Islam 101 by Gregory M.

Davis
by Gregory M. Davis author, Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World producer/director, Islam: What the West Needs to Know -- An Examination of Islam, iolence, and the !ate of the Non-"#slim World Islam 101 is meant to help people become better educated about the fundamentals of Islam and to help the more kno ledgeable better convey the facts to others. !imilarly, my book and documentary are meant to serve as concise e"planations of the ma#or moving parts of Islam and their implications for $estern society. Islam 101 is a condensation of the book and documentary ith the aim of lending clarity to the public understanding of Islam and of e"posing the inade%uacy of prevailing vie s. &ll should feel free to distribute and/or reproduce it. 'able of (ontents 1) 'he *asics a) 'he +ive ,illars of Islam b) 'he -uran .. the *ook of &llah c) 'he !unnah .. the /$ay/ of the ,rophet Muhammad i. *attle of *adr ii. *attle of 0hud iii. *attle of Medina iv. (on%uest of Mecca d) !haria 1a 2) 3ihad and Dhimmitude a) $hat does /#ihad/ mean4 b) Muslim !cholar 5asan &l.*anna on #ihad c) Dar al.Islam and dar al.harb6 the 5ouse of Islam and the 5ouse of $ar i) 'a%iyya .. 7eligious Deception d) 3ihad 'hrough 5istory i) 'he +irst Ma#or $ave of 3ihad6 the &rabs, 822.9:0 &D ii) 'he !econd Ma#or $ave of 3ihad6 the 'urks, 1091.18;< &D e) 'he Dhimma f) 3ihad in the Modern =ra <) (onclusion >) +re%uently &sked -uestions 1

a) $hat about the (rusades4 b) If Islam is violent, hy are so many Muslims peaceful4 c) $hat about the violent passages in the *ible4 d) (ould an Islamic /7eformation/ pacify Islam4 e) $hat about the history of $estern colonialism in the Islamic orld4 f) 5o can a violent political ideology be the second.largest and fastest.gro ing religion on earth4 g) Is it fair to paint all Islamic schools of thought as violent4 h) $hat about the great achievements of Islamic civili?ation4 :) Glossary of 'erms 8) +urther 7esources 1. The Basics a. The Five Pillars of Islam 'he five pillars of Islam constitute the most basic tenets of the religion. 'hey are6 1. +aith @iman) in the oneness of &llah and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad @indicated by the declaration Athe !hahadahB that, /'here is no God but &llah and Muhammad is the messenger of &llah/). 2. Ceeping of the five scheduled daily prayers @salah). <. &lmsgiving @?akat). >. +asting @sa m). :. ,ilgrimage @ha##) to Mecca for those ho are able. 'he five pillars in and of themselves do not tell us a lot about the faith or hat a Muslim is supposed to believe or ho he should act. 'he second through fifth pillars .. prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage .. are aspects shared by many religions. 'he finality of the prophethood of Muhammad, ho ever, is uni%ue to Islam. 'o understand Islam and hat it means to be a Muslim, e must come to understand Muhammad as ell as the revelations given through him by &llah, hich make up the -uran. b. The Quran -- he Boo! of "llah &ccording to Islamic teaching, the -uran came do n as a series of revelations from &llah through the &rchangel Gabriel to the ,rophet Muhammad, ho then dictated it to his follo ers. MuhammadDs companions memori?ed fragments of the -uran and rote them do n on hatever as at hand, hich ere later compiled into book form under the rule of the third (aliph, 0thman, some years after MuhammadDs death. 'he -uran is about as long as the (hristian Ee 'estament. It comprises 11> suras @not to be confused ith the !ira, hich refers to the life of the ,rophet) of varying lengths, hich may be considered chapters. &ccording to Islamic doctrine, it as around 810 &D in a cave near the city of Mecca @no in south est !audi &rabia) that Muhammad received the first revelation from &llah by ay of the &rchangel Gabriel. 'he revelation merely commanded Muhammad to /recite/ or /read/ @!ura F8)G the 2

ords he as instructed to utter ere not his o n but &llahDs. Hver the ne"t t elve or so years in Mecca, other revelations came to Muhammad that constituted a message to the inhabitants of the city to forsake their pagan ays and turn in orship to the one &llah. $hile in Mecca, though he condemned paganism @for the most part), Muhammad sho ed great respect for the monotheism of the (hristian and 3e ish inhabitants. Indeed, the &llah of the -uran claimed to be the same God orshipped by 3e s and (hristians, ho no revealed himself to the &rab people through his chosen messenger, Muhammad. It is the -uranic revelations that came later in MuhammadDs career, after he and the first Muslims left Mecca for the city of Medina, that transformed Islam from a relatively benign form of monotheism into an e"pansionary, military.political ideology that persists to this day. Hrthodo" Islam does not accept that a rendering of the -uran into another language is a /translation/ in the ay that, say, the Cing 3ames *ible is a translation of the original 5ebre and Greek !criptures. & point often made by Islamic apologists to defang criticism is that only &rabic readers may understand the -uran. *ut &rabic is a language like any other and fully capable of translation. Indeed, most Muslims are not &rabic readers. In the belo analysis, e use a translation of the -uran by t o Muslim scholars, hich may be found here. &ll parenthetical e"planations in the te"t are those of the translators save for my inter#ections in braces, I J. 'hose $esterners ho manage to pick up a translation of the -uran are often left be ildered as to its meaning thanks to ignorance of a critically important principle of -uranic interpretation kno n as /abrogation./ 'he principle of abrogation .. al.naskh a al.mansukh @the abrogating and the abrogated) .. directs that verses revealed later in MuhammadDs career /abrogate/ .. i.e., cancel and replace .. earlier ones hose instructions they may contradict. 'hus, passages revealed later in MuhammadDs career, in Medina, overrule passages revealed earlier, in Mecca. 'he -uran itself lays out the principle of abrogation6 26108. $hatever a Kerse @revelation) do $e I&llahJ abrogate or cause to be forgotten, $e bring a better one or similar to it. Cno you not that &llah is able to do all things4 It seems that 26108 as revealed in response to skepticism directed at Muhammad that &llahDs revelations ere not entirely consistent over time. MuhammadDs rebuttal as that /&llah is able to do all things/ .. even change his mind. 'o confuse matters further, though the -uran as revealed to Muhammad se%uentially over some t enty yearsD time, it as not compiled in chronological order. $hen the -uran as finally collated into book form under (aliph 0thman, the suras ere ordered from longest to shortest ith no connection hatever to the order in hich they ere revealed or to their thematic content. In order to find out hat the -uran says on a given topic, it is necessary to e"amine the other Islamic sources that give clues as to hen in MuhammadDs lifetime the revelations occurred. 0pon such e"amination, one discovers that the Meccan suras, revealed at a time hen the Muslims ere vulnerable, are generally benignG the later Medinan suras, revealed after Muhammad had made himself the head of an army, are bellicose. 1et us take, for e"ample, :06>: and !ura 10F, both revealed in Mecca6 :06>:. $e kno of best hat they sayG and you @H Muhammad) are not a tyrant over them @to force them to *elief). *ut arn by the -urDan, him ho fears My 'hreat. 10F61. !ay @H Muhammad to these Mushrikun and Cafirun)6 /H &l.Cafirun @disbelievers in <

&llah, in 5is Hneness, in 5is &ngels, in 5is *ooks, in 5is Messengers, in the Day of 7esurrection, and in &l.-adar Idivine foreordainment and sustaining of all thingsJ, etc.)L 10F62. /I orship not that hich you orship, 10F6<. /Eor ill you orship that hich I orship. 10F6>. /&nd I shall not orship that hich you are orshipping. 10F6:. /Eor ill you orship that hich I orship. 10F68. /'o you be your religion, and to me my religion @Islamic Monotheism)./ 'hen there is this passage revealed #ust after the Muslims reached Medina and ere still vulnerable6 262:8. 'here is no compulsion in religion. Kerily, the 7ight ,ath has become distinct from the rong path. $hoever disbelieves in 'aghut IidolatryJ and believes in &llah, then he has grasped the most trust orthy handhold that ill never break. &nd &llah is &ll.5earer, &ll.Cno er. In contrast, take F6:, commonly referred to as the /Kerse of the ! ord/, revealed to ard the end of MuhammadDs life6 F6:. 'hen hen the !acred Months @the 1st, 9th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun IunbelieversJ herever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. *ut if they repent and perform &s.!alat @I%amat.as.!alat Ithe Islamic ritual prayersJ), and give Makat IalmsJ, then leave their ay free. Kerily, &llah is Hft.+orgiving, Most Merciful. 5aving been revealed later in Muhammad4s life than :06>:, 10F, and 262:8, the Kerse of the ! ord abrogates their peaceful in#unctions in accordance ith 26108. !ura ;, revealed shortly before !ura F, reveals a similar theme6 ;6<F. &nd fight them until there is no more +itnah @disbelief and polytheism6 i.e. orshipping others besides &llah) and the religion @ orship) ill all be for &llah &lone Ain the hole of the orldB. *ut if they cease @ orshipping others besides &llah), then certainly, &llah is &ll.!eer of hat they do. ;689. It is not for a ,rophet that he should have prisoners of ar @and free them ith ransom) until he had made a great slaughter @among his enemies) in the land. Nou desire the good of this orld @i.e. the money of ransom for freeing the captives), but &llah desires @for you) the 5ereafter. &nd &llah is &ll.Mighty, &ll.$ise. F62F. +ight against those ho believe not in &llah, nor in the 1ast Day, nor forbid that hich has been forbidden by &llah and 5is Messenger and those ho ackno ledge not the religion of truth @i.e. Islam) among the people of the !cripture @3e s and (hristians), until they pay the 3i?ya ith illing submission, and feel themselves subdued. F6<<. It is 5e I&llahJ $ho has sent 5is Messenger @Muhammad) ith guidance and the religion of truth @Islam), to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikun @polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Hneness of &llah) hate @it). 'he -uranDs commandments to Muslims to age ar in the name of &llah against non.Muslims are >

unmistakable. 'hey are, furthermore, absolutely authoritative as they ere revealed late in the ,rophetDs career and so cancel and replace earlier instructions to act peaceably. $ithout kno ledge of the principle of abrogation, $esterners ill continue to misread the -uran and misdiagnose Islam as a /religion of peace./ c. The #unnah -- he $%ay$ of he Pro&he Muhamma' In Islam, Muhammad is considered al-insan al-$amil @the /ideal man/). Muhammad is in no ay considered divine, nor is he orshipped @no image of Muhammad is permitted lest it encourage idolatry), but he is the model par e"cellence for all Muslims in ho they should conduct themselves. It is through MuhammadDs personal teachings and actions .. hich make up the / ay of the ,rophet,/ the !unnah .. that Muslims discern hat is a good and holy life. Details about the ,rophet .. ho he lived, hat he did, his non.-uranic utterances, his personal habits .. are indispensable kno ledge for any faithful Muslim. Cno ledge of the !unnah comes primarily from the hadiths @/reports/) about MuhammadDs life, hich ere passed do n orally until codified in the eighth century &D, some hundred years after MuhammadDs death. 'he hadiths comprise the most important body of Islamic te"ts after the -uranG they are basically a collection of anecdotes about MuhammadDs life believed to have originated ith those ho kne him personally. 'here are thousands upon thousands of hadiths, some running to multiple pages, some barely a fe lines in length. $hen the hadiths ere first compiled in the eighth century &D, it became obvious that many ere inauthentic. 'he early Muslim scholars of hadith spent tremendous labor trying to determine hich hadiths ere authoritative and hich ere suspect. 'he hadiths here come e"clusively from the most reliable and authoritative collection, !ahih &l. *ukhari, recogni?ed as sound by all schools of Islamic scholarship, translated by a Muslim scholar and hich may be found here. Different translations of hadiths can vary in their breakdo n of volume, book, and number, but the content is the same. +or each hadith, the classifying information is listed first, then the name of the originator of the hadith @generally someone ho kne Muhammad personally), and then the content itself. $hile the absolute authenticity of even a sound hadith is hardly assured, they are nonetheless accepted as authoritative ithin an Islamic conte"t. *ecause Muhammad is himself the measuring stick of morality, his actions are not #udged according to an independent moral standard but rather establish hat the standard for Muslims properly is. Kolume 9, *ook 82, Eumber ;;G Earrated 0rsa6 'he ,rophet rote the @marriage contract) ith &isha hile she as si" years old and consummated his marriage ith her hile she as nine years old and she remained ith him for nine years @i.e. till his death). Kolume ;, *ook ;2, Eumber 9F:G Earrated &nas6 'he ,rophet cut off the hands and feet of the men belonging to the tribe of 0raina and did not cauterise @their bleeding limbs) till they died. Kolume 2, *ook 2<, Eumber >1<G Earrated &bdullah bin 0mar6 'he 3e s Iof MedinaJ brought to the ,rophet a man and a oman from amongst them ho have committed @adultery) illegal se"ual intercourse. 5e ordered both of them to be stoned @to death), near the place of offering the funeral prayers beside the mos%ue. Kolume F, *ook ;>, Eumber :9G Earrated Ikrima6 !ome Manadi%a @atheists) ere brought to &li Ithe fourth (aliphJ and he burnt them. 'he ne s of this event, reached Ibn D&bbas :

ho said, /If I had been in his place, I ould not have burnt them, as &llahDs &postle forbade it, saying, /Do not punish anybody ith &llahDs punishment @fire)./ I ould have killed them according to the statement of &llahDs &postle, /$hoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him./ Kolume 1, *ook 2, Eumber 2:G Earrated &bu 5uraira6 &llahDs &postle as asked, /$hat is the best deed4/ 5e replied, /'o believe in &llah and 5is &postle @Muhammad). 'he %uestioner then asked, /$hat is the ne"t @in goodness)4/ 5e replied, /'o participate in 3ihad @religious fighting) in &llahDs (ause./ In Islam, there is no /natural/ sense of morality or #ustice that transcends the specific e"amples and in#unctions outlined in the -uran and the !unnah. *ecause Muhammad is considered &llahDs final prophet and the -uran the eternal, unalterable ords of &llah himself, there is also no evolving morality that permits the modification or integration of Islamic morality ith that from other sources. 'he entire Islamic moral universe devolves solely from the life and teachings of Muhammad. &long ith the reliable hadiths, a further source of accepted kno ledge about Muhammad comes from the !ira @life) of the ,rophet, composed by one of IslamDs great scholars, Muhammad bin Isha%, in the eighth century &D. MuhammadDs prophetic career is meaningfully divided into t o segments6 the first in Mecca, here he labored for fourteen years to make converts to IslamG and later in the city of Medina @'he (ity of the &postle of God), here he became a po erful political and military leader. In Mecca, e see a %uasi. *iblical figure, preaching repentance and charity, harassed and re#ected by those around himG later, in Medina, e see an able commander and strategist ho systematically con%uered and killed those ho opposed him. It is the later years of MuhammadDs life, from 822 &D to his death in 8<2, that are rarely broached in polite company. In 822, hen the ,rophet as better than fifty years old, he and his follo ers made the 5i#ra @emigration or flight), from Mecca to the oasis of Nathrib .. later renamed Medina .. some 200 miles to the north. MuhammadDs ne monotheism had angered the pagan leaders of Mecca, and the flight to Medina as precipitated by a probable attempt on MuhammadDs life. Muhammad had sent emissaries to Medina to ensure his elcome. 5e as accepted by the Medinan tribes as the leader of the Muslims and as arbiter of inter.tribal disputes. !hortly before Muhammad fled the hostility of Mecca, a ne batch of Muslim converts pledged their loyalty to him on a hill outside Mecca called &%aba. Isha% here conveys in the !ira the significance of this event6 !ira, p20;6 $hen God gave permission to his &postle to fight, the second Ioath of allegiance atJ &%aba contained conditions involving ar hich ere not in the first act of fealty. Eo they IMuhammadDs follo ersJ bound themselves to ar against all and sundry for God and his &postle, hile he promised them for faithful service thus the re ard of paradise. 'hat MuhammadDs nascent religion under ent a significant change at this point is plain. 'he scholarly Isha% clearly intends to impress on his @Muslim) readers that, hile in its early years, Islam as a relatively tolerant creed that ould /endure insult and forgive the ignorant,/ &llah soon re%uired Muslims /to ar against all and sundry for God and his &postle./ 'he Islamic calendar testifies to the paramouncy of the 5i#ra by setting year one from the date of its occurrence. 'he year of the 5i#ra, 822 &D, is considered more significant than the year of MuhammadDs birth or death or that of the first 8

-uranic revelation because Islam is first and foremost a political.military enterprise. It as only hen Muhammad left Mecca ith his paramilitary band that Islam achieved its proper political.military articulation. 'he years of the Islamic calendar @ hich employs lunar months) are designated in =nglish /&5/ or /&fter 5i#ra./ i. The Ba le of Ba'r 'he *attle of *adr as the first significant engagement fought by the ,rophet. 0pon establishing himself in Medina follo ing the 5i#ra, Muhammad began a series of ra??ias @raids) on caravans of the Meccan -uraish tribe on the route to !yria. Kolume :, *ook :F, Eumber 2;9G Earrated Cab bin Malik6 'he &postle had gone out to meet the caravans of -uraish, but &llah caused them @i.e. Muslims) to meet their enemy une"pectedly @ ith no previous intention). Kolume :, *ook :F, Eumber 2;FG Earrated Ibn &bbas6 Hn the day of the battle of *adr, the ,rophet said, /H &llahL I appeal to Nou @to fulfill) Nour (ovenant and ,romise. H &llahL If Nour $ill is that none should orship Nou @then give victory to the pagans)./ 'hen &bu *akr took hold of him by the hand and said, /'his is sufficient for you./ 'he ,rophet came out saying, /'heir multitude ill be put to flight and they ill sho their backs./ @:>6>:) 5aving returned to Medina after the battle, Muhammad admonished the resident 3e ish tribe of -aynu%a to accept Islam or face a similar fate as the -uraish @<612.1<). 'he -aynu%a agreed to leave Medina if they could retain their property, hich Muhammad granted. +ollo ing the e"ile of the *ani -aynu%a, Muhammad turned to individuals in Medina he considered to have acted treacherously. 'he ,rophet particularly seems to have disliked the many poets ho ridiculed his ne religion and his claim to prophethood .. a theme evident today in the violent reactions of Muslims to any perceived mockery of Islam. In taking action against his opponents, /the ideal man/ set precedents for all time as to ho Muslims should deal ith detractors of their religion. !ira, p<896 'hen he ICab bin al.&shrafJ composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about the Muslim omen. 'he &postle said6 /$ho ill rid me of Ibnul.&shraf4/ Muhammad bin Maslama, brother of the *ani &bduDl.&shhal, said, /I ill deal ith him for you, H &postle of God, I ill kill him./ 5e said, /Do so if you can./ /&ll that is incumbent upon you is that you should try/ Isaid the ,rophet to Muhammad bin MaslamaJ. 5e said, /H &postle of God, e shall have to tell lies./ 5e Ithe ,rophetJ ans ered, /!ay hat you like, for you are free in the matter./ Kolume >, *ook :2, Eumber 290G Earrated 3abir bin D&bdullah6 'he ,rophet said, /$ho is ready to kill Cab bin &l.&shraf ho has really hurt &llah and 5is &postle4/ Muhammad bin Maslama said, /H &llahDs &postleL Do you like me to kill him4/ 5e replied in the affirmative. !o, Muhammad bin Maslama ent to him @i.e. Cab) and said, /'his person @i.e. the ,rophet) has put us to task and asked us for charity./ Cab replied, /*y &llah, you ill get tired of him./ Muhammad said to him, /$e have follo ed him, so e dislike to leave him till e see the end of his affair./ Muhammad bin Maslama ent on talking to him in this ay till he got the chance to kill him. & significant portion of the !ira is devoted to poetry composed by MuhammadDs follo ers and his enemies in rhetorical duels that mirrored those in the field. 'here seems to have been an informal 9

competition in aggrandi?ing oneself, oneDs tribe, and oneDs God hile ridiculing oneDs adversary in elo%uent and memorable ays. Cab bin Malik, one of the assassins of his brother, Cab bin al.&shraf, composed the follo ing6 !ira, p<8;6 Cab bin Malik said6 Hf them Cab as left prostrate there @&fter his fall Ithe 3e ish tribe ofJ al.Eadir ere brought lo ). ! ord in hand e cut him do n *y MuhammadDs order hen he sent secretly by night CabDs brother to go to Cab. 5e beguiled him and brought him do n ith guile Mahmud as trust orthy, bold. ii. The Ba le of (hu' 'he Meccan -uraish regrouped for an attack on the Muslims at Medina. Muhammad got ind of the Meccan force coming to attack him and encamped his forces on a small hillock north of Medina named 0hud, here the ensuing battle took place. Kolume :, *ook :F, Eumber <99G Earrated 3abir bin &bdullah6 Hn the day of the battle of 0hud, a man came to the ,rophet and said, /(an you tell me here I ill be if I should get martyred4/ 'he ,rophet replied, /In ,aradise./ 'he man thre a ay some dates he as carrying in his hand, and fought till he as martyred. Kolume :, *ook :F, Eumber <9:G Earrated &l.*ara6 hen e faced the enemy, they took to their heel till I sa their omen running to ards the mountain, lifting up their clothes from their legs, revealing their leg.bangles. 'he Muslims started saying, /'he booty, the bootyL/ &bdullah bin 3ubair said, /'he ,rophet had taken a firm promise from me not to leave this place./ *ut his companions refused @to stay). !o hen they refused @to stay there), @&llah) confused them so that they could not kno here to go, and they suffered seventy casualties. 'hough deprived of victory at 0hud, Muhammad as by no means van%uished. 5e continued making raids that made being a Muslim not only virtuous in the eyes of &llah but lucrative as ell. In an Islamic orldvie , there is no incompatibility bet een ealth, po er, and holiness. Indeed, as a member of the true faith, it is only logical that one should also en#oy the material bounty of &llah .. even if that means plundering it from infidels. &s Muhammad had neutrali?ed the 3e ish tribe of *ani -aynu%a after *adr, he no turned to the *ani Eadir after 0hud. &ccording to the !ira, &llah arned Muhammad of an attempt to assassinate him, and the ,rophet ordered the Muslims to prepare for ar against the *ani Eadir. 'he *ani Eadir agreed to go into e"ile if Muhammad permitted them to retain their movable property. Muhammad agreed to these terms save that they leave behind their armor. iii. The Ba le of Me'ina In 829 &D, Muhammad faced the greatest challenge to his ne community. In that year, the -uraish of Mecca made their most determined attack on the Muslims at Medina itself. Muhammad thought it advisable not to engage them in a pitched battle as at 0hud but took shelter in Medina, protected as it as by lava flo s on three sides. 'he Meccans ould have to attack from the north est in a valley bet een the flo s, and it as there that Muhammad ordered a trench dug for the cityDs defense. Kolume >, *ook :2, Eumber 20;G Earrated &nas6 Hn the day @of the battle) of the 'rench, the &nsar Ine converts to IslamJ ere saying, /$e are those ho have s orn allegiance to Muhammad for 3ihad @for ever) as long as e live./ 'he ,rophet replied to them, /H ;

&llahL 'here is no life e"cept the life of the 5ereafter. !o honor the &nsar and emigrants Ifrom MeccaJ ith Nour Generosity./ &nd Earrated Mu#ashi6 My brother and I came to the ,rophet and I re%uested him to take the pledge of allegiance from us for migration. 5e said, /Migration has passed a ay ith its people./ I asked, /+or hat ill you take the pledge of allegiance from us then4/ 5e said, /I ill take @the pledge) for Islam and 3ihad./ 'he Meccans ere foiled by the trench and only able to send small raiding parties across it. &fter several days, they turned back for Mecca. +ollo ing his victory, Muhammad turned to the third 3e ish tribe at Medina, the *ani -urai?a. $hile the *ani -aynu%a and *ani Eadir had suffered e"ile, the fate of the *ani -urai?a ould be considerably more dire. !ira, p>8<.>6 'hen they Ithe tribe of -urai?aJ surrendered, and the apostle confined them in Medina in the %uarter of d. al.5arith, a oman of *ani al.Ea##ar. 'hen the apostle ent out to the market of Medina and dug trenches in it. 'hen he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they ere brought out to him in batches. &mong them as the enemy of &llah 5uyayy bin &khtab and Cab bin &sad their chief. 'here ere 800 or 900 in all, though some put the figure as high as ;00 or F00. &s they ere being taken out in batches to the &postle they asked Cab hat he thought ould be done ith them. 5e replied, /$ill you never understand4 DonDt you see that the summoner never stops and those ho are taken a ay do not return4 *y &llah it is deathL/ 'his ent on until the &postle made an end of them. 'hus do e find the clear precedent that e"plains the peculiar penchant of Islamic terrorists to behead their victims6 it is merely another precedent besto ed by their ,rophet. +ollo ing yet another of the MuslimsD raids, this time on a place called Chaibar, /'he omen of Chaibar ere distributed among the Muslims/ as as usual practice. @!ira, p:11) 'he raid at Chaibar had been against the *ani Eadir, hom Muhammad had earlier e"iled from Medina. !ira, p:1:6 Cinana bin al.7abi, ho had the custody of the treasure of *ani al.Eadir, as brought to the &postle ho asked him about it. 5e denied that he kne here it as. & 3e came to the &postle and said that he had seen Cinana going round a certain ruin every morning early. $hen the &postle said to Cinana, /Do you kno that if e find you have it I shall kill you4/ he said, Nes. 'he &postle gave orders that the ruin as to be e"cavated and some of the treasure as found. $hen he asked him about the rest he refused to produce it, so the &postle gave orders to al.Mubayr bin al.& am, /'orture him until you e"tract hat he has,/ so he kindled a fire ith flint and steel on his chest until he as nearly dead. 'hen the &postle delivered him to Muhammad bin Maslama and he struck off his head, in revenge for his brother Mahmud. iv. The )on*ues of Mecca MuhammadDs greatest victory came in 8<2 &D, ten years after he and his follo ers had been forced to flee to Medina. In that year, he assembled a force of some ten thousand Muslims and allied tribes and descended on Mecca. /'he &postle had instructed his commanders hen they entered Mecca only to fight those ho resisted them, e"cept a small number ho ere to be killed even if they ere found beneath the curtains of the Caba./ @!ira, p::0) F

Kolume <, *ook 2F, Eumber 92G Earrated &nas bin Malik6 &llahDs &postle entered Mecca in the year of its (on%uest earing an &rabian helmet on his head and hen the ,rophet took it off, a person came and said, /Ibn Chatal is holding the covering of the Caba @taking refuge in the Caba)./ 'he ,rophet said, /Cill him./ +ollo ing the con%uest of Mecca, Muhammad outlined the future of his religion. Kolume >, *ook :2, Eumber 199G Earrated &bu 5uraira6 &llahDs &postle said, /'he 5our Iof the 1ast 3udgmentJ ill not be established until you fight ith the 3e s, and the stone behind hich a 3e ill be hiding ill say. /H MuslimL 'here is a 3e hiding behind me, so kill him./ Kolume 1, *ook 2, Eumber 2>G Earrated Ibn 0mar6 &llahDs &postle said6 /I have been ordered @by &llah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be orshipped but &llah and that Muhammad is &llahDs &postle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me e"cept for Islamic la s and then their reckoning @accounts) ill be done by &llah./ It is from such arlike pronouncements as these that Islamic scholarship divides the orld into dar al. Islam @the 5ouse of Islam, i.e., those nations ho have submitted to &llah) and dar al.harb @the 5ouse of $ar, i.e., those ho have not). It is this dispensation that the orld lived under in MuhammadDs time and that it lives under today. 'hen as no , IslamDs message to the unbelieving orld is the same6 submit or be con%uered. '. #haria +a, 0nlike many religions, Islam includes a mandatory and highly specific legal and political plan for society called !haria @pronounced /sha.rOPQe.uh/), hich translates appro"imately as / ay/ or /path./ 'he precepts of !haria are derived from the commandments of the -uran and the !unnah @the teachings and precedents of Muhammad as found in the reliable hadiths and the !ira). 'ogether, the -uran and the !unnah establish the dictates of !haria, hich is the blueprint for the good Islamic society. *ecause !haria originates ith the -uran and the !unnah, it is not optional. !haria is the legal code ordained by &llah for all mankind. 'o violate !haria or not to accept its authority is to commit rebellion against &llah, hich &llahDs faithful are re%uired to combat. 'here is no separation bet een the religious and the political in IslamG rather Islam and !haria constitute a comprehensive means of ordering society at every level. $hile it is in theory possible for an Islamic society to have different out ard forms .. an elective system of government, a hereditary monarchy, etc. .. hatever the out ard structure of the government, !haria is the prescribed content. It is this fact that puts !haria into conflict ith forms of government based on anything other than the -uran and the !unnah. 'he precepts of !haria may be divided into t o parts6 1. &cts of orship @al.ibadat), hich includes6 7itual ,urification @$udu) ,rayers @!alah) +asts @!a m and 7amadan) 10

(harity @Makat) ,ilgrimage to Mecca @5a##) 2. 5uman interaction @al.muamalat), hich includes6 +inancial transactions =ndo ments 1a s of inheritance Marriage, divorce, and child care +ood and drink @including ritual slaughtering and hunting) ,enal punishments $ar and peace 3udicial matters @including itnesses and forms of evidence) &s one may see, there are fe aspects of life that !haria does not specifically govern. =verything from ashing oneDs hands to child.rearing to ta"ation to military policy fall under its dictates. *ecause !haria is derivate of the -uran and the !unnah, it affords some room for interpretation. *ut upon e"amination of the Islamic sources @see above), it is apparent that any meaningful application of !haria is going to look very different from anything resembling a free or open society in the $estern sense. 'he stoning of adulterers, e"ecution of apostates and blasphemers, repression of other religions, and a mandatory hostility to ard non.Islamic nations punctuated by regular arfare ill be the norm. It seems fair then to classify Islam and its !haria code as a form of totalitarianism. -. .iha' an' Dhimmi u'e a. %ha 'oes $/iha'$ mean0 3ihad literally translates as /struggle./ !trictly speaking, #ihad does not mean /holy ar/ as Muslim apologists often point out. 5o ever, the %uestion remains as to hat sort of /struggle/ is meant6 an inner, spiritual struggle against the passions, or an out ard, physical struggle. &s in any case of trying to determine Islamic teaching on a particular matter, one must look to the -uran and the !unnah. +rom those sources @see above) it is evident that a Muslim is re%uired to struggle against a variety of things6 la?iness in prayer, neglecting to give ?akat @alms), etc. *ut is it also plain that a Muslim is commanded to struggle in physical combat against the infidel as ell. MuhammadDs impressive military career attests to the central role that military action plays in Islam. b. 1asan "l-Banna on /iha' *elo are e"cerpts from 5asan &l.*annaDs treatise, %ihad. In 1F2;, &l.*anna founded the Muslim *rotherhood, hich today is the most po erful organi?ation in =gypt after the government itself. In this treatise, &l.*anna cogently argues that Muslims must take up arms against unbelievers. &s he says, /'he verses of the -urDan and the !unnah summon people in general @ ith the most elo%uent e"pression and the clearest e"position) to #ihad, to arfare, to the armed forces, and all means of land and sea fighting./ &ll Muslims Must Make 3ihad 3ihad is an obligation from &llah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded. &llah has ascribed great importance to #ihad and has made the re ard of the martyrs and the fighters in 5is ay a splendid one. Hnly those ho have acted similarly and ho have 11

modeled themselves upon the martyrs in their performance of #ihad can #oin them in this re ard. +urthermore, &llah has specifically honoured the Mu#ahideen Ithose ho age #ihadJ ith certain e"ceptional %ualities, both spiritual and practical, to benefit them in this orld and the ne"t. 'heir pure blood is a symbol of victory in this orld and the mark of success and felicity in the orld to come. 'hose ho can only find e"cuses, ho ever, have been arned of e"tremely dreadful punishments and &llah has described them ith the most unfortunate of names. 5e has reprimanded them for their co ardice and lack of spirit, and castigated them for their eakness and truancy. In this orld, they ill be surrounded by dishonour and in the ne"t they ill be surrounded by the fire from hich they shall not escape though they may possess much ealth. 'he eaknesses of abstention and evasion of #ihad are regarded by &llah as one of the ma#or sins, and one of the seven sins that guarantee failure. Islam is concerned ith the %uestion of #ihad and the drafting and the mobilisation of the entire 0mma Ithe global Muslim communityJ into one body to defend the right cause ith all its strength than any other ancient or modern system of living, hether religious or civil. 'he verses of the -urDan and the !unnah of Muhammad @,*05 I,eace *e 0nto 5imJ) are overflo ing ith all these noble ideals and they summon people in general @ ith the most elo%uent e"pression and the clearest e"position) to #ihad, to arfare, to the armed forces, and all means of land and sea fighting. 5ere &l.*anna offers citations from the -uran and the reliable hadiths that demonstrate the necessity of combat for Muslims. 'he citations are comparable to those included in Islam 101 section 1b and are here omitted. 'he !cholars on 3ihad I have #ust presented to you some verses from the -urDan and the Eoble &hadith concerning the importance of #ihad. Eo I ould like to present to you some of the opinions from #urisprudence of the Islamic !chools of 'hought including some latter day authorities regarding the rules of #ihad and the necessity for preparedness. +rom this e ill come to realise ho far the ummah has deviated in its practice of Islam as can be seen from the consensus of its scholars on the %uestion of #ihad. 'he author of the DMa#maD al.&nhar fi !harh Multa%al.&bharD, in describing the rules of #ihad according to the 5anafi !chool, said6 D3ihad linguistically means to e"ert oneDs utmost effort in ord and actionG in the !hareeDah I!haria .. Islamic la J it is the fighting of the unbelievers, and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the po er of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their ealth, destroying their places of orship and smashing their idols. 'his means that #ihad is to strive to the utmost to ensure the strength of Islam by such means as fighting those ho fight you and the dhimmies Inon.Muslims living under Islamic ruleJ @if they violate any of the terms of the treaty) and the apostates @ ho are the orst of unbelievers, for they disbelieved after they have affirmed their belief). It is fard @obligatory) on us to fight ith the enemies. 'he Imam must send a military 12

e"pedition to the Dar.al.5arb I5ouse of $ar .. the non.Muslim orldJ every year at least once or t ice, and the people must support him in this. If some of the people fulfill the obligation, the remainder are released from the obligation. If this fard kifayah @communal obligation) cannot be fulfilled by that group, then the responsibility lies ith the closest ad#acent group, and then the closest after that etc., and if the fard kifayah cannot be fulfilled e"cept by all the people, it then becomes a fard Dayn @individual obligation), like prayer on everyone of the people. 'he scholarly people are of one opinion on this matter as should be evident and this is irrespective of hether these scholars ere Mu#tahideen or Mu%alideen and it is irrespective of hether these scholars ere salaf @early) or khalaf @late). 'hey all agreed unanimously that #ihad is a fard kifayah imposed upon the Islamic ummah in order to spread the DaD ah of Islam, and that #ihad is a fard Dayn if an enemy attacks Muslim lands. 'oday, my brother, the Muslims as you kno are forced to be subservient before others and are ruled by disbelievers. Hur lands have been besieged, and our hurrumaDat @personal possessions, respect, honour, dignity and privacy) violated. Hur enemies are overlooking our affairs, and the rites of our din are under their #urisdiction. Net still the Muslims fail to fulfill the responsibility of DaD ah that is on their shoulders. 5ence in this situation it becomes the duty of each and every Muslim to make #ihad. 5e should prepare himself mentally and physically such that hen comes the decision of &llah, he ill be ready. I should not finish this discussion ithout mentioning to you that the Muslims, throughout every period of their history @before the present period of oppression in hich their dignity has been lost) have never abandoned #ihad nor did they ever become negligent in its performance, not even their religious authorities, mystics, craftsmen, etc. 'hey ere all al ays ready and prepared. +or e"ample, &bdullah ibn al Mubarak, a very learned and pious man, as a volunteer in #ihad for most of his life, and D&bdul ahid bin Mayd, a sufi and a devout man, as the same. &nd in his time, !ha%i% al *alkhi, the shaykh of the sufis encouraged his pupils to ards #ihad. &ssociated Matters (oncerning 3ihad Many Muslims today mistakenly believe that fighting the enemy is #ihad asghar @a lesser #ihad) and that fighting oneDs ego is #ihad akbar @a greater #ihad). 'he follo ing narration AatharB is %uoted as proof6 /$e have returned from the lesser #ihad to embark on the greater #ihad./ 'hey said6 /$hat is the greater #ihad4/ 5e said6 /'he #ihad of the heart, or the #ihad against oneDs ego./ 'his narration is used by some to lessen the importance of fighting, to discourage any preparation for combat, and to deter any offering of #ihad in &llahDs ay. 'his narration is not a saheeh @sound) tradition6 'he prominent muhaddith &l 5afi? ibn 5a#ar al.&s%alani said in the 'asdid al.-a s6 DIt is ell kno n and often repeated, and as a saying of Ibrahim ibn D&bla.D &l 5afi? &l Ira%i said in the 'akhri# &hadith al.&hyaD6 1<

D&l *ayha%i transmitted it ith a eak chain of narrators on the authority of 3abir, and &l Chatib transmitted it in his history on the authority of 3abir.D Eevertheless, even if it ere a sound tradition, it ould never arrant abandoning #ihad or preparing for it in order to rescue the territories of the Muslims and repel the attacks of the disbelievers. 1et it be kno n that this narration simply emphasises the importance of struggling against oneDs ego so that &llah ill be the sole purpose of everyone of our actions. Hther associated matters concerning #ihad include commanding the good and forbidding the evil. It is said in the 5adeeth6 /Hne of the greatest forms of #ihad is to utter a ord of truth in the presence of a tyrannical ruler./ *ut nothing compares to the honour of shahadah kubra @the supreme martyrdom) or the re ard that is aiting for the Mu#ahideen. =pilogue My brothersL 'he ummah that kno s ho to die a noble and honourable death is granted an e"alted life in this orld and eternal felicity in the ne"t. Degradation and dishonour are the results of the love of this orld and the fear of death. 'herefore prepare for #ihad and be the lovers of death. 1ife itself shall come searching after you. My brothers, you should kno that one day you ill face death and this ominous event can only occur once. If you suffer on this occasion in the ay of &llah, it ill be to your benefit in this orld and your re ard in the ne"t. &nd remember brother that nothing can happen ithout the $ill of &llah6 ponder ell hat &llah, the *lessed, the &lmighty, has said6 D'hen after the distress, 5e sent do n security for you. !lumber overtook a party of you, hile another party as thinking about themselves @as to ho to save themselves, ignoring the others and the ,rophet) and thought rongly of &llah . the thought of ignorance. 'hey said, /5ave e any part in the affair4/ !ay you @H Muhammad)6 /Indeed the affair belongs holly to &llah./ 'hey hide ithin themselves hat they dare not reveal to you, saying6 /If e had anything to do ith the affair, none of us ould have been killed here./ !ay6 /=ven if you had remained in your homes, those for hom death as decreed ould certainly have gone forth to the place of their death6 but that &llah might test hat is in your heartsG and to purify that hich as in your hearts @sins), and &llah is &ll.Cno er of hat is in @your) hearts./D I!ura <61:>J c. Dar al-Islam an' 'ar al-harb2 he 1ouse of Islam an' he 1ouse of %ar 'he violent in#unctions of the -uran and the violent precedents set by Muhammad set the tone for the Islamic vie of politics and of orld history. Islamic scholarship divides the orld into t o spheres of influence, the 5ouse of Islam @dar al.Islam) and the 5ouse of $ar @dar al.harb). Islam means submission, and so the 5ouse of Islam includes those nations that have submitted to Islamic rule, hich is to say those nations ruled by !haria la . 'he rest of the orld, hich has not accepted !haria la and so is not in a state of submission, e"ists in a state of rebellion or ar ith the ill of &llah. It is incumbent on dar al.Islam to make ar upon dar al.harb until such time that all nations submit to the 1>

ill of &llah and accept !haria la . IslamDs message to the non.Muslim orld is the same no as it as in the time of Muhammad and throughout history6 submit or be con%uered. 'he only times since Muhammad hen dar al.Islam as not actively at ar ith dar al.harb ere hen the Muslim orld as too eak or divided to make ar effectively. *ut the lulls in the ongoing ar that the 5ouse of Islam has declared against the 5ouse of $ar do not indicate a forsaking of #ihad as a principle but reflect a change in strategic factors. It is acceptable for Muslim nations to declare hudna, or truce, at times hen the infidel nations are too po erful for open arfare to make sense. 3ihad is not a collective suicide pact even hile /killing and being killed/ @!ura F6111) is encouraged on an individual level. +or the past fe hundred years, the Muslim orld has been too politically fragmented and technologically inferior to pose a ma#or threat to the $est. *ut that is changing. i. Ta*iyya -- 3eligious Dece& ion Due to the state of ar bet een dar al.Islam and dar al.harb, reuses de guerre, i.e., systematic lying to the infidel, must be considered part and parcel of Islamic tactics. 'he parroting by Muslim organi?ations throughout dar al.harb that /Islam is a religion of peace,/ or that the origins of Muslim violence lie in the unbalanced psyches of particular individual /fanatics,/ must be considered as disinformation intended to induce the infidel orld to let do n its guard. Hf course, individual Muslims may genuinely regard their religion as /peaceful/ .. but only insofar as they are ignorant of its true teachings, or in the sense of the =gyptian theorist !ayyid -utb, ho posited in his Islam and 0niversal ,eace that true peace ould prevail in the orld #ust as soon as Islam had con%uered it. & telling point is that, hile Muslims ho present their religion as peaceful abound throughout dar al. harb, they are nearly non.e"istent in dar al.Islam. & Muslim apostate once suggested to me a litmus test for $esterners ho believe that Islam is a religion of /peace/ and /tolerance/6 try making that point on a street corner in 7amallah, or 7iyadh, or Islamabad, or any here in the Muslim orld. 5e assured me you ouldnDt live five minutes. I&J problem concerning la and order I ith respect to Muslims in dar al.harbJ arises from an ancient Islamic legal principle .. that of ta%iyya, a ord the root meaning of hich is /to remain faithful/ but hich in effect means /dissimulation./ It has full -uranic authority @<62; and 186108) and allo s the Muslim to conform out ardly to the re%uirements of unislamic or non.Islamic government, hile in ardly /remaining faithful/ to hatever he conceives to be proper Islam, hile aiting for the tide to turn. @5iskett, &ome to "ecca '#rn to Pra(, 101.) Kolume >, *ook :2, Eumber 28FG Earrated 3abir bin D&bdullah6 'he ,rophet said, /$ar is deceit./ 5istorically, e"amples of ta%iyya include permission to renounce Islam itself in order to save oneDs neck or ingratiate oneself ith an enemy. It is not hard to see that the implications of ta%iyya are insidious in the e"treme6 they essentially render negotiated settlement .. and, indeed, all veracious communication bet een dar al.Islam and dar al.harb .. impossible. It should not, ho ever, be surprising that a party to a ar should seek to mislead the other about its means and intentions. 3ihad $atchDs o n 5ugh +it?gerald sums up ta%iyya and kitman, a related form of deception. /'a%iyya/ is the religiously.sanctioned doctrine, ith its origins in !hiDa Islam but no practiced by non.!hiDa as ell, of deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may 1:

be undertaken to protect Islam, and the *elievers. & related term, of broader application, is /kitman,/ hich is defined as /mental reservation./ &n e"ample of /'a%iyya/ ould be the insistence of a Muslim apologist that /of course/ there is freedom of conscience in Islam, and then %uoting that -urDanic verse .. /'here shall be no compulsion in religion./ I262:8J *ut the impression given ill be false, for there has been no mention of the Muslim doctrine of abrogation, or naskh, hereby such an early verse as that about /no compulsion in religion/ has been cancelled out by later, far more intolerant and malevolent verses. In any case, history sho s that ithin Islam there is, and al ays has been, /compulsion in religion/ for Muslims, and for non.Muslims. /Citman/ is close to /ta%iyya,/ but rather than outright dissimulation, it consists in telling only a part of the truth, ith /mental reservation/ #ustifying the omission of the rest. Hne e"ample may suffice. $hen a Muslim maintains that /#ihad/ really means /a spiritual struggle,/ and fails to add that this definition is a recent one in Islam @little more than a century old), he misleads by holding back, and is practicing /kitman./ $hen he adduces, in support of this doubtful proposition, the hadith in hich Muhammad, returning home from one of his many battles, is reported to have said @as kno n from a chain of transmitters, or isnad), that he had returned from /the 1esser 3ihad to the Greater 3ihad/ and does not add hat he also kno s to be true, that this is a / eak/ hadith, regarded by the most.respected muhaddithin as of doubtful authenticity, he is further practicing /kitman./ In times hen the greater strength of dar al.harb necessitates that the #ihad take an indirect approach, the natural attitude of a Muslim to the infidel orld must be one of deception and omission. 7evealing frankly the ultimate goal of dar al.Islam to con%uer and plunder dar al.harb hen the latter holds the military trump cards ould be strategic idiocy. +ortunately for the #ihadists, most infidels do not understand ho one is to read the -uran, nor do they trouble themselves to find out hat Muhammad actually did and taught, hich makes it easy to give the impression through selective %uotations and omissions that /Islam is a religion of peace./ &ny infidel ho ants to believe such fiction ill happily persist in his mistake having been cited a handful of Meccan verses and told that Muhammad as a man of great piety and charity. Digging only slightly deeper is sufficient to dispel the falsehood. '. .iha' Through 1is ory In 822 &D @year one in the Islamic calendar, &5 1), Muhammad abandoned Mecca for the city of Medina @Nathrib) some 200 farther north in the &rabian peninsula. In Medina, Muhammad established a paramilitary organi?ation that ould spread his influence and that of his religion throughout &rabia. *ecause there has never been a separation of the political.military and the religious in Islam, this development as entirely natural by Islamic principles. *y the time of his death in 8<2 &D, Muhammad had e"tended his control in a series of raids and battles over most of southern &rabia. 'he con%uered populations of these areas either had to submit to Muslim rule and pay a protection ta" or convert to Islam. i. The Firs Ma/or %ave of .iha'2 he "rabs4 5---670 "D Eear the end of his life, Muhammad sent letters to the great empires of the Middle =ast demanding their submission to his authority. 'his dispels any notion that the ,rophet intended IslamDs e"pansion to stop ith &rabia. Indeed, it is only logical that the one true religion, revealed by the final and fullest prophet, should have universal s ay. 'hus, as Muhammad had fought and subdued the peoples of the &rabian peninsula, his successors &bu *akr, 0mar, 0thman, and &li @kno n as /the four rightly.guided 18

(aliphs/) and other (aliphs fought and subdued the people of the Middle =ast, &frica, &sia, and =urope in the name of &llah. Kolume >, *ook :<, Eumber <;8G Earrated 3ubair bin 5aiya6 0mar Ithe second (aliphJ sent the Muslims to the great countries to fight the pagans. 4 $hen e reached the land of the enemy, the representative of Chosrau I,ersiaJ came out ith forty.thousand arriors, and an interpreter got up saying, /1et one of you talk to meL/ &l.Mughira replied, 4 /Hur ,rophet, the Messenger of our 1ord, has ordered us to fight you till you orship &llah &lone or give 3i?ya @i.e. tribute)G and our ,rophet has informed us that our 1ord says6 /$hoever amongst us is killed @i.e. martyred), shall go to ,aradise to lead such a lu"urious life as he has never seen, and hoever amongst us remain alive, shall become your master./ 0nleashing upon the orld the blit?krieg of its day, Islam rapidly spread into the territories of *y?antium, ,ersia, and $estern =urope in the decades after MuhammadDs death. 'he creaking *y?antine and ,ersian po ers, having battled each other into mutual decline, offered little resistance to this unanticipated onslaught. 'he &rab Muslim armies charged into the 5oly 1and, con%uered hat is no Ira% and Iran, then s ept est across Eorth &frica, into !pain, and finally into +rance. 'he Muslim offensive as finally halted in the $est at the *attle of ,oitiers/'ours, not far from ,aris, in 9<2 &D. In the east, the #ihad penetrated deep into (entral &sia.

&s Muhammad had plundered his foes, so his successors also stripped the con%uered areas .. incomparably richer both materially and culturally than the desolate sands of &rabia .. of their ealth 19

and manpo er. &lmost overnight, the more advanced civili?ations of the Middle =ast, Eorth &frica, ,ersia, and Iberia sa their agriculture, native religions, and populations destroyed or plundered. !ave for a handful of alled cities that managed to negotiate conditional surrenders, the catastrophes those lands suffered ere very nearly complete. *at NeDor, the leading scholar of IslamDs e"pansion and its treatment of non.Muslims, has provided an inestimable service through the compilation and translation of numerous primary source documents describing centuries of Islamic con%uest. !he includes these documents in her orks on Islamic history and the plight of non.Muslims under Islamic rule. In the history of #ihad, the slaughter of civilians, the desecration of churches, and the plundering of the countryside are commonplace. 5ere is Michael the !yrianDs account of the Muslim invasion of (appodocia @southern 'urkey) in 8:0 &D under (aliph 0mar6 ... hen Mua iya Ithe Muslim commanderJ arrived Iin =uchaita in &rmeniaJ he ordered all the inhabitants to be put to the s ordG he placed guards so that no one escaped. &fter gathering up all the ealth of the to n, they set to torturing the leaders to make them sho them things AtreasuresB that had been hidden. 'he 'aiyaye IMuslim &rabsJ led everyone into slavery .. men and omen, boys and girls .. and they committed much debauchery in that unfortunate to n6 they ickedly committed immoralities inside churches. 'hey returned to their country re#oicing. @Michael the !yrian, %uoted in *at NeDor, 'he )ecline of Eastern *hristianit( #nder Islam, 298.9.) 'he follo ing description by the Muslim historian, Ibn al.&thir @1180.12<< &D), of ra??ias @raiding e"peditions) in Eorthern !pain and +rance in the eighth and ninth centuries &D, conveys nothing but satisfaction at the e"tent of the destruction rought upon the infidels, including noncombatants. In 199 R19 &pril 9F<S, 5isham, prince of !pain, sent a large army commanded by &bd al. Malik b. &bd al.$ahid b. Mugith into enemy territory, and hich made forays as far as Earbonne and 3aranda . 'his general first attacked 3aranda here there as an elite +rank garrisonG he killed the bravest, destroyed the alls and to ers of the to n and almost managed to sei?e it. 5e then marched on to Earbonne, here he repeated the same actions, then, pushing for ard, he trampled underfoot the land of the (erdagne Inear &ndorra in the ,yreneesJ. +or several months he traversed this land in every direction, raping omen, killing arriors, destroying fortresses, burning and pillaging everything, driving back the enemy ho fled in disorder. 5e returned safe and sound, dragging behind him God alone kno s ho much booty. 'his is one of the most famous e"peditions of the Muslims in !pain. In 22< R2 December ;<9S, &bd ar.7ahman b. al 5akam, sovereign of !pain, sent an army against &lavaG it encamped near 5isn al.Gharat, hich it besiegedG it sei?ed the booty that as found there, killed the inhabitants and ithdre , carrying off omen and children as captives. In 2<1 R8 !eptember ;>:S, a Muslim army advanced into Galicia on the territory of the infidels, here it pillaged and massacred everyone. In 2>8 R29 March ;80S, Muhammad b. &bd ar.7ahman advanced ith many troops and a large military apparatus against the region of ,amplona. 5e reduced, ruined and ravaged this territory, here he pillaged and so ed death. @Ibn al.&thir, Annals, %uoted in *at NeDor, 'he )ecline of Eastern *hristianit( #nder Islam, 2;1.2.) 'his first ave of #ihad engulfed much of the *y?antine, Kisigothic, +rankish, and ,ersian =mpires and left the ne born Islamic =mpire controlling territory from !outhern +rance, south through !pain, east 1;

across Eorth &frica to India, and north to 7ussia. =arly in the second millennium &D, the Mongol invasion from the east greatly eakened the Islamic =mpire and ended &rab predominance therein. ii. The #econ' Ma/or %ave of .iha'2 he Tur!s4 1061-1589 "D !ome t enty.five years before the first (rusading army set out from central =urope for the 5oly 1and, the 'urkish @Httoman) armies began an assault on the (hristian *y?antine =mpire, hich had ruled hat is no 'urkey since the 7oman =mpireDs capital as moved to (onstantinople in <2: &D. &t the battle of Man?ikert, in 1091, the (hristian forces suffered a disastrous defeat, hich left much of &natolia @'urkey) open to invasion. 'his second ave of #ihad as temporarily held up by the invading 1atin &rmies during the (rusades @see Islam 101 +&-s), but, by the beginning of the 1>th century, the 'urks ere threatening (onstantinople and =urope itself. In the $est, 7oman (atholic armies ere bit by bit forcing Muslim forces do n the Iberian peninsula, until, in 1>F2, they ere definitively e"pelled @the 7econ%uista). In =astern =urope, ho ever, Islam continued in the ascendant. Hne of the most significant engagements bet een the invading Muslims and the indigenous peoples of the region as the *attle of Cosovo in 1<;F, here the 'urks annihilated a multinational army under the !erbian Cing, !t. 1a?ar, though their progress into =urope as significantly slo ed. &fter numerous attempts dating back to the seventh century, (onstantinople, the #e el of =astern (hristendom, finally fell in 1>:< to the armies of !ultan Mahomet II. 1est one ascribe the atrocities of the first ave of #ihad to the /&rabness/ of its perpetrators, the 'urks sho ed they ere fully capable of living up to the principles of the -uran and the !unnah. ,aul +regosi in his book 3ihad describes the scene follo ing the final assault on (onstantinople6 !everal thousand of the survivors had taken refuge in the cathedral6 nobles, servants, ordinary citi?ens, their ives and children, priests and nuns. 'hey locked the huge doors, prayed, and aited. I(aliphJ Mahomet IIIJ had given the troops free %uarter. 'hey raped, of course, the nuns being the first victims, and slaughtered. &t least four thousand ere killed before Mahomet stopped the massacre at noon. 5e ordered a mue??in Ione ho issues the call to prayerJ to climb into the pulpit of !t. !ophia and dedicate the building to &llah. It has remained a mos%ue ever since. +ifty thousand of the inhabitants, more than half the population, ere rounded up and taken a ay as slaves. +or months after ard, slaves ere the cheapest commodity in the markets of 'urkey. Mahomet asked that the body of the dead emperor be brought to him. !ome 'urkish soldiers found it in a pile of corpses and recogni?ed (onstantine ITIJ by the golden eagles embroidered on his boots. 'he sultan ordered his head to be cut off and placed bet een the horseDs legs under the e%uestrian bron?e statue of the emperor 3ustinian. 'he head as later embalmed and sent around the chief cities of the Httoman empire for the delectation of the citi?ens. Ee"t, Mahomet ordered the Grand Duke Eotaras, ho had survived, be brought before him, asked him for the names and addresses of all the leading nobles, officials, and citi?ens, hich Eotaras gave him. 5e had them all arrested and decapitated. 5e sadistically bought from their o ners Ii.e., Muslim commandersJ high.ranking prisoners ho had been enslaved, for the pleasure of having them beheaded in front of him. @+regosi, %ihad, 2:8.9.)

1F

'his second, 'urkish ave of #ihad reached its farthest e"tent at the failed sieges of Kienna in 1:2F and 18;<, here in the latter instance the Muslim army under Cara Mustapha as thro n back by the 7oman (atholics under the command of the ,olish Cing, 3ohn !obieski. In the decades that follo ed, the Httomans ere driven back do n through the *alkans, though they ere never e#ected from the =uropean continent entirely. !till, even hile the imperial #ihad faltered, Muslim land. and sea.borne ra??ias into (hristian territory continued, and (hristians ere being abducted into slavery from as far a ay as Ireland into the 1Fth century. e. Dhimmi u'e IslamDs persecution of non.Muslims is in no ay limited to #ihad, even though that is the basic relationship bet een the Muslim and non.Muslim orld. &fter the #ihad concludes in a given area ith the con%uest of infidel territory, the dhimma, or treaty of protection, may be granted to the con%uered /,eople of the *ook/ .. historically, 3e s, (hristians, and Moroastrians. 'he dhimma provides that the life and property of the infidel are e"empted from #ihad for as long as the Muslim rulers permit, hich has generally meant for as long as the sub#ect non.Muslims .. the dhimmi .. prove economically useful to the Islamic state. 'he -uran spells out the payment of the #i?ya @poll. or head.ta"G !ura F62F), hich is the most conspicuous means by hich the Muslim overlords e"ploit the dhimmi. *ut the #i?ya is not merely economic in its functionG it e"ists also to humiliate the dhimmi and impress on him the superiority of Islam. &l.Maghili, a fifteenth century Muslim theologian, e"plains6 Hn the day of payment Iof the #i?yaJ they Ithe dhimmiJ shall be assembled in a public place like the su% Iplace of commerceJ. 'hey should be standing there aiting in the 20

lo est and dirtiest place. 'he acting officials representing the 1a shall be placed above them and shall adopt a threatening attitude so that it seems to them, as ell as to others, that our ob#ect is to degrade them by pretending to take their possessions. 'hey ill reali?e that e are doing them a favor in accepting from them the #i?ya and letting them go free. @&l. Maghili, %uoted in *at NeDor, 'he )ecline of Eastern *hristianit( #nder Islam, <81.) Islamic la codifies various other restrictions on the dhimmi, all of hich derive from the -uran and the !unnah. !everal hundred years of Islamic thought on the right treatment of dhimmi peoples is summed up by &l.Damanhuri, a seventeenth century head of &l.&?har 0niversity in (airo, the most prestigious center for learning in the Muslim orld6 ... #ust as the dhimmis are prohibited from building churches, other things also are prohibited to them. 'hey must not assist an unbeliever against a Muslim ... raise the cross in an Islamic assemblage ... display banners on their o n holidaysG bear arms ... or keep them in their homes. !hould they do anything of the sort, they must be punished, and the arms sei?ed. ... 'he (ompanions Aof the ,rophetB agreed upon these points in order to demonstrate the abasement of the infidel and to protect the eak believerDs faith. +or if he sees them humbled, he ill not be inclined to ard their belief, hich is not true if he sees them in po er, pride, or lu"ury garb, as all this urges him to esteem them and incline to ard them, in vie of his o n distress and poverty. Net esteem for the unbeliever is unbelief. @&l.Damanhuri, %uoted in *at NeDor, 'he )ecline of Eastern *hristianit( #nder Islam, <;2.) 'he (hristian, 3e ish, and Moroastrian peoples of the Middle =ast, Eorth &frica, and much of =urope suffered under the oppressive strictures of the dhimma for centuries. 'he status of these dhimmi peoples is comparable in many ays to that of former slaves in the post.bellum &merican !outh. +orbidden to construct houses of orship or repair e"tant ones, economically crippled by the #i?ya, socially humiliated, legally discriminated against, and generally kept in a permanent state of eakness and vulnerability by the Muslim overlords, it should not be surprising that their numbers d indled, in many places to the point of e"tinction. 'he generally misunderstood decline of Islamic civili?ation over the past several centuries is easily e"plained by the demographic decline of the dhimmi populations, hich had provided the principle engines of technical and administrative competence. !hould the dhimmi violate the conditions of the dhimma .. perhaps through practicing his o n religion indiscreetly or failing to sho ade%uate deference to a Muslim .. then the #ihad resumes. &t various times in Islamic history, dhimmi peoples rose above their sub#ected status, and this as often the occasion for violent reprisals by Muslim populations ho believed them to have violated the terms of the dhimma. Medieval &ndalusia @Moorish !pain) is often pointed out by Muslim apologists as a kind of multicultural onderland, in hich 3e s and (hristians ere permitted by the Islamic government to rise through the ranks of learning and government administration. $hat e are not told, ho ever, is that this rela"ation of the disabilities resulted in idespread rioting on the part of the Muslim populace that killed hundreds of dhimmis, mainly 3e s. *y refusing to convert to Islam and straying from the traditional constraints of the dhimma @even at the behest of the Islamic government, hich as in need of capable manpo er), the dhimmi had implicitly chosen the only other option permitted by the -uran6 death. f. .iha' in he Mo'ern :ra +ollo ing its defeat at the alls of Kienna in 18;<, Islam entered a period of strategic decline in hich 21

it as increasingly dominated by the rising =uropean colonial po ers. Due to its material eakness vis.U.vis the $est, dar al.Islam as unable to prosecute large.scale military campaigns into infidel territory. 'he Islamic =mpire, then ruled by the Httoman 'urks, as reduced to fending of the increasingly predatory =uropean po ers. In 1;:8, $estern pressure compelled the Httoman government to suspend the dhimma under hich the =mpireDs non.Muslim sub#ects labored. 'his provided hitherto unkno n opportunities for social and personal improvement by the former dhimmis, but it also fomented resentment by orthodo" Muslims ho sa this as a violation of the !haria and their &llah.given superiority over unbelievers. *y the late 1Fth century, tensions among the =uropean sub#ects of the =mpire broke out into the open hen the Httoman government massacred <0,000 *ulgarians in 1;98 for allegedly rebelling against Httoman rule. +ollo ing $estern intervention that resulted in *ulgarian independence, the Httoman government and its Muslim sub#ects ere increasingly nervous about other non.Muslim groups seeking independence. It as in this atmosphere that the first stage of the &rmenian genocide took place in 1;F8 ith the slaughter of some 2:0,000 &rmenians. *oth civilians and military personnel took place in the massacres. ,eter *alakian, in his book, 'he *urning 'igris, documents the hole horrific story. *ut the massacres of the 1;F0s ere only the prelude to the much larger holocaust of 1F1:, hich claimed some 1.: million lives. $hile various factors contributed to the slaughter, there is no mistaking that the massacres ere nothing other than a #ihad aged against the &rmenians, no longer protected as they ere by the dhimma. In 1F1>, as the Httoman =mpire entered $orld $ar I on the side of the central po ers, an official anti.(hristian #ihad as proclaimed. 'o promote the idea of #ihad, the sheikh.ul.IslamDs Ithe most senior religious leader in the Httoman =mpireJ published proclamation summoned the Muslim orld to arise and massacre its (hristian oppressors. /Hh Moslems,/ the document read, /Ne ho are smitten ith happiness and are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your good for the cause of right, and of braving perils, gather no around the Imperial throne./ In the Ikdam, the 'urkish ne spaper that had #ust passed into German o nership, the idea of #ihad as underscored6 /'he deeds of our enemies have brought do n the rath of God. & gleam of hope has appeared. &ll Mohammedans, young and old, men, omen, and children must fulfill their duty. ... If e do it, the deliverance of the sub#ected Mohammedan kingdoms is assured./ ... /5e ho kills even one unbeliever,/ one pamphlet read, /of those ho rule over us, hether he does it secretly or openly, shall be re arded by God./ @%uoted in *alakian, 'he +#rning 'igris, 18F.90.) 'he anti.(hristian #ihad culminated in 1F22 at !myrna, on the Mediterranean coast, here 1:0,000 Greek (hristians ere massacred by the 'urkish army under the indifferent eye of &llied arships. &ll in, from 1;F8.1F2<, some 2.: million (hristians ere killed, the first modern genocide, hich to this day is denied by the 'urkish government. !ince the breakup of the Islamic =mpire follo ing $orld $ar I, various #ihads have been fought around the globe by the independent Muslim nations and sub.state #ihadist groups. 'he most sustained effort has been directed against Israel, hich has committed the unpardonable sin of rebuilding dar al. harb on land formerly a part of dar al.Islam. Hther prominent #ihads include that fought against the !oviets in &fghanistan, the Muslim *osnians against the !erbs in the former Nugoslavia, the Muslim &lbanians against the !erbs in Cosovo, and the (hechens against the 7ussians in the (aucasus. 3ihads 22

have also been aged throughout northern &frica, the ,hilippines, 'hailand, Cashmir, and a host of other places throughout the orld. In addition, the over helming ma#ority of terrorist attacks around the orld have been committed by Muslims, including, of course, the spectacular attacks of F/11/01 @0!&), </11/0> @!pain), and 9/9/0: @0C). @+or a more comprehensive list of Muslim attacks, visit .thereligionofpeace.com.) 'he fact is, the percentage of conflicts in the orld today that do not include Islam is pretty small. Islam is making a comeback. 9. )onclusion 'he chief barrier today to a better understanding of Islam .. apart, perhaps, from outright fear .. is sloppy language. 1et us take, to start ith, the much.vaunted / ar on terror./ 0pon scrutiny, the phrase / ar on terror/ makes as much sense as a ar on /blit?krieg,/ /bullets,/ or /strategic bombing./ 'he / ar on terror/ implies that it is perfectly fine if the enemy seeks to destroy us .. and, indeed, succeeds in doing so .. as long as he does not employ /terror/ in the process. /'errorism,/ it should be obvious, is a tactic or stratagem used to advance a goalG it is the goal of Islamic terrorism that e must come to understand, and this logically re%uires an understanding of Islam. &s e have seen, contrary to the idespread insistence that true Islam is pacific even if a handful of its adherents are violent, the Islamic sources make clear that engaging in violence against non.Muslims is a central and indispensable principle to Islam. Islam is less a personal faith than a political ideology that e"ists in a fundamental and permanent state of ar ith non.Islamic civili?ations, cultures, and individuals. 'he Islamic holy te"ts outline a social, governmental, and economic system for all mankind. 'hose cultures and individuals ho do not submit to Islamic governance e"ist in an ipso facto state of rebellion ith &llah and must be forcibly brought into submission. 'he misbegotten term /Islamo.fascism/ is holly redundant6 Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only hen it assumes the po ers of the state. 'he spectacular acts of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are but the most recent manifestation of a global ar of con%uest that Islam has been aging since the days of the ,rophet Muhammad in the 9th (entury &D and that continues apace today. 'his is the simple, glaring truth that is staring the orld today in the face .. and hich has stared it in the face numerous times in the past .. but hich it seems fe today are illing to contemplate. It is important to reali?e that e have been talking about Islam .. not Islamic /fundamentalism,/ /e"tremism,/ /fanaticism,/ /Islamo.fascism,/ or /Islamism,/ but Islam proper, Islam in its orthodo" form as it has been understood and practiced by right.believing Muslims from the time of Muhammad to the present. 'he mounting episodes of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are due largely to the geostrategic changes follo ing the end of the (old $ar and the gro ing technical options available to terrorists. $ith the collapse of !oviet hegemony over much of the Muslim orld, coupled ith the burgeoning ealth of the Muslim oil.producing countries, the Muslim orld increasingly possesses the freedom and means to support #ihad around the globe. In short, the reason that Muslims are once again aging ar against the non.Muslim orld is because they can. It is paramount to note, ho ever, that, even if no ma#or terrorist attack ever occurs on $estern soil again, Islam still poses a mortal danger to the $est. & halt to terrorism ould simply mean a change in IslamDs tactics .. perhaps indicating a longer.term approach that ould allo Muslim immigration and 2<

higher birth rates to bring Islam closer to victory before the ne"t round of violence. It cannot be overemphasi?ed that Muslim terrorism is a symptom of Islam that may increase or decrease in intensity hile Islam proper remains permanently hostile. Muhammad 'a%i ,artovi !am?evari, in his /+uture of the Islamic Movement/ @1F;8), sums up the Islamic orldvie . Hur o n ,rophet ... as a general, a statesman, an administrator, an economist, a #urist and a first.class manager all in one. ... In the -urDanDs historic vision &llahDs support and the revolutionary struggle of the people must come together, so that !atanic rulers are brought do n and put to death. & people that is not prepared to kill and to die in order to create a #ust society cannot e"pect any support from &llah. 'he &lmighty has promised us that the day ill come hen the hole of mankind ill live united under the banner of Islam, hen the sign of the (rescent, the symbol of Muhammad, ill be supreme every here. ... *ut that day must be hastened through our 3ihad, through our readiness to offer our lives and to shed the unclean blood of those ho do not see the light brought from the 5eavens by Muhammad in his miDra# I/nocturnal voyages to the DcourtD of &llah/J. ... It is &llah ho puts the gun in our hand. *ut e cannot e"pect 5im to pull the trigger as ell simply because e are faint.hearted. It must be emphasi?ed that all of the analysis provided here derives from the Islamic sources themselves and is not the product of critical $estern scholarship. @Indeed, most modern $estern scholarship of Islam is hardly /critical/ in any meaningful sense.) It is IslamDs self.interpretation that necessitates and glorifies violence, not any foreign interpretation of it. ;. Fre*uen ly "s!e' Ques ions 'here are a handful of %uestions that invariably arise hen the point is made that Islam is violent. 'hese %uestions for the most part are misleading or irrelevant and do not contest the actual evidence or arguments that violence is inherent to Islam. Eonetheless, they have proven rhetorically effective in deflecting serious scrutiny from Islam, and so I deal ith some of them here. a. %ha abou he )rusa'es0 'he obvious response to this %uestion is, /$ell, hat about them4/ Kiolence committed in the name of other religions is logically unconnected to the %uestion of hether Islam is violent. *ut, by mentioning the (rusades, the hope of the Islamic apologist is to dra attention a ay from Islamic violence and paint religions in general as morally e%uivalent. In both the $estern academia and media as ell as in the Islamic orld, the (rusades are vie ed as ars of aggression fought by bloody.minded (hristians against peaceful Muslims. $hile the (rusades ere certainly bloody, they are more accurately understood as a belated $estern response to centuries of #ihad than as an unprovoked, unilateral attack. Muslim rule in the 5oly 1and began in the second half of the 9th century during the &rab ave of #ihad ith the con%uests of Damascus and 3erusalem by the second /rightly.guided (aliph,/ 0mar. &fter the initial bloody #ihad, (hristian and 3e ish life there as tolerated ithin the strictures of the dhimma and the Muslim &rabs generally permitted (hristians abroad to continue to make pilgrimage to their holy sites, a practice hich proved lucrative for the Muslim state. In the 11th century, the relatively benign &rab administration of the 5oly 1and as replaced ith that of !el#uk 'urks, due to civil ar in the Islamic =mpire. 'hroughout the latter half of the 11th century, the 'urks aged ar against the (hristian *y?antine =mpire and pushed it back from its strongholds in &ntioch and &natolia @no 'urkey). In 1091, *y?antine forces suffered a crushing 2>

defeat at the *attle of Man?ikert in hat is no =astern 'urkey. 'he 'urks resumed the #ihad in the 5oly 1and, abusing, robbing, enslaving, and killing (hristians there and throughout &sia Minor. 'hey threatened to cut off (hristendom from its holiest site, the (hurch of the 5oly !epulchre in 3erusalem, rebuilt under *y?antine ste ardship after it as destroyed by (aliph &l.5akim bi.&mr &llah in 100F. It as in this conte"t of a rene ed #ihad in the Middle =ast that the 7oman ,ope, 0rban II, issued a call in 10F: for $estern (hristians to come to the aid of their =astern cousins @and seems to have harbored the hope of claiming 3erusalem for the ,apacy after the Great !chism ith =astern (hristianity in 10:>). 'his /armed pilgrimage,/ in hich numerous civilians as ell as soldiers took part, ould eventually become kno n years later as the +irst (rusade. 'he idea of a /crusade/ as e no understand that term, i.e., a (hristian /holy ar,/ developed years later ith the rise of such organi?ations as the Cnights 'emplar that made /crusading/ a ay of life. It orth noting that the most ardent (rusaders, the +ranks, ere e"actly those ho had faced #ihad and ra??ias for centuries along the +ranco.!panish border and kne better than most the horrors to hich Muslims sub#ected (hristians. &t the time of the +irst (rusade, the populations of &sia Minor, !yria, and ,alestine, though ruled by Muslims, ere still over helmingly (hristian. 'he /(rusading/ campaigns of the $estern (hristian armies ere #ustified at the time as a ar liberating the =astern (hristians, hose population, lands, and culture had been devastated by centuries of #ihad and dhimmitude. (on%uering territory for God in the mode of #ihad as an alien idea to (hristianity and it should not be surprising that it eventually died out in the $est and never gained ascendancy in the =ast. +ollo ing the very bloody capture of 3erusalem in 10FF by the 1atin armies and the establishment of the (rusader !tates in =dessa, &ntioch, and 3erusalem, the Muslim and (hristian forces fought a see. sa series of ars, in hich both parties ere guilty of the usual gamut of artime immorality. Hver time, even ith reinforcing (rusades aged from =urope, the (rusader !tates, strung out on precarious lines of communication, slo ly succumbed to superior Muslim po er. In 1291, the last (hristian citadel, &ntioch, fell to the Muslims. Eo longer having to divert forces to subdue the (hristian beachhead on the =astern Mediterranean, the Muslims regrouped for a >00.year.long #ihad against !outhern and =astern =urope, hich t ice reached as far as Kienna before it as halted. In geostrategic terms, the (rusades can be vie ed as an attempt by the $est to forestall its o n destruction at the hands of Islamic #ihad by carrying the fight to the enemy. It orked for a hile. !ignificantly, hile the $est has for some time no lamented the (rusades as mistaken, there has never been any mention from any serious Islamic authority of regret for the centuries and centuries of #ihad and dhimmitude perpetrated against other societies. *ut this is hardly surprising6 hile religious violence contradicts the fundamentals of (hristianity, religious violence is ritten into IslamDs DE&. b. If Islam is violen 4 ,hy are so many Muslims &eaceful0 'his %uestion is a bit like asking, /If (hristianity teaches humility, tolerance, and forgiveness, hy are so many (hristians arrogant, intolerant, and vindictive4/ 'he ans er in both cases is obvious6 in any religion or ideology there ill be many ho profess, but do not practice, its tenets. 3ust as it is often easier for a (hristian to hit back, play holier.than.thou, or disdain others, so it is often easier for a Muslim to stay at home rather than embark on #ihad. 5ypocrites are every here. +urthermore, there are also people ho do not really understand their o n faith and so act outside of its prescribed boundaries. In Islam, there are likely many Muslims ho do not really understand their religion thanks to the importance of reciting the -uran in &rabic but not having to understand it. It is the ords and sounds of the -uran that attract &llahDs merciful attention rather than -uranic kno ledge on the part of the supplicant. =specially in the $est, Muslims here are more likely to be attracted by 2:

$estern ays @ hich e"plains hy they are here) and less likely to act violently against the society to hich they may have fled from an Islamic tyranny abroad. 5o ever, in any given social conte"t, as Islam takes greater root .. increasing numbers of follo ers, the construction of more mos%ues and /cultural centers,/ etc. .. the greater the likelihood that some number of its adherents ill take its violent precepts seriously. 'his is the problem that the $est faces today. c. %ha abou he violen &assages in he Bible0 +irst, violent *iblical passages are irrelevant to the %uestion of hether Islam is violent. !econd, the violent passages in the *ible certainly do no amount to a standing order to commit violence against the rest of the orld. 0nlike the -uran, the *ible is a huge collection of documents ritten by different people at different times in different conte"ts, hich allo s for much greater interpretative freedom. 'he -uran, on the other hand, comes e"clusively from one source6 Muhammad. It is through the life of Muhammad that the -uran must be understood, as the -uran itself says. 5is ars and killings both reflect and inform the meaning of the -uran. +urthermore, the strict literalism of the -uran means that there is no room for interpretation hen it comes to its violent in#unctions. &s it is through the e"ample of (hrist, the /,rince of ,eace,/ that (hristianity interprets its scriptures, so it is through the e"ample of the arlord and despot Muhammad that Muslims understand the -uran. '. )oul' an Islamic $3eforma ion$ &acify Islam0 &s should be plain to anyone ho has e"amined the Islamic sources, to take the violence out of Islam ould re%uire it to #ettison t o things6 the -uran as the ord of &llah and Muhammad as &llahDs prophet. In other ords, to pacify Islam ould re%uire its transformation into something that it is not. 'he $estern (hristian 7eformation, that is often used as an e"ample, as an attempt @successful or not) to recover the essence of (hristianity, namely, the e"ample and teachings of (hrist and the &postles. 'rying to get back to the e"ample of Muhammad ould have very different conse%uences. Indeed, one may say that Islam is today going through its /7eformation/ ith the increasing #ihadist activity around the globe. 'oday, Muslims of the !alafi @/early generations/) school are doing e"actly that in focusing on the life of Muhammad and his early successors. 'hese reformers are kno n to their detractors by the derogative term $ahhabi. Dra ing their inspiration from Muhammad and the -uran, they are invariably disposed to violence. 'he unhappy fact is that Islam today is hat it has been fourteen centuries6 violent, intolerant, and e"pansionary. It is folly to think that e, in the course of a fe years or decades, are going to be able to change the basic orld outlook of a foreign civili?ation. IslamDs violent nature must be accepted as givenG only then ill e be able to come up ith appropriate policy responses that can improve our chances of survival. e. %ha abou he his ory of %es ern colonialism in he Islamic ,orl'0 +ollo ing the defeat of the Httoman army outside Kienna on !eptember 11, 18;< by ,olish forces, Islam ent into a period of strategic decline in hich it as over helmingly dominated by the =uropean po ers. Much of dar al.Islam as coloni?ed by the =uropean po ers ho employed their superior technology and e"ploited the rivalries ithin the Muslim orld to establish colonial rule. $hile many of the practices of the $estern imperial po ers in the governance of their colonies ere clearly un#ust, it is utterly un arranted to regard $estern imperialism .. as it often is .. as an endemic criminal enterprise that is the basis of modern resentment against the $est. It as only due to the assertive role of the $estern po ers that modern nation.states such as India, ,akistan, Israel, !outh &frica, Mimbab e, etc. came to e"ist in the first place. $ithout $estern organi?ation, these areas ould 28

have likely remained chaotic and tribal as they had e"isted for centuries. $hen one looks at the post.colonial orld, it is apparent that the most successful post.colonial nations have a common attribute6 they are not Muslim. 'he 0nited !tates, &ustralia, 5ong Cong, Israel, India, and the !outh &merican nations clearly outshine their Muslim.ma#ority post.colonial counterparts .. Ira%, &lgeria, ,akistan, *angladesh, Indonesia, etc. .. by #ust about any standard. f. 1o, can a violen &oli ical i'eology be he secon'-larges an' fas es -gro,ing religion on ear h0 It should not be surprising that a violent political ideology is proving so attractive to much of the orld. 'he attractive po er of fascist ideas has been proven through history. Islam combines the interior comfort provided by religious faith ith the out ard po er of a orld.transforming political ideology. 1ike the revolutionary violence of (ommunism, #ihad offers an altruistic #ustification for aging death and destruction. !uch an ideology ill naturally dra to it violent.minded people hile encouraging the non.violent to take up arms themselves or support violence indirectly. *ecause something is popular hardly makes it benign. +urthermore, the areas in hich Islam is gro ing most rapidly, such as $estern =urope, have been largely denuded of their religious and cultural heritage, hich leaves Islam as the only vibrant ideology available to those in search of meaning. g. Is i fair o &ain all Islamic schools of hough as violen 0 Islamic apologists often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools of thought. 'hat is true, but, hile there are differences, there are also common elements. 3ust as Hrthodo", 7oman (atholic, and ,rotestant (hristians differ on many aspects of (hristianity, still they accept important common elements. !o it is ith Islam. Hne of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is #ihad, understood as the obligation of the 0mmah to con%uer and subdue the orld in the name of &llah and rule it under !haria la . 'he four !unni Madhhabs @schools of fi%h AIslamic religious #urisprudenceB) .. 5anafi, Maliki, !hafiDi, and 5anbali .. all agree that there is a collective obligation on Muslims to make ar on the rest of the orld. +urthermore, even the schools of thought outside !unni orthodo"y, including !ufism and the 3afari @!hia) school, agree on the necessity of #ihad. $hen it comes to matters of #ihad, the different schools disagree on such %uestions as hether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin @Hsama bin 1aden asked &merica to convert before &l.-aedaDs attacks)G ho plunder should be distributed among victorious #ihadistsG hether a long.term +abian strategy against dar al. harb is preferable to an all.out frontal attackG etc. h. %ha abou he grea achievemen s of Islamic civili<a ion hrough his ory0 Islamic achievements in the fields of art, literature, science, medicine, etc. in no ay refute the fact that Islam is intrinsically violent. 7oman and Greek civili?ations produced many great achievements in these fields as ell, but also cultivated po erful traditions of violence. $hile giving the orld the brilliance of Kirgil and 5orace, 7ome as also a home to gladiatorial combat, the slaughter of (hristians, and, at times, rampant militarism. +urthermore, the achievements of Islamic civili?ation are pretty modest given its 1<00 year history hen compared to $estern, 5indu, or (onfucian civili?ations. Many Islamic achievements ere in fact the result of non.Muslims living ithin the Islamic =mpire or of recent converts to Islam. Hne of the greatest Islamic thinkers, &verroes, ran afoul of Islamic orthodo"y through his study of non.Islamic @Greek) philosophy and his preference for $estern modes of thought. Hnce the dhimmi populations of 29

the =mpire d indled to ard the middle of the second millennium &D, Islam began its social and cultural /decline./ 7. Glossary of Terms &llah6 /God/G &rabic (hristians also orship /&llah,/ but an &llah of a very different sort. &llahu &khbar6 /God is Great @.est)/G term of praiseG ar cry of Muslims. &56 /after 5i#ra/G the Islamic calendar4s system of datingG employs lunar rather than solar yearsG as of 3anuary 2009, e are in &5 1>2;. &nsar6 /aiders/ or /helpers/G &rabian tribesmen allied ith Muhammad and the early Muslims. *adr6 first significant battle fought by Muhammad and the Muslims against the -uraish tribe of Mecca. (aliph6 title of the ruler or leader of the 0mma @global Muslim community)G the head of the former Islamic =mpireG the title as abolished by Cemal &ttaturk in 1F2> follo ing the breakup of the Httoman =mpire and the founding of modern 'urkey. dar al.Islam6 /5ouse @7ealm) of Islam/G Islamic territory ruled by !haria la dar al.harb6 /5ouse @7ealm) of $ar/6 territory ruled by infidels dar al.sulh6 /5ouse @7ealm) of 'ruce/6 territory ruled by infidels but allied ith IslamG territory ruled by Muslims but not under !haria la Dhimma6 the pact of protection e"tended to non.slave /,eople of the *ook/, usually 3e s, (hristians, and Moroastrians, hich permitted them to remain nominally free under Muslim rule. dhimmi6 /protected/G people under the protection of the dhimma. dhimmitude6 ord coined by historian *at NeDor to describe the status of dhimmi peoples hadith6 /report/G any of thousands of episodes from the life of Muhammad transmitted orally until ritten do n in the eighth century &DG sahih @reliable or sound) hadiths are second only to the -uran in authority. 5i#ra6 /emigration/G MuhammadDs flight from Mecca to Medina @Nathrib) in &D 822. Islam6 /submission/ or /surrender./ #i?ya6 the poll or head ta" prescribed by !ura F62F of the -uran to be paid by (hristians and 3e s in Muslim.held territory. 2;

Caba6 /cube/G the Meccan temple in hich numerous pagan idols ere housed before MuhammadDs con%uest of Mecca in &D 8<2, hich is still the most venerated ob#ect in IslamG the CabaDs cornerstone, hich is believed to have fallen from heaven, is the stone on hich &braham as to sacrifice his son, Ishmael @not Isaac). Mecca6 holiest city of IslamG place of MuhammadDs birth in &D :90G its Great Mos%ue contains the Caba stoneG early period in MuhammadDs life here more peaceful verses of the -uran ere revealedG site of MuhammadDs victory over the -uraish in &D 8<0. Medina6 /city,/ short for /city of the ,rophet/G second holiest city of IslamG destination of MuhammadDs 5i#ra @emigration) in &D 822G later period in MuhammadDs life here more violent verses of the -uran ere revealedG site of third ma#or battle fought by Muhammad against the -uraish tribe from MeccaG formerly called Nathrib. Muhammad6 /the praised one./ Muslim6 one ho submits. -uran @Curan, -uran, etc.)6 /recitation/G according to Islam, the compiled verbatim ords of &llah as dictated by Muhammad. ra??ia6 /raid/G acts of piracy on land or sea by Muslims against infidels !ira6 /life/G abbreviation of !irat 7asul &llah, or /1ife of the ,rophet of God/G the canonical biography of the ,rophet Muhammad ritten in the eighth century by Ibn Isha% and later edited by Ibn 5ishamG modern translation by &lfred Guillaume. !unnah6 the /$ay/ of the ,rophet MuhammadG includes his teachings, traditions, and e"ample. !ura6 a chapter of the -uranG -uranic passages are cited as !ura number6verse number, e.g., F6:. 0hud6 second ma#or battle fought by Muhammad against the -uraish tribe of Mecca. 0mar6 second /rightly.guided/ (aliphG ruled &D 8<>..>>, succeeded &bu *akrG con%uered the 5oly 1and. 0mma @ummah)6 the global Muslim communityG the body of Muslim faithful. 0thman6 third /rightly.guided/ (aliphG ruled &D 8>>..:8, succeeded 0marG compiled the -uran in book form. Nathrib6 city to hich Muhammad made the 5i#ra @emigration) in &D 822/&5 1G renamed Medina.

2F

5. Fur her 3esources Hnline (enter for the !tudy of ,olitical Islam (hronicles Maga?ine Dhimmi.org +aith+reedom.org 5istoryof3ihad.com 0 MichiganDs searchable online version of the -uran translated by !hakir. 0!(Ds Muslim !tudents &ssociationDs ebsite ith multiple searchable translations of the -uran and hadiths. Islam6 $hat the $est Eeeds to Cno homepage. (anadian Muslim ebsite ith various ritings on Islamic doctrine and events in the Muslim orld.

3ihad $atch

.ames M. "rlan'son2 %ha is #hariah0

- %ha Is #hariah0 Its Two Main Foundations: the Quran and Hadith ,( %ames "- Arlandson, Ph-)'his series of articles about Islamic shariah la is intended for educators, #ournalists, #udges, legislators, city council members, government bureaucrats, think tank fello s, 'K and radio talk sho hosts, and everyone else ho occupies the Vcheck pointsW in societyG they initiate the national dialogue and even shape the flo of the conversation X they are the decision and policy makers. 'hey have heard the critics of shariah and believe the critics e"aggerate. 'he intellectual elites may even believe the critics are VIslamophobes.W Islam is a orld religion, so it deserves respect, after all. Net the elites may also have gna ing doubt that the critics are at least partially accurate. (an they be all rong, all the time4 'he elites have heard disturbing reports coming out of the Islamic orld, and even in their o n orld. Defenders of shariah post articles online seeking to allay the secret doubts of the intellectuals. 'his <0

series %uotes e"tensively from the defenders. 'he apologists seem to have one main goal in mind6 to communicate the message that there is nothing rong ith shariah. &s to the purpose of this present article, it defines the terms and identifies the ma#or legal scholars. $e begin ith the -uran and hadith, the t o main sources or foundations of shariah, and then move on to shariah itself. Table of )on en s2 T1: Q(3"= 1"DIT1 #1"3I"1

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T1: Q(3"= Islam flo s out of the life, ords, e"ample and revelations of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, messenger, or apostle, sent from &llah. 'he revelations he got from his deity ere mainly recited on the mos%ue pulpit in Medina. !ome of the earlier ones ere cited in various places in Mecca, like the Cabah shrine here the black stone is housed, or in the marketplace. 'hen he moved to Medina in &.D. 822, because the Meccans ere going to kill him. *ut the revelations did not stop. 5e recited them in various places like the marketplace, on his travels, and in the mos%ue itself. 'hey ere ritten do n in the -uran several decades after he died. !ince they came directly from &llah, the -uran is sacred and inspired. It is binding on all Muslims, if they interpret it correctly. 'he .xford )ictionar( of Islam says the -uran is6 . . . 'he book of Islamic revelationG scripture. 'he term means Vrecitation.W 'he -uran is believed to be the ord of God transmitted through the ,rophet Muhammad. 'he -uran proclaims GodYs e"istence and ill and is the ultimate source of religious kno ledge for Muslims. 'he -uran serves as both record and guide for the Muslim community, transcending time and space. Muslims have dedicated their best minds and talents to the e"egesis and recitation of the -uran because the -uran is the criterion by hich everything else is to be #udgedG all movements, hether of radical reform or of moderate change, hether originating at the center or at the periphery of the Islamic orld, have grounded their programs in the -uran and use it as support.A1B $hat is so striking about that e"cerpt is that the -uran transcends time and place. It is cross.cultural and ahistoricalG that is, it is applicable to any society today and in the future. 'he second feature in the <1

e"cerpt is that the -uran #udges all movements of change and reform. 'he -uran as ritten in a time @the seventh century) and a place @&rabia, and specifically the 5e#a? or estern &rabia). 'o believe that every verse can be brought for ard and applied to the modern orld means that the reform of Islam is very difficult.A2B 'he -uran is a very conservative book, religiously speaking, to say the least. T1: 1"DIT1 5o ever, not everything Muhammad did or said made it in the sacred book. In fact, most of hat he did or said did not make it in. *ut he had close companions and others ho remembered his ords and deeds. !oon after his death they loved to tell stories about him. VI remember hat &llahYs messenger said in this situation.W Hr V e ere ith &llahYs apostle hen e fought the pagans at such.and.such battle.W V'he prophet ruled that this or that action should be punished or forgiven.W 'hese are the oral traditions, handed do n from one generation to the ne"t. =ventually, some conscientious Muslim scholars observed that the traditions may have been distorted and gre to be unreliable and unsound or ere never reliable or sound in the first place. 'he scholars sifted them by re%uiring a chain of narrators to be of utmost integrity and honesty. Did the traditions contradict clear verses in the -uran4 'hen they ere re#ected. Net there still are some passages hich contradict statements of the -uranG occasionally hadith are even abrogating the -uran. Hne e"ample is the hadith of stoning the adulterers hich takes priority over the verse of the -uran hich demands flogging. Eonetheless, most hadith ere re#ected if they contradicted the -uran. Ee"t, ere the various passages embarrassing4 'hey ere suspect X too bad since embarrassing ones may have the chance of being the most reliable, because a devout and reliable Muslim of authority ould never frivolously pass on a tradition that he believed ould embarrass his prophet, so the transmitter believed it as true. In any case, collectors and editors rote them do n in their books, and this body of riting is called the hadith, hich may be defined briefly as the reports and narrations and traditions of MuhammadYs deeds and ords that take on a sacredness and a binding force. !ometimes they report on the ords and deeds of his closest companions ho carry their o n special authority. In addition to that brief definition of the hadith, letYs find a more official one. 'he .xford )ictionar( of Islam says6 5adith6 7eport of the ords and deeds of Muhammad and other early MuslimsG considered an authoritative source of revelation, second only to the -uran @sometimes referred to as sayings of the ,rophet). 5adith @pl. ahadithG hadith is used as a singular or a collective term in =nglish) ere collected, transmitted, and taught orally for t o centuries after MuhammadDs death and then began to be collected in ritten form and codified. 'hey serve as a source of biographical material for Muhammad, conte"tuali?ation of -uranic revelations, and Islamic la . & list of authoritative transmitters is usually included in collections. (ompilers ere careful to record hadith e"actly as received from recogni?ed transmission specialists... 'he science of hadith criticism as developed to determine authenticity and preserve the corpus from alteration or fabrication. (hains of authority and transmission ere verified as far back as possible, often to Muhammad himself. (hains of transmission ere assessed by the number and credibility of the transmitters and the continuity of the chains @isnad). <2

'he nature of the te"t as also e"amined. 7eports that ere illogical, e"aggerated, fantastic, or repulsive or that contradicted the -uran ere considered suspect. & areness of fabrication and false teaching has long e"isted but became a ma#or issue in academic circles in the t entieth century due to early reliance on oral, rather than ritten, transmission. 'raditionally, the body of authentic hadith reports is considered to embody the !unnah of the ,rophet Muhammad.A<B In the New Enc(clo/edia of Islam (yril GlassZ, a Muslim, says that the hadith traditions form the foundation of Islamic la and there as the need to rite them do n so the community could refer to them6 'he 5adith ere accorded the role of basis of la in Islamic #urisprudence by the universally accepted methodology of ash.!hafiDi Asee belo B. It then became inevitable that as Islam unfolded in 5istory, the need for the tangible support hich 5adith could provide for intellectual and cultural developments called forth the /missing/ or /unspoken/ 5adith that ere no re%uired. If in the first centuries the standard by hich 5adith ere measured as that of an impeccable isnad, the gro ing needs of an e"panding Islam of later times added de facto another, one of verisimilitude in the eyes of a developed and sophisticated religious community.A>B 'hen GlassZ says that great care as taken by reliable hadith editors and collectors to get the traditions right. 'he collections of *ukhari and Muslim ere scrupulously compiled in the first t o and a half centuries of Islam. 'heir authenticity as assured by the criterion hich the people of the time found most valid, that of an authoritative isnad, or chain of transmission. 'he method as based on the assumption that it as unthinkable for God.fearing men to lie about matters hich they held sacredG each human link in the chain vouchsafed the others. If in the isnad there ere persons hose integrity could be doubted for any reason, ho ever small, the authenticity of the 5adith as to that e"tent eakened. *iographical study also served to establish the plausibility of the transmissions. Eaturally, fabricated 5adith also had fabricated isnad, but criticism of the matn Ate"t of the hadithB ould be e%uivalent to dogmatic discussions of Islam itself X thus analysis discussions turned around the isnad, but often as euphemism for a discussion of the contents.A:B &s noted, *ukhariA8B @d. ;90) and MuslimA9B @d. ;9:) are considered the most reliable, ith *ukhari carrying the most eight. $e also occasionally use &bu Da udA;B @d. ;9:), another authentic collector and editor.AFB #1"3I"1 !hariah, sometimes spelled sharia or even shareeah, is Islamic la derived from the -uran and the hadith.A10B $ith these t o sources it is no onder that many Muslim #urists, indeed the average Muslim, believe that shariah is divine. &nd if it is divine, then it must be the foundation of Islamic nations and herever Islam becomes dominant. It must be implemented, gradually if a nation is non.Islamic and constitutionally if it is. *ut before e go too far do n the path to ard the purpose of shariah, e need to formally define it. $e begin ith the ord VshariahW in the -uran. 'he three.letter root of shariah is sh.r.[ and its verb form can mean, among other things, Vto lay do n la , to ordain, to enact @a la )W @-uran >261<, 21). A11B In its t o noun forms @shariah and shirah) it can mean Van open ay, a clear ay, a right ay . . . a Divine la , an accessW @-uran :6>;G >:61;).A12B

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Moving on to other sources, e find that the *oncise Enc(clo/edia of Islam define shariah as Vthe road to the atering place, the clear path to be follo ed, as a technical term, the canon la of Islam.WA1<B 'he )ictionar( of the 0ol( 1#ran adds that the verb and noun forms signify, Vestablish a la , appoint a religion ... la or institution prescribed by GodG right ay or mode of action ... system of divine la G ay of belief and practice.WA1>B 'hese definitions imply that shariah is a hole ay of life. ="panding on shariahYs literal definitions, the .xford )ictionar( of Islam says6 ' o terms are used to refer to la in Islam6 shariah and fi2h. !hariah refers to GodDs divine la as contained in the -uran and the sayings and doings of Muhammad @hadith). !i2h refers to the scholarly efforts of #urists @f#2aha) to elaborate the details of shariah through investigation and debate. Muslims understand shariah to be an unchanging revelation, hile fi2h, as a human endeavor, is open to debate, reinterpretation, and change.A1:B Ee"t, Islamic la comes from &llah, but it is found in historical conte"ts, but despite the human interaction ith Islamic la in history, it is divine and absolute. 'he *oncise Enc(clo/edia of Islam says6 &llahDs la is not to be penetrated by the intelligence ... i.e. man has to accept it ithout criticism, ith its apparent inconsistencies and its incomprehensible decrees, as isdom into hich it is impossible to en%uire. Hne must not look in it for causes in our sense, nor for principlesG it is based on the ill of &llah hich is bound by no principles, therefore evasions are considered as a permissible use of means put at oneDs disposal by &llah himself. Muslim la hich has come into being in the course of time through the inter orking of many factors, hich can hardly be e"actly appreciated, has al ays been considered by its follo ers as something elevated, high above human isdom, and as a matter of fact human logic or system has little share in it.A18B 5o ever, Islamic la , though having a divine origin, can be e"plored, in order to find the most suitable ruling and interpretation. Net Islamic scholars must not put too much stress on theory. Instead, shariah, as e #ust observed in the )ictionar( of the 0ol( 1#ran, comprises all areas of life and society, including tolerated faiths, if they are not Vdetrimental to Islam.W In that light, the *oncise Enc(clo/edia of Islam continues6 & modest en%uiry into the meaning of the divine la s so far as &llah himself has indicated the path of en%uiry is, ho ever, not prohibited. 'here is therefore fre%uent reference to the deeper meaning and suitability ... of a la . *ut one must al ays guard against placing too much stress on such theoretical considerations. +or this very reason, the AshariahB is not /la / in the modern sense of the ord, any more than it is on account of its sub#ect matter. It comprises, ithout restriction, as an infallible doctrine of duties the hole of the religious, political, social, domestic and private life of those ho profess Islam, and the activities of the tolerated members of other faiths so far as they may not be detrimental to Islam.A19B Despite shariahYs divine origins and its intention to s allo up all aspects of life and society, there is iggle room, so to speak. &s noted, fi2h is the science of applying and interpreting shariah, done by %ualified #udges and legal scholars. Hver the first t o centuries after MuhammadYs death in &.D. 8<2, four main !unni schools of fi2h emerged, led by these scholars6 Malik @d. 9F:), &bu 5anifah @d. 989), !hafiYi @d. ;20), Ibn 5anbal @d. ;::). 'hey in turn had students ho added their o n opinions to those of their teachers, even many <>

generations after the founding #urists lived. In other ords, fi2h is open to interpretation, and it is not necessarily binding outside of a court of la . In this series of articles e keep track of a fe differences bet een the various schools, but mainly e ill observe the remarkable unanimity on ho to implement divine Islamic la . It is this consensus in various rulings, like death or imprisonment for apostates, hich implies that e should not take this V iggle roomW too far. $hen a shariah #udge rules in his courtroom, the decree is indeed binding. T1: >)+"##I)"+? "G: & %uick note before e begin the series in earnest6 the designation V(lassicalW is used in the articles. $e donYt need a complicated definition. +or our purposes it begins ith the death of &li @the fourth caliph and MuhammadYs cousin and son.in. la ) in &.D. 881 and goes into the fourteenth century hen the la books and commentaries ere still flourishing. =specially note orthy is the eight century hen the earliest e"tant biography of Muhammad as ritten by Ibn Isha% @d. 989), and the ninth century hen the oral traditions ere gathered, edited, and ritten do n into various volumes, no kno n collectively as the hadith. 'he time before &liYs death ill be kno n in this series as Voriginal Islam.W )@=)+(#I@= !hariah is divine Islamic la that has its roots in the -uran and the traditions @hadith) about Muhammad. !ince &llah inspired the -uran, and Muhammad lived the perfect life in conformity to the -uran, shariah is believed to have a divine origin. 5o ever, interpreting shariah is not divine, but can be changed and reinterpreted. Maybe it is here that e can hold out hope that Islam can evolve and fit into the modern age. *ut it ill be very difficult to reinterpret shariah la s that are based s%uarely on clear -uranic la s. !o e should not be naOve or overly optimistic about the reform of IslamG it certainly ill not happen overnight, and maybe not even in our lifetime. =EDEH'=! A1B 'he H"ford Dictionary of Islam, ed. 3onathan =sposito @Ee Nork6 H"ford 0,, 200<), 2:8. A2B 'he series does not e"plain the *ible and ho to interpret it properly, especially the interrelations bet een the Hld and Ee 'estaments, la and grace. *ut readers may be curious about it. If so, they may click on my t o studies6 5o (hrist +ulfills the Hld 'estament and 5o (hristians *enefit from the Hld 'estament. (hristianity does not bring every verse in the Hld 'estament for ard to the orld today. 'here are hermeneutical @interpretive) principles that guide (hristians. A<B 'he .xford )ictionar( of Islam, 101.02. A>B (yril GlassZ, 'he New Enc(clo/edia of Islam, rev. ed., @Ee Nork6 7o man and 1ittlefield, 1FF1), 181. A:B Ibid. 180. A8B *ukhari, &ahih +#$ari, F vols. trans. Muhammad Muhsin Chan @7iyadh6 Darussalam, 1FF9). (ited as *ukhari, this edition is used throughout this series of articles. $e ill reference it by the book title, the volume in the nine.volume set, and the hadith number, hich are placed se%uentially. !o, for <:

e"ample, Marriage, 9.:20> means the *ook on Marriage, vol. 9, hadith no. :20>. 'he hadith are searchable online at the (enter for Muslim.3e ish =ngagement, under the aegis of the 0niversity of !outhern (alifornia. A9B Muslim, &ahih "#slim, > vols., trans. and ed. &bdul 5amid !iddi%i @1ahore, ,akistan6 !h. Muhammad &shraf, 1FF2), throughout this series of articles cited as Muslim, and then the same standard referencing system applies6 book title, volume number, and hadith number. A;B &bu Da ud, &#nan A,# )aw#d, < vols., trans. &hmed 5asan @1ahore, ,akistan6 !h. Muhammad &shraf, 1F;>, 200>), throughout this series cited as &bu Da ud, and the same standard referencing system applies6 book or section title, volume number, and hadith number. AFB 'here are si" so.called sahih @sound) hadith collectors6 the three named in this article and &bu Isa Muhammad at.'irmidhi @kno n as 'irmidhi) @d. ;F2 or F1:)G an Easai @d. F1:)G and Ibn Ma#a @d. ;;8) @(yril GlassZ, 'he New Enc(clo/edia of Islam, rev. ed., AEe Nork6 7o man and 1ittlefield, 1FF1B, 1:F). A10B 'he other t o sources, consensus and analogical reasoning, take us too far afield and into needless complications for our purposes, but sometimes e ill note the consensus of the Muslim legal scholars. A11B 5annah =. Cassis, & (oncordance of the -uran, 1os &ngeles6 0(,, 1F;<), 11>2. A12B Ibid. A1<B 5.&.7. Gibb and 3. 5. Cramer, *oncise Enc(clo/edia of Islam, @1eiden6 *rill, 1F:<), :2>. A1>B &bdul Mannan Hmar, )ictionar( of the 0ol( 1#ran @5ockessin6 Eoor +oundation, 200<), 2;9, ith a fe mechanical ad#ustments, like lo er case letters instead of upper case or punctuation. A1:B .xford )ictionar(, 1>;. A18B Gibb and Cramer, *oncise Enc(clo/edia, :2:. A19B Ibid. %ames "- Arlandson has written a ,oo$: Women, *lass, and &ociet( in Earl( *hristianit(- 0e has recentl( com/leted a series on 'he &word in Earl( *hristianit( and Islam-

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