A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Introduction/3

[Sidenote: Commencement of the state of war.]

[Sidenote: The Koreish being public enemies were liable to be treated as such.]

3. The fierce persecutions renewed by the Koreish at the time of the expulsion of the Moslems from Mecca were acts of hostility tantamount to a declaration of war. From that time commenced the state of war between the parties. In the Arab society at Mecca there was neither an organized Government, nor any distinction between a public and private person and property. There was no regular army in the State, and what existed was not a permanently organized body, so provided with external marks that it could be readily identified. The form of Government at Mecca was patriarchal, and the chiefs of the Koreish and the citizens of Medina themselves constituted an army when occasion arose. Therefore, since the commencement of hostilities or the state of war, every individual of the Koreish or the Meccans was a public enemy of the Moslems, and liable to be treated as such in his person and property, except those who were unable to take part in the hostilities, or, as a matter of fact, abstained from engaging in them. Therefore it was lawful for the Moslems to threaten or to waylay the caravans of the enemy, which passed to and from Mecca close to Medina, and also to attack the Koreish at Mecca, if they could possibly do so.