A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 6/38

[Sidenote: 38. Comment on the above quotation.]

It will appear from the foregoing statements that in each of the three distinct periods of Mohammad's sojourn in Medina, i.e., the first two years, the fifth year, and the eighth year, Sir W. Muir has himself admitted that Mohammad had no intention to impose his religion by force, and did not profess to force people to join Islam, or punish them for not embracing it, and that the conversion of the people at Medina was gradually accomplished without compulsion, and the same course he followed at his taking of Mecca. Then there is no room left for the uncalled for and self-contradictory remark of Sir W. Muir, that at Medina "Intolerance quickly took place of freedom; force, of persuasion." Up to the end of the eighth year when Mecca was captured, there was admittedly no persecution or constraint put in requisition to enforce religion. Mohammad breathed his last early in the eleventh year. During the two years that intervened, the din of war had ceased to sound, deputations continued to reach the Prophet from all quarters of Arabia, and not a single instance of intolerance or compulsory adoption of faith is found on record. There is only one instance of intolerance, i.e., making converts at the point of sword, which Sir W. Muir, so zealous in accusing Mohammad of religious persecution during the Medina period, has succeeded in finding out during the ten eventful years of Mohammad's sojourn in Medina. I refer to the story of Khalid's mission in the beginning of the tenth year A.H., to Bani Haris, a Christian tribe at Najran, whose people had entered into a covenant of peace with Mohammad, and to whom an ample pledge had been guaranteed to follow their own faith. According to Sir W. Muir, Khalid was instructed to call on the people to embrace Islam, and if they declined, he was, after three days, to attack and force them to submit (Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 224). The version of the story thus given by the Biographers of Mohammad is too absurd to be believed; because it is a well-established fact that the Bani Haris, or the Christians of Najran, had sent a deputation to Mohammad only a year ago, i.e., in A.H. 9, and obtained terms of security from him (Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. II, p. 299; Ibn Hisham, p. 401). It is quite an unfounded, though a very ingenious, excuse of Sir W. Muir to make the Bani Haris consist of two sects,&mdash;one of Christians, and the other of idolators,&mdash;and to say that the operations of Khalid were directed against the portion of Bani Haris still benighted with paganism; thus reconciling the apocryphal tradition with the fact of the Bani Haris being at a treaty of security, toleration and freedom, with Mohammad.

"I conclude," he writes in a note, "the operations of Khâlid were directed against the portion of Bani Hârith still idolaters:&mdash;at all events not against the Christian portion already under treaty" (The Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, foot-note, p. 224). See the account of the conversion of Bani Hárith to Christianity long before Islam in Hishamee, pp. 20-22. Gibbon, Chapter XLII, Vol. V, p. 207, foot-note; and Muir's Vol. I, p. ccxxviii.

Mohammad, neither sooner, nor later, in his stay at Medina, swerved from the policy of forbearance and persuasion he himself had chalked out for the success of his mission. At Medina, he always preached his liberal profession of respect for other creeds, and reiterated assurances to the people that he was merely a preacher, and expressly gave out that compulsion in religion was out of question with him.

These are his revelations during the Medina period. "Verily, they who believe (Moslems), and they who follow the Jewish religion, and the Christians, and the Sabeites,&mdash;whoever believeth in God and the last day, and doeth that which is right, shall have their reward with their Lord: and fear shall not come upon them, neither shall they be grieved."


 * Sura II, 59.

"And say to those who have been given the Scripture, and to the common folk, Do you surrender yourselves unto God? Then, if they become Moslems, are they guided aright; but if they turn away, then thy duty is only preaching and God's eye is on his servants."


 * Sura III, 19.

"The Apostle is only bound to preach: and God knoweth what ye bring to light, and what ye conceal."


 * Sura V, 99.

"Say: Obey God and obey the Apostle. But if ye turn back, still the burden of his duty is on him only, and the burden of your duty rests on you. And if ye obey him, ye shall have guidance; But plain preaching is all that devolves upon the Apostle."


 * Sura XXIV, 53.

"Let there be no compulsion in religion. Now is the right way made distinct from error; whoever therefore denieth Tâghoot, and believeth in God, hath taken hold on a strong handle that hath no flaw therein: And God is He who Heareth, Knoweth."


 * Sura II, 237.

"Whoso obeyeth the Apostle, in so doing obeyeth God and as to those who turn back from thee, We have not sent thee to be their keeper."


 * Sura IV, 82.