Jihad in the Hadith Works
After the Qur'an, the Hadith literature containing the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad is the most important source of law, ethics and morality for Muslims. Hadith works typically have a special section devoted to the topic of jihad, usually in a military sense.
Two early Hadith works from the first half of the ninth century are particularly helpful in tracing the debates among early Muslims concerning the purview of jihad and martyrdom. These works, each entitled Musannaf by Abd al-Razzaq al-San‘ani (d. 827) and Ibn Abi Shayba (d. 849) contain reports attributed not only to Muhammad but also to his Companions (that is, his closest associates), as well as to the next generation of Muslims (the Successors), who speak on their own authority. As a result, these works preserve for us a broader range of highly significant reports containing multiple, contested perspectives on jihad and martyrdom that are often missing from later works.The multiple ways of carrying out jihad are heralded in a noteworthy report recorded in Abd al-Razzaq’s Musannaf. It has a number of the Companions sitting with the Prophet when a man of muscular build, apparently a pagan from the tribe of Quraysh, comes into view. Some of those gathered exclaimed, ‘How strong this man looks! If only he would exert his strength in the way of God!' The Prophet asked, ‘Do you think only someone who is killed [that is, in battle] is engaged in the way of God?' He continued, ‘Whoever goes out in the world seeking licit work to support his family is on the path of God, and whoever goes out in the world seeking licit work to support himself is on the path of God. Whoever goes out seeking worldly increase has gone down the path of the devil.’[895]
The report is noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, it contains a clear rebuttal to those who would understand the idea of ‘striving in the way of God' primarily in military terms.
It praises instead the daily struggle of the individual to live his or her life ‘in the way of God’ which endows even the most mundane of licit activities with moral and spiritual significance. Second, the report emphasises the importance of sincere personal intention in determining the moral worth of an individual’s act. One may therefore understand the report to be counselling caution against assuming that what appears to be a pious activity to humans - such as the claim to be waging a true jihad - will be deemed as such by God, who alone can know the true intention of the individual.There are several reports in the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq that record the displeasure of certain Companions at the perceived military adventurism of the Umayyads, the first Arab-Islamic dynasty (661-750 c e) whose capital was in Damascus, Syria. Pious Muslims tended to regard the Umayyad rulers as immoral and unscrupulous. One report specifically warns the pious not to join in the military campaigns of those ‘who fight seeking [the gains of] the world’ - here a pointed reference to the Umayyads - for then they would forfeit their ‘portion in the hereafter’.[896]
We often see a regional division, one partly reflecting the shift to Abbasid rule in 750, between the supporters and opponents of the Umayyads, with mostly Syrian scholars expressing support for them, while non-Syrian scholars, often based in Mecca and Medina (called the Hijaz), expressing opposition to them.[897] The former group tended to support offensive jihad while the latter was against it. Thus pious Hijazi scholars like Abd Allah ibn Umar (d. 693) and Ata ibn Abi Rabah (d. 733) are on record as having opposed what must have appeared to them as unseemly glorification of military activity in pro-Umayyad circles, at the expense of the cultivation of the usual religious virtues and duties. According to one significant report, Abd Allah ibn Umar was once asked by a young man why he did not take part in the military jihad.
Ibn Umar is said to have first turned away from him, and then responded after his initial silence:Indeed Islam is founded upon four supports - performance of prayer, giving of the required alms - and no distinction is made between the two; fasting during the month of Ramadan; and pilgrimage to the Ka‘ba for the one capable of undertaking it. Jihad and non-obligatory charity (Ar., sadaqa) are among the good voluntary activities.[898]
The report critiques the promotion of the combative jihad by some as a religious obligation and asserts instead that fighting is at best a voluntary and optional activity. Early reports such as this convey to us that a cult of the military jihad and martyrdom that clearly took shape during the Umayyad period did not go unchallenged, nor was it fully formed during the first and second centuries of Islam.
In contrast to these Hijazi scholars, Syrian scholars, like Makhul al-Shami (d. c. 730) who was close to the Umayyads, tended to champion military activity as religiously mandated. According to a noteworthy report contained in Ibn Abi Shayba's Musannaf, Makhul is said to have sworn for ten days while facing Mecca that ‘fighting is incumbent upon you'.25 No doubt he was influenced by the fact that the Umayyads were engaged in constant border warfare with the Byzantines and there was a perceived need to justify these military campaigns on a theological and legal basis. It would not be an exaggeration to state that expressing support for expansionist war during this time was tantamount to proclaiming one's support for the Umayyad government and its imperial ambitions.
With regard to the notion of martyrdom that is connected with the military jihad, we find that there are multiple, competing definitions of who qualifies as a martyr, invariably called shahid in the Hadith literature in contrast to the Qur'an. The Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq contains a number of reports that relate competing definitions of the notion of shahid.
One report attributed to the famous Companion Abu Hurayra states that the shahid is one who, were he to die in his bed, would enter heaven.[899] Another report also recorded by Abd al-Razzaq declares that there are four types of shahada or martyrdom for Muslims: the plague, parturition or delivery of a child, drowning, and a ‘stomach ailment'.[900] Significantly, in this early report, there is no mention of martyrdom being earned on account of dying on the battlefield. An expanded version of the report, however, quotes the Prophet as adding to this list, ‘one who is killed in the way of God'.[901] It is this expanded version containing all five definitions of a shahid that is frequently recorded in later Hadith collections.Another eighth-century Hadith compilation records multiple significations of the term shahid. The Muwatta of the famous jurist Malik b. Anas (d. 795, the eponymous founder of the Maliki school of law) records that the Prophet identified seven kinds of martyrs alongside those who died fighting in God's way.
He who dies as a victim of an epidemic is a martyr; he who dies from drowning is a martyr; he who dies from pleurisy is a martyr; he who dies from diarrhea is a martyr; he who dies by [being burned in] fire is a martyr; he who dies by being struck by a crumbling dilapidated wall is a martyr; and the woman who dies in childbed is a martyr.29
This report therefore draws attention to the suffering of the believer - whether on account of debilitating illnesses or other afflictions in life, including undertaking the arduous task of defending Muslims on the battlefield - as the core ingredient of martyrdom rather than the manner of dying itself.
Compared to the two earlier Musannafs, later Hadith compilations, starting with the famous collection of al-Bukhari (d. 870) called Sahih (referring to ‘sound,' therefore, reliable Hadiths) record more reports attributed to the Prophet that contain effusive praise of the military jihad with generous posthumous rewards promised to the military martyr.
One such report states that there is an ‘abode of martyrs' (dar al-shuhada') that is the best and most excellent of abodes in the hereafter.[902] Another Hadith quotes the Prophet as saying that ‘Coming and going in the path of God (referring to military activity) is better than the world and what is in it.'[903]Other hierarchies of moral excellence are suggested in various reports contained in the Sahih of another famous Hadith compiler, Muslim ibn al- Hajjaj (d. 875), a collection considered very close in rank to that of al-Bukhari. According to one such report, faith in God and striving (jihad) in the path of God are equally the most meritorious of actions. Here jihad is clearly military in nature, for the report continues with an unnamed man asking if all his sins would be forgiven if he were slain in the path of God. The answer was in the affirmative, with the exception of personal debts. Several variants of this well- known Hadith are given.[904] One Hadith recorded by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj states that fighting in the path of God on horseback was the best way to earn one's livelihood.[905]
Some Hadiths warn, however, that the exalted status of the warrior should not lead to the deliberate courting of martyrdom on the part of the faithful by seeking to confront the enemy. One such report relates that the Prophet during a military campaign would customarily wait till the sun had tilted towards the west and then address his troops thus, ‘Do not wish to meet the enemy, O People, and ask forgiveness of God. When you meet them, be forbearing and know that paradise lies below the shade of the swords.' Other variants are given.34
These and other Hadiths that document the merits of the military jihad tended to reappear, usually verbatim, in nearly all subsequent compilations after al-Bukhari and Muslim. Because jihad from the ninth century onwards is customarily discussed in the context of international law, we also see more legal Hadiths dealing with issues of prisoners of war, division of spoils and other related matters included in standard compilations.
Notions of jihad as a moral and spiritual struggle, however, continue to be preserved along with the notion of jihad as military activity in most Hadith collections. In a number of these reports that focus on jihad as a moral and spiritual endeavour, the emphasis is on charity and prayer and on non-militant acts of courage such as, for example, speaking truth to a tyrant even at the cost of imperilling one's life or facing other negative consequences.[906] These meanings are consistent with the famous prophetic Hadith which describes the various means of carrying out jihad: by the hand, by the tongue and, silently, by the heart (that is, with intent).[907]A particularly well-known Hadith quotes the Prophet as remarking on his return from a military campaign, ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad (that is, physical, external struggle) to the greater jihad (that is, spiritual, internal struggle).'[908] The report underscores the two principal modes of carrying out jihad and reflects a hierarchical ordering of their merits, with the internal, spiritual struggle taking precedence over the external, physical one. This terminology - spiritual struggle (Ar., jihad al-nafs) versus military struggle (Ar., jihad al-sayf) - became quite prevalent in later edifying, particularly mystical (Sufi) literature and represents an evolution of the Qur'anic terms sabr and qital which, as we recall, refer to ‘patient forbearance' and ‘fighting' respectively.
So far we have discussed jihad and martyrdom as conceptualised by prominent Sunni scholars. Among the Shi‘a, the other major branch of Islam, ‘redemptive suffering' and non-violent martyrdom loom large because of the trajectory of Shi‘i history.[909] The largest Shi‘i group, the Twelver Shi‘a (Ar., Ithna Ashariyya or Imamiya), holds that all twelve of their religious leaders, known as imams, a line of male descendants of the Prophet, were martyred, starting with Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. The events at Karbala (680), during which a small band of Ali's descendants were ruthlessly massacred by the Umayyad army, created a special reverence for martyrdom among the Shi‘a, especially in relation to the family of the Prophet (Ar., ahl al-bayt), and more broadly in relation to believers who are assumed to have been oppressed and wrongly killed. In the absence of their rightful imam from 941 ce onwards, the military jihad fell into abeyance for the large majority of the Shi‘a in the premodern period. Consequently, martyrdom was conceptualised primarily as death resulting from suffering and persecution, rather than from military exploits on the battlefield.[910]