Divisions of the world

With the incredible widespread rule of the Islamic state over territories that expanded in three continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe — within less than a century of the advent of Islam, second/eighth century Muslim jurists devised an interesting division of their world.

These divisions give indications into this classical Islamic paradigm of international relations and reinforce the thesis of this chapter regarding the justifications for jihad. The interesting question here, which is directly linked to the main thesis of this chapter, is, what do these divisions demarcate? Do they demarcate a religious or geographical division? At the outset, it should be pointed out that since immediately after the Prophet’s demise until its abolition in 1924, Muslims lived under the institution of the caliphate which, at least theoretically, unified its citizens apart from the rest of their world. But to answer these questions, the definitions of these divisions as adopted by the Muslim jurists must be examined. In fact, there are some jurists that divided their world into three divisions, namely, ddr al-Isldm, ddr al-harb, and ddr al-sulh, while others were content with only the first two.

Dar al-Islam (house of Islam), also called dar al-saldm (house of peace) or dar al-‘adl (house of justice), is defined in three different ways by classical Muslim jurists. First, according to the majority of Muslim jurists representing the four schools of Sunni Islamic law, which includes Shaybani (d. 189/805) and Abu Yusuf (d. 182/798) from the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools, ddr al-Isldm is defined as the territory where Islamic law is applied, zuhur al-Isldm or zuhur ahkdm al-Isldm (literally emergence of Islam or emergence of Islamic law). These jurists differed tremendously, however, on the limits of the application of Islamic law. While some maintained that it is limited to the territory where Islam is freely proclaimed and practised, others were only content with the implementation of even a single Islamic ritual in a territory to be classed as ddr al-Isldm.

It appears that, for those who were content with the partial application of Islamic law, the lack of persecution for the practice of Islam was suffice for a territory to be considered as a part of the ddr al-Isldm. That is because one of the examples classical Muslim jurists gave here is that if Muslims are able to perform prayers freely, then a territory is considered a ddr al-Isldm. However, in the post-colonial era and following the westernization of the Islamic legal systems in most of the Muslim world, some radical Islamist groups argued that the current Muslim states are not a ddr al-Isldm because they do apply wholly Islamic law, quoting the Quranic text 5:44: ‘And those who do not rule by what God has revealed, such are the unbelievers’. Hence, Muhammad 'Abd al-Salam Faraj (d. 1401/1981), executed in 1982 for his role in the assassination of President Sadat of Egypt, claimed that what he called the neglected duty, i.e., jihad, must be waged against what he called the ‘near enemy’, i.e., the Muslim rulers until they rule by Islamic law. This new development to the concept ofjihad from a war against non-Muslims to an internal war to enforce the application of Islamic law reinforces the thesis that the zuhur al-Isldm (the establishment of the religion of Islam and its laws) is a core justification of jihad regardless of the diverse understandings of what constitutes the acceptable limits of the zuhur al-Isldm. It should be mentioned here that a ddr al-Isldm is not necessarily exclusively inhabited by Muslims since dhimmis (non-Muslim permanent citizens of the Islamic state) have been always a part of the dar al-Islam and, according to classical Islamic law, they have the right to apply certain aspects of their respective legal systems.

Second, according to a minority group, including Shawkani (d. 1255/1834), a territory is a dar al-Islam if it is ruled by Muslims. Obviously what lies behind this stipulation is that since authority is in the hands of the Muslims, Islamic law is applied and Muslims can reside and apply their religion freely.

However, will a territory be called a dar al-Islam if it is ruled by Muslims but Islam cannot be practised and its Muslim population are persecuted because of their religion? The answer would be in the negative. Similarly, the more interesting question here is that, if a territory that is ruled by non-Muslims, but Muslims enjoy the freedom to practise their religion, would this territory be called a dar al-Islam? The rational answer, as can also be deduced from the third position below, is that such a territory would be a dar al-Islam, though sovereignty is in the hands of non-Muslims.

Third, according to Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767), dar al-Islam is a territory in which Muslims and dhimmis are secure and can practise their religion with no persecution.¹¹ In a much clearer way than the preceding two positions, Abu Hanifa’s words indicate that what determines whether a territory is a dar al-Islam or not is the lack of enmity against both Muslims and dhimmis, permanent non-Muslim citizens of the Islamic state. If the element of security exists in any territory, then it deserves to be categorized also as a dar al-salam (house of peace) or dar al-‘adl (house ofjustice). In this context, it is worth adding here that classical Muslim jurists stated that if Muslims are unable to perform their religion without persecution, then following the Prophet’s and the Companions’ practice, hijra (flight) to the dar al-Islam is obligatory. Sheikh al-Azhar Mahmud Shaltut (d. 1383/1963) argues that the Quranic command 5:79 for Muslims to flee in case of persecution because of their religion from any territories — whether ruled by Muslims or non-Muslims — still applies in the contemporary world.¹² Although these three positions are expressed in different ways, they basically reinforce the same idea: dar al-Islam is not a territory that is identified by geographical boundaries or the religious affiliation of the rulers or inhabitants. It is a theoretical division that emerged in a period where hostility and the lack of religious freedom signified the pattern of international relation at the time. So, in addition to the intrinsic right of self-defense against aggression against one’s territories, by this division of the world, classical Muslim jurists were identifying the state or the home that is peaceful to the religion of Islam.

Additionally, as can be seen from the discussion below, this division is not about demarcating territories that Muslims are to annex to the Islamic state or non-Muslims that are to be fought until they are converted by force to Islam, but it is a division that has legal ramifications regarding, for example, the issue of the jurisdiction of Islamic law.

Based on the above definitions, or parameters, of what constitutes a dar al-Islam, a dar al-harb (house of war), also called dar al-kufr (house of unbelief) or dar al-jawr (house of injustice), is the territories where the above parameters are lacking. But this does not necessarily mean that the Islamic state has to go to war against such territories partly because, even with the lack of some of these parameters, a territory can still be categorized as a dar al-sulh (house of peace) if an armistice or a peace agreement is concluded. It is worth recalling here that this division was rather a description of the state of reality at that time when a state of hostility was the norm in international relations. It goes without saying that if a country invades the Islamic territories, it becomes a dar al-harb, according to the majority ofjurists, and in this case jihad becomes an obligation on every capable Muslim. But in any case, it is of paramount importance to note here that the civilian inhabitants of a dar al-harb cannot be targeted during the hostilities. This is because the muharibUn (enemy combatants) only can be a legitimate target during military operations within the Islamic restraints on the use of force briefly touched upon above. Furthermore, if enemy combatants ask in any form, whether verbally or via gesture, for aman (literally safety and protection, while as a legal term it means quarter and safe conduct), they must be granted it. However, this distinction between the civilian population of the dar al-harb and the muharibun has been grossly overlooked by terrorist groups who justified their terrorist attacks in nonMuslim countries against innocent civilians by wrongly claiming that the lives and property of the inhabitants of the daar al-harb are not inviolable.

Furthermore, as pointed out above, claiming that the current Islamic states that do not solely apply Islamic law are dar al-harb/dar al-kufr, hence they claim it is permitted to commit terrorist attacks against government targets to enforce the application of Islamic law. Also non-violent Islamist politicians and thinkers claim that their primary objective is enforcing the application of the Shari 'ah in their countries.

As for the third division, dar al-sulh (house of peace), also called dar al- 'ahd (house of covenant) or dar al-muwada'a (house of reconciliation), refers to the sovereign of semiautono- mous territories with which the Islamic state concluded a peace agreement, an armistice, or a pact of non-aggression. The Islamic state has no control over such territories and therefore does not enforce the implementation and application of Islamic law,¹³ but such agreements indicate the lack of hostility towards its Muslim community. Notwithstanding the details of such peace arrangements, the mere fact that Islamic law legitimized, and the Islamic state practised, peace agreements with non-Muslim territories prove that the aim of jihad is not the universalization of Islam by force since the inhabitants of the dar al-sulh maintain their religions. It also shows that the claim made by Majid Khadduri (d. 1428/2007) that one of the aims ofjihad is ‘the establishment of an imperial world state’,¹⁴ or what is described as the universalization of Islamic rule, is inaccurate, as argued by Wahbah al-Zuhayli, since what Islam aims at is protecting the enforcement of Islamic Shari 'ah.¹⁵ Furthermore, it is only a minority among classical Muslim jurists including al-Shafi'i that accepted this third division, because according to the majority of the jurists, as shown above, irrespective of the limits of its application or practice, if Islam can be freely practised in any territory it becomes a part of the dar al-Islam and, according to Abu Hanifa, the mere fact that Muslims and dhimmis are secure in a certain territory makes it a dar al-Islam.

In the light of this brief discussion of the figurative territorial divisions of the classical Muslim jurists’ world, it becomes clear that what determines the above three categorizations of the world is the freedom to practise Islam and its laws. As a corollary of that, in addition to aggression and occupation of the Islamic territories, a dar al-harb is any territory in which the practice or the application of Islam is persecuted/prohibited. This explains the agreement among Muslim scholars on preventing the proselytization of Islam as a peculiar justification for going to war according to the Islamic tradition of war.¹⁶ Moreover, the ten-year encyclopedic research project on international relations in Islam sponsored by the US-based International Institute of Islamic Thought concludes that what determines whether a state of peace or war exists with non-Muslims is their position towards the preaching of Islam.¹⁷ But the sharp disagreement between those who are content with the mere safety of Muslims to reside and proclaim their faith in a certain territory to be categorized as a dar al-Islam and those who claim that the application of non-Shari 'ah laws in any territory makes it a dar al-kufr/dar al-harb could either make the whole world today either a dar al-Islam, according to the former, or a dar al-kufr/dar al-harb, according to the latter. The significance of the place of Islam in this classical formula of international relations is understood in light of the hostility that characterized the pattern of international relations in which this territorial division emerged. But no less importantly, as shown below, this territorial division theory has legal consequences regarding the sovereignty and the jurisdiction of Islamic law.

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Source: Abou El Fadl Khaled, Ahmad Ahmad Atif, Hassan Said Fares (Eds.). Routledge Handbook of Islamic Law. Routledge,2019. — 466 p.. 2019

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