A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 12/89

[Sidenote 89. The Koran enjoined only defensive wars.]

Almost all the common Mohammadan and European writers think that a religious war of aggression is one of the tenets of Islam, and prescribed by the Koran for the purpose of proselytizing or exacting tribute. But I do not find any such doctrine enjoined in the Koran, or taught, or preached by Mohammad. His mission was not to wage wars, or to make converts at the point of the sword, or to exact tribute or exterminate those who did not believe his religion. His sole mission was to enlighten the Arabs to the true worship of the one God, to recommend virtue and denounce vice, which he truly fulfilled. That he and his followers were persecuted, that they were expelled from their houses and were invaded upon and warred against; that to repel incursions and to gain the liberty of conscience and the security of his followers' lives and the freedom of their religion, he and they waged defensive wars, encountered superior numbers, made defensive treaties, securing the main object of the war, i.e., the freedom of their living unmolested at Mecca and Medina, and of having a free intercourse to the Sacred Mosque, and a free exercise of their religion: all these are questions quite separate and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the subject in hand, i.e., the popular Jihad, or the crusade for the purpose of proselytizing, exacting tribute, and exterminating the idolaters, said to be one of the tenets of Islam. All the defensive wars, and the verses of the Koran relating to the same, were strictly temporary and transitory in their nature. They cannot be made an example of, or be construed into a tenet or injunction for aggressive wars, nor were they intended so to be. Even they cannot be an example or instruction for a defensive war to be waged by the Mohammadan community or commonwealth, because all the circumstances under which Mohammad waged his defensive wars were local and temporary. But almost all European writers do not understand that the Koran does not teach a war of aggression, but had only, under the adverse circumstances, to enjoin a war of defence, clearly setting forth the grounds in its justification and strictly prohibiting offensive measures.