The Medinan Period: Establishing Just Cause for Military Combat
In other verses, the Qur'an treats specific just causes (casus belli) for which recourse to military force may be sanctioned. According to the exegetical literature, roughly two years after the emigration to Medina, two Qur'anic verse (22:39-40) permitting fighting were revealed which led to the first major battle in Islamic history called the Battle of Badr (624).
These verses state:Permission [to fight] is given to those against whom war has been initiated, and indeed, God has the power to help them: those who have been driven from their homes unjustly for no other reason than their saying, ‘Our Provider is God!' For, if God had not enabled people to defend themselves against one another, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques - in all of which God's name is abundantly glorified - would surely have been destroyed.
In Qur'an 42:40-3, previously cited, in which non-violent self-defence is allowed, the reasons are the wrongful conduct of the enemy and their oppressive and immoral behaviour on earth. Here, in Qur'an 22:39-40, another two explicit reasons are given: the initiation of fighting by the enemy and the wrongful expulsion of people from their homes for no reason other than their affirmation of belief in one God. Furthermore, these verses assert, if people were not allowed to defend themselves against aggressive wrongdoers, all the houses of worship - it is noteworthy that Jewish and Christian places of worship are included alongside Muslim ones - would be destroyed and thus the word of God extinguished. It is reasonable to infer from this verse that Muslims may resort to defensive combat also on behalf of non-Muslim monotheists who are the object of the hostility of polytheists.
Similar reasons which legitimate an armed response to the adversary are contained in another important group of verses - Qur'an 9:12-13 - which state:
If they break their pacts after having concluded them and revile your religion, then fight the leaders of unbelief.
Will you not fight a people who violated their oaths and had intended to expel the Messenger and commenced [hostilities] against you the first time?The overwhelming majority of exegetes stress that the violation of pacts by the polytheists, their denigration of Islam, hostile intent towards Muhammad and their initial act of aggression against Muslims had made fighting against them necessary. Therefore, when both just cause and right intention exist, fighting in self-defence against an intractable enemy may become obligatory. Qur'an 2:216 states: ‘Fighting (al-qital) is prescribed for you, while you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. God knows and you know not.' Although this verse, when taken out of its historical context, may imply that fighting was henceforth to be considered obligatory for Muslims in perpetuity, the commentary literature makes clear that a majority of the medieval exegetes understood these verses to be applicable only to the time of the Prophet and his Companions and to have no further applicability.[877]
The Qur'an further states that it is the duty of Muslims to defend those who are oppressed and who call out to them for help (4:75), except against a people with whom the Muslims have concluded a treaty (8:72).
The Qur'an also has specific injunctions with regard to initiation of hostilities and conduct during war (ius in bello). Qur'an 2:190, which states ‘Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression, for God loves not aggressors', forbids Muslims from commencing hostilities; fighting can only be undertaken in response to a prior act of aggression by the opposite side. The Qur'an further counsels (5:8), ‘Let not rancor towards others cause you to incline to wrong and depart from justice. Be just, this is closer to piety.' The verse may be understood to complement 2:190 in spirit and intent, warning against succumbing to unprincipled and vengeful desire to punish and inflict disproportionate damage.
Proportionality is explicitly stressed in Qur'an 2:194, which states ‘Whoever attacks you attack him to the extent of his attack.'Other verses in the Qur'an make clear that fighting is defensive and limited in nature and must cease when the other side lays down arms. Two significant verses (Qur'an 60:8-9) mandate kind and just interactions with those who are peaceful, regardless of their religious beliefs, in contrast to those who wilfully commit aggression:
God does not forbid you from being kind and equitable to those who have neither made war on you on account of your religion nor driven you from your homes; indeed God loves those who are equitable. God forbids you however from making common cause with those who fight you on account of your religion and evict you from your homes and who support [others] in driving you out.
Similarly, Qur'an 4:90 states: ‘If they hold themselves aloof from you and do not wage war against you and offer you peace, then God does not permit you any way against them.'
Al-Tabari, in his exegesis of Qur'an 60:8-9, affirms that these verses clearly permit Muslims to be kind to all those who bear no ill-will towards them, regardless of their religion and creed. For God, he says, loves those who are equitable, who give people their due rights, are personally just to them, and do good to those who are good to them.[878] These views were repeated by practically all the exegetes who came after him; among the later exegetes, al- Qurtubi is the most adamant in maintaining that the exhortation in Qur'an 60:8 to be kind to those who had caused Muslims no harm was applicable to everyone who belonged in this category, regardless of their religious affiliation, and that the command was unambiguous and valid for all times.[879]
Another important verse - Qur'an 8:61 - requires Muslims to cease fighting as soon as the other side desists from fighting and makes peaceful overtures. The verse states, ‘And if they should incline to peace, then incline to it [yourself] and place your trust in God; for He is all-hearing and all-knowing.' This point is stressed by al-Tabari, who comments that when a people enters into Islam, or pays the jizya (a kind of poll-tax), or establishes friendly relations with Muslims, then the latter should do the same ‘for the sake of peace and peacemaking'.[880]
But there were other scholars and authorities in later centuries who wished to promote the view that the Qur'an mandates continuous warfare against non-Muslims as non-Muslims, and that fighting in the Qur'an was not only defensive but offensive as well.
These changes in interpretation may be attributed to certain demographic and historical developments over time. Muslims became majority communities outside of the Arabian peninsula starting roughly in the late ninth century and they began to develop a growing sense of communal solidarity vis-à-vis non-Muslims. Such a sense of solidarity was often forged against the backdrop of continuing skirmishes with the Byzantine Christians through the Abbasid period which intensified during the bloody encounters with the crusaders from the late eleventh century onwards. By the Mamluk period (1250-1517), when the Muslim world was besieged by a new vicious enemy, the Mongols, readings of the Qur'an that sanctioned offensive warfare became predominant. Proponents of this position cite two verses in particular: Qur'an 9:5, which is understood to mandate fighting against all non-Abrahamic non-Muslims until they convert; and Qur'an 9:29, which is read to require fighting against the People of the Book until they either submit to Muslim rule, signified by their payment of the poll-tax (jizya), or embrace Islam. Since Qur'an 2:190, 60:7-9, 4:90 and 8:61, cited above and when taken together, clearly establish that fighting was contingent on the prior aggression of a hostile force and that peaceful people, regardless of their religion, could not be attacked under any circumstance, these more ‘hawkish' scholars had to develop an interpretive tool or principle for effectively ‘cancelling' these verses. This tool or principle is known in Arabic as naskh, which is usually translated as ‘abrogation'. According to this principle of abrogation, later verses in the Qur'an, such as 9:5 and 9:29, may be understood as superseding earlier verses - such as 60:7-9 and 8:61 - whose texts taken together may appear contradictory. These views did not go uncontested; our brief discussion of these two verses below conveys the tenor of some of these contestations.Qur'an 9:5 states:
When the sacred months have lapsed, then kill the polytheists (al-mushrikin) wherever you may encounter them.
Seize them and encircle them and lie in wait for them. But if they repent and perform the prayer and give the zakat, then let them go on their way, for God is forgiving and merciful.Prior to the Mamluk period (so, roughly speaking, before the mid thirteenth century) Muslim exegetes generally restricted the applicability of this verse to the Arab polytheists of the seventh century with whom there was no pact. Typically, the same exegetes did not maintain that Qur'an 9:5 had abrogated other verses in the Qur'an that counsel good relations with peaceful people, regardless of their religious affiliation. The twelfth-century exegete al- Zamakhshari (d. 1144), for example, identifies the intended polytheists in the verse as those who break their pledges and display a priori hostility to Muslims - thus, not polytheists as a rule. Like al-Tabari before him, he does not consider this to be an abrogating verse.[881] Similarly, the thirteenth-century Andalusian scholar al-Qurtubi (d. 1273) considers the verse to be neither abrogated nor abrogating.[882]
It is also highly significant that none of the exegetes up to al-Qurtubi referred to it as the ‘sword verse' (Ar., ayat al-sayf), which is the name given to it in later commentaries. We encounter this designation specifically for Qur'an 9:5 in the commentary of the fourteenth-century exegete Ibn Kathir (d. 1373).[883] His commentary on the verse indicates that a partiality had developed by the Mamluk period for the derivation of an expansive general mandate from otherwise historically circumscribed Qur'anic verses (as understood by earlier exegetes) to fight or punish all those deemed enemies of Islam in the later period - these were the crusaders as well as the Mongols, against both of whom thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Muslim forces were at war.
Qur'an 9:29 also came to be understood by a number of influential exegetes, from roughly the eighth century on, as granting permission to Muslims to fight a different group of non-Muslims - the People of the Book - who refuse to accept Islam or submit to Muslim political rule.
The verse states: ‘Fight those who do not believe in God nor in the Last Day and do not forbid what God and His messenger have forbidden and do not follow the religion of truth from among those who were given the Book until they offer the jizya with [their] hands in humility.'The early eighth-century exegete Mujahid b. Jabr (d. 722) understands this verse to refer specifically to the Byzantines, who are said to have amassed their forces on the Syrian border in preparation for an attack on Muslims in the year 630. Arabic sources refer to the event as the Battle ofTabuk, although no battle was eventually fought since the Byzantine forces failed to materialise.[884] [885] Exegetes after Mujahid, however, identify the referents in this verse as Jews and Christians in general who are expected to pay the jizya humbly in return for their protection by Muslim rulers.11 Al-Tabari acknowledges that the historical context for the revelation of this verse was the campaign ofTabuk. But unlike Mujahid, who specifically identifies the warring Byzantine Christians as the referent in this verse, al-Tabari treats Jews and Christians as undifferentiated collectivities; no distinction is made between hostile and peaceable factions within them. Furthermore, he stresses their legal subjugation and general doctrinal inferiority to Muslims.[886] [887] [888] Al-Tabari's views are consistently replicated by later exegetes, with the notable exception of al-Qurtubi, who pleads for respectful and compassionate treatment of the People of the Book.13
At the same time, al-Tabari and al-Qurtubi maintain that these same verses (9:5, 9:29) do not abrogate the peaceful, conciliatory verses in the Qur'an and dismiss the views of others who adhere to this position. Al-Tabari, for example, cites the example of Qatada b. Di‘ama (d. 736), a Successor (i.e., a member of the second generation of Muslims), who maintained that Qur'an 8:61 (which exhorts Muslims to incline to peace when the other side does) had been abrogated by Qur'an 9:5. Al-Tabari dismisses this interpretation as insupportable on the basis of the Qur'an, the Sunna (the practices and custom of the Prophet Muhammad) or reason. 14 The unabrogated status of the verse was similarly affirmed by a majority of exegetes after him.[889] The invocation of the principle of abrogation by some scholars testifies to the determination of a number of jurists who, in different historical contexts, attempted to find scriptural sanction for war that might be fought offensively, thereby overriding the categorical Qur'anic prohibition against the initiation of fighting (2:190).