UNDERSTANDING THE JIHAD AGAINST ISRAEL

At the height of so-called secular Arab nationalism, two complementary fatwas, one written on January 5, 1956, by then grand mufti of Egypt Sheikh Hasan Ma'moun, and another dated January 9, 1956, signed by the leading members of the Fatwa Committee of Al Azhar University and the major representatives of all four Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence, elaborated the following key initial point: that all of historical Palestine having been conquered by jihad was a permanent possession of the global Muslim umma (community), “fay territory” [booty], to be governed by Islamic law.

Muslims cannot conclude peace with those Jews who have usurped the territory of Palestine and attacked its people and their property in any manner which allows the Jews to continue as a state in that sacred Muslim territory. [As] Jews have taken a part of Palestine and there established their non-Islamic government and have also evacuated from that part most of its Muslim inhabitants.. Jihad.to restore the country to its people.is the duty of all Muslims, not just those who can undertake it. And since all Islamic countries constitute the abode of every Muslim, the Jihad is imperative for both the Muslims inhabiting the territory attacked, and Muslims everywhere else because even though some sections have not been attacked directly, the attack nevertheless took place on a part of the Muslim territory which is a legitimate residence for any Muslim.

Everyone knows that from the early days of Islam to the present day the Jews have been plotting against Islam and Muslims and the Islamic homeland. They do not propose to be content with the attack they made on Palestine and Al Aqsa Mosque, but they plan for the possession of all Islamic territories from the Nile to the Euphrates.¹⁷

There is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad, despite contemporary apologetics.

The words Al Jihad, Al Mojahadah, or even “striving against enemies” are equivalents and they do not mean especially fighting with the atheists...they mean fighting in the general sense.²⁶

Muhammad himself waged a series of protojihad campaigns to subdue the Jews, Christians, and pagans of Arabia.²⁷ Numerous moder- day pronouncements by leading Muslim theologians confirm that Muhammad has been the major inspiration for jihadism, past and present (see Yusuf Al-Qaradawi's, “The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model”²⁸).

Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406)—jurist, renowned philosopher, historian, and sociologist—summarized these consensus opinions from five centuries of prior Muslim jurisprudence with regard to the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad:

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense.. Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.²⁹

Shi'ite jurisprudence was in agreement with the Sunni consensus on the basic nature of jihad war, as reflected in this excerpt from the Jami-i-Abbasi (the popular Persian manual of Shi'a law) written by al- Amili (d. 1622), a distinguished theologian under Shah Abbas I:

Islamic Holy war [jihad] against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax.³⁰

The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the classical Muslim historian al-Tabari' s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b.

Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Koran 9:29) If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.³¹

By the time of al-Tabari's death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the Muslim empire from Portugal to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent Muslim conquests continued in Asia as well as eastern Europe. Under the banner of jihad, the Christian kingdoms of Armenia, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania, in addition to parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered and Islamized by waves of Seljuk, or later Ottoman, Turks, as well as Tatars. Arab Muslim invaders additionally engaged in continuous jihad raids that ravaged and enslaved Sub­Saharan African animist populations, extending to the southern Sudan. When the Ottoman Muslim armies were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, over a millennium of jihad had transpired. These tremendous military successes spawned a triumphal jihad literature. Muslim historians recorded in detail the number of infidels who were slaughtered or enslaved and deported; the cities, villages, and infidel religious sites which were sacked and pillaged; and the lands, treasure, and movable goods that were seized.³²

Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1942 speech, “Islam Is Not a Religion of Pacifists,” is a modern vision of these classical formulations, which states plainly:

Those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [Allah’s law; the Sharia].. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless.

Khomeini’s Iran has indeed embraced jihad “as a central pillar of faith and action,” demonstrated notably by the unending campaign of vilification and proxy violence against the “Zionist entity,” Israel.³⁴ This struggle epitomized what Khomeini’s Iran viewed as its “sacred struggle to cleanse the region and the world of Muslim and non-Muslim infidel blasphemy.”³⁵