 118–19.
41 Wagdi Ghuniem, speech delivered at “Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation,” a program sponsored
by the Islamic Association for Palestine and held in the Walt Whitman Auditorium, Brooklyn
College, Brooklyn, NY, May 24, 1998; quoted in Steven Emerson, “Islamic Militants on the Lecture
Circuit in the United States,” Journal of Counterterrorism (Summer 1998), available at
http://www.steveemerson.com/4256/islamic-militants-on-the-lecture-circuit-in.
42 Christopher Hitchens, “Against Rationalization,” Nation, September 20, 2001,
https://www.thenation.com/article/against-rationalization/.
43 Yoram Ettinger, “The Root Causes of Anti-US Islamic Terrorism,” Israel Hayom, January 11,
2012, http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1180.
44 Ibid.
45 Osama Bin Laden, interviewed by Tayser Allouni, Al Jazeera, October 21, 2001, in Messages to
the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. James Howarth (London:
Verso, 2005), 112.
46 Barry Rubin, “The Truth about U.S. Middle East Policy,” in Anti-American Terrorism and the
Middle East: A Documentary Reader—Understanding the Violence, ed. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp
Rubin (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 94. Originally published under the
same title in Middle East Review of International Affairs 5, no. 4 (December 2001),
http://www.rubincenter.org/meria/2001/12/brubin.pdf. This important article deserves to be better
known, and should be reprinted as a pamphlet, and translated into as many languages as possible,
particularly Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
47 Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History
(Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 2008), 33.
48 Bukhārī, Sahīh, The Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, trans. Muhammad Muhsin
Khan, Hadīth 2925 (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darussalam, 1997), 4:113.
49 Jan Willem van der Hoeven, “The Main Reason for the Present Middle East Conflict: Islam and
Not “The Territories,” EretzYisroel.Org, 2000–2001,
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/mainreason.html.
50 Thomas Patrick Hughes, Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopaedia of the Doctrines, Rites,
Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms of the Muhammadan
Religion (London: W.H. Allen, 1885; Delhi: Rupa & Co, 1988), s.v. “waqf.”
51 “Hamas Covenant 1988: The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” August 18, 1988,
text available at Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project: Documents in
Law, History, and Diplomacy, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.
52 “Oh Youth,” The Complete Works of Imam Hasan al-Banna: 1906–1949, 12,
https://thequranblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/_9_-oh-youth.pdf, available at The Quran Blog—
Enlighten Yourself, June 7, 2008, https://thequranblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-complete-
works-of-imam-hasan-al-banna-10/.
53 Daniel Pipes, “We Free Them or They Destroy Us,” Lion’s Den: Daniel Pipes Blog, September
13, 2006, http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/09/we-free-them-or-they-destroy-us.
54 Rubin, “Truth about Middle East Policy.”
55 Ibid., 81-82.
56 Ibid., 83.
57 Ibid., 85–87.
58 Rubin, “Truth about Middle East Policy,” 89–91.
59 Jordan 2014 figures, USAID, https://explorer.usaid.gov/country-detail.html#Jordan. USAID is the
leading U.S. Government agency that “works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient,
democratic societies to realize their potential,” Who We Are, https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are.
60 Rubin, “Truth about Middle East Policy,” 91.
61 Ibid.
62 “Billions in U.S. Aid Haven’t Bought Peace in the Middle East,” World Post, May 06, 2013,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/06/us-aid-middle-east_n_3223151.html.
63 Rubin, “Truth about Middle East Policy,” 88.
64 George W. Bush, quoted in Daniel Pipes, “Bush Returns to the ‘Religion of Peace’ Formulation,”
Lion’s Den: Daniel Pipes Blog, October 4, 2007, http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/10/bush-
returns-to-the-religion-of-peace.
65 The White House: President George W. Bush, “‘Islam Is Peace’ Says President: Remarks by the
President at Islamic Center of Washington, D.C.,” news release, September 17, 2001,
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html.
66 Rubin, “Truth about Middle East Policy,” 106.
67 Efraim Karsh, The Tail Wags the Dog: International Politics and the Middle East (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2015), 9.
68 Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, “The Decline of Islamist Parties in Algeria,” Sada: Middle East Analysis,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 13, 2014,
http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/?fa=54510.
69 Ibn Warraq, “Reason, Not Revelation,” in Virgins? What Virgins? And Other Essays (Amherst,
MA: Prometheus Books, 2010), 384. “Reason, Not Revelation” was a paper originally given at The
Hague in 2006.
70 See Adam Bird and Malcolm Brown, “The History and Social Consequences of a Nationalized
Oil Industry,” June 2, 2005, available at
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297a/VENEZUELA%20OIL%20&%20LAND%20REFORM.htm.
71 Tawfik Hamid, Inside Jihād: How Radical Islam Works; Why It Should Terrify Us; How to Defeat
It (Mountain Lake, MD: Mountain Lake Press, 2015), 66.
72 Persia, before the arrival of Islam, was host to another much more ancient religion,
Zoroastrianism, founded by Zoroaster, perhaps sometime between the seventh and sixth century
BCE.
73 Ian Richard Netton, A Popular Dictionary of Islam (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1992), s.v.
“Crusades.”
74 Ibn Warraq, Sir Walter Scott’s Crusades and Other Fantasies (Nashville, TN: New English
Review Press, 2013), 139–41.
75 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2008), 79.
76 Ibid., 9.
77 Ibid., 79.
78 Ibid., 11-12
79 Ibid., 60.
80 Ibid., 65.
81 Ibid., 68.
82 Ibid., 71.
83 Ibid., 73.
84 Bin Laden, Messages to the World, 16; quoted in Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 75.
85 Ibid., 59; quoted in Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 75.
86 Ibid.
2 - Explanations of Islamic Terrorism
Human Agency, Free Will, and Responsibility
THERE ARE MANY contemporary political commentators and intellectuals
who do not accept what seems an obvious starting point in trying to explain
the behavior of Islamic terrorists, namely their beliefs, their ideology as laid
down in tract after tract, statement after statement, interview after interview,
and book after book—books that are the careful work of Muslim scholars of
Islam, lavishly sprinkled with quotes from the Koran, which is the very
word of Allah, the hadīth (the sayings and deeds of Muhammad and his
Companions), the sira (life of the Prophet), all used to justify their heinous
acts, even against civilians, including women, children, and the old.
Western liberals who no longer espouse religious beliefs interpret such
behavior as “delusional, perceiving the devout terrorists as suffering from a
serious mental illness, or victimized by a rare form of false consciousness
originating in their justified grievances and low socioeconomic status,” to
quote Paul Hollander, historian of many works on communism and its fall
and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst.1 These analysts insist that Islamic religious beliefs do not provide
any justification or encouragement for barbaric acts of terrorism. We must
not, they contend, pay attention to the terrorists’ explanations of their
motives.
Suddenly these Western pundits seemed to have acquired a deeper
knowledge of Islam than such Islamists as Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, the
founder of al-Qaeda, who spent years studying Islam, first at the University
of Damascus, where he graduated with a honors degree in Shari‘a in 1966,
then at the prestigious al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he earned a
master’s degree, followed by a doctorate in the principles of Islamic
jurisprudence.
Thus it was a sign of willful and dangerous ignorance when, speaking at
the 2015 World Economic Forum, U.S. Secretary John Kerry refused to
take the assertions of the radical Islamists seriously, claiming instead that
“it would be a mistake to link Islam to criminal conduct rooted in
alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking and other factors.”2
On January 7, 2015, two Islamists belonging to al-Qaeda’s branch in
Yemen had stormed into the offices of the French satirical weekly
newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing twelve people and injuring
eleven others. (Charlie Hebdo had abundantly availed itself of its rights of
freedom of expression to satirize Muhammad and Islam.) There were also
related attacks in the Île-de-France region, where another five were killed
and eleven wounded.
After the massacre “White House press secretary Josh Earnest suggested
that ‘these are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and…later
tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and
their own deviant view of it.’”3 This sounds as if the Charlie Hebdo
terrorists set out to commit a random act of violence, and then, when they
realized they needed some justification afterwards, plucked “Islam” out of
the air by sheer chance.4
Others have refused to hold the terrorists responsible for their acts,
laying blame, yet again, firmly on the shoulders of the West. In the January
24, 2015, New York Times, Tom Koch, adjunct professor of medical
geography at the University of British Columbia, emphasized the socially
determined nature of their conduct:
The tragedy [of the recent murders in Paris] lies…in the decades of
military encroachment and colonial expansion that helped to
radicalize a religious sect. It lies too, in our culture’s failure to
integrate new members in an ethos that is inclusive and assures a
political space for legitimate complaint….Our tragedy is this
collective fatal flaw, which insists on demonizing those we disagree
with and turning them into mortal enemies. The question is whether
we will react…breeding more terror in our responses, or, instructed in
its causes, search for resolution.5
Thus Western colonialism, and the failure to integrate immigrants,
radicalizes those Muslims who eventually become terrorists. We refuse, it is
argued, to listen to their grievances. We demonize them simply because
they are different from us.
First, however, colonialism has nothing to do with radicalization; of the
nineteen men responsible for the 9/11 terrorists attacks fifteen were of
Saudi origin. Saudi Arabia was never colonized by the West; it was de jure
colony of the Ottoman Empire.
 Second, it is Muslims themselves, and Muslims alone, who refuse to
integrate into Western society and its democracies. Muslims may not
integrate themselves into a non-Muslim society. It would constitute an act
of apostasy. According to many Islamic scholars, it is a Muslim’s duty to
emigrate from the land of the Infidels to the land of the Believers—the land
of Islam. A survey of six hundred U.S. Muslims conducted in June 2015 by
pollster Kellyanne Conway revealed that 51 percent agreed that Muslims in
America should have the choice of being governed according to Shari‘a.
Even more alarming, 25 percent of those polled agreed that violence against
Americans in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihād.6 In a
Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in July 2016, Philip Haney, a
founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, reported that
mainstream institutional Islam within the U.S. encourages this intolerant
Islamic mindset, institutions such as the highly influential Assembly of
Muslim Jurists of America.7 Lack of integration in Europe applies almost
exclusively to Muslims, and not, for example, to those from Vietnam and
Cambodia.
Third, there is the insidious influence of leftist Western intellectuals who
have taken over the institutions of higher education, drumming into the
malleable minds of young students since the 1960s that all the ills of the
world, particularly the Third World, are the sole responsibility of the West.
The West is evil, and is the source of all evils in the world, as Susan Sontag
once said.8 If this were true, why would the children of immigrants want to
board what James Baldwin once called a “sinking ship”?9 Such cultural
relativism has so sapped our civilizational self-confidence that we in the
West are no longer capable of defending Western values. (And as time
passes fewer and fewer of the young appear even to know what Western
values are, let alone how to defend them.)
Fundamental Differences
Yes, there are differences between the West and the Muslim world,
differences of a fundamental kind. Muslims cannot accept a democracy,
since that would be to accept that sovereignty lies with the people, and for
Muslims sovereignty lies with God alone. Furthermore, Muslims cannot
accept to live under man-made laws, only under the Shari‘a, which is God-
given. The treatment of women and non-Muslims, for example, is clearly
defined in the Shari‘a. Women have fewer rights (inheritance) than men;
they may not marry a non-Muslim; men have the right to beat them.
Another difference involves personal responsibility. Scholars such as
Koch in the piece cited above, argue that the perpetrators of terroristic acts
have “little choice in the matter.” As Hollander explains, Muslim terrorists
are
merely respond[ing] to stimuli they were exposed to, and their prior
victimization determined their course of action. Observers like Koch
have little discernible interest in the actual motivation of the terrorists,
in the roots of their determination to kill, and their apparently clear
conscience about what most people consider heinous crimes. It is also
overlooked that blasphemy is a religious notion, and if the cartoonists
were murdered for blasphemies, then the perpetrators were obviously
motivated by very strongly felt religious sentiments, as they
themselves made quite clear.10
So while the “victim” cannot help but act in the way he acts, it seems, the
“victimizer” is absolutely free. Hollander again:
Such explanations of terror entail a selective determinism, a
disposition I first noticed in the social criticism of the late 1960s. In
this scheme, only the powerful, the top-dogs and victimizers, are
capable of making choices and thus can be held responsible for their
actions; the underdogs, the victims, the victimized are not in a
position to make morally relevant choices as their behavior is
determined by brutal social forces. Needless to say, designations of
victim and victimizer can be quite subjective and variable, depending
on the worldview of those who propose the classification.11
Disputes about the motivations of Islamic terrorists are strongly
reminiscent of the arguments that took place throughout the existence of the
Soviet Union. “Real Marxism has nothing to do with the experiment in the
Soviet Union, real Marxism has not been applied” went the claim. This
desperate attempt to save Marxism as a viable system was fatally tainted
with the Soviet experiment. It was implausible to suggest that Marxism had
nothing to do with the Soviet systems. And it is similarly argued that
Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. The real Islam, it is claimed,
is a religion of peace that respects the rights of women, and so on. But it is
actually implausible to suggest that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic
terrorism. And I doubt that John Kerry would win the argument against
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam that Islam has nothing to do with the terrorists’
actions.
Learned Disbelief
There are many scholars who refuse to take any aspect of Islamic
terrorist belief seriously. Marc Sageman, the government counterterrorism
consultant cited in the introduction, asserts that terrorism is not “the result
of the beliefs and perceptions held by the terrorists.”12 It is no wonder that
the U.S. government has failed to learn the “threat doctrine” of the enemy.
Robert Reilly, author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind (2011),13
rebutted Sageman very effectively in a review of Leaderless Jihād.
Sageman succumbs to the root cause fallacy and tries to “find the ‘root
cause’ of global Islamist terrorism by conducting a ground up exploration
of his sample of terrorists.” “Ground up” means that Sageman “concentrates
on the foot soldiers, and tries to draw his conclusions from his observations
of them,” and readers learn that “‘terrorists rarely execute their operations
as a direct result of their doctrines.’…Why, then, do they do it?” Reilly
wonders, and “[s]peaking of terrorists in North America and Western
Europe,” Sageman tells readers they ‘were not intellectuals or ideologues,
much less religious scholars. It is not about how they think, but how they
feel.’ Anyone feel like some terrorism?”14
“Terrorism is not simply terror,” Reilly continues, “some people doing
terrible things on the spur of the moment. It is murder advanced to the level
of a moral principle, which is then institutionalized in an organization—a
cell, a party, or a state—as its animating principle. The very first thing one
must understand is the ideology incarnated in the terrorist organization; it is
the source of its moral legitimacy. Without it, terrorism cannot exist.”15
Sageman seems to be aware of some of the Salafi thinkers behind the
ideology of current terrorism (the Salafis were ultraconservative Sunni
Muslims who wished to restore the pristine Islam practised by their devout
ancestors). He mentions Sayyid Qutb twice, Hasan al-Banna once, but
never Abul A‘la Mawdūdī (more on these figures forthcoming), and
because he refuses to acknowledge ideology as a motivating force, the
absence of deep analysis of their work is not surprising. To establish the
origins and causes of a war, one must refer first to the respective ideologies
and principles of the warring factions before interviewing the soldiers in the
trenches.
When Reilly questioned him on this point at a lecture Sagemen was
giving, Sageman told Reilly that “Sayyid Qutb was not relevant because the
people in his case studies did not read him.” Sageman naively leaves his
analysis incomplete, and misses the point entirely. How many rank and file
Nazis were aware of the intellectual, putatively biological, and putatively
historical underpinnings of Nazi ideology? It is highly unlikely that the
ordinary Nazi foot soldier had ever heard of Alfred Rosenberg (1893–
1946), a primary creator of the Nazi ideology of racial purity, persecution of
the Jews, lebensraum, etc., and even less likely that he had read
Rosenberg’s work. The common Nazi was nonetheless trained to obey and
duty-bound to follow the orders of a regime motivated and animated by the
ideology created by such thinkers as Rosenberg, Alfred Baeumler (1887–
1968), a philosopher and interpreter of Friedrich Nietzsche; Ernst Krieck
(1882–1947), a German pedagogue; Herman Schmalenbach (1885–1950),
who refined the concepts of Gemeinschaft and Bund; and Carl Schmitt
(1888–1985), a jurist, philosopher, political theorist, and professor of law.
The regime was able to mold the average Nazi soldier to its own image,
and train him docilely to carry out its policies. In fact, the Nazi Party
successfully persuaded many ordinary citizens of the truth of its Nazi
ideology, and was able to turn a hitherto highly civilized nation into
barbarians capable of accepting its horrific agenda, and helping to
perpetrate unimaginable atrocities. We see a similar pattern in the Islamic
world, where the Islamist ideology threatens to attract an ever-growing
circle of admirers and activists ready to sacrifice their life for Islam. It is
indeed a war of ideas—hence our duty to understand these ideas, ideas of
such Islamic ideologues as Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and Mawdūdī,
and their roots in Islam, in Islamic theology and Islamic history.
Importance of Ideology as a Motivating Force
British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) often warned of the danger of neglecting ideas
and their influence on world events. The arguments in his classic essay,
“Two Concepts of Liberty,” based on a lecture given in 1958, remain valid
and are worth pondering at length:
[T]here has, perhaps, been no time in modern history when so large a
number of human beings, in both the East and the West, have had
their notions, and indeed their lives, so deeply altered, and in some
cases violently upset, by fanatically held social and political
doctrines. Dangerous, because when ideas are neglected by those who
ought to attend to them—that is to say, those who have been trained
to think critically about ideas—they sometimes acquire an unchecked
momentum and an irresistible power over multitudes of men that may
grow too violent to be affected by rational criticism….[I]f professors
can truly wield this fatal power, may it not be that only other
professors, or, at least, other thinkers (and not governments or
Congressional committees), can alone disarm them?16
We are similarly engaged in a war of ideas and therefore must come up
with better ideas to combat fanatical Islamic terrorists.
Writing in 1966, Marxist Islamologist Maxime Rodinson argued with
regard to the Islamic world that “the course of history is, in the last
instance, determined by economic and social factors and that ideology plays
only a secondary role.”17 Berlin’s further observations in “Two Concepts of
Liberty” are an implicit reply to Rodinson: “It is only a very vulgar
historical materialism that denies the power of ideas, and says that ideals
are mere material interests in disguise. It may be that, without the pressure
of social forces, political ideas are stillborn: what is certain is that these
forces, unless they clothe themselves in ideas, remain blind and
undirected.”18
What were the causes of the horrors perpetrated by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler,
Mao, and Pol Pot? They were, in Berlin’s view, “not caused by the ordinary
negative human sentiments, as Spinoza called them—fear, greed, tribal
hatreds, jealousy, love of power—though of course these have played their
wicked part,” but “by one particular idea. It is paradoxical that Karl Marx,
who played down the importance of ideas in comparison with impersonal
social and economic forces, should, by his writings, have caused the
transformation of the twentieth century, both in the direction of what he
wanted and, by reaction, against it.”19
Berlin continues, “There are men who will kill and maim with a tranquil
conscience under the influence of the words and writings of some of those
who are certain that they know perfection can be reached.” 20 This is an apt
and chilling description of the Islamic radicals who are so certain of the
rightness of their putatively God-given goals that they are ready to die—and
take as many infidels as possible with them.
Soviet Union and Communism
Many explanations of the Cold War, the actions of the Soviet Union, and
the collapse of that regime are also framed in such a way that the driving
ideology of Marxism-Leninism is sometimes neglected or even denied.
Nonetheless, a number of distinguished historians have emphasized the
ideological nature of the Soviet phenomenon.
In the introduction to his monumental work, The Soviet Tragedy: A
History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–1991, for example, Martin Malia, a
professor of history specializing in Russia at the University of California,
Berkeley, writes:
This eternal return of utopian hope, breaking through the façade of
social-science rigor, brings us back to the premise that the key to
understanding the Soviet phenomenon is ideology. It is only by taking
the Soviets at their ideological word, treating their socialist utopia
with literal-minded seriousness, that we can grasp the tragedy to
which it led. The concrete agenda of this book, therefore, is to reassert
the primacy of ideology and politics over social and economic forces
in understanding the Soviet phenomenon. It is to rehabilitate history
“from above” at the expense of history “from below” as the motive
force of Soviet development. Finally, it is to resurrect the totalitarian
perspective, but in a historical and dynamic, not a static, mode; for it
was the all-encompassing pretensions of the Soviet utopia that
furnished what can only be called the “genetic code” of the tragedy.21
Malia returns to the importance of ideas and their consequences: “To
produce the distinctive Soviet institutions of Plan, kolkhoz, and Gulag, the
illusions of maximalist socialism and the lawlessness of the Leninist Party
were indispensable.” He continues;
So once again we return to the primacy of ideology and politics in the
Soviet phenomenon. As Solzhenitsyn put the matter with respect to
the unique dimensions of the Soviet terror: “The imagination and
 inner strength of Shakespeare’s villains stopped short at ten or so
cadavers, because they had no ideology….It is thanks to ideology that
it fell to the lot of the twentieth century to experience villainy on a
scale of millions.” And Solzhenitsyn’s proposition is also valid, and
was intended, of course, for Hitler’s Final Solution and his camps.
But in the Communist case the primacy of ideology holds not just for
camps but for the entire Soviet endeavor, from its socioeconomic base
to its cultural superstructure.22 (emphasis in original)
As Malia emphasizes, “[A]ll the basic institutions of the Soviet order…
were the creations of ideology; they were nothing less than the Party
program set in steel, concrete, and the omnipresent apparat.”23
Nearly twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
disintegration of the Communist world, many American intellectuals are in
denial, and continue to “applaud and apologize for one of the bloodiest
ideologies of human history, and instead of being treated as pariahs, they
hold distinguished positions in American higher and cultural life.”24 Eric
Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, was an
apologist of communism, and someone who refused to recognize the crimes
of Stalin, until Khruschev pointed them out. He is also “an unforgiving
historian of America.”25 Unsurprisingly Foner wrote soon after September
11, 2001: “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed
New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White
House.”26
A number of apologists of communism, the so-called “revisionist
historians,” have blamed the United States for the 9/11 attacks, or played
the old moral equivalence card. For example, Alan Singer, professor of
teaching, literacy, and leadership and program director of graduate
programs in social studies education at Hofstra University, has argued that
the United States is guilty of far worse crimes than those perpetrated by
Islamic terrorists.27 As John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr observe in their
In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage, “[T]he deeply
ingrained anti-Americanism of their intellectual world could not help but
make these revisionists view the attack on this country as the secular
equivalent of divine retribution.”28
The Ideology of Nazism
 A number of scholars have argued that the ideology of Nazis was the
prime motivation for the Holocaust. Yahuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust
studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of more than forty books on
the Holocaust and antisemitism, and a recipient of several awards and
honors. In his readily accessible work, Rethinking the Holocaust (2001),
Bauer argues that from the outset “ideology was the central determinant of
the Holocaust.”29 The Nazis considered the Jews a universal devilish
element. Pursuing them “was to have been a global, quasi-religious affair,
the translation into practice of a murderous ideology”; for the Nazis,
“persecution of the Jews was pure, abstract antisemitic ideology in the
context of biological racism, and it became a central factor in Hitler’s war
against the world.”30
Bauer grants the importance of the bureaucracy, and the impact of
economic, social, and political crises, “but without a guiding ideological
motivation and justification, mass murder generally, and the intent to
annihilate the Jewish people in particular, would have been unthinkable.
Ideology is central.”31 And Bauer endorses political scientist and author
Daniel Goldhagen’s central point in Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary
Germans and the Holocaust (1996),32 which places anti-Semitic ideology at
the center of the Holocaust: “I agree with [Goldhagen] rather than those…
who emphasize the social stratification in a crisis situation, the political and
economic background, and the bureaucratic machinery.”33
Islam or the Ideology of the Islamic Terrorists
Ideology is also the defining feature of the twentieth century, or perhaps
it is more accurate to say that it was the clash of ideologies that
characterizes the twentieth century—a period of “ideological frenzy.”34
Communism, socialism, nationalism, fascism, Nazism, etc., mobilized
millions to action. Leslie Stevenson, a professor of logic and metaphsyics,
writes, “A system of beliefs about human nature that is held by some group
of people as giving rise to their way of life is standardly called an
‘ideology.’ Christianity and Marxism are certainly ideologies in this
sense.”35 And in this sense, we can just as naturally add Islam to this list.
Thus the ideology of the Islamic terrorists is no exception to this
discussion. And despite the theological nature of their beliefs, useful
comparisons can be made between Islamic terrorism and the other
ideologies of the twentieth century. I argued over ten years ago that one
could label the beliefs of the Islamic terrorists—or even Islam, tout court—
fascist, in a precise way.36 In that examination I took the fourteen features
the late Italian novelist, philosopher, and semiotician Umberto Eco
considered to be typical of “Eternal Fascism” (or “Ur-Fascism”), and
showed how Islam also satisfied all of those features.37
Islam has also been described as totalitarian. Here is an encapsulation of
what I wrote in 2008 on this subject: Charles Watson and Georges-Henri
Bousquet refer to Islam as a totalitarian system tout court, while Bertrand
Russell, Jules Monnerot, and Czeslaw Milosz compare Islam to various
aspects of communism, while Carl Jung, Karl Barth, Adolf Hitler, Saïd
Amir Arjomand, Maxime Rodinson, and Manfred Halpern, among others,
point out Islam’s similarities to fascism or Nazism (with the latter two terms
often used synonymously).38
To elaborate, in 1937 Charles Watson, a Christian missionary in Egypt,
described Islam as totalitarian by showing how, “by a million roots,
penetrating every phase of life, all of them with religious significance, it is
able to maintain its hold upon the life of Moslem peoples.”39 The late
Georges-Henri Bousquet (d. 1978), a professor of law at the University of
Algiers and later the University of Bordeaux and one of the foremost
authorities on Islamic law, distinguishes two aspects of Islam he considers
totalitarian: Islamic law and the Islamic notion of jihād, which has as its
ultimate aim the conquest of the world in order to submit it to one single
authority.40
To quote another great scholar of Islamic law and longtime professor of
Arabic at the University of Leiden, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje—Islamic
law has certainly aimed at “controlling the religious, social and political life
of mankind in all its aspects, the life of its followers without qualification,
and the life of those who follow tolerated religions to a degree that prevents
their activities from hampering Islam in any way.”41 The all-embracing
nature of Islamic law is apparent in that it does not distinguish between
ritual, law (in the European sense of the word), ethics, and good manners.
In principle, this legislation controls the entire life of the believer and the
Islamic community; it intrudes into every nook and cranny, from (in a
random sample) the pilgrim tax to agricultural contracts to the board and
lodging of slaves to issuing wedding invitations to the ritual fashion in
which to accomplish one’s natural needs to the proper treatment of animals.
Islamic law is a doctrine of duties—duties, as Hurgronje explains,
“susceptible to control by a human authority instituted by God. However,
these duties are, without exception, duties to God, and are founded on the
inscrutable will of God Himself. All duties that men can envisage being
carried out are dealt with; we find treated therein all the duties of man in
any circumstance whatsoever, and in their connections with anyone
whatsoever.”42 In The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920), British
philosopher, historian, and social critic Bertrand Russell wrote:
Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution
with those of the rise of Islam….
…Marx has taught that Communism is fatally predestined to come
about; this produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early
successors of Mahommet….
…Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with
Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism.
Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with
mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and
Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the
empire of this world.43
In Sociologie du Communisme (1949) Jules Monnerot, a French essayist,
sociologist, and journalist, called communism the twentieth-century
“Islam.”44 Islam has also been compared more precisely to Nazism and
sometimes fascism, terms that are usually used synonymously. For
example, in the late 1930s the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was asked in an
interview if he had any views on what was likely to be the next step in
religious development. He replied, referring to the rise of Nazism in
Germany, “We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam.
He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany
is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with a wild god. That
can be the historic future.”45
Karl Barth,46 the Swiss Reformed theologian, also writing in the 1930s,
reflected on the threat of Hitler and his similarities to Muhammad:
 Participation in this life, according to it the only worthy and blessed
life, is what National Socialism, as a political experiment, promises to
those who will of their own accord share in this experiment. And now
it becomes understandable why, at the point where it meets with
resistance, it can only crush and kill—with the might and right which
belongs to Divinity! Islam of old as we know proceeded in this way.
It is impossible to understand National Socialism unless we see it in
fact as a new Islam, its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new
Allah’s Prophet. A prayer for the ruling National Socialism and for its
further expansion and increase simply cannot be uttered—unless one
wishes to strike his confession in the face and make nonsense of his
prayer. But there is one prayer with regard to the ruling National
Socialism which may be uttered and ought to be uttered. It may and
has to be prayed, in all earnestness, by Christians in Germany and
throughout the whole world. It is the prayer which was uttered right
into the nineteenth century, according to the old Basel Liturgy: “Cast
down the bulwarks of the false prophet Muhammad!”…
…And there we have it—we stand today, all Europe, and the whole
Christian Church in Europe, once again in danger of the Turks. And
this time they have already taken Vienna and Prague as well. “Thy
will be done!” “If I perish then I perish!” They really knew that at the
time of the old Turkish menace. They knew it better, knew it with
more resignation to the will of God and less querulousness than we
today do.47 (emphases in original)
While serving a twenty-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg
tribunal, Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister of armaments and war production,
wrote a memoir of his World War II experiences. Speer’s narrative includes
this discussion, which captures Hitler’s racist views of Arabs and his
effusive praise for Islam:
Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned
from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans
attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the
eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at
the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be
Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in
 spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that
faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament.
Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial
inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with
the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not
have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not
Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this
Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical
speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have
the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese,
who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The
Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible
to us than Christianity.”48 (emphases added)
The comparison of Islamism with fascism was also put forward by
Maxime Rodinson, the eminent French scholar of Islam and by common
consent one of the three greatest scholars of Islam of the twentieth century,
who pioneered the application of sociological method to the Middle East.
As a French Jew born in 1915, Rodinson also learned about fascism from
direct experience; his parents perished in Auschwitz. Responding in a long
front-page article in Le Monde to French philosopher Michel Foucault’s
uncritical endorsement of the Iranian Revolution, Rodinson targeted those
who “come fresh to the problem in an idealistic frame of mind.” While
admitting that trends in Islamic movements such as the Muslim
Brotherhood were “hard to ascertain, Rodison stated that “the dominant
trend is a certain type of archaic fascism. By this I mean a wish to establish
an authoritarian and totalitarian state whose political police would brutally
enforce the moral and social order. It would at the same time impose
conformity to religious tradition as interpreted in the most conservative
light.”49
In 1984 Said Amir Arjomand, an Iranian American sociologist at
SUNY–Stony Brook, also pointed to “some striking sociological
similarities between the contemporary Islamic movements and the
European fascism and the American radical right….It is above all the
strength of the monistic impulse and the pronounced political moralism of
the Islamic traditionalist and fundamentalist movements which makes them
akin to fascism and the radical right alike.”50
One scholar I have not discussed before, Malise Ruthven, an Anglo-Irish
academic and journalist who focuses on religion, fundamentalism, and
especially Islamic affairs, is worth quoting at length.51 Ruthven points out
the debt owed to Marxism and fascism by such thinkers as Sayyid Qutb and
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (discussed later in these pages), though he is careful
to use the term “Islamism” and not “Islam” tout court. “Qutb’s ideas…were
‘invisible’ adaptations of the revolutionary or political vanguardism to be
found in both Bolshevism and fascism,” writes Ruthven, however,
the fascist parallels go deeper than Marxist ones. In his explicit
hostility to reason…it is not Marx, grandchild of the Enlightenment,
but Nietzsche, an anti-rationalist like the anti-Mu‘tazilite al-Ash‘ari,
whom ‘Azzam echoes. The attachment to the lost lands of Palestine,
Bukhara and Spain (unlike a rational and humane concern for
Palestinian rights) is, like Mussolini’s evocations of ancient Rome,
nostalgic in its irredentism, its “obliteration of history from
politics.”52 The invocation of religion is consistent with the way
fascism and Nazism used mythical thought to mobilize unconscious
or psychic forces in the pursuit of power—a task made easier in a
population sanctified by a millennium of Islamic religious
programming. Georges Sorel, sometimes seen as the intellectual
father of fascism, declared that “use must be made of a body of
images which, by intuition alone, and before any considered analyses
are made, is capable of evoking as an undivided whole the mass of
sentiments which corresponds to the different manifestations of the
war undertaken by Socialism.” Mussolini, to whom Sorel in his later
years lent his support, saw fascism as “a religious conception in
which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law
and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual
and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society.”53 In
the same line of thinking Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideologue,
stressed the other-worldly, spiritual aspect of Hitler’s racial theories:
“The life of a race does not represent a logically-developed
philosophy nor even the unfolding of a pattern according to natural
law, but rather the development of a mystical synthesis, an activity of
 soul, which cannot be explained rationally.”54
It would be much too reductive to redefine Islamism as ‘Islamo-
fascism,’ but the resemblances are compelling.55
Finally, no less a figure than Sayyid Abu ’l-‘Alā’ Mawdūdī, one of the
major thinkers behind modern Islamist ideology, said that in an Islamic
state as envisioned by him, “no one can regard any field of his affairs as
personal and private. Considered from this aspect, the Islamic state bears a
kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states.”56

1 Paul Hollander, “Marx and the Koran: The Role of Beliefs and Ideologies in Motivating, Justifying,
and Legitimating Political Violence,” Weekly Standard, February 23, 2015,
http://www.weeklystandard.com/marx-and-the-koran/article/850146.
2 Ken Dilanian, “Kerry: Violent Extremism Is Not Islamic,” Associated Press, January 23, 2015,
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kerry-violent-extremism-not-islamic-170022857--politics.html?ref=gs.
3 Fred Lucas, “Josh Earnest Says the White House Doesn’t Call Terror Attacks ‘Radical Islam’
Because It’s Not ‘Accurate,’” Blaze, January 13, 2015,
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/13/josh-earnest-says-the-white-house-doesnt-call-terror-
attacks-radical-islam-because-its-not-accurate/; quoted in Hollander, “Marx and the Koran.”
4 Cf. Thomas L. Friedman, “Say It Like It Is,” Opinion, New York Times, January 20, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/thomas-friedman-say-it-like-it-is.html?_r=0
5 Tom Koch, “What’s Worse Than Sad,” Opinion, New York Times, January 24, 2015, Sunday
Review, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/opinion/sunday/whats-worse-than-sad.html.
6 As reported by Andrew Bostom, “Shocking Polls Show What U.S. Muslims Think of U.S. Laws,”
PJ Media, July 1, 2016, https://pjmedia.com/blog/shocking-polls-show-what-u-s-muslims-think-of-u-
s-laws/.
7 Ibid.
8 Referred to by George Zilbergeld, A Reader for the Politically Incorrect (Santa Barbara, CA:
Praeger, 2003), 157.
9 Quoted in African American Political Thought, ed. and intro. Marcus D. Pohlmann, vol.6,
Integration vs. Separatism: 1945 to the Present (London: Routledge, 2003), 6:119.
10 Hollander, “Marx and the Koran.”
11 Ibid.
12 Sageman, Leaderless Jihād, 22.
13 Robert Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern
Islamist Crisis (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2011).
14 Robert R. Reilly, “Thinking like a Terrorist,” review of Leaderless Jihād: Terror Networks in the
Twenty-First Century, by Marc Sageman, and The Mind of Jihād, by Laurent Murawiec, Claremont
Review of Books 9, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 31–33, http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/thinking-like-a-
terrorist/.
15 Ibid.
16 Isaiah Berlin, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002), 167.
17 Cited in Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1979), 6,
referring to Maxime Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism, trans. Brian Pearce (London: Allen Lane,
1974), 296ff. Originally published as Islam et le capitalisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966).
18 Berlin, Liberty, 167–68.
19 Isaiah Berlin, “A Message to the 21st Century,” acceptance address upon receiving honorary
Doctor of Laws, University of Toronto, November 25, 1994, reprinted in New York Review of Books,
October 23, 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/10/23/message-21st-century/.
20 Ibid.
21 Martin Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–1991 (New York: The
Free Press, 1994), 16.
22 Ibid., 512. Quoting Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956, 3 vols. (New
York: Harper & Row, 1973–1978), 1:181.
23 Malia, Soviet Tragedy, 512.
24 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage (New
York: Encounter Books, 2003), 1.
25 John Patrick Diggins, “Fate and Freedom in History: The Two Worlds of Eric Foner,” National
Interest, no. 69 (Fall 2002): 85, cited in Haynes and Klehr, In Denial, 40.
26 Haynes and Klehr, In Denial, 49.
27 Cited in ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Yahuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 7, 42, 44.
30 Ibid., 27-28.
31 Ibid., 44.
32 Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
(New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
33 Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 95.
34 I think this phrase originates with American journalist Max Lerner (1902–1992), Ideas Are
Weapons: The History and Uses of Ideas (New York: Viking Press, 1939), 9—but I am not certain.
35 Leslie Stevenson and David L. Haberman, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3rd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998), 9. Not to be confused with a later edition titled Twelve Theories of
Human Nature: see Chapter 4, note 1.
36 Ibn Warraq, “Islam, Middle East, and Fascism,” in Virgins? What Virgins? 255–88. Versions of
this article have been floating around the Internet since the late 1990s. One version was published in
the American Atheist around 2002, and later reposted by New English Review,
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Ibn_Warraq/Islam,_Middle_East_and_Fascism/.
37 Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism,” New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/.
38 Ibn Warraq, “Apologists of Totalitarianism: From Communism to Islam” in Politcal Violence:
Belief, Behavior and Legitimation, ed. Paul Hollander (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 177–
91.
39 Charles Watson, Muslim World 28, no. 1 (January 1938): 6.
40 Georges-Henri Bousquet, L’Ethique sexuelle de l’Islam (1966; Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1990),
10.
41 C. Snouck Hurgronje, Selected Works, ed. Georges-Henri Bousqet and Joseph Schacht (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1957), 264.
42 Ibid., 261.
43 Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1920), 5, 29, 114.
44 Jules Monnerot, Sociologie du Communisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1949). Translated by Jane Degras
and Richard Rees as Sociology and Psychology of Communism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), 18–22.
45 Carl Jung, The Collected Works, vol. 18, The Symbolic Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1939), 281.
46 I owe the references to Carl Jung and Karl Barth to Andrew Bostom.
47 Karl Barth, The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day (New York: Scribner’s, 1939), 43,
64–65.
48 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 96.
49 Maxime Rodinson, “Islam Resurgent?” Le Monde, December 6–8, 1978; quoted in Janet Afary
and Kevin B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of
Islamism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 233.
50 Saïd Amir Arjomand, “Iran’s Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective,” World Politics 38,
no. 3 (April 1986): 383–414.
51 Malise Ruthven, A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America (London: Granta Books, 2002),
esp. 206ff. However, in recent writings, particularly in the New York Review of Books, Ruthven
seems to deny such comparisons. Is this a genuine change of opinion, or simply the dead hand of
political correctness? Where an earlier generation was afraid of being labelled “Orientalist,” the
present one is terrified of being accused of “Islamophobia.”
52 Mark Neocleous, Fascism (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1997), 11.
53 Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932), in Adrian Lyttleton, Italian Fascisms: From
Pareto to Gentile (London, 1973), 59–67; cited in Neocleous, Fascism, 14. Quoted by Ruthven, Fury
for God, 206.
54 Neocleous, Fascism, p.15.
55 Ruthven, Fury for God, 206–7.
56 Syed Abul ’ Ala Maudoodi, Islamic Law and Constitution, trans. and ed. Khursid Ahmad
(Chicago: Kazi Publications, Inc., 1993), 262.
3 - Marx, Freud, and Darwin among the Jihādists
Reductionist Views of Islamic Terrorism
FAR TOO MANY writers on the motivation of the Islamic terror- ists are
reductionist. These writers try to reduce the stated purpose of terroristic
behavior to something more basic, more biological, but this leaves them at a
loss to account for particular human goals and aspirations. How can the
pursuit of ethical, political, religious, aesthetic, or even sporting ideals be
reduced to basic biological needs such as survival and reproduction that we
share with animals?
Those who argue that the reasons behind the actions of Islamic terrorists
lie elsewhere than in the religious texts—which I consider as their primary
source—have recourse to any number of theories about human nature. For
Marx, “the real nature of man is the totality of social relations” (cf. Maxime
Rodinson), and all humans are a product of the particular economic state of
human society in which they are born. Freud wished to reduce all human
striving to hunger and sexual desire. Darwinian evolution links us
inexorably to the animal world, to nature, to genetics, and seems to pose a
decisive challenge to our own sense of worth, and to our human values. B.F.
Skinner and his radical behaviorism denies free will, and considers all
human actions the result of conditioning. Zoologist, ethologist, and
ornithologist Konrad Lorenz argues that aggression in humans is innate.1
And so on.
Humans are indeed animals, members of the species homo sapiens, but
we are also persons, rational agents displaying intentionality. We can hold
humans, since we have a degree of choice, responsible for our acts, that is,
we can ascribe moral responsibility to humans in a way that cannot be
ascribed to animals.
Since we humans are rational agents, we can give reasons for our
actions, and these necessarily involve our beliefs and values, which can be
expressed in terms of concepts engendered in a particular culture. We are
undoubtedly products of evolution by natural selection, and have some
innate biological drives, but we grow up in a common culture that is as
much responsible for creating and molding human nature as our biology.
Furthermore, as rational agents we also have individual choices, for which
we can be held responsible.
 Reductionists, meanwhile, favor a determinist philosophy of human
action that does not allow any room for individual choice, freely made.
Again, evolution by natural selection has profound implications for human
behavior, but so does religion, which imparts values and provides guidance
that result in a particular way of living. Religion motivates humans, whose
behavior can no longer be explained simply in biological terms. Religion
has historically served as a source of values and a guide to action, whether
or not we agree with those values and actions, values that are not available
otherwise. In other words, values are not a “natural kind,” and do not
otherwise exist in nature. Values are a human construct.
Importance of Religion in the Middle East
This brings us to religion, and the role of religion in the Middle East and
its apparent revival in the last forty years. We return to our previously cited
Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who asks “why, in Egypt and the
Arab world, people with roughly the same social profile have flocked into
militant Islamic movements more readily than they have to into leftist or
Marxist groups?” Ibrahim cites four factors that have “tilted the balance in
favor of Islamic groups.” The first is the ability of the ruling elites to
dismiss leftist and Marxist opposition as atheists bent on destroying Islam.
The second factor is the comparative failure of socialist or quasi-socialist
policies in the Arab world. “The third factor,” which is of particular interest
to this discussion (I shall return to the fourth later),
has to do with the deep-rootedness of Islam in the entire Middle East.
In Egypt particularly people are said to be quite religious. There is a
positive sociocultural sanction to being religious. Even the most
avowed liberal or leftist secularist regimes in the area find it
necessary and expedient to invoke Islam when they try to institute any
major new policy. The point is that for any militant Islamic
movement, half its task of recruiting members is already done by
socialization and cultural sanctions in childhood. The other half of
their task is merely to politicize consciousness and to discipline their
recruits organizationally.2
In 2005, on the first anniversary of the Madrid bombings that killed 191
people and injured 1800 more, the Club de Madrid, the “world’s largest
forum” of former heads of state and government and independent nonprofit
promoting democracy and international change, organized a conference to
discuss the causes of terrorism. Several members who took part in the
discussions “wanted to make clear that although economic, political and
other causes intertwine with religious ones, the religious element should not
simply be reduced to an expression of these other factors. It supplies a
significant component of its own.” One member urged scholars to
“‘abandon their reductionism’ and respect the fact that ‘religion is a body in
itself’ and a significant factor in violent incidents.” Another member argued
that “in the case of Al Qaeda and other Islamic groups involved in
terrorism, the ‘preeminence of the religious factor’ is ‘undeniable’”3
Many liberals and leftists are unwilling to accord religion any role in the
events unfolding in the Middle East. Such an attitude merely underlines
their lack of imagination, and is condescending at best. As Bernard Lewis
wrote in Islam and the West,
Modern Western man, being unable for the most part to assign a
dominant and central place in religion in his own affairs, found
himself unable to conceive that any other people in any other place
could have done so and was therefore impelled to devise other
explanations of what seemed to him only superficially religious
phenomena. We find, for example, a great deal of attention given by
eighteenth-century European scholarship to the investigation of such
meaningless questions as “Was Muhammad sincere?”…We find
lengthy explanations by nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century
historians of the “real underlying significance” of the great religious
conflicts in Islam among different sects and schools in the past….To
the modern Western mind, it is not conceivable that men would fight
and die in such numbers over mere differences of religion; there have
to be other “genuine” reasons underneath the religious veil.…[T]o
admit that an entire civilization can have religion as its primary
loyalty is too much. Even to suggest such a thing is regarded as
offensive by liberal opinion, always ready to take protective umbrage
on behalf of those whom it regards as its wards. This is reflected in
the recurring inability of political, journalistic, and academic
commentators alike to recognize the importance of religion in the
current affairs of the Muslim world and in their consequent recourse
 to the language of left-wing and right-wing, progressive and
conservative, and the rest of the Western vocabulary of ideology and
politics.4
There may also be socioeconomic factors in Muslim political movements
that must be taken into account, Lewis goes onto remind us, but in the end,
we cannot ignore the centrality of Islam for all Muslims in the Muslim
world:
Whatever the cause—political, social, economic—the form of
expression to which Muslims have hitherto had recourse to voice both
their criticisms and their aspirations is Islamic. The slogans, the
programs, and to a very large extent the leadership are Islamic.
Through the centuries, Muslim opposition has expressed itself in
terms of theology as naturally and spontaneously as its Western
equivalent in terms of ideology.…
If, then, we are to understand anything at all about what is happening
in the Muslim world at the present time and what has happened in the
past, there are two essential points that need to be grasped. One is the
universality of religion as a factor in the lives of the Muslim peoples,
and the other is its centrality.5
Islam was, then, “not only universal but also central in the sense that it
constituted the ultimate basis and focus of identity and loyalty.”6 Religion
was a badge of membership uniting those belonging to the group and
distinguishing them from those on the outside. Islam provided a far more
powerful sense of belonging than language or country. For example,
Muslims of Pakistan, though biologically, historically, linguistically, and
even in some sense culturally related to Hindus in India, identify with and
refer to, with considerable pride, the history and actions of peoples
thousands of miles away in present-day Saudi Arabia. Though speaking an
Indo-European language, Pakistani Muslims share the same sacred past as
Arabs, speaking a Semitic language, Arabic. Transcending national
boundaries, Muslims of different countries celebrate one anothers’ triumphs
and lament one anothers’ failures; they exhibit a sense of shared destiny. As
one Ottoman minister remarked in 1917, “the Fatherland of a Muslim is
wherever the Holy Law of Islam prevails.” Islam is the binding and decisive
factor.
 The importance of religion is further borne out by the number of
religious books published in Arab countries. As reported by the Rand
Institute, quoting United Nations data, “Religious books constitute 17
percent of all books in Arab countries, in comparison with a world average
of approximately 5 percent (United Nations Development Programme,
2003, pp.77–78). The increased sales of religious books may benefit from
sponsorship and subsidy of mosques, Islamic foundations, or religious
governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia.”7 Subsidies make these religious
books cheap, and thus available to poorer people.

1 Cf. Leslie Stevenson, “Conclusion: A Synthesis of the Theories,” in Leslie Stevenson, David L.
Haberman, and Peter Matthews Wright, Twelve Theories of Human Nature, 6th ed. (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 288–89. Stevenson’s observations were immensely helpful in
writing this section.
2 Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups,” 26–27.
3 Peter R. Neumann, ed., Addressing the Causes of Terrorism, Club de Madrid Series on Democracy
and Terrorism, vol. 1 (Madrid: Club de Madrid, 2005), 28,
http://www.clubmadrid.org/img/secciones/Club_de_Madrid_Volume_I_The_Causes_of_Terrorism.p
df.
4 Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 134–
35.
5 Ibid., 135.
6 Quoted in ibid., 136.
7 Lowell H. Schwartz, Todd C. Helmus, Dalia Dassa Kaye, and Nadia Oweidat, Barriers to the
Broad Dissemination of Creative Works in the Arab World (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation,
2009), 8–9, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG879.pdf.
4 - Islamic Doctrines as Motivating
Factors
Like Marxism and Christianity, Islam has
• a background metaphysical understanding of the universe and
humanity’s place in it
• a basic theory of human nature in the narrower sense of some
distinctive general claims about human beings, human society, and
the human condition
• a diagnosis of some typical defect in human beings, of what tends to
go wrong in human life and society
• a prescription or ideal for how human life should best be lived,
typically offering guidance to individuals and human societies1
ISLAM, however, is much more all-encompassing and more totalitarian
than Marxism or Christianity.
Both religious faith and political ideology, Islam oversees every aspect
of a Muslim’s life—from what a non-Muslim might consider minor details
(such as how to use a toothpick) to larger issues such as prayer, pilgrimage,
and marriage. Islam also provides a powerful sense of personal and group
identity. Central for all Muslims is the Koran, which is the uncreated word
of God and is His inspired Word and Revelation as delivered to His
Prophet, Muhammad, by the angel Gabriel, or the “Faithful Spirit” (Rūhu
‘l-Amīn), and sometimes angels in general.
The Koran was revealed over a period of years. The very minimum
required to be a Muslim is contained in the profession of faith (Shahāda):
“There is but one God, Muhammad is the Apostle of God” (lā ilāha
illa’llāh muhammadun rasūlu’llāh).
Sura 4, Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 136, addresses all Muslims: “O ye
who believe, believe in God and His Apostle and the Book which He hath
sent down to His Apostle and the Scripture which He hath sent down
formerly. Whosoever denieth God and His Angels and His books and His
Apostles and the Last Day hath strayed far from the Truth.”
The essential element of true belief for all Muslims is an
uncompromising monotheism expressed by the Arabic word, tawhīd, “the
unity or oneness of God.” Tawhīd is a central concept, and despite its
apparent simplicity leads to complex corollaries, some of which have been
further elaborated, as we shall have occasion to see later, by radical thinkers
such as Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb. First, true belief necessitates ikhls, which is
the sincere devotion, loyalty, and total allegiance owed to God. Its opposite
is shirk, sometimes translated as “polytheism” or “idolatry,” and is the
unforgivable sin of ascribing partners to God. It is the worship of any other
being than God; as the Koran tells us, Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 48: “Verily
God forgives not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgives
anything else, to whom He pleases; to set up partners with God is to devise
a sin most heinous indeed.”
The Koran
The Koran is considered a revelation from God, ipsissima verba, the
very words of God. The Koran is understood not in an allegorical,
analogical, metaphorical, or Pickwickian sense but in a literal sense to be
the word of God, and to be obeyed literally. It is a practical manual.
Muslims use the Koran as guide to conduct, both private and public. The
Koran gives details of the moral and legal duties of believers; it is the basis
of their religious dogma, beliefs, ritual, and one of the sources of their law.
The Koran clearly has an exhortatory element; it is not a quiet, meditative
tract enjoining private experience of God, but often a robust call to arms—
to fight and kill, if necessary, in the name of God, until Islam dominates the
world. It is constantly and extensively quoted by the jihādists, for all their
tenets and ideology are located within its pages.
While there are two or three short verses that enjoin tolerance of non-
Muslims (e.g., Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 256; Q109. al-Kāfirūn, the
Disbelievers, 1–6), these have been abrogated or canceled by the so-called
Sword Verses that enjoin fierce battles against the unbelievers (Q9. at-
Tawba, the Repentance, 5; see also Q4:76; Q8:12, 15–16, 39–42). Other
verses that incite violence against non-Muslims and other religions are
abundant.2
Jews and Christians are also regarded with much contempt, and Muslims
are told not to take them as friends (e.g., Q5. al-Mā’ida, the Table, 51). The
final verses of the opening chapter of the Koran, the Fātiha, which has a
central role in Islamic prayer and is repeated at least seventeen times a day,
are: “The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favours. Not those
upon whom wrath is brought down, nor those who go astray” (Q1. al-
Fātiha, the Opening: 6–7). Evidently in verse 6, it is those who are on the
right path who have been blessed, while verse 7 is interpreted to refer to
Jews and Christians, respectively.
Here is the commentary on verse 7 of al-Qurtubī (1214–1273), famous
for his commentary on the Koran:
The majority say that those with anger on them are the Jews and the
misguided are the Christians. That was explained by the Prophet
[pbuh, “peace be upon him”], in the hadith of ‘Adī ibn Hātin and the
story of how he became Muslim, transmitted by Abū Dāwūd in his
Musnad and at-Tirmidh in his collection. That explanation is also
attested to by the Almighty who says about the Jews, “They brought
down anger from Allah upon themselves” (Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow,
61; Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of Imran, 112) and He says, “Allah is
angry with them” (Q48. al-Fath, the Victory, 6). He says about
Christians that they, “were misguided previously and have misguided
many others, and are far from the right way” (Q5. al-Mā’ida, the
Table, 77).3
Thus in a sense, Jews and Christians are singled out for admonition
several times a day, every day, by all Muslims. Antisemitic sentiments are
plentiful in the Koran.4
Other elements of belief found in the Koran include a belief in angels
(Q2:177), in all the prophets (Q2:177) and their scriptures, and in the Last
Judgment (Q2:17). The term al-ākhira, meaning “the Hereafter,” is
mentioned more than a hundred times.
The Hereafter is to be preferred to this life on earth: Q40. Ghāfir, the
Forgiver, 39: “O my people, surely this present life is but a passing
enjoyment, and the Hereafter, is the abode of stability”; Q16. an-Nahl, the
Bee, 30–31, “the abode of the Hereafter is better”; Q29. al-‘Ankabūt, the
Spider, 64, “And the life of this world is but a sport and a play. And the
home of the Hereafter, that surely is the Life, did they but know.”
Shari‘a Supremacism
While I have largely concentrated on jihād in the military sense, as the
immediate goals of Islamic terrorists, their ultimate goal is to subjugate the
globe to Islam, so that the world is governed by the Shari‘a and not, for
instance, by the various secular constitutions in the Western world. Muslims
cannot accept any other religion or any other constitution.
According to the Koran, Muslims alone possess the absolute truth, and
they constitute the best of all nations, as in Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of
Imran, 109: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not be
accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.”
Because Islam is the religion of truth, those not following Islam must be
subjugated and made to pay a tax: Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 29:
“Fight those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that
which Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor follow the Religion of
Truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in
acknowledgement of superiority, and they are in a state of subjection.” Any
accommodation with any other creed on a basis of equality is unthinkable,
for Islam is destined to prevail: Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 33: “He it is
Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, and that
He may cause it to prevail over all religions, though the polytheists are
averse.” Precisely the same message is given at Q48. al-Fath, The Victory,
28, and Q61. al-Saff, The Ranks, 9.
Muhammad the Prophet also made it clear that Islam cannot coexist with
any other religion, and He dutifully informed his successors that Arabia
must be cleansed of Jews and Christians: “There shall be no two faiths in
Arabia” (Imam Malik, Muwatta’, hadīth 1588).5 The theory and practice of
dhimmitude, whereby non-Muslims such as Jews and Christians are termed
dhimmis and endure various social and legal disabilities, is based on the
premise that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims. Most of the canonical
hadīth collections contain this hadīth: “Muhammad the Prophet said: A
Muslim should not be killed in retaliation for the murder of a disbeliever.”6
As the Ayatollah Khomeini once put it, “Eleven things are unclean: urine,
excrement, sperm, blood, a dog, a pig, bones, a non-Muslim man and
woman, wine, beer, perspiration of the camel that eats filth.”7
To strive to bring the entire world under Shari‘a must have seemed an
idle dream to Muslims even fifty years ago. Today, there are more than
eighty Shari‘a courts operating in Great Britain, and a poll in conducted in
2012 found that 40 percent of Muslims in America believe that they should
not be judged by U.S. law and the Constitution, but by Shari‘a.8 Various
Islamic organizations such as the influential and litigious Council on
American-Islamic Relations are working night and day to bring about the
compliance of American law. Slowly, Muslims are eroding the Western
rights of free speech, as journalists and writers in the West are beginning to
practice self-censorship in order not to offend Muslims.
The Sunna and Muhammad
The Sunna
The Sunna plays an important part in Islam, and is a further guide for all
Muslims to follow. Sunna can be seen as model pattern of behavior. It is
also “custom” or “customary behavior.” Finally, it is the way Muhammad
acted, which is then emulated by Muslims. The hadīth, on the other hand, is
a tradition or written report, and can be the source material for the sunna.
The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edition), which is regarded as the most
authoritative work of reference on Islam, defines the sunna thus:
Some time after the preaching of Islam had begun, the term sunna
came to stand for the generally approved standard or practice
introduced by the Prophet as well as the pious Muslims of olden days,
and at the instigation of al-Shāfi‘ī, the sunna of the Prophet was
awarded the position of the second root (asl) of Islamic law, the
sharī‘a, after the Qur’ān...9
The opposite of sunna is bida‘, usually translated as “innovation.” The
Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, another definitive source, gives the
following definition:
bida‘ is the exact opposite of sunna, and means some view, thing, or
mode of action the like of which has not formerly existed or been
practised, an innovation or novelty. The word became important
theologically in the revolt against the precise following of the sunna
of the Prophet, came thus to indicate all the unrest of new ideas and
usages which grew up naturally in the Muslim church, covering
dogmatic innovations not in accordance with traditional sources
(usūl) of the Faith, and ways of life different from those of the
Prophet. The word, therefore, came to suggest individual dissent and
independence, going to the point of heresy although not of actual
unbelief (kufr). In this development two broad parties showed
themselves. One conservative, in the past mostly of Hanbalī and now
 practically Wahhābī only, taught that the duty of the believer was
“following” (ittibā‘)—the sunna understood—and not “innovating”
(ibtidā‘). The other accepted the facts of change of environment and
condition, and taught, in varying degrees and ways, that there were
good and even necessary innovations.10
Muhammad
From our twenty-first century perspective, Muhammad the Prophet was
hardly a model of tolerance, kindness, or compassion. Islamic sources
contain numerous accounts of his cruelty, hatred of Jews, and intolerance of
other religions. Nonetheless, Islamic purists who insist on the sunna of
Muhammad as a guide to their own behavior are, in terms of doctrine, fully
justified.
Here is an instance of Muhammad’s cruelty: When some people from the
tribe of Ukl, who had reverted from Islam, and while trying to steal some
camels had killed a shepherd of camels, were captured. Muhammad ordered
their hands and legs to be cut off, their eyes to be branded with heated
pieces of iron, and that their wounds not be cauterized till they die.11 In
another instance, Muhammad ordered the torture of a prisoner in order to
discover the whereabouts of some hidden treasure, and is recorded as
saying, “Torture him until you extract it from him.”12 Muhammad also
revived the cruel practice of stoning adulterers to death.13
Here are some examples and expressions of Muhammad’s hatred of
Jews, all taken from the Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishāq (c. 704–c. 767
CE), our earliest and most important source for the life of Muhammad:
• “Kill any Jews that falls into your power,” said the Prophet. (p. 369)
• the killing of Ibn Sunayna, and its admiration leading someone to
convert to Islam (p. 369)
• the killing of Sallam ibn Abu’l-Huqayq (pp. 482–83)
• the assassination of Ka‘b ibn al-Ashraf, who wrote verses against
Muhammad (pp. 364–69)
• the raid against the Jewish tribe of the Banu ‘l-Nadir and their
banishment (437–45)
• the extermination of the Banu Qurayza, between six hundred and
eight hundred men (pp. 461–69)
• the killing of al-Yusayr (pp. 665–66)14
 Muhammad also ordered the assassinations of his opponents. For
example, the killing of poetess ‘Asma’ b. Marwan, who had written satirical
poems that “vilified Islam and incited people against the Prophet,”15 is
mentioned in Ibn Ishāq’s biography,16 and described in gruesome detail in
Kitāb al-Tabaqāt by Ibn Sa‘d (c. 784–845 CE),17 a traditionist and
biographer of Muhammad, and Kitāb al-Maghāzī by al-Wāqidī (747–823
CE),18 an important early Muslim historian and judge who was patronized
by Harun al-Rashid. Al-Wāqidī’s major work, The Book of Campaigns
(Kitāb al-Maghāzī) is an important source on early Islam and the life of
Muhammad.
The assassins responsible for the massacre of the cartoonists of the
French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, on January 7, 2015 (discussed
earlier), had Muhammad’s example as a guide, and thus Islamic doctrine on
their side.
Muhammad’s intolerance of other religions is also well-attested in the
Islamic sources:
I was told that the last injunction the apostle [Muhammad] gave
[before his death] was in his words “Let not two religions be left in
the Arabian peninsula.”19
A hadīth informs us that “The Apostle of Allah said, ‘I will certainly
expel the Jews and the Christians from Arabia.’”20
Hadīth
The hadīth often simply elaborate on and further emphasize certain
aspects of Islamic doctrine adumbrated in the Koran, and hinted at in the
Sira, the life of Muhammad. The Dictionary of Islam gives the following
definition for “hadīth”:
All Muslims believe that in addition to the revelation contained in the
Qur’ān, the Prophet received the Wahy ghair Matlū (literally, “an
unread revelation”), whereby he was enabled to give authoritative
declarations on religious questions, either moral, ceremonial, or
doctrinal. Muhammad traditions are therefore supposed to be the
uninspired record of inspired sayings....They are records of what
Muhammad did, what Muhammad enjoined, and that which was done
in the presence of Muhammad and which he did not forbid. They also
include the authoritative sayings and doings of the Companions of the
 Prophet.21
As I shall be examining the hadīth on jihād further along in this discussion I
shall not dwell on it here.
Shari‘a
Joseph Schacht (1902–1969), who was, by common consent, a leading
Western scholar of Islamic Law, characterized Shari‘a in this manner:
Islamic Law is the totality of God’s commands that regulate the life of
every Muslim in all its aspects; it comprises on an equal footing
ordinances regarding worship and ritual, as well as political and (in
the narrow sense) legal rules, details of toilet, formulas of greeting,
table-manners, and sick-room conversation. Islamic law is the most
typical manifestation of the Islamic way of life, the core and kernel of
Islam itself....[E]ven at the present time the Law...remains an
important, if not the most important element in the struggle which is
being fought in Islam between traditionalism and modernism under
the impact of Western ideas.22
Islamic Law is based on four principles or “roots” (usūl, pl. of asl): the
Koran, the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in the recognized
traditions, the consensus (ijmā‘) of the scholars of the orthodox community,
and the method of reasoning by analogy (qiyās).23
Position of Women and Non-Muslims
The position of women under Islamic Law regarding blood-money,
evidence, and inheritance is inferior; she is counted as half a man. With
regard to marriage and divorce a woman’s position is less advantageous
than that of a man, and a man has the right to beat his wife. A Muslim
woman is not free to marry a non-Muslim. Slavery is recognized as an
institution, and the slave is considered both a thing and as a person.
The position of non-Muslims living under Islamic Law is summarized by
Schacht: “The basis of the Islamic attitude towards unbelievers (i.e., non-
Muslims) is the law of war; they must be either converted or subjugated or
killed (excepting women, children, and slaves); the third alternative, in
general, occurs only if the first two are refused. As an exception, the Arab
pagans are given the choice only between conversion to Islam or death.”24
Non-Muslims must pay the poll tax (jizya) and the land tax (kharāj);
“they must wear distinctive clothing and must mark their houses, which
must not be be built higher that those of Muslims, by distinctive signs; they
must not ride horses or bear arms, and they must yield the way to Muslims;
they must not scandalize the Muslims by openly performing their worship
or their distinctive customs, such as drinking wine; they must not build new
churches, synagogues, and hermitages; they must pay the poll-tax under
humiliating conditions.”25
Apostasy is punishable by death. The male apostate from Islam is given
three days to return to Islam. If he still refuses, he is killed. The woman
who commits apostasy is imprisoned and beaten every three days until she
returns to Islam.26
In Islamic Law, certain acts are forbidden or sanctioned by punishment
in the Koran and have therby become crimes against religion:
unlawful intercourse (zinā); its counterpart, false accusation of
unlawful intercourse (qadhf); drinking wine (shurb al-khamr); theft
(sariqa); and highway robbery (qat‘ al-tarīq). The punishment laid
down for them are called hadd (plural hudud), Allah’s “restrictive
ordinances” par excellence; they are: the death penalty, either by
stoning (the more severe punishment for unlawful intercourse) or by
crucifixion or with the sword (for highway robbery with homicide);
cutting off hand and/or foot (for highway robbery without homicide
and for theft); and in other cases, flogging with various numbers of
lashes.27
Beliefs: God and Tawhīd
The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) defines tawhīd “in the true sense
of the term,” as “the act of believing and affirming that God is one and
unique (wāhid), in a word, monotheism.” For the Muslim, this means
“believing and affirming what is stated by the first article of the Muslim
profession of faith: ‘there is no other god but God’ (lā ilāha illā llāh).”28
However, as also explained in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, over time this
term has acquired a much wider significance. Since Islam is
uncompromisingly monotheistic, Muslims are sometimes referred to as ahl
al-tawhīd, the people of tawhīd. Throughout history some Islamic groups
have claimed that they alone respect the principle of monotheist orthodoxy
and thus they alone can be called truly Islamic. Examples include the
Mu‘tazilīs, who called themselves ahl al–tawhīd wa ’l-‘adl,29 and
Muwahhidūn, the Almohads, disciples of the mahdī (literally, “The One
who is Rightly Guided,” a figure of great eschatological significance in
Islam; his just rule will herald the approach of the end of time) lbn Tūmart
(d. 1130),
a fundamentalist who wished to re-establish what he conceived to be
the original purity of the faith by reference to the Koran and the
Sunna and so rejected the taqlīd which in his day dominated theology
in the West. He placed especial stress on the doctrine of tawhīd,
which to him meant a complete abstraction or spiritualization of the
concept of God, as opposed to tajsīm, the literal acceptance of the
anthropomorphic phrases of the Koran of which he so often accused
the Almoravids.30
For certain theologians, tawhīd has come to encompass all discussions of
God, His existence, and His various attributes. Even broader meanings are
understood under tawhīd, such as all the “principles of religion” (usul al-
dīn), and finally, theology in general.31
The opposite of tawhīd is shirk, which can be defined as “the act of
‘associating’ with God, in other words, accepting the presence at His side of
other divinities; it may be translated either literally, by associationism or, in
more explicit fashion, by polytheism.”32 Certain practices (e.g., sorcery,
ornithomancy) are denounced as shirk in the hadīth. Some purist reformers
throughout Islamic history have branded as shirk such practices as the
veneration of saints and worshipping at their tombs:33
Shirk is the worst form of disbelief. The treatment to be applied in
this world to the “associator” is that prescribed in IX, 5 (the “verse of
the sword”, āyat al-sayf): death, at least if they do not become
Muslims (whereas the “People of the Book” are, for their part,
allowed to maintain their religion, so long as they pay the jizya, IX,
29). In the next world, they will be assuredly consigned to damnation;
the Koran states in fact, twice, that God can pardon all sins save one,
that of associationism (Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women 48, 116).34
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong
There is one central, distinctive feature of Islamic ethics that is often left
out of general surveys of Islam, but is of the utmost importance to
understanding the thinking behind various influential modern Islamic
ideologues whose writings have not only influenced the Islamic terrorists
but also have provided the foundation of their worldview, and have
furnished their rationale for action.This principle is as important as the
theory and practice of jihād, which, on the other hand, has been discussed at
great length. In fact, we can regard jihād as a special case of the principle of
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong.
Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), one of Islam’s greatest theologians, a major sufi,
and a scholar of Islamic philosophy, defines this specifically Islamic duty
thus: “Every Muslim has the duty of first setting himself to rights, and then,
successively, his household, his neighbours, his quarter, his town, the
surrounding countryside, the wilderness with its Beduin, Kurds, or
whatever, and so on to the uttermost ends of earth.”35 As Michael Cook, the
greatest modern scholar on the subject, put it, “Of these demanding
activities, all bar the first fall under the rubric of ‘commanding right and
forbidding wrong’ (al-amr bi’l-ma‘rūf wa’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar), roughly
speaking the duty of one Muslim to intervene when another is acting
wrongly.”36
Like jihād, this duty is derived from the Koran, and has been commented
and elaborated upon by Islamic thinkers for centuries, right up to today:
Q3. al-‘Imrān 104: Let there be one community (umma) of you,
calling to good, and commanding right and forbidding wrong; these
are the prosperers.
Q3. al-‘Imrān 110: You were the best community ever brought forth
to men, commanding right and forbidding wrong.
Women also have this moral obligation:
Q9. at-Tawba 71: And the believers, the men and the women, are
friends one of the other; they command right, and forbid wrong.
There are also numerous traditions of the Prophet that refer to the duty of
Forbidding Wrong. However, the Sunni law schools do not cover
Forbidding Wrong in their law books, though sectarian scholars among the
Zaydīs, Imāmīs, and Ibādīs do. Al-Ghazālī was perhaps the first major
Muslim thinker to devote substantial amount of space to this duty in The
Revival of the Religious Sciences [Ihyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn], which we shall be
examining later in this section.
Forbidding Wrong
 For Muslim scholars, Forbidding Wrong was a duty imposed by God—
as revealed in the Koran and the traditions. In the Koranic passage cited
above (Q3. al-‘Imrān 104), God is addressing Muslims in general. As Cook
explains, the language of here—“let there be”—is clearly prescriptive, “So
the obvious reading of the verse is indeed that God is imposing a duty on
the Muslims, and this is how it was universally understood.”37 In a hadīth
Muhammad says: “Whoever sees a wrong, and is able to put it right with
his hand, let him do so; if he cannot, then with his tongue, if he can’t, then
in his heart, and that is the bare minimum of faith.”38
Since the purpose of the duty is to come to the aid of Islam, it is a duty
of believers, not of unbelievers. This was considered by most scholars to be
a collective obligation (fard ‘alā ’l-kifāya). In performing this duty, one
must address legally competent persons (thus children and lunatics are
excluded).
According to most scholars, Muslims have a duty to command right and
forbid wrong, and by “right” they mean all that God and His Prophet have
commanded, and by “wrong” all they have forbidden. Al-Ghazālī has
formulated the most comprehensive and influential classification of how
wrong is to be forbidden.
By Tongue
He begins forbidding wrong with the tongue, that is the oral mode, of
which there are three levels. First, one must inform someone who is acting
wrongly out of ignorance, but one must be careful not to humiliate a fellow
Muslim. At the second level, one must use exhortation when confronted
with someone who knows he is doing wrong. Such exhortation can include
quotations from traditions, stories about pious Muslims, and so on. At the
third level, one may be forced to use harsh language with someone who
knows he is doing wrong but remains obstinate.
Or Hand
In the case of forbidding wrong with the hand, Al-Ghazālī again has
recourse to three levels. The first is physical action that does not involve
physical attacks against people. One can, for example, destroy the offending
objects (e.g., break a musical instrument,). One can also remove someone
from a place where he ought not to be. The second level does involve actual
physical violence against the offender. At this level, one may well have to
kick and punch the offender, and even use a stick. Arms must only be used
as a last resort, and must not lead to public disorder. Finally, at the third
level, one may have to collect a band of armed men for assistance, which,
of course, could lead to the offender forming his own band of armed men,
ending in pitched battles.
As Cook spells out, “[A]ttacks on offending objects are a ubiquitous
theme....There are, for example, chess-boards to overturn, supposedly
sacred trees to cut down and decorative images to destroy or deface....But
the targets that are mentioned again and again are liquor and musical
instruments.”39 When the magnificent Buddhas of Bamyan in central
Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, one Taliban
envoy from Afghanistan gave the implausible reason that “the Islamic
government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation offered
money to preserve the ancient works while a million Afghans faced
starvation,” while more plausibly, “other reports…have said the religious
leaders were debating the move for months, and ultimately decided that the
statues were idolatrous and should be obliterated.”40 In other words, it was
a clear case of Islamic iconoclasm, sanctioned by the very principle under
discussion.
The paramount duty for all Muslims is to uphold God’s unity, tawhīd,
which is the fundamental concept in Islam, while its antithesis, shirk—
associating others with God—is considered tāġūt, or idolatry. Any behavior
is considered idolatrous that may include the creation of any type of image
of the deity, or even other figures of religious significance such as prophets
and saints. The creation of images of living things—persons or animals—
falls under this definition of idolatrous activity. Thus statues of Buddha
constitute idolatry par excellence.
Muslim scholars have much debated whether the use of violence in
Forbidding Wrong was reserved for the state, or at least needed the
permission of the imam, essentially a prayer leader in a mosque, but also
someone whose leadership or example is to be followed by the Muslim
community. As Cook summarizes, “There were nevertheless a good many
scholars who left individuals free to take up arms, and did so without
evincing any such concern for the role of the state. This is well-attested
among the Mu‘tazilites, Zaydīs and Ibādīs. It is also by no means rare
among the Sunnīs; thus Abū Hanīfa is said to have held that forbidding
wrong is obligatory by word and sword, and Ibn Hazm gives strong support
to recourse to arms where necessary.”41
Or Heart
Finally, there is the recourse to the heart, which is a purely mental act.
Al-Ghazālī on Emigration
If one lives in a land where wrongdoing prevails, and one does not have
the realistic possibility of righting those wrongs, then one’s duty is to
emigrate.42 Al-Ghazālī does not endorse this reading, arguing instead that
as long as one does not participate in the wrongdoing, one is not obliged to
emigrate, which seems a rather unrealistic demand of ordinary Muslims.
Nonetheless, al-Ghazālī is relentless in urging Muslims to pursue this
Islamic duty, especially if one knows that there is “an evil in the market-
place, and are capable of putting a stop to it, then it is your duty not to sit at
home, but rather to sally forth to confront evil.”43
The Zaydī Mu‘tazilite Mānkdīm argues that “forbidding wrong has
conditions (sharā’it), being obligatory only when they are satisfied.”44
These conditions are: (1) knowledge of law, (2) knowledge of fact, (3)
absence of worse side-effects, (4) efficacy, and (5) absence of danger to
onself.45
As for the condition of danger, “the question for us now is whether in the
absence of obligation it is still good to proceed. The standard answer is that
it is; if you are willing to take risks in God’s cause, you will be rewarded. In
the limit, this means endorsing the view that someone who is killed
forbidding wrong dies the death of a martyr (shahīd), and many scholars
have no problem with this.”46
Privacy versus Hidden Sin
Muslim scholars do not have “any single concept equivalent to our
notion of privacy; what they have is rather a cluster of related concerns.”47
Cook explains that Muslim scholars do not seem to have
the notion that certain kinds of behavior are inherently private, and as
such immune to public scrutiny. What is protected is not “private life”
but rather “hidden sin,” behavior that happens not to be public
knowledge. It is no business of ours to pry into what is unknown to
 us, nor to divulge what we innocently stumble upon; but once we
know, we are likely to incur some kind of obligation to forbid
wrong....The difference between Muslim thinking and that of the
modern West is thus not simply that there is no single Muslim
concept corresponding to the Western notion of privacy; it is also that
the Muslim concepts seem to be of a significantly different kind.48
Similarly, this principle also overrides concerns about minding one’s own
business, as there is “no doctrinal rejection of forbidding wrong based on
the principle of minding one’s own business.”49
The Muslim state should be responsible for carrying out this duty. But
where the state itself is a wrongdoer, Muslims should speak out publicly to
rebuke unjust rulers, many scholars argue, despite the danger to oneself. Al-
Ghazālī encourages such rebuke, giving the example of early Muslims who
took such risks to fulfill their Muslim duty, “knowing that to be killed in
such a case was martyrdom.” Al-Ghazālī then quotes seventeen anecdotes
“to illustrate their courage and plain speaking. This, he laments, is how
things used to be; but today the scholars are silent, or if they do speak out,
they are ineffectual, all because of their love of things of this world.”50
The Hanafī Mu‘tazilite Jassās denounces Sunni traditionists who had a
tendency to downplay the duty,
for holding that injustice and murder may be committed by a ruler
with impunity, while other offenders may be proceeded against by
word or deed—but not with arms. The point is not, in his view, an
academic one. It is these attitudes that have led to the present sorry
state of Islam—to the domination of the reprobate, of Zoroastrians, of
enemies of Islam; to the collapse of the frontiers of Islam against the
infidel; to the spread of injustice, the ruin of countries and the rise of
all manner of false religions.51
This duty is not found in all the classical traditions, but “outright denials
of the obligatoriness of forbidding wrong are almost unheard of.”52 Its
importance is underlined in a comprehensive manner by the Indian Hanafi
‘Ismat Allāh of Sharānpur, who was clearly irritated by those who
downplay the duty, and the doctrine of some, though not all, Sūfīs, of
leaving people in peace:
For were it pleasing to God to leave people alone, He would not have
 sent the prophets, nor established their laws, nor called to Islam, nor
voided other religions, but would rather have left people to their own
devices, untroubled by divine visitations; nor would He have imposed
on them the duty of holy war, which involves suffering and death for
both Muslims and infidels. He further emphasises that Sūfīs—
pantheists included—have made it abundantly clear that they neither
practise nor preach an indiscriminate toleration. What is more,
distinguished Sūfīs have written on forbidding wrong. Even apart
from this, the fact that the prophets were sent to command right and
forbid wrong is enough to establish that it is both good and obligatory.
In short, if leaving people alone were praiseworthy, then forbidding
wrong would not be a religious duty.53
Categories of Wrongdoing
As for the kinds of wrongs that Muslims commonly committed, al-
Ghazālī’s examples are sorted into three categories by Michael Cook:
violation of religious norms (e.g., praying faultily), “offense against
puritanical norms” (e.g., imbibing liquor, making music, and indulging in
improper sexual relations), and “secular” wrongs (e.g., blocking a street).
It is odd that Cook characterizes taking liquor as an offense against
“puritanical norms,” when imbibing alcohol is quite clearly against the
Shari‘a, which is incumbent on all Muslims, hence simply an Islamic norm.
Cook does refer to drinking alcohol as a common practice in medieval
Islamic societies, suggesting that not all Muslims took the Koranic
injunction against alcohol seriously. Finally, Cook ends on a very important
point: “[T]here is no sign within the secular category of a concern for what
we might call social justice.”54 The primary concern for all who insist on
the duty to Command Right and Forbid Wrong is to see that Islam is not
endangered in any way by laxness among Muslims, from rulers to common
people.
Cook shows that “it was common in the early centuries of Islam for
rebels to adopt forbidding wrong as their slogan,”55 examples being “found
among the Khārijites, including the Ibādīs, among the Shī‘ites, including
Zaydīs, and among the Sunnīs, especially the Mālikīs. Some instances of
such rebels in the early centuries of Islam are Jahm ibn Safwān (d. 746), in
late Umayyad Transoxiana, Yūsuf al-Barm in Khurāsān in 776f., Mubarqa‘
in Palestine 841f., Ibn al-Qitt in Spain in 901 and an ‘Abbāsid who rebelled
in Armenia in 960.”56
Cook’s conclusion is that the act of Forbidding Wrong is largely driven
by puritanical attitudes, and that “those who participated were members of
the religious elite, and above all the scholars....[T]he link between
forbidding wrong and rebellion is unproblematically historical.”57
Forbidding Wrong and Rebellion
There is an inexorable link between Forbidding Wrong and rebellion,
and therefore a link that has great importance in light of militant Islam’s
resurgence in the second half of the twentieth century. Islamic
fundamentalists fervently believe in drawing on the Islamic tradition, which
remains profoundly relevant for all Muslims living in the modern world.
Thus medieval doctrines of Forbidding Wrong continue to play a vital role
in directing the actions of contemporary Islamists.
Educated Sunni Muslims agree that Islam as it has been practised in the
last hundred years needs drastic reform, but there is no agreement about
what kind of reforms should be enacted. Islamic modernists propose
restoring Islam in a way that allows practitioners to continue to live at ease
with themselves in the modern world. However, many Muslims see this as a
compromise and, in effect, a project to Westernize Islam. Islamic
fundamentalists obviously prefer an uncompromising restoration of Islam
that shuns omnipresent Western culture. Cook has provided the essential
historical link, from groups seeking to apply the Islamic duty of
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in order to purify Islam to the
modern, violent reform movements.
As I emphasize throughout this book, reform movements, often violent,
seeking to restore a pristine Islam have existed since the foundation of the
original Muslim community—from movements such as the Khārijities in
the eighth century, to movements in Baghdad in the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries, to the Qādīzādeli movement in Istanbul in the
seventeenth century, which influenced Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb
(1703–1792), who founded Wahhābism, the movement named after him in
eighteenth-century Najd, in the interior of Arabia, which gave rise to the
Saudi state.
Ibn al-Wahhāb, whose ideas are explored in depth in chapter 14, was
motivated by purely Islamic concerns such as the elimination of harmful
innovations, and he was not afraid to use violence to impose his version of
pristine Islam. He would provide inspiration for Islamic fundamentalists
worldwide, from India to Indonesia in the East, and Egypt and Iran in the
Middle East, as they battled, in their view, the pernicious and ubiquitous
influence of Western civilization.
Since Forbidding Wrong is an Islamic practice that tells people what to
believe, it reminds us of the profound difference between Islam and
Western liberalism. As I have written, under Islam, life is a closed book.58
Everything has been decided for human beings: the dictates of Shari‘a and
the whims of Allah set strict limits on the possible agenda of our lives. In
the West, we are free as individuals to choose our goals and determine our
path, and to decide what meaning to give to our lives. As Roger Scruton has
remarked, “the glory of the West is that life is an open book.”59
Both Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), an Egyptian Islamist and the leading
member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s (see
chapter 19), and ‘Ali ibn Hajj (Ali Benhadj or Belhadj, b. 1956), an
Algerian Islamist activist, preacher, and cofounder of the Islamic Salvation
Front political party, vehemently argue that what the West continues to
consider as personal matters are no such thing. It is the duty of observant
Muslims to interfere where Islamic laws and custom are being broken. As
early as 1961 French Islamologue Louis Gardet (1904–1986) presciently
remarked that “forbidding wrong as moral reform (réforme des moeurs),
though currently held in check by the modern state, was alive in the
sentiments of the Muslim people, and could well emerge in favourable
circumstances.”60 Strangely enough, Qutb insisted that one had to establish
a true Muslim society before one could apply the principle. This, however,
was not the position adopted by all Islamic fundamentalists.
When they controled most of Afghanistan, the Taliban established a
department, and later a ministry, for Forbidding Wrong. More notorious are
the religious police in Saudi Arabia and Iran, who carry out this duty. For
other fundamentalists such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, this duty even
overrides the danger condition, and if death occurs to the Muslim trying to
forbid wrong, he will have died an honorable death of a martyr.
The Hereafter: Blood and Death, not Life, in Islam
 On January 9, 2015, Amedy Coulibaly, hostage-taker and gunman in the
Kosher supermarket at La Porte de Vincennes in Paris presented himself to
victims in this manner: “I am Amedy Coulibaly, Malian, Muslim. I belong
to IS [État islamique]. The difference between Muslims and you, the Jews,
is that you treat life as sacred. For you, life is too important. As for us, it is
death that is sacred.”61 A little later, the young Malian reaffirmed his
commitment to Islam in a message sent to his commanders to look after his
wife, who, he insisted, must learn Arabic, the Koran, and theology. His
hatred of the West resulted, Coulibaly claimed, from its relentless attack on
Islamic institutions and values: the caliphate and the Shari‘a. To “elevate
the words of Allah” and to protect Islam, Coulibaly shot and killed four
hostages before he was killed by the police.62 As former senior international
policy analyst with the RAND Coroporation Laurent Murawiec has written,
“inseparable…from contemporary Islamic terrorism are the idolization of
blood, the veneration of savagery, the cult of killing, the worship of
death.”63
Contempt for Life
That Islamic terrorists embrace death with joy in anticipation of their
rewards seems, to non-Muslims, morbid and immoral, for it treats the
human life as worthless, expendable. But this disdain for life has been
acquired from Islamic history and Islamic texts. The Koran refers to the
“Last Day”—al-yawm al-ākhir—in some formulation at least forty times,64
but alludes to the “Hereafter” or the “World to Come”—al-Ākhirah—more
than a hundred times,65 often to say that the “Life to Come” is far better
than life on Earth, and to heap scorn on those who enjoy living. For
example:
• Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 86: Such are those who have purchased the
present life at the price of the world to come.
• Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 94: Say: If the abode of the Hereafter in
the providence of Allah is indeed for you alone and not for others of
mankind, then long for death (for you must long for death) if you are
truthful.
• Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance / al-Barā’at, the Immunity, 38: The
enjoyment of the present life, compared with the Hereafter, is a little
thing.
 • Q16. an-Nahl, the Bee, 106–7: Theirs will be an awful doom. That
is because they have chosen the life of the world rather than the
Hereafter.
• Q87. al-’A‘lā, the Most High, 16–17: But you prefer the life of
world, although the Hereafter is better and more lasting.
Similar attitudes are expressed in the hadīth:
• Sahīh al-Bukhārī: hadīth 6413: “Narrated Anas: The Prophet said,
‘O Allah! There is no life worth living except the life of the
Hereafter.’”66
• Sahīh al-Bukhārī hadīth 6415: “I heard the Prophet saying, ‘A
(small) place equal to an area occupied by a whip in Paradise is better
than the (whole) world and whatever is in it; and an undertaking
(journey) in the forenoon or in the afternoon for Allah’s Cause, is
better than the whole world and whatever is in it.’”67
• Ibn Majah, Sunan, book 6, hadīth 1571: “It was narrated from Ibn
Mas’ud that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘I used to forbid you to visit
the graves, but now visit them, for they will draw your attention away
from this world and remind you of the Hereafter.’”68
The Islamic concept of martyrdom is examined in the forthcoming chapter
on jihād, which includes examples of contempt for this life on Earth, and
phrases remarkably similar to those used by modern jihādists such as “more
eager for death than you are for life,” in the history of al-Tabarī in the
section on the early Muslim conquests. As for the modern period, there are
countless examples to choose from; I share here two, posted in July 2014 on
Palestinian Media Watch:
A recorded statement by Hamas Chief of Staff Muhammad Deif,
prepared during the current Gaza war, announced: “Today you
[Israelis] are fighting divine soldiers, who love death for Allah like
you love life, and who compete among themselves for Martyrdom
like you flee from death.”
Yesterday, Hamas TV also chose to broadcast a statement former
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh made in the past: “We love
death like our enemies love life! We love Martyrdom, the way in
which [Hamas] leaders died.”69
These examples of praise for death, collected on Jihād Watch, were posted
in 2014:
A Muslim child preacher taunted those he has been taught to hate
most: “Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much
as you love life for the sake of Satan.” Jihād mass murderer
Mohamed Merah said that he “loved death more than they loved life.”
Nigerian jihādist Abubakar Shekau said: “I’m even longing for death,
you vagabond.” Ayman al-Zawahiri’s wife advised Muslim women:
“I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihād and martyrdom
and to instil in them a love for religion and death.” And as one
jihādist put it, “We love death. You love your life!” And another:
“The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death.” That was from
Afghan jihādist Maulana Inyadullah.70
Some may remember the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, spoken in 1977:
“This world is but a passage; it is not a world in which we ought to
live….What is called Life in this world is not Life but Death. True Life is
that offered only in the Hereafter.”71 And “It is only the Mullahs who can
bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam—begging to
have their blood shed for Islam.”72
Political analyst and lecturer Amir Taheri, a former editor-in-chief of
Kayhan, Iran’s largest-selling daily newspaper, shares the following
startling example of the significance of blood in Islam in his 1987 book,
Holy Terror: The Inside Story of Islamic Terrorism:
Pilgrims to the ‘waiting room of Paradise’ start their guided tour of
the Islamic Republic with a visit to the Behesht Zahra (Paradise of
Flowers) graveyard south of Tehran. There they are invited to stand
for a minute’s silence in front of the Fountain of Blood, a 4.5 metre-
high fountain out of which surges a blood-red liquid, symbolizing, in
the words of the guide, the essence of Islam’s message.73
Finally, consider this quote from Osama bin Ladin, uttered in 1996:
Since the sons of the land of the two holy places [Saudi Arabia] feel
and strongly believe that fighting [jihād] against the kufr [unbeliever]
in every part of the world is absolutely essential, then they would be
even more enthusiastic, more powerful, and larger in number upon
fighting on their own land… defending the greatest of their [holy
places], the noble Kaba….They know that the Muslims of the world
 will assist and help them to victory. To liberate their [holy places] is
the greatest of issues concerning all Muslims; it is the duty of every
Muslim in this world. I say to you [U.S. Defense Secretary William
Cohen]: These youths love death as you love life.74

1 Stevenson, Haberman, and Wright, Twelve Theories, 1–2.

2 Q2:216; Q2:221; Q3:28; Q3:85; Q4:101; Q4:144; Q8:39; Q9:14, 17, 23, 28, 29, 36, 39, 41, 73, 111,
123; Q25:52, and so on.
3 Tafsir al-Qurtubi: Classical Commentary of the Holy Qur’an, trans. Aisha Bewley (London: Dar
al-Taqwa, 2003), 127.
4 E.g., Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 61; Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 44–46, 160–61; Q9. at-Tawba, the
Repentance, 29–31, 34; Q5. al-Mā’ida, the Table, 51, 57, 59, 60, 63–64, 66, 70–71, 82; Q33.
al-’Ahzāb, Confederates, 26.
5 Imam Malik, Muwatta’, trans. Muhammad Rahimuddin, hadīth 1588 (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan,
2003), 371.
6 Imam Abu Abdullah Muhammad B Yazid Ibn-e-Majah Al-Qazwini, Sunan Ibn Majah, trans.
Muhammad Tufail Ansari, vol.4, Book of Blood Money, hadīth 2658, 2659 (New Delhi: Kitab
Bhavan, 2008), 4:72. Found also in Sahīh al- Bukhārī, Book of Blood Money (ad-diyat), hadīth 6915
(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darussalam, 1997), 9:40; and Sunan Abu Dāwūd, Kitab al-Diyat, trans.
Ahmad Hasan, hadīth 4515 (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1997), 3:1270–71.
7 Quoted by Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (London: Associated
University Presses, 1996), 396. S.R. (Ayatollah) Khomeini, Principes, Politiques, Philosophiques,
Sociaux et Religieux, trans. and ed. J.-M. Xaviere (Paris: Libres-Hallier, 1979), 59.
8 Bob Unruh, “Guess Who U.S. Muslims are Voting For,” WorldNetDaily.com, October 30, 2012,
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/guess-who-u-s-muslims-are-voting-for/
9 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, “San-Sze,” ed. C.E. Bosworth et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1997),
s.v. “sunna.”
10 Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers on behalf of the Royal
Netherlands Academy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1953), s.v. “bid‘a.”
11 Bukhārī, The Book of the Punishment of Those Who Wage War against Allah and His Messenger,
trans. M. Muhsin Khan, vol. 8, book 82 of Sahīh, hadīth 794 (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1987), 519–
20.
12 Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya (Cairo: Mustafa Al Babi Al Halabi & Sons, 1955), 2:328–38;
Ibn Ishāq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume (1955; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1987), 515; The Victory of Islam, trans. Michael Fishbein, vol. 8 of History of al- Tabarī, 122–23.
13 Ibn Ishāq, Life of Muhammad, 266–67; Bukhāri, The Book of Representation (Wakāla, Book 40),
trans. M. Muhsin Khan, vol. 3, hadīth 2314, 2315 (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1997), 290..
14 Ibn Ishāq, Life of Muhammad.
15 The Life of Muhammad: Al-Wāqidī’s Kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer,
Amal Ismail, and Abdul Kader Tayob, Routledge Studies in Classical Islam (Milton Park, Abingdon,
Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2011), 85. [Henceforth, “Al-Wāqidī, Life of Muhammad]
16 Ibn Ishāq, Life of Muhammad, 675.
17 Ibn Sa‘d, Kitāb al-Tabaqāt al Kabīr, trans. S. M. Haq (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1972), 2:31.
18 Al-Wāqidī, Life of Muhammad, 85–86.
19 Ibn Ishāq, Life of Muhammad, 689.
20 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, trans. Ahmad Hasan, hadīth 3024 (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1997), 2:861.
21 Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “tradition.”
22 Joseph Schacht, “Islamic Religious Law,” in The Legacy of Islam, ed. Joseph Schacht and C.E.
Bosworth, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 392. See also Joseph Schacht, An
Introduction to Islamic Law (1964; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 1.
23 Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law, 60.
24 Ibid., 130–31.
25 Ibid., 131.
26 Ibid., 187.
27 Ibid., 175.
28 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, 2nd ed. s.v. “sunna.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 10, “Tā’-U[..],”
ed. P. J. Bearman et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2000), s.v. “tawhīd.” [The following phrase was later
added to the Muslim profession of faith: “And Muhammad is His messenger.”
29 Ibid.
30 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn Tūmart.”
31 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 10, 2nd ed., s.v. “tawhīd.”
32 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, “San-Sze,” ed. C.E. Bosworth et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1997),
s.v. “shirk.”
33 Saints are holy men to whom ordinary Muslims the world over pay popular devotion. Muslims
also pray to them at the saints’ shrines and tombs, asking them to intercede and help them during
hard times. This practice was frowned upon by Muslim theologians and reformers.
34 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, 2nd ed., s.v. “shirk.”
35 Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 445.
36 For this section, I rely entirely on Michael Cook’s two superb and monumental books on the
subject: Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), which is an epitome of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in
Islamic Thought. Cook, Forbidding Wrong, xi.
37 Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 11.
38 Imam an-Nawawi: Forty Hadith, trans. Abdassamad Clarke (London: Ta Ha Publishers, 1998),
hadīth 34. Another edition available at
http://ahadith.co.uk/downloads/Commentary_of_Forty_Hadiths_of_An-Nawawi.pdf.
39 Ibid., 31.
40 Barbara Crossette, “Taliban Explains Buddha Demolition,” New York Times, March 19, 2001,
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/world/taliban-explains-buddha-demolition.html.
41 Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 34.
42 Ibid., 39.
43 Ibid., 41.
44 Ibid., 45.
45 Ibid., 46.
46 Ibid., 55.
47 Ibid., 57.
48 Ibid., 62-63.
49 Ibid., 94.
50 Ibid., 76.
51 Ibid., 84-85.
52 Ibid., 86.
53 Ibid., 89-90.
54 Ibid., 99.
55 Ibid., 81.
56 Ibid., 108-9.
57 Ibid., 110.
58 Ibn Warraq, Why the West Is Best (New York: Encounter Books, 2011), 11.
59 Roger Scruton, “The Glory of the West Is That Life Is an Open Book,” Sunday Times (UK), May
27, 2007, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/article65281.ece.
60 Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 115–16, citing Louis Gardet, La cité musulmane: vie sociale et
politique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1961), 187.
61 Jean Birnbaum, Un silence religieux: La gauche face au djihādisme (Paris: Éditions du Seuil,
2016), 14.
62 Ibid.
63 Laurent Murawiec, The Mind of Jihād (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 21.
64 See Hanna E. Kassis, A Concordance of the Qur’an (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983), 131–32.
65 Ibid., 132-34.
66 The Translation of the Meanings of Sahīh Bukhārī, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, hadīth 6413
(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darussalam, 1997), 8:233,
https://futureislam.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sahih-al-bukhari-volume-8-ahadith-5970-6860.pdf
67 Ibid., hadīth 6415, 8:234.
68 Sunan Ibn Majah, trans. Ansari, hadīth 1571, 6:397.
69 Itamar Marcus, “Hamas: We ‘Love Death for Allah,’” Palestinian Media Watch, July 31, 2014,
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12235.
70 Robert Spencer, “Hamas: ‘We Love Death Like Our Enemies Love Life!’” Jihād Watch, July 31,
2014, https://www.jihādwatch.org/2014/07/hamas-we-love-death-like-our-enemies-love-life.
71 Quoted in Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini & the Islamic Revolution (Bethesda, MD:
Adler & Adler, 1986), 39.
72 Ibid., 53.
73 Taheri, Holy Terror, 114.
74 Rubin, Barry & Rubin, Judith Colp, edd. Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East.
Understanding the Violence. A Documentary Reader. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 140-
41.
5 - Jihād: Definitions, Descriptions, and Discussions
I TREAT jihād in considerable detail because its theory and prac-tice are
central to the whole of Islamic history and Islamic theology, and because it
has immediate relevance to the political ideology and acts of contemporary
Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists. And yet, many modern Western
intellectuals and analysts still deny the centrality of jihād as a motivating
factor in current Islamist movements. Thus, to drive home the importance
of jihād I have had recourse to every kind of scholarly evidence available—
dictionaries, encyclopaedias, the Koran, hadīth, Sira (the Life of
Muhammad), the writings of highly regarded Islamic philosophers and
theologians, and scholarly works of history.
Definitions of Jihād
In his celebrated Dictionary of Islam (1885), Thomas Patrick Hughes, a
British Anglican missionary who served in British India and was noted for
his facility with languages and Islamic scholarship, offers this definition of
jihād:
“Lit. “An effort, or a striving.” A religious war with those who are
unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious
duty, established in the Qur’an and in the Traditions as a divine
institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam
and of repelling evil from Muslims.
When an infidel’s country is conquered by a Muslim ruler, its
inhabitants are offered three alternatives:
(1) The reception of Islam, in which case the conquered become
enfranchised citizens of the Muslim state.
(2) The payment of a poll-tax (Jizyah), by which unbelievers in Islam
obtain protection, and become Zimmis, provided they are not the
idolaters of Arabia.
(3) Death by the sword, to those who will not pay the poll tax.
Sufi writers say that there are two jihāds: al-jihādu ‘l-Akbar, or “the
greater warfare,” which is against one’s own lusts; and al-jihādu ‘l-
asghar, or “the lesser warfare,” against infidels.
The duty of religious war (which all commentators agree is a duty
extending to all time) is laid down in the Qur’an in the following
verses, and it is remarkable that all the verses occur in the al-Madinah
 Surahs, being those given after Muhammad had established himself
as a paramount ruler and was in a position to dictate terms to his
enemies…. [Hughes quotes from Q9. al-Tawba, the Repentance, 5–6,
29; Q4 al-Nisā’, the Women, 76–79; Q2. al-Baqarah, the Cow, 214–
15; and Q8 al-Anfāl, the Spoils of War, 39–42.]
Long chapters in the Traditions are devoted to the subject of jihād
(see Bukhārī, Sahīh and Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Babu ‘l- jihād).1
Hughes continues his discussion of jihād with many quotes from the
canonical hadīth. However, he does not give the precise references for the
sources of those hadīth. I have diligently tracked them down, and give
essentially the same hadīth, properly referenced, using the more readily
available translations of the Muslim scholars, Muhammad Muhsin Khan,
Ahmad Hasan, and Abdul Hamid Siddiqi:
Allāh guarantees that He will admit the Mujāhid in His Cause into
Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home
safely with rewards and war booty. —Bukhārī, Sahīh, Kitāb al-jihād
wa–l siyar.2
No doubt I wish I could fight in Allah’s Cause and be martyred and
come back to life again and then again to be martyred and then come
back to life once more.3
To guard Muslims from infidels in Allah’s Cause for one day is better
than the world and whatever is on its surface.4
Anyone whose both feet get covered with dust in Allah’s Cause will
not be touched by the (Hell) fire.5
He who equips a fighter in Allah’s path has taken part in fighting, and
he who looks after a fighter’s family when he is away has taken part
in the fighting....If any of you looks after the family and property of a
warrior, he will receive half the reward of the one who goes forth (in
jihād). —Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād6
The Holy Prophet said, “This religion will continue to exist, and a
group of people from the Muslims will continue to fight for its
protection until the Hour [the Day of Resurrection] is established.” —
Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Imara7
Whoever is wounded in Allah’s Cause—and Allah knows well who
gets wounded in His Cause—will come on the Day of Resurrection
 with his wound having the colour of blood but its smell will be the
smell of musk. —Bukhārī, Sahīh8
All the sins of a Shahid (martyr) are forgiven except debt. —Muslim
ibn al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Imāra9
He who dies without having fought or having felt fighting (against the
infidels) to be his duty will die guilty of a kind of hypocrisy. —Abū
Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād10
When you are called (by a Muslim ruler) for jihād (holy fighting in
Allah’s cause), go forth immediately.
The Imam (Muslim ruler) is like a shelter for whose safety the
Muslims should fight. —Bukhārī, Sahīh11
Descriptions of Jihād
Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition, 1913
In the first edition (1913) of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, D.B.
Macdonald, author of the entry on “djihād,” offers this depiction of “Holy
War” (which is reproduced in the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (1953):12
The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in
general. It narrowly escaped being a sixth rukn, or fundamental duty,
and is indeed still so regarded by the descendants of the Khāridjīs.
This position was reached gradually but quickly. In the Meccan Sūras
of the Qur’ān patience under attack is taught; no other attitude was
possible. But at Madīna the right to repel attack appears, and
gradually it became a prescribed duty to fight against and subdue the
hostile Meccans. Whether Muhammad himself recognized that his
position implied steady and unprovoked war against the unbelieving
world until it was subdued to Islam may be in doubt. Traditions are
explicit on the point; but the Qur’ānic passages speak always of the
unbelievers who are to be subdued as dangerous or faithless. Still, the
story of his writing to the powers around him shows that such a
universal position was implicit in his mind, and it certainly developed
immediately after his death, when the Muslim armies advanced out of
Arabia. It is a now a fard ‘ala ’l-kifāya, a duty in general on all male,
free, adult Muslims, sane in mind and body and having means enough
to reach the Muslim army, yet not a duty necessarily incumbent on
every individual, but sufficiently performed when done by a certain
 number. So it must continue to be done until the whole world is under
the rule of Islam....A Muslim who dies fighting in the Path of Allah (fī
sabīl Allāh) is a martyr (shahīd) and is assured of Paradise and of
peculiar privileges there. Such a death was, in the early generations,
regarded as the peculiar crown of a pious life. It is still, on occasions,
a strong incitement, but when Islam ceased to conquer it lost its
supreme value. Even yet, however, any war between Muslims and
non-Muslims must be a jihād with its incitements and rewards. Of
course, such modern movements as the so-called Mu‘tazilī in India
and the Young Turk in Turkey reject this and endeavour to explain
away its basis; but the Muslim masses still follow the unanimous
voice of the canon lawyers. Islam must be completely made over
before the doctrine of jihād can be eliminated.13
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, 1960–1986
The second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1960–1986) is a
highly respected collaborative work of the most eminent Western
Islamologists of the twentieth century. It is a monumental work of
scholarship, hence its importance. It discusses jihād, in part, thus:
In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the
djihād consists of military action with the object of the expansion of
Islam and, if need be, of its defence….The notion stems from the
fundamental principle of the universality of Islam: this religion, along
with the temporal power which it implies, ought to embrace to whole
universe, if necessary by force….
A religious duty. The djihād has the effect of extending the sway of
the faith; it is prescribed by God and his Prophet; the Muslim
dedicates himself to the djihād in the same way that, in Christianity,
the monk dedicates himself to the service of God; in the same vein it
is said in different hadīths that “the djihād is the monasticism of
Islam”; the djihād is “an act of pure devotion”; it is “one of the gates
to Paradise”; rich heavenly rewards are guaranteed for those who
devote themselves to it; those who fall in the djihād are the martyrs of
the faith, etc. A substantial part of the doctrine reckons the djihād
among the very “pillars” (arkan) of the religion, along with prayer
and fasting etc. It is a duty which falls upon every Muslim who is
 male, free and ablebodied. It is generally considered that non-
Muslims may be called upon to assist the Muslims in the djihād....
Its perpetual character. The duty of the djihād exists as long as the
universal domination of Islam has not been attained. “Until the day of
the resurrection,” and “until the end of the world” say the maxims.
Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of
affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it
temporarily. Furthermore, there can be no question of genuine peace
treaties with these nations; only truces, whose duration ought not, in
principle, to exceed ten years, are authorized. But even such truces
are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before they expire, be
repudiated unilaterally should it appear more profitable for Islam to
resume the conflict. It is, however, recognized that such repudiation
should be brought to the notice of the infidel party, and that he should
be afforded sufficient opportunity to be able to disseminate the news
of it throughout the whole of his territory
Finally, there is at the present time a thesis, of a wholly apologetic
character, according to which Islam relies for its expansion
exclusively upon persuasion and other peaceful means, and the djihād
is only authorized in cases of “self defence” and of “support owed to
a defenceless ally or brother.” Disregarding entirely the previous
doctrine and historical tradition, as well as the texts of the Qur’an and
the sunna on the basis of which it was formulated, but claiming, even
so, to remain within the bounds of strict orthodoxy, this thesis takes
into account only those early texts which state the contrary (v.
supra).14
Discussions: Modern Scholars on Jihād
I have chosen five modern scholars who write unapologetically about the
nature of jihād, three of whom are Muslim—Majid Khadduri, Fazlur
Rahman, and Mustansir Mir—to allay any suspicion that I cite only perhaps
biased Western ones.
Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, 1955 15
Majid Khadduri was professor of Middle East studies at the School of
Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and director
of research and education at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.:
 The jihād may be regarded as a form of religious propaganda that can
be carried on by persuasion or by the sword. In the early Makkan
revelations, the emphasis was in the main on persuasion. Muhammad,
in the discharge of his prophetic functions, seemed to have been
satisfied by warning his people against idolatry and inviting then to
worship Allah. This is evidenced by such a verse as the following: Q
29 al-‘Ankabūt, the Spider 6: “He who exerts himself (jāhada) exerts
only for his own soul” [wa-man gāhada fa-’innamā yugāhidu li-
nafsihī], which expresses the jihād in terms of the salvation of the
soul rather than a struggle for proselytization.16 In the Madīnan
revelations, the jihād is often expressed in terms of strife, and there is
no doubt that in certain verses the conception of jihād is synonymous
with the words war and fighting.17
The jurists, however, have distinguished four different ways in which
the believer may fulfill his jihād obligation: by his heart; his tongue;
his hands; and by the sword.18 The first is concerned with combatting
the devil and in the attempt to escape his persuasion to evil. This type
of jihād, so significant in the eyes of the Prophet Muhammad, was
regarded as the greater jihād [see Ibn al-Humām (d. 1457), Sharh
Fath al-Qadīr (Cairo, 1898), 4:277]. The second and third are mainly
fulfilled in supporting the right and correcting the wrong. The fourth
is precisely equivalent to the meaning of war, and is concerned with
fighting the unbelievers and the enemies of the faith.19 The believers
are under the obligation of sacrificing their “wealth and lives” [Q61.
As-Saff, The Row 11: tu’minūna bi-llāhi wa-rasūlihī wa-tugāhidūna fī
sabīli llāhi bi-’amwālikum wa’anfusikum dālikum hayrun lakum ’in
kuntum ta’lamūna] in the prosecution of war.20
Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 1966
Fazlur Rahman was Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of
Islamic Thought at the University of Chicago:
The Qur’ān calls upon believers to undertake jihād, which is to
surrender “your properties and youselves in the path of Allāh”; the
purpose of which in turn is to “establish prayer, give zakāt, command
good and forbid evil”—i.e., to establish the socio-moral order. So
long as the Muslims were a small, persecuted minority in Mecca,
 jihād as a positive organized thrust of the Islamic movement was
unthinkable. In Medina, however, the situation changed and
henceforth there is hardly anything, with the possible exception of
prayer and zakāt, that receives greater emphasis than jihād....Every
virile and expansive ideology has, at a stage, to ask itself the question
as to what are its terms of co-existence, if any, with other systems,
and how far it may employ methods of direct expansion. In our own
age, Communism, in its Russian and Chinese versions, is faced with
the same problems and choices. The most unacceptable on historical
grounds, however, is the stand of those modern Muslim apologists
who have tried to explain the jihād of the early Community in purely
defensive terms.21
Mustansir Mir, “Jihād in Islam,” 1991 22
Mustansir Mir is University Professor of Islamic Studies at Youngstown
State University, in Youngstown, Ohio:
The word jihād means “determined effort.” As a religious term in
Islam it has a general and special meaning. In its general sense jihād
stands for any endeavour made in in order to promote the religion of
Islam. But the word carries the connotation that the endeavour is
made in a situation of struggle or confrontation, the goal being to
surmount a hurdle or overcome a difficulty. According to Rāghib, one
engages in jihād against an outside enemy (mujāhadat al-‘aduww az-
zāhir), against Satan (mujāhadat ash-shaytān), or against one’s baser
self (mujāhadat an-nafs). In all three types, it can be seen, the goal is
to defeat a hostile force or subdue an opponent. In its special sense,
jihād is equivalent to the first of the three types of confrontation and
may be translated “armed action,” another term for which is qitāl.
This, the most familar meaning of jihād, is the one we are mainly
concerned with here. When the Qur’ān and the Hadīth promise great
reward for jihād, they are referring primarily to jihād in the sense of
qitāl.
Jihād in Islam is, properly speaking, jihād fī sabīl Allāh, i.e., jihād “in
the way of, or for the sake, of God.” This qualifier, frequent in the
Qur’ān [for example, 2:154, 2:190, 2:244, 2:246, 2:261, 3:13, 3:157,
3:167, 4:74, 4:76, and so on] seeks to mark Islamic war off from the
 wars of pre-Islamic Arabia. Arabic had many names for war, but
jihād was not one of them—it simply meant “to strive, exert oneself,
or make an effort.” By using this word to denote war, by further
limiting it by means of jihād fī sabīl Allāh, and by laying down an
elaborate set of rules for the conduct of war in all its stages, Islam
presents a new understanding of war. According to certain hādīth,
only that war is jihād which is fought not for the sake of booty, glory,
or any other personal or selfish ends, but with the intention of serving
God and the religion and winning reward in the next world rather than
in this [see Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād: bāb man yaghzu [wa]
yaltamisu d-dunyā, and bab man qātala li takū kalimatu llāhi hiya
l-‘ulyā] Moreover, the purpose of jihād in Islam is to “establish the
Islamic socio-moral order.”23 All this gives to jihād an ideological-
cum-ethical dimension that is obviously missing from the pre-Islamic
practice of war. To say, therefore, that jihād was the Arabian raid or
razzia Islamized24 through no more than a “subtle change”25 that
“there was no specifically religious objective”26 and that the concept
was of significance primarily to the individual in that it pictured for
him the great reward awaiting the martyr in heaven27—to say this is
to trivialize the notion of jihād, not to say that such a view can hardly
explain the gains made—and consolidated—by early Islam.
Rudolph Peters, Jihād in Classical and Modern Islam, 1996
Rudolph Peters, a recognized authority on jihād, is professor emeritus of
Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Amsterdam, and director of
the Netherlands Institute in Cairo, Egypt:
The Arabic word jihād (verbal noun of the verb jāhada) means to
strive, to exert oneself, to struggle....In the books on Islamic law, the
word means armed struggle against the unbelievers, which is also a
common meaning in the Koran [which] frequently mentions jihād and
fighting (qitāl) against the unbelievers....Many verses exhort the
believers to take part in the fighting ‘with their goods and lives’ (bi-
amwālihim wa-anfusihim), promise reward to those who are killed in
the jihād (Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of Imran, 157–158, 169–172)
and threaten those who do not fight with severe punishment in the
hereafter (Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 81–82; Q48. al-Fath, the
Victory, 16).
Classical Muslim Koran interpretation...regarded the Sword Verses,
with the unconditional command to fight the unbelievers, as having
abrogated all previous verses concerning the intercourse with non-
Muslims....
The doctrine of jihād, as laid down in the works on Islamic law,
developed out of the Prophet and the first caliphs, which is recorded
in the hadīth. The crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single
Islamic state, ruling the entire umma. It is the duty of the umma to
expand the territory of this state in order bring as many people under
its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to bring the whole earth under
the sway of Islam and to extirpate unbelief: (Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow,
193: “Fight them until there is persecution (or: seduction) and the
religion is God’s (entirely) [wa-qātilūhum hattā lā takūna fitnatun
wa-yakūna d-dīnu li-llāhi]” and Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of War, 39).
Expansionist jihād is a collective duty (fard‘alā al-kifāya), which is
fulfilled if a sufficient number of people take part in it. If this is not
the case, the whole umma is sinning. Expansionist jihād presupposes
the presence of a legitimate caliph to organize the struggle. After the
conquests had come to an end, the legal specialists laid down that the
caliph had to raid enemy territory at least once a year in order to keep
the idea of jihād alive....
Sunnite and Shi‘ite theories of jihād are very similar. However, there
is one crucial difference. The Twelver Shi‘ites hold that jihād can
only be waged under the leadership of the rightful Imām. After the
Occultation of the last one in 873, theoretically no lawful jihād can be
fought. This is true for expansionist jihād. However, as defence
against attacks remains obligatory and the ‘ulamā’ are often regarded
as the representatives of the Hidden Imām, several wars between Iran
and Russia in the 19th century have been called jihād.
[There are many hadīth that sum up] the aims of fighting unbelievers:
conversion or submission. In the latter case, the enemies were entitled
to keep their religion and practice it, against payment of a poll-tax
(jizya) (cf. Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 29).
Whenever the caliph deems it in the interest of the umma, he may
conclude a truce with the enemy, just as the Prophet did with the
 Meccans at al-Hudaybiyya. According to some law schools a truce
must be concluded for a specified period of time, no longer than ten
years. Others hold that this not necessary, if the caliph stipulates that
he may resume war whenever he wishes to do so. The idea behind it
is that the notion of jihād must not fall into oblivion.
The most important function of the doctrine of jihād is that it
mobilizes and motivates Muslims to take part in wars against
unbelievers, as it is considered to be the fulfillment of a religious
duty. This motivation is strongly fed by the idea that those who are
killed on the battlefield, valled martyrs (shahīd, plur. shuhadā’), will
go directly to Paradise. At the occasion of wars fought against
unbelievers, religious texts would circulate, replete with Koranic
verses and hadīths extolling the merits of fighting a jihād and vividly
describing the reward waiting in the hereafter for those slain during
the fighting.28
David Cook, Understanding Jihād, 2005
David Cook is associate professor of religious studies at Rice University,
in Houstson, Texas, and the author of Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic
(Darwin Press, 2003), Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature
(Syracuse University Press, 2005), Understanding Jihād (University of
California Press, 2005), Martyrdom in Islam (Cambridge University Press,
2007), and Understanding and Addressing Suicide Attacks, with Olivia
Allison (Praeger Press, 2007):
“Warfare with spiritual significance” is the primary and root meaning
of the term as it has been defined by classical Muslim jurists and legal
scholars and as it was practiced by Muslims during the premodern
period. This meaning is sustained in the standard definition given in
the new [2nd] edition of the Encylopaedia of Islam.29

1 Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “jihād.”

2 Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, hadīth 2787, 4:47.
3 Ibid., hadīth 2972, 4:138; see also hadīth 2797, 4:52; hadīth 36, 1:73.
4 Ibid., hadīth 2892, 4:97.
5 Ibid., hadīth 2811, 4:60.
6 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, trans. Ahmad Hasan, ahādīth 2503, 2504 (New Delhi: Kitab
Bhavan, 1997), 2:695.
7 Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Imara, trans. ‘Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, hadīth 4717 (New
Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000), 3:1277.
8 Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth, hadīth 2803, 4:55.
9 Al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Imara, hadīth 4649, 3:1261.
10 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, hadīth 2496, 2:693.
11 Bukhārī, Sahīh, hadīth 2825, 4:67; hadīth 2957, 4:131.
12 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1, “A–D,” ed. Th. Houtsma, T.W. Arnold, and R. Basset (Leiden:
Brill, 1913), s.v. “djihād,” by D.B. Macdonald. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Djihād.”
13 D.B. Macdonald’s bibliographical references: Th. W. Juynboll, Handbuch des Islamischen
Gesetzes Nach der Lehre der Schafi’itischen Schule Nebst Einer Allgemeinen Einleitung (Leiden,
Leipzig: E.J. Brill, Otto Harrassowitz, 1910), 57, 336 et seq., especially for division of booty;
Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, 243 et seq.—full on Koran, traditions, and details of Hanafite law; C.
Snouck Hurgronje, Politique Musulmane de la Hollande (Paris: E. Leroux, 1911), 16 et seq.,
especially for permanent character of djihād in Islam; Māwardī, Ahkām al-sultānīyya (ed. of Cairo
1298), 54 et seq.
14 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, “C–G,” ed. B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, and J. Schacht, 2nd ed. (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1965), s.v. “djihād,” written by E. Tyan. “Dāmād Ef., Madjma‘ al-anhur, ed. Ahmad b.
‘Uthmān, 1328/1910, i, 636ff.; Dardīr, al-Sharh al-Aaghīr, with the gloss of Sāwī, i, 398ff.; Djāhiz,
Rasā’il, ed. Sandūbī, Cairo 1933, 57; Farrā’, Ahkām al-sultānīyya, Cairo, 25ff.; Goldziher,
Schi‘itisches, in ZDMG, Ixiv, 53iff.; Addison, The Ahmadiya Movement, in Harvard Theological
Review, xxii, iff.; Ibn ‘Abidīn, Radd al-muhtār, Istanbul 1314/1905, iii, 315 ff.; Ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman,
Rahmat al-umma fī ‘khtiflāf al-a’imma, Cairo, 294; Ibn Djumā‘a, Tahrīr al-ahkām, ed. Kofler, (in
Islāmica, 1934), 349ff.; Ibn Qudāma, Mughnī, 3rd. ed. Rashīd Ridā, Cairo 1367/1947, viii, 345ff.;
Ibn Taymiyya, al-Siyāsa al-shar ‘iyya, Cairo 1322/1904, 156ff.; Marāghī, al-Tashri‘ al-islāmī, Cairo,
24ff.; Māwardī, Ahkām al-sultānīyya, Cairo, 30ff.; Querry, Recueil de lois concernant les musulmans
chiites, Paris 1871, i, 321; Rashid Ridā, Khilāfa, Cairo 1341/1922, 29, 51; Sarakhsī, Mabsūt, Cairo,
x, 35; Shāfi‘ī, Kitāb al-umm, Cairo 1903, with the Muzanī gloss, v, 180 if.; Gaudefroy-Demombynes,
Mahomet, Paris 1957, 578ff.; Draz, Le droit international publicé et l’Islām, in Revue égyptienne de
droit international public, 1949, 17ff.; Haneberg, Das muslimische Kriegsrecht (Abh. der kgl. Bayer.
Akad. der Wissensch., 1870, philos.-philol. cl., xii. Bd., II. Abt.), 219ff.; Juynboll, Handbuch 57,
335ff.; Milliot, Introd. a L’étude du droit musulman, Paris 1953, 22, 34; Sa ‘idī, al-Siyāsa al-
islāmiyya, Cairo; Sanhoury, Le Califat, thesis, Lyon 1925, 146; Strothmann, Das Staatsrecht der
Zaiditen, Strasbourg 1922, 42ff.; Muh. Shadīd, al-Djihād fī ‘l-Islām, 1960; lA, art. Cihād (Halim
Sabit Sibay).”
15 Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1955; Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2006, 2010), 56–57.
16 Ibid., 56n4: “See Shāfi‘ī, Kitāb al-Umm (Cairo, A,H,1321), Vol. IV, pp.84–85; ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-
Baghdādī, Kitāb Uaūl al-Dīn (Istanbul, 1928), Vol. I, p. 193; Shaybānī, al-Siyar al-Kabīr, with
Sarakhsī’s Commentary (Hyderabad, A.H. 1335), Vol. I, p. 126.”
17 Ibid: “See Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow 215; Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance 41; Q 61. As-Saff, The
Row 11; Q66. at-Tahrīm, the Prohibition 9.”
18 Ibid 56n6: “See Ibn Hazm, Kitāb al-Fasl fī al-Milal wa’l-Ahwā’ wa’l-Nihal (Cairo, A.H. 1321),
Vol. IV, p. 135; Ibn Rushd, Kitāb al-Muqaddimāt al-Mumahhidāt (Cairo, A.H. 1325), Vol.I, p. 259;
Buhūtī, Kashshāf al-Qinā’ ‘An Matn al-Iqnā‘ (Cairo, A.H. 1366),Vol. III, p. 28.
19 Ibid., 57n8: “Ibn Hazm distinguishes between the jihād by the tongue and the jihād by ra’y and
tadbīr (i.e. reason) and he maintains that the Prophet Muhammad showed preference for reason over
the sword. Ibn Hazm, Vol. IV, p. 135.”
20 Ibid., 57n9: “Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Jāmi‘ al-Sahīh, ed. Krehl (Leiden, 1864), Vol.II, p. 199; Abū
Dāwūd, Sunan (Cairo, 1935), Vol.III, p. 5; Dārimī, Sunan (Damascus, A.H.1349), Vol. II, p. 213.”
21 Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1966), 37.
22 Mustansir Mir, “Jihād in Islam,” in The Jihād and Its Times, ed. Hadia Dajani-Shakeel and
Ronald A. Messier (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, University
of Michigan, 1991), 113–14.
23 Ibid., 124n4: “Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd edn. (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press,
1979) p. 37.”
24 Ibid., 124n5: “W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1968), pp.14–19.”
25 Ibid., 124n6: “W. Montgomery Watt, The Majesty That Was Islam (London: Sidgwick & Jackson,
1974), p. 32.”
26 Ibid., 124n7: “Ibid., p. 33.”
27 Ibid., 124n8: “Ibid., p. 34; Watt, Islamic Political Thought, p. 18.”
28 Rudolph Peters, Jihād in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers,
1996), 1–5.
29 David Cook, Understanding Jihād (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 2.
6 - Jihād: Theory and Practice
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, in the early centuries of Islam jihād was interpreted
in its aggressive, military sense. The Koran encourages the view that the
Muslims had God on their side in their war on unbelievers, and were thus
assured victory, a fact that played its part in the success of the early Muslim
conquests (as a review of primary historical sources in chapter 8 will
reveal). The principles adumbrated in the Koran were supplemented by a
vast number of reports gathered in great hadīth collections, which in turn
were used to construct elaborate legal codes of conduct covering all aspects
of jihād: conquests, prisoners, treatises, truce, etc. The conquests were
regarded to be a “confirmatory miracle for Islam,”1 Cook points out, and
“because of the close identification between this miraculous event and the
jihād ideology that enabled it come about, jihād has remained of crucial
importance in Islamic culture…and can be brought to the fore…at any
time.”2 Familiarity with the theory and practice of jihād, therefore, is also
essential to understanding the philosophy and practices of modern Islamic
fundamentalists groups, who are strictly following in history’s footsteps.
While the root of jihād means “to strive or exert oneself,” in its primary
sense it came to mean “warfare with spiritual significance,” that is, fighting
in a military sense, or armed combat, for the sake of God (fī sabīl allāh).
The aim of jihād is the expansion of Islam, and it is an incumbent religious
duty of all able-bodied Muslim males. The goal is to submit the world to
Islam, and spread a gospel of unmitigated, uncompromising monotheism
spelled out in the Koran. By its nature jihād is a permanent state, and can
only fall into abeyance when all of mankind submits to Islam—when the
last Dar al-Harb, a country that has not yet been subdued by Islam,
becomes Dar al-Islam, a territory where the edicts of Islam are fully
promulgated—where the Shari‘a reigns supreme.
Jihād in the Koran
Sura Q9 is the most important chapter of the Koran for the development
of the notion of jihād. Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 111 tells us:
Allāh has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth in
return for Paradise; they fight in the way of Allāh, kill and get killed
[yuqātilūna fī sabīli llāhi fa-yaqtulūna wa-yuqtalūna]. That is a true
 promise from Him in the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’ān; and who
fulfills His promise better than Allāh? Rejoice, then, at the bargain
you have made with Him; for that is the great triumph.
This, as David Cook shows, is a contract between God and Muslims:
Muslims give their lives to Allah in return for a promise of a place in
Paradise.3 The main subject of Sura Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance is
the revocation of the immunity granted by God and Muhammad to
those tribes that had not converted to Islam prior to this revelation.
After the lifting of the immunity, the Muslims must fight the
unbelievers: Q9 at-Tawba, the Repentance 5: “Then, when the sacred
months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them, take them
[captive], besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every point of
observation [fa-qtulū l-mušrikīna haytu wagadtumūhum wa-hudūhum
wa-hsurūhum wa-q’udū lahum kulla marsadin]. If they repent
afterwards, perform the prayer and pay alms, then release them. Allāh
is truly All-Forgiving, Merciful.”4
Q9:5, known as the “Verse of the Sword,” abrogates all other verses on
war and peace5 and sets the tone of hostility toward and dominance over
Jews and Christians that runs throughout the Koran, i.e., Q9. at-Tawba, the
Repentance, 29:
Fight [qātilū] those among the People of the Book [Jews and
Christians] who do not believe in God and the Last Day, do not forbid
what God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not profess the true
religion [Islam] until they pay the poll-tax out of hand and
submissively.
The purpose of jihād is to conquer and dominate non-Muslims, hence the
importance of this sura, but the entire Koran contains an elaborate
“religious justification for waging war against Islam’s enemies,” and
adresses “questions concerning prisoners, the fate and rewards of martyrs,
disunity and doubt within the Muslim ranks, and…other issues as well. The
Qur’ān even reveals that many Muslims were reluctant to fight [Q2. al-
Baqara, the Cow, 216; Q9 at-Tawba, the Repentance, 38]. The text provides
the basis for the doctrine of jihād that would result in the great Muslim
conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries.”6 The religious nature of
jihād—“the unifying force of Islam”7—must be acknowledged if we are to
understand the Muslim conquests, the success of which served, for
Muslims, as a sign that God was on their side and as a resounding
endorsement of Islam.
Jihād is central to Islam and almost became its sixth pillar, alongside the
Five Pillars, or foundations, of Islam, or the Five Foundations of Practice:
(1) Shahāda, bearing witness that “There is no god but God and
Muhammad is the Messenger of God”; (2) Salat, the observance of of the
five stated periods of prayer; (3) Zakat, giving the legal alms once a year;
(4) Sawm, fasting during the month of Ramadan; (5) Hajj, the pilgrimage to
Mecca, once in a lifetime. Jihād is often seen as the sixth pillar by many
Muslims; for the Khārijites, an early seventh-century Islamic sect, it is
indeed the sixth pillar.8 The conquests of holy war were essential in the
growth of Islam, from Morocco in the West to India in the East, and all the
lands in between, all of which remain Muslim to this day.9 We shall return
to the Muslim conquests in chapter 8.
Early Muslim Scholars on Jihād
Before examining the six canonical hadīth collections that are rich in
details concerning the proper waging of jihād, let’s consider the work of
some of the earlier scholars not often discussed in the contemporary
literature on jihād.
David Cook gives an excellent account of the earliest writers, beginning
with ‘Abd Allāh Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 797), who was both an ascetic and
jihādist. He is said to have “made the Pilgrimage and engaged in jihād in
alternate years.”10 He is alleged to have collected over 20,000 traditions,11
but also wrote the Kitāb al-Jihād, “which documents the evolution of the
Muslim conception of warfare during the period of the conquests after
Muhammad’s death”12 and contains 262 traditions on jihād.13 Ibn al-
Mubārak brings out the spiritual nature of warfare more clearly than the
Koran:
The slain [in jihād] are three [types of] men: a believer, who struggles
with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that when
he meets the enemy [in battle], he fights them until he is killed. This
martyr [shahid] is tested, [and is] in the camp of God under His
throne; the prophets do not exceed him [in merit] except by the level
of prophecy. [Then] a believer, committing offenses and sins against
 himself, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of
God, such that when meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is
killed. This cleansing wipes away his offenses and his sins— behold
the sword wipes [away] sins!—and he will be let into heaven from
whatever gate he wishes.14
Cook is perhaps the first major contemporary scholar to bring out the
redemptive character of waging jihād. The tradition of Ibn al-Mubārak cited
above
presents jihād as spiritualized warfare in the same spirit as Qur’an 9
at-Tawba, the Repentance 111. Of the three figures mentioned—the
True Believer, the Sinning but Repentant Believer, and the
Hypocritical Believer—the second is clearly the most interesting.
This Sinning but Repentant Believer seeks to expiate his sins on the
field of battle. According to the tradition, the sword, together with the
pure intention of the fighter, wipes away the believer’s sins. Thus,
there is a redemptive aspect to jihād that is crucial to understanding
its development.15
For Ibn al-Mubārak, “Being killed in the path of Allāh washes away
impurity; killing is two things: atonement and rank [in heaven].”16 Ibn al-
Mubārak also encourages fighters to wear white so that the blood of their
sacrifice is apparent.17
Distinguishing several types of fighters, Ibn al-Mubārak is able to bring
out the notion of atonement inherent in fighting in the cause of Allah:
There is a man who fights in the path of Allāh and does not want to
kill or be killed, but is struck by an arrow. The first drop of blood
from him is atonement for every sin he has committed; for every drop
he sheds he gains levels in paradise. The second type of man is one
who fights desiring to kill but not to be killed, and is struck by an
arrow. The first drop of blood from him is atonement for every sin;
for every drop he sheds he gains a level in paradise until he bumps
Abraham’s knee [on the top level]. The third type of man is one who
fights in the path of Allāh desiring to kill and be killed, and is struck
by an arrow. The first drop of blood from him is atonement for every
sin; he will come to the Day of Resurrection with a drawn sword,
[able] to intercede.18
 Other precanonical collections include the Kitāb al-Muwatta’ of Mālik b.
Anas (d. 796),19 the imam of the school of law the Mālikīs named after him.
The Kitāb al-Muwatta’ is considered the earliest surviving Muslim
lawbook, hence its importance to our knowledge of jihād in the early days
of Islam. Sometimes included in the canonical collection in place of Ibn
Majā’s Sunan, the Kitāb al-Muwatta’ contains 1720 hadīth, and the chapter
on jihād encourages fighting in the cause of God, discusses martyrs, and
examines the spiritual merit of fighting:
Hadīth 950: The Apostle of Allāh [pbuh] declared, “The Lord stands
security for one who fights in His cause and does not start from his
house but with the intention of jihād, knowing His word to be true
that he will be admitted to Heaven or brought back to his house, from
where he had issued with reward and booty.”20
Hadīth 974: The Apostle of Allāh [pbuh] said: “By the Lord Who
holds my life, I desired to fight in the cause of the Lord and be killed,
to be rendered back to life only to be killed again, again to be
rendered back to life and killed.”21
Hadīth 980: The Apostle of Allāh [pbuh] said, “Undoubtedly, there is
nothing better than to be killed in the cause of the Lord.”22
Al-Awzā‘ī (d. 774) also discusses jihād in his Sunan, but tends to link it
to the protection of Islam’s frontiers. Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 849), a teacher of
Ibn Majā (d. 887 or 889), uses much of the same material as Ibn al-
Mubārak, emphasizing “descriptions of heavenly pleasures, conquest and
victory, and forgiveness of sins for the martyr.”23 ‘Abd al-Razzāq (d. 826),
who was the leading scholar of the Yemen, gave much space to division of
spoils.
Hadīth on Jihād
Six Canonical Collections
Numerous collections of traditions (hadīth) have been prepared by
different scholars. Six of these works have obtained canonical standing
among Muslims, and recognized by the orthodox Muslim world as
authoritative.
Next we come to the six canonical collections (Kutub al-Sittah or Al-
Sihāh al-Sittah) of Sunni Islam, all of which were written in eastern Iran
and are extremely important for the development of Islamic practice:
 Sahīh al-Bukhārī: Imām Bukhārī (d. 870) 7397 hadīth
Sahīh Muslim: Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj (d. 875) 9200 hadīth
Sunan Ibn Māja: Ibn Majā (d. 887 or 889) 4000 hadīth
Sunan Abu Dāwūd: Abu Dāwūd (d. 889) 4800 hadīth
Jāmi‘at-Tirmidhī: Al-Tirmidhī (d. 892) 3956 hadīth
Sunan al-Sughra: Al-Nasā‘ī (d. 915) 5270 hadīth
(Sahīh means “authentic,” “genuine,” “valid.” Sunan is the plural of
sunna.)
All six hadīth compilations devote considerable space to discussing jihād
in all its aspects, military and spiritual, and with considerably more detail
than found in the Koran.
Bukhārī
Bukhārī ’s collection of hadīth known as Sahīh, “The Authentic,” is
venerated by the Sunnis in a manner second only to the Koran.24 Bukhārī
begins with a chapter on Revelation, followed by a chapter on what
constitutes the Islamic faith—the articles of belief, or kitāb al-Īmān. Jihād
is clearly an article of faith:
Bāb (chapter) 26. Al-Jihād is a part of faith. Hadīth 36: Narrated Abū
Hurayra, “The Prophet [pbuh] said, ‘Allāh assigns for a person who
participates in (holy battles) in Allāh’s Cause and nothing causes him
to do so except belief in Allāh and in His Messengers, that he will be
recompensed by Allāh either with a reward, or booty (if he survives)
or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a
martyr)’. The Prophet [pbuh] added: ‘Had I not found it difficult for
my followers, then I would not remain behind any Sariya (an army
unit) going for Jihād and I would have loved to be martyred in
Allāh’s Cause [fī sabīl allāh] and then made alive, and then martyred
and then made alive, and then again martyred in His Cause.’”25
(Parenthetical comments were added by Muhammad Muhsin Khan,
the translator; bracketed comments are mine.)
Khan’s 1997 translation boasts a seal of approval from several Saudi
religious authorities such as Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz, the Grand
Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999. Described as the
“figurehead for institutional Wahhabism” whose “immense religious
erudition and his reputation for intransigence” accounted for his prestige in
Saudi Arabia, Ibn Baz “could reinforce the Saud family’s policies through
his influence with the masses of believers.”26 Thus one presumes that Ibn
Baz, and the Saudi government, also endorsed Khan’s unequivocal,
uncompromising footnote to hadīth 36:
Al-Jihād (Holy Fighting) in Allāh’s Cause (with full force of numbers
and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of
its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihād Islam is established. Allāh’s
Word is made superior. (His Word—Lā ilāha illalāh— none has the
right to be worshipped but Allāh), and His Religion Islam is
propagated. By abandoning Jihād (may Allāh protect us from that)
Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their
honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanishes.
Jihād is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who
tries to escape from this duty, does not in his innermost heart wish to
fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.27
(Parenthetical comments added by Khan.)
In his three hundred or so hadīth on jihād, Bukhārī cites the Koran
numerous times, beginning the chapter with Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance,
111.28 This is quoted several times, which is understandable, given its
centrality in the development of the religious principle of jihād. Here are a
few examples:
Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 52: “Say: ‘Are you awaiting for us
(any fate) other than one of two good things [martyrdom or
victory].’”
Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance, 38: “O you who believe! What is the
matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth in the cause of
God [fī sabīli llāhi] [i.e. jihād], you cling heavily to the earth? Do you
prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter [’āhirati // ’akhirati]? But
little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter.”
Other verses cited include:
Q33. al-’Ahzāb, Confederates, 23: “Of the believers are men who are
true to that which they covenanted with Allāh. Some of them have
paid their vow by death [in battle, and hence have been martyred],
and some of them still are witing; they have not altered in the least.”
Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of Imran, 169–71: “Think not of those
 who are slain in God’s way [qutilū fī sabīli llāhi]as dead. Nay, they
live, finding sustenance in the presence of their Lord. They rejoice in
the bounty provided by God. And with regard to those left behind,
who have not yet joinedd them [in their bliss], the [martyrs] glory in
the fact that on them is no fear, nor have they [cause to] grieve.”
Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of War, 65: “O Apostle! Urge the believers to
fight [yā- 'ayyuhā n-nabiyyu harridi l-mu'minīna 'alā l-qitāli].”
More on Jihād from the Canon
Bukhārī and the other canonical traditionists paint a vivid picture of
battles, and of the rewards for the martyrs killed in the cause of Allah.
Bukhārī hadīth 2810 gives the reason for jihād, to spread the true word of
God, to spread Islam: “A man came to the Prophet (pbuh) and asked, ‘A
man fights for war booty; another fights for fame and a third fights for
showing off; which of them is in Allāh’s Cause?’ The Prophet (pbuh) said,
‘He who fights that Allāh’s word be superior, is in Allāh’s Cause.’”29 Thus
jihād has spiritual significance.
Bukhārī hadīth 294630 makes it clear that Muhammad has been ordered
to fight the people until they admit that there is no God but Allah.
Martyrdom is frequently praised, and in Bukhārī hadīth 2817 the Prophet is
quoted as saying, “Nobody who enters Paradise likes to return to the world
even if he got everything on earth, except a martyr who wishes to return to
the world so that he may be martyred ten times because of the honor and
dignity he receives (from Allāh).”31
Anyone shunning the duty to fight unbelievers is accused of hypocrisy
and cowardice, and not promised Paradise (Abū Dāwūd, Sunan).32 Other
subjects examined include the treatment of prisoners, whether and how
women can engage in jihād, the proper care of horses, how to use a sword,
and arrows, and much more. One point remains clear, Muslims are
obligated to fight until all people adopt Islam: “Anas reported the Apostle
of Allāh (pbuh) as saying: ‘I am commanded to fight men till they testify
that there is no god but Allāh, and that Muhammad is His servant and His
Apostle, face our qiblah, eat what we slaughter, and pray like us.’”33
The hadīth emphasize what the Koran clearly states concerning the Jews,
that fighting the Jews—who must be hunted down and killed since they will
hide behind some rocks—is a part of jihād. In fact, the Day of Judgement
will not arrive until the Muslims fight against the Jews (Bukhārī, ahadīth
2925, 2926).
The various hadīth collections devote much space to psychological fear
as an important component of jihād, as indicated in the Koran, Q3.’ āl
‘Imrān, the Family of Imran, 151: “We will cast terror into the hearts of the
unbelievers on account of their associating with Allāh [bi-mā 'ašrakū bi-
llāhi] that for which He sent down no authority.”34 As Cook explains, “The
Prophet Muhammad further amplified this idea by noting that God had
helped him with a fear (ru‘b or mahaba) that He had sent before the
Muslim armies to a distance of a month’s journey.”35 According to this
idea, all who lived at this distance from the Muslims would feel fear and be
defeated even before meeting the Muslims in battle.36
The psychological preparation for victory or defeat is another theme of
the hadīth literature, which contains many references to poetry,37 flags, and
slogans intended to aid the fighters.38 The most popular slogan—Allāhu
akbar! (“God is greater!”)—is uttered before Muslims advance into battle.39
Finally, Cook notes “how closely interrelated Islam and fighting were
when the hadīth on hadīth allow mosques to be put to use as prisons for
enemy captives or as storehouses for weapons.”40 Thus, we find in the
Sahīh of Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj: “It has been narrated on the authority of Abu
Hurayra who said: ‘The Messenger of Allāh [pbuh] sent some horsemen to
Najd. They captured a man. He was from the tribe of Banu Hanifa and was
called Thumama b. Uthal. He was the chief of the people of Yamama.
People bound him with one of the pillars of the mosque.’”41
The theological construct that we know as the Shari‘a, Divine Law, was
distilled from the Koran and the thousands of hadīth contained in the six
canonical collections. There was an attempt to codify the rules governing
jihād, or warfare in the name of Islam, regulating the manner in which war
should be declared, and choices to be offered to the infidels, or polytheistic
enemy.42 Certain rules and principles were already in the Koran, for
example, the khums, the fifth portion of the spoils of war to be used for
Allah, the Prophet, the near of kin, the orphan, and the wayfarer (Q8. al-
Anfāl 41).
Some Legal Definitions: Dar al-Islam, Dar al-Harb, Dar al-Sulh
 To regulate the military behavior of the Muslims, legal definitions were
established to define where it was permissable to fight, and in what manner.
These territories fall into three distinct categories.
Dar al-Islam: a territory where the edicts of Islam are fully promulgated,
where the Shari‘a reigns supreme. Those who do not embrace Islam are
placed under certain disabilities—essentially they become second-class
citizens—as long as they are not idolaters. Christians and Jews can worship
God according to their own customs; existing churches and synagogues
may be repaired, but no new place of worship can be erected. Idol temples,
on the other hand, must be destroyed, and idolatry suppressed by force.43
Dar al-Harb: a country that has not yet been subdued by Islam, and
therefore could be considered a territory in which it is possible, though not
necessary, to fight. The second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam
elaborates:
The Hadīth, it is true, traces back the idea of dār al-Harb to the
Medina period. In any event, the classical practice of so regarding
territories immediately adjoining the lands of Islam, and inviting their
princes to adopt this religion under pain of invasion, is reputed to date
back to the Prophet who invited Caesar and Chosroes (and the Jews)
to be converted (al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Jihād, §§ 147, 148, 149, 151
and K. al-Maghāzī, § 416; see also al-Qalqashandī, Subh, Cairo 1915,
6, 15). Historically, the invitation to the people of the Yamama is the
prototype (cf. al-Balādhuri, Futūh). This traditional concept, which
ended by committing the Muslim community (or State) and its
princes to war, either latent or openly declared, with all its non-
Muslim neighbours (the adjective denoting the latter is harbī or, more
especially, ahl al-harb) is classical and is elaborated in the most
widely read law books (e.g., the definitions in the Kitāb al-Jihād of
the Durar al-hukkām fī sharh ghurar al-ahkām of Mullā Khusraw,
where the ahl al-harb are defined as those who have refused to be
converted after being duly invited on the best terms, and against
whom any kind of warfare is henceforth permissible in keeping with
the rules of sura IX).44
Dar al-Sulh: “that area with which Muslims had some type of treaty or
cease-fire.”45
Since the ultimate aim of Islam was to bring the entire world under Islamic
Law, dar al-Islam must always be, at least in theory, at war with dar al-
Harb. It was Muslim duty to preach Islam by persuasion, and the caliph and
the commanders in the field had to offer some limited choices, either accept
Islam or pay the poll tax or face continuous warfare. As Majid Khadduri
writes,
the Islamic state was under legal obligation to enforce Islamic law
and to recognize no authority even when non-Muslim communities
had willingly accepted the faith of Islam without fighting. Failure by
non-Muslims to accept Islam or pay the poll-tax made it incumbent
on the Muslim State to declare a jihād upon the the recalcitrant
individuals and communities. Thus the jihād, reflecting the normal
war relations existing between Muslims and non-Muslims, was the
state’s instrument for transforming dār al-harb into the dār al-Islam.46
Islam, in effect, institutionalized “war as part of the Muslim legal system
and made use of it by transforming war into a holy war designed to be
ceaselessly declared against those who failed to become Muslims.... Islam
abolished all war except the jihād and the jurist-theologians consciously
formulated its law subordinating all personal considerations to raison
d’état, based on religious sanction.”47 (Khadduri cites Ibn al-Humam (d.
1457), Egyptian Hanafi jurist and theologian.)48
But we now need to look at how the theory of jihād has actually been put
into practice. As we shall see, this has had very real consquences for
Muslims, and non-Muslims, since it has led to the justification of conquest
of many lands, conquests carried out in the name of God, with the express
purpose of extending territory where the laws of Islam are fully
promulgated.

1 Ibid., 30.
2 Ibid., 30-31.
3 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 9.
4 Ibid., 10.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., 11.
7 Ibid.
8 Canadian scholar Andrew Rippin defines jihād as, “‘striving for the faith’, or ‘holy war’,
sometimes seen as a ‘sixth pillar’” in the glossary to Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices,
2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2001), 324.
9 Ibid., 13.
10 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn al-Mubarak.”
11 Ibid.
12 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 14.
13 Ibid., 15.
14 Ibid., 14. Cook’s reference, 214n9: “Ibn al-Mubarak, Kitāb al-Jihād (Beirut: Dār al-Nūr, 1971),
30–31, no. 7.”
15 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 15.
16 Ibid. Cook is quoting Ibn Al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Jihād, 30, no. 6. Cf. Riley-Smith, The Crusades.
17 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 15, quoting Ibn al-Mubarak, Kitāb al-Jihād, 112, no.137.
18 Ibid., quoing Ibn al-Mubarak, Kitāb al-Jihād, 104–5, no. 125.
19 The date of his death, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 6, “Mahk-Mid,” ed. C.E.
Bosworth, E. Van Donzel, and Ch. Pellat, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1991), s.v. “Mālik b. Anas.”
20 Mālik b. Anas, Muwatta’, Kitāb al-Jihād, trans. Muhammad Rahimuddin (New Delhi: Kitab
Bhavan, 2003), 198.
21 Ibid., 206.
22 Ibid., 208.
23 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 16.
24 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1, “A–B,” ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1960), s.v.,
“al- Bukhārī,” 1297a: “In time, although criticisms have been made on matters of detail, it [Bukhārī
’s Sahīh] was accepted by most Sunnis as the most important book after the Kur’ān.”
25 Bukhārī, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Īmān, The Authentic Hadīth: Book of Belief (Faith), trans. Muhammad
Muhsin Khan, hadīth 36 (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darussalam, 1997), 1:72–74.
26 Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press,
2006), 186.
27 Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth: Book of Belief, hadīth 36, 1:72.
28 Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s translation of Bukhārī that is available online
(http://www.theonlyquran.com/hadīth/Sahih-Bukhari/?chapter=52&pagesize=0) omits the quote from
9:111. The nine-volume book version, however, includes the quote: “Bukhārī, Sahīh, Kitāb al-jihād
wa –l siyar, Khan, trans., Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, 4:44, hadīth 2787.”
29 Bukhārī, Sahīh, Kitāb al-jihād wa –l siyar, Khan, trans., Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and
Campaigns, 4:59, hadīth 2810
30 Ibid., 4:126, hadīth 2946
31 Ibid., 4:63, hadīth 2817
32 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, ahādīth 2496 and 2497, 2:693.
33 Ibid., hādīth 2635, 2:729.
34 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 17.
35 Cook’s footnote: “E.g. al-Nasa’i, Sunan (Beirut, n.d.), VI, pp.3–4; and the examples cited in my
‘Muslim Apocalyptic and Jihād,’ Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20 (1996), pp. 99–100, n.
120.”
36 Cook’s footnote: “Al-Bukhari, Sahih, IV, pp. 15–16 (nos. 2977–78).”
37 Cook’s footnote: “Note how much poetry is cited concerning jihād in Muslim, Sahih, V, pp. 168,
186–89, 191–92, and 194–95.”
38 Cook’s footnote: “Khalil ‘Athamina, ‘The Black Banners and the Socio-Political Significance of
Flags and Banners,’ Arabica 36, no. 3 (November 1989): 307–26.”
39 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 17–18.
40 Cook’s footnote: “Muslim, Sahih, Beirut: Dar Jil, n.d., V, p. 158 [no. 4361]; Abu Da’ud, Sunan,
Beirut, 1998, III, pp. 31–32 [no. 2673].”
41 Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Jihād wa’l-Siyar, trans. ‘Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, hadīth 4361
(New Delhi: Kitāb Bhavan, 2000), 3:1160; also in Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, hadīth 2673,
2:741.
42 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 19–20.
43 Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “Daru ’I-Islam.”
44 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, “C–G,” ed. B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, and J. Schacht, 2nd ed. (Leiden:
Brill, 1965), s.v. “Dar al-Harb.”
45 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 20.
46 Khadduri, War and Peace in Islam, 53.
47 Ibid., 53-54.
48 Born in Alexandria and educated in Cairo, Ibn al-Humam lived for some time in Aleppo (Syria).
Considered an expert on Sufism, he was appointed head shaykh of the Sufi Brotherhood or tariqa of
Khanaqah Shaykhuniyyah in Cairo in 1443.
7 - The Goals of Jihād: Apocalypse and
Conversion
THE ARABS, coming out of the Arabian peninsula, conquered vast
stretches of territory in the Near East and Egypt within thirty years of the
death of Muhammad 632 CE, and by the middle of the eighth century they
controlled much of North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and lands bordering on
India and China. What was the driving force behind the astonishing rapidity
of these conquests?
Were they “sustained by a strong belief in the imminent end of the
world?”1 Though the knowledge of the future is God’s alone, the Koran is
written in an apocalyptic vein, and many verses speak of the Hour being
near (Q42. ash-Shūrā, Counsel, 17; Q54. al-Qamar, the Moon, 1). There is
little doubt that it will appear (Q22. al-Hajj, the Pilgrimage, 7; Q40. Ghāfir,
the Forgiver, 54; Q45. al-Jātiya, the Kneeling, 32), and when it does it will
appear suddenly (Q12. Yūsuf, Joseph, 107; Q22. al-Hajj, the Pilgrimage,
55; Q43. az-Zukhruf, Gold, 66; Q47. Muhammad, Muhammad, 18).
The hadīth literature, on the other hand, makes a much stronger
“connection between the fighting process and the imminent end of the
world: ‘Behold! God sent me [Muhammad] with a sword, just before the
Hour [of Judgment], and placed my daily sustenance beneath the shadow of
my spear, and humiliation and contempt on those who oppose me.’”2 Cook
elaborates:
The Prophet Muhammad is portrayed...as a doomsday prophet, sent
just before the end of the world to warn those who would heed a
warning and to punish those who would not. Here, the process of
jihād...is one in which the hold of worldly things over the believer is
diluted. Because of the impermanence of the soldier’s life, and the
difficulties of establishing a stable family or gathering substantial
possessions, many of the ties that bind people to the world are
weakened or even dissolved entirely. When this is taken into
consideration, the spiritual significance of jihād becomes even more
pronounced.3
Muslim fighters went into battle fervently embracing the notion of the
end of the world, bolstering the courage needed to persist in jihād, which
numerous hadīth and the apocalyptic literature reminded them remained a
duty until the Day of Resurrection (Al-Nasā‘ī, Sunan, vol. 4, book 28,
hadīth 3591; Abū Dāwūd, Sunan).4 Jihād, in general, plays an important
role in Muslim apocalyptic literature. “The early Muslims’ existence was
largely dominated by fighting and conquest, it is hardly surprising to find
that their vision of the future just before the end of the world, as well as
their vision of the messianic future, was characterized by a state of
continuous war.”5
The Mahdi
Muslim messianic thought is dominated by the figure of “the mahdi, who
will complete those conquests left undone by the early Muslims.”6 As
discussed, another goal of jihād is spreading Islam via conquest, and jihād
“created the pre-conditions for conversions, and conversion or proclamation
was one of the goals of jihād.”7 Jihād will continue until conversion occurs
—only the scriptuaries, the people of the book, the Jews, Christians, and
Sabeans, being exempted, as long as the latter pay a tax and accept a lower
social status. Idolaters, polytheists, Hindus, and Buddhists are given a stark
choice: convert or die.
While baser motives for jihād—such as booty and women— are
recognized, many hadīth extol the spiritual goals of jihād. Already having
cited Bukhārī on this subject, two hadīth from Abū Dāwūd’s Sunan suffice:
2509: Narrated Mu‘adh ibn Jabal: “The Prophet (pbuh) said:
‘Fighting is of two kinds: The one who seeks Allāh’s favour, obeys
the leader, gives the property he values, treats his associates gently
and avoids doing mischief, will have the reward for all the time
whether he is asleep or awake; but the one who fights in a boasting
spirit, for the sake of display and to gain a reputation, who disobeys
the leader and does mischief in the earth will not return credit or
without blame.’”
2510: Narrated Abu Hurayrah: “A man said: Apostle of Allāh, [what
of] a man [who] wishes to take part in jihād in Allāh’s path desiring
some worldly advantage? The Prophet (pbuh) said: ‘He will not have
a reward.’”8
The Martyr
A Muslim who blows himself up fighting in the cause of Allāh is not
regarded as a suicide bomber, but a šahīd (pl., šuhadā’), or martyr. In his
Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (1974) Hans Wehr gives this
definition: “witness; martyr, one killed in battle with the infidels; one killed
in action.”9 Edward William Lane in his monumental Arabic-English
Lexicon (1872), which draws on more than seventy-five Arab
lexicographers,10 gives these definitions:
A martyr who is slain in the cause of God’s religion; [S, K;] [i.e,.] one
who is slain by unbelievers on a field of battle; [Msb] one who is slain
fighting in the cause of God’s religion [Iath]: so called because the
angels of mercy are present with him; [K] because the angels are
present at the washing of his corpse, or at the removal of his soul to
Paradise [Msb].11
The Muslim conception of martyrdom differs from the Christian or the
Jewish one. Christian or Jewish martyrs are unwilling to compromise or
abjure their faith, but are willing to undergo torture or even death in order to
prove their faith. As Cook explains, “Martyrdom in Islam has a much more
active sense: the prospective martyr is called to to seek out situations in
which martyrdom might be achieved. For example, in ‘Abd Allāh b. Al-
Mubārak’s Kitāb al jihād, we find Nawf al-Bikali praying: ‘O, God! Make
my wife a widow, make my child an orphan, and ennoble Nawf with
martyrdom!’12 Most often in early Islam, martyrdom meant dying in
battle.13
Other categories of martyrdom that do not involve war or violence—
cases we would categorize as accidents or even illnesses—were added over
the centuries, but the jurists of Islam brought the meaning back to the
respect accorded to martyrs who died in battle.
The Rewards of Martyrdom
In the Koran
The celebrated delights of Paradise described in the early verses of the
Koran are promised to all believers, all Muslims. In later verses, these
heavenly pleasures are more “closely associated with being a martyr or
dying in battle,”14 See, for example, Q3. al-‘Imrān 13–15:
Already there has been for you a sign in the two armies which met—
one fighting in the cause of Allāh [fī sabīli llāhi] and another of
disbelievers....Fair in the eyes of men is the love of things they covet:
 Women and sons; Heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses
branded (for blood and excellence); and (wealth of) cattle and well-
tilled land....Say: Shall I give you glad tidings of things far better than
those? For the righteous are Gardens in nearness to their Lord, with
rivers flowing beneath; therein is their eternal home; with companions
pure (and holy); and the good pleasure of Allāh.
The virtues of the martyrs are extolled; those dying for the cause are always
promised just a little more, as at Q3. al-‘Imrān 169–70: “Think not of those
who are slain in Allāh’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their
sustenance in the presence of their Lord; they rejoice in the bounty provided
by Allāh. And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined
them (in their bliss), the (Martyrs) glory in the fact that on them is no fear,
nor have they (cause to) grieve.”
It is with these promises in mind that the Muslim martyr goes into battle
and to his death with equanimity. See Q9. at-Tawba 111: “Allāh hath
purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in
return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are
slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and
the Qur´an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allāh? Then
rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement
supreme.” Martyrs are promised Paradise at Q. 22 al-Hajj 55: “Those who
leave their homes in the cause of Allāh, and are then slain or die,—On them
will Allāh bestow verily a goodly Provision: Truly Allāh is He Who
bestows the best provision.”
In the Hadīth
In the hadīth, it is faith, sincerity, and intention that count in gaining
one’s heavenly rewards:
It has been narrated on the authority of Anas b. Malik that the
Messenger of Allāh (may peace be upon him) said: Who seeks
martyrdom with sincerity shall get its reward, though he may not
achieve it. —Sahīh Muslim, Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj, hadīth 4694
Who sought martyrdom with sincerity will be ranked by Allāh among
the martyrs even if he died on his bed. —Sahīh Muslim, Muslim ibn
al-Hajjāj, hadīth 4695
And while the sensual aspects of Paradise are often mentioned (for the
seventy-two huris, or dark-eyed damsels, see al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Majā),15
what matters is pleasing God and the degree of honor attained for oneself
and one’s earthly family. See, for example, Bukhārī, hadīth 2817: “The
Prophet said, ‘Nobody who enters Paradise likes to go back to the world
even if he got everything on the Earth, except a Mujahid who wishes to
return to the world so that he may be martyred ten times because of the
dignity he receives (from Allāh).’” “It is said that there are one hundred
ranks in Paradise [see al-Tirmidhī16],” Cook explains, “and that the martyr
will achieve the highest among them (ranking only below prophets and
other righteous men of God in the hierarchy of Paradise). One of the most
important reflections of this spiritual rank is the ability of the martyr to
intercede on behalf of Muslims at the Day of Judgment.”17
This aspect of the martyr’s role in spreading Islam was also noted by
Edward William Lane in his Arabic-English Lexicon, partially cited above:
“God and His angels are witnesses for him of his title to a place in Paradise:
(Iamb, Mgh, K), or because he is one of those who shall be required to bear
witness on the day of resurrection, (K, TA), with the Prophet, (TA).”18 Al-
Tirmidhī also spells out the special privileges the martyr enjoys:
The Mesenger of Allāh [pbuh] said: ‘There are six things with Allāh
for the martyr: He is forgiven with the first flow of blood (he suffers),
he is shown his place in Paradise, he is protected from punishment in
the grave, secured from the greatest terror, the crown of dignity is
placed upon his head—and its gems are better than the world and
what is in it—he is married to seventy-two wives among the Huri-
eyed of Paradise, and he may intercede for seventy of his close
relatives.19
The Law Schools on Jihād
A great number of law schools existed in the second and third centuries
of the Islamic era (the eighth and ninth of the Christian era),20 but “at this
stage no sharp distinction was yet recognized between them. These schools
varied from relatively liberal Hanafites and Mu‘tazilite jurists—permitting
large measures of independent reasoning (ijtihād)—to the conservative
Zahirite and Hanbalite jurists, who not only restricted ijtihad, but also
insisted on a literal interpretation of the Qur’ān and hadīth.”21
By the fourth century of the Islamic era, only four schools of law
(madhahib, sing. madhab)—Hanafī, Mālikī, Shāf‘ī, and Hanbalī—were
recognized (considered orthodox), with the Hanbalīs emerging as the most
rigid and intolerant, rejecting ijtihad and seeking answers to problems in
hadīth. Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) was a Hanbalī jurist whose teachings, as
will be discussed at length, were adopted by ‘Abd al-Wahhāb in the
eighteenth century.
As Khadduri explains, the law books of the four schools “became the
standard text-books and any attempt to depart from them was denounced as
innovation (bid ‘a). As a result ijtihād was gradually abandoned in favor of
taqlīd (literally, ‘imitation’) or submission to the canons of the four schools,
and the door of ijtihād was shut.”22
Al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 820), founder of the Shāf‘ī school of law, and considered a
founder of the Science of Islamic Jurisprudence or the science of usūl al-
fiqh (roots or sources of the law), encourages the waging of jihād, and then
“addresses the payment of the jizya by non-Muslims (Jews, Christians,
Sabeans, and others) and the manner in which this tax should be levied and
collected....Sections on truces, cease-fires, dealing with rebels, safe-
conducts, and disposition of spoils all follow, together with sections
describing relations with captured women. All of these discussions
presuppose a victorious polity and reflect the confidence of the early
Muslims that God would give them victory.”23
Like Bukhārī, Al-Shāfi‘ī in his Kitāb al-Risāla fī Usūl al-Fiqh, insists
that God has imposed the duty of jihād on all Muslims, and then quotes
extensively from the Koran, particularly sura 9.24 Al-Shāfi‘ī also cites a
hadīth from Abū Dāwūd’s Sunan in which Muhammad says, “I shall
continue to fight the unbelievers until they say: ‘There is no god but God,’
if they make this pronouncement they shall be secured their blood and
property, unless taken for its price, and their reward shall be given by
God.’”25 Al-Shāfi‘ī then summarizes that
These communications mean that the jihād, and the rising up in arms
in particular, is obligatory for all-bodied [believers], exempting no
one, just as prayer, pilgrimage and [payment] of alms are performed,
and no person is permitted to perform the duty for another, since
performance by one will not fulfill the duty for another. They may
also mean that the duty of [jihād] is a collective (kifāya) duty
 different from that of prayer: Those who perform it in the war against
polytheists will fulfil the duty and receive the supererogatory merit,
thereby preventing those who stayed behind from falling into error.26
Hanafī jurist al-Sarakhsī, who lived and worked in Transoxiana in the
eleventh century, wrote a thirty-volume legal compendium known as Kitāb
al-Mabsūt, a highly influential work in the genre of furū‘, defined by Hans
Wehr as “applied fiqh, applied ethics, consisting in the systematic
elaboration of canonical law in Islam.”27 As Norman Calder (1950–1998),
former senior lecturer in Arabic at the University of Manchester, writes,
“[Al-Sarakhsī’s] organisation, comprehensive coverage, exploration of
ikhtilāf [points of dispute], and manipulation of hermeneutical argument, all
conduce to make this work a remarkable achievement of juristic literature.
It remained a point of reference for the developing Hanafī furu‘ tradition till
the 19th century.”28
Calder discusses “the significance of jihād, the reasons behind it,” in
great detail, before considering the relative legal validity of tactics,
including the procedure for surrender, how to carry out a siege, and
handling captives—who may be killed, who enslaved. He describes many
of Muhammad’s battles, extracting basic legal principles from each one. In
sum, al-Sarakhsi completes what al-Shāfi‘ī began and covers the spectrum
of waging jihād in law. “From this point forward, although individual points
continued to be debated, the Muslim method of warfare was set.”29
A number of legal works works by jurists such as al-Hakim al-Tirmidhī
(d. 930) and al-Haythami (d. 1565) also discussed the various sins
associated with fighting, further emphasizing jihād’s “crucial importance
for Muslims.”30
The Spiritual Nature of Jihād
The spiritual nature of jihād is also underlined by the Koran and in
several hadīths that emphasize that jihād carried out for booty or worldly
honors is neither acceptable nor valid.
First, that the phrase “fī sabīl allāh,” typically translated as “in God’s
way” (or, perhaps better, as “God’s Cause” or “for the sake of God”),
appears frequently in the Koran—2:154, 2:190, 2:244, 2:246, 2:261, 3:13,
3:157, 3:167, 4:74, 4:76, etc.)—is significant. As the Koran tells us at Q.61.
As-Saff, The Row, 4, “Verily, Allāh loves those who fight in His Cause in
rows as if they were a solid structure.”
Another Koranic verse explains that because the Muslims were fighting
in God’s Cause against the unbelievers, God helped them win the battle of
Badr (Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of Imran, 13):
Already there has been for you a sign in the two armies which met—
one fighting in the cause of Allah and another of disbelievers. They
saw them [to be] twice their [own] number by [their] eyesight. But
Allah supports with His victory whom He wills. Indeed, in that is a
lesson for those of vision.
Bukhārī’s hadīth 2810 gives an unequivocal reason for jihād: “Narrated
Abū Mūsa: A man came to the Prophet [pbuh] and asked, ‘A man fights for
war booty; another fights for fame and a third fights for showing off; which
of them is in Allah’s Cause?’ The Prophet [pbuh] said, ‘He who fights that
Allah’s word [i.e., Allah’s religion of Islamic Monotheism] be superior, is
in Allah’s Cause.”31 Even more decisive is Bukhārī’s hadīth 2946:
“Narrated Abū Hurayrah, Allah’s Messenger [pbuh] said, ‘I have been
ordered (by Allah) to fight [’uqātila] against the people till they say lā ilāha
illallāh (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and whoever said
lā ilāha illallāh, he saved his life and property except for Islamic law, and
his accounts will be with Allah.’”32
Modern scholars also point out the spiritual nature of jihād in opposition
to those historians who narrow the causes of jihād and the early conquests
to socioeconomic conditions. Khadduri, for instance, writes
The Jihād was not a casual phenomenon of violence; it was rather a
product of complex factors while Islam worked out its jural-doctrinal
character. Some writers have emphasized the economic changes
within Arabia which produced dissatisfaction and unrest and
inevitably led Arabs to seek more fertile lands outside Arabia. Yet this
theory—plausible as it is in explaining the outburst of the Arabs from
wihin their peninsula—is not enough to interpret the character of a
war permanently declared against the unbelievers even after the
Muslims had established themselves outside Arabia. There were other
factors which created in the minds of the Muslims a politico-religious
mission and conditioned their attitude as a conquering nation.33
Cook also observes that “[t]he Prophet Muhammad is portrayed…as a
doomsday prophet, sent just before the end of the world to warn those who
would heed a warning and to punish those who would not. Here, the process
of jihād...is one in which the hold of wordly things over the believer is
diluted. Because of the impermanence of the soldier’s life, and the
difficulties of establishing a stable family or gathering substantial
possessions, many of the ties that bind people to this world are weakened or
even dissolved entirely. When this taken into consideration, the spiritual
significance of jihād becomes even more pronounced.”34
We shall return to this discussion of the spiritual nature of the early
Muslim conquests.
Greater Jihād and Lesser Jihād
Non-Canonical Distinction
Modern apologists of Islam tend to emphasize what is actually a
nonclassical definition of jihād, known as the “greater inner jihād” (jihād
al-akbar), which is seen as a purely spiritual enterprise, the struggle to
overcome one’s baser self. Here the original meaning of jihād as “struggle”
or “striving” is constantly evoked. Jihād in the military sense is the “lesser
outer jihād” (al-jihād al-asghar).
There is some justification for this interpretation in the Koran at Q.22 al-
Hajj 78:
And strive [wa-jāhidū] for Allāh with the striving due to Him [haqqa
jihādihī]. He has chosen you and has not placed upon you in the
religion any difficulty. [It is] the religion of your father, Abraham.
Allāh named you “Muslims” before [in former scriptures] and in this
[revelation] that the Messenger may be a witness over you and you
may be witnesses over the people. So establish prayer and give zakah
give alms and hold fast to Allāh. He is your protector; and excellent is
the protector, and excellent is the helper.
But as Cook points out, “however much weight is put on this verse, the
Qur’an cannot support a reading that would make fighters and
noncombatants spiritual equals.”35 Sura 4 al-Nisā’ verse 95 makes clear
there is no equivalence:
Not equal are those believers remaining [at home]—other than the
disabled—and those who fight [mujāhidūna] in the cause of Allāh [fī
sabīli llāhi] with their wealth and their lives. Allāh has preferred
 those who fight [mujāhidīna] through their wealth and their lives over
those who remain [behind], by degrees. And to both Allāh has
promised the best [reward]. But Allāh has preferred those who fight
[mujāhidīna] over those who remain [behind] with a great reward.
Nonetheless, some early scholars such as Ibn al-Mubārak do talk of jihād as
a struggle against one’s lower soul. But the “greater jihād” and “lesser
jihād” distinction seems to date from the ninth century.
The earliest source that David Cook found for this distinction was in a
work by al-Bayhaqi, an Ash‘arite scholar, and Shafi‘ite in fiqh, who died in
1066. His Kitāb al-zuhd al-kabīr contains the following tradition: “A
number of fighters came to the Messenger of Allāh, and he said: ‘You have
done well in coming from the “lesser jihād” to the “greater jihād.”’ They
said, ‘What is the “greater jihād”?’ He said: ‘For the servant [of God] to
fight his passions.’”36
Cook’s conclusion is “that it first appears in Bayhaqi (d. 1066), so most
likely it is being circulated about a generation or so previously, probably by
Sufis who were moving away from the proto-Sufi paradigm of jihād (cf.
Abd Allāh b. al-Mubārak, who is such a proto-sufi, but does not mention
the ‘greater jihād’ in his Kitāb al-jihād, circa 790s), and were seeking an
alternative line of thinking, and then was popularized by al-Ghazali a
generation after al-Bayhaqi.”37 The greater and lesser jihād distinction does
not appear in any of the canonical hadīth collections, however, and while
al-Tirmidhī does cite “the fighter is one who fights his passions,” as Cook
comments in a footnote, “even so, he cites this tradition in the context of the
reward of the murabit (one who guards the frontier), so it is not entirely
without military implications.”38 Clearly the great hadīth collectors ruled
that the spiritual jihād was not a legitimate reading of the meaning of jihād.
Here are the conclusions of some modern scholars on the distinction
between the greater and lesser jihād, and the tradition quoted from al-
Bayhaqi:
Reuven Firestone, University of Southern California: “Its source is
usually not given, and it is in fact nowhere to be found in the
canonical collections.”39
Rudolph Peters, University of Amsterdam: “Although this Tradition is
quite famous and frequently quoted, it is not included in one of the
 authoritative compilations.”40
David Cook, Rice University: “In reading Muslim literature—both
contemporary and classical—one can see that the evidence for the
primacy of spiritual jihād is negligible. Today it is certain that no
Muslim, writing in a non-Western language (such as Arabic, Persian,
Urdu), would ever make claims that jihād is primarily nonviolent or
has been superseded by the spiritual jihād. Such claims are made
solely by Western scholars, primarily those who study Sufism and/or
work in interfaith dialogue, and by Muslim apologists who are trying
to present Islam in the most innocuous manner possible.”41
Fazlur Rahman, University of Chicago: “The most unacceptable on
historical grounds, however, is the stand of these modern Muslim
apologists who have tried to explain the jihād of the early Community
in purely defensive terms.”42
Mustansir Mir, University of Michigan: “According to al-Rāghib al-
Isfahānī [d. early eleventh century], one engages in jihād against an
outside enemy (mujāhadat al-‘aduww az-zāhir), against Satan
(mujāhadat ash-shaytān) or against one’s own baser self
(mujāhadatan-nafs). In all three types it can be seen, the goal is to
defeat a hostile force or subdue an opponent. In its special sense jihād
is equivalent to the first of the three types of confrontation and may
be translated ‘armed action,’ another term for which is qitāl. This, the
most familiar meaning of jihād, is the one we are mainly concerned
with here. When the Qur’ān and the hadīth promise great reward for
jihād, they are referring primarily to jihād in the sense of qitāl.”43
Renowned classical Islamic philosopher Ibn Taymiyya (mentioned
earlier, discussed at length in chapter 12) was also skeptical of the
authenticity of this hadīth, and quotes suras Q4 and Q9:
As for the hadīth which is narrated by some in which the Prophet is
alleged to have said upon the return of the Muslims from the battle of
Tabuk: “We have come back from the minor jihād to the major
jihād.” This is a false hadīth, having no origin, and none of those
knowledgeable of the words and actions of the Prophet (sallAllāhu
alayhi wa sallam) have transmitted it. Fighting against the
disbelievers is one of the greatest of works. In fact, it is the best thing
 which a person can volunteer.
Allāh said: Qur’an 4:95–96: “The believers who sit back without any
valid excuse are not the same as those who fight in the path of Allāh
with their property and their lives. Allāh has preferred those who
struggle with their property and their lives over those who sit back by
a degree, and to both Allāh has promised good. And Allāh has
preferred those who struggle over those who sit back by a great
(difference in) reward.”
Q9:19–22: “Do you equate providing waters for the pilgrims and
maintaining the sacred masjid with those who believe in Allāh and in
the last day and struggle in the path of Allāh? They are not equal in
the eyes of Allāh, and Allāh does not guide the oppressors. Those
who believe and migrate and fight in the path of Allāh with their
property and their lives are greater in rank with Allāh, and they are
the successful ones. Allāh gives them glad tidings of mercy from Him
and acceptance and gardens wherein for them is a permanent bliss.
They will stay in it forever, verily with Allāh there is a very great
reward.”44
Hundreds of years later, Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood, also dismissed the distinction between the greater and lesser
jihād:
The belief is widespread that fighting the enemy is jihād asghar (a
lesser jihād) and that there is a greater jihād (jihād akbar), the jihād
of the spirit. Many of them invoke as proof of this the following
narration [athar]: “We have returned from the lesser jihād to embark
on the greater jihād.” They said: “What is the greater jihād?” He said:
“The jihād of the heart, or the jihād of the spirit.”
Some of them try, by recourse to this, to divert people from the
importance of fighting, preparing for combat, and resolving to
undertake it and embark on God’s way. This narration is not really a
sahih (sound) tradition: The Prince of Believers in matters of
Tradition, Al-Hāfiz ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalānī [d. 1449],45 said in the
Tasdīd al-Qaws: “It is well known and often repeated, and was a
saying of Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abla.’”46
…Nevertheless, even if it were a sound tradition, it would never
 warrant abandoning jihād, or preparing for it in order to rescue the
territories of the Muslims and repel the attacks of the unbelievers. Its
meaning is simply that it is necessary to struggle with the spirit so that
it may be sincerely devoted to God in every one of its acts. So let it be
known.47
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941–1989),48 a Palestinian who obtained a
doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from al-Azhar in 1973, was fully
qualified to write about this hadīth, “[It] is in fact a false, fabricated hadīth
which has no basis. It is only a saying of Ibrahim Ibn Abi Abalah, one of
the Successors, and it contradicts textual evidence and reality….The word
‘jihād’, when mentioned on its own, only means combat with weapons, as
was mentioned by Ibn Rushd, and upon this the four Imams have
agreed....The implication of ‘fī sabīli llāhi (in the Path of Allāh) is jihād, as
Ibn Hajar has said.”49
Military Mysticism: Sufis Soldiers and Jihād
Sufis, the mystics of Islam, are an idealized, mythified group, and thus
much misunderstood in the West, where everything peaceful and
ecumenical is attributed to them. In fact, the first Sufi order in Islam
(founded in the tenth century CE) had a surprising character. Born 1930,
former professor of Arabic at Oxford University Wilferd Madelung offers a
history:
The first Sufi order in Iran, and indeed in Islam, was the Murshidiyya
or Kāzarūniyya founded by Abū Ishāq al-Kāzarūnī, known as
Shaykh-i Murshid (963–1035). Al-Kāzarūnī came from a poor local
family in Kāzarūn, west of Shiraz; his grandfather had still been a
Zoroastrian. Like Ibn Karrām, he represented an activist asceticism,
was a powerful preacher and converted numerous Zoroastrians to
Islam. His strictures and aggressive conduct toward the non-Muslims
brought him and his followers into sometimes violent conflict with
the strong Zoroastrian community backed by the local Būyid
authorities. He preached the jihād against the infidels, and groups of
his followers carried out campaigns against the Christians in
Anatolia.50
In a brilliant section on “Sufi Warriors” in Understanding Jihād, Cook
points out that many Sufi groups, while promoting the greater jihād, “also
proclaimed the need for actual fighting and demonstrated the connection
between the two....Wherever Sufi groups went, they took both aspects of
jihād with them.”51
In his classic work on Shi‘ism—an important branch of Islam practiced
in modern-day Iraq and Iran that differs from Sunni Islam on a variety of
matters such as questions of succession, authority and law—Heinz Halm,
professor of Islamic studies at the University of Tübingen, gives many
examples of Sufi groups that combined the two, such as
the development of isolated tarīqas [Sufi brotherhoods, dervish
orders] into militant Shi‘ite fighting federations which gained
political significance in the 14th century....The earliest example is the
tarīqa of the Shaykhiyya-Jūriyya which goes back to the ‘Pole of the
gnostics’ (Qutb al-Arifīn) Shaykh-i-Khalīfa (d. 1335) and his
successor Shaykh Hasan-i Jūrī (d. 1342). The wandering dervish
Shaykh-i-Khalīfa from Māzandarān on the Caspian Sea set himself up
as a mystical teacher in the mosque of Bayhaq/Sabzavār (east of
Tehran) where he preached the imminent appearance (zuhūr) of the
Mahdī and urged the Shi‘ites to prepare themselves for Holy War.52
(In a Sufi context, a Shaykh is a qualified Sufi, a Sufi master, who is
authorized to teach, initiate, and guide aspiring dervishes or novices
[murid].)
The historically important Safavid dynasty had its origin in the
Safaviyya Sufi order founded by Safi ad-din Ardabili (1252–1334). After
Safī al-Dīn, the leadership of the Safaviyya passed onto his son Sadr al-Din
Musa (1305–1392). The order now became a vigorous proselytizing
religious movement preaching throughout Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor,
while maintaining its Sunni Shafi’ite outlook. The leadership of the order
next passed to Sadr ud-Dīn Mūsā’s son Khwādja Ali (d. 1429) and in turn to
his son Ibrāhīm (d.1429–47). Shaykh Junayd, the son of Ibrāhim, assumed
leadership in 1447, and suddenly the history of the Safavid movement
changed dramatically. As R.M. Savory, an Iranologist and specialist on the
Safavids, wrote, “No longer content with spiritual authority alone, Junayd
introduced a miltant note by inciting his disciples to carry on holy war
against the infidel.”53
Halm takes up the story:
 Junayd began to recruit supporters among the nomadic Turcoman
tribes whom he commanded as border fighters (ghāzī) in the Holy
War against the Christian Georgians and the Circassians of the
Caucasus. After he fell in battle (1460) his son Shaykh Haydar
succeeded him....Haydar too sent his ‘representatives’ (khalīfa) to
Turcoman tribes which had linked up with the Safaviyya order and
urged them to Holy War against the unbelievers. It is hardly
surprising that the character of the order changed substantially under
these conditions. Haydar was no longer the traditional Sufi Shaykh
who operated in a circle of a dozen adepts; rather he was the leader of
a large and powerful force of religious fighters. The word Sūfī
increasingly acquired the meaning of “active Muslim.”54
Or, as the Safavid historian Iskandar Beg Munshī (Eskandar Beg Torkamān
Monšī, d. ca.1633) put it in Tārīkh-i ‘Alam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī (“Haydar
Wielded both Spiritual and Temporal Authority”), his history of the reign of
Shah Abbas I: “[I]nwardly, following the example of [Sufi] shaykhs and
men of God, he walked the path of spiritual guidance and defence of the
faith; outwardly, he was a leader sitting on a throne in the manner of
princes.”55
It is a similar history in India, where the Sufi order of the
Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya was
closely associated with Muslim revivalism and conquest. Simon
Digby’s translation of the Malfuzat-i Naqshbandiyya, aptly titled Sufis
and Soldiers in Awrangzeb’s Deccan, illustrates this trend. The major
figure of the work, Baba Palangposh, is a local holy man who joins
the army of the Mogul rule Awrangzeb (1657–1701) and participates
in the campaign to subdue the region of southern India. He witnesses
a vision of the Prophet Muhammad’s uncle Hamza (slain at the Battle
of Uhud in 627, and usually called “the prince of Martyrs”) in which
Hamza gives Baba Palangposh a sword and says: “Take this
sword...and go to the army of Mir Shihab al-Din in the land of the
Deccan [southern India].”56
Conclusion
While there are hundreds of sources for militant, or lesser, jihād in
classical Islam—hadīth collections, commentaries on the Koran, law books
from all the schools of law, and so on—there do not seem to have been any
works devoted exclusively to spiritual, or greater, jihād. This is clearly a
derivative form, since it is not mentioned in any of the canonical collections
of hadīth. Even the later literature on jihād fails to mention “greater jihād.”

1 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 23.

2 Ibid., 23. Cook is quoting: Ibn al-Mubarak, Jihād, 89–90, no.105. Cook also makes the following
references in his footnote: “compare al-Awza‘i, Sunan, p. 360 (no. 1165); and Ibn Abi Shayba,
Musannaf, IV, p. 218 (no. 19, 394); and the discussion in Ibn Rajah, al-Hukm al-jadira bi-l-idha‘a
min qawl al-nabi “bu‘ithu bi-l-sayf bayna yaday al-sa‘a” (Riyadh, 2002).”
3 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 23.
4 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, hadīth 2478, 2:686–87.
5 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 24.
6 Ibid., 24.
7 Ibid., 25.
8 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-Jihād, ahadīth 2509 and 2510, 2:697.
9 Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. Milton Cowan (Beirut: Librairie du Liban,
1974), s.v. “šahīd.”
10 For the word šahīd, Lane draws on the following lexicographers (given here with Lane’s
abbreviations in brackets): Ismā‘īl ibn Hammād Juwharī (d. 1007), al-Sahāh [S]; al-Fīrūzābādī
(1329–1414), Al-Qamus Al-Muhit[K]; Ahmad Al-Fayumi (d. 1368), Al-Misbah Al-Munir [Msb]; al-
Anbari, Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Al-Kasim (properly Ibn al-Anbari) (d. 940) [Iamb]; al-Mutarizzī,
Burhan al-Din Abu ‘l-Fath Nasir (d.1213) al-Mughrib fi tartib al-Mu‘rib [Mgh]; al-Murtadá al-
Husaynī al-Zabīdī (d. 1790), Tāj al-’Arūs [TA]; Madjd al-din Abu ‘l-Sa‘adat al-Mubarak Ibn al-Athir
(d. 1210) al-Nihaya fi gharib al-Hadīth [Iath].
11 Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, part 4 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1872;
Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1968), 1610.
12 Cook’s footnote: “Ibn al-Mubarak, Jihād, pp.110–11 (no.135); and see the prayers in al-Wasiti,
Fada’il al-Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem, 1979), p. 23 (no. 29); Abu Da’ud, Sunan, III, p. 21 (no. 2541);
al-Tabarani, Kitāb al-du‘a (Beirut, 1987), III, p.1703 (no. 2015); al-Tirmidhi, Sunan III, p. 103 (no.
1704).”
13 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 26.
14 Ibid., 27.
15 Al-Tirmidhī, Jamī‘, The Virtues of Jihād, trans. Abu Khaliyl, hadīth 1663 (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:
Darrusalam, 2007), 3:410. Ibn Māja, Sunan, trans. M. Tufail Ansari, hadīth 4337 (New Delhi: Kitab
Bhavan, 2008), book 37, 5:547–48: “It was narrated from Abu Umamah that the Messenger of Allāh
said: ‘There is no one whom Allāh will admit to Paradise but Allāh will marry him to seventy-two
wives, two from houris and seventy from his inheritance from the people of Hell, all of whom will
have desirable vaginas and he will have a male member that never becomes flaccid (i.e., soft and
limp)’” (translation slightly modified).
16 Al-Tirmidhī, Jamī‘, The Description of Paradise, trans. Abu Khaliyl, ahadīth 2529, 2530, 2531
(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darrusalam, 2007), 4:518–520.
17 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 29.
18 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, part 4, 1610.
19 Al-Tirmidhī, Jamī‘, Virtues of Jihād, hadīth 1663, 3:410.
20 The Islamic era began in 622 CE. Islamic Law developed over a period of years and by the eighth
and ninth century of the Christian era, that is, the second and third century of the Islamic era, there
were many law schools that interpreted the Koran and hadīth and came to rulings about what
constitiuted Islamic practice, what was obligatory, what was optional, etc.
21 Khadduri, War and Peace in Islam, 35–36.
22 Ibid., 36–37.
23 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 21.
24 Al- Shāfi‘ī’, Risāla: Treatise on the Foundations of Islamic Jurisprudence, trans. Majid Khadduri
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961; Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society,
1987), 82–86. Al-Shāfi‘ī quotes, for example, Q9.112, Q9.36, Q9.5, Q9.29, Q9.39–39, Q9.41,
Q9.123, but also sura Q4.97 and Q4.88.
25 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan (Cairo, 1935), 3:44. Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, hadīth 2634 (Kitab Bhavan, 1997),
2:729.
26 Al- Shāfi‘ī’, Risāla, 84.
27 Wehr, Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, s.v. “furū‘.”
28 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 9, “San-Sze,” ed. C.E. Bosworth et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1997),
s.v. “al-Sarakhsī.”
29 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 22.
30 Ibid.
31 Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, hadīth 2810, 4:59. See also al-Hajjāj,
Kitāb al-Imāra, hadīth 4684, 3:1269.
32 Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, hadīth 2946, 4:126. See also Bukhārī,
Authentic Hadīth: Book of Belief, hadīth 25, 1:66; and Bukhārī, Sahīh, Kitāb al-Zakāt, trans.
Muhammad Muhsin, hadīth 1399 (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Darussalam Publishers, 1997), 2:279.
33 Khadduri, War and Peace in Islam, 63.
34 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 23.
35 Ibid., 32-33.
36 Al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-zuhd al-kabir, ed. ‘Amir Ahmad Haydar, no. 373 (Beirut: Dar al-Jinan,
1987), 165.
37 David Cook, personal communication to author, November, 2015.
38 Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan (Beirut, n.d.), 3:89, no. 1671. Cited in Cook, Understanding Jihād, 217n10.
39 Reuven Firestone, Jihād: The Origins of Holy War in Islām (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 140.
40 Rudolph Peters, Jihād: A History in Documents (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2016),
116.
41 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 165–66.
42 Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 37.
43 Mir, “Jihād in Islam.” Abū l-Qāsim Abū l-Husayn ibn Muhammad, known as al-Rāghib al-
Isfahānī, Al-Mufradāt fī Gharīb al-Qur’ān, ed. Muhammad Sayyid Kīlānī (Egypt: Mustafā al-Bābī
al-Halabī, 1381 /1961 impression), 101.
44 Ibn Taymiyya, The Criterion between the Allies of the Merciful and the Allies of the Devil: al-
furqān bayna awliyā’ar-rahman wa awliyā’ as-shaytān, trans. Salim AbdAllāh ibn Morgan
(Birmingham, UK: Idara Ihya-us-Sunnah, 1993), 52–53, available at:
https://shaykhulislaam.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/criterion.pdf.
45 Five Tracts of Hasan al-Bannā’ (1906–1949): A Selection from the Majmū‘at Rasā’il al-Shahīd
Hasan al-Bannā’, trans. with annotations Charles Wendell (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1978), 161n49: Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalānī (1382–1449), “a famous historian, theologion, and traditionist,
the prolific author of works of hadīth, Islamic Law, Qur’ānic studies, and biography, especially of
translitters of hadīth and the early Companions. His best-known works in this genre are
multivolumed Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb [‘Revision of the Revision’] and Al-Isāba fī Tamyīz Asmā’ al-
Sahāba (Accuracy in Distinguishing the Companions).”
46 Ibid., 155.
47 Charles Wendell’s 161n50: Abd al-Rahīm b. Al-Husayn al-Hafiz al-‘Irāqī (1325–1404), “a scholar
of Kurdish origin who lived most of his life in Egypt. He visited the neighbouring regions for study
and research in haith, and was the author of a number of books on Traditions, jurisprudence, the
Prophetic biography, and Qur’ānic studies.”
48 Imam Abdullah Azzam, “Join the Caravan: Conclusion,” Religioscope, February 1, 2002,
http://english.religion.info/2002/02/01/document-join-the-caravan/.
49 Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalānī (1382–1449), Fath-ul-Bari. Unfortunately, Azzam does not give the
precise reference.
50 Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY: Persian Heritage
Foundation, 1988), 48. Madelung’s 48n35: “On al-Kāzarūnī see in general F. Meier, Die Vita des
Scheich Abū Ishāq al-Kāzarūnī in der persischen Bearbeitung von Mahmūd b. ‘Utmān. Leipzig,
1948.”
51 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 45.
52 Heinz Halm, Shi‘ism, 2nd ed. (1991; New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 70–71.
53 Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavids (1980; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 16.
54 Halm, Shi‘ism, 75–76. Heinz’s footnote appended to “active Muslim” gives the following
reference: “H.R. Roemer, ‘Die turkmenischen Qïzïlbaš-Grūnder und Opfer der safawidischen
Theokratie,’ ZDMG 135 (1985): 227–40.”
55 Iskandar Beg Munshī, Tārīkh-i ‘Alam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, trans. R.M. Savory, Persian Heritage Series,
ed. Ehsan Yarshater, no. 28, 2 vols. (Boulder, CO: 1978), 31; quoted in Savory, Iran Under the
Safavids, 18.
56 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 46. Cook’s 219n40: “Simon Digby, Sufis and Soldiers in
Awrangzeb’s Deccan (New York: 2001), pp. 69–70; other interesting citations can be found on pp.
83–84, 122–23, 216 (where Sufi murids are common soldiers in the army).”
8 - Muhammad’s Campaigns and Early
Conquests
ACCORDING TO al-Wāqidī (747–823 CE), a Muslim historian and judge
whose major work, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, The Book of Raids (or Campaigns),
is an important source for early Islamic history and the life of Muhammad:
The Prophet actively participated in twenty-seven raids [gazawāt]. He
fought in nine of them: Badr, Uhud, al-Muraysī’, al-Khandaq,
Qurayza, Khaybar, the Conquest of Mecca, Hunayn and al-Tā’if. He
directed forty-seven expeditions and performed three ‘Umras
[pilgrimage to Meccan Ka‘ba undertaken before or after the annual
Hajj ritual]. Some say that he fought the Banū Nadīr, but God made it
a special booty for him. He also fought in the raid of Wādī al-Qurā on
his return from Khaybar, when some of his companions were killed.
Then he fought in al-Ghāba until Muhriz b. Nadla and six of the
enemy were killed.1
These campaigns were waged by Muhammad on behalf of Islam. As al-
Tabarī (839–923 CE), a major early Islamic historian and exegete of the
Koran, put it, “The Messenger of God was commanded to proclaim the
divine message which he had received, to declare it publicly to the people,
and to summon them to God.”2 Muhammad’s wars can be seen as
“prototypical jihād wars”3 whose religious nature cannot be ignored. Like
the conquests, Muhammad’s campaigns are grounded in religion, a fact
emphasized by Scottish historian W. Montgomery Watt in Muhammad:
Prophet and Statesman, a biography highly regarded by Muslims: “Thus,
whether Muhammad incited his followers to action and then used their
wrongs to justify it, or whether he yielded to pressure from them to allow
such action, the normal Arab practice of the razzia [raid] was taken over by
the Islamic community. In being taken over, however, it was transformed. It
became an activity of believers against unbelievers, and therefore took
place within a religious context.”4
Owing to the opposition he had aroused in Mecca, Muhammad
eventually left for Medina, where he had a large religious following. Some
seventy of his Meccan followers preceded him to Medina. Muhammad’s
Meccan and Medinan followers came to be known as the Emigrants
(muhājirūn, those making the hijrah) and the Ansār (“Helpers”),
respectively.
Watt picks up the story:
The Emigrants were described as “striving with goods and person in
the way of God.” They were promoting one of the purposes of the
Islamic community in trying to establish a region in which God was
truly worshipped. As this character of their activity became clear to
the Emigrants, there was no reason why they should not call on the
Helpers (Ansār) to share in it. It was God’s work, all Muslims should
share in it. Besides, the Meccans seem to have been reinforcing the
guards on their caravans, and more participants were necessary if the
razzias were to be successful. A verse (Q5. al-Mā’idah 39) which was
probably intended to encourage the Helpers (Ansār) to join the razzia
runs: “O believers, fear God...and strive in His way.” Thus it was
because of the religious character of the Muslim expeditions that the
Medinans were invited to share in them.5
Watt goes onto analyze the development of the term jihād and relates it
to the religious character of the early conquests:
This transformation of the nomadic razzia has wider implications than
are apparent from the English translations used. The word translated
“strive” is jāhada. And the corresponding verbal noun is jihād or
“striving” which came in the course of time to have the technical
meaning of “holy war.” The change from the razzia to the jihād may
seem to be no more than a change of name, the giving of an aura of
religion to what was essentially the same activity. Yet this is not so.
There was change in the activity which came to be of the utmost
importance as time went on. A razzia was the action of a tribe against
another tribe. Even if two tribes were very friendly, their friendship
might cool, and in a few years a razzia might be possible.
Jihād, however, was the action of a religious community against non-
members of the community, and the community was expanding. If
members of the pagan tribes raided by the Muslims professed Islam,
they at once became exempt from further Muslim raids.
Consequently, as the Islamic community grew, the raiding
propensities of the Muslims had to be directed ever further outwards.
 It was this “religious” character of the jihād which channelled the
energies of the Arabs in such a way that in less than a century they
had created an empire which stretched from the Atlantic and the
Pyrenees in the West to the Oxus and the Punjab in the East. It seems
certain that without the conception of the jihād that expansion would
not have happened.6
For Muhammad and the Muslims, the resounding victory against
overwhelming odds in the Battle of Badr (March 624) over the Meccans
“had a deep religious meaning.…It was a vindication of the faith that has
sustained them through disappointment. It was God’s…supernatural action
on their behalf. The Qur’ān develops this religious interpretation of the
event in various passages,” and his victory at Badr “came to be regarded as
the great deliverance God had effected for the Muslims, comparable to the
deliverance he had effected for the Israelites at the Red Sea.”7 The victory
for Muhammad was a sign confirming his prophethood.
Muhammad’s constant aim, particularly between March 627 and March
628, was to summon all Arabs to Islam.8 The March 628 signing of the
Treaty of Hudaybiyah with the Meccans worked in Muhammad’s favor
because the religious ideas of Islam continued to hold sway and he was able
to attract fresh converts. Also of supreme importance were “Muhammad’s
belief in the message of the Qur’ān, his belief in the future of Islam as a
religious and political system, and his unflinching devotion to the task to
which, as he believed, God had called him.”9
Then, for his greatest expedition in 630 to Tabuk, a town in the Northern
Arabian peninsula about 250 miles from Medina, near the Gulf of
al-‘Aqaba, Muhammad prepared the Muslims by insisting that their
participation was a religious duty. “The religious aspect was almost
certainly always uppermost in his thoughts,” Watt explains, “and the motive
which drove him on was the desire to fulfil God’s command to spread
Islam.”10
As I have noted throughout this study, Western historians tend to
underplay the role of religion in the affairs of the Middle East. “[Many]
may feel that the movement of the Arab tribes into the Islamic state was
essentially political,” Watt observes, but “[t]his is not so….Since the exodus
of the Israelites from Egypt religion and politics in the Middle East have
always been closely linked…and the fact that a movement had a prominent
political aspect has never meant that it was not religious (as it often does in
the modern West).”11
Many Western Islamologues such as Leone Caetani deny the role of
religion in the early Islamic conquests, especially in the seventh and eighth
centuries.12 But Georges-Henri Bousquet rejected this tendency: “I have
positive reasons to believe that the religious factor played a far from
negligible role in this conquest.”13
In a 1956 article Bousquet spelled out his “opposition to the tendency
[among scholars]…over the past half-century and more, in reducing the
influence of the religious factor” in the Islamic conquests.14 Bousquet
found it remarkable how religious fervor “succeeded in manifesting itself
among people who initially joined the ranks for other reasons.”15
Muhammad, according to Bousquet, was responsible for creating “agitation
of a religious nature,” which “had been favorable to the success of the
Muslim armies.” How can we set aside the religious motive
when we read apud Zamakhshari, describing the famous battle of the
Yarmuk [against the Byzantine forces in August 636]: “the Muslim
preachers did not cease to encourage the combatants: Prepare
yourselves for the encounter with the houris of the black eyes and for
meeting your Lord in the gardens of beatitude, cried Abu Hurayra.
And to be sure…never has a day been seen when more heads fell than
on the day of Yarmuk.” Here we have an account illustrating the
classical thesis of religious fanaticism, and belying that of the
dessication of Arabia!16
Scholars such as Sir Thomas Arnold (d. 1930) had argued that the Arab
conquests did not have a religious character because the victors had no
desire to convert the conquered.17 But as Bousquet points out, the best
example of this was the Crusades, which he characterizes as “the great
enthusiasm which aroused western Europe at that time and impelled the
Crusaders to rescue the Holy Places, not convert the Muslims, which they
never did. Thus the…argument, ‘the Arab conquests did not have a
religious character, since the victors did not want to convert the
vanquished’, has no merit, the postulate…being belied by history.”
Bousquet continues with what I believe is the most compelling part of his
argument:
[I]f we take the history of the first century of the Hegira [i.e, first
Islamic century, 622–722 CE] as a whole, we see, at the beginning, an
inspiration not all influenced by material interests, but assuredly
influenced by religious motives, and at the end, a new and
characteristically religious civilization, and can anyone deny that
what constituted the transition from the one to the other, the conquest,
had a religious aspect?…I can grasp well-enough the notion that the
tribes, united by Muhammad, were thrown into the attack on the
surrounding provinces and subjugated them, surely, solely for non-
religious motives. But how, subsequently, could the Muslim
civilization have been born? Why did these people not blend into the
conquered populations, whose civilization was superior to theirs, like
the Barbarians in the Roman west, the Manchus in China? This is
what would normally have happened. Certainly, Muslim institutions
owed a lot to the surrounding milieu, but they could never have been
born if, among the conquerors there had not been men, themselves
imspired, like the Prophet, by religious zeal, and having trained
disciples, this until the emergence of the first groups of Doctors of
Law.18
In his highly regarded history, The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of
Hishām Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads (1994),
Khalid Yahya Blankinship, associate professor of religion at Temple
University, argues that many empires, including that of the Muslim Arabs,
achieved their greatest reach through military campaigns, and that
“expansion became an ideological imperative justified on moral grounds.”19
For Muslims,
this imperative was the establishment of God’s rule in the earth, for
that was the sole legitimate sovereignty. God’s rule was to be
established by those kinds of efforts that He had ordained, which
included armed struggle in His path. Such armed struggle became
known as jihād and remained the most salient policy of the caliphate
down to the end of the Umayyad rule in 750 C.E. Most significantly,
the jihād called for a mass mobilization of Muslim manpower that
played an important role in the caliphate’s success.20
 Blankinship argues further that the early Muslim successes and “the
persistence of the Muslim movement forward on all fronts for nearly a
century can only be explained if this basic doctrine of early Muslim
ideology is taken into account.”21 Such dedication “required an ideological
belief to back it,” and for Muslims, “the work of conquest through jihād
was first for God, second for the reward of the other world for those who
sacrificed their property and their lives in God’s path, and only third for
worldy rewards for God’s warriors who survived.”22
I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of ideology as a motivating
force in history, a force that cannot be reduced to a socioeconomic rationale.
Blankinship spells out the ideological nature of the early Muslim caliphate:
More than any polity that had existed before it, the early Muslim
caliphate was an ideological state, that is, a state directed toward a
single, unified ideological goal. In general, the caliphate’s ideology
was the religion of Islam or the submission to God’s will, as revealed
in the Qur’ān to the Prophet Muhammad. Whether or not the Qur’ān
contains clear prescriptions for an Islamic state, it is certain that the
Prophet himself did in fact establish a charismatic polity based both
on the enlightenment of God given to him by revelation, and his own
personal leadership. The sole official purpose of this polity was to
teach and transmit the ideology of Islam.23
Muhammad’s demise did not alter this course. “[T]he caliphal state
carried on,…finding clear ideological expression…in the doctrine of jihād,
the struggle to establish God’s rule…through a continuous military effort
against the non-Muslims until they either embraced Islam or agreed to pay
tribute (jizya) on their persons in exchange for protection.” The concept of
jihād had been applied by the Prophet perhaps as early as Ramadān 1
/March 623. From that time, “the policy of jihād constituted one of the main
ideological underpinnings for the institution of the caliphate,” and since
“the struggle to expand Islam’s realm had been continuous from the time of
the Prophet, there was an obvious need for a central political and military
leadership to control and coordinate that effort.”24
Blankinship is adamant that the emphasis on jihād in early Islamic
history is well-attested in all the Islamic sources, and even in some non-
Islamic ones. The doctrine of jihād, as we have discussed, is spelled out in
the Koran and elaborated upon in the hadīth.25 Jihād is the third most
important duty of a Muslim after regular worship and filial piety26 —or the
second after regular worship.27
The Ideology of Islam
Early in these pages I called the twentieth century the century of
ideology. Blankinship points out a similarity: “In general, the impression
one gets from the Qur’an and hadith is of a highly motivated mass ideology
directed toward a single goal. Indeed, the ideology of Islam anticipated
modern ideologies on its mass appeal and means of creating enthusiasm.”28
The West was rather shocked when it read Osama bin Laden’s 1996
“Declaration of War,” particularly the phrase “[the young Muslims] love
death as you love life.” Here is the context: “Since the sons of the land of
two Holy Places [Saudi Arabia] feel and strongly believe that fighting
against the unbeliever in every part of the world is absolutely essential....I
say to you: These youths love death as you love life. They inherit dignity,
pride, courage, generosity, truthfulness….Our youth believe in Paradise
after death.”29
Similarly, years earlier Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood mentioned earlier in these pages, wrote:
My brothers! The ummah that knows how to die a noble and
honourable death is granted an exalted life in this world and eternal
felicity in the next. Degradation and dishonour are the results of the
love of this world and the fear of death. Therefore, prepare for jihād
and be the lovers of death. Life itself shall come searching after you.
My brother, you should know that one day you will face death and
this ominous event can only occur once. If you suffer on this occasion
in the way of Allah, it will be to your benefit in this world and your
reward in the next. And remember brother that nothing can happen
without the Will of Allah....You should yearn for an honourable death
and you will gain perfect happiness. May Allah grant myself and
yours the honour of martyrdom in His way!30
The Koran, as we have considered at length, encourages Muslims to love
the life to come, as in Q9 at-Tawba, The Repentance, 38: “O you who have
believed, what is [the matter] with you that, when you are told to go forth in
the cause of Allah, you adhere heavily to the earth? Are you satisfied with
the life of this world rather than the Hereafter? But what is the enjoyment of
worldly life compared to the Hereafter except a [very] little.” And these
sentiments, this philosophy, are, as we have also discussed, continuously
repeated in the Koran, hadīth, and in the primary Arabic sources for the
early Islamic conquests. It is to these sources we now turn, after a brief note
on their nature.
Fred Donner, distinguished professor of Near Eastern history at the
University of Chicago, makes the following observation:
[M]ilitary action was a central part of this process of expansion, so
much so that most scholars who have studied the expansion have
referred to it as the “Islamic Conquest” or the “Arab Conquest.” This
emphasis on conquest, often neglecting other aspects of the
expansion, may be in part a reflection of the Islamic sources
themselves, which have a special genre of futūh literature the object
of which was to relate how the many towns and districts of this vast
empire came to be part of it. Actually, however, the word futūh does
not mean “conquest,” although it is often so translated; its use in
relation to the expansion is probably to be associated with the
Qur’ānic use of the term to mean a favor or act of grace granted by
God to His faithful believers (cf. Q2: 76 and many other passages).
The implication being made by the purveyors of the futūh literature,
then, was that the Muslims’ domination of these territories was
legitimate because they were literally something bestowed upon them
by God.31
Here, once again, the religious nature of the “conquests” is emphasized.
Al-Tabarī, in his monumental universal history, Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-
mulūk, offers many details concerning the early Islamic conquests. Khālid
ibn al-Walīd, the Muslim commander under orders from the caliph Abū
Bakr, reached al-Hīrah, whose nobles came to meet him with Qabīsah the
governor. Khālid said to him, “I call you to God and to Islam. If you
respond to the call, then you are Muslims: You obtain the benefits they
enjoy and take up the responsibilities they bear. If you refuse, then [you
must pay] the jizya. If you refuse the jizyah, I will bring against you the
tribes of people who are more eager for death than you are for life. We will
then fight you until God decides between us and you” (emphasis added).32
A little later, Khalid repeats the threat with a slight variation: “then we will
bring against you a people who love death more than you love drinking
wine.”33 Abu Bakr, the caliph, exhorts Khālid to fight the Persians, and
“prefer the matter of the afterlife to this world so that you may obtain the
benefits of both, and do not prefer this world lest you be denied both.”34
‘Umar, the second caliph, before sending him off to war in Iraq says to
Sa‘d: “Know that fear of God consists of two things: being obedient to Him
and avoiding rebellion against Him. One obeys Him by hating this world
and loving the hereafter; one hates Him by loving this world and hating the
hereafter.”35
Again during the caliphate of ‘Umar, Al-Mughirah b.Shu‘bah says to his
Persian adversary Rustam, “If you kill us, we shall enter Paradise, if we kill
you, you shall enter the Fire,”36 while the Muslim commander Zuhrah b.
Hawiyyah al-Tamīmī says to Rustam, “We do not come to you looking for
things of this world, our desire and aspiration is the hereafter.”37
Throughout the volume covering the events of the caliphate of ‘Umar, al-
Tabarī repeats the sentiments expressed by Muslim commanders and
fighters, that they are fighting for the cause of Allah and value only the
Hereafter, all the while extolling the virtues of martyrdom,38 epitomized in
this final example:
The Muslims have prepared themselves for battle. Tonight be the first
among the Muslims to reach God and to [engage in] holy war.
Because whoever is the first tonight will receive his reward
accordingly. Compete with the [other] Muslims for martyrdom and
accept death cheerfully. This will more effectively save you from
death, if you wish to live, and if not, then it is the hereafter which you
wish to attain....Compete with each other [in risking] your children
and wives. Do not fear being killed, because being killed is the
aspiration of the noble and the destiny of the martyrs.39
Al-Tabarī also had the main figures in his history express how much they
have been helped by God in their battles against the unbelievers. God
honors the religion of Islam by granting them victory after victory: “Then
God granted victory to the Muslims who vanquished the enemy in a
glorious manner,” “Then God defeated them [unbelievers] through him [a
Muslim],” and many variations on this phrasing.40
1 Al-Wāqidī, Life of Muhammad, 5.
2 Al-Tabarī, The History of al-Tabarī, trans. W. Montgomery Watt and M.V. McDonald, vol. 4,
Muhammad at Mecca (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 92.
3 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 2.
4 W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1974), 108.
5 Ibid., 108.
6 Ibid., 108–9.
7 Ibid., 125.
8 Ibid., 176.
9 Ibid., 188.
10 Ibid., 222.
11 Ibid., 224.
12 Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, 10 vols. (Milano: U. Hoepli, 1905–1926), 2:855–61; and Studi
di Storia Orientale I (Milano: U. Hoepli, 1911), 364–71. Also see the English translation in Fred
Donner, ed., The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 5, The Expansion of the Early
Islamic State (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), chap. 1.
13 Georges-Henri Bousquet, “Queleques remarques critiques et sociologiques sur le conquête arabe
et les theories émises àce sujet,” in Studi Orientalistici in Onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida (Roma:
Instituto per l’Oriente, 1956), 1:52–60. Also see English translation in Donner, Expansion of Early
Islamic State, 21.
14 Georges-Henri Bousquet, “Observations sur la nature et causes de la conquête arabe,” Studia
Islamica 6 (1956): 37–52. See also Donner, Expansion of Early Islamic State, 23.
15 Ibid., 27.
16 Ibid., 28.
17 Thomas Walker Arnold, The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim
Faith, 2nd ed. (London: A. Constable, 1913), 45–71.
18 Bousquet, “Observations sur la nature et causes,” in Donner, Expansion of Early Islamic State,
31.
19 Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik
and the Collapse of the Umayyads (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994).
20 Ibid., 1.
21 Ibid., 1-2.
22 Ibid., 2; 279n5: “Indeed, a well-known hadith attributed to the Prophet states that the only true
jihād is that waged to exalt God’s word. Bukhari, I, 42–43. Martyrs in the jihād are promised
paradise, Qur’an, III, 169. And those who fight in God’s Path (and survive) are also promised a share
of the spoil (innamā ghanimtum). Quran VIII, 41.”
23 Ibid., 11; 280n1: “Qur’an, IV.59, 64–65, 105; V.44–45, 47–50; Khadduri, [War and Peace in
Islam,] 8–9, 16–17.”
24 Ibid., 11.
25 Ibid., 12.
26 Ibid., 14; 282n53: “Bukhari, IV, 17.”
27 Ibid., 14; 282n54: “Ibn al-Mubarak, 44.”
28 Ibid., 15.
29 Quoted in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism, 140–41.
30 English Translation of Maj’muaat Rasail (the complete works) Imam Hasan al-Banna,” vol. 10,
“al-Jihād,” https://thequranblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/_10_-al-jihād.pdf, epilogue, full text
available at The Quran Blog—Enlighten Yourself, June 7, 2008,
https://thequranblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/english-translation-of-majmuaat-rasail-the-
complete-works-imam-hasan-al-banna/
31 Donner, Expansion of Early Islamic State, xviii.
32 The History of al-Tabarī, vol. 11, The Challenge to the Empires, trans. Khalid Yahya Blankinship
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 4.
33 Ibid., 6.
34 Ibid., 48.
35 Friedman, Battle of a-Qadisiyya, 9.
36 Ibid., 32.
37 Ibid., 64.
38 Ibid., e.g., 38, 50, 75, 81, 84, 87, 88, 138, 167.
39 Ibid., 119.
40 The History of al-Tabarī, vol. 13, The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt, trans.
Gautier H.A. Juynboll (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 188–89; 175. See also
vol. 11:102, 104, 126,129, 164, 171, 211; and vol. 12:61, 131, 134, 145, 149, 171, 177, and so on.
9 - The First Terrorists? Khārijites, Violence, and the
Demand for the Purification of Islam of Its Unpious
Accretions
IN 1966 FAZLUR RAHMAN wrote that the radical spirit of the Khārijites, the
early seventh- century movement in Islam, without necessarily an overt
influence “has been relived not only in certain outstanding individuals in
medieval Islam but in relatively recent movements inspired by radical
idealism such as the Wahhābīs in the 18th century, and in a more moderate
spirit and more recently the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab Middle East.”
Rahman also notes a certain “similarity of the Khārijite ideal with certain
aspects of the doctrine of the radical Islamic movement, the Jamā‘at-i
Islamī, in Pakistan.”1
In 1973, Arab intellectual Mahmūd Ismā‘īl argued that the Khārijites
rejected foreign cultures in order to preserve the Islamic identity and culture
of the early Muslim community. Similarly, modern Islamic fundamentalist
movements were fighting against the aggressive intrusion of Western
culture threatening to dilute and corrupt Islamic society. Just as the
Khārijites condemned and rebelled against the political and religious
authorities in early Islam, so modern fundamentalists critiqued and rose up
against Arab governments they considered un-Islamic.2
In a 1927 volume of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam,
Giorgio Levi Della Vida, an Italian Jewish linguist, described the actions of
the Khārijites thus: “the extreme fanaticism of the [Khārijites] at once
manifested itself in a series of extremist proclamations and terrorist
actions.”3 The Encyclopaedia’s second edition retained Levi Della Vida’s
article—quote intact.4 Distinguished Islamologist W. Montgomery Watt,
writing in The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (1973), also described
the Azraqites, a Khārijite subgroup, as “terrorists.”5 I shall return to the
Azraqites shortly.
Who were the Khārijites? The most appropriate starting point for any
discussion of the Khārijites is the murder of the caliph ‘Uthmān in 656 in
Medina. As Watt puts it, “The Kharijites,” who came into being because of
this event, “claimed continuity with the revolutionary bodies responsible for
the murder, though the precise nature or importance of the continuity is not
obvious.”6
After ‘Uthmān’s murder, various groups of disgruntled Muslims
proceeded to Medina to air their grievances. Some complained that
‘Uthmān had given certain individuals land grants in Iraq that should have
been held in trust for Muslims. Others alleged that ‘Uthmān had given
lucrative governorships to members of his clan. The third grievance was
religious: it was claimed that ‘Uthmān had failed in certain cases to carry
out penalties prescribed by the Koran.
On their own, these grievances seem insufficient to explain the violence
against ‘Uthmān. Watt, though puzzled at first, finally arrives as his
customary socioeconomic plus anthropological explanation. Underlying all
these grievances was the complete change of life of former nomads, the
Bedouins: going from the freedom of the desert to the unbearable
constraints imposed by a powerful bureaucracy led to spiritual and social
crisis. Watt concludes that “the root of the problem was the new economic,
social and political structure in which they [the malcontents] found
themselves.”7 However, Watt’s interpretation, as we shall see later, is
challenged by Wellhausen, who sees a religious- that is, an Islamic- motive
in their actions.
After ‘Uthman’s death the Muslims in Medina appointed ‘Ali caliph.
However, he was not universally recognized. He had not punished those
responsible for the murder, and had even shown sympathy for the rebels.
Many withdrew from Medina, having rejected ‘Ali. While in Syria,
Mu‘āwiya, who was governor and related to ‘Uthman, also refused
allegiance to ‘Ali. There was a third group which was led by
Muhammad’s widow, ‘Ā’isha, and which openly challenged ‘Ali’s
legitimacy, and rose up against him. ‘Ali was able to defeat this group
at the battle of the Camel in December, 656. ‘Ali now felt confident
and marched against Mu‘āwiya, and confronted him at Siffīn. After
some minor skirmishes, a probably apocryphal story tells us that some
religious-minded men in Mu‘āwiya’s army went out to ‘Ali’s men
with copies of the Koran tied to their lances, which seems to have
been a way to suggest that the dispute should be settled by a
judgement according to the Koran.8
Levi Della Vida argues that the majority of ‘Ali’s men accepted the
proposal either because they were tired of war or because the qurrā’, the
Koran readers, “hoped that there would emerge from this Koranic judgment
the justification of the furious campaign they had conducted against
‘Uthman which had ended in the latter’s assassination.”9
The warring armies withdrew and arbitration took place. But some
among the supporters of ‘Ali, after reaching agreement with Mu‘āwiya,
protested vehemently against submitting the dispute to human tribunal
above divine word. They shouted out “judgment belongs to God alone” (lā
hukm illā li-llāh). Soon after, several thousand men withdrew to the village
of Harūrā’, near Kufa. Despite some concessions from ‘Ali, there was a
second withdrawal of three or four thousand men to an-Nahrawān, when it
was clear that the arbitration was going to take place after all.
Levi Della Vida describes the next phase in the development of the
Khārijit movement and simultaneously characterizes the Khārijites in this
manner:
The extreme fanaticism of the Khawāridj at once manifested itself in
a series of extremist proclamations and terrorist actions: they
proclaimed the nullity of ‘Ali’s claims to the caliphate but equally
condemned ‘Uthman's conduct and disclaimed any intention of
avenging his murder; they went farther and began to brand everyone
infidel and outside the law who did not accept their point of view and
disown ‘Ali as well as ‘Uthman. They then committed many murders,
not even sparing women. Little by little the strength of the Kharidji
army grew by the accession of other fanatical and turbulent elements,
including a number of non-Arabs, attracted by the principle of
equality of races in the faith that the Khawaridj proclaimed. ‘Ali, who
had so far tried to avoid dealing with the rebels…was obliged to take
steps to avert the growing danger. He attacked the Khawaridji in their
camp and inflicted a terrible defeat on them in which Ibn Wahb and
the majority of his followers were slain (battle of al-Nahrawan, 17
July 658). But the victory cost ‘Ali dear. Not only was the rebellion
far from suppressed and was prolonged in a series of local
risings...but ‘Ali himself perished by the dagger of the Kharidji ‘Abd
al-Rahman b. Muldjam al-Muradi, the husband of a woman whose
 family had lost most of its members at al-Nahrawan.10
The Basic Doctrine of the Khārijites
The slogan of the Khārijites, “No judgment but God’s” (lā hukm illā li-
llāh), is taken by Watt to mean any rule laid down in the Koran must be
applied: humans cannot make their own decisions on questions already
settled by God. But the late Patricia Crone, who was Andrew W. Mellon
Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced
Study, is not all certain that is what the Khārijites meant: “[T]his is too
banal to explain the programmatic nature of the slogan.”11 Crone and
Michael Cook in their work Hagarism have another explanation, as does
Gerald Hawting, emeritus professor of the history of the Near and Middle
East at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.12 Perhaps the
Khārijites meant that they did not want any government. That also seems
unlikely, except perhaps in the case of the Najdiyya, as shall be discussed.
The Khārijites believed that ‘Uthmān had broken some clear
prescriptions of the Koran, thus there was no need for arbitration regarding
the legitimacy of ‘Uthmān’s killing. ‘Ali was equally to blame for not
following the clear Koranic prescription to fight oppressive parties as found
in Q49, al-Hujurāt, the Dwellings, 9, in ‘Ali case’s failing to continue his
fight against Mu‘awiya.
Nietzsche once suggested that fanaticism follows most naturally, not
from doubt, but certainty, as with the Khārijites, who operated on the
premise that their party is right, their opponents are wrong, and it is their
duty to fight them. Watt summarizes:
A verse (Q7. al-’A‘raf, the Heights 85) said “be patient until God
judges between us”; and this was taken to mean that they were
patiently to continue to fight until God gave them victory, as He was
bound to do in the end. In all this there is no suggestion of a doubt or
uncertainty being resolved by the outcome of a battle. To the
Kharijites the judgement of God is clear and already known, and it
only remains to carry it out, so far as this is work for human agents.13
Also implied in “no judgement but God’s” is the idea of a righteous
community, “which knows the divine law and practises it, and which
opposes communities and individuals which either do not know or do not
practise the law.”14 The grave sinner is a person who does not forbid what
God and His messenger have forbidden, and is thus excluded from the
community as an unbeliever. This kind of declaration or judgment is known
as takfir, which is defined as “to declare someone a kāfir or unbeliever,” a
very serious charge indeed, since “apostasy” is punishable by death.15
Some of the principles of the Khārijites can be inferred from the
meaning of “Kharijite,” an “anglicized form representing the Arabic
Khawārij or Khārijiyya,” which may be described as a plural and a
collective noun respectively….[D]erivatives of verb kharaja, ‘go out,’” The
word can be understood in various ways,” Wyatt explains, “of which four
are relevant to the explanation of the name ‘Khārijites.’” They are those
who
• “‘went out’ or ‘made a secession’ from the camp of ‘Ali”
• “went out from among the unbelievers ‘making the Hijra to God and
His messenger’ (Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 100), that is, breaking all
social ties with the unbelievers”
• “have ‘gone out against’ (kharaja ‘alā) ‘Ali in the sense of rebelling
against him”
• “go out and take an active part in the jihād, in contrast to those who
‘sit still’; the two groups, and the concepts of khurūj, “going out”, and
qu‘ūd, “sitting still,” are contrasted in the Koran (e.g. Q9. at-Tawba,
the Repentance, 83)”16
All of these have been employed at some point by various Khārijite
individuals. For instance, the fourth sense is prominent in the doctrines of
the radical Ibn al-Azraq. Those striving to separate themselves from a group
they considered unrighteous thought of their “secession” in the second
sense. ‘Ali and the Umayyad caliphs were perhaps justified in seeing the
Khārijites as “rebels,” in the third sense. In fact, ‘Ali is reported by al-
Tabarī to have used the term “khārija” in the sense of “rebel band.” 17Thus
while government circles and other opponents of the Khārijites used
khawārij to mean “rebels” or “bands of rebels,” their sympathizers used it to
mean “activists.”
Khārijite doctrine developed over time, but one thing remained clear, the
Khārijites were from the beginning, in the words of German biblical scholar
and Orientalist Julius Wellhausen, “the true sons of Islam.”18 In The
Religio-Political Factions in Early Islam (1901) Wellhausen writes:
 They were in earnest about their conception of the Theocracy and
introduced nothing strange or peculiar to it….They had only
principles, but these were always well-known to the people, and
attracted supporters without their seeking them. However, the ones
who actually took part in the subsequent action were always very few
in number. They constantly took in new recruits. When the flame was
stamped out in one area, it would burst out again elsewhere without
visible communication. Tension reigned everywhere and was ready to
explode. This is an indication of how deeply ingrained it was in the
nature of Islam and the Theocracy.19
Wellhausen is adamant that the Khārijites “do not emerge from
Arabism,” as Watt has argued, “but from Islam, and their relation to those
virtuosi of Islamic piety, the Koran readers, formally resembles that of the
Jewish Zealots to the Pharisees. However, there remains the material
difference that the Zealots fought for the fatherland, but the Kharijites only
for God.”20
Furthermore, the actions of the Khārijites exemplify the Koranic
principle of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong. “In the Theocracy,”
Wellhausen explains,
piety generally has a political slant, and this is so to the greatest
extent amongst the Kharijites. God forbids His people to keep silent if
His commandments on earth are abused. Not only must they
personally do good and avoid doing evil, but they must see to it that
this happens in all cases....Public action against injustice is the duty of
the individual. He must express his convictions by word and deed.
While this principle is common to all Muslims, to act recklessly upon
it at all times is characteristic of the Kharijites.21
Cook correctly summarizes that the duty of Forbidding Wrong is “regularly
associated with Kharijite political activism.”22
Islam scholar Wilferd Madelung also sees Khārijite activism as a
consequence of this principle duty in Islam:
Although the formula [commanding right and forbidding wrong]
could be interpreted to refer to the preaching of faith in God and the
precepts of Islam to the infidels and to the jihād in order to reduce
them to obedience (see Tabarī, Tafsīr, ed. M. M. Šāker, Cairo,
 1374-/1955-, VI, pp. 90ff., XIII, p. 165), it came soon to be
understood primarily as a duty of Muslims to induce their fellow
Muslims to live and act in accordance with the Koran and the
religious law and to refrain from acts objectionable under the šarī ‘a.
In particular, the Kharijites proclaimed it as a slogan in their censure
of the unlawful and unjust conduct of the Muslim rulers and of the
Muslim community at large supporting them, justifying their armed
revolt and struggle to enforce adherence to the divine law.23
As noted earlier, the Khārijites refused the title of believer to anyone
who had committed a mortal sin, regarding him as murtadd (apostate).
Khārijite extremists, represented by the Azraqites, pronounced that anyone
who becomes an infidel in this way can never regain entry into the faith and
should be killed, along with his wives and children, for apostasy.24 In fact,
all non-Khāriji Muslims are considered apostates. This is “the principle of
isti‘rād (religious murder),” Levi Della Vide notes, which was “applied
from the beginning of the Khariji movement, even before it had been
formulated in theory, and which found its completest application during the
war of the Azraqis.”25 Referring to five Arab lexicographers, Lane’s
Arabic-English Lexicon includes this usage for isti‘rād: “The Kharijee slays
men in any possible manner, and destroys whomsoever he can, without
inquiring respecting the condition of anyone, Muslim or other, and without
caring whom he slays.”26 Much more current, Wehr’s Dictionary of Modern
Written Arabic gives this definition, among several others: “to proceed
ruthlessly; to massacre without much ado (hum, the enemy).”27
Later History of the Khārijites
The Khārijites were able to survive partly due to raids in the countryside,
where their philosophy allowed them to pillage and kill non-Khārijites as
enemies. Their Islamic roots must not be forgotten; the Khārijites fervently
believed that the body politic and society itself should be based on the
Koran and Koranic principles.
On the death of the caliph Yazid in 683 ‘Ubayd-Allah ibn-Zayid, the
governor of Basra, lost control of various Khārijite and Shī‘ite factions. The
people of Basra had decided to support Ibn-az-Zubayr, who was in Mecca
claiming the caliphate. A number of Khārijites had come to Mecca to give
their assistance to Ibn-az-Zubayr. He, however, was not sympathetic to their
cause. Led by Ibn -Al-Azraq, a group of Khārijites then returned to Basra to
oppose Ibn-az-Zubayr’s appointment. Ibn al-Azraq’s forces were defeated,
but he and some of his followers retreated to an eastern province, where the
Zubayrid army eventually caught up with them. Ibn al-Azraq was killed in
685, but the Azraqites “continued under other leaders as a body of rebels
and terrorists,” recounts Watt. “Wherever they were strong enough and the
opponents weak…pillage, arson and massacre became the order of the day,
and none were exempt except those who actively supported the
Azraqites.”28 It was left to the redoubtable al-Hajjaj, the new governor of
Iraq, to wipe out the last Azraqites in 698.
Watt describes Ibn al-Azraq’s development of the Khārijite philosophy
as influenced by the notion of group solidarity. Ibn al-Azraq accepted the
original Khārijite slogan “No judgement but God’s!” and its implication
that the body politic must be based on the Koran, which in his
understanding meant that those “who ‘sat still’ and did not ‘go out’ or
actively associate themselves with the group prosecuting the struggle
against the unbelievers were themselves breaking a divine command and
therefore unbelievers.”29 In other words, those who did not engage in jihād
against the infidels were unbelievers. Thus it appeared that the Azraqites
were the only true Muslims, and that all other persons could be lawfully
robbed or killed. This, Watt writes, “was the religious justification of their
terrorism.”30 Such a rigid, exclusionary system of thought of course
resulted in the Azraqites being in state of potential and perpetual war with
all other Muslims.
This “applied also to the wives and children of non-Azraqite Muslims,”
Watt continues, “since by their conception of group solidarity the families
of unbelievers were also unbelievers”:
Because when they encountered other Muslims they questioned them
about their beliefs, the word isti‘rād, which properly means
“questioning,” came to connote “indiscriminate killing” of theological
opponents. Before joining the Azraqites, too, a test (mihna) was
made; and this is said to have consisted in giving the candidate a
prisoner to kill. If the man complied, he would be more closely bound
to the Azraqite body, since, especially if the man killed was of his
own tribe, he would have broken existing ties, and would be
 dependent on the Azraqites for “protection.” This test, however, may
have been an occasional rather than a regular practice.31
The Significance of the Khārijite Movement
The fundamental principle for the Khārijites was that the Islamic
community must be based on the Koran. Watt is convinced that without the
Islamic and political activism of the Khārijites, ordinary Muslims may well
have allowed the caliphate to become a secular Arab state.32 The Khārijites
emphasized that “membership of the Islamic community presupposed some
minimum standard of belief and conduct.”33 This communalistic way of
thinking had the consequence that for the Khārijites ultimate salvation or
damnation was linked with membership in the group. Watt calls a
community so conceived a “charismatic community”:
Its charisma is that it is capable of bestowing salvation on those who
become members of it. It possesses this charisma because it has been
divinely founded (through the revelation given by God to
Muhammad) and because it is based on and follows the divinely
given rule of life or Sharī‘a (which has been developed from the
Koran and the example of Muhammad)….[I]t is through belonging to
the community that a man’s life becomes meaningful. The community
is the bearer of the values which constitute meaningfulness, and so
transmits some of this meaningfulness to the members.34
While the Shī‘ites placed a great emphasis on the charismatic character
of the leader, the Khārijites placed it on the community, and therein,
according to Watt, lies their true significance. “While the Kharijites thought
that this charisma was attached to their small sect-community, one result of
their striving was that the Islamic community as a whole (or at least the
Sunnite part of it) came to regard itself as a charismatic community. Much
of the strength and solidarity of the Islamic community today comes from
the belief of the Sunnite Muslims in its charismatic character.”35
Their view of the caliphate is another aspect of the Khārijites’ political
and religious theory that remains influential. It is the duty of all believers to
proclaim and even depose the imam who has strayed from the right path,
hence the Khārijites’ abandonment of ‘Ali after his acceptance of
arbitration in the seventh century. For the Kharijites, there was only one
criterion of eligibility for the office: merit, without considerations of
descent. “Any free male, adult Muslim of sound body and mind was
eligible as caliph, whatever his origins. Slaves were excluded from
consideration (contrary to what is often stated), so were women.”36 Elected
by the community, as Crone explains, the caliph
retained his position for as long as he retained his superior merit. He
was God’s deputy on earth, at least according to Ibadis, and he was
entitled to unquestioned obedience as long as this was the case. If he
erred, the believers should ask him to repent, and mend his ways. If
he refused to resign of his own accord, the believers were obliged to
depose him by force and, if necessary, kill him, this being how they
had dealt with ‘Uthman. Their account of ‘Uthman endorsed the
lawfulness indeed the obligatory nature, of rebellion and
tyrannicide.37
This vision of the Khārijite is essentially anti-authoritarian. But is it
democratic? Crone gives a nuanced answer: “[T]he balance of power is in
the community’s favour, and for this reason they were described as
‘democratic.’ But for the Ibadis the imam represented God, not the people,
who merely had to obey. But since it was the people (in the form of the
scholars) who decided whether he represented God or not, it was in practice
through them rather than him that God displayed His will.”38
Ethical principles of the Khārijites show a similar puritanism; they
demand “purity of conscience as an indispensable complement to bodily
purity for the validity of acts of worship.”39 For example, the Khārijites
rejected Sura Yusuf of the Koran (Q12 Yusuf) as too worldly and frivolous
to be the word of God. On the other hand, they did not allow stoning for
adulterers, since it is not mentioned in the Koran, and did not recognize the
hadīth justifying such a punishment as authentic.
The political activism of the Khārijites, who were described by both
Watt and Della Vida as “terrorists”, represents a model to be followed for
many contemporary Islamic terrorists. The Khārijites were pursuing an
Islamic goal derived from the Koran, and they saw themselves as members
of a privileged community singled out by Allah Himself.

1 Rahman, Islam, 2nd ed., 170.

2 Mahmūd Ismā’īl, al-Harakāt al-sirrīyah fī al-Islām: ru’yah ‘asrīyah (Secret Movements in Islam:
Modern View) (Bayrūt: Dār al-Qalam, 1973), 14f., cited in Hussam S.Timani, Modern Intellectual
Readings of the Kharijites (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 94–95.
3 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, “E–K,” ed. M. Th. Houtsman, A.J. Wensinck, and T.W. Arnold
(Leiden: Brill, 1927), s.v. “Khāridjites,” by Giorgio Levi Della Vida.
4 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, “Iran–Kha,” ed. by E. van Donzel, B. Lewis, and Ch. Pellat 2nd ed.
(Leiden: Brill, 1978), s.v. “Khāridjites,” by Giorgio Levi Della Vida.
5 W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh Press, 1973), 21.
6 Ibid., 9.
7 Ibid., 12.
8 Ibid., 13.
9 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, 2nd ed., s.v. “Khāridjites.”
10 Ibid.
11 Patricia Crone, God’s Rule—Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political
Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 54.
12 Gerald R. Hawting, “The Significance of the Slogan ‘lā hukma illā lillāh’ and the References to
the ‘Hudūd’ in the Traditions about the Fitna and the Murder of ‘Uthmān,” Bulletin of the (University
of London) School of Oriental and African Studies 41, no. 3 (1978): 453.
13 Watt, Formative Period, 15.
14 Ibid.
15 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd. ed., vol. 10, “Tā’-U[..,], s.v. “takfir.”
16 Ibid.
17 Watt, Formative Period, 16, citing al- Tabarī, i.3372.
18 Julius Wellhausen, The Religio-Political Factions in Early Islam (Amsterdam: North-Holland
Publishing Company, 1975), 17. Originally published as Die religiös—politischen
Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam (Göttingen, 1901).
19 Ibid., 17–18.
20 Ibid., 20.
21 Ibid.
22 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 393.
23 Encyclopaedia Iranica (www.iranicaonline.org/), s.v. “Amr be Ma‘rūf,” by Wilferd Madelung.
24 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, 2nd ed., s.v. “Khāridjites,” by Giorgio Levi Della Vida.
25 Ibid.
26 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, part 5, 2006, col. 3.
27 Wehr, Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, s.v. “isti‘rād.”
28 Watt, Formative Period, 21.
29 Ibid., 22.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 35.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., 36.
35 Ibid.
36 Crone, God’s Rule, 57.
37 Ibid., 58.
38 Ibid., 59.
39 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, 2nd ed., s.v. “Khāridjites.”
10 - Sahl ibn Salāma, Barbahārī, and Bid‘a: Religious
Violence in Ninth- and Tenth-Century Baghdad
MODERN-DAY ISLAMIST groups and organizations did not emerge ex
nihilo in the 1970s but from an Islamic cultural matrix, a tradition they
could draw upon with legitimacy. Their political structures and, above all,
the origins of their ideology are located in the founding texts of Islam, the
Koran, the hadīth and sunna, and the Sira, the life of the Prophet.
How do we know this?
Many Islamists tells us openly, developing and spreading their ideas via
the news media and the Internet. For example, admiration is frequently
expressed for Ibn Taymiyya, the medieval Islamic Hanbali theologian who
has been mentioned in these pages. Here is how one Western scholar, Ignaz
Goldziher, a founder of the modern scientific study of Islam, has described
the influence of Ibn Taymiyya:
In the age immediately following [his death in 1328], the salient
theme of theological literature was whether he had been a heretic or a
devout zealot of the sunna. His handful of followers surrounded his
memory with a nimbus of holiness, and his opponents were soon
appeased and brought to a more favorable view of him by the lasting
impression of earnest religiosity that the writings of the dead
enthusiast made on them. For four centuries his influence was latent
but felt. His works were read and studied. In many Islamic milieus
they were a mute force that from time to time released outbreaks of
hostility to bid‘a [innovations].1
Not just the works of Ibn Taymiyya, but the precepts of Islam, especially,
the notion of jihād, which, as has been mentioned, almost became the sixth
pillar of Islam, were a latent force, running like a crimson river
underground, only to resurface with a bloody roar from time to time when
the surrounding strata could no longer restrain its flowing rage. Thus, long
before the arrival of Ibn Taymiyya in the early fourteenth century, periods
of religious-social unrest erupted.
Al-Ma’mūn came to power in 813 in Iraq after a civil war in which he
defeated his brother, the previous Caliph al-Amīn.2 But he had great
difficulty establishing his authority, especially in the province, and had to
contend with many rebellions. Some of al-Ma’mūn’s opponents were
Shī‘ites laying claim to the caliphate, such as al-Hasan al-Harashi, whose
rebellion was followed by a rebellion by Nasr ibn Shabath, and yet another,
in 814–816 in Kufa, led by Ibn Tabataba. As Ira M. Lapidus, emeritus
professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic history at the University of
California at Berkeley, explains, “The rally cry of this rebellion was ‘al-
Rida’ and ‘‘amal bil-kitāb wal-sunna’—‘the chosen one’ and ‘action in
accord with the [holy] book and the tradition (sunna).’”3
When law and order collapsed in Baghdad, there was some popular
organization to resist the looting and general banditry. For instance, Khālid
al-Daryūs, a concerned citizen, called upon his neighbors and the people of
his quarter to fight: “Using the religious slogan, amr bil-ma ‘rūf wa-nahy
‘an al-munkar [Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong], Khālid
mobilized volunteers called mutawwi‘a to defend themselves against the
bandits.”4 As German Islamic scholar Josef van Ess has indicated, this
religious slogan “became identified more or less with political
independence and with the self-government of small social groups.”5
“Religious themes were even more explicit in a similar defense led by
Sahl ibn Salāma al-Ansārī,” one of the people from Khurasan who resided
in of Baghdad’s al-Harbiyya quarter and
wore a copy of the Koran around his neck and called on the people to
“Command the good and forbid the evil.” He appealed to his
neighbours, to the people of his [quarter], and to a larger audience
including the Banū Hāshim, the Caliphal family, and to the people of
high and low rank. While Sahl organized his followers and marched
through the streets and suburbs to keep order and stop the protection
rackets, his movement went beyond resistance to banditry. Sahl
signed his supporters into a dīwān, or registry, required that they
uphold the Koran and the sunna, ‘amal bil-kitāb Allah wa-sunnat
nabīyihi, and pledged them to take an oath of allegiance to him to
oppose whosoever opposed the Koran and sunna. Beyond resistance
to banditry Sahl envisaged allegiance to a higher principle which
justified opposing even the Caliph and the state authorities if they
failed to uphold Islam. On this point he and Khalid al-Daryush parted
ways. Khalid wished to mobilize the people to maintain order, but
 would not oppose the Caliphal authority which he regarded as
intrinsically legitimate, while Sahl preached that allegiance to the
Koran and sunna superseded obedience to authorities who were
compromised by failure to uphold Islam.6
Sahl evidently posed a serious threat to al-Ma’mūn, and his religious
claims became more explicit when he adopted the slogan, lā tā‘a lil-
makhlūq fī ma‘siyat al-khāliq, “No obedience to the creature in
disobedience of the Creator,” which, Lapidus explains, was “an open
allusion to the conflict, as he saw it, between God’s will and Caliphal
authority.”7 Sahl was easily captured in his quarter in Baghdad (in
approximately 817), imprisoned, released, and, when he recognized al-
Ma’mūn as a legitimate caliph, was given a pension by the latter.
Sahl’s slogan, “Command the good and forbid the evil,” Lapidus writes,
“sums up the demand for a righteous society, a community of the just living
in accord with God’s law.” But the caliphs beginning with al-Ma’mūn
claimed that only they and their officials known as muhtasibs were
responsible for commanding good and forbidding evil. Popular preachers,
however, held that it was incumbent on all Muslims to see that the holy law
was adhered to, and applied. “Thus, Sahl’s slogan embraces a conception of
Islam in which every Muslim was obliged not only to obey the legal, moral,
and ritual teachings of Islam, but also to prevent their gross violation by
others.”8
Sahl’s ambitious goal went beyond the need for self-protection from
bandits:
[H]e tried to mobilize the latent religious sentiment which made each
Muslim personally responsible for a just society. Sahl was appealing
to a sentiment akin to the sentiment for jihād, or holy war—indeed his
volunteers were called mutawwi‘a, as were the volunteers for frontier
duty and for holy war against Byzantium. Sahl was appealing to a
sentiment which reached beyond the boundaries of Caliphal
government to an essentially communal conception of Islam. In this
respect [this] vigilante movement embodied a revolutionary
conception of the structure of Muslim society.9
The slogan “No obedience to the creature in disobedience of the
Creator” also expressed a radical position. It was originally used by the
Khārijites to justify their resistance to caliphal authority. Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (c.
720-756), an Arabic author of Persian origin who was among the first
translators into Arabic literary works of the Indian and Iranian civilizations,
discusses the slogan and makes it clear that, in his opinion, while no
obedience is due a ruler in violation of religious precepts, he must be
obeyed in political matters in general. “A sacrilegious command is not
binding, but it does not dissolve the authority of the ruler.”10
Finally, ‘amal bil-kitāb Allah wa-sunnat nabīyihi had been used by the
‘Abbāsids themselves in the Khurasan in their revolt against Umayyad rule.
Sahl’s use of it “placed him in the revolutionary tradition of Khurasan and
of the precedents set by the ‘Abbāsid da‘wa itself.” Sahl’s movement is
descended from the earlier movement, “which overthrew Umayyad rule in
the name of religious ideals.” Thus, the real significance of Sahl’s
movement, which was more than a peace-keeping device or struggle for
power in an unsettled political situation, is that “it revive[d] the religiously
inspired political activism which had already replaced one dynasty with
another and which now opposed its own creature in the name of basic
religious principles.”11
“Fanatical Terrorism” and Barbahārī
Ibn Hanbal (d. 855) was rather apolitical, and his attitude is described by
Michael Cook as “relative quietism.” And yet, by the tenth century
“Hanbalite violence was rampant on the streets of Baghdad. This muscular
Hanbalism was already noted by Goldziher, who spoke caustically but aptly
of an evolution from an ecclesia pressa to an ecclesia militans, with a
penchant for ‘fanatical terrorism.’”12
This new style of Hanbalite politics is linked to the life of Barbahārī (d.
941). The supporters of Hanbali theologian Barbahārī were often involved
in bloody confrontations with his adversaries in the streets of Baghdad.13
Barbahārī wrote a profession of faith, Kitāb al-Sunna, which is
a polemic work denouncing the multiplication of suspect innovations
(bid‘a) and energetically enjoining a return to the precepts of the “old
religion” (dīn ‘atīq), as it was understood at the time of the first three
Caliphs, before the schism which followed the assassination of
‘Uthman b. ‘Affan and the succession of ‘Alī b. Abī Tālib.
Barbahārī condemned, as would Ibn Taymiyya, “the pernicious
deviations that result from the personal and arbitrary use of reasoning
(ta’wil; ra’y; qiyās) in the domain of religious beliefs.” And again Ibn
Taymiyya would follow Barbahārī’s example in reminding believers of their
duty to obey all established authority except where disobedience to God is
involved. He condemned all attempts at armed revolt (khurūdj bi ’l- sayf),
considering in fact that the re-establishment of the Law should be
effected by appeal to public opinion, by the duty of missionary
preaching (da‘wa), of enjoining the Good (amr bi ’l-ma‘rūf) and of
proffering good counsel (nasīha). This re-establishment of the Law, in
a world in which Islam had split up into numerous sects, was
incumbent especially on the ‘people of the hadīth’, on the ahl al-
sunna wa 'l-djamā‘a, whose triumph God had definitely assured. True
to his doctrine, al-Barbahārī conducted so vigorous a personal action
against bid‘a and against the sects (firqa), especially against
Mu‘tazilism and Shī‘ism, that he was at times accused of entertaining
political ambitions.14
But as Henri Laoust, late Professor of Islamic Sociology at the Collège
de France, reminds us, “[A]l-Barbahari’s influence is to be discovered
behind several popular demonstrations and insurrections which broke out in
Baghdad between 921 and 941. He was not unconnected with the
opposition encountered by al-Tabari, who, in 309, was invited by the wazir
‘Alī b. ‘Īsā to come to discuss with his Hanbali opponents points of doctrine
which separated them and who, in 310, had to be buried at night in his own
house because of the hostility of the mob.”15
There was another violent confrontation that resulted in much bloodshed
in 929 in Baghdad, over the interpretation of a verse in the Koran, Q17.
al-’Isrā’, the Night Journey, 79: “Perchance thy Lord will send thee to a
sojourn worthy of praise (maqām mahmūd).” “Al-Barbahari’s disciples
maintained that this was to be interpreted as meaning that on the Day of
Resurrection, God, would seat the Prophet on His throne, whilst, for their
adversaries, who followed the doctrine of al-Tabarī and Ibn Khuzayma, this
was merely a question of the great intercession (shafā‘a) of the Prophet in
favour of believers culpable of grave faults on the Day of Judgement.”16
Further demonstrations by Barbahārī’s supporters followed, the agitation
reaching its apogee in 935, when Hanbalis began “looting shops,
intervening in commercial transactions to impose the prescriptions of the
Law, attacking the wine-sellers and singing-girls, smashing musical
instruments, pushing their way into private dwellings and denouncing to the
Prefect of Police any man found in the street with a woman, not being her
mahram [any relative a Muslim is not allowed to marry].”17
The caliphal authorities banned Barbahārī’s supporters from meeting and
teaching and the Muslims from praying behind an imam following the
Hanbali doctrine. Barbahārī’s supporters refused to settle down, and “a
decree by the Caliph al-Rādī was issued in 923, condemning Hanbalism and
excluding it from the Muslim community,” and “accus[ing] it of developing
an anthropomorphist theodicy (tashbīh) and of forbidding the visiting of the
tombs of the great imams (ziyārat al-qubūr). This condemnation only
prevented Hanbali demonstrations for a while.”18
Barbahārī’s supporters continued their violent demonstrations in 939
under the amirate of Badjkam. Despite the efforts of the police, Barbahārī’
was able to escape into hiding, although his lieutenant Dallā’ was captured
and executed. The situation worsened in 940, when Badjkam had the
mosque of Barāthā, demolished under the Caliph al-Muqtadir as a hotbed of
Shī‘ism, rebuilt.
When Kurdish robbers assassinated Badjkam in 941, the Hanbalis
celebrated with much noise, attempting to demolish the rebuilt mosque and
attacking the commercial and banking district. Some of the Hanbalis were
arrested, and the Shī‘ī mosque was placed under guard.
Barbahārī died in April 941 and was buried where he had been hiding.
His influence continued to grow among his Hanbali contemporaries. One of
his disciples was Sharif Abū Dja‘far al-Hāshimī (d. 1078), who was behind
several violent popular demonstrations against bid‘a. Another disciple, Ibn
Batta al-‘Ukbarī (d. 997), who had met Barbahārī several times, wrote two
professions of faith—his ‘aqīda —that greatly influences two important
scholars: qādī Abū Ya ‘lā b. al-Farrā’ (d. 1066) and Ibn Taymiyya. As
Laoust points out, there is a direct line from early Hanbali polemicists such
as Barbahārī to Ibn Batta, who
through his doctrinal work and his sermons, belongs to the great
tradition of Hanbali polemic which was practised, during the century
following the death of the founder of the school, by the shaykh ‘Abd
 Allah (d. 903), Abū Bakr al-Khallāl and Barbahārī. Like them, he
denounced and forbade all the blameworthy innovations (bid‘a),
which he considered had come to debase the religion founded by the
Prophet, in the field of dogma as well as in those of worship, law or
morals. His severity concerning bid‘a was such that he refused to
distinguish, not only between good and bad bid‘as but also between
small and great. He saw as the only means of salvation a return to the
primitive religion (dīn ‘atīq) exactly as it had been formulated during
the lifetime of the Prophet and of the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr,
‘Umar and ‘Uthmān.19
From Ibn Batta to Ibn Taymiyya the line proceeds to Birgili, Qādīzāde, and
to Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and the modern Islamists.

1 Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 241.
2 For this section on Baghdad under al-Ma’mūn, I rely entirely on Ira M. Lapidus, “The Separation
of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies 6, no. 4 (October 1975): 363–85.
3 Ibid., 370.
4 Ibid., 372.
5 Josef van Ess, “Une lecture a rebours de I’histoire du mu‘tazilisme,” Revue des études islamiques
47, no. 1 (1979): 68.
6 Lapidus, “Separation of State and Religion,” 372.
7 Ibid., 373.
8 Ibid., 376.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., 377.
11 Ibid., 378.
12 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 116, citing Ignaz Goldziher, “Review of Walter
M. Patton, Ahmed Ibn Hanbal and the Mihna,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft, Bd. 52 (1898), 158.
13 The entire section on Barbahārī is dependent on Henri Laoust’s entry in the Encyclopaedia of
Islam, vol.1, “A–B,” ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1960), s.v. “al-Barbahārī.”
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn Batta,” by Henri Laoust.
11 - Religious Violence in Baghdad between 991 CE
and 1092 CE
AFTER BARBAHĀRĪ, Hanbalite activism continued during the Buyid
period, a major Shī‘ite dynasty in mediaeval Islamic history that flourished
in Persia and Iraq between 945 and 1055. Buyid Baghdad witnessed many
clashes between the Sunni and Shī‘ite populations. But as Michael Cook
emphasizes, “Confrontation between Sunnis and Shī‘ites did not, of course,
end with the passing of the Buyids; it is enough to note that it remained a
feature of the politics of Baghdad to the fall of the ‘Abbasid caliphate [with
the sack of Baghdad in 1258].”1
Baghdad was shaken by numerous violent incidents of a religious
character between 991 and 1092.2 The accession of al-Qādir (991–1031),
brought a new resolution to defend the Sunna and to reestablish the
authority of the caliph. At the foundation of House of Science (Dār al-‘ilm),
sometimes considered the first madrasa established to serve the defence of
Shī‘ism, the caliph replied by inaugurating a new khutba (sermon) mosque
in the Harbīya quarter.
Serious disturbances broke out in 998, when the Shī‘ites of Baghdad
were celebrating with particular fervor the solemn ceremonies of
al-‘āshūrā’ on the 10 muharram and Ghadīr Khumm on 18 dhū’l-hijja.3
The Sunnis reacted by replying to these Shī ‘ite ceremonies with two
ceremonies of their own: visiting the grave of Mus‘ab b.Zubayr on 18
muharram, which commemorated the victory of Mus‘ab over the rebellion
of al-Mukhtār; and celebrating the festival of the Day of the Cave (yawn al-
ghār), an episode in the life of Muhammad when he and Abu Bakr escaped
from their enemies by hiding in a cave.4
The public disturbances provoked by celebrating these ceremonies
finally ended in 1002, in an armed confrontation in the streets of the capital
between the so-called ‘ayyārūn5 of the two parties: the party of ‘Alī and the
party of al’Abbās. The public celebration of all these festivals had to be
forbidden the following year.
Sunni and Shī‘ite clashed again in 1007, this time over the status of the
version of Koran according to Ibn Mas‘ūd versus the version according to
‘Uthman. It seems to have started with the looting of the Shī‘ite mosque of
Barāthā, in response to attacks on two of the most prominent Shafi‘ites, the
qadi Abū Mahammad al-Akfānī and Shaykh Abū Hāmid al-Isfarā’inī. A
commission set up by the caliph concluded that Ibn Mas‘ūd’s recension of
the Koran constituted an inacceptable alteration of the Koranic text.6
During the night of April 24-25, 1008, a Shī‘ite in Karbala publically
cursed “the man who had burnt the Mushaf [of Ibn Mas ‘ūd],” which was
obviously aimed at the Caliph ‘Uthmān, whom Shī‘ites reproached for
having dispossesed Imām ‘Alī, having persecuted ‘Abd Allāh b. Mas‘ūd,
and having had burned all the recensions of the Koran that differed from his
own. The caliph had the blasphemer arrested and executed. In the ensuing
riots, and during which the Fātimid al-Hākim was cheered, Shaykh Abū
Hāmid al-Isfarā’inī had to flee from his home, and Shaykh al Mufīd, the
spokesman of the Twelver Shī‘ias, was sent into exile.
The intervention of the caliph and the Buyid Emir, at the request of the
leading citizens of Baghdad, brought some balm to the situation; and the
popular preachers of the two parties, who had been forbidden to hold their
meetings in public places, were able to resume their activities—as long as
they abstained from inciting riots by their sermons.7 After a brief lull, the
violence resumed between 1015 and 1017.
Once again, Sunni and Shī‘ite were at the center of the discord. The vizir
Fakhr al-Mulk brought a measure of calm by allowing the Shī‘ites to
celebrate al-‘āshūrā’. In 1016, the violence incidents became even more
frequent. Fires whose origin remains mysterious broke out in Karbala, in
the mausoleum of Imām al-Husayn, in diverse sanctuaries of Baghdad, and
in the Great Mosque of Sāmarrā. The three great mosques of Mecca,
Medina, and Jerusalem were also plundered.
Al-Qādir’s main worry was his struggle against pernicious doctrines,
especially those that threatened the caliphate. In 1017,
[he] demanded that the Hanafi juriconsults who had shown some
sympathy with Mu‘tazilism make an act of penitence; at the same
time he forbade the teaching of Mu‘tazili and Shi‘i doctrines. Then, in
1018, he had a reading given in the palace of the text called the al-
risāla al-qādiriyya, a profession of faith defining the the official
doctrine which also conformed to the ideas of the Men of Old [Salaf].
Inspired by Hanbalite ideas, this text condemned not only Shi‘ism in
 all its forms but also Mu‘tazilism and even Ash‘arism, which was
denounced for taking a stance that was a dangerous compromise with
Mu‘tazilism, and put forward the veneration of the Companions as a
genuine obligation.8
During the last years of his caliphate, al-Qādir consolidated his gains in the
cause of Sunnism. He had read out aloud from his palace three letters: the
first denounced Mu‘tazilism, the second attacked the doctrine of the
“created Koran,” and the third proclaimed the superiority of the early
caliphs, and affirmed the obligation of Commanding Right and Forbidding
Wrong.9 To ease tension, al-Qādir had the preacher at the mosque of
Barāthā dismissed because of his extreme pro-Shī ‘ite sermons.
The disturbances did not cease during the reign of al-Qādir’s successor,
al-Qa’im. If anything, they became more frequent. As the chief of the
‘ayyārūn, Al-Burjumi inspired, in Laoust’s words, “a veritable terror,” and
his crimes added to the Turkish militia’s lack of discipline. Such was the
chaos and agitation that the pilgrimage caravan was not able to depart.
There were riots in 1045 and 1047, when Jews and Christians were also
targeted. In 1048, no pilgrimage caravan was able to set off because of the
violence.
In 1049 the Sunnis and Shī‘ites were at it again; the two communities
barricaded themselves in their quarters of the city. Occasional apparent
reconciliations were brief, and violence broke out between the two once
again in Baghdad in 1051. Tombs were violated, and some Shī‘ites even
thought of violating the tomb of Ibn Hanbal, but were persuaded not to do
so. The year 1053 witnessed more Sunni-Shī‘ite violence. That same year,
Tughril Beg officially condemned Ash‘arism.
The policies of Nizām al-Mulk (d. 1090), the minister of the Seljuk
Sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah, were favourable to Ash‘arism,
Shafi‘ism, and Sufism, which contributed to a renewal of the disturbances.
However the inauguration of Nizām al-Mulks’s college, known as the
Nizāmīya, was vigorously opposed by both the Hanifites and Hanbalites.
Popular agitation of a serious kind erupted, evidence of the tension that
existed within the Sunnite schools and the unpopularity of Nizāmian and
Seljukite policies.
Religious agitation continued in Baghdad during the reign of Malik-Shah
(1072–1092). Two great facts dominate the history of Baghdad during this
time: first, the often violent confrontations between the Hanbalites and
Ash‘arites, and later, a renewal of the conflict between the Sunnis and
Shī‘ites.
Michael Cook gives an account of Hanbalite activism in the Seljuq
period in Baghdad. There is the example of Ibn Sukkara, a prominent
Sharīf, who raided two groups near the caliphal palace, smashing musical
instruments and pouring out liquor. In 1072, a younger Hanbalite scholar,
Abu Sa‘d al-Baqqāl (d. 1112), came across a singing-girl who had been
performing for a Turk. He grabbed her lute and cut its strings. She
complained to the Turk, who retaliated by raiding Abū Sa‘d’s home. Sharīf
Abū Ja‘far (d. 1077), a typical Hanbalite activist with a considerable
following, defended the mosque of the Hanbalites during the 1077
Hanbalite-Ash‘arite riots, “routing the attackers with barrage of mud
bricks.”10 When the caliph tried to make peace, Abū Ja‘far replied that
conflicts of doctrine could not be patched up like conflicts of interests.
In 1078, the conflict between the two groups renewed. As Cook writes,
“These hostilities between Hanbalism and Ash‘arism continued into the
following century and beyond.”11 The older Hanbalite conflict with the
Mu‘tazilism also continued unabated. While the Hanbalites were no longer
in awe of the state, they nonetheless sought its cooperation in the duty of
Forbidding Wrong, asking the caliph to take measures against brothels,
prostitutes, and liquor-sellers. The caliph did his best to comply.12
The Hanbalites were emboldened by the fact that there were, by the
eleventh century, far more Hanbalites than Shī‘ites in Baghdad. The state
was perceived as being weaker than in the past, but there was also an
understanding that “a certain bond was established between the Hanbalites
and the caliphate: they needed each other in the face of local Shī‘ites and
alien military rulers.”13
There was also a changed attitude among the Hanbalites to state
employment, something that had been shunned by Ibn Hanbal. Personal
debt forced his son to take a position as a judge, and Hanbalite scholars now
had more extensive dealings with the court. Abu Muhammad al-Tamīmī (d.
1095), for example “enjoyed a career as a courtier and diplomat,”14 and
then there is the example of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201), the preacher who was a
“favourite of caliph and populace alike.”15 He was given executive powers
in 1176 “to mount a crackdown on manifestations of extreme Shi‘ism
(rafd); the operation was to include the permanent imprisonment of
offenders, and the demolition of their homes.”16
The intellectual curiosity of the Hanbalite theologian Ibn ‘Aqīl (d. 1119)
would lead him into much trouble. “Before the death of his teacher Abu
Ya‘la in 1066, he had already frequented the study circles of Mu‘tazili
masters, had delved into the study of kalām, vigorously condemned by
Hanbalism, and had become interested in the writings of the great mystic of
wahdat al-shuhūd, al-Hallāj.”17 Ibn ‘Aqīl was first attacked in 1069 for
such transgressions, and had to go into hiding between 1068 and 1072. In
1072, under pressure from Abū Ja‘far, Ibn ‘Aqīl read his public retraction,
repudiating his own earlier writings on al-Hallāj, and the Mu‘tazilites.
Abū Ja‘far, the persecutor of Ibn ‘Aqil, Henri Laoust tells us, was “a
successor in spirit of Barbahari and Ibn Batta” who “distinguished
himself…by the energetic drive he brought to bear in support of the Hanbali
credo and the restoration of the authority of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate. We see
him then at Baghdad taking command of a series of popular uprisings
against Mu‘tazilism and Sufism; in 1068 against the teaching of at the
Nizamiyya;…in 1071 against various forms of corruption;…finally in 1076
against Ibn al-Qushayri who, in his teaching at the Nizamiyya, had taken up
again against Hanbalism the old charge of anthropomorphism (tashbih).”18
Violent confrontations erupted between the supporters of Ibn al-Qushayri
and those of Abu Ja‘far. In 1077, new disturbances broke out, and the
expulsion of the ringleaders brought about some calm. Unrest reignited in
1082, when a Hanbalite scholar attacked the Nizamiya and exhorted his
listeners to destroy it. He was caught, flogged, and imprisoned. Another
incident occurred in 1083, when the partisans of a certain al-Bakri, who had
been appointed to give sermons at the Nizamiya, plundered the house of
one of the sons of Abū Ya‘lā, making off with one of his works. When
given the work, al-Bakri publicly accused Abū Ya‘lā of unbelief. That same
year al-Bakri gave a sermon in which accused the Hanbalites of unbelief.
Stones were thrown, but the caliph managed to restore order.
In the following years incidents multiplied. There were bloody
skirmishes in 1085 between the Sunnis and Shī‘ites, leaving many dead.
The visit of Malik-Shah and Nizam to Baghdad calmed things down, but
the disturbances resumed in 1088, followed by even more serious riots in
1089, which left, according to Ibn al-Jawzi, more than two hundred dead.
The Shī‘ites were accused of hating Islam and its Law. Between 1091 and
1095 there were a series of violent deaths.19 The riots leaving hundreds
dead confirm that religiously inspired terrorism, far from being a twentieth-
century phenomenon, was present throughout the tenth eleventh, twelfth,
and right up to the thirteenth century in the Islamic world, especially in
large cities such as Baghdad.

1 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 118.

2 In this section I depend upon Henri Laoust, “Les Agitations Religieuses à Baghdad aux IVe et Ve
Siècles de l’Hegire,” in Islamic Civilisation 950–1150, ed. D.S. Richards (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973).
3 Shī‘a Muslims commemorate Al-‘āshūrā’ as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn
Ali, Muhammad’s grandson, who was massacred with a small group of family and companions at the
Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram 61 AH (October 10, 680 CE).
Ghadīr Khumm refers to the appointment, according to Shī‘a Muslims, of Ali ibn Abi Talib as his
successor by the Prophet Muhammad. Sunni Muslims do not believe that the Prophet Muhammad
appointed a successor in Ghadīr Khumm, or anywhere else.
4 Laoust, “Les Agitations,” 170.
5 Ayyār, a noun literally meaning “vagabond,” applied to members of medieval futuwwa (futūwa)
brotherhoods and comparable to popular organizations; irregular fighters or class of warriors who
dominated Baghdad during this period of lawlessness, often imposing taxes on roads and markets,
burning wealthy quarters and markets, and looting the homes of the rich. For several years (1028–
1033), Al-Burjumi and Ibn al-Mawsili, leaders of the ‘ayyārūn, ruled the city because of
governmental instability.
6 Laoust, “Les Agitations,” 171.
7 Ibid.
8 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, “Iran–Kha,” ed. by E. van Donzel, B. Lewis, and Ch. Pellat 2nd ed.
(Leiden: Brill, 1978), s.v. “Al-Kādir Bi’llāh,” by Dominique Sourdel.
9 Ibid.
10 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 118–20.
11 Ibid., 120.
12 Ibid., 121.
13 Ibid., 122.
14 Ibid., 124.
15 Ibid., 127.
16 Ibid.
17 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn ‘Akīl,” by George Makdisi.
18 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Hanabila,” by Henri Laoust.
19 Laoust, “Les Agitations,” 184.
12 - Ibn Taymiyya
THE MAY 1983 Encounter contained “Ibn Taymiyya: Father of the
Islamic Revolution: Medieval Theology & Modern Politics,” history
scholar Emmanuel Sivan’s report on a dangerous influence on
contemporary Muslim youth:
What has been called “the hottest literary property” in the Arab world
today (particularly in Egypt) is the work of a 14th-century theologian,
Ibn Taymiyya. Six months before President Sadat’s assassination, his
ruling Party’s weekly, Mayo, singled out Ibn Taymiyya (together with
his major contemporary disciple) as the most pervasive and
deleterious influence upon Egyptian youth. From him they learned
that “violence and seizure of power are justified by Islamic law and
tradition”—and that fellow Muslims, be they Sunnis (orthodox, i.e.,
not Shiite heretics) could become the target of a “holy war in the
cause of Allah.” No wonder, Mayo concluded, the proliferating
Muslim Associations at the universities, where Ibn Taymiyya’s views
prevail, have been spawning various terrorist groups.1
More recently, Yahya Michot, a Belgian Muslim professor of Islamic
studies and staunch admirer of Ibn Taymiyya, had this to say in his entry in
The Princeton Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought (2013): “The
writings of this major independent Sunni mufti, theologian, and activist of
the Mamluk period influenced various reformist and puritanical
developments in later Muslim societies. Often misinterpreted, they remain
central in modern Islamist ideology and Muslim recourse to violence.”2
Early Life and Education
Taki al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, born in Harran (modern southeastern
Turkey) in 1263, was a Hanbalī theologian and juriconsult, known to his
many admirers as “Shaykh al-Islam.” He and his family fled the Mongols
and settled in Damascus in 1269. He would spend his entire life in the
Mamluk sultanate (Syria, Egypt, Palestine, and the Hijaz), and died in
prison in Damascus in 1328.
Ibn Taymiyya studied law with his father and Shams al-Din ‘Abd al
Rahman al-Maqdisi (d. 1283). He also briefly studied Arabic grammar and
lexicography under Su¬layman ibn ‘Abd al-Qawi al-Tuft (d. 1316), and
eventually was able to master Sībawayhī’s seminal grammar of the Arabic
language, Al-Kitāb. Ibn Taymiyya was qualified to issue legal opinions by
the age of twenty, and succeeded his father at his death in 1283 as professor
of hadīth and law at Dar al-Hadith al-Sukkariyah, a Sufi monastery and
college of hadīth. In 1285, Ibn Taymiyya began teaching Koranic exegesis
at the Umayyad mosque and in 1292 went on pilgrimage to Mecca, a
journey that provided much material for his first treatise, Manāsik al-hajj,
in which he denounced a certain number of bid‘as or innovations in the
ritual of the pilgrimage,3 even though it meant going against the opinion of
Ibn Qudama, the great Hanbalite scholar.4
The greatest influence on Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrinal education was the
Koran, which had an “an all-encompassing and active” hold over him.5 Ibn
Taymiyya wrote a forty-volume commentary (no longer extant) on the
Koran while in prison. He also mastered the hadīth, but it was the Musnad
of Ahmad ibn Hanbal that he preferred above all other works. And after the
Koran and hadīth, it was Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his disciples who played
the most important part in Ibn Taymiyya’s intellectual and doctrinal
development.6 He did not follow the traditions blindly, however, and found
Bukhārī and Muslim less than rigorous, claiming that many of the traditions
in Bukhārī, for example, were of dubious authenticity.
Clash with Authorities and Imprisonment
Ibn Taymiyya’s first clash with the authorities took place in 1293, at the
time of the affair of ‘Assāf al-Nasrānī, a Christian accused of having
insulted the Prophet. According to Ibn Kathir, the authorities asked Ibn
Taymiyya to give an Islamic legal verdict (fatwa). He accepted and
delivered his fatwa, which called for the death penalty, arguing that anyone
insulting the Prophet, even a Muslim, ought to be killed. Though the public
approved of Ibn Taymiyya’s verdict, the governor of Syria tried to resolve
the situation by asking ‘Assāf to convert to Islam, to which he agreed. Ibn
Taymiyya refused to accept this outcome, and together with his followers
protested outside the governor’s palace demanding ‘Assāf’s death. This
intransigence and defiance led to Ibn Taymiyya’s imprisonment. While in
prison, Ibn Taymiyya wrote his first important work, al-Sārim al-maslūl
‘alā shātim al-Rasūl (The Drawn Sword against Those Who Insult the
Messenger).7
 Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned six times and spent a total of six years in
prison because of his beliefs and views on matters of jurisprudence. Michot
contends that the real reasons for his incarceration were the “doctrines and
practices prevalent among the powerful religious and Sufi establishments,
an overly outspoken personality, the jealously of his peers, the risk to the
public order due to this popular appeal and political intrigues.”8 Michot
explains how Ibn Taymiyya’s involvement in public affairs antagonized the
authorities:
Actively taking it upon himself to implement the religious duty to
command right and forbid wrong, he is said to have, among other
things, shaved children’s heads, led an anti-debauchery campaign in
brothels and taverns, struck an atheist with his hand before [the
atheist’s] public execution, destroyed a supposedly sacred rock in a
mosque, conducted attacks on astrologers, and obliged deviant Sufi
shaykhs to make public acts of contrition and to adhere to the sunna.
He not only exhorted to jihād on various occasions but also
personally took part in some expeditions and battles.9
Ibn Taymiyya’s Character
His difficult character is well-summarized in Donald Little’s classic
article, “Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?” which cites Ibn
Taymiyya’s supporters such as al-Dhahabī (d. 1339), a pro-Hanbalī Shāfi‘ī,
and al-Hādī (d.1343–44), a member of his Hanbalī madhab:
Accounts of Ibn Taymiyya’s public activities offer abundant proof for
other of al-Dhahabī’s observations, in particular those regarding Ibn
Taymiyya’s pride, impetuosity, obstinancy, intolerance, and
tactlessness. Examples of such behavior are readily available from
secondary sources, and we need only recall such episodes as his rash
confrontations with Mongol officials,10 his boldness in preaching
jihād to the Mamluk sultan against the Mongols,11 his destruction of a
holy relic attributed to the Prophet,12 his daring expose of the
charlatanism of the Rifā‘ī dervishes,13 his presumptuousness in
releasing his follower al-Mizzī from prison,14 his refusals to obey the
Mamlūk authorities,15 his tactless denunciation of the Copts when all
the other ‘ulamā’ saw the wisdom of silence.16 So single-minded was
 his devotion to religious principles, so intolerant of idleness and
vanity, that, according to Ibn ‘Abd al-Hādī, he converted the prison in
which he was incarcerated in Egypt into an institute of religious study
and devotion, turning the inmates away from chess and trictrac to
prayer!17 Even when he was marching through the streets of Cairo on
his way to what his followers saw as certain assasination, he could not
resist stopping briefly to kick over a backgammon board when he
spied two men playing a game outside a black-smith’s shop!18
…Although he was obviously a great and brilliant man whose main
virtues were courage, piety, self-denial, and vast knowledge, he also
had the faults which al-Dhahabī named, the chief ones being a violent
temper (which, admittedly, he learned to control), intolerance of
human imperfection, and stern inflexibility. All of these qualities,
both good and bad, made him an exceptional person, set apart from
his fellow ‘ulamā’ including al-Dhahabī himself, who were molded
from softer clay.19
Call to Jihād
Ibn Taymiyya became professor of Hanbali jurisprudence at the
Hanbaliyya madrasa in Damascus in 1296. That same year the Mamluk
sultan al-Adil Kitbugha was deposed by his vice-sultan, Al Malik al-
Mansur Lajin, who soon after, wishing to launch an expedition against the
Christians of Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, asked Ibn Taymiyya to call the
Muslims to jihād. As Laoust relates, Lajin found a propagandist in Ibn
Taymiyya, whose doctrine of jihād, perfectly legitimate from the point of
view of Shari‘a, could be used to serve the cause of Islamic Imperialism of
the Mamluks.20 Ibn Kathir records that in July 1298 Ibn Taymiyya gave a
rousing speech calling for holy war to a large crowd at the mosque of the
Umayyads, evoking the rewards reserved for the martyrs. All these efforts,
however, would end in failure.21
In 1299, Ibn Taymiyya wrote his profession of faith, al-Hamawiyya al-
kubrā, which was very hostile to the rationalistic or speculative form of
Sunnite theology of Ash‘arī and to kalām (scholastic theology). His
enemies accused him of anthropomorphism (tashbīh, attributing human
characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object) and summoned him
before the Hanafī qādī, Jalāl al-Dīn Ahmad al-Rāzī (d. 745/1344-5). Ibn
Taymiyya refused, on the grounds that this qādī did not have the proper
jurisdiction in matters of dogma. “After a private meeting, held in the house
of the Shafī‘i qādī, Imām al-Dīn ‘Umar al-Qazwīnī (d. 699/1299–1300), at
which the Hamawiyya was studied, Ibn Taymiyya, whose replies are said to
have been judged satisfactory, was troubled no further.”22
For some modern scholars, Ibn Taymiyya is “an inveterate
anthropomorphist” who “interpreted literally all the passages in the Koran
and tradition referring to the Deity.”23 Ibn Battūta, who described Ibn
Taymiyya as having “a screw loose,” claimed that he saw Ibn Taymiyya
“preaching to the people from the minbar [the pulpit from which the Friday
sermon is preached by the mosque imam] and admonishing them. Amongst
other things in his address he said ‘Verily, God descends to the sky over our
world in the fashion of this descent of mine’, and stepped down one step of
the minbar.”24 Ibn Taymiyya wrote in the al-‘Aqīda al-Wāsitiyya (Principles
of Islamic Faith):
Part of the belief in Allah is the belief in how He has described
Himself in His Book (the Qur’an) and in how His Messenger
Muhammad (peace be upon him) has described Him. Believe without
distorting or denying and without questioning or shaping; Rather,
believe in Allah, The Exalted: “There is none like Him; He is the All-
Hearer, the All-Seer.” (Q42. ash-Shūrā, Counsel, 11) Do not deny
Him the way He has described Himself; Do not change words from
their context; Do not disbelieve the names of Allah and His Signs.25
In 1300, Ibn Taymiyya worked with the Mamluks once again when he
joined their expedition against Nusayris (Nusayrīyya), or as they are also
known, the Alawites, a sect founded by Ibn Nusayr in the ninth century in
the Lebanese mountains thought to have collaborated with the Mongols and
their Shia allies. Ibn Taymiyya considered them dangerous heretics:
These people named “Al-Nusayriyyah,” and other groups from
among the Qarāmita [Carmathians] and Bātiniyya [i.e., Ismā‘īlīs], are
greater disbelievers than the Jews and Christians. Nay, they are
greater disbelievers than most of the mushrikīn (polytheists from
other than Ahl al-Kitāb), and their harm to the Umma of Muhammad,
[pbuh], is greater than the harm of the disbelievers who are in war
with Muslims,…[f]or they present themselves in front of ignorant
 Muslims as supporters and advocates of Ahl al Bayt, while in reality
they do not believe in Allah, or the Messenger, or the Book, or
[Allah’s] orders, or prohibitions, or reward, or punishment, or
Paradise, or Fire….Rather, they take the words of Allah and His
Messenger, known to the scholars of Muslims, and they interpret
them based on their fabrications, claiming that their interpretations
are “hidden knowledge” (“ilm al-bātin”)….They have no limit in
their unbelief….Their aim is repudiation of Islamic Beliefs and Laws
in every possible way, trying to make it appear that these matters have
realities that they know.26
During the Mongol invasion of 1300, led by the Ilkhan Ghazan and
supported by the Mamluk amir Qibjaq, Ibn Taymiyya served at Damascus
as a leader of the resistance party. Through discussions with Ghazan and his
commanders, Ibn Taymiyya was able to obtain the release of a certain
number of Muslim and non-Muslim prisoners.27 When the Mongols
renewed their attacks, he was asked to exhort people to the jihād and went
to Cairo in January 1301 to plead with the Mamluk sultan Muhammad b.
Qalawun to intervene in Syria. Ibn Taymiyya was present at the victory
over the Mongols, of Shakhab, near Damascus in 1303, “where he had been
instructed to issue a fatwā on the dispensation from the duty of fasting for
those who were fighting.”28
Concern for Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong
Ibn Taymiyya was very concerned with Commanding Right and
Forbidding Wrong, an Islamic duty that suited his activist temperament, but
got him into constant trouble with the authorities. As Little indicates, “It is
Ibn Taymiyya’s distinction that he opposed by word and deed almost every
aspect of religion practiced in the Mamluk Empire.”29 And yet, as Michael
Cook points out, underlying these confrontations “was a structural
disposition to cooperate with the state, and it is cooperation rather than
confrontation that is the keynote of his political thought.”30 In fact, Ibn
Taymiyya wrote a short treatise on the Islamic duty of Forbidding Wrong. It
was aimed at the widest possible audience.
For Ibn Taymiyya, this duty
is what God’s revelation is all about, and it is closely linked to the
duty of holy war. Like holy war, it is a duty by which all are obligated
 until someone actually undertakes it; it is thus a collective duty (‘alā
’l-kifāya), rather than one incumbent by its nature on each and every
individual. At the same time, no one is exempt from the scope of the
duty. It is to be performed in the three modes specified in the
Prophetic tradition: with the hand, with the tongue and in (or with) the
heart. The emphasis is on civility (rifq)….One must possess the
knowledge requisite to distinguish right (ma‘rūf) from wrong
(munkar). The benefit (maslaha) secured by performing the duty must
outweigh any undesirable consequences (mafsada)—a consideration
which rules out attempts to implement it through rebellion. One must
nevertheless be prepared to display endurance (sabr) in the face of
adverse reactions. The obligation also turns on one’s having the
power (qudra) to act.31
What is remarkable about the discussion of this duty is Ibn Taymiyya’s
utilitarianism. “In his major work on politics” Ibn Taymiyya indicates that
“in cases where costs and benefits have to be weighed, the proper course is
secure the greater benefit by sacrificing the lesser, and to avert the larger
cost by accepting the smaller,” Cook explains. “Likewise in his work on the
office of censor (hisba), he stresses that one’s duty is limited to taking the
best course of action open to one; in real life, this will usually mean
choosing the greater of two goods, or settling for the lesser of two evils....
[T]he utilitarian idiom of costs and benefits, with its brushing aside of
moral absolutes, is a strikingly pervasive feature of his political thought.”32
Ibn Taymiyya also sees this largely as the responsibility of those in
authority: it is the duty of “the scholars (‘ulumā’), the political and military
grandees (umarā’), and the elders (mashāyikh) of every community
(tā’ifa)” to command right and forbid wrong “vis-à-vis the common people
subject to their authority (‘alā ‘āmmatihim).”33 Later on, Ibn Taymiyya
adds kings (mulūk) and state functionaries (ahl al-dīwān) to those in
authority, as well as anyone who has a following (matbū‘). “Each one of
them should order and forbid what God has ordered and forbidden; each
person subject to their authority should obey them in obedience to God,
though not in disobedience to Him. This emphasis on the role of constituted
authority in forbidding wrong is attested elsewhere in Ibn Taymiyya’s
works; indeed he considers it to be the purpose of all state power to carry
out the duty.”34 Since the successful performance of the duty is obviously
dependent on having the power to execute it, it is natural that it is those in
authority who should perform the duty.
Ibn Taymiyya is equally pragmatic in his political philosophy; political
morality consists in doing one’s best: “anyone in a position of authority
who does this in good faith has done his duty, and is not to be held
responsible for what he lacks the power to achieve.”35 The ruler’s duty is to
find the best man for the job in making an appointment to a public office,
even if undesirable consequences ensue because of his choice. “[A]ll forms
of political authority have the blessing of the holy law (sharī‘a) and all
public offices are religious offices (manāAib dīniyya).”36
Unlike Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya does not feel unease over the exercise
of political power. He argues that people “fall into three groups with respect
to their attitudes towards political power. The first group holds…that there
can be no such thing as political morality; so opts for politics without
morality. The second shares the premise, but opts for morality without
politics. The third group is…the one that gets it right, avoiding the extreme
positions of the other two by rejecting their shared premise.”37
However, Ibn Taymiyya elaborates on the second, moralistic, group, and
develops arguments that have a direct bearing on twenty-first century
discussions of his influence on Islamic terrorists. According to Ibn
Taymiyya, there are quietist moralists and activist moralists:
The quietist moralist, for all his uncompromising righteousness, is
characterized by a certain timidity or meanness of spirit. This failing
can lead him to neglect a duty the omission of which is worse than the
commission of many prohibited acts; it can equally lead him to forbid
the performance of a duty where this is tantamount to turning people
aside from the way of God.…The activist moralist believes it to be his
duty to take a stand against political injustice, and to do so by
recourse to arms; thus he ends up fighting against Muslims in the
manner of the Khārijites.38
Ibn Taymiyya’s Anti-Mongol Fatwas
The principal objective of Ibn Taymīyya’s three fatwas was to determine
the status of the soldiers fighting, at the end of the thirteenth and the
beginning of the fourteenth century, in the Mongos and Mamluk armies.
Ghāzān Khān, ruler of the Mongol Empire’s Ilkhanate division 1295–1304,
and most of his soldiers were converts to Islam. What is more, among the
Mongol ranks were Mamluk prisoners being forced to fight against their
Muslim brothers. If the Mongols were Muslims like the Mamluks, then
what was the status of the Mamluk soldier who refused to fight? What was
the status of the Mamluk soldiers who had voluntarily joined the Mongols?
39
Large areas of territory were now under Mongol rule. It was no longer
possible, as in the past, for Muslims to leave the conquered regions and
emigrate to Muslim lands. When the city of Mardin fell to the Mongols, for
example,
Ibn Taymiyya was asked whether the city was considered to be Dar
al-Harb (abode of war) or Dar al-Islam (abode of Islam). He replied
that the Muslims of Mardin were still Muslims and should not be
accused of hypocrisy or condemned for residing in a city under non-
Muslim rule, but by the same token maintained that they should not
render any obvious aid to their Mongol overlords. As to the question
of whether Mardin was Dar al-Harb or Dar al-Islam, Ibn Taymiyya
answered: “It is not accorded the status of Dar al-Islam in which the
laws of Islam are in force, because its armies are Muslims, nor does it
have the status of Dar al-Harb whose inhabitants are infidels, but it
falls into a third category: the Muslim in it acts according to the level
that he is able, and fights outside [presumably the Mongols] on behalf
of the sharī‘a of Islam according to what he is able.”40
As David Cook points out, this statement divorces the individual Muslim
from the Muslim state, since it envisages the possibility that Muslims and
their rulers might not be in religious accord. For Ibn Taymiyya, a Muslim
fights for the victory of Islam and upholds its laws, but the Mongols were
fighting with the aid of a coalition of troops consisting of Christian
Armenians, Georgians, still pagan Mongols, and both Shī‘ites and Sunni
Muslims, among others. Therefore, they could not be considered to be
fighting for Islam: “the Mongols were infidels and false Muslims; they were
even more dangerous and must be fought on a more consistent basis than
other obvious infidels (such as Christians).”41
Unusual for Ibn Taymiyya, he was prepared “to identify the quality of a
given person’s Islam with that person’s being willing to fight for Islam.
Since the Mongol Muslims’ primary loyalty was to the larger Mongol state,
and not to any Islamic state, they were non-Muslims according to the
formulation of Ibn Taymiyya.”42 He compares the fighting against the
Mongols to the Prophet’s battle against the Confederates described in the
Koran at Q33. al-’Ahzāb, Confederates/the Allies. For Ibn Taymiyya, there
was no difference between the two coalitions because both were defined by
their hatred of and desire to crush Islam.43
Groups to Be Fought
One of Ibn Taymiyya’s major concerns was to fight those who rebelled
against legitimate authority. Then there were those who failed to live up to
their Islamic religious duties, such as performing the five canonical prayers,
“the payment of legally-required tax (al-zakāt), fasting (al-sawm), and the
pilgrimage to Mecca (al-hājj),” as well as those who did not “take part in
jihād against the infidels (al-kuffār) in order to make them submit and pay
the poll-tax (al-jizyah)….Those who engage[d] in adultery (al-zinā) and the
consumption of fermented drinks (al-khamar)” were to be “harshly
repressed as they contravene the divine order” and “fall into the category of
offences canonically disapproved in the Quran (hudūd Allāh). Also amongst
the groups that must be fought” were those who did not “order good and
forbid evil (al-amr bi-al-ma’rūf wa-al-nahy ‘an al-munkar), since for Ibn
Taymīyah this duty is another form of jihād.”44
In his second Mongol fatwa, Ibn Taymiyya extends his list of groups that
must be fought to include “those who deny the free will of God (al-qadar),
his decree (al-qadā’), his names and his attributes, as well as those who
display innovation (al-bid’ah) contrary to the Quran and Sunnah, those who
do not follow the path of the pious forebears (al-salaf), and an entire
assemblage of Muslim religious movements…Ibn Taymīyah considered
deviant with regard to scriptures and to the consensus (al-ijmā’) of scholars
in the religious sciences.”45 Essentially, any community or group that
causes disorder is to be fought since disorder is to be feared more than
death, and any public manifestations of heresy must be dealt with even
more harshly than silent heresy.
In order to justify jihād against the Muslim invaders, Ibn Taymiyya
constantly referred to the Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet, as revealed
in the hadīth, and turned to events from the early years of Islam to serve as
paradigms:
Ibn Taymīya links those rebels, who introduced sedition into the
Islamic community in its early years, with the events taking place in
his time. Islam, after six centuries of undivided supremacy, was being
shaken by these new Muslims whose political ideology permitted
them to strike deals with Christians, the heretical sects of Islam, and
the Shi’ah. Ibn Taymīya’s principal grievance with the Mongols of
Iran was their collusion with—in his view—all these infidels. He uses
this as the basis for justifying jihād against those who declare that it is
permitted “to kill the best of the Muslims.”46
Ibn Taymiyya presents the Egyptian sultans as the champions of Islam,
and best placed to fight the Mongols. The Muslim community had been
weakened by disunity and the lack of participation in jihād against various
groups, from the Franks to the sectarian movements. “Ibn Taymīyah saw
Ghāzān Khān’s claims over the holy places, as well as those of Öljeitü at a
later stage, as a grave danger for Sunni Islam, and for this reason he argued
in favor of the Mamluk regime.”47
After gaining knowledge of Mongol political ideology, Ibn Taymiyya
reproached the Ilkhans for fighting to achieve a people’s submission rather
on behalf of Islam: “Whoever enters into their obedience of the Age of
Ignorance (al-jāhilīyah) and into their infidel way (al-kufrīyah) is their
friend (sadīquhum), even if he is an infidel (al-kāfir), a Jew, or a Christian.
Whoever refuses to submit is their enemy (‘adūwuhum), even if he were to
be one of the prophets of God.”48 And he vehemently rejects their political
theocracy since the Mongols had deviated from the laws of Islam (khārijūn
‘an sharā‘ī al-Islam) and maintained their ancient beliefs from the Age of
Ignorance. Ibn Taymiyya explains their deviant theology: “It is that the
Tatars believe grave things about Chinggis Khan. They believe that he is the
son of God, similar to what the Christians believe about the Messiah (al-
masīh).49
The problem lay with the Mongols’ conception of law, radically at
variance with Islamic Law:
Chinggis Khan had conceived a law, the yāsā, according to “his
reason (‘aqlihi) and his own opinion (dhihnihi).” On this basis Ibn
 Taymīyah develops an argument that the Mongols were guilty of
blameworthy innovation (al-bid’ah): “He has caused men to leave the
ways of the prophets in order to take up that which he has innovated:
his way of the Age of Ignorance (sunnat al-jāhilīyah) and his infidel
law (sharī ‘atihi al-kufrīyah).”50 With this reasoning, Ibn Taymīyah
argues against the Mongols’ political system. The Ilkhans’ Islam,
according to Ibn Taymīyah, exposes the Muslim religion to a grave
risk because in it the rational (al-’aqlī) had replaced the legal (al-
shar’ī).
The Mongols of Iran were promoting a modern Islam: they advocated
religious freedom and claimed to follow the yāsā, the law established
by Chinggis Khan. In other words, although they had converted to
Islam, the Mongols did not comply with the principles of Islamic
law.51
Innovations, Heresies, and Religious Minorities
As noted above, in 1296 Sultan Lajin enlisted Ibn Taymiyya to rally the
Muslims to conduct jihād against the Armenians of Cilicia, and in June
1300 Ibn Taymiyya joined the expedition to Kasrawan in the Lebanese
mountains to battle Shī‘ites who were accused of having collaborated with
the Franks and the Mongols. This operation immediately followed a
massacre of some Sunnis, instigated by, according to Syrian historians,
Christian Armenians and Georgians. But Ibn Taymiyya suspected that the
Shī‘ites were behind the massacre.52 In April 1303 he was present at the
victory of Tell-Šaqhab over Ghāzān, when he issued a fatwa exempting the
combatants from fasting during the month of Ramadān, so that they could
conserve their strength to fight the Mongols. Availing himself of the
precedent set by Muhammad, who had done the same during the conquest
of Mecca, Ibn Taymiyya went so far as to condemn the fast if it risked
weakening the fighters, thereby compromising the success of the struggle
for the triumph of Islam.53
Ibn Taymiyya’s spent his last fifiteen years in Damascus. His polemical
zeal led him to denounce violently all those whom he suspected of
introducing innovations into Islam, including the Šāfi‘tes, Aš‘arites,
Zindīqs, heretics, and Sufis suspected of having succumbed to
antinomianism, monism or esotericism. He equally gave opinions that
contradicted those accepted by all the Sunni schools.54
In July 1326, Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned in the citadel of Damascus
on the order of the Sultan, following Ibn Taymiyya’s vehement
condemnation of visits to the graves of prophets and saints. He remained in
the citadel more than two years, where he died on September 26, 1328. His
funeral was followed by a big crowd of Damascenes. Ibn Taymiyya was
buried in the cemetery of the Sufis, where, ironically, his tomb was much
visited and venerated.55
More Innovations 56
Ibn Taymiyya’s opposition to the Mongols was total. While he was ready
to admit unconditionally into the heart of the Muslim community those
People of the Book who had converted to Islam, Ibn Taymiyya remained
irreducibly hostile to the Ilkhans when they converted. He denounced their
Islam as suspect, even hypocritical; he reproached them for keeping an
equal balance between all the faiths, of having benefited from the support of
the Christians and Shī‘ites to make sure of their triumph, of having
suppressed the caliphate, of not being of a rigorous orthodoxy, and above
all, of contributing to the breakup of the united front of the Muslim
Community.
Ibn Taymiyya adhered to a long Hanbalite tradition of loyalty to the
established powers, in virtue of Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 59: “O you who
believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority from
among them,” which he interpreted as an alliance between the rulers and the
‘ulamā’. Ibn Taymiyya believed that Religion and State were indissolubly
linked. Without the power to constrain (šawka) available to the State,
religion declines and collapses. Without the discipline of the Revealed Law,
the State becomes a tyrannical organization.57
The Mongols presented a real threat to the Mamluks, however, and they
had even gained the sympathy of some Syrian nobles. Alfred Morabia
suggests that Ibn Taymiyya saw the struggle between the Mamluks and the
Mongols as a showdown between different politico-religious worldviews
leading to two possible outcomes: (1) the alliance of military and religious
leaders defending the purity of Islam, true to the vision of Muhammad and
his companions, leading to piety, stability, and a united umma (community);
or (2) moral chaos with the triumph of innovations and intellectual
speculation, leading to the decay of Islam.58
His hatred of the Mongols was equaled by his hatred of innovations, in
which Ibn Taymiyya saw the spiritual death of Islam, and the insidious
triumph of impiety: “The more an innovator works at being original, the
further he distances himself from God.”59 He devoted a five hundred-page
work to pronouncing his anathemas on the innovations (bida‘) introduced
into Islam by imitating the People of Hell, that is all non-Muslims.60 In this
tome, Ibn Taymiyya denounced, one by one, the excesses of Sufism, non-
Arab customs, the philosophers, the kalām (philosophical theology),61 the
abusive use of qiyas (analogy), monasticism, and the traditions of the
Bedouins (Ibn Taymiyya had utter contempt for the coarseness of nomads,
singling out Arab Bedouins, Armenians, Kurds, and Tartars).62 Elsewhere,
he showed a similar disdain for the populace,63 the de-Arabisation of
Muslims, the celebration of Christian and Persian festivities, associating
with unbelievers, the absence of rigor among scholars, the celebration of
Mawlid (the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth) and ‘Āšūrā’,64 pilgrimage to
Jerusalem (more on Jerusalem shortly), worship of the Rock within the
walls of the mosque of ‘Umar,65 the veneration of the graves of Muhammad
and his Companions (Ibn Taymiyya reckons it far more meritorious to
follow their example than to gape at their relics), astrology, and resorting to
other intercessors than the Prophet (a practice he violently denounced in al-
Furqān bayn awliyā’ Ar-Rahmān wa awliyā’ aš-Šaytān).66 Ibn Taymiyya
untiringly took up his refrain: Muslims should always ensure they are
distinguishable from the Infidels, as Muhammad himself had taught. In
what constitutes the specificity of the Believer (Muslim) is his desire not to
resemble non-Muslims in anyway.67
Furthermore, Ibn Taymiyya attacked Greek philosophy and its Muslim
representatives such as Ibn Sinā and Ibn Sab‘īn, asking, “Does not
philosophy lead to unbelief? Is it not for a great part the cause of the
different schisms which have been produced in the bosom of Islam?”68
Sufis and Shī‘ites
Ibn Taymiyya did not mince words regarding the Sufis and the Shī‘ites.
He considered both groups “people of innovations and whims” (or
“heresies,” literally “passions,” ahl al-bida‘ wa l-ahwā’). In many ways,
Ibn Taymiyya resembles Ibn al-Jawzī (al-Ğawzī) (d. 1200), an earlier
Hanbali preacher, traditionist and juriconsult, whom Ibn Taymiyya greatly
admired.69 Like Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn Taymiyya found the mystical movement
unsound, full of deviations contrary to the Faith.
His attitude towars the Sufis was ambivalent. Ibn Taymiyya reproached
Sufi practices that took the place of worship rendered to Allah and His
Messenger and denounced the Sufi principle of tolerance, founded on
syncretic and interconfessional tendencies. There was absolutely no place in
Ibn Taymiyya’s philosophy for ecumenical sentimentality. To say, “What
does it matter as long as the divergent paths lead to worship of the same
Lord?” was a betrayal of God, but Ibn Taymiyya’s greatest reproach was
that such contemplative exercises led the faithful to disengage, and abandon
the jihād: “To those who prefer fasting, the vigils, the silence, the solitude
and other similar practices, we should say that jihād is far more demanding.
It is, in fact, self-sacrificing (self-giving), exposing oneself to death. In it is
embodied the meaning of the term asceticism, which implies the
renunciation of all worldly temptations.”70
Ibn Taymiyya often verbally attacked individual Sufis for various
reasons—for example, he accused Shaykh Muhammad al-Khabbāz of
antinomianism—as well as whole groups. Ibn Taymiyya wrote to the
shaykh Nasr al-Din al-Manbidji, the spiritual director of Baybars al-
Djashnikir and one of “the most prominent members” of the Ittihādiyya,
who were supporters of Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240–41), “a letter which was
courteous, but nevertheless firmly condemned the monism of Ibn
al-‘Arabi.”71 As Henri Laoust explains, Ibn Taymiyya “refers to knowing
and having reflected on the works of many of the Sufiyya…and mentions
also having allowed himself to be deluded, in his youth, by the Futūhāt of
Ibn al-‘Arabi…before discovering how subtly heretical they were.”
Nonetheless, he “never condemned Sufism in itself, but only that which he
considered to be, in the case of too many Sufis, inadmissible deviations in
doctrine, ritual or morals, such as monism (wahdat al-wujūd),72
antinomianism (ibāha) or esotericism (ghuluww).”73
Still, Ibn Taymiyya had the temerity to attack the most famous Sufi of
all, al-Ghazāli (d. 1111), and his philosophical views as expressed in
Munqidh min al-Dalāl and Ihyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn, which “contains a large
number of apocryphal hadiths.” Ibn Taymiyya declared, “The Sufis and the
Mutakallimūn are from the same valley (min wādin wāhid).”74
For the Shī‘tes, often referred to as Rawāfid or al-Rāfida, Ibn Taymiyya
nursed an implacable hatred—though he spared the Zaydites, who, unlike
the Rawāfid, admitted the legitimacy of the caliphates of Abu Bakr and
‘Umar.75 Ibn Taymiyya considered the Rawāfid far more dangerous than the
Jews and Christians since they worked treacherously and insidiously from
within the community. Their theodicy was corrupted by borrowings from
Judaism and Christianity, and they had always shown a culpable indulgence
towards the minorities, freeing them, in violation of the Law, that is, the
Shari‘a. So Ibn Taymiyya insisted on leading a pitiless and relentless holy
war against them.
He was determined to conduct this fight on the doctrinal and military
levels. He denounced the Shī‘ite heresy, and proposed to constrain all its
followers, all innovators, to perform an act of contrition, under penalty of
death. In his treatise on the hisba, Ibn Taymiyya called for the death penalty
for the public good: “When execution is the only way in which a man can
be stopped from going about causing mischief, then he may be put to death:
such are the divider of the Muslim community and the preacher of
innovations in the Religion….In the Sahīh we find these words ascribed to
the Prophet, on him be peace: ‘If homage is paid to two caliphs, then kill
the second of the two.’”76
Ibn Taymiyya’s participation in expeditions against the Nusayrīs of
Kasrawān have already been discussed. In 1317 in the region of Jabala,
another Nusayrī farmer uprising (of likely religious and economic origin)
goaded Ibn Taymiyya to write ferociously against them. After their savage
repression by the Mamluks, Ibn Taymiyya wrote several fatwas concerning
the Nusayrīs, who should be forced to convert to Islam for their own good,
and for the good of the Muslim community.77 As he asserted in the Iqtidā’:
“The real Faith consists in, not only in adoration of the sole Creator, but,
equally, in worshipping Him in conformity with His prescriptions.”78
“Praise be to God,” Ibn Taymiyya wrote in one fatwa: “These [Nusayrīs]
should be fought as long as they resist, until they accept the law of Islam.”
They spring
from the worst heretical people guided by the devil, they are from the
 worst murtaddūn [apostates]; their fighters should be killed and their
property should be confiscated…. They do not pray the five prayers,
they do not fast during Ramaddān, nor do they carry out the
pilgrimage. They do not pay zakāt (alms), and they do not admit that
it is an obligation. They permit [drinking] wine and other prohibited
things. They believe that ‘Alī is God; they recite: “I testify that there
is no other God but Haydara the transcendent the esoteric / and that
there is no veil but Muhammad the righteous the faithful / and that
there is no path to him but Salmān the powerful.” Even if they do not
reveal their extremism, and do not declare that this liar is the expected
mahdī, they should be fought....they should be compelled to obey
Islamic law; if they refuse they must be killed….Those who lead
them astray should be put to death even if they show regret….so,
without any doubt, this devil [the Nusayrī mahdī] must be killed. God
knows better.79
Ibn Taymiyya’s attitude toward the People of the Book80 was
contemptuous. He firmly believed that these stubborn scriptuaries needed to
be ostracized. They still did not understand the virtue of the Religion of
Truth, as the Koran indicates at Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance / al-Barā’at,
the Immunity, 33: “He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the
Religion of Truth [dīni l-haqqi], that He may cause it to prevail over all
religions, though the polytheists are averse.” (Almost the same words
appeared at Q48. al-Fath, the Victory, 28, and Q 61. AA-Saff, The Row/ The
Ranks, 9.)
Jew, Christians, and Ahl Dhimmi
Judaism and Christianity were also false ways. Imperfect and
incomplete, they could not assure the happiness of their adherents and their
respective Law was only revealed in a limited sense (muqayyad), in
anticipation of the arrival of Muhammad, who brought the Final and
Absolute (Unlimited) Law (mutlaq).81 Muhammad had reproached the Jews
for their pride, stubbornness, and rigorism, and the Christians for their
culpable Laxism and aberrations, because they had deformed Jesus’s
teachings.82 Ibn Taymiyya sought to eliminate this imperfect monotheism,
which he saw as an insult to the Revelation’s truthfulness and a constant
pernicious incitement to error for faithful Muslims. Ibn Taymiyya wrote
that the servile imitation of Jews and Christians resulted in the degradation
of Muslim customs and ethics, therefore the Lord, angered by His
community, sent as punishment the Turks, who were responsible for a
heretofore unseen destruction.83 And because the minorities did not hide
their sympathy for the heretical sects, they must be persuaded to find the
right path of the Muslim mission.
However, Ibn Taymiyya did not call for forced conversion or
persecution, but to apply, in all its rigor, the laws concerning the dhimmis
(second-class citizens), as defined by the jurists basing themselves on the
Pact of ‘Umar. For Ibn Taymiyya, the religious minorities benefited from a
protected status only insofar as it was in the interest of the Muslim
community; otherwise, the authorities were acting legally in exiling the
minorities, as ‘Umar did when he threw out the Jews and Christians from
the Arabian peninsula.
But Ibn Taymiyya was not content to let things take their course. Rather,
he harangued the authorities to apply rigorously the discriminatory
measures, as in the case of the Christian who insulted the Prophet. He also
wrote pamphlets against the maintenance or building of synagogues and
particularly of churches.84 When the Mamluks closed the churches in Cairo
in 1301, Ibn Taymiyya wrote Mas’alat al-Kanā’is, a fatwa denying that
“there is any injustice in the closing of the churches,” and arguing “that the
consensus of the Companions, the Successors, the four legal Sunni schools
and other early jurists is that the ruler would be justified in demolishing
every church in Muslim territory conquered by force (ard al-‘anwa), which
includes Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, if he so wished.”85 And since the Pact of
‘Umar, which defined the rights of non-Muslims, was written after the time
of the Companions, it had no legal standing.
In terms of doctrine, Ibn Taymiyya adopted an even more intransigent
position than his Hanbalī predecessor Ibn Qudāma with regard to the
Zoroastrians, the poll tax and its imposition on the monks and priests who
had taken a vow of poverty, and the tax to be collected in an unpleasant
manner. Ibn Taymiyya demanded, incessantly, the total and irrevocable
eviction of all non-Muslims occupying a position of responsibility in
political and military life. And, if he forbade the killing of women, children,
priests, the old, and “protected” infirm, Ibn Taymiyya did not hesitate to
affirm:
To worship what provokes disapproval and divine wrath is of a totally
different order of seriousness than to abandon oneself to the lustful
appetites forbidden by the Lord. That is the reason why
associationism [shirk, worshipping another besides God, polytheism]
is considered a hideous crime far more serious than adultery. That is
equally the reason for which jihād against the Possessors of the Books
or Scripture is more meritorious than the one conducted against the
idolators. Also the believer [Muslim] killed by the Scriptuaries
[People of the Book] deserves a double celestial compensation.86
The Great Regenerator of Jihād
Morabia considers Ibn Taymiyya the great regenerator of the doctrine of
jihād. Not content to reuse fixed formulas dating back centuries, he placed
the idea of “fighting for the cause of Allah” at the center of his activities,
making it the essence of religion. Morabia names Ibn Taymiyya “the Bard
of the Golden Age of Jihād “—defensive, doctrinal, ethical, and realistic
enough to grasp that an offensive jihād against enemies who are too
powerful was pointless.87
It was not the right time to extend Islam’s domain by force of arms.
Hence Ibn Taymiyya’s recourse to a defensive jihād88—fighting Islam’s
internal enemies: heretics, rebels, and those who sow discord and scandal.89
Hence the greater urgency for the duty of Commanding Right and
Forbidding Wrong, with the goal of constructing a society devoted to the
service of God. Ultimately, jihād is “one of the most meritorious
undertakings there is”90 and “the best form of voluntary service a man can
consecrate to God”91 that consolidates the activities carried out in the
interest of the Islamic umma.
Because all public functions are only intended as fraternal correction and
as a duty to the moral apostolate, and because jihād is the prerogative of
Islam alone, it is the proof of Islam’s superiority over the other religions.92
In fact, an essential element of Christianity, and focus of reproach for Ibn
Taymiiya, is its refusal to engage in war.93 He also rejects the tradition
espoused by some mystics on the subject of the greater jihād versus the
lesser jihād:
 As for the hadīth which is narrated by some in which the Prophet is
alleged to have said upon the return of the Muslims from the battle of
Tabuk: “We have come back from the minor jihād to the major
jihād.” This is a false hadīth, having no origin, and none of those
knowledgeable of the words and actions of the Prophet (pbuh) have
transmitted it. Fighting against the disbelievers is one of the greatest
of works. In fact, it is the best thing which a person can volunteer.
Allāh said: Qur’an 4:95–96: “The believers who sit back without any
valid excuse are not the same as those who fight in the path of Allāh
with their property and their lives. Allāh has preferred those who
struggle with their property and their lives over those who sit back by
a degree, and to both Allāh has promised good. And Allāh has
preferred those who struggle over those who sit back by a great
(difference in) reward.”94
Ibn Taymiyya had no desire to impose Islam on the heathens, since they
presented no threat to Islam, but the same could not be said of the heretics,
who were to be repressed by all means necessary, including arms, and
forced back to the right way of Sunni orthodoxy for their own good: “To
punish a man who neglects his duties or commits a prohibited action is the
supreme aim of jihād; fighting him being the collective duty of the whole
community as the Koran and the hadith make clear.”95
Ibn Taymiyya’s works are anchored in the society of his times. His
propensity to preach jihād should be seen against the background of
Mamluk activism against the Mongols, the Franks of Cyprus, the
Armenians of Cilicia, and the Shī‘ite heretics.96 But he put too much
passion into condemning innovations (bida‘) and extolling the return to the
pious teachings of the Elders or Ancestors (aslāf, sing. salaf) to allow
himself to contradict his predecessors. Without daring to cross the line, and
including jihād among the fundamental principles (usūl, sing. asl) of the
Religion, he gave fighting in the cause of Allah the most enthusiatic praise
possible. Ibn Taymiyya made the divine institution of fighting, along with
prayer, the essential elements of Islam: “It is for this reason that most of the
hadith of the Prophet concern prayer and jihād. When he went to the
bedside of someone ill, the Prophet used to say: ‘O Lord, heal your slave so
that he can, take part in prayer for You, and for You, vanquish an
enemy.’”97
Jihād, for Ibn Taymiyya, is superior to pilgrimage, although the latter is
a recognized pillar of Islam.98 “Every community has its devotional
(siyāha) journeys,” Ibn Taymiyya wrote, “those of my community consists
in the jihād in the way of God”:
Here we have a subject of very wide implications. Among all the
obligations, there is none whose rewards and merit are so often
glorified as jihād. And this is easy to understand why. The benefit of
Jihād is general, extending not only to the person who participates in
it but also to others, both in a religious and a temporal sense. Second,
jihād implies all kinds of worship, both in its inner and outer forms. It
indicates love of God, sincerity, trust in God, a total surrender, a
desire for resignation, asceticism, the mention of the name of God,
and all other kinds of acts of worship, that no other act of worship
implies.99
Whoever opposes the realization of jihād ought to be fought:100
Anyone who excludes the People of the Book from [the list of] the
enemies who must be fought, is himself, an infidel.101
Each man is assured of meeting death. That obtained in fighting for
the faith is the most beautiful, the easiest, and the only one that offers
the sublime alternative of triumph here on earth or happiness in the
Hereafter.102
For Ibn Taymiyya, all must contribute to the success of jihād—but
worldly attractions are not to be despised. Muslim princes must make
combatants in the cause of Allah the first beneficiaries of the spending of
the State.103 One must not hesitate in giving satisfaction to those whose
hearts we wish to rally by political expediency.104 The Muslim finding
himself in the Land of the Infidels has the right to practice kitmān (taqīya,
legal duplicity and tactical submission), so reviled when the Shī‘ites make
use of it. Finally, the booty is an essential resource:
[T]he infidels render their persons with which they no longer serve
Allah, and their goods, which do not help to serve Allah, legitimate to
the faithful believers (Muslims) who serve Allah and to whom Allah
restitutes their due: thus one restitutes to man the heritage of which he
 had been deprived; even if he has not yet taken possession of it.105
The duty of jihād implies the acceptance of state guardianship—the only
means to assure the observation of the celestial prescriptions. And Ibn
Taymiyya, who could scarcely disguise his admiration for the intransigent
piety and activism of the Khārijites, reproaches them nonetheless for calling
for rebellion against unworthy leaders. More realistic, he returns often to a
saying of the Prophet—“Allah can reinforce His religion through perverse
men”106—and argues that the interest of the community can override moral
scruples.
Faith in Islamic lands always demanded the evidence and commitment
of the believer in relation to the Creator and his brothers in religion. Insofar
as under its multiple forms jihād has been the most remarkable instrument
of this evidence and commitment, Ibn Taymiyya— ferocious attacker of
desertion, cowardice, and abstention—imposed himself as the herald of the
“fight in the cause of Allah.” And all the more easily, since he lived during
a time when religious tepidity and compromise reigned.107
While the theses of Ibn Taymiyya were adopted only to the extent that
they were consistent with the interests of the moment, they have never
ceased to exercise a latent yet distinct influence on Islamic fundamentalists.
And Islamic history has demonstrated that jihād, even when it seems to be
asleep, is capable of dazzling revivals, when its danger, rightly or wrongly,
is once again perceived.

1 Emmanuel Sivan, “Ibn Taymiyya: Father of the Islamic Revolution: Medieval Theology & Modern
Politics,” Encounter 69, no. 5 (May 1983): 41.
2 Yahya Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya,” in The Princeton Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought, ed.
Gerhard Bowering (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 238.
3 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn Taymiyya,” by Henri Laoust. George Makdisi, “Ibn Taymiyah,” Islamic Philosophy Online,
May 13, 2003, updated September 6, 2007, http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/it/itya.htm.
4 Henri Laoust, “La Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya d’après Ibn Katīr,” Bulletin d’études orientales 9
(1942–1943): 117.
5 Henri Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Takī-d- Dīn Ahmad b. Taimīya
(Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1939), 73.
6 Ibid., 79.
7 Makdisi, “Ibn Taymiyah.” See also Wikipedia, s.v. “Ibn Taymiyyah,” last modified, January 14,
2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Taymiyyah.
8 Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 239.
9 Ibid.
10 Laoust, “Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya,” 123–24.
11 Ibid., 127.
12 Ibid., 133; Hasan Q. Murād, “Mihan of Ibn Taymiya: A Narrative Account Based on a
Comparative Analysis of Sources” (master’s thesis, McGill University, 1968), 80.
13 Laoust, “Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya,” 135–36, and Essai, 126–27; Murād, “Mihan of Ibn
Taymiya,” 80–82.
14 Laoust, “Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya,” 137; Murād, “Mihan of Ibn Taymiya,” 89.
15 Laoust, “Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya,” 139–41, 153, and Essai, 133–34, 144–45; Murād, “Mihan of
Ibn Taymiya,” 92, 94–95, 106–7.
16 Laoust, Essai, 141–42; Murād, “Mihan of Ibn Taymiya,” 101–2.
17 Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Hādī (d. 744/1343), Al-‘Uqūd al-durriyya min manāqib Shaykh
al-Islām Ahmad b. Taymiyya (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, n.d), 288.
18 Ibid., 269.
19 Donald P. Little. “Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?” in Studia Islamica, No. 41 (1975;
Paris), 107-108.
20 Laoust, “Biographie d’Ibn Taimīya,” 120.
21 Ibid.
22 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn Taymiyya,” by Laoust.
23 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, “E–K,” ed. M. Th. Houtsman, A.J. Wensinck, and T.W. Arnold
(Leiden: Brill, 1927), s.v. “Ibn Taimīya,” by M. Ben Cheneb.
24 Ibn Battūta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354, trans. by H.A.R.Gibb (Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1999), 1:136. It is difficult to see how Ibn Battūta could have
witnessed what he said he witnessed in August 1326, when in fact Ibn Taymiyya was in prison in
July 1326 until his death in September 1328.
25 Sheikh Al-Islam Ahmad Ibn Taimiyah, Principles of Islamic Faith (Al-`Aqidah Al-Wasitiyah),
trans. Assad Nimer Busool (Skokie, IL: IQRA’ International Educational Foundation, 1992),
http://www.islamicweb.com/beliefs/creed/wasiti/taimiyah_1.htm.
26 ASHĀBULHADEETH, “Ruling on the Nusayri/Alawi Sect,” Shaykh-ul-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah,
August 13, 2009, https://shaykhulislaam.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/ruling-on-the-nusayrialawi-
sect/.
27 Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 239.
28 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn Taymiyya,” by Laoust.
29 D.P. Little, “Religion under the Mamluks,” Muslim World 73, no. 3–4 (October 1983): 180.
30 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 150.
31 Ibid., 152–53.
32 Ibid., 154.
33 Ibid., 155.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 156.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., 157.
38 Ibid.
39 Denise Aigle, “The Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-Shām [Syria] by Ghāzān Khān and Ibn
Taymīyah’s Three ‘Anti-Mongol’ Fatwas” Mamluk Studies Review 11, no. 2 (2007): 97,
http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_XI-2_2007-Aigle.pdf.
40 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘at Fatāwā (Cairo: n.d.) 28:240–41; cited by Cook, Understanding Jihād,
64.
41 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘at Fatāwā, 28:410–67, esp. 413–16, and 28:501–8, 589–90; cited by Cook,
Understanding Jihād, 65.
42 Cook, Understanding Jihād, 65.
43 Ibid., 65-66.
44 Aigle, “Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-Shām,” 98.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., 102.
47 Ibid., 111-12.
48 Ibid., 112, quoting Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ Fatāwa, 28:525.
49 Ibid., 113–14, quoting Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ Fatāwa, 28:521–22.
50 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū‘ Fatāwa, 28:523.
51 Aigle, “Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-Shām,” 116.
52 Alfred Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya: Dernier grand théoricien du Ğihād médiéval,” Bulletin d’études
orientales, Mélanges offerts a Henri Laoust, tome 2, 30 (1978): 90.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., 91.
55 Ibid.
56 I have leaned heavily on Alfred Morabia’s classic paper, “Ibn Taymiyya: Dernier grand théoricien
du Ğihād médiéval,” for this section, which is largely a free paraphrase of pages 91 and following.
57 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn Taymiyya,” by Laoust.
58 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 92.
59 Laoust, Essai, 223.
60 Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtidā’ al-sirāt al-mustaqīm li-mukhālafat ashāb al-jahīm (Cairo, 1950); also ed.
‘Isām Fāris al-Harastāni & Muhammad Ibrāhīm al-Zaghlī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1993).
61 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“‘ilm al-kalām”:
the discipline which brings to the service of religious beliefs (‘aqā’id) discursive arguments; which
thus provides a place for reflexion and meditation, and hence for reason, in the elucidation and
defence of the content of the faith. It takes its stand firstly against “doubters and deniers,” and its
function as defensive “apologia” cannot be over-stressed. A fairly common synonymous term is
‘ilm al-tawhid, the “science of the Unity (of God),” understood as concerned not merely with the
divine unity but with all the bases of the Muslim faith, especially prophecy.
62 Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtidā’ al-sirāt, 146–47.
63 A.N. Poliak, “Les révoltes populaires en Égypte à l’époque des Mamelouks et leur causes
economiques,” Revue des Études Islamiques 8 (1934): 255.
64 “Tenth day of Moharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar; for Sunnis it is a day on which
fasting is recommended, and for Shi’ites a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam Hosayn.”
Encyclopaedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/, s.v. “Āšūrā’.”
65 Ibn Taymiyya concedeed that this rock was an object of veneration for Jews and Christians, but
insisted that Muslims should not imitate them. Furthermore, it was dishonest to claim that a footprint
of the Prophet or his turban was inside the mosque.
66 Taymiyya, Criterion between Allies.
67 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 92.
68 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, s.v. “Ibn Taimīya,” by Cheneb.
69 “Ibn al-Jawzī attacked all sorts of heresies in his robust polemic Talbīs Iblīs, “in which he attacks
not only the various sects more or less outside Sunnism (khawārij, rawāfid, mu‘tazila, falāsifa,
bātiniyya, etc.), but also, within Sunnism, all those whom he considered responsible for having
introduced into the dogma or the law of Islam innovations which were to be condemned (bid‘a):
fuqahā’, traditionists, statesmen and, above all, sūfiyya, among whom men such as Abū Tālib al-
Makkī, al-Qushayrī and al-Ghazālī, with many others, are vigorously attacked.” Encyclopaedia of
Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn Taymiyya,” by Laoust.
70 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-Sahīh li-man baddala dīn al-Masīh (Cairo: Matba‘at al-Nīl, 1905),
4:113–14; quoted by Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 93n42.
71 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, 2nd ed., s.v. “Ibn Taymiyya,” by Laoust.
72 Ibn Taymiyya wrote a treatise, Ibtāl wahdat al-wujūd (The Bankruptcy of Oneness of Existence);
monism seems to be equated with pantheism, which for him would be an unacceptable innovation.
73 Ibid.
74 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, s.v. “Ibn Taimīya,” by Cheneb.
75 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 93n43.
76 Sahīh Muslim, Kitab Al-Imara (The Book on Government), trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui, no.
4568 (Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000), 3:1243–44. “Narrated Abu Sa’id al-Khudri: The Messenger of
Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: When oath of allegiance has been taken for two caliphs, kill the
one for whom the oath was taken later.”
77 See Yaron Friedman, The Nusayrī-’Alawīs: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity
of the Leading Minority in Syria (Leiden and Boston: E.J. Brill, 2010).
78 Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtidā’, 451.
79 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Fatāwā al-kubrā, (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Hadītha, 1966), 3:513–14; quoted by
Friedman, The Nusayrī-’Alawīs, 194.
80 “This term initially referred to the Jews and Christians whose scriptures like the Torah and the
Gospel were completed in Muslim belief by Islamic revelation of the Qur’an. The term was later
broadened to cover adherents of other religions like Zoroastrianism.” Netton, Popular Dictionary of
Islam, s.v. “People of the Book.”
81 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-Sahīh, 3:261; referred to by Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 93.
82 Ibid., passim.
83 Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtidā’, 118–19.
84 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 2, s.v. “Ibn Taimīya,” by Cheneb. See also, Ibn Taymiyya, Mas’alat
al-Kanā’is, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, no. 2962, ii.
85 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, ed. David Thomas, vol.4, 1200–1350, ed.
David Thomas and Alex Mallet (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2009), 857.
86 Ibn Taymiyya, Iqtidā’, 192.
87 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 95.
88 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Siyāsa al-shar‘iyya fī iAlāh al-rā‘ī wa-al-ra‘iyya, (Le Traité de droit public
d’Ibn Taimīya), trans. Henri Laoust (Beruit: Institut français de Damas, 1948), 17.
89 Ibid., 74ff., 90, 122, 130–33.
90 Ibid., 72.
91 Ibid., 125.
92 Ibid., 178.
93 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-Sahīh, 3:299–300.
94 Ibn Taymiyya, Criterion between Allies, 52–53.
95 Laoust, Le Traité, 73.
96 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 96.
97 Laoust, Le Traité, 19.
98 Ibid., 125.
99 Ibid., 127.
100 Ibid., 128.
101 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawāb al-Sahīh, 2:257.
102 Ibid., 4:266–67; Laoust, Le Traité, 127–28.
103 Laoust, Le Traité, 47.
104 Ibid., 49.
105 Ibid., 35-36.
106 Ibid., 12.
107 Morabia, “Ibn Taymiyya,” 98.
13 - The Qādīzādeli Movement in Seventeenth-
Century Istanbul
THERE WERE A number of violent fundamentalist movements in the
Islamic world, particularly in Baghdad, in the preceding centuries that bore
a close resemblance to the one examined in this chapter. In Islamic history,
not all pietists and pirs were for leaving people in peace. For example, the
duty of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong was enthusiastically
endorsed by the sixteenth-century Ottoman pietist Birgili (also al-Birgiwī,
Birgewī, Birgivi, Birkawī, Birgiwī, al-Birgawī, d. 1573), who also extolled
martyrdom, arguing that the duty was even more binding than jihād.1
According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Birgili, “Like Ibn Taymiyya, set
himself firmly against all innovation in order to protect the sacred law, and
no considerations of rank would cause him to connive at any non-
observance of the faith. Towards the end of his life he even made the
journey from Birgi to Istanbul to advise the grand vizier Mehmed Pasha
about the rectification of some irregularities which he had observed.
Birgewī, an utter fanatic in religious matters, would not abide the slightest
deviation from the shari‘a.”2
Birgili inspired the violent puritan Istanbul-based Qādīzādeli movement
(1620–1680), during which simple smoking infractions, for example, often
resulted in execution by “dismemberment, impaling, or hanging.”3 Birgili
was popular throughout the Muslim world; his works were commented
upon and much discussed.4 Scholars such as Rudolph Peters5 and Barbara
Flemming6 suggest that the activities of the Qādīzādelis may well have
influenced the Wahhābī movement in the Arabian peninsula in the
eighteenth century.7 Works attributed to Birgili are extremely popular
among Salafī and Wahhābī groups to this day.8
Birgili devoted most of his time to teaching and writing in the remote
town of Birgi, near Izmir. Though living a fairly simple, pious life, Birgili
was always mindful of his Islamic duty to revive and protect the sunna of
the Prophet by Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, and
furthermore, he insisted that others do the same.9
His followers relied on his two important works: Risale-i Birgili
Mehmed (also known as Vasiy(y)etname or Ilmihal of Birgili), written in
Turkish between 1562 and 1563, and al-Tarīqa al-Muhammadiyya, or
Tarikat, written in Arabic and completed in 1572.
The Risale was “a catechism of fundamentals in simple Turkish
prose,”10 which perhaps explains its wide dissemination and popularity. In
this work, Madeline Zilfi, a scholar cited earlier in these pages, explains,
[Birgili] adduced proofs from the Koran, from the traditions of the
Prophet, and from the writings of the patriarchal authorities to
designate “the straight path.” He addressed such subjects as the
scriptures, the prophets, miracles and saints, those whose lot is heaven
or hell; the portents of Judgment Day; those things that are by holy
law enjoined, permissible, neutral, abominable, or forbidden; love of
grandeur, lying, stubbornness, and other hallmarks of the unethical
life; patience, generosity, piety, and other ethics; the proper rearing of
children; conditions under which women may venture outside their
homes; kinds and occasions of prayer; and the nature and substance of
innovation.
Zilfi goes on to compare Birgili’s Risale to his Tarikat, which was
intended for more learned audiences. Its treatment of the issues taken
up in the “Risale” was more elaborate, with more space given to the
canonical authorities underlying Birgili’s positions. In common with
fundamentalists before and since, Birgili “attached no importance to
custom and usage.”11 That is, the fact that the community had
embraced a particular practice could not compensate for the lack of a
Koranic or hadith-based authority.12
The Qādīzādeli movement itself is named after Qādīzāde Mehmed b.
Mustafa (d. 1635), a fiery Friday mosque preacher who railed against the
introduction of bida‘ (innovation) into Islam, particularly by Sufis. The
message of his sermons and those of fellow like-minded preachers “more
than once between 1630 and 1680...erupted into bloody confrontations not
only on the streets, but within the sacred precincts of the mosque.”13
In seventeenth-century Istanbul, the conflict was between “holy law-
defined ‘orthodoxy’ and the methods and claims of Sufism, Islamic
mysticism.”14 This conflict recalled those that have arisen throughout
Islamic centuries. Though the Sufis bore the brunt of the attacks, both
rhetorical and physical, the dispute essentially existed between Qādīzādeli
puritanism and the pragmatism of the ulama decision makers, who allowed
for the necessity of some innovations. Qādīzādelis were against popular
Islam and Sufis in particular.
Qādīzāde Mehmed
Born in 1582 in the western Anatolian town of Balikesir, Qādīzāde
Mehmed studied under Birgili, then made his way to Istanbul, where he
became a professional mosque preacher (“the path of sermon and
admonition”). Though at first attracted to Sufism, Qādīzāde rejected its
“emotionalism” and pursued the more austere path of preaching. He was
appointed preacher at the Sultan Selim I mosque because of his “gifts of
expression and grace of delivery.”15
In 1631, Qādīzāde was promoted to Aya Sofya, the imperial mosque,
where he began to preach a kind of fundamentalist ethic, “a set of doctrinal
positions intended to rid Islam of beliefs and practices that had accumulated
since the era of the Prophet Muhammad’s Medina. Qādīzāde’s sermons, and
the infecting style of his delivery, infused new life into centuries-old
dialectic between innovation and fundamental, ‘orthodox’, Islam.”16
Zilfi underlines the fact that the fundamentalism of Birgili and Qādīzāde
should be seen against the backdrop of the Islamic community’s ongoing
problematic relationship with its own history, which is liable to resurface at
any given moment in the Islamic community:
The lasting appeal of the fundamentalist ethic has its origins in the
relationship of the Islamic community to its own past, to the austerity
and righteousness of the epoch of the Prophet and the patriarchs of
the faith. While the original Islamic community at Medina has
provided Sunni Islam with perhaps its most compelling memory, the
memory has been a painful one. Every age since that of the One True
God’s revelation to His last Prophet necessarily means a dreaded
distancing from the ideal practice of the faith. With time come
changes and deviations. Whether large or small, matters of ritual or
dress or social ceremony, differences are inherently consequential for
a faith that holds all human activity to be a sacred concern.
Innovation, for Qādīzāde and his followers, as well as for their
spiritual guides from the Islamic past, represented a falling away that
 threatened the salvation of the community. According to a Prophetic
tradition (Turkish, hadis; Arabic, hadith) repeated by the orthodox
down through the centuries, “every innovation is heresy, every heresy
is error, and every error leads to hell.”17 In a salvationary sense, far
from healing all wounds, time is itself wounding.18
One main contention was that the Islamic injunction to Command Right
and Forbid Wrong was obligatory for all Muslims. The Qādīzādelis were
activists who campaigned in mosques, urging Muslims to intervene and
fulfill this religious obligation. They condemned those who insisted that the
Prophet Muhammad’s parents and all who had died before the divine
revelations had died as believers, or believed in the immortality of the
Prophet al-Khadir, or referred to Islam as “the religion of Abraham.” They
also condemned the writings of the mystic Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), especially
the Sufi notion of “Unity of Being” (wahdat al-wujūd), which smacked of
pantheism. As much as the pilgrim visiting a tomb to pray for divine
intercession, reading Ibn al-Arabi was an innovation and sinful, and the
guilty must be stopped since this behavior endangered the faith and the
community.
Qādīzādeli violence “was directed against the Sufis. Individual Sufi
masters were denounced and beaten, and their lodges vandalized, often at
the instigation of Qādīzādeli preachers. In Qādīzāde Mehmed’s day, and in
part at his urging, Sultan Murad IV shut down taverns and coffeehouses and
outlawed tobacco and wine. In the 1630s Murad had a number of taverns
destroyed, and thousands of smokers were executed for defying his ban on
tobacco.”19
Sultan Murad did not have any particular quarrels with the Sufis,
however, and actually had strong personal ties to certain Sufi orders. He left
the Sufi lodges to themselves and the Qādīzādelis made more headway
under Murad’s successor, Ibrahim I (1640–1648) and in the first years of
Mehmed IV (1648–1687), when they obtained a fatwa condemning Sufi
excesses, particularly their music and dancing.
This second wave of Qādīzādeli activism ended in 1656, when many of
their ringleaders were arrested and banished to Cyprus. A third and final
wave of confrontations began with “Vani” Mehmed (d. 1685), a scholar and
preacher at the Lala Mustafa Pasha mosque in Erzurum, who was hostile to
the ecstatic wing of Sufism. He managed to have at least one dervish lodge
destroyed near Edirne, publicly denounced Sufis for disobedience to the
Shari‘a, and had the public performance of Sufi music forbidden. Later, the
the sale and consumption of wine was forbidden on pain of death wherever
a mosque existed. Vani’s influence ended with the Ottoman defeat at Vienna
in 1683.
Qādīzādeli Influence
Turning now to whether the Qādīzādelis had an influence on the
Wahhābīs, historian Simeon Evstatiev points out that both “movements
were the product of very different social, political, and cultural local
contexts but…shared a pattern of understanding what the demands of ‘true
belief’ were and what an authentically Islamic orthodox creed should mean
for Muslims.”20 Evstatiev argues for “continuity rather than rupture
between the ideas promoted by its adherents and other revivalist strands in
Islamic history,” for example, “their struggle for a sharī‘a-minded reform
brought about through reviving the beliefs and practices of the first Muslim
generations…seems not to have been entirely new; such trends appeared
not only in earlier Islamic experience in general but also in the earlier
Ottoman intellectual and religio-political experience.”21 In other words,
what these movements—one in a seventeenth-century urban setting, the
other in the heart of eighteenth-century Arabia—for the purification of
Islam share is their understanding of Islam.
“[T]he Qādīzādeli movement was one of the culminations of an already
existing trajectory in Islamic history,” Evstatiev emphasizes.22 The
Qādīzādelis admired Ibn Taymiyya; his “appeal for the eradication of
blasphemous practices and unbelief”23 resonated within the rank and file.
Islamic history is full of such movements, and this was a part of a wider call
for a return to the Koran and the Sunna, a rejection of heretical innovations,
and the aggresive reassertion of tawhīd—an uncompromising monotheism
that was in danger from shirk, polytheism, or more stricly attributing
partners to God, and thus by extension, practising idolatry.
Influence of Ibn Taymiyya
Contradictory opinions exist regarding the influence of Ibn Taymiyya on
Birgili, Qādīzāde, and the Qādīzādelis generally. Khaled El-Rouayheb,
James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual
History at Harvard, has argued that the “views of Birgiwi and Kadizadeli
followers may have been rooted, not in the thought of [Hanbalī] Ibn
Taymiyya, but an intolerant current within the Hanafī-Māturīdī school,
represented by such scholars as ‘Ala’ al-Dīn al-Bukhārī (d. 842/1438), who
famously declared both Ibn ‘Arabi and Ibn Taymiyya unbelievers.”24
However, in Tarikat Birgili contends that the visitation of graves is
forbidden, an opinion close to those of Ibn Taymiyya and his student Ibn al-
Qayyim.
Second, Saudi researcher Sultān Ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-‘Arrābī has claimed
that Birgili, fearful of being rejected and suppressed by the Ottoman
religious establishment, borrowed directly from Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-
Qayyim, but without acknowledgment: “Accordingly, al-Birgiwi borrowed
from Ibn Taymiyya, including whole passages from his fatāwā, but in doing
so, he was ‘just very slightly modifying them’ (bi-taAsrruf yasīr jiddan).”25
There is another work that was once attributed to Birgili, Ziyārat al-
qubūr (On the Visitation of Graves), which is very popular among Salafī
and Wahhābī religious groups. Probably authored by an admirer of Birgili’s,
Ahmad al-Rūmī al-Aqhizārī (d. 1631 or 1634), this treatise begins with an
explicit mention of Ibn al-Qayyim, which surely indicates Ibn Taymiyya
and Ibn al-Qayyim’s importance to and influence on Birgili and his
admirers.
As for Qādīzāde Mehmed, he is said to have “expressed his political
views through an expanded translation of Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Siyāsa al-shar
‘iyya into Ottoman Turkish, entitled Tācü ’r-resā’il ve minhācü l-vesā’il,
which he presented to Sultan Murad IV.”26

1 Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 91.

2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1, “A–B,” ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1960), s.v.
“Birgewī.”
3 Simeon Evstatiev, “The Qādīzādeli Movement and the Revival of Takfīr in the Ottoman Age,” in
Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr, ed. Camilla Adang et al.
(Leiden: Brill, 2015), 221.
4 Ibid., 222.
5 Rudolph Peters, “Islamischer Fundamentalismus: Glauben, Handeln, Führung,” in Max Webers
Sicht des Islams: Interpretation und Kritik, ed. Wolfgang Schlucter (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987),
217–42.
6 Barbara Flemming, “Die vorwahhabitische Fitna im osmanischen Kairo, 1711,” in Ord. Prof.
İsmail Hakki Uzunçarşili’ya Ar-maĝan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1976), 55–65.
7 Referred to by Evstatiev, “Qādīzādeli Movement.”
8 Evstatiev, “Qādīzādeli Movement,” 230.
9 Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Qādīzādelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45, no. 4 (October 1986): 260.
10 Ibid., 261.
11 Ibid., 261n47: “Katib Chelebi, The Balance of Truth, p. 60; Birgili, Tarikat-i Muhammediyye
Tercümesi (trans. from Arabic into Turkish by Celal Yildirim), Istanbul, 1981, pp. 34–41.”
12 Ibid., 261.
13 Ibid., 251.
14 Ibid., 252.
15 Ibid., 252n7: “Katib Çelebi, Fezleke-i Tarih, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1286/1870), vol. 2, p. 64; Bursali
Mehmed Tahir, Osmanli Müellifleri, 3 Vols. (Istanbul, 1972–75), vol. 1, p. 173; Nevizade Atai, Zeyl-i
Şakaik, 2 vols. in 1 (Istanbul) pp. 602–3, 759.”
16 Ibid., 253.
17 Ibid., 254n10: “Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern (London, 1967–1971), Vol. 2,
pp. 34–35; for similar condemnations, see also ibid., pp. 28ff.”
18 Ibid., 253.
19 Ibid., 257n22: “Mustafa Naima, Tarih-i Naima, 6 vols. (Istanbul, 1280/1863-64), Vol. 3, pp.160–
64, 168–72, 179; Katib Çelebi, Fezleke-i Tarih, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1286/1870), vol.2, p. 154; Paul
Rycaut, The History the Turkish Empire from the year 1623 to the Year 1677, 2 vols. in 1 (London,
1680), vol. 1, pp. 52, 59, 71, 79; Antoine Galland, De l’Origine et du progrez du café (Caen. 1699);
Dimitrie Cantemir, The History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire, trans. N. Tindal
(London, 1734), p. 246.”
20 Evstatiev, “Qādīzādeli Movement,” 213.
21 Ibid., 214.
22 Ibid., 215.
23 Ibid., 228.
24 Khaled El-Rouayheb, “From Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī (d. 1566) to Khayr al-Dīn al-Ālūsī (d. 1899):
Changing Views of Ibn Taymiyya among non-Hanbalī Sunni Scholars,” in Ibn Taymiyya and His
Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 304.
25 Evstatiev, “Qādīzādeli Movement,” 232, quoting Sultān Ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-‘Arrābī, “Dāmighat al-
mubtadi ‘īn wa-kāshifat butlān al-mulhīdīn. Al-Imām Muhammad b. Bīr ‘Alī Iskandar al-Birgiwī:
Dirāsa wa-tahqīq,” (master’s thesis, Jāmi ‘at Umm al-Qurā, Mecca 1425/2004), 114.
26 Ibid., 228n81.
14 - Ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhāb and Eighteenth-Century
Renewal and Reform
The Eighteenth Century
AS I HAVE sought to emphasize throughout this work, the late twentieth-
century resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism should be considered against
the background of “a long tradition of special emphasis on the need for
purification and revival of strict adherence to the ‘fundamentals’ of the
faith.”1 While I concentrate here on eighteenth-century movements that
have decisively influenced and “provided a significant foundation for
renewalist movements of the modern era,”2 the thrust of my entire argument
is that something deep within Islam encourages activism. As the late
Palestinian-American philosopher Ismail R. al-Faruqi, who was widely
recognized as an authority on Islam and comparative religion, put it, “Islam
teaches not only that the realization of the good is possible in this world but
that to bring it about here and now is precisely the duty of every man and
woman.”3 In the words of Nehemia Levtzion and John O. Voll, authors of
Eighteenth Century Renewal and Reform in Islam, “Renewal and reform are
important dimensions of the historical experience of Muslims. An important
part of the mission of believers is the implementation of God’s revelation in
the actual conditions of human society….[R]eform is at the heart of the
faith and action of every Muslim.”4
Many activist movements of renewal and reform took place in the
Islamic world during the eighteenth century, and even where these did not
occur, the intensification of Islamic identity created the necessary
conditions for later revivalism. But eighteenth-century movements should
be seen as continuous “with both earlier and later movements of Islamic
resurgence.”5 For instance, there is direct continuity between the Wahhābi
movement and the present-day Saudi state.
Eighteenth-century growth and intensification of Islamic identity took
places in areas of the Islamic world where it seemed threatened by the
apparent self-assertion of non-Muslims in society. Whereas in the past
Muslims lived in symbiosis with members of other religions, the new
reformists sought to separate Muslims from non-Muslims. They felt that far
too many “Muslims” had acquired decidedly un-Islamic practices such as
tomb worship and seeking intercession from dead saints. These practices
were enough for militant reformers to brand such putative Muslims as
nonbelievers—the act of takfir—a very serious charge, since an apostate
must eventually be executed, since jihād can only be waged against infidels.
Like all reform efforts, the Islamic movements challenge prevailing
conditions in society, when Islam is no longer practiced in a manner that the
reformers find satisfactory. Eighteenth-century reform movements “stressed
the authenticity of the Islamic tradition in more exclusivist rather than
inclusivist terms.”6 This was a reaction against what reformers believed
were too many compromises made to accommodate other traditions and
religions. This gave the reformist movement a puritanical rigor: “The
‘resurgences’ of Islam that have been seen in the modern era have tended to
have a ‘fundamentalist’ tone…in keeping with the tone of renewalism at the
beginning of the modern era when Western influences become more
important in many parts of the Islamic world.” 7
Rudolph Peters on Fundamentalism and a Religious Riot in
Eighteenth-Century Cairo
Let’s take a closer look at how these movements operated. Here is an
account of a religious riot that occurred in eighteenth-century Cairo from a
scholar mentioned in these pages, Rudolph Peters.8 In “The Battered
Dervishes of Bab Zuwyala” Peters writes generally about Islamic
fundamentalism as his account sheds historical and ideological light on our
examination of the Qādīzedili movement in seventeenth-century Istanbul.
“One of the most important motivating factors behind eighteenth-century
Islamic renewal and reform is undoubtedly Islamic fundamentalism,” Peters
opens. “By its very nature, fundamentalism is activist and militant and tends
therefore to produce movements and organizations aimed at implementing
the Islamic ideals.”9 He then describes a short-lived fundamentalist
movement among Turkish soldiers in Egypt, who in their religious fervor
attacked dervishes (members of a mystical order) performing Sufi rituals,
which the soldiers considered un-Islamic.
In October 1711, a Turkish student of religion (softa) and some
companions took up lodgings in the Muyyad Mosque. They sat together to
study the treatise of Birgili (discussed in the previous chapter as a major
influence on the Istanbul Qādīzadeli movement). The softa then began
giving sermons that became more and more popular, and his audience grew.
His sermons made these claims:
Miracles of saints cease after death and accounts of miracles
performed by them after their death therefore are false.
It is false that some saints can see the Well-Preserved Tablet,10 and
anyone holding such an opinion is an unbeliever. Since even prophets
cannot see the Well-Preserved Tablet, how could it be possible for
saints to be able to do so? [The softa also denied that Prophet had
ever seen the Well-Preserved Tablet.]
It is not permissible to burn candles and oil lamps at the tombs of
saints, and those who kiss their thresholds and tombs are feared to be
unbelievers. All Muslims must put an end to this practice.
It is obligatory for Muslims to destroy cupolas built over graves
(tekkes), like the Gulseni and the Mevlevi tekke, and over the tombs
of saints.
The tekkes contructed for the dervishes must be abolished, and the
dervishes living there must be ejected, their places must be taken over
by students of religion, and the tekkes thereafter be converted into
madrasas [schools of Islamic instruction].
It is forbidden to visit in groups Imam Shāfi‘ī and other tombs during
the nights before Saturday in order to perform public dhikrs.
[Literally, “remembrance,” “recollection,” “mention.” In Sufism, this
term has acquired a technical sense of “litany,” in which the name of
God or formulae like “God is Most Great” (Allāhu Akbar) is repeated
in either a high or low voice, and often linked to bodily movement or
breathing. The dhikr is often one of the most important activities of a
sufi.]11
It is forbidden and an act of polytheism (shirk) that a band of
ignoramuses among the groups that during the nights of Ramadan are
to be found near Bab Zuwayla (Demirkapu) shout and jump until
midnight on the pretense of performing a dhikr. It is incumbent upon
the qādī and others to stop them, for a person who fails to forbid what
is abominable (al-nahy an al-munkur) will be punished in the
Hereafter.12
The Turkish softa’s followers lay in ambush for the dervishes holding a
dhikr, and attacked them after evening prayer with swords and cudgels. The
dervishes were severely beaten and chased from Bab Zuwayla. Some
people went to Shaykh Ahmad al-Nafrawi, and informed him of what the
softa had said. The Shaykh got together with the ‘ulamā’ of the Hanafites
and Shafiites to issue a fatwa that tried to refute the softa’s arguments. As
Peters writes,
That our Turkish softa was a radical is beyond dispute. His radicalism
was of a religious kind and appears in his fierce stance vis-à-vis
certain popular Sufi rituals and saint veneration. It is significant that
he and his friends had been studying a treatise by Birgili, a popular
author well-known for strict views on these matters. These attitudes
are typical of fundamentalist Islam, by which I mean those trends in
Islam that emphasize the transcendence of God versus His
imminence, the authenticity of religious experience as based on the
revelation (direct and indirect, i.e., Quran and hadith), unity of
religious experience, and finally, the basic equality of all believers in
the face of God.13
Peters then makes an important observation: “As a rule, fundamentalism is
action-oriented; it wants to change the world by subjecting it to
fundamentalist ideals. Central to fundamentalist thought is the claim that
the gate of ijtihād [the exercise of independent judgment unfettered by case
law or precedent] is not entirely closed.”14
Clearly the Turkish softa wanted to put to an end a number of customs
deemed un-Islamic, action either the authorities or individual Muslims must
take. Appealing to the Muslim duty of Commanding Right and Forbidding
Wrong, the softa’s sermons were effective: the crowds came under his
control and attacked the dervishes holding a dhikr at Bab Zuwayla.
His followers were mainly Turkish soldiers serving during the civil war
of 1711, which pitted regiments of Janissaries against Janissaries, regiments
of the Azaban against Azaban, and so on. Three months of fighting had left
nearly 4000 dead. As Peters notes:
In these troubled times the soldiers must have been responsive to
religious calls implying a break with the past and offering a clear and
simple way to salvation. During the fighting the people of Cairo had
attributed the calamity that had befallen them to their own impiety
 and sinfulness, and these soldiers may have had similar feelings. So,
when a preacher showed them a new way of being pious—a departure
from their habitual, mystical religiosity or indifference to religion—
which, because of its active and practical character appealed to their
soldierly temperament, many must have felt attracted to it. And more
than attracted; they identified with the movement to the extent that
that they were willing to risk their lives.15
The Turkish softa’s subsequent reaction to the fatwa was violent. He
inveighed against the ‘ulamā’, calling them unbelievers, which implied that
they should be declared apostates and eventually killed. He urged the crowd
to follow him to the qādī askar (principle judge),16 where thing got out of
hand when the crowd seemed to threaten the qādī, a high ranking Ottoman
official. Finally, the military authorities had to step in to restore order.
Peters sums up the significance of this short-lived movement: the
sermonizing student’s “ideas and actions were rooted in Turkish softa
radicalism and a brand of Turkish fundamentalism that went back via
Birgili Mehmed, to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Djawziyya,” and
offers a wider and familiar conclusion:
The trend that I have labelled fundamentalism—and that for equally
good reasons may be called revivalism—has its roots deep in Islamic
history. Over the centuries, fundamentalist opinions have been
expressed by Islamic scholars. Time and again, fundamentalist
movements of protest arose arguing that religion had become
corrupted and that they wanted to purify it by going back to the
revealed sources and ridding it of unwarranted accretions. These
movements often had a militant and activist character because they
wished to change the world and subject it to the values of a pure and
unadulterated Islam based on tawhīd, the recognition of God’s unity
and uniqueness, and the sunna, the ideal standard of behavior set by
the Prophet Muhammad.17
And Peters unequivocally states that the fundamentalist movements cannot
be linked to Western expansion:
It is true that Egypt had, to some extent, been affected by the shift in
trade routes due to the rise of Western commercial capitalism. Yet, it
is impossible to relate the events I have mentioned to these economic
 changes.18
The Birth of Wahhābism
Before beginning with the founder of Wahhābism, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,
I should like to offer some background details. Wahhābism was born in the
mid-eighteenth century in Najd (also “Nejd”), the central region of Saudi
Arabia, which consisted of the regions of Riyadh (Riyād), al-Qassim (al-
Qazīm), and Hā’il. An indigenous religious reform movement that arose in
an area long considered a religious and cultural backwater, Wahhābism was
not an anticolonialist movement. In fact, the first Wahhābis were unaware
of the “speed and depth of contemporary English and French intrusion into
far-off Muslims territories.”19 Nor was it nationalist, and did not borrow
anything of its central beliefs from the West. As Michael Crawford, an
independent consultant who writes on the Middle East explains, Wahhābism
“was a pre-modern movement that arose before the most serious Western
threat materialized against Islamic lands on the Mediterranean or in India. It
can present itself today, as it has always done, as an authentic Islamic
response to contemporary challenges.”20 Saudi Arabia itself was never
colonized by the West, though it was theoretically part of the Ottoman
Empire in the early eighteenth-century, especially Hijaz, with its holy cities
of Mecca and Medina, and the interior Najd region only nominally so.
In periods of disorientation and change Muslims looked for solutions in
their own cultural and religious heritage, where they found a greater sense
of purpose and belonging, and a renewed, reassuring Islamic identity. The
Wahhābis were primarily concerned with the moral and religious well-being
of Muslims in their corner of the world.
Najd and the Hanbalī Tradition
Given the importance of the Hanbalī school to the development of the
ideas of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, it is worth pointing out that
Najdi scholars had followed the Hanbalī rite long before the advent of
Wahhābism. Unfortunately, our knowledge of these scholars does not
commence before the sixteenth-century. Ahmad ibn ‘Atwa (d. 1541) is the
first name handed down to us.
Ibn ‘Atwa studied in Damascus, attending lectures on Islamic
jurisprudence by several Hanbalī scholars such as Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad ibn
‘Abd Allāh al-‘Askarī. On his return to the Najd, Ibn ‘Atwa became a
respected authority on the Hanbalī tradition and rite, and taught such later
scholars as Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musharraf. He issued many fatwas
and wrote two works of fiqh (sources of the law). Our sources indicate there
were seven other such scholars during the sixteenth century, and by the
seventeenth century most Najdi towns seemed to have their own qādīs
(judges), all of them Hanbalīs.21
The scholars of Najd were also in touch with prominent Hanbalītes in
Egypt and Syria. Shaykh Manzūr al-Buhūtī, for example, was an Egyptian
scholar with several Najdi students, notably ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhāb, who became the qādī of al-‘Uyayna until his death in 1646.
Another Egyptian scholar at al-Azhar, Mar‘ī ibn Yūsuf, a celebrated
Hanbalī, “sent a copy of his work, Ghāyat al-Muntahā [The Utmost Limit],
to the scholars of Najd, giving his regards to two of them, Khamīs ibn
Sulaymān and Muhammad ibn Ismā‘īl.”22 The latter had students who later
gained some renown, including ‘Abd Allah ibn Dhahlān, who became the
qādī of Riyadh and teacher of several well-known scholars, including
Ahmad al-Manqūr and Muhammad al-‘Awsajī. He died of the plague that
reached the region in 1687.23
Perhaps the greatest Najdi scholar of the seventeenth century was
Sulaymān ibn ‘Alī, the grandfather of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb.
On the whole, these Najdi scholars concentrated solely on jurisprudence.
This is understandable because the main purpose of education in this region
was to prepare scholars to carry out the duties of a judge in towns. One
exception was ‘Uthmān ibn Qā’id, who studied under ‘Abd Allah ibn
Dhahlān, who traveled to Damascus before settling in Cairo, where he died
in 1685. He wrote several works, the most significant of which, Najāt al-
Khalaf fī ’‘tiqād al-Salaf (The Salvation of Successors in the Belief of their
Predecessors), concerns “the beliefs of contemporary Muslims” and shows
Ibn Dhahlān’s “conviction that there should be a return to the practices of
the early age of Islam.”24
During the first half of the eighteenth-century more than twenty scholars
are mentioned in Muslim history books as flourishing in the Najd, some
writing on jurisprudence, others acting as judges.
Pre-Wahhābi Beliefs and Practices
Over time many questionable beliefs and innovations had been added to
Islamic practices. This included, for example, the widespread belief that
dead saints could intercede for the living before God, which lead many
Muslims to construct buildings and arches over the graves of pious persons
and visit such tombs, almost in pilgrimage. They would circumambulate the
tombs, praying to the saints to plead on their behalf, in conviction that the
saints could ward off evil and bring about good. Pre-Islamic practices such
as the veneration of certain rocks and trees were also revived.
These practices were clearly idolatrous, and are described in some detail
by Wahhābi scholars such as ibn Bishr (1795–1873), who wrote that the
Najd in particular had been much corrupted by them:
Polytheism was widespread in the Najd and elsewhere. It was
common for trees and rocks to be invested with supernatural powers;
tombs were venerated and shrines were built about them; and all these
were regarded as sources of blessing and objects of vows. The people
sought refuge from the jinn, made sacrifices to them and put food for
them in the corners of their houses, believing that by so doing they
would cure their sick relatives, bring good and prevent evil.
Moreover, swearing by beings other than God, and similar forms of
major and minor polytheism were widely practiced.25
Another scholar encouraged by the Saudi ruler was the chronicler Ibn
Ghannām (d. 1811), who described the state of Najd before Wahhabism as
one of ignorance, jahiliyya, a term made famous by Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966)
much later.
Muhammad Ibn al-Wahhāb (1703–1792)
Muhammad Ibn al-Wahhāb was born in al-‘Uyayna in 1703 into a family
of religious notables in the Najd. His father was a qādī and his first teacher.
A quick learner, Ibn al-Wahhāb memorized the Koran by the age of ten. He
also studied tafsir (exegesis, interpretation, and commentary on the Koran),
hadīth, and madhhab (school of law; in Ibn al-Wahhāb’s case, jurisprudence
of the Hanbalī school).
Ibn al-Wahhāb seems to have made a pilgrimage to Mecca, probably just
before his marriage at the age of twelve.26 After the pilgrimage, he went on
to Medina, where he came under the influence of Shaykh ‘Abd Allah ibn
Ibrāhīm ibn Sayf. Back home in al-‘Uyayna, he deepened his knowledge of
Islam reading works on tawhīd.
 Ambitious, Ibn al-Wahhāb was determined to travel to extend his
knowledge under renowned scholars. He returned to Mecca and Medina,
where he renewed his acquaintance with Ibn Sayf and joined the circle of
Muhammad Hayāt al-Sindī. An admirer of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Sayf was
from al-Majma‘a, a small town in the Najdi region of Sudayr and
recognized that the Najd was in need of spiritual reform.
One day Ibn Sayf asked Ibn al-Wahhāb, “Do you want to see the weapon
that I have prepared for al-Majma‘a?” When the young man said yes, Ibn
Sayf brought him to a house where many books were stored and said, “This
is the weapon I have prepared.” As Russian scholar Alexei Vassiliev put it,
“Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb hinted thereby that his Medina teacher had prepared
an ‘ideological weapon’ to combat the beliefs that were widespread in his
oasis.”27
Ibn al-Wahhāb also learned much from Muhammad Hayāt, who “was
opposed to taqlīd (imitation) commonly accepted by the followers of the
four Sunni schools, advocating instead ijtihād (independent legal or
doctrinal judgment). On the other hand, he was so opposed to innovation
that he seems to have considered those who practiced such to be similar to
the idolaters, applying to them Qur’ānic verses concerning the pagans of the
Prophet’s time.”28
Ibn al-Wahhāb’s stay in Medina was important to his intellectual
development for three reasons, for his (1) introduction to Ibn Taymiyya’s
works, (2) association with Muhammad Hayāt al-Sindī, and (3) vehement
denunciation of bida‘ (innovations), specifically the idolatrous practices
among visitors of the Prophet’s tomb. His admiration for Ibn Taymiyya led
him to travel to Damascus, which remains an active center of Hanbalī
thought.
It is probable that Ibn al-Wahhāb travelled widely at this period in his
life, spending time as well in Basra, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Hamadan,
Isfahan, Qom, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Cairo, and once again,Mecca. He seems
to have returned to the Najd in the 1730s and began preaching. After his
father’s death in 1740, Ibn al-Wahhāb returned to his birthplace, probably in
1742. Soon after his arrival, he made an alliance with ‘Uthmān, the chief of
al-‘Uyayna, and set out to end all idolatrous practices by cutting down trees,
demolishing the shrine of the Companions of the Prophet, and destroying
the tombs. Our sources agree that “within a comparatively short time” after
Ibn al-Wahhāb’s arrival
the spectacle of all idolatrous practices in the district had been
removed. Nothing could have been more effective, it was claimed, in
convincing the untutored people of what the true Islamic faith was
and in making them abandon their superstitious belief…than the
demonstration of their inability to do any harm against those who
destroyed them. These activities were, in fact, the practical
declaration of the beginning of the Wahhabi movement.29
Like many Hanbalīs, Ibn al-Wahhāb was very critical of Sufis, which
may have been the source of their disagreements just before his father’s
death. His father may have had links to the Qadiri Sufi order, but Ibn ‘al-
Wahhāb made no distinction between the idolatrous practices of the masses
and “the sober mystic orders such as the Qadiris or Naqshbandis. For him
they all traded in some form intercession with God which he saw as placing
the intercessor on a par with God, a practice he equated with polytheism.”30
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb had firsthand knowledge of the mystic fraternities in
Basra, and his attitude to Sufism was in keeping with the views of Ibn
Taymiyya.
He was also intellectually indebted, however, to Ibn Qudama (d. 1223),
another Hanbalī ascetic and juriconsult, whose works al-Mughnī and
al-‘Umda had great authority in the Najd in the early eighteenth century.
Ibn Qudama had a surprisingly soft spot for mystics and mysticism, which
was confirmed by his condoning of Ibn ‘Akīl’s veneration for the great
mystic al-Hallāj. But like many Hanbalīs, Ibn Qudama was very critical of
Ibn ‘Akīl’s excessive rationalism—an intellectual trait that Ibn ‘al-Wahhāb
also acquired.31 Later on the Wahhābis softened their attitude toward the
Sufis, seeing no incompatibility of Wahhābism and Sufism. Some Sufis
established personal links to the Al Sa‘ud, the ruling royal family of Saudi
Arabia.32 “On the conquest of Mecca Shaykh ‘Abd Allah, son of Ibn ‘Abd
Al-Wahhāb, even declared acceptable Sufi orders that observed orthodoxy
and orthopraxy (as interpreted by the Wahhabis).”33
In 1744 (it is estimated), Ibn al-Wahhāb was pressured to leave
al-‘Uyayna for al-Dir‘iyya, where he had the fateful meeting with
Muhammad ibn Sa‘ūd, the ruler with whom he eventually signed a pact
whereby all religious matters would be left to Ibn al-Wahhāb and all
military and political issues to Ibn Sa‘ūd, with both agreeing to bring all the
peoples of the peninsula back to the true principles of Islam, purified of its
impure accretions. This pact marked the beginning of the first Saudi state.
Influences and Some of His Doctrines
In addition to Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Wahhāb was influenced by Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ibn Qudama, and earlier writers in the Hanbalī
tradition such as ‘Abd Allah (d. 903) and Abu Bakr al-Khallāl (d. 924). On
innovations, as discussed above, the Wahhābis adopted the conservative
attitude of the Hanbalītes. Ibn al-Wahhāb condemned all forms of
innovation, and rejected the views of those who maintained that a bid‘a
could be praiseworthy. Also in line with Hanbalī thought, he was very
hostile to the sects he considered incompatible with Sunnism: Shi‘a,
Mu‘tazila, Khawārij. He denounced all forms of scholastic theology
(kalām) and considered heretical or schismatic various Sufis who had
introduced all sorts of innovations.
For Ibn al-Wahhāb, Shi‘ism was one of the greatest sources of corruption
threatening the true religion:
Hostility to Shi‘a was natural for Hanbalīs. Their doctrinal approach
rested heavily on Prophetic traditions transmitted by Companions.
The Shi‘a believed many of these took the wrong side of the dispute
with the Caliph ‘Ali and discounted them as unreliable or worse. In
early Wahhabi demonology the Shi‘a were archetypical
associationists and deserved particular condemnation for attributing
special powers or aspects of divinity to ‘Ali and his offspring. They
were among the enemies of God and the Prophet. Anyone who
doubted their unbelief was himself an unbeliever.34
Ibn al-Wahhāb used the abusive term “Rāfidite” (“rejectors” or
“abandoners”) for all Shi‘as, “because they had deserted Abu Bakr and
‘Umar or according to another explanation, because they considered the
revolt of Zayd ibn ‘Alī in Kufa 740 to be unrighteous.”35
Ibn al-Wahhāb first encountered the Shi‘as in Basra, and found their
practices incompatible with true Islam. He accused them of having
introduced polytheism into Islam, and held it against them that they rejected
all the caliphs except ‘Ali and regarded many of the Prophet’s Companions
as apostates. They were all guilty of taqiyya (dissimulation) and such
practices as temporary marriage (mut‘a). They were worse than the Jews
and Christians in their excesses.
Wahhābi hostility toward the Shi‘a manifested itself in 1802, when
Wahhābi forces attacked Karbala, a town sacred to the memory of all Shi‘a
since the massacre of al-Husayn b. ‘Ali in 680. J.B.L.J. Rousseau, the
consul-general of France in Iraq until 1816, describes the gruesome events:
We have recently seen a horrible example of the Wahhabis’ cruel
fanaticism in the terrible fate of [the mosque of] Imam
Husayn….12000 Wahhabis suddenly attacked Imam Husayn; after
seizing more spoils than they had ever seized after the greatest
victories, they put everything to fire and the sword….Old people,
women and children— everybody died at the barbarians’ sword….[I]t
is said that whenever they saw a pregnant woman, they disemboweled
her and left the foetus on the mother’s bleeding corpse. Their cruelty
could not be satisfied, they did not cease their murders and blood
flowed like water. As a result of the bloody catastrophe, more than
4000 people perished.36
In a letter to Muhammad ibn ‘Īd, Ibn al-Wahhāb once said that his
doctrines were based on four points:
1. The interpretation of tawhīd [“the unity or oneness of God”];
2. The demonstration of what polytheism [shirk] actually is and the
denunciation as infidels of those who, in spite of knowing full well
that monotheism is the religion of God and His Prophet, not only hate
it but deter people from it and fight against those who support the
Prophet in its cause;
3. The denunciation, [as unbelievers (takfir)] too, of those who know
what polytheism is and realize that the Prophet was sent to combat it,
and yet persist in praising it and arguing that the people who practice
it, because they are the vast majority (al-sawād al-a‘zam), are not in
error;
4. Finally, sanctioning warfare [which is a divine commandment]
against such as these so that the true religion remains exclusive to
God alone.37
But as ‘Abd Allāh Sālih al-‘Uthaymīn points out, it is essentially the first
point that is cardinal. The other three parts are its logical consequences.38
Tawhīd
Most of Ibn al-Wahhāb’s works are fairly short, full of quotations from
the Koran and hadīth, written in a plain, concise manner. His first major
work was probably Kitab al-Tawhīd written sometime between 1734 and
1742, in which Ibn al-Wahhāb “sets out his teaching in the line of the
strictest Hanbalī doctrine.”39
The Kitab al-Tawhīd is divided into sixty-seven chapters.40 Under each
chapter heading, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb collects Koranic verses and traditions
supporting his views. These are followed by quotations from the
Companions of the Prophet or their immediate successors, with occasional
reference to scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya. He gives 125 hadīth: eighteen
derived from Muslim, six from Bukhārī, thirty-one from both, seven from
Ibn Hanbal, and seventeen by Ibn Hanbal and others. The rest are related by
other traditionists such as Ibn Maja, al-Tirmidhī, and Abu Dāwūd.
Central to Ibn al-Wahhāb’s thought was an uncompromising monotheism
—tawhīd (the oneness of God)—the recognition of which was the first duty
of all Muslims, even before prayer. (As a reminder, the opposite of tawhīd
is shirk, which is often translated as “polytheism.”)
The Wahhābis divide tawhīd into three kinds:
1. Tawhīd al-rubūbiyya (Unity of Lordship)
2. Tawhīd al-asmā’ wa-A-Sifāt (Names and Attributes)
3. Tawhīd al-ilāhiyya (Unity of Godship) or tawhīd al-‘ibāda (Unity
of Worship)
Tawhīd al-rubūbiyya is defined as the assertion of the unity of God in
His actions, such as to believe and confess that He alone is the Creator, the
Provider and Disposer of the universe. Allied to tawhīd al-rubūbiyya is the
principle of predestination and the will of the created. (However, it seems
doubtful that the Wahhābis have resolved the contradictions implied in such
a view.)
Tawhīd al-asmā’ wa-A-Sifāt is to believe and affirm all the Names and
Attributes of God found in the Koran and the hadith, which must be
accepted without any kind of modification in word or meaning. There are
no similarities between the Attributes of God and mankind, even when it
might seem so. For example, God says, “That He may punish the
hypocrites, men and women, and the pagan men and women, who have an
evil opinion of Allah. A circle of evil is around them; Allah is Angry with
them, Curses them and has prepared for them an evil end” (Q48. al-Fath,
the Victory, 6).
Tawhīd al-ulūhiyya41 or Tawhīd al-‘ibāda is “the acknowledgement that
God alone should be the addressee of prayers, supplications, and sacrifices,
and other forms of worship. There were no other Gods or mini-Gods who
could act as intermediaries or intercessors.”42 Wahhābis wished to
emphasize that the prophets did not call upon their people merely to believe
that God was the sole Creator and Lord, but also wanted worship to be
devoted to Him alone.43
For Ibn al-Wahhāb, even nonbelievers (kuffar) subscribe to tawhīd al-
rububiyya, calling it the unbelievers’ Oneness (Tawhīd al-kuffar):
“Unbelievers, especially Christians, include those who worship God night
and day. They are ascetics in this world and give in alms what they receive
from it, isolating themselves from people in a monastery. Nonetheless they
are unbelievers, enemies of God and destined for perpetual fire because of
their belief in Jesus and other saints.”44
Ibn al-Wahhāb was equally severe with Muslims who observed all the
precepts and requirements of Islam and yet prayed to a being or object other
than God. These Muslims would face the same fate, such conduct
“render[ing] their lives, property, and wives forfeit, regardless of whether
they observed tawhīd al-rububiyya. It was tawhīd al-uluhiyya that brought
the believer into true Islam. Anything worshiped in place of God was an
idol (taghut).”45
According to Ibn al-Wahhāb, God created the jinn and mankind so that
they would worship Him alone—monotheism being the first duty of all
mankind. The prophets had been sent to their peoples to remind them to
fulfil this obligation; once fulfilled they would receive a reward: “Anyone
who fully observes the tawhīd will enter heaven without undergoing
trial”—on the Day of Judgment.46 Jihād is legal against those who refuse to
join Islam and oppose its representatives.47 Muhammad the Prophet
commanded the Muslims to take part in jihād in Allah’s cause.
All believers must be vigilant lest they slip into polytheism. This
happens when people seek blessings from trees, stones, shrines of saints,
etc. And no sacrifices to God should be made where other sacrificial acts
are practiced, for this, too, may lead to polytheism. Help and protection
must not be sought from anyone but God. Intercession from dead saints is
forbidden. Magic is prohibited; anyone found practicing it deserves the
death penalty.48 A Muslim must not seek worldly reward for religious
acts.49
“Belief in predestination is obligatory and anyone who denies this or
doubts it will have his good deeds rejected by God and he will enter hell.”50
Creating statues and pictures is forbidden, for in doing so, man is imitating
God and His creation; all such works must be destroyed.
For Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, there is never a question of neutrality
concerning tawhīd. You are for it or you are against it, there is no third way:
“What is there beyond the truth but error?”51
Nowhere is Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s activism more evident than when he
insisted that it was not enough for a Muslim to know of the Oneness of
God; renunciation of polytheism does not guarantee entry into heaven. This
knowledge must be acted on:
There is no dispute that tawhīd must be in the heart, on the tongue and
by deed. If there is any deficiency in this, a man is no Muslim. If he
knows tawdīd and does not act on it, he is an unbeliever (kafir) and
disobedient [to God], like the Pharaoh, Devil and such like. Many of
the people make this mistake, saying this is the truth and we
understand and witness it as such but cannot practice it because the
people of our town allow only those who agree with them, and other
such excuses….Practising tawhīd is an outward activity, and he who
does not understand and believe it in his heart is a hypocrite worse
than an outright infidel.52
Finally, there is no place in Ibn al-Wahhāb’s formulation for personal
devotion or private piety. As Michael Crawford explains it:
A Muslim had not only to recognize and practise tawhīd in his or her
own personal life and activities but to demonstrate adherence in the
public space by objecting to the polytheism of others. The battle with
unbelievers was not abstract or distant. Unbelief was real and all
around. One had to be able to recognize it and denounce and contest
it. The true believer could not stand aside and absolve him- or herself
 of the responsibility to interfere by saying that the people’s condition
was known to God and it was for Him to resolve. Every Muslim had
to be both activist and interventionist.53
Takfīr and Qitāl
Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern studies and director of the
Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North
Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University, summarizes Ibn ‘al-
Wahhāb’s view on takfir and qital (armed action), drawing out the
disturbing implications of such a position:
According to Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, to be considered a Muslim, it is
not sufficient to declare oneself a believer by, for instance, uttering
the creedal statement (shahāda); one must also actively deny, in both
speech and acts, all beliefs and forms of polytheistic worship. Not to
share activist Wahhabi beliefs and praxis or to plead ignorance of the
requirements of the faith will result in one being considered an
infidel. Furthermore, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, as well as a number of his
descendants…insisted that a Muslim show loyalty and friendship to
fellow believers and evince hostility toward unbelievers. This
doctrine, known as al-walā’ wa-l-barā’ [loyalty and disavowal], has
embedded in it the potential for political activism, even violence,
against individuals or a political order that is deemed un-Islamic.54
Haykel goes on to note that the Wahhābis were not known for “recognizing
the Ottoman state as Islamic and therefore legitimate,” but instead
“considered it and the lands it controlled the abode of unbelief. The
Wahhabi practice of takfir and waging war (qitāl) on other self-described
Muslims led many scholars, including some Hanbalīs and members of Ibn
‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s immediate family, to condemn the movement and its
teachings.”55 However, it is clear that it was these very aggressive doctrines
that were responsible for the eventual success of the Wahhābis, in alliance
with Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud, in founding a state.
Ibn al-Wahhāb made the doctrine of al-walā’ wa-l-barā’ one of the three
fundamentals of true religion, along with the two basic forms of tawhīd.56
This had obvious consequences for his views on excommunication of
unbelievers (takfir), and emigration (hijra). He went from disengagement to
hostility towards polytheists, declaring that “a person’s Islam is not sound
even if he practises tawhīd of God and deserts polytheism unless he is
hostile to polytheists and declares to them his hostility and hatred.”57
Again, a true Muslim made the necessary distinction between friends and
enemies. “There could be no two valid confessions in the same religion.”58
This emphasis on loyalty obviously created great tension, and isolated the
Wahhābis, who were ever wary of hypocrites. Such a Manichaean view of
life evidently “placed most Muslims of his era on the wrong side.”59
The later Wahhābis decided that pronouncing takfir of whole settlements
was indiscriminate and unacceptable. Such pronouncements entailed the
obligation of waging jihād against them, an unjust state of affairs if these
settlements contained pious Muslims. Ibn al-Wahhāb’s definition of a
Muslim was too strict. Following the example of Ibn Taymiyya, he
designated anyone who did not pronounce takfir of an infidel an infidel.
Then there was the question of hijra, which traditionally meant the
physical migration to the land of Islam (dar al-Islam) from territory where
unbelief predominates (dar al-kufr or dar al-harb). Ibn al-Wahhāb felt that
life in towns was full of dangers of contamination by polytheism, and so
encouraged emigration to Wahhābi territory. But this was not always
possible or realistic for many true Muslims.
Jihād
Always plainspoken, Ibn al-Wahhāb “acknowledged that force was
integral to tawhīd and required ‘unsheathing of the sword’”60 As the Koran
tells us at Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of War / Voluntary Gifts, 39: “so that
there should cease to be civil strife (fitna) and all religion should belong to
God.” If it was agreed that death was the punishment for doubting or
contesting one of the bases of Islam, “how could it not be the penalty for
repudiating tawhīd, which was the very foundation of the religion.”61
Furthermore, since God had “ordered jihād by word and deed against the
unbelievers and hypocrites, the believer had no choice but to wage it.”62 As
was emphasized in many classical hadīth,63 though the obligation to wage
jihād was absolute, it had to be engaged in for serving God, and not for
booty.64 Ibn al-Wahhāb, too, was very critical of those who wavered or
hung back. On one occasion, when the people of one settlement who had
initially agreed to wage war with the Saudis but then declined to fight a
neighbouring town, he accused them of “preferring the ephemeral to the
eternal, and selling pearls for dung and goodness for evil.”65
In classical Hanbalī law, before declaring jihād on non-Muslims,
Muslims had to summon them formally to Islam, that is, to convert. Thus,
when it came to dealing with ignorant Bedouins the Wahhābis tried to
educate them in the precepts of Islam. Only when the Bedouins rejected the
summons to Islam would jihād be waged upon them. But if there were
fellow Muslims already familiar with the Koran and sunna in he
community, then jihād from the outset was considered legitimate. “Once the
Wahhabi campaign had been running for some years,” Crawford writes,
“Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab probably regarded every Najdi as on notice of the
Koranic proofs, whether or not he or she accepted them.”66
Ibn al-Wahhāb was the first to denounce the local holy men and their
followers as non-Muslims; in this blanket takfir he refused to distinguish
among the holy men, saints, and Sufis. His opponents responded by
excommunicating the Wahhābis, which lead to their persecution. Though
the Wahhābis could at this point legitimately claim that their jihād was
defensive, “it was a conflict precipitated by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s own
ideology and actions. His doctrines and ambitions were destined, even
intended, to turn the struggle between Wahhabis and their opponents into
violent confrontation.”67 According to Ibn Bishr, Ibn al-Wahhāb declared
an offensive jihād on towns that refused to convert when summoned by
him.68
Normally, it was the ruler who declared offensive jihād. Since
Wahhābism did not acknowledge any “boundary to the regime of
godliness,” Ibn al-Wahhāb had, in effect, launched a war
that could end only in complete victory or annihilation. This was the
inexorable outcome of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s doctrines. They were
calculated to split the Islamic community and precipitate a struggle
between Wahhabis and anti-Wahhabis. The dogma of tawhīd defined
the cause; the doctrine of association with believers and
disassociation from unbelievers secured loyalty; the concepts of
primary and secondary takfir singled out the enemy; emigration
(hijra) helped marshall the forces; and jihād was the necessary, if
violent, expedient for achieving God’s will.69
The Bedouin
Abou El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor of Law
at the UCLA School of Law, has written what Michael Crawford described
as “a classic misreading of Wahhabism”: “Wahhabis have always equated
the austere cultural practices of Bedouin life with the one and only true
Islam.”70 In fact, Crawford explains, Wahhābism was a phenomenon of the
small towns and settlements of Najd. Ibn al-Wahhāb had a particularly low
opinion of contemporary Najdis, who “relied on customary law and
practice, not the shari‘a” and “drew their smattering of religion from their
forefathers and handed traditional beliefs and practices down the
generations….The Bedouin bore the brunt of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s
opprobrium as the epitome of ignorance.”71 In this situation, the Al Sa‘ud
were ideally placed to build coalitions; “their detribalized, settled nature…
helped make them an effective instrument for driving a campaign that
challenged the Bedouin life-style and primacy of tribal allegiances among
the Bedouin and some of the settled communities.”72
Ibn al-Wahhāb held that the true Islam was found in the settled
populations, which preserved the Koran and followed the Shari‘a, whereas
the Bedouins were traditionally hostile to the villagers and ignored the
provisions of the Shari‘a on marriage and divorce, property, and
inheritance. According to Ibn al-Wahhāb, the Bedouin had declared takfir
on the Koran and the whole religion.73 He considered them infidels because
they ignored the Holy Law, preferring customary law, attitudes, and beliefs
that took them beyond Islam.74
It was a logical step for Ibn al-Wahhāb to issue a fatwa declaring the
Bedouin infidels—it simply was not enough for a Bedouin to recite the
profession of faith to be considered a Muslim.75 This takfir led to much
opposition, even among the settled elements, since it risked their viability
and cohesion. In the last years of the eighteenth century, the Saudis
eventually coopted the Bedouin, who played an important part in Saudi
military successes, not to mention the massacre of Karbala of 1802, and
who were also responsible for the savagery at the taking and sacking of Taif
in 1803.76
Ijtihād and Taqlīd
 According to Ibn ‘al-Wahhāb and his followers, God ordered people to
obey and worship Him and follow the teachings of the Prophet. God did not
make it obligatory to obey anyone else. A strict adherence to the Koran and
tradition is sufficient to resolve any disputes between Muslims. Ibn al-
Wahhāb’s followers therefore will refer to other scholars as long as they
support Wahhābi views. And while they adhere to the Hanbalī school in
questions of furū‘ (that is, apart from usul al-fiqh—roots of jurisprudence,
the other major genre of juristic literature, furu‘ al-fiqh—branches of
jurisprudence, which is constituted primarily by rules-positive law),77 the
Wahhābis are ready to reject their own madhhab if it is not in accordance
with the Koran and Tradition.78
The Wahhābis do not reject ijmā‘ (the consensus of Muslim community
or of a local group of jurisprudents in a particular generation),79 finding it a
binding source of the Shari‘a, but argue that anything that conflicts with the
Koran and Tradition, even when practiced by a majority of the people, is
not accepted: “Sound ijmā‘ cannot be contradictory to the texts of the prime
sources.”80
As for ijtihād—the exercise of independent judgment unfettered by case
law or past precedent81—the Wahhābis reject two views they consider
extreme: “that it is always and in every case, allowed, and…that it is not
permitted to anyone at the present time. Thus, although they do not allow it
in all questions, they equally reject the idea that the doors of ijtihād have
finally been closed.”82
Taqlīd literally means “imitation,” but it also carries the more technical
sense of an uncritical dependence on past precedent and law as expounded
by the law schools. Ian Richard Netton compares this sense with the
concept of case law. Taqlīd is usually contrasted with ijtihād.83 According
to Ibn al-Wahhāb, it is not obligatory for Muslims to follow anyone in Islam
except the Prophet: “The Four Imams [founders of the four schools of law]
warned against unquestioning imitation even of themselves, and enjoined
their followers to abandon their views if they were found in conflict with
the Koran and the tradition, or when other, sounder opinions were
advanced.”84
Imāma
 The imamate, that is, the caliphate, was not an important doctrinal matter
for the Wahhābis. Nonetheless, al-Wahhāb believed that obedience to rulers
was obligatory, “even if they are oppressive or sinful,” and “their
commands should be followed as long as they do contradict the rules of
religion, affirming that their call for jihād should be willingly met.”85 But
rulers also had their duties, and “should seek to prevent crimes against
religion and society, to work for the protection of Muslims, and to strive for
the spread of Islam through jihād. In short, the aim of the ruler should be to
make the word of God reign and reveal itself in all aspects of life, both
religious and secular.”86
Political power was needed not for its own sake, but in service of
religion, and a ruler had to uphold tawhīd and Shari‘a and forbid bid‘a. A
ruler who did not follow the Koran and the sunna became a taghut—an
idol.
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong
Forbidding wrong, Michael Cook informs us, was not a prominent
concern for al-Wahhāb,87 though he occasionally referred to it. There are
two passages in his writings where he does dwell on it to a certain extent.
In his letter to the Wahhābis of Sudayr, Ibn al-Wahhāb emphasizes the
importance of tact in the performance of the duty, for it must not give rise to
any kind of schism in the community. A ruler should not be reproved in
public. In the second passage, Ibn al-Wahhāb relates Forbidding Wrong to
the struggle against polytheism88 and notes that in earlier times it was
scholars, not rulers, who performed this duty. Crawford argues that
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong was a well-established Islamic
concept “that Ibn ‘al-Wahhāb endorsed and which today is reflected in the
activities of the Saudi ‘religious police’ (mutawwi‘in).”89
However, I believe Cook seriously underestimates Ibn al-Wahhāb’s
commitment to intervention when he urges commanding tawhīd and
forbidding shirk. He may not have formally dealt with this duty, but his
beliefs and, above all, his actions were founded on the principle that one
must not stand idle as polytheism triumphs (see my discussion on tawhīd).
As Crawford points out, throughout his life Ibn al-Wahhāb showed moral
and physical courage in putting his principles into action, such as when he
refused to be silenced in Basra and Huraymila and he took charge of
destroying the tomb and mosque at al-Jubayla, despite popular hostility, in
al-‘Uyayna.
For Ibn al-Wahhāb, the duty to practice and enforce tawhīd clearly
overrode allegiance to family, tribe, and country. Nor did fear of losing
friends or status justify neglecting this duty.90 And while he was concerned
with enforcing religious norms, Ibn al-Wahhāb was “more interested in
major doctrinal infractions than everyday sinning.”91 This is why, Crawford
relates, Ibn al-Wahhāb “employed the traditional language of commanding
right and forbidding wrong relatively infrequently in his formal writings.
The dynamic concept of tawhīd in action exerted more ideological and
polemical force.”92 Ibn al-Wahhāb endorsed public intervention, but he did
not know how best to organize communal enforcement itself. Aware of the
dangers of excessive zeal in applying interventionism, he feared strife—
communal solidarity overrode any rigorous enforcement that might lead to
disunity.
The theme of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong was taken up
more formally by later Wahhābi scholars. For example, ‘Abd al-Rahmān
ibn Hasan (d. 1869) argues that religious and worldly affairs cannot be
fulfilled without the application of this principle. The prophets were sent to
enjoin good—the greatest good being monotheism—and to forbid wrong,
such as polytheism. This includes jihād, without which the word of God
would not reign. His son ‘Abd al-Latīf ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman (d. 1876)
agrees and “mentions that this principle is obligatory for the Muslim
community, as well as being one of its best qualities. Everyone should try to
apply it according to his ability; for the Prophet says that he who sees an
objectionable act should oppose it either by force or by words. If he cannot
do either, he must at least hate it.”93 In 1926 in Saudi Arabia the Committee
for Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong (Hay’at al-amr bi’il ma ‘rūf
wa’l-nahy ‘an al-munkar) was established and went about trying to stamp
out various vices from sodomy to drinking alcohol. It has proven to be a
very controversial institution.94
Ibn al-Wahhāb: Other Writings
Works by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb “include compilations of hadith, some
abridgements, especially of works by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim, an
abridged and extended biography (sira) of the Prophet, and some Koranic
exegesis (tafsir)….His books were grounded in a narrow, dogmatic literalist
tradition hostile to speculative theology (kalam). They inclined to
interpretative authoritarianism, embodied a strongly prescriptive approach.
They lacked the intellectual virtuosity of those Hanbalīs he admired so
much (especially Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim, and Ibn Qudama) and even
the range and nuance of some of his opponents.”95 His successors tried to
redress these limitations, without success since they were unable to go
much beyond the confines of his thought.96
Real Causes and Aims of Wahhābism
In view of my thesis that Islamic fundamentalism has a long history, and
that the propensity to violence is embedded in the core principles of Islam
and thus was not engendered by poverty, colonialism, and socioeconomics,
I must point out that Wahhābism is a classic example of the resurgence of
Islamic activism and has nothing to do with nationalism or anticolonialism.
As Crawford writes:
Wahhabism…was a pre-modern movement that arose before the most
serious Western threat materialized against the Islamic lands on the
Mediterranean or in India. It can present itself today, as it has always
done, as an authentic Islamic response to contemporary challenges.97
On the whole, Ibn al-Wahhāb did not concern himself with non-
Muslims. The European powers played no significant role in the Middle
East during his formative years. There were no Christian or Jewish
minorities in the Peninsula, and their status in Islamic law as dhimmis
(second-class citizens) was not under dispute. Ibn al-Wahhāb’s “attention
and venom were reserved first for the enemies within his own religious and
cultural tradition, then for fellow Muslims of different backgrounds.”98
Crawford also emphasizes that “[s]ocial justice is not a strong theme in
early Wahhabi writings and thought.”99 Ibn al-Wahhāb’s main concern was
establishing a state of godliness. And while the Wahhābi doctrine of the
brotherhood of believers did attract the poor to the movement, Ibn al-
Wahhāb himself was distrustful of the populace, fearing its susceptibility to
polytheism and sedition. Ibn al-Wahhāb would have found “social justice”
difficult to reconcile with his principle of absolute obedience to the
tyrannical ruler. “In the main, he showed little apparent interest in social
issues.”100
 Nor was Ibn al-Wahhāb concerned with state formation and thus
furnished no ideas for government apart from his insistence that all
Muslims obey a ruler unconditionally. Nonetheless, Wahhābism provided
the ideological glue that fostered the emergence of a state—a regime of
godliness committed to defending and promoting Islamic values.
Critiques of Wahhābism and the Ikhwān
Syed Ameer Ali (1849–1928), a liberal British Muslim and one of the
founding members of the All India Muslim League, published in 1891 The
Life and Teachings of Mohammed: Or, The Spirit of Islam, a comprehensive
life of Muhammad and the political and cultural history of Islam. Ameer Ali
wrote that although the Azraqites, a (previously discussed) Khārijite
subgroup, were destroyed by Hajjāj ibn Yusuf, “their sanguinary, fierce, and
merciless doctrines found expression nine centuries later in Wahhabism.”
Like the followers of Ibn al-Azraq,
the Wahhabis designate all other Muslims as unbelievers, and permit
their despoilment and enslavement. However commendable their
revolt against the anthropolatrous usages in vogue among the modern
Muslims, their views of religion and divine government, like those of
the Ikhwān of the present day in Najd, are intensely morose and
Calvinistic, and in absolute conflict with progress and
development.101
Much to the dismay of liberal Muslims like Ameer Ali, Ibn Sa‘ūd
recaptured the Holy Cities in the Hijaz for Wahhābism between 1924 and
1925. And the entire Islamic world was alarmed when the Wahhābis set
about destroying tombs and shrines beloved of thousands of pious Muslims
—acts that precipitated anti-Wahhābi polemics.
The Saudis did their best to counter this by garnering the support of
religious reformists in Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere. One such intellectual
reformer was Rashid Rida (1865–1935), who popularized Wahhābi ideas in
the 1920s and 1930s. The Saudis banned the term “Wahhābism” and began
calling their brand of Islam “Salafism.”
The precise circumstances of the emergence of the Ikhwān (the
Brethren) movement are unknown. It may have been Ibn Sa‘ūd or the
Wahhābi ‘ulamā’ who set out to tame nomadic tribesmen, weaning them
away from idolatry and educating them in the doctrines of Islam. In the end,
the Wahhābis created a monster: the Ikhwān became zealous, even
extremely violent, intolerant religious warriors motivated by religious
idealism rather than allegiance to Ibn Sa‘ūd, who, finally, had to crush
them.102
Ibn al-Wahhāb’s contempt for the Bedouins and their education into
Islam has been discussed. Ibn Sa‘ūd was, in a sense, carrying out this
mission to Islamisize the nomads. He achieved it by founding settlements
known as hijra (“place of emigration”) populated by emigrants. Here the
term emphasized a religious purpose—to emigrate from the abode of
idolatry to the abode of Islam. Emigration “remained a central part of
Wahhabi polemic in the nineteenth century, when ulama argued against
travel to and residing in idolatrous lands.”103
To be a true Muslim while living among and under the authority of
infidels and idolaters was considered impossible due to constant pressure to
conform—“assimilate,” in modern parlance—to their manners and customs.
Emigration was, hence, a duty. Consider the example of the early Muslims,
who were compelled to emigrate from Mecca to Medina in the seventh
century. The hijra was a perfect way to “assemble the nomads in
settlements of belief and assimilate then to Wahhabi religious practice.”104
The hijra was thus a camp of concentrated religious indoctrination:
Along with removal of a tribal section to the hijra, the sections’s
sheikh went to Riyadh for instruction in Wahhabi tenets while ulama
taught the tribesmen in the hijra. The settled Bedouins’ first exposure
to formal Islamic tenets thus came directly and exclusively from
Wahhabi teachers. The hujar also had religious zealots, called
mutawwi’a, to enforce public morality and punctual observance of
prayer.105
Among other texts, they studied a short “catechism” by Ibn al-Wahhāb.
The Ikhwān became known for ferocity in battle; they regularly killed
male captives, and on occasion women and children. “The pretext for such
slaughter was the Ikhwan’s notion that the nomads they fought, particularly
from 1912 to 1919, had to convert or be put to death.”106 They frequently
attacked tribes and oases they considered religiously lax, and wanted the
forced conversion of the Shi‘a. Clash with Ibn Sa‘ūd was inevitable, since
he was far more flexible in his political dealings with the British in Iraq.
Some Ikhwān tribesmen rebelled in 1927. Ibn Sa‘ūd with the help of the
British defeated them in 1929.
On Ibn Sa‘ūd’s death in 1953, he was succeeded by his son Sa‘ūd, who
proved to be a weak and ineffective ruler. Sa‘ūd’s brother Prince Faysal
ousted him in 1964, and restored some order in the kingdom while facing
challenges from the secular nationalist trend in the Middle East in the early
1970s. But King Faysal had invested in a policy of Islamic solidarity, which
helped turn the tide in the region in favor of religious ideologies:
He founded new global Islamic institutions in the Hijaz to contest
secular, nationalist dogmas and in tandem further Salafi beliefs and
Saudi interests. The Muslim World League and the World Assembly
of Muslim Youth, founded in 1962 and 1972 respectively, proved
valuable instruments of Saudi and Wahhabi influence. So too were
Islamic educational institutions such as the Islamic University of
Medina (founded in 1961), to which Saudis welcomed foreign
students. As its oil revenues grew, Saudi Arabia assumed a new role
as leader of the Islamic world and spread Wahhābism actively
overseas not only in Islamic countries but in Islamic communities in
the West.107
When King Faysal, in a gesture of Islamist solidarity, gave refuge to
Muslim Brothers escaping Gamal Abdel Nasser’s persecution in Egypt in
the 1960s, little did he understand that he was helping to introduce violent
ideas into his kingdom. King Faysal merely saw the Muslim Brothers as
fellow Islamists resisting Western cultural influence—but the Muslim
Brotherhood had different strategic aims, and worked with a different set of
concepts, many developed by Sayyid Qutb.108
The Influence of Wahhabism
One cannot exaggerate the influence of Wahhabism on revivalist
movements throughout the Islamic world. For instance, the Algerian shaikh,
Muhammad Ibn Ali as-Sanūsi established a theocratic state in southern
Libya and equatorial Africa “in protest against the secularist laxity of the
Ottoman Sultans; and the Mahdist brotherhood was organized by
Muhammad Ahmad as the instrument of revolt in eastern Sudan against
Turco-Egyptian rule and its European agents. Even in such distant regions
as Nigeria and Sumatra, Wahhabi influence contributed to the outbreak of
militant movements.”109
Here I should like to give a brief account of Wahhabi influence in India,
beginning with the Fara’idiyya (or as it is known in the Indian
Subcontinent, the Fara’izis). The Fara’idiyya was a movement of a religio-
social character reacting against the loss of Muslim political supremacy, and
the power of both Hindu and Muslim landowners over the Muslim masses.
It was founded by Hajjī Sharī‘at Allāh, who was born in Eastern Bengal at
an uncertain date (possibly in 1781110). At a young age, he went to Mecca
where he seems to have stayed twenty years. It is again unclear when he
returned to India, as three different dates are given in the sources, 1807,
1822, 1828. As the Encyclopaedia of Islam tells us, “If we accept the latest
date, it is unquestionable that Sharī‘at Allāh was in touch with the Wahhābī
reformers in Mecca. A specific Wahhābī influence is in no sense
indispensable for an understanding of the orientation of Sharī‘at Allāh’s
activities in Bengal, which are to be explained above all by the contrast he
so vehemently resented between a certain type of Islam in his own country
and the “Arab” Islam of the Prophet’s native land; mutatis mutandis, other
Muslim reformers in India (beginning with Shah Wall Allah of Delhi
himself) had had the same experience.”111 He may well have studied at al-
Azhar University in Cairo before returning to Bengal.
Sharī‘at Allāh’s main message was one of religious purification, since
the popular beliefs of Bengali Muslims had strayed far from the purity of
early Islam. He wanted a return to the farā’id, “the obligatory religious
duties”, such as the profession of faith, the daily prayers, fasting during the
month Ramadan, paying the zakat poor tax, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Like
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, Sharī‘at Allāh stressed the principle of tawhīd, and
denounced bida‘, innovations, and shirk (polytheistic practices and beliefs).
As Alessandro Bausani sums up, “besides various para-Hindu customs, he
rejected the celebration, with funerary lamentations and special ceremonies,
of the martyrdom of Husayn at Karbalā’, the pomp and ceremonial that had
been introduced into the very simple, austere rites of Muslim marriage and
burial, the offering of fruit and flowers at tombs, etc.; moreover, he
prohibited the use of the mystical terms pir and murid (“master” and
“disciple”), which at that time conveyed an almost Brahmin-like
implication of total devotion of the disciple to his spiritual master, out of
keeping with the sturdy Islamic tradition, and instead proposing the two
terms ustādh and shāgird (also Persian, but more “secular”); the initiation
ceremony common to the various Muslim confraternities, the bay‘a, [oath
of allegiance] was also prohibited and replaced by a simple statement of
repentance (tawba) and a changed life made by the murīd (or shāgird).
Another significant precept of Sharī‘at Allah was the prohibition of
communal prayers on Fridays or feastdays, based on the exclusion of
British India from the dār al-Islām.”112
Militant and united, the Fara’izis faced opponents in eastern Bengal
challenging those Muslims who wished to continue to practice Islam as it
was then. They also considered Hinduism a threat since it was, for them, a
fountain of polytheism and evil innovations. By 1831 there were
disturbances as factories were burnt, and the Muslim peasants refused to
pay their Hindu landlords, who had also demanded money for various
Hindu festivals. After the death of Sharī‘at Allāh, his son Muhammad
Muhsin, better known as Dūdhū Miyān [1819-1860] took over the
organization of the movement, focusing on both political and religious
issues. There were serious clashes as Dudhu Miyan told his followers that
they should not pay taxes, as from the point of view of the Sharī‘a they had
no legitimacy. The British arrested Dudhu Miyan, who was then convicted,
but released him in 1847 when the conviction was set aside by the High
Court in Calcutta. The sons of Dudhu Miyan took over after his death, and
eventually began cooperating with the British. Finally, as Kenneth Jones
says, “The Fara’izis had succeeded in redefining Islamic belief and practice
among many of the Muslim peasants of eastern Bengal.”113
Born in West Bengal, Titu Mir [1782-1831](also known as Sayyid Mīr
Nithār ‘Alī) studied Arabic, Persian and various Islamic subjects at the local
madrasa. He became a wrestler before beginning work for local Hindu
landowners. Titu Mir was imprisoned briefly for defying feudal power. In
1822, on pilgrimage, Titu Mir met Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi in Mecca, when
the latter initiated him into the Tariq-i Muhammadiyya. Henceforth, back in
India, Titu Mir began campaigning in favour of a purified Islam along the
lines of what Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi and Sharī‘at Allah preached. Titu Mir
was able to exploit the discontent of peasants who were oppressed by the
zamindars, or landowners, both Hindu and Muslim. Titu Mir and his
growing mass of followers “attacked a village within the estate of one of the
landowners, slaughtered a cow in a public place and defiled the village
[Hindu] temple with its blood. Open warfare between Titu Mir and the
zamindars followed and Titu Mir did not hesitate to attack Muslim
zamindars hostile to his movement.”114 These acts were deliberate and
intended to outrage Hindus, and to “terrorise both Muslim and Hindu
communities.”115 After a series of skirmishes that left dozens dead, an
armed confrontation with the British authorities eventually led to Titu Mir
constructing a bamboo fort that was demolished by the artillery of the East
India Company, and Titu Mir, together with a large number of his followers,
was killed on 19 November 1831.
The two movements, the Fara’izi and that of Titu Mir, were not, as
Banerjee explains, just “peasant struggles for economic amelioration.
Religious fanaticism was a prominent feature in both cases, and coercion
and violence were necessary off-shoots. The raids on the establishments of
Hindu zamindars were sometimes accompanied by desecration of idols.
Orthodox Muslims who refused to accept the Wahabi version of Islam were
subjected to coercion. [A British] officer…observed: ‘They consider it
justifiable to compel other Mahomedans to become of their sect by violence
or constant acts of annoyance’. Titu Mir had a similar programme.”116 Both
the Fara’izis and Titu Mir declared that India was dar al-harb, hence jihād
was obligatory, until India became dar al-Islam.

1 Nehemia Levtzion and John O. Voll, eds., Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 6.
2 Ibid.
3 Ismail R. al-Faruqi, Islam (Niles, IL: Argus Communications, 1979), 13, cited by Levtzion and
Voll, Eighteenth-Century Renewal, 6.
4 Levtzion and Voll, Eighteenth-Century Renewal, 6.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., 19.
7 Ibid.
8 Rudolph Peters, “The Battered Dervishes of Bab Zuwyala: A Religious Riot in Eighteenth-Century
Cairo,” in Levtzion and Voll, Eighteenth Century Renewal, 93–115.
9 Ibid., 93.
10 The Well-Preserved Tablet is a tablet in heaven on which is to be found the original text of the
Koran. It is mentioned in the Koran in Sura Q85, al-Buruj, The Mansions of the Stars, 22.
11 Ian Richard Netton, A Popular Dictionary of Islam, (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press 1992),
s.v. “Dhikr.”
12 Peters, “Battered Dervishes,” 94–95. Peters is relying on three sources: Ahmad Shalabi, “Awdah
al-isharat fi-man tawalla Misr min al-wuzara wa-l-bashat”; Yusuf al-Mallawani, “Tuhfat al-ahbab
bi-man malak Misr min al-muluk wa-l-nuwwab”; and Muhammad b.Yusuf al-Hallaq, “Tarih-I Misr.”
13 Ibid., 100.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., 104.
16 The two highest-ranking qādīs of the Ottoman judiciary. As senior members of the royal court,
they supervised judicial affairs, heard legal cases, oversaw legal matters of the military-
administrative personnel, and handled campaign duties.
17 Peters, “Battered Dervishes,” 109–10.
18 Ibid., 110-11
19 Michael Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014), 7.
20 Ibid., 13.
21 ‘Abd Allāh Sālih al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb: The Man and His Works
(London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 20–21.
22 Ibid., 21.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 22.
25 Uthmān ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-Majd fī Ta’rīkh Najd (Token of Glory: On the History of Najd)
(Beirut, 1967), 16; cited in al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 23.
26 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 30.
27 Alexei Vassiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia (London: Saqi Books, 2000), 65.
28 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 33.
29 Ibid., 43.
30 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 28–29.
31 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn Kudāma al-Makdisī,” by George Makdisi.
32 The House of Sa‘ud has thousands of members. It is composed of the descendants of Muhammad
bin Saud, founder of the Emirate of Diriyah, known as the First Saudi state (1818–91), and his
brothers, though the ruling faction of the family is primarily led by the descendants of Ibn Saud, the
modern founder of Saudi Arabia.
33 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 86.
34 Ibid., 86-87.
35 Halm, Shi‘ism, 39.
36 J.B.L.J. Rousseau, Description du Pachalik de Bagdad Suivie d’une Notice Historique sur les
Wahabis (Paris: Treutel & Würtz, 1809), 7:261f.; quoted in Vassiliev, History of Saudi Arabia, 97.
37 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 114, citing Husayn ibn Ghannām, Ta’rīkh Najd
al-Musmmā Rawdat al-Afhām li-Murtād Hāl al-Imām wa-Ta’dād Ghazawāt Dhawī ’l-Islām, 2 vols.
(Cairo, 1949), 1:107.
38 Ibid., 114.
39 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3, “H–Iram,” ed. B. Lewis et al., 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1971), s.v.
“Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,” by Henri Laoust.
40 Al-‘Uthaymīn indicates sixty-nine chapters, whereas Crawford gives sixty-seven chapters.
41 However, ‘Abd Allāh Sālih al-‘Uthaymīn gives “ilāhiyya.”
42 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 29.
43 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 120.
44 Ghannām, Ta’rīkh Najd al-Musmmā Rawdat, 1:177; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 29.
45 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 29
46 Quoted in al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 79.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., 80.
49 Ibid., 81.
50 Ibid., 82.
51 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 56.
52 Muhammad Rashid Rida, ed., Majmū‘at al-Tawhīd al-Najdiyya (Riyadh: Al-Amana al-‘Amma,
1999), 120–21; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 57.
53 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 57.
54 Bernard Haykel, “Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Muhammad (1703–92),” Princeton Encyclopaedia of
Islamic Political Thought, 231.
55 Ibid.
56 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 58.
57 Rida, Majmū‘at al-Tawhīd al-Najdiyya, 140; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 59.
58 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 59.
59 Ibid., 61.
60 Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Mu’allafāt al-shaykh al-imām Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,
including al-Rasā’il al-Shakhsiyya (RS), and al-‘Aqīda (2 parts),‘Aqīda, al-Fiqh (Fiqh), and
MukhtaAar Sīrat al-Rasūl (Sira), ed. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Zayd al-Rūmī et al. (Riyadh: Jāmi ‘at al-Imām
Muhammad b. Su ‘ūd al-Islāmiyya, 1978), ‘Aqīda, 1:284; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,
69.
61 Rida, Majmū‘at al-Tawhīd al-Najdiyya, 117; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 69.
62 Ghannām, Ta’rīkh Najd al-Musmmā Rawdat, 1:189; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 69.
63 For example, Bukhārī, Authentic Hadīth: Book of Jihād and Campaigns, hadīth 2810, 4:59.
64 Ghannām, Ta’rīkh Najd al-Musmmā Rawdat, 1:159, 178; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhāb, 69
65 Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, al-Rasā’il al-Shakhsiyya, 293; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb,
69–70.
66 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 70.
67 Michael Crawford, “The Da ‘wa of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb before the Al Sa‘ūd,” Journal of Arabian
Studies 1, no. 2 (2011): 159–60.
68 Uthmān ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-Majd fī Ta’rīkh Najd, 1:45–46, 48; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhāb, 70.
69 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 71.
70 Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (New York:
HarperOne, 2007), 47; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 77.
71 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 77.
72 Ibid., 78.
73 Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Sira, 39; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 79.
74 Ghannām, Ta’rīkh Najd al-Musmmā Rawdat, 1:159,178; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhāb, 79.
75 Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Sira, 44; quoted in Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 80.
76 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 81–82.
77 Norman Calder, “Law, Islamic philosophy of” Islamic Philosophy Online, 1998,
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H015.htm
78 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 139.
79 Netton, Popular Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “Ijmā‘.”
80 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 140.
81 Netton, Popular Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “Ijtihād.”
82 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 142.
83 Netton, Popular Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “Taqlīd.”
84 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 142.
85 Ibid., 144.
86 Ibid., 145.
87 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 169.
88 Ibid., 170.
89 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 93.
90 Ibid., 58.
91 Ibid., 94.
92 Ibid.
93 Al-‘Uthaymīn, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 146.
94 Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong, 191.
95 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 50–51.
9696 Ibid.
97 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 13.
98 Ibid., 115.
99 Ibid., 104.
100 Ibid., 105.
101 Syed Ameer Ali, The Life and Teachings of Mohammed: Or, The Spirit of Islam (London: W.H.
Allen & Co., Ltd., 1891), 527.
102 David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 80.
103 Ibid., 81–82.
104 Ibid., 82.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid., 85.
107 Crawford, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, 125.
108 Ibid., 126.
109 H.A.R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam, (New York: Octagon Books, 1975), 27.
110 According to Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (The New Cambridge History of India, III.1), 1989), 19.
111 Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd Edn., Vol. 2, s.v. FARĀ’IDIYYA (A.Bausani), 783 b.
112 Ibid., 784 a.
113 Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (The New Cambridge History of India, III.1), 1989), 22.
114 Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 57.
115 Charles Allen, God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihād
(Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, 2006 ), 93.
116 A.C. Banerjee, Two Nations. The Philosophy of Muslim Nationalism (New Delhi: Concept
Publishing Company, 1981), 68.
15 - Sayyid Abu ’l-‘Alā’ Mawdūdī
MAWDUDI’S IDEAS did not emerge in a vacuum but were in line with the
thought of earlier Indian Muslim philosophers who greatly influenced him.
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century India Under Islamic Rulers
As early as the thirteenth century, thinkers like Nur-ud Din Mubarak
Ghaznavi, working at the court of Sultan Iltutmish [ruled 1211-1236] set the
aggressive tone of Islamic presence in India. Nur-ud Din elaborated the
doctrine of Din Panahi [protection of religion], by which Islam had to be
defended from the defiling Hindus who were idolaters who must be kept in
their place, and insulted, disgraced, dishonoured and defamed.1 Ziauddin
Barani [Diyā al-Dīn Baranī: 1285-1357] who was an Indian jurist, historian,
political thinker, writer, and a companion of Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluq
[1309 –1388], wrote a Fürstenspiegel, a Mirror of Princes, akin to
Machiavelli’s The Prince, the Fatāwā-yi Djahāndārī, in order to educate
the de facto rulers of the day, the sultans, in their duty towards Islam in an
age of corruption. Barani advises sultans to enforce the sharī‘a, to curb
unorthodoxy ( especially speculative philosophy, falsafa), to degrade the
infidel, who must be treated harshly.2 The Sultans must fight like the
Prophet until all people affirm that “there is no God but Allah.” It is the
duty of Muslim rulers to overthrow infidelity, uproot it completely, and
apply the Holy Law, the Sharia on all.3 Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309 – 1388),
the Turkic Muslim who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi (1351-1388)
carried on the intolerant tradition of the early invaders, and believed that by
extirpating Hinduism wherever possible he served God.4
Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī and the Sixteenth Century
When the Mughal emperor Akbar [reigned 1556-1605] manifested
general tolerance of all religions, the Muslim religious class, the ‘ulamā’,
were not at all amused. As a result, there were a number of Islamic
Revivalist Movements, some of which included a belief in the coming of a
Messiah, who would sweep away all the corruption and inaugurate an era of
piousness, a true, pristine Islam. One of the first to launch such a revival
movement was Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī5 [1564-1624], later known as
Mujaddidi Alf-i Thānī (the Renovator of Islam). For Sirhindi, the sunna and
Sharī‘a remain the most important components of Islamic culture. Despite
being a member of the Naqshbandi order of the Sufis, Sirhindi insists that
Sufi experience is inferior to the Sharī‘a, because Sharī‘a “is based on
incontrovertible proof, while Sufi experience is a result of fallible
speculation only….Any Sufi experience that is rejected by the Sharī‘a is
heresy.”6 Sirhindi denounces all innovations, even so-called good
innovations (bid‘a hasanah). He does not approve of certain customs
introduced by some Sufi orders, such as music (samā‘), dancing (raqS)
singing (naghmah), and ecstatic sessions (wajd, tawājud).7 Sirhindi also
attacked the Shi‘a in a most violent and bitter manner in his Epistle on the
Refutation of the Shi‘is, arguing that it was his duty to denounce heretical
ideas wherever they appear.8
Like many fundamentalists, Sirhindi has no tolerance for philosophers,
since he believed that “the human intellect is incapable of understanding
properly the nature of God without prophetic assistance.”9 But this rejection
of the philosophers also “leads him to an equally indignant rejection of their
[the philosophers] natural sciences. Their geometry, astronomy, logic, and
mathematics are useless as far as the hereafter is concerned and fall
therefore within the category of ‘inconsequential things’ [mā lā ya‘nī].”10
He even discourages the reading of popular literature.11
Sirhindi also launched a vicious attack on Hinduism, and believes all
Hindus, since they were guilty of shirk, must be humiliated whenever
possible. Sirhindi stood for a ruthless suppression of innovations, and
wrote, “It is therefore enjoined upon every Muslim to wage a regular
crusade against all innovations.”12 As Ayesha Jalal points out, he was “a
firm believer in the need to use state power to enforce Islam” and Sirhindi
coined the slogan, “Shariat [Sharī‘a] can be fostered through the sword.”13
Sirhindi argues one should adhere to the Prophet’s sunna and to the sharī‘a,
which was most comprehensive and “the essence of all heavenly books was
included in the Koran. Hence all those who pinned their faith on the Sharī‘a
were superior to all peoples and nations who did not. He condemned the
study of philosophy and the beliefs of the Mutazilas and their followers, in
most emphatic terms.”14
Shāh Walī Allāh and the Eighteenth Century
Shāh Walī Allāh [1703-1762] is best remembered for his efforts to
restore Muslim rule to India, ending with his appeal to the Afghan ruler
Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India, destroy the Hindu Marathas.
Shāh Walī Allāh was in the Hijāz between April 1731 and the end of
June, 1732, a period of fourteen months. Shāh Walī Allāh (born 1703) and
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (born 1702) both studied in Medina over the same
period and with at least one teacher in common. We know that Muhammad
Hayāt al-Sindī [also written Hayyā al-Sindī] was Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s
teacher, and had an important influence on him. When Shāh Walī Allāh
came to Arabia, he studied hadith under Muhammad Hayat’s teacher, Abū
‘l-Tāhir Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī.15
The central element in Shāh Walī Allāh’s vision of the restoration of the
true Islam was the emphasis on the textual sources of Islam, the Koran and
the hadith. In his Hujjat-Allah al-bāligha, Shāh Walī Allāh tells us that the
Sharī ‘a was the “fitrat”16 or natural disposition or original qualities of
mankind and, “as the last in the cycle of divine laws, was the guardian of
the best interests of mankind. The Islamic Sharī‘a was destined to dominate
the world and crush all undesirable elements. All misinterpretations which
entered it were removed by a renewer whom God raised up at the end of
each century.”17 Islam was superior to all other religions, and especially to
Hinduism. Jihād was central to Islam, which could not have been so
successful without it. Shāh Walī Allāh deplored the way jihād had been
interpreted as defensive. Rizvi paraphrases Shāh Walī Allāh’s doctrine as
spelled out in his Hujjat-Allah al-bāligha: “The modern interpretation of
jihād or Islamic holy war over-emphasized its defensive character. To the
‘ulamā’, jihād was the fard kifāya (collective duty) and it remained a duty
as long as Islam was not [the] universally dominant religion in any area.
According to Shāh Walī Allāh the mark of the perfect implementation of the
Sharī‘a was the performance of jihād… Force, said the Shah, was the much
better course-Islam should be forced down the throats like bitter medicine
to a child. This, however, was only possible if the leaders of the non-
Muslim communities who failed to accept Islam were killed; the strength of
the community reduced, their property confiscated and a situation was
created which led to their followers and descendants willingly accepting
Islam.”18
Shah Wali-Allah’s political ideas were influenced by Sunni theorists
such as al-Mawardi (d.1058), al-Ghazali (d.1111), and particularly Ibn
Taymiyya (d.1328), whose ideas on innovations were especially important
for him.
Shah Wali Allah ascribes at least three objectives to jihād19: First, to
extend the boundaries of right guidance;20 second, to fight criminality; and
finally to combat idolators. Like earlier Muslim thinkers of India cited
above, Shah Wali Allah showed implacable hatred for non-Muslims in
general, and Hindus, in particular, often encouraging, and exulting in, the
destruction of Hindu temples.
Apart from advocating jihād, Shah Wali Allah was fierce and consistent
in his attack on innovations, many of which had crept into Muslim practice
from Hindu and Shi ‘ite festivals and customs such as Muharram. Muslims
were also neglecting prayers, and the payment of zakat. As for praying at
the tomb of Khwaja Mu ‘in al-Din Chisti at Ajmer, and other similar tombs,
Shah Wali Allah considered such practices as no better than idol worship. In
fact, according to the Shah, anyone who prayed to the dead for their needs
was a sinner.
When he called for equity, justice and moderation, Shah Wali Allah only
saw these principles through Muslim eyes—in other words non-Muslims
and Shi‘ites were not considered worthy of similar treatment as if equal to
Muslims.
Sayyid Ahmad Brēlwī [1786-1831]
Sayyid Ahmad Brēlwī, [also Syed Ahmad Barelwi; Sayyid Ahmad
Shahid, or Shah Syed Ahmad or simply, the Sayyid] was born in 1786 in
Rai Bareilly, N. India. In 1804 in Delhi, he became the disciple of the
divine Shāh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz [died 1823], the eldest son of Shāh Walī Allāh.
He was initiated, in 1807, into the mystic (Sufi) tradition of Islam. In 1807,
he went back to Bareilly where he got married, and then in 1810 he left for
Tonk in Rajasthan where he served for seven years in the army of Nawāb
Amīr Khān. But when the Nawab of Tonk made an alliance with the British,
Sayyid Ahmad left, much disillusioned since he had dreamt of recreating an
Islamic state, thereby restoring Islamic supremacy, and re-establishing a
purified Islam.
Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi initiated several members of Shah Wali Allahs’
family into the sufi orders, and they became his disciples. Between 1818
and 1819, Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi made extensive missionary tours of
northern Indian cities, when along the way his disciples ‘Abd al-Hayy and
Shah Ismail gave fiery speeches denouncing degenerate Muslim practices
like the visitations of graves. A riot broke out when the Sayyid’s meetings
were banned by the authorities. They set off again on their missionary tours
in April 1819.
The Sayyid and his disciples often discussed both jihād and hajj in their
private assemblies.21 The Sayyid and his disciples went on missionary tours
to persuade Muslims to go on hajj, an Islamic obligation which had been
almost forgotten as there were many contradictory fatwas floating around
absolving Muslims from this duty. Finally in July 1821, the Sayyid set out
from Rai Bareilly with a party of 400. Along the way, “they preached
against bida‘ (innovations) and commended strict adherence to the
puritanical rules of the Sharī‘a. …In Banaras some of the Sayyid’s Sunni
disciples destroyed several hundred ta‘zīyas22 and used the wood and paper
as fuel to cook the party’s food.”23 The net result was to exacerbate
relations between the Sunnis and Shias generally, even in places where
hitherto they had lived together amicably. And yet, the Sayyid’s party
attracted a large number of converts to their cause.
The Sayyid and his party reached Mecca in May 1822. Even in the
Hijāz, the Indian Muslim pilgrims tried to eradicate non-Muslim practices.
In August 1822, the Sayyid obtained a pledge from his followers to fight
jihād.24 They left Mecca in July 1823, arriving back in April, 1824 in Rai
Bareilly, where he stayed for one year and ten months devoting his thoughts
to jihād and its preparation.
Here it would be appropriate to discuss just where and when the Sayyid
acquired his doctrines and views which resemble the ideas of Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhab. The Sayyid’s ideas are to be found in the Sirāta l-Mustaqīm which
was compiled at Delhi in 1817-1818, in other words before his pilgrimage
to Mecca, which he finally reached in May, 1822. But Najdi Wahhabi ideas
were already known by this time to Muslim intellectuals in India.25 Rizvi
also points out that though the Jihād Movement was planned by Sayyid
Ahmad, ‘Abd al-Hayy, and Isma‘il Shahid before their departure on hajj,
“the fame of the Wahhabi wars in Mecca and Medina strengthened the
determination of the Sayyid and his party to fight jihād with the help of the
North-West Frontier tribes.”26 The ‘ulama of the Hijāz had considerable
influence on their Indian counterparts. Finally, Dr Peter Hardy points out
that “Arabian Wahhabism no doubt helped turn Sayyid Ahmad’s thoughts
towards an active military jihād, though precedents were not wanting in
India itself for reforming brotherhoods to become military brotherhoods, as
in the militant Raushaniyya movement on the north-west frontier in the
sixteenth century, and indeed in Sikhism.”27
As Banerjee argues, “Wahabism [sic] in India was derived from two
sources, one internal, the other external: the philosophy of Shah Wali Allah
and the teachings of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab.”28 Islam was no longer in a
dominating position in India after the decline and fall of the Moghul
Empire; India was no longer Dar al-Islam but again a Dar al-Harb, and
Islam had been slowly but surely corrupted by non-Islamic traditions and
customs. “Total reform of the corrupt variety of Islam and jihād against
non-Muslim rule were the needs of the age. Shah Wali Allah’s works
provided sanction for the ambitious programme.”
“But,” continues Banerjee, “the basic lessons on lifting Islam from the
corrupting innovations or heresies (bida‘) were drawn from the doctrines of
Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and-- from the long term point of view-- from the
Kharijites through the Azraqites. Wahabism [sic] actually represented a
special type of Pan-Islamism.”29
For the Sayyid, many innovations were dangerously close to denying
God’s Unity, innovations such as prostrating oneself before the tomb of a
saint. Making a circuit round tombs is also illicit since that is a ceremony
retained only for the Ka‘ba. Asking for the intercession of Saints is a way to
deny one’s fate which has been already decided upon by God.
The Sayyid also takes the Shias to task for corrupting the beliefs of the
ordinary Sunni believer, particularly in their estimations of the relative
merits of the first Caliphs. Other abuses result from the ceremonies
regarding the Muharram. There are also countless superstitions that have
grown over the years such as astrology—they must all be jettisoned.
The Sirat al-Mustaqim discusses, in considerable detail, jihād whose
benefits are considered universal, and beneficial not only to believers but
sinners and hypocrites. “The special benefits of jihād that accrue to the
martyrs of the true faith, the Muslim ghazis, mighty rulers and brave
warriors are indescribable. Jihād enables spiritualistic Sufis to rise to the
position of eminent saints (wilāyat) by simple spiritual exercises. Jihād
enables the ‘ulamā’ to disseminate the true faith and to promote an increase
in religious education….The association of infidels with pious Sunnis and
the promotion of Islamic customs and administrative laws may induce
infidels to become Muslims. Those who are killed fighting against the
Muslims also benefit because their death reduces the time they would have
remained adamant in their infidelity and therefore the burden of their
punishment grows lighter. Their families also benefit for they become the
slaves of the Muslims and their association with them may prompt them to
embrace Islam.”30
On his return to India in 1239/1824, he began to make active
preparations for a jihād or religious war. The ultimate object of his
reformist movement was to overthrow the rule of the British and the Sikhs
and restore Muslim dominion in India. First he had to dislodge the Sikhs
from the Punjab.31 Sayyid Ahmad set out from Rae Bareilly in January
1826 on a long circuitous journey of several thousand miles. The Sayyid’s
first act was to send an ultimatum to Ranjit Singh. The Sayyid gained an
early victory over the Sikhs in December 1826, and he was joined by
neighbouring Pathan chiefs, including sardars of Peshawar. In early 1827 he
was formally elected Imam or khalifa, and assumed the title of Amir al-
Mu‘minin (Commander of the Faithful). While many of the tribesmen were
clearly delighted with the booty acquired after the first two battles, the
Sayyid made it clear that his aim “was to obey God and to promote the
interests of Islam. Were the important rulers to accept Islam, he (the Sayyid)
would be their whole-hearted well-wisher. …He had no interest in booty or
in ruling the territory but had been asking Muslims to fight against the
infidels for Islam’s sake.”32
In May 1831, at Balakot on the Kaghan river, in an area where he was
trying to enlist the local chiefs against the Sikhs in Hazara and Kashmir,
Sayyid Ahmad, Shah Ismail and nearly six hundred of his followers were
killed.”33
The significance of Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi’s Jihād Movement must not
be misunderstood. It is certainly wrong to think that once he had driven out
the British from India, the Sayyid intended to hand over supreme power to
the Indian heads of states and non-Muslims. This is to misunderstand totally
the Sayyid’s life mission, and the spirit and purpose of his movement. “He
would never have allowed an Indian secular, or a united Hindu-Muslim,
rule which did not make Islam or Islamic law predominant and where the
control of the states or the sovereign authority was not in Islamic hands. His
letters themselves are clear evidence against this popular myth. In fact, the
Sayyid’s jihād was designed to destroy both the Sikhs and the British and to
make India a dar al-Islam. Those Hindu heads of state who helped him
were guaranteed their throne and a dhimmi (protected subjects [and
essentially inferior]) status; the future for the others in the Sayyid’s dar al-
Islam was bleak. By no stretch of the imagination [was] his jihād a war for
Indian independence.”34
Ayesha Jalal makes a similar assessment. It was in Balakot that Sayyid
Ahmad and Shah Ismail, “quintessential Islamic warriors in South Asian
Muslim consciousness, fell in battle against the Sikhs on 6 May 1831.
Considered to be the only real jihād ever fought in the subcontinent to
establish the supremacy of the Islamic faith…”.
Balakot has become even more important as a symbol of Islamic Jihād
in recent times. As Jalal explains: “Balakot’s association with the idea and
practice of jihād in South Asia was reinforced in the 1990s, when militant
groups set up training camps in its environs to prepare for their campaign
against Indian security forces stationed in predominantly Muslim Kashmir.
For these militants, Sayyid Ahmad and Shah Ismail are great heroes, whose
jihād their admirers wish to emulate, to redress what they perceive as
current injustices.”35 It is not just militants that extolled jihād: “[T]he most
gifted Muslim thinkers and poets of India were evidently influenced by the
movement and wrote feelingly about Sayyid Ahmad’s martyrdom, along
with that of Shah Ismail in Balakot on 6 May 1831.”36
As symbols, the Martyrs of Balakot have taken on an enormous
amplitude and significance that cannot be exaggerated. “The Shahnamah-i-
Balakot is an extended laudatory poem on the movement by a Pakistani
poet [Alim Nasiri]. Writing across the great divide of 1947, Maulana
Husain Ahmad Nadwi notes in his foreword that the hallowed blood shed
on that famous battlefield still runs in the veins of the Muslim community
(millat). This is because Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and Maulana Ismail
Shahid’s movement blended Ahmad Sirhindi’s ideas on Sunni reform and
the elimination of bid ‘a (innovation) with Shah Wali Allah’s jihād
movement. The party of six hundred or so selfless Muslim mujāhidīn who
fought in the rugged terrain of the northwest frontier along with tens of
thousands of Pathan tribesmen ushered in the spring of Islamic culture and
civilization. It is their deeds that have kept alive the spirit of jihād in
Muslim society to this day in the shape of various Muslim organizations
and movements.”37
Meanwhile the poet himself, Alim Nasiri, goes into raptures over the
peaks of the mountains surrounding Balakot coloured by the blood of the
martyrs of Balakot. Another modern writer, Khwaja Abdul Wahid, sings the
praise of the mujāhidīn who have kept the light of Islam burning despite
betrayals.38
Sayyid Abu ’l-‘Alā’ Mawdūdī
Sayyid Abu ’l-‘Alā’ Mawdūdī was born in Aurangabad, South India, in
1903 into a distinguished family from Delhi that traced its lineage to the
great Sufi saints of the Chishti order. His father Hasan was determined not
to give his son a Western education, and thus Mawdūdī was educated in
Urdu, Persian, Arabic, law, and hadīth through private tutors. He imbibed
Western science, however, and learned English and mathematics at an
Islamic academy influenced by Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s modernism. In 1919,
Mawdūdī left for Delhi where he acquired even greater knowledge of
Western science, history, and philosophy. Mawdūdī came into contact with
Jam‘iyyat-i ‘Ulamā’-i Hind (JUH, founded in 1919 at the hight of the
Khilafat movement by “clerics” from Deoband and the Lucknow
seminaries), of whose journal, al-Jam‘iyyat, he became editor. He left the
JUH because of their alliance with Congress (i.e. The Indian National
Congress Party, a secular political party founded in 1885), and left Delhi for
Hyderabad in 1928.
At first Mawdūdī was attracted to some aspects of Western culture, but
now came to the conclusion that the reason for the Muslims’ decline was
the corruption of Islam partly by Western culture, and to propagate “pure”
Islam he founded the Urdu journal, Tarjumanul Qur‘an, in 1932. By the
1930s, Mawdūdī had a clear vision of his plan:
I should first break the hold which Western culture and ideas had
 come to acquire over the Muslim intelligentsia, and to instil in them
the fact that Islam has a code of life of its own, its own culture, its
own political and economic systems and a philosophy and an
educational system which are all superior to anything that Western
civilisation could offer. I wanted to rid them of the wrong notion that
they needed to borrow from others in the matter of culture and
civilisation.39
It was in Hyderabad that Mawdūdī fully developed his views on the
corruption of Islam “by centuries of incorporation of local customs and
mores that had obscured that faith’s veritable teachings,” writes University
of San Diego assistant professor of political science Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr.
“Salvation of Muslim culture and the preservation of its power lay in the
restitution of Islamic institutions and practices after they had been cleansed
of the cultural influences that had sapped Muslims of their power.”40
But “Mawdudi’s revivalist position was radical communalism as it
articulated Muslim interests and sought to protect their rights, and
demanded the severance of all cultural and hence social and political ties
with Hindus in the interests of purifying Islam.”41 Mawdūdī created an
Islamic ideology to counter especially the Western ideologies of socialism
and capitalism. He viewed “Islam as a holistic ideology similar to western
ideologies. His notion of Islamic ideology, one of the most prolific and
systematic articulations of its kind, has been most influential in giving
shape to Islamic revivalism as a distinct reading of Islam, its history, and its
purpose across the Muslim world.”42
Mawdūdī was critical of both the Congress and the All India Muslim
League, which he saw as being secular, calling it a “party of the pagans.”
As the Muslim League had no agenda for a Shari‘a state, Mawdūdī
despaired for the future Pakistan, dubbing it an “infidel state of Muslims.”43
It was against this background that in 1941 Mawdūdī founded his Jamā‘at-i
Islāmī (JI), Islamic party. After the Partition of India in 1947,44 the
Jamā‘at-i Islāmī split into an Indian party and a Pakistani party.
Mawdūdī along with 385 members opted for Pakistan, but his ambitious
goal was “Allah’s Government” (hukūmat-i ilāhiyya) or a true “Islamic
State.” Shari‘a and the belief in monotheism was central to all Muslims:
In Qur’an ki Char Bunyadi Istelahen (Four Fundamental Concepts of
 the Qur’an), he reinterpreted words such as ilāh (God), rabb (Lord),
‘ibādat (worship), and dīn (religion) to argue that the Qur’an obliged
Muslims to establish a state based on divine sovereignty and
simultaneously reject, or rather dethrone, jāhiliyyat, the embodiment
of human sovereignty. This approach also informs Mawdudi’s multi-
volume commentary on the Qur’an, Tafhīm al-Qur’ān (begun in 1942
and completed in 1972), which finds a coveted space on the
bookshelves of many Muslims who are not Islamists.45
Despite his hatred of the secular West, Mawdūdī often used Hegelian
and Marxists analyses in his own philosophy to show that history since the
seventh century has been a battle between Islam and jāhiliyyat, with secular
democracy as the ultimate expression of jāhiliyyat. He advised his followers
not to vote in elections for a secular, democratic state.46 But an Islamic state
could not function properly until society was already thoroughly
Islamicized. For example, hudud (pl. of hadd, “boundary,” “limit,”
“stipulation,” or “restriction” laid down by God) punishments as prescribed
in the Koran could only be implemented when the people were “fully aware
of the teachings of Islam and would have no excuse for not following the
Sharī‘a.” Thus an Islamic State “should not be the enforcer of the Sharī‘a
but the implementor of the will of the people. Ideally, popular will should
demand implementation of the Sharī‘a, unburdening the state and
legitimizing its rule.”47
But Mawdūdī’s primary concern was to establish an Islamic State where
sovereignty lies with God, not the people. Therefore, as Reza Nasr points
out,
He dwelt less on socio-economic problems such as population
growth, economic inequalities, and social injustice. He believed that
these problems were not real issues of concern, for they were
symptoms of the absence of an Islamic order and reflections of the
failure of western ideologies. They would disappear once the state
and society were Islamized [sic], so Muslims were best advised not to
dwell on these issues but to focus on establishing and managing the
Islamic state.48
As for minorities in an Islamic State, Islamic law already had clearcut rules
governing dhimmis or non-Muslims, second-class citizens subject to a
special tax and other social disabilities. The role of women was also spelled
out in the Shari‘a. How could claims that an Islamic State would be
democratic be sustained alongside such views? Mawdūdī “remained
unapologetic”:
He argued that the Islamic state was an ideological one, and the
preservation of its ideological purity was therefore the condition sine
qua non for its survival and development. Extended rights for
minorities would undermine the Islamic state as they would diffuse its
ideological vigilance. Therefore limiting their rights to those of
zimmis in Islamic law was a matter of national security and self-
preservation.49
In 1953, Mawdūdī campaigned against Zafar’ullah Khan, Pakistan’s
Ahmadi Foreign Minister, and demanded that the Ahmadiyya, a religious
movement, be classified as a non-Muslim minority.50
Mawdūdī also clearly did not accord women a sociopolitical role equal
to men. Fearing that greater interaction of the sexes would lead to
immorality and undo the Islamic State, he “comes close to characterizing
women as an insidious force whose activities ought to be regulated and
restricted before they could wreak havoc.”51 Mawdūdī wrote: “God has
prohibited the unrestricted intermingling of the sexes and has prescribed
purdah [a word of Persian origin meaning the religious and social practice
of female seclusion]” recognizing “man’s guardianship of woman,” for
Muslims must guard against “that satanic flood of female liberty and
licence which threatens to destroy human civilization in the West.”52
By 1992 the Jamā‘at-i Islāmī of Pakistan had grown 7,861 members,
and 357,229 sympathizers. Their great emphasis has been on education. JI
sees itself as an umma, a virtuous Muslim community that demands each
member to reforms all aspects of his life to conform to Islamic standards as
defined by the party. JI wishes to change society in accordance with
Mawdūdī’s vision. “In political terms,” Reza Nasr writes, “the Jamā‘at-i
Islāmī’s organizational model has performed the function of a vanguard
party in the struggle for Islamic revolution.”53 But the overall aim has
always been to train a vanguard of Islamic elite to oversee the revival of
Islam on a national level, to encourage the existing, inherent religious
activism in Islam to push Pakistan toward complete Islamisization.
 In newly-created Pakistan, Mawdūdī was in constant trouble with the
authorities. He served time in prison and was even sentenced to death (later
annulled) for participating in anti-Ahmadi agitation. Mawdūdī was also
uwelcome under the military regime of General Ayub Khan (1958–1969),
who tried modernize Pakistan without Islam. Mawdūdī’s candidates did not
win many seats in various elections. He vehemently opposed the
government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (d. 1979), who espoused a form of
socialist populism, and Mawdūdī formed a movement for the installation of
nizām-i muStafā (Prophetic Order).54
During the 1950s, Mawdūdī travelled widely outside Pakistan, often
visiting Saudi Arabia, where he helped establish and run Medina’s Islamic
university and the World Muslim League, but he never neglected Islamic
matters in Pakistan such as the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961 or
the Ahmadiyya question. JI anti-Bhutto protests played a part in the July
1977 military coup that brought General Muhammad Zia al-Haq (d.1988) to
power. Zia al-Haq was quick to grant some kind of legitimacy to the
Prophetic Order movement, and even accorded Mawdūdī the “status of
senior statesman, one whose advice was sought by the new leadership of the
country and whose words adorned the front pages of the printed media.”55
However, Mawdūdī died in 1979 in Buffalo, New York, seeking medical
attention from the very people he despised, the infidels. Over a million
people were said to have attended his funeral in Lahore.
Zia al-Haq earnestly undertook the Islamization of Pakistan, and the JI
enjoyed unprecedented success and political influence, its leaders holding
important government offices, including cabinet portfolios. “The party’s
views were reflected in government programmes. The party played a direct
role in the Islamization of the country, as well as in articulating state policy,
especially concerning the Afghan war and the government’s reaction to
provincialist and ethnic tendencies.”56 Nonetheless, in the 1985 election,
the JI won only ten seats to the National Assembly and thirteen seats to the
various provincial assemblies.
Despite electoral failures, the JI “had become a powerful political force
with significant social and cultural influence”57 and remains so, thanks to
its organizational abilities. Mawdūdī was “amongst the most influential” of
Muslims of the twentieth century who felt “that the answer to western
domination need not be formulated in terms of nationalism and secularism
but in terms of Islam. Himself inspired by Ibn Khaldun, Shah Walī Allah,
Muhammad Iqbal and Hasan al-Bannā’ he has influenced…leaders of
Islamic movements in Egypt, Syria and Iran to many ordinary Muslims
throughout the Islamic world.”58
Mawdūdī’s Beliefs
For Mawdūdī, God alone is sovereign. Man goes astray when he accepts
sovereigns other than God and Shari‘a is an all-embracing guide for
mankind because it is God-given, being derived from the Koran, the Sunna,
and the hadīth. Islam does not recognize national boundaries, and thus the
state ruled by God’s laws would be universal. The ruler can be chosen by
the people, who are imbued with the principles of Islam, but the ruler must
govern by God-given laws. The legislature, too, can be chosen by the
people, but legislation is “by interpretation, by analogy, by inference, and,
in that area of human affairs about which the Shari‘a is silent, by
independent judgement.” All people must submit to the Law, being God-
given, and the sole function of the state is to implement this law. “Islamic
norms exist not merely to be followed by Muslims on their personal
initiative and in their individual lives but to be put into effect through the
coercive power of the state.”59
Mawdūdī was convinced that only the Islamic State could guarantee an
effective means of living according to Islamic norms. The people, being
extraordinarily ignorant of true Islam, had to be educated in what this
meant. Given his family background and admiration for Shah Walli Allah
(1703–1762) and Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624), Islamic scholars of India
who were sympathetic to Sufis and Sufism), Mawdūdī was surprisingly
hostile to the Sufis, who “appeared to him to be especially egregious in
violating ‘true’ Islam” and “went so far as to range Sufi asceticism
alongside atheism and polytheism.”60
Mawdūdī’s major contribution was
to have transformed Islam into an ideology, an integrated and all-
embracing system. He aimed to set out the ideal order of the time of
the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. The outcome is the most comprehensive
statement of the nature of the Islamic state in modern times, and one
which, while conjuring an ideal from the past, has been shaped by
 contemporary concerns and modes of thought. His exposition, as
might be expected from a man who was primarily a theologian, is
strong on general principles but weak on detail.61
Clearly aware of the Islamic revival tradition in India, Mawdūdī was
heavily influenced by the example of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi and Sayyid
Ahmad Shahid, and considered that “his authority emanated from the
tradition of Ibn Taymiyyah and Shah Wali Allah.”62 Mawdūdī appealed to
the tradition of the mujaddid as a model of religious leadership. As Reza
Nasr notes, “Since Sirhindi’s time, generations of Muslim figures of
authority have drawn on his tradition of renewal and reform of Islam to
revive the faith. Much like them, Mawdudi based his claim to leadership on
his promise to deliver Muslims from their political impotence.”63
Sirhindi’s tradition “has provided a powerful paradigm for activism,”
and Mawdūdī saw “himself as a part of this tradition, and was viewed as a
part of it by his followers, as their documentation of all of his statements
and his every decision attests.”64 He himself identified a number of other
mujaddids responsible for calling Muslims back to the Shari‘a, shunning
innovations, and returning to pure Islam of the salaf.
Mawdūdī on Jihād
Introductory books on Mawdūdī rarely refer to his views on jihād. These
views are uncompromising, unapologetic, and very disturbing in their
implications. Mawdūdī begins his short treatise, Jihād in Islam, with a
definition of religion and a definition of nation:
But the truth is that Islam is not the name of a “Religion”, nor is
“Muslim” the title of a “Nation.” In reality Islam is a revolutionary
ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the
whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and
ideals. “Muslim” is the title of that International Revolutionary Party
organized by Islam to carry into effect its revolutionary programme.
And “Jihād” refers to that revolutionary struggle and utmost exertion
which the Islamic Party brings into play to achieve this objective.65
Muslims shun the ordinary word for war, harb, for wars have
traditionally been fought between nations, but Islam does not wage war for
the sake of a nation. Mawdūdī declares:
Islam has no vested interest in promoting the cause of this or that
 Nation. The hegemony of this or that State on the face of this earth is
irrelevant to Islam. The sole interest of Islam is the welfare of
mankind. Islam has its own particular ideological standpoint and
practical programme to carry out reforms for the welfare of mankind.
Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the
face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of
Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The
purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology
and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the
standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in
the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. 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
“Jihād.”66
The message could not be clearer: Islam must conquer the globe, and the
purpose of jihād is totalitarian—it demands the engagement of all Muslims
until Earth is ruled according to the precepts of Islam. All other ideologies,
as systems where man-made laws rule, are enemies. Mawdūdī wishes to
replace them with God-made laws: the Shari‘a.
Mawdūdī and Shari‘a
The Shari‘a, for Mawdūdī, governs everything on earth, as it is but the
will of God. One must submit to it, or be led astray into jahiliyya. The
highest court of appeal is the Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet. To
impugn them would be an unpardonable sin and result in the transgression
of shirk, embodied in the principle of tawhīd:
Tawhīd means that only God is the Creator, Sustainer and Master of
the universe and of all that exists in it—organic and inorganic….He
alone has the right to command or forbid. Worship and obedience are
due to Him alone… It is not for us to decide the aim and purpose of
 our existence or to set the limits of our authority; nor is anyone else
entitled to make these decisions for us. This right rests only with
God….This principle of the unity of God totally negates the concept
of the legal and political independence of human beings….No
individual, family, class or race can set themselves above God. God
alone is the Ruler and His commandments are the Law.67
The source of “all evil and mischief,” wrote Mawdūdī, “is the
domination of man over man, be it direct or indirect….If you do not believe
in God, some artificial god will take His place in your thinking and
behavior. It is even possible that instead of one real God, a number of false
gods, ‘ilahs’ and ‘rabbs’ may impose themselves upon you.”68
More than a guide to one’s personal behavior, the Shari‘a is also meant
for the collective life, and prescribes all-encompassing directives, which for
Mawdūdī include “family relationships, social and economic affairs,
administration, rights and duties of citizens, judicial system, laws of war
and peace and international relations….The Shari‘a is a complete scheme of
life and an all-embracing social order where nothing is superfluous and
nothing lacking.”69
Without the establishment of the entire Islamic system, the provisions of
Islamic law cannot be properly implemented. The Shari‘a does not
recognize any division between religion and other aspects of life, and
between religion and state. Secularism, which
Mawdūdī equated with the separation of religion and state or with
religionlessness, he considered to be the very contrary of Islam since
it opened the way…to the exclusion of all morality, ethics, or human
decency from the controlling mechanisms of society. This…was
precisely what happened in the Western world whose governments
and social bases he never tired of condemning as unutterably and
irredeemably corrupt. In his mind, morality of any kind was simply
inconceivable without religion and the sanction of eternal punishment
to support it.70
And to implement the Shari‘a, political power embodied in an Islamic State
is necessary: “the reforms which Islam wants to bring about cannot be
carried out merely by sermons. Political power is essential for their
achievement.”71
 The “materials for the constitution of an Islamic state are to be found in
four principle sources, the Koran, the Sunna of the Prophet, the conventions
and practices of the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs, and in the rulings of the
great jurists of the Islamic tradition.”72
As discussed earlier in these pages, the first basic principle of the Islamic
State is the recognition of the sovereignty of God.
The second basic principle is the authority of the Prophet: “Whoso obeys
the Messenger obeys God” (Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women, 80). The Prophet is
the perfect model to be emulated.
The third basic principle of the Islamic State is its status as the
viceregent of God, for the Islamic state does not make its own laws but
enforces God-made laws for His sake. The Koran vests viceregency in the
entire Muslim citizenry of the Islamic state (Q24. an-Nūr, the Light, 55). As
Mawdūdī wrote: “The power to rule over the earth has been promised to the
whole community of believers; it has not been stated that any particular
person or class among them will be raised to that position. From this it
follows that all believers are repositories of the Caliphate.”73
The fourth principle is that the Islamic State must conduct its affairs by
mutual consultation (shura) among all the Muslims. Mawdūdī calls this
system of government a “theo-democracy,” although he is aware of the
totalitarian aspect of the Islamic State—and is totally unapologetic. The
Islamic State “cannot…restrict the scope of its activities….It seeks to
mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral norms
and programme of social reform. In such a state no one can regard any field
of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect the
Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist
states.”74 In this Mawdūdī makes it clear that Islam is “the very antithesis of
secular Western democracy. The philosophical foundation of Western
democracy is the sovereignty of the people.”75 He calls the Islamic State an
ideological society: “All…who… surrender themselves to the will of God
are welded into a community and that is how the ‘Muslim society’ comes
into being. Thus, this is an ideological society—a society radically different
from those spring from accidents of races, colour, or country.”76
Revivalist movements and the ideas of Muslim reformers in India bear a
remarkable resemblance to each other, and to revivalist movements in other
parts of the Islamic world, such as Wahhabism in eighteenth century
Arabia. These reformers believed that Islam was in danger, and was being
slowly corrupted by non-Muslim civilizations, whether Hindu, Buddhist or
Western. Unacceptable innovations (bida‘ ) had been introduced, and they
had to be removed and a pristine Islam of the ancestors restored. Tawhīd
(oneness of God) must be respected, and shirk (polytheism, idolatry,
association of partners to God) extirpated. Despite the fact they had been
initiated into various Sufi brotherhoods, and despite their qualified
admiration for some of the Sufi thinkers, these reformers considered that
the Koran, the Sunna and Sharī ‘a overrode all Sufi experiences, and
principles. And above all, being a Sufi did not absolve one from waging
jihād in the military sense. Sayyid Ahmad Brēlwī reminds us that jihād was
not waged for the sake of booty, but to extend the frontiers of Islam, until it
covered the entire world. There was no question of Islam accommodating
itself to Hinduism or the Christianity of the British in India; on the contrary,
Islam had to dominate. Finally, Mawdūdī admitted that Islam was a
totalitarian ideology akin to Fascism and Communism, where the individual
owes total allegiance to Islam, and Islam only, and where he loses his
individuality and finds relief in submerging himself in the Islamic
community (umma).

1 A.C. Banerjee, Two Nations: The Philosophy of Muslim Nationalism, (New Delhi: Concept
Publishing Company, 1981), 11.
2 Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd. Edn., Vol. I .1036a. s.v. Baranī, Diyā al-Dīn.
3 Mohammad Habib, The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate, (Allahbad: Kitab Mahal, 1961),
46-47.
4 Vincent A. Smith, The Oxford History of India, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981 [Ist edn.
1919]), 258-259.
5 Also spelt: Sirhandi (Ayesha Jalal, Partisans of Allah: Jihād in South Asia (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2008),), and Sarhindi (Q. Ahmad, Wahabi Movement in India (Calcutta,
1966).
6 Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, An Outline of His Thought and a Study of His Image
in the Eyes of Posterity (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971), 41.
7 Ibid., 68.
8 Ibid., 51.
9 Ibid., 53.
10 Ibid., 54.
1111 Ibid.
12 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries, (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 1965), 256
13 Ayesha Jalal, Partisans of Allah. Jihād in South Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2008), 31-32.
14 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, 255.
15 John Voll, “Muhammad Hayyā al-Sindī and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab: An Analysis of an
Intellectual Group in Eighteenth-Century Madīna” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies (University of London), Vol.38, No. 1 (1975), 39.
16 Cf., Koran: Q30 al-Rūm, The Romans, 30: So direct your face toward the religion, inclining to
truth. [Adhere to] the fitrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] people. No change should there
be in the creation of Allah. That is the correct religion, but most of the people do not know.
17 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2004), 281.
18 Shah Wali-Allah, Hujjat-Allah al-baligha, Urdu translation by Abū Muhammad ‘Abd al-Haq
Haqqānī (Karachi: Asahhal-Mutābi’, n.d.) II.480. Summarized in Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah
Wali-Allah and His Times (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2004), 285-286.
19 J.M.S. Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī 1703-1762 (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1986),186.
20 Shah Wali Allah, al-Khayr al-Kathīr (Arabic) (Maktaba al-Qāhira, 1974), Khizāna 6.
21 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 480.
22 In South Asia this term refers specifically to the Miniature Mausoleums (imitations of the
mausoleums of Karbala, generally made of coloured paper, wood, and bamboo) used in ritual Shi‘te
processions held in the month of Muharram.
23 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 481.
24 Ibid., 484.
25 Ibid., 498.
26 Ibid., 523.
27 Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 53.
28 A.C. Banerjee, Two Nations: The Philosophy of Muslim Nationalism, 57.
29 Ibid., 58.
30 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 506-507.
31 Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd Edn. Vol.1, 282a-282b, s.v. “Sayyid Ahmad Brēlwī.”
32 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 488-489.
33 Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972), 52.
34 Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 535.
35 Ayesha Jalal, Partisans of Allah: Jihād in South Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2008), 2.
36 Ibid., 61.
37 Ibid., 62-63.
38 Quoted by Ayesha Jalal, 62-63.
39 Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi, “Twenty-Nine Years of the Jamaat-e-Islami,” Criterion 5, no. 6
(November–December 1970): 45; quoted in Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, “Iran–Kha,” ed. by E.
van Donzel, B. Lewis, and Ch. Pellat, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1978), s.v. “Mawdūdī, Sayyid Abu ‘l-
a’la,” by F.C.R. Robinson.
40 Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi and the Jam‘at-i Islami: The Origins, Theory and Practice of
Islamic Revivalism” in Pioneers of Islamic Revival, ed. Ali Rahnema, Studies in Islamic Society
(London: Zed Books Ltd., 1994), 2.
41 Ibid., 103.
42 Ibid., 105.
43 Irfan Ahmad, “Mawdudi, Abu al-A ‘la (1903–1979),” Princeton Encyclopaedia of Islamic
Political Thought, 334.
44 In 1947, India was partitioned into two political entities to provide a homeland for Muslims. The
state of Pakistan was created for Muslims.
45 Irfan Ahmad, “Mawdudi, Abu al-A ‘la (1903–1979),” Princeton Encyclopaedia of Islamic
Political Thought, 334.
46 Ibid.
47 Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi and the Jam‘at-i Islami, 107.
48 Ibid., 108.
49 Ibid., 109.
50 The Ahmadiyya was founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908). The Ahmadiyya
are often persecuted by other Muslims because Ghulam Ahmad made a number of claims, including
being a recipient of revelation. Orthodox Muslims reject this notion as blasphemy; for them
Muhammad is the last of the Prophets to have received a revelation.
51 Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi and the Jam‘at-i Islami,” 110.
52 Syed Abul A’la Maududi, Political Theory of Islam (1960; Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd.,
1980), 27.
53 Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi and the Jam‘at-i Islami,” 113.
54 Ahmad, “Mawdudi,” 334.
55 Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi and the Jam‘at-i Islami,” 118.
56 Ibid., 119.
57 Ibid.
58 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, 2nd ed., s.v. “Mawdūdī, Sayyid Abu ‘l-a’la.”
59 Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts
and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 81.
60 Ibid.
61 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, 2nd ed., s.v. “Mawdūdī, Sayyid Abu ‘l-a’la.”
62 Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 115.
63 Ibid., 126.
64 Ibid., 136.
65 Syed Abul A’la Maududi, Jihād in Islam (Beirut: The Holy Koran Publishing House, 1980), 5.
66 Ibid., 6–7.
67 Syed Abul A’la Maududi, The Islamic Way of Life, ed. Khurshid Ahmad and Khurram Murad
(Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 1992), 29–30. First Urdu edition, 1948; first English edition,
1967.
68 Maududi, Political Theory of Islam, 13.
69 Syed Abul A’la Maududi, Islamic Law and Constitution (Lahore, IL: Islamic Publications, 1967),
53.
70 Charles Adams, “Mawdudi and the Islamic State,” in Voices of Resurgent Islam, ed. John L.
Esposito (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 113.
71 Maududi, Islamic Law and Constitution, 177.
72 Adams, “Mawdudi and the Islamic State,” 114.
73 Maududi, Political Theory of Islam, 35.
74 Ibid., 30.
75 Ibid., 21.
76 Maududi, Islamic Law and Constitution, 50.
16 - Brigadier S.K. Malik and The Qur’anic Concept
of War
PRESIDENT ZIA AL-HAQ [1924 – 1988], who was President of Pakistan
from 1978 to 1988 vowed to run the country on Islamic principles, and said,
“Pakistan which was created in the name of Islam will continue to survive
only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of [an]
Islamic system as an essential prerequisite for the country.”1 Thus while he
began the Islamization of Pakistan in earnest, Zia al-Haq took time to write
what, at first sight, might seem an extraordinary endorsement of The
Qur’anic Concept of War (1979), by Brigadier S.K. Malik, which has
become, according to Sebastian Gorka, who holds the Major General
Matthew C. Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine
Corps University, “the most influential treatise on why Jihād is necessary
and how it must be fought.”2 It is constantly quoted and referred to by
modern jihādists. However, given the President’s Islamization programme
for Pakistan and the fact that jihād is the quintessential Islamic duty, Zai al-
Haq’s stamp of approval of Brigadier Malik’s treatise makes perfect sense.
Little information is available on Brigadier Malik, and yet, as Patrick
Poole and Mark Hanna point out in their publisher’s preface:
The continued relevance of The Qur’anic Concept of War is indicated
by the discovery by US military officials of summaries of this book
published in various languages on captured and killed jihādist
insurgents in Afghanistan. This is hardly a surprising development as
Malik finds within the Quran a doctrine of aggressive, escalating and
constant jihād against non-Muslims and the religious justification of
terrorism as a means to achieving the dominance of Islam around the
world—dogmas that square with the Islamist ideology driving
terrorism worldwide.3
The endorsements of Zia al-Haq and Allah Bukhsh K. Brohi, the late
advocate-general of Pakistan and former Pakistani ambassador to India,
“established Malik’s views on Jihād as national policy and gave his
interpretation official state sanction.”4 For Zia al-Haq, the book is essential
for soldier and civilian:
This book brings out with simplicity, clarity and precision the Quranic
 philosophy on the application of military force within the context of
the totality that is Jihād. The professional soldier in a Muslim army,
pursuing the goals of a Muslim state, cannot become “professional” if
in all his activities he does not take the “colour of Allah.” The
nonmilitary citizen of a Muslin state must, likewise, be aware of the
kind of soldier that his country must produce and the only pattern of
war that his country’s armed forces may wage.5
In his enthusiasm, Zia al-Haq would change the motto of the Pakistani army
to “Islam, Piety, and Jihād.”6
The Qur’anic Concept of War is replete with quotes from the Holy Book
exhorting men to wage war in the name and for the cause of God. The most
quoted suras include Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow; Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of
Imran; Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of War / Voluntary Gifts; Q9. at-Tawba, the
Repentance / al-Barā’at, the Immunity; Q48. al-Fath, the Victory; Q4. an-
Nisā’, the Women. Eleven other suras are cited to a lesser degree. Malik
offers a close analysis of all of Muhammad’s battles, and his bibliography
refers to the works of Mawdūdī, namely Tafhīm al-Qurān and al-Jihād fi ’l-
Islām, which, as discussed, have had an enormous influence in Pakistan in
general, and on Zia al-Haq in particular.
One of Malik’s distinctive doctrines is the importance of using terror as
its own end:
[W]hen God wishes to impose His will upon the His enemies, He
chooses to do so by casting terror into their hearts….“Let not the
Unbelievers think,” God commands us directly and pointedly, “that
they can get better (of the Godly): they will never frustrate them.
Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power,
including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the
enemies of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may
not know, but whom Allah doth know.’ (Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of
War / Voluntary Gifts, verses 59–60).7
Malik explains this approach:
The Quranic military strategy thus enjoins us to prepare ourselves for
war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the hearts of the
enemies, known or hidden, while guarding ourselves from being
terror stricken by the enemy….[G]uarding ourselves against terror is
 the “Base”; preparation for war to the utmost is the “Cause”; while
the striking terror into the hearts of the enemies is the “Effect.”…. In
war, our main objective is the opponent’s heart or soul, our main
weapon of offence against this objective is the strength of our own
souls, and to launch such an attack, we have to keep terror away from
our own hearts.
And for Malik psychological preparation for war is all important:
So spirited, zealous, complete and thorough should be our preparation
for war that we should enter upon the “war of muscles” having
already won the “war of will.” Only a strategy that aims at striking
terror into the hearts of the enemies from the preparation stage can
produce direct results.8
“Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the
end itself,” Malik states, “It is the point where the means and the end meet
and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision on the enemy; it is
the decision we wish to impose on him.”9
And what is the ultimate purpose of terror and terrorist action? To
destroy the enemy’s faith:
Psychological dislocation is temporary; spiritual dislocation is
permanent. Psychological dislocation can be produced by a physical
act but this does not hold good of spiritual dislocation. To instill terror
into the hearts of the enemy, it is essential, in the ultimate analysis, to
dislocate his Faith. An invincible Faith is immune to terror. A weak
Faith offers inroads to terror. The Faith conferred upon us by the Holy
Quran has the inherent strength to ward off terror from us and to
enable us to strike terror into the enemy.10
Malik constantly quotes Western experts on the causes of war such as
Geoffrey Blainey, Bernard Brodie, and Liddel Hart only to dismiss their
sociopolitical arguments as irrelevant to Islam: “[T]he central theme behind
the causes of wars, as spelt out by the Holy Quran, was the cause of Allah.
This cause manifested itself in different shapes and forms at different stages
in the history of Islam. In pursuit of this cause, the Muslims were first
granted permission to fight but were later commanded to fight in the Way of
God as a matter of religious obligation and duty” (emphasis in original).11
Malik clearly sees the Koranic concept of war as humanitarian, noble,
and righteous, freeing humanity from tyranny and injustice, but a careful
reading reveals that by justice and peace he means the imposition of Islam
on the whole of humanity, until everyone submits. For Muslims the Koran
is the word of God, and it must be borne in mind constantly that Malik is
addressing committed Muslims:
[T]he fountain-head of the Quranic dimension of war lies in the fact
that war is waged for the cause of Allah, and with the object of
imposing conditions of justice and peace. To those who fight for this
noblest heavenly cause, the Book promises handsome heavenly
assistance. The index of fighting for Allah’s Cause is Man’s total
submission to His will. Those who fail to submit themselves fully and
completely to the Will of God run the risk of incurring heavenly
wrath. Nature has no particular or specific liking for any community
of people as such; it helps only those who qualify themselves for it,
and punishes the rest. Fighting involves risk to life and property that
must be accepted willingly and cheerfully. Death in this world is
inevitable; life in the Hereafter is certain; and the reward of those who
fight for the cause of Allah is safe, splendid and sure. Our reward is in
direct proportion to our performance. Those who die fighting for the
cause of Allah never actually die.”12
A little later, he adds, “A victory in Islam is a victory for the cause of
Islam.”13
Malik explains that the Koran
gives us a distinctive concept of total war. It wants both, the nation
and the individual, to be at war “in toto,” that is, with all their
spiritual moral and physicalresources.…Practised in their totality, the
Quranic dimensions of war provide complete protection to the Muslim
armies against any psychological breakdown….It is on the strength of
our Faith, and the weakness of that of our adversary, that we can
initiate plans and actions calculated to strike terror into the hearts of
our adversaries.14 (Emphasis added.)
In his preface to Malik’s book Allah Bukhsh K. Brohi, a former diplomat
and advocate general of Pakistan, is even more explicit in his defense of
Islam and its arguments for jihād. After thanking Malik for his “valuable
contribution to Islamic jurisprudence” and “‘analytic Re-statement’ of the
Quranic wisdom on the subject of war and peace,” Brohi introduces and
then unfurls an ingenious new definition of “defensive”:
When a believer sees that someone is trying to obstruct another
believer from travelling on the road that leads to God, spirit of Jihād
requires that such a man…be prevented from doing so and the
obstacles…be removed, so that mankind may freely be able to
negotiate its own path that leads to Heaven. To omit to do this is a
culpable omission, if only because we…become passive spectators of
the…forces imposing a blockade in the way of those who mean to
keep their faith with God. Then ordinary wars which mankind has
been fighting for…revenge or securing satisfaction of their desire of
getting more land or more booty are not allowed in Islam. This is so
because here the rule is, all striving must be for the sake of
God….The wars in the theory of Islamic law are in the nature of an
undertaking to advance God’s purpose on earth, and invariably they
are defensive in character.
Now comes Brohi’s definition of “defensive”:
It is a duty of a believer to carry forward the Message of God and to
bring it to the notice of his fellow-men in handsome ways. But if
someone attempts to obstruct him from doing so he is entitled, as a
measure of defense, to “retaliate.” In other words, a Muslim has the
right to fight anyone who stops him for spreading Islam and its
message, and that is defined as a defensive measure.15
Thus it is a duty for all Muslims to spread the Message of the Quran, of
Islam, and anyone who stands in the way must be fought in the military
sense, if words do not suffice:
In Islam war is waged to establish supremacy of the Lord only when
every other argument has failed to convince those who reject His Will
and work against the very purpose of the creation of mankind. Indeed,
the person who goes to holy war virtually is offering testimony
regarding the paramountcy and supreme authority of God’s law by
giving up the most precious thing he has, namely, his life….Indeed
the very word “Shahīd” which is roughly taken to mean as a martyr,
literally signifies the idea that he has borne testimony as a witness
that God’s law is supreme and anyone who attempts to obstruct the
 progress of those who are taking their path to God will be dealt with
sternly—for that is the only way in which to restore and rehabilitate
the authority of God on Earth.16
In other words, do not get in the way of the so-called “suicide bomber,” for
he is a martyr in the cause of Islam clearing the path for those who want to
get to God.
Brohi dismisses those Western critics who believe that Islam is in
perpetual struggle with the non-Islamic world by arguing that because man
is a slave to God, and defying God is treason under Islamic law, it is a
Muslim’s duty to remove those who defy God:
Many Western Scholars have pointed their accusing fingers at some
of the…verses in the Qur’an….As to them it is sufficient answer to
make…that the defiance of God’s authority by one who is His slave
exposes that slave to the risk of being held guilty of treason and such
a one, in the perspective of Islamic law, is indeed to be treated as a
sort of…cancerous growth on that organism of humanity….It thus
becomes necessary to remove the cancerous malformation even if it
be by surgical means (if it would not respond to other treatment), in
order to save the rest of Humanity.17
Brigadier Malik makes it clear that jihād is essential for the spread of
Islam, and it is a duty incumbent on all Muslims until Islam covers the
whole surface of the earth. Brohi also underlines another totalitarian aspect
of Islam: Islam demands the total surrender of oneself to the cause of Islam,
the individual sacrifices himself, and is sacrificed, for the sake of the
Islamic community (umma).

1 Ian Talbot, Pakistan, a Modern History (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1998), 251.
2 Sebastian Gorka, “Grandmasters of Jihad,” The Counter Jihad Report, May 16, 2015,
https://counterjihadreport.com/tag/s-k-malik/.
3 Patrick Poole and Mark Hanna, “Publishers Preface” to Brigadier S. K. Malik, The Qur’anic
Concept of War (1992; Delhi: Adam Publishers & Distributors, 2008),
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/Quranic%20Concept%20of%20War.pdf.
4 Ibid.
5 General M. Zia-ul-Haq, “Foreword,” in Malik, Qur’anic Concept of War.
6 Ayesha Jalal, Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2010), 275.
7 Malik, Qur’anic Concept of War, 57–58.
8 Ibid., 58.
9 Ibid., 59.
10 Ibid., 60.
11 Ibid., 20.
12 Ibid., 44.
13 Ibid., 50.
14 Ibid., 144.
15 Allah Bukhsh K. Brohi, “Preface,” in Malik, Qur’anic Concept of War, iii.
16 Ibid., v.
17 Ibid., vii.
17 - Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood
HASAN AL-BANNA was born in 1906 in Mahmudiyya, a village north of
Cairo. His father, a watch repairer, devoted his spare time to religious
studies and fulfilled the duties of an imam for the local mosque. Egypt was
at the time effectively under British control—a constant source of
humiliation for al-Banna and his fellow countrymen. Al-Banna took part in
demonstrations against the British when he was thirteen years old.
According to his memoirs, al-Banna took seriously the Islamic principle
of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong at an early age. For instance,
he denounced some workmen who had sculpted a nude wooden figure for
the prow of a boat to the local police. Later, he, his brother, and some
friends founded the Society for the Prevention of the Forbidden, believing it
their religious duty to write to those they felt were not following Islamic
teachings in their behavior.
By age thirteen al-Banna was also deeply influenced by the Hasafiyya
Brotherhood, a Sufi order and offshoot of the larger Shadhiliyya order
whose founder, Shaykh Hasanayn al-Hasafi (1848/9–1910), was an Azhar
scholar of the Shafi‘i school who took Commanding Right and Forbidding
Wrong seriously. Al-Banna made many friends in this tarīqa (Sufi order)
for example, Ahmad al-Sukkari, who later became a leading figure in the
Society of the Muslim Brotherhood.
At seventeen, al-Banna decided to enter Dar al-‘Ulum, a teacher-training
college in Cairo. For him, teaching was a religious calling; he believed
education was the transmission of the truths of Islam, which was all-
embracing. Al-Banna saw himself as a murshid (religious guide and
teacher) and would later demand total loyalty and obedience from his
followers. After graduating in 1927, he began teaching in Ismā‘īlīyya, in the
Suez Canal Zone, where al-Banna encountered what he felt was Western
dominance and Muslims who had shamelessly adopted Western
civilization’s worst aspects: its secularism and decadence.
He detested the cultural influences of the West over Muslims who were
being tempted into abandoning Muslim ethics and the Islamic way of life.
Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam‘iyyat al-Ikhwān al-
Muslimīn) in 1928, when a group of laborers pleaded with him to do
something about their constant humiliation from foreigners in their own
land.
Al-Banna labored tirelessly to build a tight organization with a broad
base of members who were enjoined to work for the good of the ordinary
Egyptian at all levels, providing schools and medical aid, and ameliorating
social conditions in the villages—in effect establishing a social welfare
program. The political situation was unstable; though nominally
independent since 1922, the real power in Egypt was divided among the
Egyptian monarchy, the nationalist Wafd Party, and the British, with
conflicts of interest that led to constantly shifting alliances. Corruption was
rife. With the advent of World War II and the rise in nationalist agitation,
the British tried desperately to maintain control and ensure that Egypt join
the Allied cause.
It was at this moment that al-Banna began participating in Egyptian
politics at the national level. He wanted to run for public office in 1941, but
he was persuaded by the Wafd Party to step aside, in return for the lifting of
restrictions on the Muslim Brotherhood. All along al-Banna’s main goal had
been more than independence from Britain: the installation of a truly
Islamic government inspired by the Koran, the Sunna, and the Shari‘a. He
obtained a promise from the Wafd Party to ban alcohol and prostitution as a
step in the right direction.
Al-Banna was also unsuccessful in the election of 1945, and henceforth
concentrated on agitating for the introduction of Islam into the private and
public domain. In doing so he did not hesitate to use increasingly violent
means to achieve his goals.
Brotherhood Ideology
At its fifth conference in 1939 the Muslim Brotherhood announced its
basic ideology:
1. Islam as a total system, complete unto itself, and the final arbiter of
life in all its categories;
2. An Islam formulated from and based on its two primary sources,
the Koran as God’s revelation, and His ipsissima verba, and the
perfect example of the Prophet, as found in the sunna;
3. An Islam that was universal: applicable to all times and places, for
the whole of humanity.1
Al-Banna explicitly defined the Muslim Brotherhood as “a Salafiyya
message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a political organization, an athletic
group, a cultural-educational union, an economic company, and a social
idea.”2 The Brotherhood was tightly run: patient planning, organization,
program, and action—this alone could guarantee victory.
When in 1943 he thought he was about to be arrested by for nationalist
agitation that would have led to the harassment of the British occupation,
al-Banna wrote a message to his followers, which reads in part:
My Brothers: you are not a benevolent society, nor a political party,
nor a local organization having limited purposes. Rather, you are a
new soul in the heart of this nation to give it life by means of the
Qur’an; you are a new light which shines to destroy the darkness of
materialism through knowing God; and you are the strong voice
which rises to recall the message of the Prophet….You should feel
yourselves the bearers of the burden which all others have refused.
When asked what it is for which you call, reply that it is Islam, the
message of Muhammad, the religion that contains within it
government, and has one of its obligations freedom.3
In late 1942-early 1943, a new unit developed, called “the special
section” (al-nizam al-khass) by Muslim Brotherhood insiders and “the
secret apparatus” (al-jihaz al-sirri) by outsiders. The Brotherhood was not
averse to using violence to achieve its aims, and was “were more effectively
violent than other groups” since members had been taught that militancy
and martyrdom were Islamic virtues as found in the notion of jihād. As al-
Banna wrote,
Jihād is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be
ignored nor evaded. Allah has ascribed great importance to jihād and
has made the reward of the martyrs and the fighters in His way a
splendid one. Only those who have acted similarly and who have
modelled themselves upon the martyrs in their performance of jihād
can join them in this reward. Furthermore, Allah has specifically
honoured the Mujahideen with certain exceptional qualities, both
spiritual and practical, to benefit them in this world and the next.
Their pure blood is a symbol of victory in this world and the mark of
success and felicity in the world to come.
Those who can only find excuses, however, have been warned of
 extremely dreadful punishments and Allah…has reprimanded them
for their cowardice and lack of spirit, and castigated them for their
weakness and truancy….The weaknesses of abstention and evasion of
jihād are regarded by Allah as…one of the seven sins that guarantee
failure.
Islam is concerned with the question of jihād and the drafting and the
mobilisation of the entire Umma into one body to defend the right
cause with all its strength….The verses of the Qur’an and the Sunnah
of Muhammad (PBUH) are overflowing with all these noble ideals
and they summon people in general (with the most eloquent
expression and the clearest exposition) to jihād, to warfare, to the
armed forces, and all means of land and sea fighting.4
Al-Banna goes onto quote verses from the Koran exhorting Muslims to
jihād,5 and hadīth from the six canonical collections of of Sunni Islam,
followed by scholars from the various law schools.
Al-Banna rules out the pacific interpretation of jihād as an internal
struggle against one’s lower instincts. For him, that particular hadīth is
inauthentic, not in the canonical collection, but “even if it were a sound
tradition, it would never warrant abandoning jihād or preparing for it in
order to rescue the territories of the Muslims and repel the attacks of the
disbelievers.”6
While emphasizing the principle of Commading Right and Forbidding
Wrong, he states, “It is said in the hadīth: ‘One of the greatest forms of
jihād is to utter a word of truth in the presence of a tyrannical ruler.’ But
nothing compares to the honour of shahadah kubra (the supreme
martyrdom) or the reward that is waiting for the Mujahideen.”7 Muslims
should therefore seek an honorable death:
My brothers! The ummah that knows how to die a noble and
honourable death is granted an exalted life in this world and eternal
felicity in the next. Degradation and dishonour are the results of the
love of this world and the fear of death. Therefore prepare for jihād
and be the lovers of death.…
…[O]ne day you will face death and this ominous event can only
occur once. If you suffer on this occasion in the way of Allah, it will
be to your benefit in this world and your reward in the next. And
 remember brother that nothing can happen without the Will of
Allah….
You should yearn for an honourable death and you will gain perfect
happiness. May Allah grant myself and yours the honour of
martyrdom in His way!8
Violence Necessary
The Muslim Brotherhood came to believe that only in the period of the
four orthodox caliphs (al-khulafā’ ar-Rāshidūn) was the state “truly
representative of Islam as a faith and a system”; thereafter the Islamic
community began its decline and disintegration.9 Al-Banna was totally
disillusioned with al-Azhar, which the Brothers later took to task for failing
to speak for a dynamic Islam and keep foreign influences at bay, and
ultimately held responsible for the decline in Egypt’s religious and cultural
life.10 Their ultimate goal was the creation of an Islamic order: a state run
according to the Shari‘a, derived from the Koran, the Sunna, and hadīth.
There was no danger of theocratic tyranny, the Brothers argued, since there
is no religious class in Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood held that women are equal to men in the eyes
of Islam, and any discrimination that exists (in inheritance, legal hearings,
prayer) is a function of the greater responsibility of men, and due to the
differences in mental and emotional capacities of men and women.
Violence was necessary to operations. It was seen as a way to defend the
Brotherhood’s ideas, derived, as discussed, from the Islamic concept of
jihād in the military sense. The Brothers were “an Islamic army for the
protection of the message,” the late Richard P. Mitchell explains in his
classic work, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (1969).11 Though there
were political elements in their acts of violence, the religious dimension,
Mitchel believed, had a wider significance: “[O]ut of the fact of power in
being, and in use in defence of ‘eternal’ goals, emerged a self-righteous and
intolerant arrogance which opened an unbridgeable gap between the Society
and its fellow citizens.”12
Al-Banna and the Brothers created a sense of group and religious
exclusiveness in which political opponents became the objects of violence.
Though al-Banna was perhaps more moderate on the issue of commanding
right and forbidding wrong, the Brothers generally took a more aggressive
line. While this brutality was not unique to the Brothers, their apporach
contained an Islamic dimension that led to all kinds of political and social
violence and further intolerance.13 For example, the Brotherhood was
responsible for the assassination of Prime Minister Ahmad Mahar in
February 1945 just after he had read Egypt’s declaration of war on the Axis
(the Brotherhood was pro-Nazi; al-Banna received regular subsidies from
Hitler). Government minister Amin Uthman was murdered in January 1946,
British soldiers were attacked regularly from 1946 onward, and in March
1948, “a respected judge was murdered by two members of the secret
apparatus”:
Two more attempts were made on sometime Prime Minister Nahhas
Pasha [1879–1965]. In June, houses were blown up in the Jewish
quarter of Cairo, two large Jewish-owned department store were
bombed. Cinemas were dynamited, and hotels and restaurants
catering to the “infidels and the heretics” were set on fire. Women
wearing “inadequate dress” were the victims of knife attacks, and
homes said to belong to apostates were raided and ransacked by angry
believers gathering for “spontaneous demonstrations.” In December,
widespread riots brought the university to a stop. The Cairo police
chief was killed by a bomb. Dozens of of other officials,
businessmen, and intellectuals were likewise killed. Prime Minister
Nuqrashi Pasha [1888–1948, the second prime minister of Egypt]
finally ordered the society dissolved—he was gunned down twenty
days later. As al-Banna had said, “The dagger, poison, the
revolver….These are the weapons of Islam against its enemies.”14
On January 25, 1952, British forces attempted to disarm some of the
auxiliary police by attacking the Ismā‘īlīyya police headquarters; more than
forty people were killed in the ensuing battle. Mitchell describes the
following day:
[T]he heart of modern and westernized Cairo was left a charred ruin
in the wake of the most devastating riot in modern Egyptian history.
In the early morning members of the auxiliary police in Cairo
marched across the bridges to the university in Giza and with students
and soldiers collected along the way, returned to the parliament where
demands were voiced for an immediate declaration of war on Britain.
 At the same time other groups, well-organized and well-equipped,
began the systematic burning of the centre of the city. The fire
consumed department stores, cinemas, bars, nightclubs, social clubs,
luxury food and clothing establishments, novelty shops, automobile
showrooms and garages, airline offices, and the like.15
This was actually a well-planned operation organized by the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood and the Totalitarian Core of Islam
The Egyptian government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of being
Khawarij—the Khārijite movement was often evoked as a model. In al-
Mabāhith (May 1950–January 1951), a weekly news magazine edited by
Muslim Brotherhood acting head Salih ‘Ashmawi, he actually praised the
“rectitude” of the Khārijites and their spirit of “struggle in the path of
God.”16 And “in that sweep of developments in the Arab world beginning
with movement of the Wahhābiyya in the late eighteenth century,” Mitchell
observes, “the Society of the Brothers emerges as the first mass-supported
and organized, esentially urban-oriented effort to cope with the plight of
Islam in the modern world. This fact complicates the attempt to trace its
geneology, but does not osbscure the general harmony of its aims with those
of earlier reform movements.”17
And while they admired earlier reformers such as Jamal al-Din al-
Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), and Rashid Rida (d.
1935), the Brothers felt that their reforms were inadequate because they
failed to see Islam in the totality.18 While al-Banna’s father had been a
student of Abduh, and he himself an avid reader of Rida’s al-Manar, he
remained critical of these reformers, who he felt lacked the Brothers’
comprehensive view:
We believe the provisions of Islam and its teachings are all inclusive,
encompassing the affairs of the people in this world and the hearafter.
And those who think that these teachings are concerned only with the
spiritual or ritualistic aspects are mistaken in this belief because Islam
is a faith and a ritual, a nation (watan) and a nationality, a religion and
a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword….The Glorious Qur’an…
considers [these things] to be the core of Islam and its essence.19
To preserve a vital Islamic tradition the Brothers urged all Muslims to
relate to their own heritage, but al-Banna bequeathed the Brotherhood a
rigidity and puritanism that rendered its followers impatient of all dissent—
or as Mitchell put it, “Profoundly genuine though it was, the call to return to
Islam and its code of behaviour was nevertheless vitiated by a sterility born
of obedience to inherited forms and a self-righteousness born of
sanctimonious claims to omniscience.”20
As discussed, there was a marked preference among the Brothers for
action: “Our message means jihād, struggle and work…it is not a
philosophical message.”21 They talked of “programme” versus “ideology,”
and Mitchell’s harsh judgment on the Brothers’ anti-intellectualism is
important: “[T]his outlook reflected a modern and mass expression of
classical Islamic thought patterns. Al-Banna was steeped in both the
theological and Sufi traditions, and from both he absorbed, and in his
teachings demonstrated, the non-rationalist, even non-intellectaulist quality
which has been observed to be an aspect of Muslim thought.” Significantly,
“neither Banna nor the movement produced any work remotely identifiable
as theology or philosophy.”22
In his unjustly neglected The Politics of Social Change in the Middle
East and North Africa (1963), the late Princeton professor of politics
Manfred Halpern does not hesitate to name the Muslim Brotherhood,
Mawdūdī’s Jama’at –i-Islam, and the Khaksar Movement responsible for
the assassination of Pakistani Liaqat Ali Khan in 1951, or to label several
others groups in the Islamic world as neo-Islamic totalitarian and fascist.23
The totalitarian nature of such groups and movements becomes clear when
contrasted with extreme nationalism, because the latter limits itself
geographically, while the neo-Islamic variety has universal ambitions where
Islam is the defining element.
For Sa’id Ramadan, who was the son-in-law of al-Banna and a leader of
the Muslim Brotherhood, nations have became idols—“[M]y religion is
dearer to me than my family and clan. My religion is the first country that I
take shelter in”24—therefore all nations that were once Muslim must return
to Islamic sovereignty. According to The Call of the Moslem Brotherhood:
the Moslem faith makes it the clear duty of every strong Moslem
whose soul has drenched in the doctrines of the Koran to consider
himself the protector of every other Moslem whose soul has also been
drenched in …in Islam. The doctrine is everything. And is faith
 anything other than love and hate? Hereafter, we want the banner of
Allah to fly high once more in those regions which were once happy
in Islam….But ill luck deprived them of the light….Anadalusia,
Sicily, the Balkans, the Greek Islands—all these are Moslem colonies
which must come back into the Moslem fold. The Mediterranean and
the Red Sea must be two Muslim lakes, as they were before….
Following that, we would want to issue our call to the world, and
subdue every powerful man to it completely, that there may be no
confusion, and that all religions may be Allah’s.25
The neo-Islamic totalitarian movements are fascist, Halpern explains,
because “they concentrate on mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the
power of their charismatic leader and the solidarity of the movement. They
view material progress primarily as a means for accumulating strength for
political expansion, and entirely deny individual and social freedom.” And
while they “champion…a heroic past,” these movements “repress all free
critical analysis of either past roots or present problems.”26
Referring to the work of the late British historian Norman Cohn,27
Halpern was the first to point out the similarities between these Middle
Eastern fascist movements and certain religiopolitical movements in
Western Europe at the beginning of the Modern Age, when groups adopted
a militant social chiliasm (the doctrine that at some future time Christ will
reign bodily upon the earth for 1000 years).28 This was a theme taken up
more recently by the French neoconservative Laurent Murawiec.29
Neo-totalitarian movements urge the individual to merge his destiny with
the group struggling to resurrect the past. The movement then becomes the
whole life of its members. Unable to cope with modernity, neo-Islamic
totalitarianism pursues its vision “through nihilistic terror, cunning, and
passion.”30 The leadership demands absolute obedience, and as members
lose their individuality they identify with the leader, “whose power,
emotion, and style of living pantomime the yearning of his followers,”
thereby stimulating “an intoxicating sense of nihilism in which the
willingess to sacrifice one’s self becomes more important than the object for
which the sacrifice is made. Those who are sent to death as robots have the
illusion of dying as martyrs.”31 At meetings, religious slogans are chanted
over and over:
 God is our goal!
The Prophet is our leader!
The Koran is our constitution!
Holy War is our path!
Death in God’s service is our loftiest hope!
God is greatest, God is greatest!
Dangerous in their exclusivism, intolerance, and sacrifice of the individual,
unable to answer difficult questions or brook opposition, these neo-Islamic
totalitarian movements can only resort to violence.

1 “Al-Mu’tamar al-Khāmis,” quoted in Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers (1969;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 14.
2 Ibid.
3 Quoted in Mitchell, Society of Muslim Brothers, 30.
4 Complete Works of Hasan al-Banna, vol. 10, “al-Jihad.,” 4.
5 Verses cited: suras 2:216; 3:156–58, 169–70; 4:74; 8:60, 65; 9:14–15, 29, 41, 81–83, 88–89, 111;
47:20–21; 48:18–19; 61: 4.
6 Complete Works of Hasan al-Banna, vol. 10, “al-Jihad.,” 20.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Mitchell, Society of Muslim Brothers, 210.
10 Ibid., 212.
11 Ibid., 319.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 320.
14 Murawiec, Mind of Jihad, 34–35.
15 Mitchell, Society of Muslim Brothers, 92.
16 Ibid., 320n63.
17 Ibid., 321.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 232-23.
20 Ibid., 325.
21 Ibid., 326.
22 Ibid., 326-27.
23 Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 134, 135.
24 Ibid., 135.
25 The Call of the Moslem Brotherhood, Cairo, October 1938; quoted in Halpern, Politics of Social
Change, 147–48.
26 Halpern, Politics of Social Change, 135–36.
27 Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical
Anarchists of the Middle Ages (London: Secker & Warburg, 1957).
28 Halpern, Politics of Social Change, 136.
29 Murawiec, Mind of Jihad.
30 Halpern, Politics of Social Change, 140.
31 Ibid., 142.
18 - Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husaini and the Nazis
IN NAZIS, ISLAMISTS, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (2014),
Barry Rubin and Wolfgang Schwanitz cogently argue that the Grand Mufti
Haj Amin al-Husaini (also “el-Husseini,” 1895–1974) was an important
figure in the founding of modern Arab and Islamist politics who “played a
central role in the Islamist movement’s survival during the 1950s and
1960s,” making it possible for “the movement’s revival in the 1970s to gain
hegemony in Iran, Turkey, and much of the Arabic-speaking world and Iran
by the early twenty-first century.”1 This alone warrants al-Husaini’s
inclusion in this study, but his collaboration with the Nazis, which has been
misinterpreted by some recent scholars such as Matthias Küntzel,2 must
also be taken into consideration.
Historians like Küntzel claim that modern Islamic antisemitism was
derived entirely from the Nazis. But as Rubin and Schwanitz repeatedly
emphasize, al-Husaini and later Islamists such as al-Banna, Sayyd Qutb,
and the Ayatollah Khomeini all drew on their own backgrounds, traditions,
and doctrines to spread their antisemitism. Al-Husaini advocated
genocide even before the Nazi government did so. His 1937 Appeal
to All Muslims of the World urged them to cleanse their lands of the
Jews, and it was translated into German in 1938. Urging the use of
force against all Jews in the Middle East, al-Husaini both gave his
parallel version of Hitler’s doctrine and laid the foundation for the
antisemitic arguments used by radical Arab nationalists and Islamist
down to this day. A half-century later, every speech and sermon from
Hamas, Hizballah, Iran’s regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al-
Qaeda echoed all of the grand mufti’s main points in his declaration.3
In his analysis, Rubin and Schwanitz explain, al-Husaini “combined
traditional Islamic hatred of Jews with arguments framed by modern
political concepts.”4 He quoted constantly from the Koran, Sira, and hadīth
to lay out his claims: Jews are cursed and evil; they were expelled from
Egypt because they exploited the Egyptian people; (citing al-Tabarī) they
tried to kill Moses; they were punished by God for their sins; they spread
disease; they hated, tried to discredit, and, finally, tried to poison
Muhammad; they are out to destroy Islam. The Grand Mufti’s diatribe ends
thus:
I present to my Muslim brothers in the entire world the history and
the true experience which the Jews cannot deny. The verses from the
Koran and hadith prove that the Jews have been the bitterest enemies
of Islam and continue to try to destroy it. Do not believe them. They
know only hypocrisy and guile. Hold together, fight for Islamic
thought, fight for your religion and your existence! Do not rest until
your land is free of the Jews. Do not tolerate the plan of division, for
Palestine has been an Arab land for centuries and shall remain Arab.5
Rubin and Schwanitz conclude: “It is wrong to see al-Husaini and his
fellow radicals as merely importing European antisemitism or being
influenced by the Nazis. The two groups’ ideas developed in parallel from
their own histories and political cultures….The two sides came together on
the basis of both common interests and similar worldviews.”6
In an October 1944 speech to the imams of the Bosnian SS Division
fighting for the Nazis, al-Husaini stated: “Nearly one-third of the Koran
concerns the Jews. The Koran calls upon all Muslims to protect themselves
against the Jews and to fight them wherever they may meet.”7
Al-Husaini, Islam, and Violence
On the whole, al-Husaini’s role as the father of modern, violent Arab
radical movements has been overlooked because he allied himself with the
Nazis and the losing side in World War II, and was implicated in the
humiliating defeat of the Arabs by the Israelis in 1948. He was too closely
identified with the Palestinian cause, when he was actually the leader of the
international radical Arab forces, both Islamist and nationalist. When the
nationalists gained power, al-Husaini’s earlier part in keeping the two
factions together was again forgotten. And, as noted above, al-Husaini was
responsible for fundamentalism Islam’s survival in the 1950s and 1960s and
its 1970s revival.8
Muslims from many Muslim countries recognized al-Husaini’s
leadership and came to pay their respects in Jerusalem, his personal base.
He was in close contact with the Muslim Brotherhood through Muhammad
Mustafa al-Maraghi. In 1931, al-Husaini organized the General Islamic
Congress in Jerusalem, which resulted in the formation of the Islamic World
Congress and his election as president. Several international branches
contributed funds to the head office in Jerusalem.
At first, al-Husaini concentrated in building a strong united state that
would be nationalist and Islamist, and playing both cards, garnered mass
support from a religiously oriented public that was not ready to accept
secular nationalism. He also persuaded the Nazis that he was leader of the
world’s Muslims and Arabs. Al-Husaini’s and the radical faction’s most
significant tactic at this stage “was to make militancy the test for legitimacy.
The most extreme stance became the legitimate mainstream one; anything
more moderate was portrayed as treason to Islam and the Arab people.
Using this standard, al-Husaini and his allies could blackmail and intimidate
Arab governments, threatening to discredit or even assassinate anyone who
wanted to compromise with the West or to oppose their goals.”9
Al-Husaini was also able to impose his will on how the Palestinian cause
would be handled. He and his allies were now in a position to influence and
galvanize the masses through sermons at mosques, rousing speeches,
“intimidating mobs, and demonstrations.”10 Al-Husaini also demonized the
British and Americans, presenting them as enemies of Islam and
simultaneously convincing his followers that Germany would soon rule the
world. The result was an alliance of Palestinian Arabs, Syrian and Iraqi
nationalists, and Egyptian Islamists with Hitler’s regime.
Whereas the earlier German-Ottoman bond “had been built on defending
the status quo in the Ottoman Empire while destroying their rivals’
colonies, [t]he new Nazi-Arab nationalist and Islamist alliance…sought
revolutionary political and social change everywhere in the Middle East.”11
The radicals, with their intransigence and violence, were obviously at odds
with the moderate politicians and leaders who doubted that a hardline
approach could succeed, but al-Husaini believed he could win because
Allah was on the side of the Muslims. This indicates how al-Husaini’s
influential tactics would determine the future of the Middle East: “The basic
approach of al-Husaini and his comrades continued through the careers of
such leaders as Abd an-Nasir, Arafat, the al-Assad family, al-Qaddafi,
Saddam Hussein, and bin Ladin, as well as with Iranian Islamists like
Khomeini and Mahmud Ahmadinejad.”12
Al-Husaini laid down the halt to the exodus of Jews from Germany as a
condition for his support for Hitler, and bargained in the same way with the
Allies—any migration from Germany would mean the migration to
Palestine. The British had to close all migration of Jews to Palestine as well
in order to keep the ambiguous support of the Grand Mufti and the Arabs.
Al-Husaini, thus, can be justly held accountable for his role in the
Holocaust.
Nazi Germany launched a well-organized campaign in the Middle East,
urging the elite in the respective countries to embrace pro-Nazi, antisemitic
sentiments. “In Beirut and Baghdad, Cairo and Jerusalem, Kabul and
Tehran, Tripoli and Tunis, local Nazi Party branches coordinated military
and SS intelligence, businessmen, and academics to spread the influence of
Hitler’s regime. There were also Nazi Party branches in Alexandria and
Port Said; Haifa and Jaffa; and Adana, Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir.”13 It
was Nazi policy to subsidize and use ideologically compatible Islamist and
nationalist groups such the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt
Party, al-Husaini’s forces in Palestine, and various other groups in Iraq and
Syria.
In Iran one of the students to benefi from German training was Nawab
Safavi, who later became the main radical Islamist leader and al-Husaini’s
closest ally. But it was in Iraq that Germany held the greatest influence,
since the Iraqi nationalists were hoping for help to develop their economy.
Acting for the Abwehr, German military intelligence, al-Banna received
about one thousand Egyptian pounds a month from 1939, and perhaps
earlier, from the German News Bureau in Cairo.14
In June 1940, when the war seemed to be going Germany’s way, al-
Husaini wrote to Franz von Papen, the German ambassador to Turkey,
offering him his support. Unlike the nationalists, al-Husaini dreamed of an
Islamic caliphate with himself as the caliph ruling over the Islamic umma.
His short-term goal was the creation of a fully independent state comprising
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq, which he would lead. Having
already created a popular network throughout the Arabic-speaking world
and Muslim countries further East, al-Husaini had managed to unite, for the
moment, the nationalists and Islamists.15
By March 1941 Hitler accepted al-Husaini as the de facto leader of the
Muslims of the entire Middle East, and accordingly gave his total support to
the Grand Mufti, praising the Arabs as an ancient civilization. The Germans
gave al-Husaini a hundred thousand reichsmarks,16 with twenty thousand
more every month paid equally by Germany and Italy.17
Pro-German forces were now on the rise in the Middle East. Ba’th, a
Pan-Arab nationalist party closely based on the fascist model, had been
founded in November 1940, Alfred Rosenberg’s antisemitic 1930 work on
racial theory, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des 20.
Jahrhunderts), having influenced the party’s founders.
As Rubin and Schwanitz point out, for both Hitler and al-Husaini the
Jews were the arch-villains responsible for the sorry state of their respective
countries and civilizations:
For Islamists, hostility to Jews and other infidels was rooted in their
reading of Muslim texts but they identified the modern turning point
[in their recent decline] as the 1924 decision to abolish the caliphate.
Ignoring the fact that this system had not functioned for centuries, al-
Husaini argued that to dissolve Islam’s unique global bond was
suicidal, especially given its clash with Anglo-American democracies
and their “Jewish advocates.”….
…So while Hitler and the Nazis blamed the Jews for the fate of
Germans and “Aryans” generally, al-Husaini and the radical
nationalists and Islamists did the same thing regarding the fate of
Arabs and Muslims. They did not need the Nazis to teach them this
idea. They had already invented stories using elements from their own
religious, cultural, and historical traditions.18
Al-Husaini asked Hitler’s help in destroying the Jews in Palestine, and
beseeched him to stop Jews from leaving Germany. Hitler had allowed
537,000 Jews to leave Germany between 1933 and 1941, but with al-
Husaini’s antisemitic rhetoric and his insistence on eliminating Jews “fresh
in his ears,” Hitler made the decision to prepare the “final solution of the
Jewish question.”19
A True Radical Muslim Hero
After the war, al-Husaini escaped prosecution as a war criminal because
Western powers calculated that such prosecution would harm their
geopolitical standing in the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood, and the
rest of the Muslim world, considered al-Husaini a true Muslim hero because
of his past radicalism. Al-Banna wrote:
 Great welcome should be extended to him wherever he goes, as a sign
of appreciation for his great services for the glory of Islam and the
Arabs.…What a hero, what a miracle of a man. We wish to know
what the Arab youth, cabinet ministers, rich men, and princes of
Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli are going to do to
be worthy of this hero. Yes, this hero who challenged an empire and
fought Zionism, with the help of Hitler and Germany. Germany and
Hitler are gone, but Amin al-Husaini will continue the struggle.20
After returning to Egypt, al-Husaini continued his struggles in the name
of Islam with Arabs who had been Nazi collaborators and now served as his
military commanders, men such as al-Qawuqji, Abd al-Qadir al-Husaini,
and Salama. In 1939 the Nazis had sent the Arabs some arms that were
hidden in the Egyptian desert. These were recovered by al-Husaini with the
help of the Muslim Brotherhood, and used to drill the Holy Jihad Troops
(al-Jihad al-Muqaddas), organized by Abd al-Qadir, who had fought in Iraq
as a pro-Nazi, in a secret training camp near the Libyan border.
Al-Qadir was killed leading al-Husaini’s main army in the Palestine War
in 1948, but al-Husaini continued to intimidate Arab leaders to accept his
uncompromising position: “Like al-Husaini and his own movement, most
of the other forces pushing for intransigence and war over the Palestine
issue also came from the same radical Arab and Islamist faction that had
cooperated with the Nazis: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria as
well as militant nationalists and Islamists in Syria and Iraq.”21
After the Arab’s disastrous defeat by newly-created Israel in 1948, al-
Husaini devoted the next twenty-five years to promoting radical Islamism
in order to take revenge not only on the West and Israel, but also the Arab
nationalists. He kept the movement alive, though savagely repressed by its
former radical nationalist partners, looking to create a worldwide radical
Islamist movement—a goal that today no longer seems impossible. Al-
Husaini began by founding the League of Jihad Call in Cairo in 1951,
which reestablished his ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and the fascist
Young Egypt Party.
Consolidating Efforts
Al-Husaini was undoubtedly behind the assassinations of moderate
leaders from Jordan and Lebanon who wanted to establish some sort of
peace with Israel. He also helped former German Nazis, some of whom he
managed to convert to Islam, to obtain new identities and jobs in the Middle
East. (It is forgotten that nearly four thousand Germans involved in war
crimes escaped to the Middle East, finding welcome and work. The number
of German war criminals who escaped to South America was considerably
smaller: between 180 and 800.)
Al-Husaini maintained his contacts in Pakistan, where he organized
annual meetings of his Islamic World Congress from 1949 to 1952. In Iran
he consolidated his standing with Islamists such as Nawab Safavi, the ex-
Nazi agent. At the 1953 Islamic World Congress in east Jerusalem, al-
Husaini met and encouraged the Iranians Abd al-Qasim al-Khasani, the
leading Islamic cleric, and Safavi, the leader of the radical Islamist group,
Fidaiyyun al-Islam. He reestablished his friendship with the Egyptian Said
Ramadan, who worked with al-Husaini and the Muslim Brotherhood. Also
present was Sayyid Qutb, the Brotherhood’s leading ideologue who would
become the godfather of modern Islamist ideology.
Despite a short-term decline of the Islamist groups due to Safavi’s
execution, Kashani’s withdrawal from politics, and Qutb’s eventual
imprisonment and execution, it was clear that al-Husaini had planted the
seeds of revolution and violence, for “one of al-Kashani’s disciples was
Khoemini; Safavi’s example inspired revolutionary terrorist Islamist groups
in Iran…. The Muslim Brotherhood, its many even more radical spin-offs,
and indeed all the revolutionary Islamist groups of the late twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries owe a big debt to al-Husaini’s and Qutb’s
innovative thinking.”22
Just as the Muslim Brotherhood was about to takeover in Egypt in 2011,
Tariq Ramadan, the highly regarded Islamist intellectual living and teaching
in the West, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that the Muslim
Brotherhood and its leader, his grandfather, had never been Nazi
collaborators. He even insisted that the Brotherhood was an antifascist
organization that had wished to emulate “the British parliamentary model”
during the 1930s and 1940s. But Rubin and Schwanitz have carefully
demonstrated otherwise:
[T]he Brotherhood was clearly well financed and armed by the Nazis
before and during the World War II. Collaborating with the Germans
 and al-Husaini, it planned an uprising to support the German army’s
conquest of Egypt as well as to kill Cairo’s Jews and Christians. The
only reason this plot failed was that the British stopped the German
advance and forced King Faruq to replace pro-German politicians in
the government. One aspect of the Brotherhood’s campaign to portray
itself as moderate in the early twenty-first century was to rewrite its
history.23
The cooperation of Said Ramadan, who, it has been mentioned was
Hasan al-Banna’s son-in-law and Tariq Ramadan’s father, with al-Husaini
was noted by the CIA in 1953. Ramadan acted as al-Husaini’s agent,
running messages to Iran’s al-Kashani. Later, Al-Husaini “selected Said
Ramadan as his successor to lead the European-based Islamist
movement.”24 He was al-Husaini’s protégé, and would eventually inherit
the ex-grand mufti’s “Islamist network, financial base, and institutional
assets in Switzerland and elsewhere.”25 Al-Husaini made him a member of
the secretariat of the World Muslim Congress, and two years later its
secretary general. Ramadan moved to Syria, where he continued working
for al-Husaini and the Brotherhood. Al-Husaini helped finance his
magazine, al-Muslimin, a vehicle for the ideas of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood.
When the Arab nationalist regimes began repressing the Islamists, the
latter retreated to Europe, where they began a relentless campaign of
Islamic propaganda, building mosques, founding Islamic institutes, and
taking control of Muslim associations and journals. Said Ramadan’s
decades of activity and energy saw to it that by the year 2000 many Islamic
communities were led by Brotherhood members. Ramadan’s primary
concern was to keep control of the Munich mosque built by Syrian-born Ali
Ghalib Himmat and an Uzbek, Nur ad-Din Namanjani. When Himmat took
over in 1973, Ramadan was able to found the Islamic Center in Geneva
with funds from Saudi Arabia. A similar center appeared in London, but the
Munich center remained the most important to Islamism and the
Brotherhood in West Germany.26
The ideological parallels between the Nazis and the Muslim
Brotherhood, and in fact all Islamist movements, are striking, and
compounded by the Brotherhood’s collaboration with the Nazis. A
comparison of statements and declarations by key Islamist ideologues
reveals their resemblence to one another, and to those of al-Husaini. For
example, Sayyid Qutb wrote:
The Jews did indeed return to evil-doing, so Allah gave to the
Muslims power over them. The Muslims then expelled them from the
whole of the Arabian Peninsula….Then the Jews again returned to
evil-doing and consequently Allah sent against them others of his
servants, until the modern period. Then Allah brought Hitler to rule
over them. And once again today the Jews have returned to evil-
doing, in the form of “Israel” which made the Arabs, the owners of
the land, taste of sorrows and woe.27
For many Islamists, the Holocaust enjoyed divine sanction.

1 Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle
East (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 87.
2 Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (New York:
Telos Press Publishing, 2009).
3 Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, 94–95.
4 Ibid., 95.
5 Andrew G. Bostom, The Mufti’s Islamic Jew-Hatred: What Nazis Learned from the ‘Muslin Pope’
(Washington, DC: Barvura Books, 2013), 25–33.
6 Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, 95.
7 Quoted in Bostom, Mufti’s Islamic Jew-Hatred, 19.
8 Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, 87.
9 Ibid., 89.
10 Ibid., 90.
11 Ibid., 91.
12 Ibid., 92.
13 Ibid., 110.
14 Ibid., 118.
15 Ibid., 119.
16 In 1930s, one reichsmark was worth $4.20, so 100,000 reichsmarks would have been worth
$420,000.00.
17 Ibid., 127.
18 Ibid., 158, 159.
19 Ibid., 162.
20 Quoted in ibid., 199.
21 Ibid., 201.
22 Ibid., 206.
23 Ibid., 234.
24 Ibid., 233.
25 Ibid., 248.
26 Ibid., 249.
27 Ronald L. Nettler, Past Trials and Present Tribulations: A Muslim Fundamentalist’s View of the
Jews (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), 86–87; quoted in Rubin and Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, 251.
19 - Sayyid Qutb
SAYYID QUTB (1906–1966) was a prominent thinker who is seen as the
primary influence on many contemporary Islamic terrorists. He wrote
extensively on what he believed was the cause of the present malaise in
Islamic societies, and offered a reasoned solution to restore the glory of
Islam. He had contempt for the West and it “decadent” values, and hated
democracy, which he regarded as a tyranny of man-made laws.
Qutb was born in Middle Egypt in 1906, went to local schools, and got
involved in his father’s anti-British Egyptian nationalist political activities
at a young age. His family moved to Cairo, where he went to a teacher’s
college and eventually obtained a B.A. in education. Qutb worked for the
Ministry of Public Instruction, serving as a ministry inspector between 1940
and 1948. Qutb had developed a love for literature, particularly poetry, and
considered himself a man of letters. He wrote novels and short stories, but
after 1945 Qutb’s writings dwelt more on political matters. In 1948 he was
sent to the United States to study the American system of education, and
earned an M.A. in education from the Teachers College at the University of
Northern Colorado. He also spent time in New York, San Francisco, and
other cities.
Qutb wrote about his stay in Greeley, Colorado, by all accounts, “a very
conservative town, where alcohol was illegal,” according to Robert Seigel,
senior host of NPR’s All Things Considered. “It was a planned community,
founded by Utopian idealists looking to make a garden out of the dry plains
north of Denver using irrigation. The founding fathers of Greeley were by
all reports temperate, religious and peaceful people.”1
At a gentle church dance, Qutb was appalled by what he saw as sexual
promiscuity and the mingling of the sexes, which disgusted his reawakened
Islamic sensibilities:
The American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive
capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and
thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full
buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs—and she shows all this
and does not hide it.2
The whole scene’s immorality was compounded by the pastor of the church
dimming the lights!
 Qutb also complains of the racism he encountered, and yet he is able to
write racist diatribes against “jazz” such as the following: “This is that
music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as
well as their desire to be noisy on the one hand and to excite bestial
tendencies on the other.”3
Qutb is often said to have a profound knowledge of history, and yet he
mangles American history. “He informed his Arab readers that it began
with bloody wars against the Indians, which he claimed were still underway
in 1949,” Siegel reports, and wrote that before independence, American
colonists pushed Latinos south toward Central America—even though the
American colonists themselves had not yet pushed west of the Mississippi...
Then came the Revolution, which he called ‘a destructive war led by
George Washington.’”4
On his return to Egypt in 1951, Qutb began frequenting the meetings of
the Muslim Brotherhood, which he joined.5 He and many other members
opposed the ongoing presence of the British in Egypt, and thus at first were
enthusiastic about the 1952 coup that brought Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser to
power and put an end to colonialism. But Nasser was essentially secular; he
certainly did not envisage an Islamic state for Egypt. In fact, he began
arresting the leaders of the Brothers, and Qutb was imprisoned and tortured
several times, suffering three heart attacks as a result.
In 1964, Qutb was arrested for the third and last time, just after the
publication of his book, Ma ‘alim fi’l-tariq (Signposts Along the Road).
Accused of participating in a conspiracy against government, his book was
used as evidence against him. Qutb was sentenced to death in 1966 and
hanged soon after the verdict.
Core Ideas
Like all Salafists, Qutb believed that the Koran, the Sunna, and the
society established by the Prophet and the Companions in seventh-century
Arabia provided adequate guidance on how to bring about an Islamic polity.
Religion and politics were inexorably connected. The ideal Islamic society
and political system, as seen in the days of the Prophet, were based on the
Koran, which was the ipsissima verba of God. “What an amazing
phenomenon in the history of mankind, Qutb wrote, “a nation emerging
from the text of a Book, living by it, and depending on its guidance as the
prime mover!”6
The “later generations drifted away from the Koran,” he continued, so
that “today we see mankind in a miserable condition.” Qutb’s ambitious
project to bring mankind back to Islam is based on three concepts, which
are presented and explained by University of Arizona sociologiy professor
Albert J. Bergesen, in “Sayyid Qutb in Historical Context”:
First, there are the divine revelations of the Koran, and the Islamic
concept of life that they specify and imply. Second, there are socio-
political obstacles in the form of existing socio-political systems,
from race and economic relations to the power of the modern state.
All of this he characterizes as jahiliyya (ignorance of God). This
existing state of the world actively opposes God’s will. Third, given
that such jahili societies actively resist the implementation of the
word of God, there must be an equivalent power, in the form of an
Islamic social movement, to remove these socio-political obstacles,
thereby liberating mankind to realize the way of life God has
designed. In short, there is (1) goal to be realized, (2) obstacles to be
overcome, and (3) a means to overcome these obstacles and realize
that goal.7
For Qutb, the effort to return mankind to Islam begins with the
understanding that sovereignty over people is the major attribute of divinity.
Thus, when man rules over man, as in a democracy or kingship, man is
usurping God’s role: “If only God is to exercise sovereignty over people,
then when humans claim sovereignty over each other this implicitly takes
people away from God. This, of course is the mirror opposite of the
Western separation of the religious and the political: leave to Caesar what is
Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. But in Qutbian Islam, what is Caesar’s
is God’s, and to leave it to Caesar is to take it from God.”8
And what God wants for humanity is found in the Koran, and should be
followed. To exercise some level of political authority is to exercise
sovereignty, and if sovereignty is a core attribute of God, then in accordance
with tawhīd (“the unity or oneness of God”) it cannot, and must not be
divided with others. Therefore, only God is to exercise sovereignty through
His laws as found in the Koran. We cannot follow the laws of the state—
that would mean that the state is usurping the prerogative of God. Qutb
wrote:
This religion is really a universal declaration of the freedom of man
from servitude to other men and from servitude to his own desires,
which is also a form of human servitude; it is a declaration that
sovereignty belongs to God alone and that He is the Lord of all the
worlds. It means a challenge to all kinds and forms of systems which
are based on the concept of the sovereignty of man; in other words,
where man has usurped the Divine attribute. Any system in which the
final decisions are referred to human beings, and in which the sources
of all authority are human, deifies human beings by designating
others than God as lords over men.9
This principle stemming from tawhīd leads to practical consequences,
political action. In Qutb’s words, “[T]o proclaim the authority and
sovereignty of God means to eliminate all human kingship and to announce
the rule of sustainer of the universe over the entire earth…. Anyone who
serves someone other than God in this sense is outside God’s religion,
although he may claim to profess this religion.”10
For Qutb, democracy and its separation of religion and politics is a direct
challenge to God. “This means that to bear behavioral witness that ‘there is
no deity but God’ means to take political action, for if there is no deity but
God, there is no sovereignty but God, and to bear witness to that is to avoid
submission to other sovereignties, which means to defy existing secular
political authorities.”11 As Qutb himself wrote:
The nature of the Islamic concept is not to remain hidden in the
human mind. It must be translated immediately into action and
become a concrete reality in the world of events. The believer cannot
be content to have his faith remain concealed in his heart, because he
feels compelled to make his faith an effective force in changing his
own life and the lives of the people around him.12
Thus God’s plan for mankind has been revealed to Muhammad and is in the
Koran. Earlier prophetic revelations to the Jews and Christians have been
fatally compromised and distorted. God expects man to translate his faith
into action. The duty of all Muslims is to guide all humanity back to God. It
is a revolutionary project of universal significance.13
Normally, the Arabic term jāhilīya (also jahiliyya, jahiliyyah) means “a
state of ignorance; pre-Islamic paganism, pre-Islamic times,”14 but Qutb
expands its meaning to signify the condition where one submits to an
authority other than God, creating a “servitude of servants”:
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 marvelous material comforts and high-level inventions do not
diminish this ignorance. This jahiliyyah is based on rebellion against
God’s sovereignty on earth. It transfers to man one of the greatest
attributes of God…and makes some men lords over others. It…
now…takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to
legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life
rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The result
of this rebellion against the authority of God is the oppression of His
creatures.15
In other words, jahiliyyah is the wilful ignoring of God’s guidance,
which leads to a totally different political system, a state of error. Qutb
argues:
There are only two possibilities for the life of a people, no matter in
what time and place they live. These are the state of guidance or the
state of error, whatever form the error may take; the state of truth or
the state of falsehood, whatever may be the varieties of falsehood…
the state of obedience to the Divine guidance or the state of following
whims, no matter what varieties of whim there may be; the state of
Islam or the state of jahiliyyah, without regard to the forms of
jahiliyyah; and the state of belief or the state of unbelief, of whatever
kind. People either live either according to Islam, following it as a
way of life and a socio-political system, or else in the state of
unbelief, jahiliyyah, whim, darkness, falsehood, and error.16
The Solution: Jihād
The first generation of Muslims, Muhammad’s Companions, looked in
the Koran for guidance on how to act, and as Qutb points out, “this Koran
does not open its treasures except to him who accepts it with this spirit…of
knowing with the intention of acting upon it. It did not come to be a book of
intellectual content, or a book of literature, or to be considered as a book of
stories or history, although it has all these facets. It came to become a way
of life, a way dedicated to God.”17
The Islamic movement must confront the jahiliyyah state using the
“methods of preaching and persuasion for reforming ideas and beliefs,” but
Qutb clearly states that it must also use “physical power and jihād for
abolishing the organizations and authorities of the jahili system which
prevents people from reforming their ideas and beliefs but forces them to
obey their erroneous ways and make them serve human lords instead of the
Almighty Lord.”18 Qutb is critical of those putative Muslims
who are a product of the sorry state of the present Muslim generation,
have nothing but the label of Islam and having laid down their
spiritual and rational arms in defeat. They say, “Islam has prescribed
only defensive war”! and think they have done some good for their
religion by depriving it of its method, which is to abolish all injustice
from the earth, to bring people to the worship of God alone, and to
bring them out of servitude to others into the servants of the Lord.
Islam does not force people accept its belief, but it wants to provide
the free environment in which they will have the choice of beliefs.”19
For Qutb, jihād and faith are fundamentally linked, and those “persons who
attempt to defend the concept of Islamic jihād by interpreting it in the
narrow sense of the current concept of defensive wars…lack understanding
of the nature of Islam and its primary aim…to spread the message of Islam
throughout the world.”20
If anything, defensive jihād diminishes the Islamic way of life: “Those
who say that Islamic jihād was merely for the defense of the ‘homeland of
Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life and consider it less
important than their ‘homeland.’”21 Jihād must involve the use of force to
remove all the obstacles to establishing an environment where all can
choose freely. Islamic history is full of jihād in the military sense, and the
early Muslim conquests are examples of successful jihād for the sake of
Islam. Qutb explains:
The reasons for jihād which have been described in (surahs, Q3. ’āl
‘Imrān, the Family of Imran; Q8. al-’anfāl, the Spoils of War /
Voluntary Gifts; Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance / al-Barā’at, the
Immunity) are these: to establish God’s authority in the earth; to
arrange human affairs according to the true guidance provided by
 God; to abolish all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems of life; to
end the lordship of one man over others, since all men are creatures of
God and no one has the authority to make them his servants or to
make arbitrary laws for them. These reasons are sufficient for
proclaiming Jihād.22
Qutb’s view of Islam leads to direct challenge of the established political
order, a challenge that can only end in some form of struggle:
When the purpose is to abolish the existing system and to replace it
with a new system which in its character, principles and all its general
and particular aspects, is different from the controlling jahili system,
then it stands to reason that this new system should also come into the
battlefield as an organized movement…with a determination that its
strategy, its social organization, and the relationship between its
individuals should be firmer and more powerful than the existing
jahili system.23
In Qutb’s world, religion and politics are one. Jihād “is a witnessing of
the faith; it is inherent in the faith; to have the faith is to struggle for its
sociological implementation in an existing jahili world.”24 Jihād exists,
therefore, “not because of any threat of aggression against Islamic lands or
against the Muslims residing in them. The reason for jihād exists in the
nature of its message and in the actual conditions it finds in human societies
and not merely in the necessity for defense, which may be temporary and of
limited extent.”25
In fact, according to Qutb, Islam has the right to initiate jihād since it is
“in the very nature of Islam to take initiative for freeing the human beings
throughout the earth from servitude to anyone other than God,” and “Islam
has a right to remove all those obstacles…so that it may address human
reason and intuition with no interference and opposition from political
systems,” which means that “it is the duty of Islam to annihilate all such
systems…as they are obstacles in the way of freedom.”26
In his commentary on the Koran, Qutb states that “to fight for Islam is to
fight for the implementation of this way of life and its systems. Faith, on the
other hand, is a matter for free personal conviction, after the removal of all
pressures and obstacles.”27 It is a universal struggle: “It is not possible that
Islam will confine itself to geographical boundaries, or racial limits,
abandoning the rest of mankind and leaving them to suffer from evil,
corruption and servitude to lords other than God Almighty.”28 Therefore,
“when we understand the nature of Islam…we realize the inevitability of
jihād, or striving for God’s cause, taking a military form in addition to its
advocacy form.”29

1 Robert Siegel, “Sayyid Qutb’s America: Al Qaeda Inspiration Denounced U.S. Greed, Sexuality”
May 6, 2003, All Things Considered, NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=1253796.
2 Quoted in Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East (New York:
Penguin Press, 2008), 107. Wright is quoting Qutb’s essay, “The America I Have Seen: In the Scale
of Human Values,” 1951, available at
https://archive.org/stream/SayyidQutb/The%20America%20I%20have%20seen_djvu.txt.
3 Quoted in James A. Nolan Jr., What They Saw in America (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2016), 196.
4 Siegel, “Sayyid Qutb’s America.”
5 Albert J. Bergesen, “Sayyid Qutb in Historical Context,” in The Sayyid Qutb Reader: Selected
Writings on Politics, Religion, and Society, ed. Albert J. Bergesen (London: Routledge, 2008), 3.
6 Sayyid Qutb, The Islamic Concept and Its Characteristics (Plainfield, IN: American Trust
Publications, 1991), 2; quoted in Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 14.
7 Ibid.
8 Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 18.
9 Ibid., 37.
10 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Ilm, n.d.), 57–60.
11 Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 19.
12 Qutb, Islamic Concept, 155; quoted in Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 19–20.
13 Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 31.
14 Wehr, Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, s.v. “jāhilīya.”
15 Qutb, Milestones, 10–11.
16 Qutb, Islamic Concept, 78; quoted in Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 22.
17 Qutb, Milestones, 18.
18 Ibid., 55.
19 Ibid., 56.
20 Ibid., 62.
21 Ibid., 71.
22 Ibid., 70.
23 Ibid., 47.
24 Bergesen, Sayyid Qutb Reader, 27.
25 Qutb, Milestones, 71.
26 Ibid., 74-75.
27 Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an, trans. Adil Salahi, sura 8 (Leicester: The Islamic
Foundation, 2003), 7:24.
28 Ibid., 22.
29 Ibid., 12.
20 - Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salām Faraj and The
Neglected Duty
IT IS OFTEN argued that a cause of Islamic terrorism is the Arab-Israel
conflict, and it was assumed that when President of Egypt Anwar Sadat was
assassinated by an Islamic fundamentalist group in October 1981, it was
because of Sadat’s rapprochement with Israel. And yet, as Johannes J.G.
Jansen pointed out in the preface to his translation of The Neglected Duty, a
tract that spelled out that group’s ideology, their statements “hardly
mentioned Israel—and even stated that the war against the Zionist enemies
of Islam ought to be postponed until after a more important question could
be resolved: Egypt must first introduce the Sharia, the detailed Islamic legal
system, as the law of the land…. ‘Reintroduction of application of the
Sharia,’ the assassins believed took precedence over any other duty.’”1
The fifty-five page tract, written in Cairo, probably in 1980, explained
the group’s theology and ideology. It was authored by Muhammad ‘Abd al-
Salām Faraj (executed in 1982), who titled it al-Farīda al-Ghā’iba,
variously translated as “The Absent Precept,” “The Forgotten Obligation,”
or “The Neglected Duty,” The title refers to jihād, which was, in Faraj’s
opinion, a religious duty, regrettably neglected: “The failure to apply the
Sharia had rendered Jihād the sacred individual duty of every Muslim.”2
The Neglected Duty, Jansen states, “contains all ideological material needed
to justify the attacks of 9/11 or any other recent act of terror committed to
frighten non-Muslims.” And he thinks the document explains the criminal
behavior of suburban and center-city immigrant youngsters in many
European cities; its author clearly “sees Islam as a license to kill, rob, and
commit arson.”3
What makes The Neglected Duty particularly interesting is that it was not
written for outsiders. Nor it is an apology or a justification of an
assassination—Sadat is never mentioned. It is an internal memo circulated
among strict Muslims. It does not sugarcoat or omit potentially offensive
matter, but offers readers a glimpse of what the Islamic militants are really
thinking, without euphemism or subterfuge.
As might be expected, the tract’s 143 paragraphs are interlaced with
quotes from the Koran (verses from more than fifteen suras are cited, with
suras 2 and 9 predominating) and the hadīth as reported by Ibn Hanbal,
Muslim, Bukhārī, and many others, as well as references to founders of
schools of Islamic law such as al-Shāfi‘ī, and to Muslim theologians and
scholars such as Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Kathir, and above all Ibn Taymiyya, who
is quoted several times.
After a quote from sura Q57 (al-Hadīd, Iron, 16) exhorting Muslims not
to be like earlier generations, followed by praise of God and Muhammad,
The Neglected Duty denounces innovations: “every novelty is an innovation
(bid‘a) and every innovation is a deviation, and all deviation is in Hell”
(para. 2). Then in paragraph 3 it launches into how jihād has been
neglected:
Jihād (struggle) for God’s cause [jihād fī sabīl Allāh], in spite of its
extreme importance and its great significance for the future of this
religion, has been neglected by the ‘ulamā’ (leading Muslim scholars)
of this age. They have feigned ignorance of it, but they know that it is
the only way to the return and the establishment of the glory of Islam
anew. Every Muslim preferred his own favorite ideas and
philosophies above the Best Road, which God—Praised and Exalted
He is— drew Himself (a road that leads back), to (a state of) Honor
for His Servants.4
Paragraphs 4 and 5 emphasize the power of the sword, which alone can
rid the world of idols, and the importance of tawhīd, God’s unity, quoting a
hadīth from Ibn Hanbal, where Muhammad says: “I have been sent with the
Sword at this Hour, so that God alone is worshipped, without associate to
Him, He put my daily bread under the shadow of my lance, He brings
lowness and smallness to those who disagree with what I command.”
Paragraph 5: “God sent [Muhammad] to call with the sword for
(acknowledgment of) God’s unity.”
The next topic is the establishment of an Islamic state, and the
reintroduction of the caliphate, abolished in 1924. Paragraphs 8 to 13
describe how the glory of Islam is destined to return, while paragraph 14
deals with the despair that many Muslim activists have fallen into,
counseling patience, because God has promised Muslims success.
Paragraph 14 ends with quotes from al-Tirmidhī and others. Paragraph 16
argues for the Muslim duty of the establishment of an Islamic State, while
paragraph 18 makes it clear that they are not yet living in an Islamic State,
since (para. 19) “a House must be categorized according to the laws by
which it is ruled. If (a House) is ruled by the laws of Islam, then it is the
House of Islam. If (a House) is ruled by the laws of Unbelief, it is the
House of Unbelief.” The Neglected Duty supports this view with quotes
from Ibn Taymiyya and Abu Hanifah: Rulers who do not rule by the laws of
Islam must be considered apostates, and apostasy is punishable by death.
Faraj himself lists seventeen objections to his own views and then
answers them one by one. He does not accept, for instance, the Sufi’s
personal piety as the answer to all the ills of Egypt, since a life of private
devotion would mean neglecting a Muslim’s highest duty— jihād—as long
as long as all the other pillars of Islam are respected (para. 50). The
Neglected Duty rejects the notion that jihād can be interpreted to mean
“struggle to obtain knowledge.” Faraj quotes the Koran, “Prescribed for you
is fighting” (Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow, 216), and “Scholarship is not the
decisive weapon which will radically put an end to paganism” (para. 64).
Faraj also refutes the argument that it is only permissible to fight under a
caliph or a commander, and ends by quoting Ibn Taymiyya, who wrote,
“Any group of people that rebels against any single prescript of the clear
and reliably transmitted prescripts of Islam has to be fought, according to
the leading scholars of Islam, even if the members of this group pronounce
the Islamic Confession of Faith” (para. 66).
Paragraph 68 introduces the idea of the near and the far enemy: “To fight
an enemy who is near is more important than to fight an enemy who is far.”
Muslims must not waste their energies fighting imperialism, for example,
but first concentrate on their own situation, that is, to establish the Rule of
God’s Religion in their own country, and make the Word of God supreme
(para. 70).
The Neglected Duty rejects the idea that jihād is for defensive purposes
only. The Prophet was asked “What is jihād for God’s cause?” He replied,
“Whosoever fights in order to make the Word of God supreme is someone
who really fights for God’s cause”: “To fight is, in Islam, to make supreme
the Word of God in this world, whether it be attacking or by
defending….Islam was spread by the sword….It is obligatory for the
Muslims to raise their swords against the Leaders who hide the Truth and
spread falsehoods.” (para. 71).
 Faraj also denies the validity of the distinction between the greater and
lesser jihād, a distinction, as Ibn al-Qayyim showed, was a fabrication put
into circulation in order “to reduce the value of fighting with the Sword, so
as to distract the Muslims from fighting the infidels and the hypocrites.”
(para. 90).
Paragraphs 98 and 99 make clear the rewards for those who fight in the
Cause of God. Muhammad said, “God turns towards whomever goes out for
His cause. He will not send someone out but to wage jihad for His cause
and for belief in Him and for accepting the truthfulness of His Apostle. He
guarantees that He will (either) make him enter Paradise or will make him
come back to his home from which he went out with whatever reward or
booty he obtained” (para. 98). Muhammad also said, “A martyr has six
virtues in the eyes of God. He will be forgiven upon the first drop of blood.
His seat will be in Paradise. He will be free from the punishment of the
grave. He will be safe from the Great Fright. He will be dressed in the garb
of faith. He will marry the heavenly dark-eyed virgins. He will intercede for
70 of his relatives” (transmitted by al-Tirmidhī, para. 99).
Equally, there are punishments for neglecting the duty of jihād, which is
also the cause of humiliation and dissension in the Muslim world. The
Neglected Duty quotes sura Q9. at-Tawba, the Repentance/al-Barā’at, the
Immunity, 38–39:
O ye who have believed, what is the matter with you? When one says
to you: “March out in the way of God,” ye are weighed down to the
ground: are you satisfied with this nearer life as to neglect the
Hereafter [l-’ākhirati]? The enjoyment of this nearer life is in
comparison with the Hereafter only a little thing. If you do not march
out He will inflict upon you a painful punishment, and will substitute
for you another people; ye will not injure Him at all. God over
everything has power. (para. 100)
Contempt for this world is clearly quite common among the jihadist groups.
Another problem that The Neglected Duty addresses is that of Muslims
engaged in jihād who may have to fight an enemy army with Muslims in its
ranks, potentially killing fellow Muslims. Once again, Faraj turns to Ibn
Taymiyya:
Whoever doubts whether he has to fight them is most ignorant of the
religion of Islam. Since fighting them is obligatory, they have to be
 fought, even if there is amongst them someone who has been forced
to join their ranks. On this the Muslims are in agreement. Al-‘Abbās
(once) said, when he was taken prisoner on the Day of Battle of Badr:
“O Apostle of God, I was forced to go out.” Then the Apostle of God
said: “Outwardly you were against us. Only God knows what is in
your heart.” (para. 103)
Lying to the enemy is perfectly acceptable; war is deceit (paras. 107–9).
But is it permitted to a Muslim to serve in a non-Muslim army? The
question’s relevance is obvious, given that those involved in Sadat’s
assassination were officers in the Egyptian army. (Remember that Egypt is
considered a non-Muslim country, as it is not ruled under Shari‘a.) The
Neglected Duty answers affirmatively, citing Ibn Taymiyya: “Muslim
transmitted…the story of the people of the Trench, wherein (there is
mention of) the youth who was ordered to kill himself for the benefit of the
religion, and therefore the four Imams permit a Muslim to penetrate into the
ranks of the infidels even if he considered it probable that they would kill
him, when this (penetration) is to the advantage of the Muslims” (para.
118).
Jansen discusses the implications of such a policy: “It is easy to imagine
how army activists were indeed in need of pastoral advice. Many of them
must at times have wondered whether they should remain where they are,
wait for things to come, and hope for the best. If this impression is right,
there may be more potentially militant activists in the Egyptian army than
anyone suspects.”5
Many paragraphs are devoted to military tactics and ethics. Faraj quotes
various Muslim theologians and scholars to justify the total destruction of
enemy property. Innocent bystanders, women, and children may
accidentally be killed in an attack. This cannot be helped, and the jihadists
are not cuplable for such casualties.
Then Faraj returns to the true nature of jihād. In paragraph 130, Ibn al-
Jawzī is cited: “Satan deceived many people so that they went out to wage
jihad, their intention being vainglory and pride, hoping that it would be said
that So-and-so is a Fighter for God. Probably, however, the real intention
was that (they hoped that) people would say that So-and-So was a hero, or
in pursuit of booty. Deeds, however, are (to be judged) according to their
intentions.”
Finally, the leaders of Islamic organizations must strive to be above
reproach, but they cannot be on the right path as long as they do not prepare
for true jihād. The real aim all along is to establish a true Islamic state in
Egypt.

1 Johannes J.G. Jansen, The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins (1986; New York: RVP
Publishers, 2013), viii.
2 Ibid., xi.
3 Ibid., xxi.
4 Ibid., 153. All further references to this work are cited parenthetically by paragraph number in the
text.
5 Ibid., 29.
21 - Abdullah Azzam and Defense of the Muslim
Lands
SINCE 1979, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941–1989) has had an enormous
influence on the jihādi movement born in the wake of Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan. Azzam was able to use his mastery of Islamic texts and
jurisprudence for propaganda to recruit vacillating Muslims to the cause of
fighting for Allah, to expel foreigners from Afghanistan, and to seek to
reestablish Islam as the dominant creed worldwide. As there was no caliph,
he argued that there was no need for permission from an imam. His Islamic
scholarship added much to his prestige.
Abdullah Azzam was born in the village of Silat al-Harithiyain, in the
Janin district of the West Bank. After earning a degree from Khaduri
College, an agricultural college in Tulkarm, and a short teaching stint,
Azzam began his Islamic studies in the Shari‘a Faculty at Damascus
University in Syria in 1963. He had already been deeply influenced by and
joined the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1950s. The writings and political
activities of Hasan al-Banna also made a particular impression on Azzam,
but his personal mentor was Shafiq Asad ‘Abd al-Hadi, who gave him
direction and convinced him to fight for the cause of Islam.
Azzam received his B.A. in Shari‘a, Islamic Law in 1966. After the 1967
Six-Day War, when Israel took over the West Bank, Azzam and his family
settled in Jordan. Thereafter, Azzam took part in military actions against
Israel, but he soon became disillusioned with the secular and entirely
parochial nature of the PLO. Azzam began formulating ideas of a Pan-
Islamic movement that would restore pride and glory to the Islamic umma,
and cut across the artificial political boundaries drawn up by colonialists.
Azzam continued his Islamic studies at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University,
acquiring an M.A. in Shari‘a. After teaching briefly at the University of
Jordan in Amman, Azzam returned to Al-Azhar on a scholarship, where he
obtained his Ph.D. in the principles of Islamic jurisprudence in 1973. These
are important details, and serve as a counterargument to those who pretend
that jihādists know nothing of Islam and are not competent to pass
judgment on any aspect of Islamic law or theology.
Azzam returned to teaching at the University of Jordan, but was forced
to leave because of his radical views. He found a warm welcome in Saudi
Arabia, where he became a lecturer at King Abdul Aziz University in
Jeddah. He remained at the university until 1979, when he was expelled,
and it is possible during his tenure Azzam met Osama bin Laden. Then
things happened in 1979 in the larger world that decided his destiny.
What happened in 1979 that was so decisive?
It turned out to be the most important year in the modern history of
Islamic radical movements because of three key events: the success of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran when the Ayatollah Khomeini introduced a
theocracy (although a Sh‘ite revolution, this had an enormous impact on all
Islamic movements); the Soviet Union’s decision to send troops into
Afghanistan to support a Marxist regime (marking the beginning of modern
global jihādist movements); and the seizure of the Grand Mosque at Mecca
by armed extremists demanding the overthrow of the Saudi regime (Saudi
Arabia ended the siege after two weeks but with great loss of lives).
Azzam moved to Pakistan where he began teaching, but then devoted all
his energies to fighting the Soviets and formulating his philosophy of jihād.
Azzam published his best-known tract, Defense of the Muslim Lands,
sometime between 1979 and 1984. Like The Neglected Duty, Azzam’s
Defense brims with citations from the Koran, hadīth, and Islamic scholars
and theologians such as Ibn Kathir and, inevitably, Ibn Taymiyya. Indeed,
chapter 1 opens with an Ibn Taymiyya quote: “The first obligation after
Iman [faith, belief, right belief] is the repulsion of the enemy aggressor who
assaults the religion and the worldly affairs.”
Allah, according to Azzam, has chosen Islam for the entire world,
through the last Prophet on earth, Muhammad,
[t]o bring it victory by the sword and the spear, after he had clearly
expounded it with evidences and arguments. The Prophet (saw) said
in a Sahīh [authentic] hadith narrated by Ahmad and Tabarani: “I
have been raised between the hands of the Hour with the sword, until
Allah the Exalted is worshipped alone with no associates. He has
provided sustenance from beneath the shadow of spears and has
decreed humiliation and belittlement for those who oppose my order.
And whoever resembles a people, he is of them.”1
Allah does not like those who turn away from their duty of jihād. He will
replace them with those who are braver, and punish cowardice. But despite
clear rules and guidance, Muslims have fallen away from their religion,
which explains why they are now lost, humiliated by infidels and
imperialists. Only a return to religion and reestablishment of the caliphate
will restore Islam’s glory.
What of this neglected duty? “One of the most important lost obligations
is the forgotten obligation of fighting. Because it is absent from the present
condition of the Muslims, they have become as rubbish of the flood
waters.”2 Azzam quotes the Prophet, who said, “‘Allah will put Wahn
[weakness, feebleness] into your hearts and remove the fear from the hearts
of your enemies because of your love for the world and your hate of death.’
In another narration it was said: ‘and what is the Wahn, O messenger of
Allah?’ He (pbuh) said: ‘love of the world and the hate for fighting.’ (Abu
Dawud).”3
The theme of true Muslims loving death as others love life, as has been
shown throughout this text, appears in the Koran and reaches back to the
earliest Islamic traditions, which the quote above from Abu Dāwūd reminds
us. Martyrdom is the highest honor of a Muslim fighting in the cause of
Allah. As Azzam writes:
History does not write its lines except with blood. Glory does not
build its lofty edifice except with skulls. Honour and respect cannot
be established except on a foundation of cripples and corpses.
Empires, distinguished peoples, states and societies cannot be
established except with examples. Indeed, those who think that they
can change reality, or change societies, without blood, sacrifices and
invalids, without pure, innocent souls, then they do not understand the
essence of this dīn [religion, that is, Islam] and they do not know the
method of the best of the Messengers (may Allah bless him and grant
him peace).4
Scholar’s Ink, Martyr’s Blood
For Azzam, both offensive and defensive jihād are obligatory. Offensive
jihād becomes fard kifaya (a collective obligation fulfillable by some
members of the community on behalf of the community at large) and its
object can be to collect the poll tax (jizya), terrorize the enemy, and
“da‘wah [call, invitation, or missionary activity for the cause of Islam] with
a force,” which believers are obliged “to perform with all available
capabilities, until there remain only Muslims or people who submit to
Islam.”5 Defensive jihād is fard ayn (an obligatory duty of every Muslim)
to expel unbelievers from Muslim lands, and furthermore, “It has been
made clear to us that no permission is required for anyone when jihād is
fard ayn, as no permission is required from the father, the sheikh or the
master for the obligatory morning prayer before the rising of the sun.”6 At
the moment, the most urgent problem for a Muslim to deal with is
Afghanistan, and then Palestine.
But as Gorka points out, Azzam is fully aware of the necessity of
scholar’s ink as well as martyr’s blood:7
Indeed nations are only brought to life by their beliefs and their
concepts and they die only with their desires and their lusts.…As for
the Muslim Umma, it does continue to exist in the course of history of
humankind, except by a divine ideology and the blood which flows as
a result of spreading this divine ideology and implanting it into the
real World. The life of the Muslim Umma [community] is solely
dependent on the ink of its scholars and the blood of its martyrs. What
is more beautiful than the writing of the Umma’s history with both the
ink of a scholar and his blood, such that the map of Islamic history
becomes coloured with two lines: one of them black, and that is what
the scholar wrote with the ink of his pen; and the other one red, and
that is what the martyr wrote with his blood. And something more
beautiful than this is when the blood is one and the pen is one, so that
the hand of the scholar which expends the ink and moves the pen, is
the same as the hand which expends its blood and moves the Umma.
The extent to which the number of martyred scholars increases is the
extent to which nations are delivered from their slumber, rescued
from their decline and awoken from their sleep.8
In his 1987 work, Join the Caravan, Azzam goes through the same
arguments justifying jihād, citing by now familiar quotes from the Koran,
hadīth, and Islamic scholars. He gives sixteen reasons for carrying out
jihād:
1. In order that the Disbelievers do not dominate.
2. Due to the scarcity of men.
 3. Fear of Hell-fire.
4. Fulfilling the duty of Jihād, and responding to the call of the Lord.
5. Following in the footsteps of the Pious Predecessors.
6. Establishing a solid foundation as a base for Islam.
7. Protecting those who are oppressed in the land.
8. Hoping for martyrdom.
9. A shield for the Umma, and a means for lifting disgrace off them.
10. Protecting the dignity of the Umma, and repelling the conspiracy
of its enemies.
11. Preservation of the earth, and protection from corruption.
12. Security of Islamic places of worship.
13. Protection of the Umma from punishment, disfiguration and
displacement.
14. Prosperity of the Umma, and surplus of its resources.
15. Jihād is the highest peak of Islam.
16. Jihād is the most excellent form of worship, and by means of it
the Muslim can reach the highest of ranks.9
Azzam’s immediate concern was to defend Islamic lands from infidels in
Afghanistan. This should, in his scheme of things, be followed by the
establishment of a caliphate, and eventually an umma ruled solely by God’s
law as manifested in the Koran, sunna, and developed by the religious
scholars. Only then, would Muslims regain freedom from colonialists and
man-made laws, and Islam her past glory and dignity.
Azzam was assassinated by a car bomb in 1989. It remains unsolved
who was responsible; everyone from Osama bin Laden to the Iranians to the
CIA to Mossad has been accused at one time or another.

1 Abdullah Azzam, Defense of the Muslim Lands: The First Obligation after Imam, trans. Brothers in
Ribatt, 1979–1984, 11–12, https://islamfuture.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/defence-of-the-muslim-
lands.pdf.
2 Ibid., 13.
3 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, hadīth 4284, 3:1196.
4 Abdullah Azzam, “Document—Martyrs: The Building Blocks of Nations,” Religioscope, February
1, 2002, http://english.religion.info/2002/02/01/document-martyrs-the-building-blocks-of-nations/.
Also quoted by Sebastian Gorka, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (Washington, DC: Regnery
Publishing, 2016), 88.
5 Azzam, Defense of Muslim Lands, 14.
6 Ibid., 34.
7
8 Azzam, “Document—Martyrs.”
9 Shaykh Abdullah Azzam, Join the Caravan, 1987, archived at
https://archive.org/stream/JoinTheCaravan/JoinTheCaravan_djvu.txt.
22 - Ayman al-Zawahiri and Knights under the
Prophet’s Banner
AYMAN AL ZAWAHIRI (b. 1951) has been the leader of al-Qaeda since
Osama bin Laden’s death on May 2, 2011. Al-Zawahiri was born into an
upper-middle-class family in the Maadi district of Cairo, Egypt. Both of his
parents came from wealthy families—an important point to bear in mind
when encountering the cliché that poverty creates Islamic terrorism. Ayman
studied medicine in Cairo, earned a degree in 1974, and went on to earn an
advanced degree in surgery a few years later. Along the way al-Zawahiri
acquired considerable knowledge of Islamic theology and jurisprudence.
Religiously and politically active in his teens, al-Zawahiri joined the
Muslim Brotherhood at fourteen. He was deeply affected by Qutb’s
execution in 1966, and would later write, “The Nasserite regime thought
that the Islamic movement received a deadly blow with the execution of
Sayyid Qutb and his comrades, but the apparent surface calm concealed an
immediate interaction with Sayyid Qutb’s ideas and the formation of the
nucleus of the modern Islamic jihād movement in Egypt.”1 That same year,
according to Lawrence Wright in The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the
Road to 9/11 (2007), al-Zawahiri, age fifteen, “helped form an underground
cell devoted to overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamic
state.”2
Like all Islamic fundamentalists, al-Zawahiri dreamed of restoring the
caliphate, which had been dissolved in 1924. Once it was reestablished, and
the secular regime replaced with one ruled under Shari‘a, Egypt would
become the rallying point for the Islamic world. As he wrote in Knights
under the Prophet’s Banner in 2001, “Armies achieve victory only when the
infantry takes hold of land. Likewise, the mujahid Islamic movement will
not triumph against the world coalition unless it possesses a fundamentalist
base in the heart of the Islamic world. All the means and plans that we have
reviewed for mobilizing the nation will remain up in the air without a
tangible gain or benefit unless they lead to the establishment of the state of
caliphate in the heart of the Islamic world.”3 But al-Zawahiri was also
aware that the conditions were not quite right yet for the establishment of
the caliphate. He counseled patience.
 At the same time, there can be no solution without jihād: “With the
emergence of this new batch of Islamists, who have been missing from the
nation for a long time, a new awareness is increasingly developing among
the sons of Islam, who are eager to uphold it: namely, that there is no
solution without jihād.”4 For Zawahiri,
[J]ihād in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or
organisation. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until
Almighty inherits the earth and those who live on it….There is no
reform without jihād in the path of Allah. And every call seeking
reform without jihād condemns itself to death and failure.5
In Knights under the Prophet’s Banner, al-Zawahiri summarized the
strategies necessary to win this fight:
The Islamic movement in general and the jihād in particular must
launch a battle for orienting the nation by: exposing the rulers who
are fighting Islam; highlighting the importance of loyalty to the
faithful and relinquishment of the infidels in the Muslim creed;
holding every Muslim responsible for defending Islam, its sanctities,
nation, and homeland; cautioning against the ‘ulama’ of the sultan
and reminding the nation of the virtues of the ‘ulama’ of jihād and the
imams of sacrifice and the need for the nation to defend, protect,
honor, and follow them; and exposing the extent of the aggression
against our creed and sanctities and plundering of our wealth.6
In his book that first began circulating around 1991, The Bitter Harvest:
The [Muslim] Brotherhood in Sixty Years, al-Zawahiri laments that the
Brotherhood had lost its way by agreeing to participate in so-called
democratic elections instead of performing their Islamic duty of waging a
jihād against the current regime in Egypt, which must be considered un-
Islamic, and hence apostate.7 He bases this accusation of betrayal of on two
principles: (1) if a ruler of a putative Islamic country does not govern
according to the Shari‘a, which is God-given law, then Muslims have an
obligation to overthrow such a ruler, and (2) “democracy and Islam are
antithetical and thus can never coexist,”8 since democracy makes humans
sovereign, putting man-made laws above those of God, as enshrined in the
Shari‘a. He writes at the end of The Bitter Harvest: “Thus whoever claims
to be a ‘democratic-Muslim’, or a Muslim who calls for democracy, is like
one who says about himself ‘I am a Jewish Muslim,’ or ‘I am a Christian
Muslim’—the one worse than the other. He is an apostate infidel.”9
Here are some further thoughts from al-Zawahiri on democracy and
Islam, and their incompatibility:
The current rulers of Muslim countries who govern without the sharia
of Allah are apostate infidels. It is obligatory to overthrow them, to
wage jihād against them, and to depose them, installing a Muslim
ruler in their stead.10
These rulers must be considered apostates for the following reasons:
[because they] abandon the sharia of Allah…
[because they] ridicule the sharia…
[because they] institute democratic rule, which is, as Abu al-Ali al-
Mawdudi described in his book Islam and Modern Civilization, “rule
of the masses” and “the deification of man.”11
Under Islamic rule Allah alone is the legislator. Otherwise, Under the
Prophet’s Banner is filled with the by-now familiar quotes from and
references to the Koran, hadīth, and various Islamic theologians and
scholars such as Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyya.

1 Quoted in Wright, Looming Tower, 37.

2 Ibid.
3 Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights under the Prophet’s Banner; quoted in Walter Laqueur, ed., Voices of
Terror: Manifestos, Writings and Manuals of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Other Terrorists from Around
the World and Throughout the Ages (New York: Reed Press, 2004), 432.
4 Ibid., 428.
5 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Interview,” in The Al-Qaeda Reader: The Essential Texts of Osama Bin
Laden’s Terrorist Organization, ed. and trans. Raymond Ibrahim (New York: Broadway Books,
2007), 182–86.
6 Al-Zawahiri, Knights, 432.
7 See al-Zawahiri, “Interview,” 116.
8 Ibid., 117.
9 Quoted in ibid., 119.
10 Ibid., 122.
11 Ibid., 123.
23 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian
Revolution
Historical and Political Background to Khomeini’s Rise to Power:
Nawab Safavi and the Fidā’īyīn-i Islam
ACCORDING TO Farhad Kazemi,1 Mojtaba Nawab Safavi [also Navvab
Safavi] was born in 19232 in Tehran in a religious family, that claimed
descent from the Prophet, and on the mother’s side from the Safavids, who
had made Shi ‘ism the state religion of Iran in the sixteenth century.
Nawab Safavi left for Najaf at an early age to become a theology
student. Here, Nawab encountered the works of Ahmad Kasravi, who had
advocated Islamic reformation, and later proved to be very hostile to
Shi‘ism in general. Kasravi was also very critical of the clergy in Iran,
holding them responsible for Iran’s backwardness. He believed the clergy
were parasites who exploited the illiterate masses by playing on their fears
of hell, and by promising them the delights of paradise. Kasravi had been a
brilliant student at the Tehran Law Faculty and the Sorbonne in Paris,
credentials which gave his writings much authority and credibility.
Essentially, Kasravi hoped for the eventual de-Islamization of Iran.
Very disturbed by what he had read, Nawab Safavi returned to Tehran to
“take care of” Kasravi, and begin a campaign of terror. The clerical
establishment was angered by Kasravi’s writings, and the Ayatollah
Khomeini replied to Kasravi’s “They Read and Judge” with “Read and
Act”, which criticized Muslims for not taking any action against Kasravi. In
1944, Khomeini published Kashf al-Asrar (The Unveiling of Secrets),
which condemned in forthright terms Kasravi and, more indirectly, other
Islamic reformists, without naming them. How is that you Muslims have
not risen up against this shameful book? asked Khomeini. He wrote,
Our faithful believers, our honourable brothers, our Persian-speaking
friends, our courageous youth! Read these manifestations of crime,
these shameful publications, these kernels of division and animosity,
these invitations to Zoroastrianism, ... these condemnations of our
sacred religion, and try to do something; with a national uprising,
with a religious uprising, ... with a strong will, with an iron fist, rid
the earth of the seeds of these dishonourable, shameless beings, ... we
 are condemned in the court of our religion, we are disgraced in the
eye of the prophet of Islam. Yes! Rise up courageously and
honourably, so that the arrogant do not make you surrender.3
Khomeini found these attacks on Islam as “corrupt on earth” (mofsed fi
al-arz) and wished that “the scholars ... who see themselves as guardians of
the faith, the Qur’an and the religious sacred beliefs, to shatter the teeth of
these jerks with their iron fists and to crush their heads under their
courageous feet”. He knew that an Islamic government would have
executed “these offenders in front of the supporters of the faith.”4
Khomeini continued, “The rules of Islam do not provide a cure for your
diseases, which are the love of debauchery and fornication as well as
compulsive lying and cheating. The rule of Islam declares your blood to be
worthless and shall cut off your thieving arms. This is why you are fighting
[Islam]. The mullahs want to block your path to treachery. They want to
remove from behind the desks those beautiful women who are, as we all
know, used for certain purposes, so that they return to their veils….”5
It is unlikely that Nawab Safavi had any direct contact with Khomeini,
though it is very probable that he had read the latter’s Kashf al-Asrar.
Safavi debated Kasravi in public but found the experience frustrating,
coming to the conclusion that the only solution was to assassinate him.
Safavi bought a gun and shot Kasravi on 28 April 1945 but did not manage
to kill him. That task was accomplished by two of Safavi’s followers,
Seyyed Hosein Emami and Seyyed Ali Muhammad Emami on 11 March,
1946, when they shot and killed Kasravi. Nawab Safavi was imprisoned for
two months, while Seyyed Hosein was sentenced to death.
The assassins became instant heroes, and the clergy rejoiced. “It was the
most beautiful day in my life,” recounted Ayatollah Shaikh Sadeq
Khalkhali, one of Khomeini’s closest friends. “We all know that the
miscreant had been struck by the hand of Allah, so that Islam could begin to
live again.” Shaikh Sadeq decided to join Safavi’s group, Fedayeen-i Islam6
that seems to have been formed sometime in 1945. On its formation, Nawab
Safavi declared,
We are alive and God, the revengeful, is alert. The blood of the
destitute has long been dripping from the fingers of the selfish
pleasure seekers, who are hiding, each with a different name and in a
 different colour, behind the black curtains of oppression, thievery and
crime. Once in a while the divine retribution puts them in their place,
but the rest of them do not learn a lesson .... Damn you! You traitors,
impostors, oppressors! You deceitful hypocrites! We are free, noble
and alert. We are knowledgeable, believers in God and fearless. [This
declaration was an attack on those who damaged] the foundation of
the faith and Qur'anic knowledge in the name of religion, ... have no
mercy on the privation of the poor, throw dirt on the blessed blood of
Hosein (peace on him) ... make deals with robber barons and know of
the degenerate morality of the youth of today and of their disgust with
religion when they sow the seeds [of ruin and division].7
The declaration was full of quotes from the Koran, including one from
Q3. ’āl ‘Imrān, the Family of Imran:169: “Never think that those who were
slain in the cause of God [fī sabīli llāhi] are dead. They are alive, and well-
provided for by their Lord.” The declaration calls on all the Muslims of the
world to shatter their chains of subjugation: “These chains are made and set
by those who have been living in ignorance and savagery years after the
coming of the Islamic civilization and the call of the Qur’an…. Muslim
people of the world, rise up! Come to life! So that we can win back our
rights.”8
The declaration began with the words “huwa l-’azīz”, a reference to God,
meaning the “All Powerful” or “Almighty”, which appears frequently in the
Koran. It served as the group’s slogan and appeared at the head of their
pamphlets, leaflets, and above the title of their newspapers.
In 1946, Ayatollah Khasani took an active interest in the activities of the
Fedayeen-i Islam, helping to promote their goals, but also using them for
his own ends—that is, to rouse the masses. In 1949, the Fedayeen-i Islam
assassinated Abdolhosein Hazhir, the court minister, and later General Haj-
Ali Razmara, and Education Minister Ahmad Zangeneh. After the
assassination of Razmara, Nawab Safavi declared his commitment to the
creation of an Islamic state: “Now, you the son of Pahlavi, and you the
deputies in the Majlis and members of the Senate… you and your associates
must know that if you do not follow all the precepts of Islam, one by one,
according to the book of the Fada’ian-e Islam you would be approaching
the fall into hell.” In the addenda to his book, Barnameh-ye Enqelabi,
Nawab Safavi warns opposition groups that “Iran is the country of the
followers of Muhammad and his descendants, and whoever takes the
smallest step in violation of Islamic law will be dealt with the rules of
Islam.”9
In another speech, Safavi related how he dreamt that the light of
Muhammad would one day shine on the land of Iran.10 Safavi was able to
attract to his Fedayeen just what he needed, dedicated fighters ready to die
for the cause of Islam. “Throw away your worry beads and buy a gun,” he
said. “For worry beads keep you silent while guns silence the enemies of
Islam.”11 As Khomeini had said, be ready to act.
Safavi appealed to that principle in Islam of Commanding Right and
Forbidding Wrong, that enjoins all Muslims to fight evil, that exhorts them
to action; he wrote, “Islam asks us to Command Good and prevent Evil.
Now Good and Evil involve men and women and not objects. All we have
to do is to ask followers of Evil to stop and cross over to the side of Good.
It is only when our advice is not heeded that we have no choice but to take
action, including of men of Evil.”12
After the coup that overthrew Mossadeq, there was a massive purge of
communist and fundamentalist militants, over a thousand were arrested, of
which a quarter were members of the Fedayeen-i Islam. Nine members of
the Fedayeen were hanged, including Nawab Safavi. Those who escaped
hanging, lived on to join Khomeini twenty years later.
In 1944, there had been seventy members, but the membership grew to
three hundred within a few years. They terrified politicians during the
1940s and 1950s, when dozens were assassinated. The group’s support
seems to have come from small shopkeepers, bazaar apprentices, and those
considered at the edge of society. Nawab Safavi was certainly charismatic,
and he gave rousing speeches on the corruption of Iranian society under the
grip of the iniquitous influence of the West, which was particularly
degrading Muslim women.
Sohrab Behdad ends his article with the following observation, “There
was a historical link connecting the Islamic Republic to the Fada’ian-e
Eslam, as demonstrated by Ayatollah Khomeini’s preference to sit under a
huwa l-’azīz sign in his public appearances. It all began with Khomeini’s
Kashf al-Asrar.”13 However, Khomeini’s admiration was revealed in a far
more direct way when he tried to save Nawab Safavi from the gallows. As
Con Coughlin pointed out, “While the rest of the country’s leading clergy,
including Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi, sought to distance themselves from
the extremists, Khomeini stood apart as he mounted a spirited campaign to
save Safavi’s life. He personally lobbied Borujerdi, who turned down his
entreaties to petition the Shah for Safavi’s release. And when that failed he
wrote to several leading members of the Shah’s court appealing for
clemency.”14 It was to no avail, as Safavi was hanged in January 1956.15
Certainly, Safavi’s militancy was a stirring example for Khomeini, who
insisted that Muslims put their beliefs into action, and actively sought ways
to bring about an Islamic revolution. Safavi’s uncompromising Islamic
agenda was very much in line with Khomeini’s wishes for an Islamic
republic.
The Influence of the 1979 Iranian Revolution in the Islamic World
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
returned to Iran from exile and set about creating an Islamic republic, has
been very influential throughout the Islamic world, even though it was a
theocracy of a Shī‘ite kind. (It was often argued that because Iran was
Shī‘ite, it could not possibly have any impact on the Sunni world. It was
also assumed that Sunnis and Shī’ites would never collaborate.) Henceforth,
whenever riots with pretentions to revolutionary movements broke out in
Muslim countries from Bangladesh to Morocco, portraits of the glowering
and formidable figure of Khomeini were defiantly brandished and
translations of his works into the local languages were distributed among
protesters.
The assassins of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat invoked Khomeini’s
name at their 1981 trial, and King Hasan of Morocco held the Ayatollah
responsible for the kingdom’s 1983 riots. As Amir Taheri explained in The
Spirit of Allah: Khomeini & the Islamic Revolution (1986):
It became evident that Khomeini’s appeal was not limited to Sh‘ites.
Sunni radicals also adopted his slogans in their efforts to mobilize
popular support. Fear of Khomeini was in part responsible for the
sudden and almost concerted reintroduction of strict Islamic laws in
Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq,
Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania. Even
 secular Turkey had to move some steps away from Kemalism in order
to accommodate the new mood of Islamic militancy exported by
Iran.16
Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini was born on September 24, 1902, in Khomein (also
Khumayn), a town approximately a hundred kilometers southwest of
Tehran, into a fairly affluent family with religious traditions. His father,
Sayyid Mostafa (d. 1902) studied in Najaf, a prestigious center of Shī‘ite
learning where he obtained a higher theology degree. Khomeini’s paternal
grandfather, Sayyid Ahmad (d. 1868) had also studied in Najaf.
Khomeini began his own religious studies in 1920 as the pupil of a
famous high-ranking cleric, Shaykh Abdul-Karim Ha’eri (Ha’iri), who
eventually settled in Qom, which became Iran’s major scholastic center.
Khomeini followed, and taught at the recently revived seminary, the
Faizziyah, in the 1930s, publishing commentaries on hadīths, ethics, and
mysticism, all in Arabic, which he had learned in his local school during his
youth.17 Khomeini’s works included the Misbah al-Hidaya (Book of
Guidance), Shahar Do’ay al-Sahar (Interpretation of the Dawn Prayer),
Shahar Arbe’en (Hadīth Explanations), and Adab as-Salat (Prayer
Literature). Khomeini also wrote poetry in Persian, which was only
published posthumously. At this period, the clerics of Qom largely
remained apolitical and refrained from criticizing the monarchy.
In 1937, Khomeini went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on the way back
spent several months in Najaf to visit some holy shrines. His first timid
foray into politics took the form of a tract, Kashf al-Asrar (Secrets
Unveiled) published in 1943, in which he was very critical of contemporary
secularists, particularly Reza Shah and the Pahlavi regime, but also Shariat
Sangalaji, a reform-minded cleric who had supported the previous monarch,
and Ahmad Kasravi, a historian of Shi’ism and Iran and truly anti-clerical
supporter of democracy and admirer of the West.
In Kashf al-Asrar Khomeini attributed the lamentable state of Iran to the
Shah’s policy of ignoring Islamic precepts and weakening the ulama’,
thereby undermining Islam itself. He also broached a subject that he would
return to over and over throughout his life—the evil intentions of the Jews:
“Jews and their foreign backers are those who are opposed to the very
foundations of Islam and want to establish an international Jewish
Government; and since they are a crafty and active lot, my fear is that, may
Allah forbid it, they may one day succeed.”18 But on the whole, Khomeini
avoided politics, and spent his time teaching at the Faizziyah during the
1950s, and working on Towzih al-Masa’el (Questions Clarified), which was
published in 1961. His true entry into politics began in 1963.
In October 1962, the government had approved a law that provided for
the election of representative local councils throughout the nation.
Khomeini and other religious leaders found the law un-Islamic for three
reasons: (1) it gave women the right to vote, (2) “it did not require
adherence to Islam as a necessary qualification for either voters or
candidates,” and (3) it ruled “that elected councillors would take oath of
office, not on the Koran, but on ‘the holy book,’ a wording that permitted
the swearing in of councilors belonging to non-Muslim denominations.”19
Khomeini considered the law an effort to corrupt chaste Muslim women,
a sinister attempt to remove religion from its central place in national life,
and a door being opened to “apostates,” the Bahā’īs, giving them the
possibility of elected seats on the councils. He wrote that the local council’s
law “was perhaps drawn up by the spies of the Jews and the Zionists…. The
Koran and Islam are in danger. The independence of the state and the
economy are threatened by a takeover by the Zionists, who in Iran have
appeared in the guise of the Bahā’īs.”20 Khomeini was prepared to oppose
even the constitution if it proved to be “contrary to the Koran.”21
Nor did Khomeini remain politically passive when the Shah launched a
series of reforms in 1963, later called the White Revolution. When
seminary students protested, the Shah authorized army commandos to
attack and harsass them over several days in March. Khomeini accused the
Shah of violating the commandments of Islam and the rights of Muslims.
He delivered a sermon on June 3 defending the religious classes, the
ulama’, and again accused the Shah of trying to destroy Islam. Khomeini
argued that the Shah was colluding with Israel, which did “not want the
Koran to survive in this country,” which “through its black agents, crushed
the Faizziyah seminary. It crushes us. It crushes you, the nation. It desires to
take over the economy. It desires to destroy our commerce and agriculture.
It desires to seize the country’s wealth.”22
 Khomeini was arrested a few days after giving the sermon, along with
many other religious figures. He was visited by many emissaries from the
Shah, who tried to persuade him to renounce politics. When the chief of
Savak, the much feared Iranian secret police, told Khomeini, “Politics is
lies, deception, shame and meanness. Leave politics to us,” Khomeini
replied, rather ambiguously, “All of Islam is politics.”23
Khomeini was detained for two months, and then released. In 1964, he
was rearrested for continued criticism of the Shah’s policies and his
continued claim that the Shah was trying to destroy Islam and the Koran.
This time Khomeini was deported to Turkey, from whence he made his way
to Najaf, Iraq, where he would spend the next thirteen years.
In Najaf Khomeini taught Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), and wrote
manuals on the rituals of pilgrimage (jaj) and on trade. In 1970, Khomeini
gave a series of lectures denouncing the clergy, who compromised with the
monarchy in Iran and remained aloof from politics. The lectures were
collected, published, and circulated in Iran under the title Vilāyat-i faqīh:
Hukumat-i Islami (Islamic Government by the Jurist). After spending a few
months in France, Khomeini returned in triumph to Iran. Throughout the
last ten years of his life he gave lectures, talks, and sermons, all consistently
continuing the theme of the dangers to Islam and the threats to the
independence of Iran.
An Islamic Revolution
Some modern scholars such as Ervand Abrahamian have argued that
Khomeini was not an Islamic fundamentalist but more akin to a Latin
American populist. Inevitably, such scholars downplay the importance of
religion, in general, and Islam in particular in their analysis of Khomeini’s
ideas. I completely disagree with Abrahamian—it seems to me he misreads
the spiritual core of Khomeini’s political activism. Khomeini explicitly
rejected the notion that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was brought about
for socioeconomic reasons; it was for Islam.
Consider this excerpt from Khomeini’s September 8, 1979, address to
the Iranian people broadcast on Tehran Radio:
I would like to see everyone believe that our movement…for which
considerable efforts were made, sacrifices given, young people killed
and families ruined…was only for Islam....I do not accept that any
 prudent individual can believe that…we sacrificed our young men to
have less expensive housing. No one in his right mind would lose
young men simply to acquire less expensive housing. There is a false
logic promoted perhaps by some self-seeking individuals…that the
aim of our sacrifices is to improve agriculture. No one would give his
life for better agriculture….Islam has put an end to means that lead
our young men to corruption. Islam wants fighters to stand up to the
unbelievers, to those attacking our country. Islam wants to create
mujahid [one engaged in jihād]; it has no intention of making
revelers, so that while they are engaged in having a good time, others
denigrate and dishonor them. Islam is a serious religion…The only
games allowed by Islam are shooting and horse racing, and only for
fighting….However, the West wants to keep us as before….We must
try to implement the true nature of the Islamic Republic….Certain
drastic and profound changes have taken place that give rise to
hopefulness.24
Other scholars of Iranian origin also emphasized the Islamic nature of
the revolution. For example, Shaul Bakhash in a much lauded work gives
unequivocal importance to the role of Islam in the newly created Islamic
Republic of Iran:
[A] secular state has given way to a quasi-theocracy. Islamic law
codes have replaced secular statutes….Due to its specifically Islamic
character, the Iranian revolution has also galvanized Islamic
communities in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The revolution
appeared to provide evidence of the ability of Islam to mobilize
millions, to overthrow an autocratic government, to humiliate the
United States, to defend the national frontiers, to wage foreign war,
and to begin the task of realizing the ideal of an Islamic state.25
Bakhash underlines that it is in Iran “that the most comprehensive efforts to
forge Islamic legal and economic institutions and to establish an Islamic
state is underway.”26 One simply cannot ignore “the powerful pull of
Islamic ideology”27 in what is happening in Iran, though admittedly there
are other complex factors in play in the upheavals.
As the revolution progressed after February 1979, Khomeini skillfully
used each crisis “to consolidate his hold on the country and to pursue,
single-mindedly, his aim to establishing an Islamic state.”28 Even a cursory
glance at Khomeini’s central work, Vilāyat-i faqīh: Hukumat-i Islami
(Islamic Government by the Jurist), reveals the importance of “Islam” in an
“Islamic government.” As Hamid Algar, British-American professor
emeritus of Persian studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
observes, three major points that emerge from this treatise: “The first is the
necessity for the establishment and maintenance of Islamic political
institutions…[i.e.,] the need for subordinating political power to Islamic
goals, precepts, and criteria. The second is the duty of the religious scholars
(fuqaha) to bring about an Islamic state, and to assume legislative,
executive, and judicial positions within it—in short the doctrine of the
‘governance of the faqih’ (vilayat-i faqih [vice-regency government of the
Islamic jurists).”29 The third is the need for a program of action for the
establishment of an Islamic state.
Islamic Government begins with an attack: “From the very beginning,
the historical movement of Islam has had to contend with the Jews, for it
was they who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in
various strategems, and as you can see, this activity continues down to the
present.”30 There is a tendency to downplay that antisemitism is central to
Islamic fundamentalism, and is not merely a matter of Israel’s existence, but
part of the Islamic myth derived from the Koran, hadīth, and Sira.
Khomeini returns to the theme of the Jews and their evil ways throughout
Islamic Government, four times at great length.31
Khomeini explains in Islamic Government that the Prophet Muhammad
appointed a successor to do more than expound Islamic law: Muhammad
“implemented the penal provisions of Islam: he cut off the hand of the thief
and administered lashings and stonings. The successor to the Prophet must
do the same; his task is not legislation, but the implementation of the divine
laws that the Prophet has promulgated.”32 Addressing the religious class,
Khomeini tells them that it is their duty to establish an Islamic government
and that there is no separation of religion and politics.33 He emphasizes the
universality, comprehensiveness, and eternal validity of Islamic law:
According to one of the noble verses of the Qur’an, the ordinances of
Islam are not limited with respect to time or place; they are permanent
and must be enacted until the end of time….The claim that the laws
 of Islam may remain in abeyance or are restricted to a particular time
or place is contrary to the essential creedal basis of Islam. Since the
enactment of laws, then is necessary after the departure of the Prophet
from this world, and indeed, will remain so until the end of time, the
formation of a government and the establishment of executive and
administrative organs are also necessary.34
For Khomeini, as for so many Islamists such as Mawdūdī, Islamic law
amounts to a complete social system in which “all the needs of man have
been met: his dealings with neighbors, fellow citizens, and clan, as well as
children and relatives; the concerns of private and marital life; regulations
concerning war and peace and intercourse with other nations; penal and
commercial law; and regulations pertaining to trade and agriculture.”35 This
explains its totalitarian nature.
And it is all contained in the Koran and the Sunna. Sovereignty belongs
to God alone and law is His decree and command. “It is an established
principle that the faqih [expert in Islamic jurisprudence] has authority over
the ruler. If the ruler adheres to Islam, he must necessarily submit to the
faqih, asking him about the laws and ordinances of Islam in order to
implement them. This being the case, the true rulers are the fuqaha [pl. of
faqih] themselves, and rulership ought officially…to apply to them, not to
those who are obliged to follow the guidance of the fuqaha on account of
their own ignorance of the law.”36
Growing with Blood
Because of its universality, and because God intended the world to
follow Islam, it is the duty of all Muslims and especially the scholars to
disseminate knowledge of Islam to the world.37 It is a Muslim’s duty to
preserve Islam, and to this end, blood must sometimes be shed. “The fuqaha
by means of jihad and enjoining good and forbidding the evil, must
overthrow tyrannical rulers and rouse the people so that the universal
movement of all alert Muslims can establish Islamic government in place of
tyrannical regimes.”38 And Khomeini never hid the fact that
Islam grew with blood….The great prophet of Islam on one hand
carried the Koran and in the other a sword; the sword for crushing the
traitors and the Koran for guidance. For those who could be guided,
the Koran was their means of guidance, while as for those who could
 not be guided and were plotters, the sword descended on their
heads…. Islam is a religion of blood for the infidels but a religion of
guidance for other people.39
In the crucial year 1978, Khomeini kept up the pressure, continuing to
criticize the Shah, the monarchy, the constitution, and the United States,
while emphasizing Islam’s centrality to the opposition movement and even
warning against groups with non-Islamic tendencies.40 In a July 27
proclamation Khomeini established the Islamic nature of the anti-regime
movement, giving the clerics their due: “Iran’s recent, sacred movement…is
one hundred percent Islamic. It was founded by the able hand of the clerics
alone, and with the support of the great, Islamic nation. It was and is
directed, individually or jointly, by the leadership of the clerical community.
Since this…movement is Islamic, it continues and shall continue without
the interference of others in the leadership.”41
For Khomeini, “The whole nation, throughout Iran, cries out: ‘We want
an Islamic Republic,’”42 and he vigorously urged the clerics not to cede in
their demand for the same. In June 1979 Khomeini uged the religious
scholars of Islam to review and correct the draft constitution, without giving
in to outside voices:
This right belongs to you. It is those knowledgeable in Islam who
may express an opinion on the law of Islam. The constitution of the
Islamic Republic means the constitution of Islam. Don’t sit back
while foreignized intellectuals, who have no faith in Islam, give their
views....Pick up your pens and in the mosques, from the altars, in the
streets and bazaars, speak of the things that in your view should be
included in the constitution.43
A Constitution of Islam
Heeding Khomeini’s advice, the Congress of Muslim Critics of the
Constitution entered the fray, and “sought to enshrine Islam as the basis of
the constitution, the institutions of the state, its economic and judicial
system, and even the institution of the family.”44 They rejected the idea of
equality of men and women; they rejected the idea of the sovereignty of the
people. Many clerics reminded the people of Iran that Islam is universal and
does not recognize borders. Others stated that by its very nature Islam is
domineering, and one had a duty to spread it. When the Assembly of
Experts met on August 18, Khomeini reminded the delegates that the
constitution must be “one hundred per cent Islamic,” and that “discussion of
proposals contrary to Islam lies outside the scope of [its] mandate.”
Furthermore, only the leading Islamic jurists could decide whether the
articles constitution met Islamic criteria.45
By November 15, the assembly had drawn up the new draft constitution,
which essentially laid the foundation for a theocratic state. The faqih was
henceforth the central figure in the political order, which
enshrined the dominance of the clerical community over the
institutions of the state, entrenched Islamic jurisprudence as the
foundation over the country’s laws and legal system, and limited the
individual freedoms to what was considered permissible under Islam.
The constitution provided for a twelve-man Council of Guardians
empowered to veto all legislation in violation of Islamic or
constitutional principles and reserved to the six Islamic jurists on the
council the power to declare laws in conflict with Islam.46
As article 4 of the constitution stated, “All civil, penal, financial, economic,
administrative, cultural, military, political and other laws and regulations
must be based on Islamic criteria.”47
The constitution that emerged despite a certain ambiguity as to whom
sovereignty really belonged—God or the people—was largely a product of
Khomeini’s concept of Islamic government, with the clerical class clearly in
charge.
By 1982, Khomeini was in control; his religious lieutenants ran the
country. He trusted only clerics, having always believed that they were the
class most qualified to govern and bring about the Islamic state. Khomeini
attached overriding importance to the spread of Islamic teaching, to
ideological orthodoxy, and to political conformity. He was relentless
in his pursuit of those he regarded as the enemies of the Islamic
Republic. Because Islamic government to him was synonymous with
the rule of Islamic law, he devoted careful attention to appointment of
judges, the elaboration of an Islamic court system, and the legislation
of Islamic law codes. He took care that internal security remained in
the hands of trusted lieutenants. Increasingly, he was committed to
exporting revolution.48
That Khomeini’s main concern was establishing an Islamic State is
underlined by the fact that he showed little to no interest in economic
policy.49
The Islamic Republic of Iran
Once the clerics were in command, the Islamic Republic of Iran began
eliminating all opponents and all Khomeini deemed apostates. Blood had to
be spilled to protect Islam, and Islam was not a religion of pacifists. Back in
1942 Khomeini had written: “Islam’s jihād is a struggle against idolatry,
sexual deviation plunder, repression, and cruelty. The war waged by
conquerors…aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if
whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those
who study jihād will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole
world. All the countries conquered by Islam…will be marked for
everlasting salvation.”50
Khomeini then poured scorn on those who have a pacifist interpretation
of Islam and jihād:
Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against
war….Islam says: Kill all unbelievers just as they would kill you
all!...Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?
Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those may want to kill you!
Does this mean we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says:
Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow
of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword!
The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy
warriors! There are hundreds of other psalms and hadiths urging
Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a
religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish
souls who make such a claim.51
A Disregard for Human Rights
Whenever and wherever Islamic principles are invoked, there is
inevitably a disregard for the human rights of women, religious minorities,
gays and lesbians, apostates, and freethinkers. The Iran Human Rights
Documentation Center (IHRDC), which has carefully monitored human
rights abuses in Iran since the 1979 Revolution, states
The Islamic Republic of Iran executes the second-highest number of
 people annually in the world: in 2011, for instance, the Islamic
Republic of Iran executed 660 people. In Iran, capital punishment can
be imposed on appeal, thereby acting as a deterrent to appeals in
criminal cases. Juveniles can also be subjected to capital punishment,
in violation of peremptory norms.52 Moreover, capital punishment is
not limited to violent crimes. Adultery, drug offenses, sodomy
(consensual or otherwise), apostasy (conversion from Islam),
“insulting the prophet,” and vague national security crimes like
“sowing corruption on Earth” are all punishable by death. Meanwhile,
capital punishment cases are often marked by weak evidentiary
standards.53
Capital punishment may be imposed for rape, murder, drug trafficking,
apostasy, and illicit sex (adultery, sodomy). Amnesty International has
reported seventy-six cases of lethal stoning between 1980 and 1989 in Iran,
while the International Committee against Execution (ICAE) has reported
that seventy-four others were stoned to death in Iran between 1990 and
2009.54
Estimates by human rights activists and opponents of the Islamic
Republic of Iran of the number of gay men and lesbians executed for crimes
related to their sexual orientation since 1979 vary between several hundred
to as many as six thousand.55 According to the Boroumand Foundation,
records exist for at least 107 executions with charges related to
homosexuality between 1979 and 1990.56 Iran is one of eight countries in
the world where homosexual acts are punishable by death; all are Islamic.57
According to a 2013 report from the IHRDC:
In 1982 the Iranian parliament passed the Law of Hodud and Qisas.
This law was the first legislation that codified punishments based on
Shari‘a law. A supplementary law was enacted in 1983. The Islamic
Republic of Iran [IRI] merged these laws into a single code in 1991.
The Iran Penal Code, which came into effect in that year, explicitly
codified punishments for adultery, sodomy and other homosexual
acts. According to this code, anyone convicted of sodomy would be
sentenced to death. The method of the execution was left to the
judge’s discretion. Islamic law grants extensive discretion to a judge
in determining the method of execution for a person convicted of
 sodomy. Although in practice most offenders are executed by
hanging, Ayatollah Khomeini previously stated that in cases of
sodomy the judge can order the offender to be beheaded by a sword,
burned alive, stoned or thrown off of a mountain or another high
place with his hands and feet tied, or even have a wall demolished
over his head.58
In the months following February 1979, the Islamic Republic executed
757 Iranians for “sowing corruption on earth.”59 Between 1981 and 1985,
the regime executed thousands of its political opponents. One prisoner
remembers spotting Ayatollah Qaffari, a noted cleric and revolutionary,
walking through Evin’s atrium [the central courtyard of the main prison
located in northwestern Tehran] and stopping at a water spigot. The
prisoner, a royalist, reported that “[Qaffari’s] whole body was covered in
blood, which he had to wash off in order to go and pray. They were doing
some mind-boggling killing of the Mojahedin.”60
However, as the IHRDC reports,
[T]he 1988 massacre stands out for the systematic way in which it
was planned and carried out, the short time period in which it took
place throughout the country, the arbitrary method used to determine
victims, the sheer number of victims, and the fact that the regime took
extensive measures to keep the executions secret and continues to
deny that they took place. The executions began pursuant to a fatwa
issued by Ayatollah Khomeini immediately following Iran’s
announcement that it had agreed to a cease-fire in the devastating
eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The fatwa created three-man commissions to
determine who should be executed. The commissions, known by
prisoners as Death Commissions, questioned prisoners about their
political and religious beliefs, and depending on the answers,
determined who should be executed and/or tortured. The questioning
was brief, not public, there were no appeals, and prisoners were
executed the same day or soon thereafter. Many who were not
executed immediately were tortured.61
Here is Khomeini’s decree:
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
As the treacherous Monafeqin [Munāfiqūn, “The Hypocrites,” but
 here refers to the Mojahedin] do not believe in Islam and what they
say is out of deception and hypocrisy, and as their leaders have
confessed that they have become renegades, and as they are waging
war on God, and as they are engaging in classical warfare in the
western, the northern and southern fronts, and as they are
collaborating with the Baathist Party of Iraq and spying for Saddam
against our Muslim nation, and as they are tied to the World
Arrogance, and in light of their cowardly blows to the Islamic
Republic since its inception, it is decreed that those who are in prisons
throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the
Monafeqin, are waging war and are condemned to execution.
The task of implanting the decree in Tehran is entrusted to Hojjatol-
Islam Nayyeri, the religious judge, Mr Eshraqi, the Tehran prosecutor,
and a representative of the Intelligence Ministry.
Even though a unanimous decision is better, the view of the majority
of the three must prevail. In prisons in the provinces, the views of a
majority of a trio consisting of the religious judge, the revolutionary
prosecutor, and the Intelligence Ministry representative must be
obeyed. It is naïve to show mercy to those who wage war on God.
The decisive way in Islam which treats the enemies of God is among
the unquestionable tenets of the Islamic regime. I hope that with your
revolutionary rage and vengeance toward the enemies of Islam, you
would achieve the satisfaction of the Almighty God. Those who are
making the decisions must not hesitate, nor show any doubt or be
concerned with details. They must try to be “most ferocious against
infidels.”
To have doubts about the judicial matters of revolutionary Islam is to
ignore the pure blood of martyrs.62
Khomeini’s Victims
The number of Khomeini’s victims is hard to estimate. According to
Christina Lamb in a 2001 Daily Telegraph article, basing her figures on the
memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri: “More than 30,000
political prisoners were executed in the 1988 massacre—a far larger number
than previously suspected. Secret documents smuggled out of Iran reveal
that, because of the large numbers of necks to be broken, prisoners
[including children] were loaded onto forklift trucks in groups of six and
hanged from cranes in half-hourly intervals.”63
The National Council of Resistance of Iran Foreign Affairs Committee
gives a thorough analysis of events in all of Iran’s prisons in 1988 and
confirms the 30,000 figure.64 It also quotes Montazeri’s memoirs, which
detail the systematic rape of women, some as young as thirteen. In his letter
to Khomeini, Montazeri aked, “Did you know that in Mashad prison, some
25 girls had to have their ovaries or uterus removed as result of what had
been done to them, and because there were no physicians and medical
care?”65
In its 2015 annual report, the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) paints a grim picture of conditions in Iran:
Poor religious freedom conditions continued to deteriorate in 2014,
particularly for religious minorities, especially Baha’is, Christian
converts, and Sunni Muslims. Sufi Muslims and dissenting Shi’a
Muslims also faced harassment, arrests, and imprisonment. Since
President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in August 2013, the
number of individuals from religious minority communities who are
in prison because of their beliefs has increased. The government of
Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious
violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention,
torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion
of the accused.66
On May 13, 2016, the Religion News Service reported:
The eighth anniversary this Saturday (May 14) of Iran’s imprisonment
of seven Baha’i leaders is an opportune time to refocus attention on
the plight of their people. Dominated by an extremist interpretation of
Shiite Islam, Iran’s government has a long-term goal to eradicate the
more than 300,000-member Baha’i community, the country’s largest
non-Muslim religious minority. While pursuit of that goal remains, its
intensity ebbs and flows in response to the level of world attention
and outrage. Unfortunately, there are signs from this past year that
persecution is on the upswing, calling for greater world outrage at
Iran’s abuses of this peaceful religious community. Since Iran’s
Khomeini revolution of 1979, authorities have killed more than 200
 Baha’i leaders, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from
government and university jobs. Baha’is effectively are prohibited
from attending colleges, chartering their own worship centers or
schools, serving in the military, and obtaining various kinds of jobs.
Even Baha’i marriages are not recognized.
Over the past 10 years, about 850 Baha’is arbitrarily have been
arrested. As of February 2016, more than 80 remain imprisoned,
including the Baha’i Seven.67
The rest of the report makes it clear that the situation is similar for
Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, all of whom are subject to arbitrary
arrest, imprisonment and torture.
The IHRDC has closely monitored the worsening situation of women in
the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Following a detailed report, it concludes:
The IRI legal system recognizes women as dependent upon men and
incomplete human beings who need to be supervised and controlled
by men and the State. While the IRI Constitution claims to guarantee
equality…women are still treated as second class citizens under the
IRI legal system. For instance…under the Islamic Penal Code, the
value of a woman’s worth is only half that of a man’s.…The same
view…is rooted in the IRI Civil Code and family law which provide
that women may inherit half of what men do. Similarly, it gives far
greater rights in marriage and divorce to men than to women. Most
notably, only a man can contract more than one marriage at a time (up
to four permanent marriages and an unlimited number of temporary
marriages are allowed for men), and only men have unilateral and
unconditional divorce rights, while a woman cannot terminate the
marriage contract without her husband’s agreement, or in specific
circumstances by permission of the judge. These gender inequalities
have often been rationalized and justified by arguments based on
assumptions about innate, natural differences between the sexes….It
is also claimed that women are created solely for the purpose of
giving pleasure to men and child-bearing—functions that confine
them to the home—which means that men must protect and provide
for them. This construction of gender roles and the patriarchal control
of women have produced a framework that demands women’s
 obedience to their husbands and has its roots in the idea of male
superiority...and results in the economic, social and political
predominance of men and dependency of women. The IRI legal
system still retains this traditional patriarchal bias that can be
described as nothing but the systemic subordination of women, which
is undoubtedly a human rights violation. In addition, the IRI is not
meeting its obligations of equal treatment of both genders required by
international human rights instruments including the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.68
State Terror
Iran is representative of what Islamic fundamentalists desire, an Islamic
State, and the consequence of achieving it: State Terror. Instead of utopia,
Iran is an Islamic totalitarian nightmare, a predictable outcome, given its
premises. There is no ambiguity in this statement. Ayatollah Khomeini was
born into an affluent family and became a scholar with a profound
knowledge of the Koran and sunna who studied and taught Islam all his
life. Thus we may eliminate poverty and ignorance of Islam—two popular
explanations for Islamic terrorism—as the motivating impulses behind
Khomeini’s desire for an Islamic State.
Khomeini and his clerics wished to implement Islamic laws in an Islamic
State, which they managed to install. The ensuing state terrorism followed
naturally from Islamic laws. In other words, Islam was and is responsible
for Islamic terrorism, precisely the thesis I set out to demonstrate.
Of course, some scholars have convinced themselves, if not everyone
else, that the Islamic Revolution was actually “a movement for
democratization in a society atrophied by tyranny.”69 But to pull off this act
of historical prestidigitation such scholars are obliged to minimize the role
of Khomeini. Other historians who are unable to understand the role of
religion in the Islamic world also relegate Khomeini to a supporting role
and try their best to locate the Islamic Revolution in the scholar’s habitual
procrustean bed of historical materialism or socioeconomics. But the
Islamic Republic of Iran exists and operates as what every Islamic
fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by Shari‘a.
Certain pragmatic compromises have certainly been made, but the
Islamic Republic of Iran is, essentially, an Islamic State. What followed its
establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its
Islamic premises: state terrorism, a merciless tyranny. Despite his
compassion for the poor, Khomeini despised the comforts of this world,
loathed “Western materialism,” and had no interest in economic policy or
concern for the “price of melons.” For Khomeini—as for so many Islamic
ideologues from Mawdūdī to Sayyid Qutb—we are on Earth to worship
Allah, who needs, nay commands, constant, eternal flattery. We are here to
follow His law as set down in the Koran and the Sunna, and it is the duty of
all humanity to prepare for the Hereafter. Death should not be feared but
welcomed as a means to fight for the sake of Allah.
Khomeini was fond of reciting the Persian poet Nasser Khosrow
Qobadiani: “People’s fear of death is a disease whose only cure is faith.”70
And in his talks to the people of Iran Khomeini tried to convince them that
death is to be coveted and life shunned, for “[d]eath offered purification and
the exalted status of the martyr, while life was pregnant with all manner of
corruption and sin, the smallest of which would surely lead to hell….‘You
should pray to Allah to grant you the honor of becoming martyrs.’”71
In an address commemorating the seventh day of his son Mostafa’s death
in Najaf, Iraq, Khomeini said:
This world is but a passage; it is not a world in which we ought to
live. This [world] is but a way, it is the Narrow Path….True Life is
that offered only in the Hereafter….We are here, in this low, earthly
Life, only to perform the duties Allah has set for us to perform. We
may, because of our ignorance, consider these duties to be onerous;
but these are, verily, the best example of the Almighty’s
generosity….No one becomes a true human being without first
crossing the Narrow Path.72
At a meeting in Qom, Khomeini stated, “The aim of creation was for
mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic
regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is
no humor in Islam. There can be no…joy in whatever is serious.”73
Khomeini’s vision did not end with the establishment of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. He dreamed of creating a single universal Islamic State,
and to that end encouraged revolution throughout the Islamic world. Only
an Islamic superstate could take on the Jews, Crusaders, and the Satanic
superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union.

1 Farhad Kazemi, “The Fada’iyan-e Islam: Fanaticism, Politics and Terror,” in ed. Said Amir
Arjomand, From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (State University of New York Press, 1985),
160.
2 According to Sohrab Behdad, Safavi was born in 1924, see Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-
Revolutionary Iran: Navvab Safavi and the Fad’ian-e Eslam”, in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.33,
No.1, January 1997, 40. Amir Taheri seems to think Safavi was born at the beginning of the twentieth
century, see Amir Taheri, Holy Terror. The Inside Story of Islamic Terrorism, (London: Sphere Books
Ltd., 1987), 51.
3 Khomeini, Kashf al-Asrar, 74, quoted in Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary
Iran: Navvab Safavi and the Fad’ian-e Eslam”, 43
4 Quoted in Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran: Navvab Safavi and the
Fad’ian-e Eslam”, 43.
5 Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, 57.
6 Also spelt: Fadi’ian-e Eslam; Fada’iyan-e Islam; however the strict Arabic transliteration should
be Fidā’īyīn-i Islām.
7 Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran,” 45.
8 Quoted in Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran,” 46.
9 Ibid., 49.
10 Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, 59.
11 Quoted in Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, 50.
12 Quoted in ibid., 53.
13 Sohrab Behdad, “Islamic Utopia in Pre-Revolutionary Iran, 62.
14 Con Coughlin, Khomeini’s Ghost. The Definitive Account of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic
Revolution and its Enduring Legacy (London: Macmillan, 2009), 87.
15 According to Con Coughlin, Safavi was hanged in January 1956, (Con Coughlin, op.cit., 87). But
according to Sohrab Behdad, he was hanged in December 1955, (Sohrab Behdad, op.cit., 51.)
16 Taheri, Spirit of Allah, 296–97.
17 Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993), 7.
18 Quoted in Taheri, Spirit of Allah, 155.
19 Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs Iran and the Islamic Revolution (London: Unwin
Paperbacks, 1985), 24.
20 Quoted in ibid., 26.
21 Quoted in ibid., 27.
22 Quoted in ibid., 29.
23 Quoted in Bernard Lewis, Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East
(Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court 1993), 390.
24 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, speech, Tehran Radio, September 8, 1979, trans. Foreign
Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), September 10, 1979; quoted in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-
American Terrorism, 35–36. FBIS, an open source intelligence component of the CIA’s Directorate of
Science and Technology, monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openly
available news and information from media sources outside the United States.
25 Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 4.
26 Ibid., 5.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., 6.
29 Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980), trans. with
annotations Hamid Algar (North Haledon, NJ: Mizan Press, 1981), 25.
30 Ibid., 27.
31 Ibid., 89, 109, 113, 127.
32 Ibid., 37.
33 Ibid., 37-38.
34 Ibid., 41-42.
35 Ibid., 43.
36 Ibid., 60.
37 Ibid., 70.
38 Ibid., 108-9.
39 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, from a speech at Feyziyeh (Fayziyyah) Theological School,
August 24, 1979; quoted in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism, 32–33.
40 Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 47.
41 Ibid., 48.
42 Ibid.
43 Quoted in ibid., 7.
44 Ibid., 78.
45 Ibid., 81.
46 Ibid., 83.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., 241-42.
49 Ibid., 242.
50 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; quoted in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism, 29.
51 Ibid.
52 A peremptory norm (also called jus cogens or ius cogens, “compelling law”) is a fundamental
principle of international law accepted by the international community of states as a norm from
which no derogation is permitted.
53 “Executions,” Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, n.d.,
http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/executions.html.
54 Hamid R. Kusha1 and Nawal H. Ammar, “Stoning Women in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Is It
Holy Law or Gender Violence?” Arts and Social Sciences Journal 5, no. 1 (2014),
https://www.omicsonline.com/open-access/stoning-women-in-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-is-it-holy-
law-or-gender-violence-2151-6200.1000063.pdf. See also, Farshad Hoseini, “List of Known Cases of
Death by Stoning Sentences in Iran, 1980–2010,” International Committee against Execution, July
2010, http://stopstonningnow.com/wpress/SList%20_1980-2010__FHdoc.pdf.
55 “Iran: UK Grants Asylum to Victim of Tehran Persecution of Gays, Citing Publicity,” (London)
Telegraph, February 4, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/london-
wikileaks/8305064/IRAN-UK-GRANTS-ASYLUM-TO-VICTIM-OF-TEHRAN-PERSECUTION-
OF-GAYS-CITING-PUBLICITY.html. See also: Arhsam Parsi, “Iranian Queers and Laws: Fighting
for Freedom of Expression,” Harvard International Review 36, no. 2 (Fall 2014/Winter 2015),
http://hir.harvard.edu/iranian-queers-and-laws-fighting-for-freedom-of-expression/; “Denied Identity:
Human Rights Abuses against Iran’s LGBT Community,” Iran Human Rights Documentation Center,
November 7, 2013, http://www.iranrights.org/library/document/2636.
56 Omid: A Memorial in Defense of Human Rights, Human Rights and Democracy in Iran,
Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, https://www.iranrights.org/memorial
57 Yemen, Mauritania, and Saudi Arabia: death by stoning; Qatar, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan.
Certain states in Nigeria where Islamic laws have been passed also prescribe the death penalty for
homosexual acts.
58 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, “Denied Identity.”
59 Ervand Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 124–25.
60 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, telephone interview with Bahman Rahbari, April 19,
2009.
61 “Deadly Fatwa: Iran’s 1988 Prison Massacre,” Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, n.d.,
http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/publications/reports/3158-deadly-fatwa-iran-s-1988-prison-
massacre.html.
62 Quoted in Foreign Affairs Committee, Crime against Humanity: Indict Iran’s Ruling Mullahs for
Massacre of 30,000 Political Prisoners (Auvers-sur-Oise, France: National Council of Resistance of
Iran, 2001), 2.
63 Christina Lamb, “Khomeini Fatwa ‘Led to Killing of 30,000 in Iran’” (London) Telegraph,
February 4, 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1321090/Khomeini-
fatwa-led-to-killing-of-30000-in-Iran.html. See also Geoffrey Robertson QC, The Massacre of
Political Prisoners in Iran, 1988, Report of an Inquiry (Washington, DC: Abdorraham Boroumand
Foundation, 2016), http://www.iranrights.org/library/document/1380.
64 Foreign Affairs Committee, Crime against Humanity, 21–26.
65 Ibid., 27.
66 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Annual Report 2015 (Washington,
DC: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2015),
http://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/USCIRF%20Annual%20Report%202015%20%282%29.pdf
67 Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett, “Iran Wants to Eradicate Baha’is: We Should
Demand Their Religious Freedom,” Religion News Service, May 13, 2016,
http://religionnews.com/2016/05/13/iran-wants-to-eradicate-bahais-we-should-demand-their-
religious-freedom.
68 “Gender Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Iranian Women,” Iran Human Rights
Documentation Center, March 8, 2013, http://iranhrdc.org/english/publications/legal-
commentary/1000000261-gender-inequality-and-discrimination-the-case-of-iranian-women.html#19.
69 Taheri, Spirit of Allah, 20–21.
70 Ibid., 121.
71 Ibid., 122.
72 Ibid., 39.
73 Ibid., 259.
24 - Conclusion: “The Life of the Muslim umma is
solely dependent on the ink of the scholars and the
blood of the martyrs.”
TO UNDERTAND the Islam in Islamic terrorism we need examine the
continuities between contemporary jihadists and similar movements
throughout Islamic history. It seems clear that these movements would not
have existed without Islamic history, and would not have had the aims they
do have without Islam. Not only do similarities exist between contemporary
movements and the religious riots in seventeenth-century Istanbul, for
example, but there is a causal, historical link between them. The Qādīzādeli
movement in Istanbul influenced the movement initiated by Ibn ‘Abd al-
Wahhāb in eighteenth-century Najd (Arabia), and Wahhābism has
influenced modern movements in Egypt as well in India and Southeast
Asia. All, in turn, were influenced by Ibn Taymiyya, the Islamic
philosopher who died in 1328.
But to concentrate only on the influence of this medieval Islamic thinker,
as many modern critics do, is to miss the point. For Ibn Taymiyya himself
was drawing upon a long tradition derived from Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855)
—and that tradition did not originate with Ibn Hanbal either, but reaches all
the way back to early Islam, and its founding texts, the Koran, the Sira, and
hadīth, and the model to be followed as found in the Sunna.
To understand the Islamic aims of ISIS or ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant), one only need ask what will ISIL do once Syria, Iraq, and
the Levant are conquered? The answer is obvious: ISIL will establish an
Islamic State. That is exactly what happened in Iran: Khomeini took power
and established an Islamic State, applying Islamic Law. As Khomeini said,
Islam is politics. And as Mawdūdī, Hasan al-Banna, and Khomeini have
pointed out, Islam is a total system that regulates every aspect of an
individual’s life—from cradle to grave.
Two important concepts in Islam are brought forth in the following
quotes, the first from Ismail Faruqi, the late Palestinian-American professor
of religion, the second from Michael Cook, British historian and scholar of
Islamic history. “Islam teaches not only that the realization of the good is
possible in this world,” wrote Faruqi, “but that to bring it about here and
now is precisely the duty of every man and woman….Hence, the good must
be possible to actualize—indeed obligatory.”1 But this duty, this imperative
of putting into action the principles of Islam is emphasized over and over
again by all the thinkers and groups discussed in these pages: from the
Khārijites, to Khomeini, from the Hanbalites, to the rioters in tenth century
Baghdad, from Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb to Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb.
Meanwhile, Cook observes, “The difference between Muslim thinking
and that of the modern West is thus not simply that there is no single
Muslim concept corresponding to the Western notion of privacy; it is also
that the Muslim concepts seem to be of a significantly different kind.”2
Combine these statements and it is but a short step to what Westerners, at
least, would call interfering in the private lives of others. Thence ensues all
kinds of mischief; these worldviews that cannot help but clash. As Thomas
Hobbes once said, “Certainly, peace among citizens cannot endure while
there is no consent about the factors thought necessary for eternal
salvation.”3
In the epilogue of his lucid Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval
Theology, Daniel Lav points out that radical Salafists are fighting a war on
behalf of faith against unbelief:4
It is a mistake then to ascribe to these radicals too great an interest in
any specific grievance or too great a vendetta against any particular
flesh-and-blood enemy in its normal, real world existence. These
enemies are, first and foremost, ciphers of unbelief, and their
specificity dissipates under a glaring ultrafidian light to reveal their
primary identity as tāghūt [idol].5
For the Salafi jihadists, there are false idols everywhere, and these
radicals are equally ready to displace themselves “to Somalia, Yemen, Iraq,
or Waziristan, as these are, in their view, fundamentally one single
jihad….They do not trust ‘those who do not share this stark doctrine of total
war between faith and unbelief.’”6
As Lav says, there are no specific grievances, it is not something we, in
the West have done, it is simply the fact that we do not accept the Koran as
a blueprint for a model society. Our simple existence is provocation enough.
It is the duty of the Islamic terrorists to bring about a society ruled by God’s
laws as promulgated in the Koran. The Islamic terrorists throughout Islamic
history are galvanized by the same concerns: a desire for a return to the
purity of their ancestors (salaf), a rejection of innovations (bida‘), a
rigorous adherence to the concept of tawhīd (Unicity of God), the duty to
follow the principle of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong and the
necessity of carrying out, for the sake of God, jihād, in its military sense.
They all have recourse to the same sources, above all the Koran; they all
quote the same verses from the same suras, page after page.
Finally, it is not as the journalistic cliché has it, a simple matter of “a few
bad apples.” There is something immanent in Islam that engenders radicals
willing to kill and be killed in the name of Allah. Appeasing or attempting
to negotiate with the “bad apples” will not work. Nor will piecemeal
tinkering: while the Shari‘a, to paraphrase Martin Kramer, maybe open to
some reinterpretation, it is not infinitely elastic. Islam will produce Islamic
terrorists until Muslims take a critical look at the Koran, and no longer treat
it as the word of God. Lav concludes “When considered in the longue
durée, these Muslim radicals are only one recent irruption of the belligerent
potential inherent in every strong monotheism” (emphasis added).7
In the twenty-first century there is a world of difference between a (not
so strong) monotheism (Christianity) that expresses sorrow when
confronted with apostasy, and one that is indeed strong (Islam), and when
confronted by the same phenomenon expresses anger by killing the
apostate. In his epilogue to Radical Islam, Lav notes:
Thomas Hobbes remarked that a state’s monopoly on violence could
not deter those motivated to fight over “the factors thought necessary
for eternal salvation.” For this reason, the civil commonwealth must
circumscribe the ambit of revelation and establish its moral priority
over religious claims to authority if it is to bring peace. Centuries
later, this same basic conflict is unfolding in the Muslim world,
however different the parameters may be.8
Islamic revivalists divide the world into the Near Enemy and the Far
Enemy. The near enemy is represented by the urgent situation in present-
day Islamic countries where Islamic law is no longer applied. Here the
unbroken tradition that leads all the way back to early Islam comes to the
fore. But the far enemy will have to be confronted one day, and is
represented by paganism, mushrikun, all who stray from God’s Unicity
(tawhīd) such as Christians, Hindus, and even those who worship saints. It
also means democracy and liberty, where sovereignty belongs to the people,
a principle antithetical to Islam, where sovereignty belongs to God. They,
too, will have to be fought.
Thus jihadism is destined to remain with us for many decades, since
there is something inherent in Islam that demands action, an incumbent
religious duty to combat unbelief until only Islam remains across the face of
the earth.
Reading fundamentalist writers such as Mawdūdī, al-Banna, Qutb, or
Khomeini, one is struck by their certainty that they possess the Truth—that
they know the will of God and that it is their duty to implement His laws as
laid down in the Koran and other revered texts. They reveal no shred of
doubt. And because they are convinced they possess the Truth, they feel it
is their duty to impose it on the world. They cannot rest until Islam
dominates the globe. There is no subtlety or nuance in their thought, and
they are mediocre thinkers rather than profound philosophers, despite the
fact that they have seduced many Western intellectuals into believing that
what the Islamists are proposing is perfectly civilized and acceptable.
Western civilization on the other hand is racked by doubt, and until we
retrieve our civilizational self-confidence, the irresistible logic of things
will mean we will surrender our freedoms without a murmur.
Why has jihād reemerged with particular ferocity in the last forty years?
Prolific contributor to the New English Review and Jihad Watch Hugh
Fitzgerald offers gives three reasons for its resurrection, to which I add one
additional explanation.9
In my view, paradoxically, it was increasing literacy and education that
led to a growing dissatisfaction with current conditions in Islamic countries,
as well as a rise in fundamentalism. Before the rise in urbanization and
literacy, Islam was divided between a folk variant and an Islam accessible
only to a clerical elite who could read Classical Arabic. Now more people
have access to their own High Culture. They can read Ibn Taymiyya, and
recognize for themselves that their own societies have fallen away from the
true Islam, the pristine Islam of Muhammad and his companions.
Fitzgerald argues that “[t]he doctrine of Jihād wasn’t suddenly invented
in the past fifty years. It’s been the same, more or less, for 1350 years. It
had fallen into desuetude, but did not, and could not, disappear. What
happened to make things so very different? Well, some might point to the
end of ‘colonialism.’ But that is not the main thing.”10 Three developments
explain the reemergence of jihād.
Muslim countries in the Middle East became immensely rich thanks to
geology. Fitzgerald writes, “Since 1973, the Arab and other Muslim-
dominated oil states have received ten trillion dollars from the sale of oil
and gas to oil-consuming nations, the greatest transfer of wealth in human
history. The Muslims did nothing to deserve this, though many took the oil
bonanza as a deliberate sign of Allah’s favor.”11
Apart from buying billions of dollars in arms, Saudi Arabia has spent
millions on Islamic propaganda on the building of madrassas. During the
campaign against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, much money was
provided to jihādi groups for missiles and training. Saudi Arabia and other
Islamic countries such as Iran and Brunei have corrupted Western
universities by large donations with strings attached, so that Islam is only
taught in a manner acceptable to them.
Second, there has been large-scale immigration into the West, from
Islamic nations, often former colonies, of Muslims who are implacably
hostile to the West, have no desire to learn why the West became so rich
and tolerant, and certainly have no desire to assimilate. They feel no
gratitude or allegiance to their Western host nations; their only obligations
are to fellow Muslims.
The mere presence of so many Muslims in the West has affected the
domestic and international behavior of governments, whose foreign policy
is dominated by a fear of offending their own Muslim population, ready to
riot on the slightest pretext. These unassimilated Muslims are committed to
introducing Islamic laws in the West, and they are able to do so by cleverly
exploiting the freedoms created over centuries by the infidels.
Third, advances in technology, from cell phones to the Internet, from
satellite television to YouTube videos, has meant the spread of Islamic
propaganda, reaching all believers. By now no Muslim can claim ignorance
of his duties, from the daily five prayers to the duty of Commanding Right
and Forbidding Wrong to jihād. Theoretically, the West could use the same
technological advances, which it invented, to broadcast its own propaganda.
But the West, lacking confidence in its own values and afraid of offending
Islamic governments considered “allies,” has not done so. No Western
government dares point out the “connection between the political,
economic, social, and intellectual failures of Muslim societies, and Islam
itself.”12 In any case, Muslims only watch channels such as al-Jazeera, that
are broadcast in their own languages.
The Internet presents young Muslims access to Islamic material that was
totally unknown to their parents—everything from the Koran, hadīth, the
life of Muhammad, and the history of Islam. Islam is a totalitarian system
that demands the suppression of one’s individuality, and as surprising as it
may seem, there are thousands of Muslims willing to submerge their
identities into the group, where all answers are handed down from on high.
They breathe a sigh of relief as they join the collective, “the charismatic
community” in Watt’s description, a community whose actions are
undergirded by God. All these traits of Islam make it a kind of fascism, and
certainly a totalitarian construct. We defeated, in the twentieth century, two
such totalitarian systems, but not before it had destroyed the lives of many
millions. Let us prepare to confront, and defeat, another such ideology in
the twenty-first century.

1 Al-Faruqi, Islam, 13, cited by Levtzion and Voll, Eighteenth-Century Renewal, 6.

2 Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 62–63.
3 Thomas Hobbes, Opera Latina, London: 1839–1845, 1:29; quoted by Daniel Lav, Radical Islam
and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 203n4.
4 Ibid., 201-3.
5 Lav, Radical Islam, 202. Thomas Patrick Hughes gives this definition of tāghūt: “An idol
mentioned in the Qur’an: Q4. an-Nisā’, the Women 54; Q2. al-Baqara, the Cow 257; Q2. al-Baqara,
the Cow 259….[As-Suyūtī] says tāghūt was an idol of the Quraish, whom certain renegade Jews
honoured in order to please the tribe. Mr [E.W.] Lane observes that in the Arabian Nights the name is
used to express the devil as well as an idol.” Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, s.v. “tāghūt.”
6 Lav, Radical Islam, 202.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 202-3.
9 Hugh Fitzgerald, “Understanding the Resurgence of Islam,” New English Review (July 2007),
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Hugh_Fitzgerald/Understanding_The_Resurgence_Of_Islam/.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
Selected Bibliography
I HAVE LIMITED myself to the most important works consulted.
I have left out the bibliographical material referred to by my secondary
sources; for example, in the present work I consult and cite the article on
“djihād,”, in the Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd Edition, by Émile Tyan. Tyan
gives bibliographical details of nearly twenty-five works, which I have
given in a footnote. However, I do not repeat them here in this bibliography.
I have also omitted many of the web-based sources; though, once again,
they are to be found in the footnotes.
A. Reference
Encyclopaedia of Islam Ist Edn. Ed. M.T. Housma et al. (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1913-1936).
Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd Edn. Ed, H.A.R. Gibb et al. (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1960-2004).
Hughes, Thomas Patrick. Dictionary of Islam (London: W.H. Allen,
1885; Delhi: Rupa & Co, 1988).
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