A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 11/80

[Sidenote: 80. Deception in way allowed by the international law.]

Sir W. Muir is not justified in his remarks when he writes,&mdash;"We cannot, indeed, approve the employment of Nueim to break up the confederacy by falsehood and deception, but this perhaps would hardly affect his character in Arab estimation;" and further on he writes,&mdash;"When Medîna was beleagured by the confederate army, Mahomet sought the services of Nueim, a traitor, and employed him to sow distrust among the enemy by false and treacherous reports: for," said he, "what else is war but a game at deception." The utmost that can be made out from the former tradition quoted by Mr. Muir, and contradicted by another tradition of equal force, is that Mohammad allowed deception in war by quoting the proverbial saying, that "war is a game at deception." In this he had the sanction of the military law or the international law, as deception in war is a "military necessity," and allowed by the law and usages of war. A modern author on the international law says:&mdash;

"Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist."