Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/202

 out. Where difficulties arise, this obligation may be reduced to that of defending Moslim interests against the common enemy.

The breaking up of political power in Islam into many separate kingdoms had this result, that in later times no single chief could be pointed to as the universally acknowledged Head of the community. Thus the feeling of responsibility among Mohammedans in general for the fulfilment of this joint and several obligation has grown much more feeble. On the other hand private crusades against infidels undertaken by petty potentates or even leaders of marauding bands find much favour at the present day—if only they be successful—in the eyes of all pious Moslims; whereas such enterprises would formerly have been condemned as an injustifiable usurpation of the rights of the Ruler of the Believers.

Forcible conversion of Dayaks, Bataks and similar races by Mohammedan chiefs is universally approved of and accounted a fulfilment of the joint and several obligation of the Jihad or holy war, as in such cases it would be vain to await the command or authorization of the Lord of all Believers.

2°. The personal obligation resting on all fighting men, nay in some cases even on the non-combatant inhabitants of a Mohammedan country to defend their land to the utmost against the invasion of a non-Mohammedan enemy.

The feeling of Mohammedans as such against all who hold other beliefs, a feeling which finds expression and confirmation in laws of this description, may thus indeed be termed hostile. We encounter it continually in all Moslim countries, but in many of them it has greatly moderated or even entirely disappeared among the governing classes.

Mitigation or extinction of such a hatred towards the infidel is usually based on extensive intercourse with those of other creeds during a long period of time, or else on long habitude to a powerful but not insupportable government by kafirs. What usually occurs is that the majority of statesmen and those who gain a living by trade and industry, gradually forget and practically set aside all the teaching of their religion with regard to infidels; while the scholars and theologians busy themselves with seeking out and collecting texts which transfer to the next world the sharp contrast between Moslim and kafir, and limit, in regard to sublunary matters, the abruptness of this contrast to what is called religion in the narrowest sense of the word.