A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 8/43

[Sidenote: 43. The interceptions, if occurred, were justified by way of reprisals.]

Let us suppose that these alleged interceptions of the Meccan caravans by the Moslems did actually take place, as related by the biographers of Mohammad, were they not all justified by the International Code of the Arabs, or the ancient usage and military law of nations. It has been proved beyond all dispute that the Meccans were the first aggressors in persecuting the Moslems, and expelling them from their dear homes at Mecca with the unbearable annoyance, they caused the converts of the new faith in the peaceful prosecution of their religion; taking all these causes of offence into consideration, as well as the International law and the law of Nature, the Moslems might be said to have law and justice both on their sides in waging war with their harassers for the restoration of their property and homes, and even in retaliating and making reprisals until they attained the object long sought by them. When the Meccans, on their own part, had first trumpeted hostility against the Moslems, the right of self-defence, as well as military necessity, compelled the latter to destroy their property, and obstruct the ways and channels of communication by which their traffic was prospering; for, "from the moment one State is at war with another, it has, on general principles, a right to seize on all the enemy's property of whatsoever kind and wheresoever found, and to appropriate the property thus taken to its own use, or to that of the captors."