by R.R. Reno, Ph.D., Editor, First Things: America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life (www.firstthings.com) This essay is adapted from a speech delivered on February 20, 2013, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Bonita Springs, Florida.

What we’re seeing today is a secular liberalism that wants … to silence articulate religious voices and disenfranchise religiously motivated voters, and at the same time to narrow the scope of free exercise so that the new secular morality can reign over American society unimpeded. —an excerpt from this speech RELIGIOUS LIBERTY is being redefined in America, or at least many would like it to be. Our secular establishment wants to reduce the autonomy of religious institutions and limit the influence of faith in the public square. The reason is not hard to grasp. In America, “religion” largely means Christianity, and today our secular culture views orthodox Christian churches as troublesome, retrograde, and reactionary forces. They’re seen as anti-science, anti-gay, and anti-women—which is to say anti-progress as the Left defines progress. Not surprisingly, then, the Left believes society will be best served if Christians are limited in their influence on public life. And in the short run this view is likely to succeed. There will be many arguments urging Christians to keep their religion strictly religious rather than “political.” And there won’t just be arguments; there will be laws as well. We’re in the midst of climate change—one that’s getting colder and colder toward religion.

Recent court cases and controversies suggest trends unfriendly to religion in public life. In 2005, a former teacher at Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Michigan, filed an employment lawsuit claiming discrimination based on disability. The school fired her for violating St. Paul’s teaching that Christians should not bring their disputes before secular judges. The subsequent lawsuit revolved around the question of whether a religious school could invoke a religious principle to justify firing an employee. The school said it could, drawing on a legal doctrine known as the ministerial exception, which allows religious institutions wide latitude in hiring and firing their religious leaders. It’s in the nature of legal arguments to be complex and multi-layered, but in this case the Obama administration’s lawyers made a shockingly blunt argument: Their brief claimed that there should be no ministerial exception.

The Supreme Court rejected this argument in a unanimous 9-0 vote. But it’s telling nonetheless that lawyers in the Justice Department wanted to eliminate this exception. Their argument was straightforward: Government needs to have broad powers to address the problem of discrimination—in this case disability—as well as other injustices. Conceding too much to religious institutions limits those powers. Why should the theological doctrines of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, or of any other church, trump the legal doctrines of the United States when the important principle of non-discrimination is at stake? It is an arresting question, to say the least—especially when we remember that the Left is currently pushing to add gay marriage to the list of civil rights.

Concerns about the autonomy of religious institutions are also at work in the Obama administration’s tussle with the Catholic Church and her religious allies over the mandate to provide free contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. After the initial public outcry, the administration announced a supposed compromise, which has been recently revised and re-proposed. The Obama administration allows that churches and organizations directly under the control of those churches are religious employers and can opt out of the morally controversial coverage. But religious colleges and charities are not and cannot. To them, the administration offers a so-called “accommodation.

“The details are complex, but a recent statement issued by Cardinal Dolan of New York identifies the key issue: Who counts as a religious employer? It’s a question closely related to the issue in the Hosanna-Tabor case, which asks who counts as a religious employee. Once again the Obama administration seeks a narrow definition, “accommodating” others in an act of lèse majesté, as it were. The Catholic Church and her allies want a broad definition that includes Catholic health care, Catholic universities, and Catholic charities. The Church knows that it cannot count on accommodations—after all, when various states such as Illinois passed laws allowing gay adoptions, they did not “accommodate” Catholic charities, but instead demanded compliance with principles of non-discrimination, forcing the Church to shut down her adoption agencies in those jurisdictions.

Cardinal Dolan’s statement went still further. For-profit companies are not religious in the way that Notre Dame University is religious. Nonetheless, the religious beliefs of those who own and run businesses in America should be accorded some protection. This idea the Obama administration flatly rejects. By their progressive way of thinking, economic life should be under the full and unlimited control of the federal government.

Religious liberty is undermined in a third and different way as well. For a long time, political theorists like John Rawls have argued that our laws must be based on so-called public reason, which is in fact an ambiguous, ill-defined concept that gives privileged status to liberalism. In 2010, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8—the ballot measure that reversed the California Supreme Court’s 2006 decision that homosexuals have a right to marry—citing the lack of a rational basis for thinking that only men and women can marry. “The evidence shows conclusively,” he wrote, “that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.” He continues by observing that many supporters of Proposition 8 were motivated by their religious convictions, which—following Rawls—he presumes should not be allowed to govern public law.

This line of thinking is not unique to Judge Walker. The influence of Rawls has been extensive, leading to restrictions on the use of religious reasons or even religiously-influenced reasons in public debate. In striking down Texas sodomy laws, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that moral censure of homosexuality has “been shaped by religious beliefs.” The idea seems to be that moral views historically supported by religion—which of course means all moral views other than modern secular ones—are constitutionally suspect.

Here we come to the unifying feature of contemporary challenges to religious freedom—the desire to limit the influence of religion over public life. [emphasis added] In the world envisioned by Obama administration lawyers, churches will have freedom as “houses of worship,” but unless they accept the secular consensus they can’t inspire their adherents to form institutions to educate and serve society in accordance with the principles of their faith. Under a legal regime influenced by the concept of public reason, religious people are free to speak—but when their voices contradict the secular consensus, they’re not allowed into our legislative chambers or courtrooms.

Thus our present clashes over religious liberty. The Constitution protects religious liberty in two ways. First, it prohibits laws establishing a religion. This prevents the dominant religion from using the political power of majority rule to privilege its own doctrines to the disadvantage of others. Second, it prohibits laws that limit the free exercise of religion. What we’re seeing today is a secular liberalism that wants to expand the prohibition of establishment to silence articulate religious voices and disenfranchise religiously motivated voters, and at the same time to narrow the scope of free exercise so that the new secular morality can reign over American society unimpeded.

Rise of the Nones
This shift in legal thinking on the Left reflects underlying religious trends. As the religious character of our society changes, so do our assumptions about religious freedom. The main change has been the rise of the Nones. In the 1950s, around three percent of Americans checked the “none” box when asked about their religious affiliation. That number has grown, especially in the last decade, to 20 percent of the population. And Nones are heavily represented in elite culture. A great deal of higher education is dominated by Nones, as are important cultural institutions, the media, and Hollywood. They are conscious of their power, and they feel the momentum of their growth.

At the same time, the number of Americans who say they go to church every week has remained strikingly constant over the last 50 years, at around 35 percent. Sociologists of religion think this self-reported number is higher than the actual one, which may be closer to 25 percent. In any event, the social reality is the same. As the Nones have emerged as a significant cohort, the committed core of religious people has not declined and in fact has become unified and increasingly battle tested. Protestants and Catholics alike know they’re up against an often-hostile secular culture—and although a far smaller portion of the population, the same holds for Jews and Muslims as well.

These two trends—the rise of the Nones and the consolidation of the committed core of believers—have led to friction in public life. The Nones and religious Americans collide culturally and politically, not just theologically.

For a long time, the press has reported on the influence of religious voters, especially Evangelicals. Polling data shows that religiosity has become increasingly reliable as a predictor of political loyalties. But what’s far less commonly reported is that this goes both ways. In their recent book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Robert Putnam and William Campbell focused on the practice of saying grace before meals as an indication of religious commitment and found a striking correlation. Seventy percent of those who never say grace before meals identify as Democrats, compared to slightly more than 20 percent who identify as Republicans. Nones are extremely ideological. Meanwhile, among those who say grace daily, 40 percent identify as Democrats and 50 percent as Republicans. Religious people are more diverse, but they trend to the political right, and the more religious they are the more likely they are to vote Republican.

Other data also suggests a growing divide between the irreligious and religious. A recent Pew study confirms that Nones are the single most ideologically committed cohort of white Americans, rivaled only by Evangelical Protestants. They overwhelmingly support abortion and gay marriage. Seventy-five percent of them voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and they played a decisive role in his victory in 2012. In Ohio, Obama lost the Protestant vote by three percent and the Catholic vote by eleven percent—and both numbers rise if we isolate Protestants and Catholics who say they go to church every week. But he won the Nones, who make up 12 percent of the electorate in Ohio, by an astounding 47 percent.I think it’s fair to say that Obama ran a values campaign last fall that gambled that the Nones would cast the decisive votes. For the first time in American political history, the winning party deliberately attacked religion. Its national convention famously struck God from the platform, only to have it restored by anxious party leaders in a comical session characterized by the kind of frivolity that comes when people recognize that it doesn’t really matter. Democratic talking points included the “war on women” and other well-crafted slogans that rallied their base, the Nones, who at 24 percent of all Democrat and Democratic-leaning voters have become the single largest identifiable cohort in the liberal coalition.

This presents the deepest threat to religious liberty today. It’s not good when the most numerous and powerful constituency in the Democratic Party has no time for religion. This is all the more true when its ideology has the effect of encouraging the rest of the party to view religion—especially Christianity—as the enemy; and when law professors provide reasons why the Constitution doesn’t protect religious people.

Religious Liberty Under the Gun
From the end of the Civil War until the 1960s, the wealthiest, best educated, and most powerful Americans remained largely loyal to Christianity. That’s changed. There were warning signs. William F. Buckley, Jr. chronicled how Yale in the early ’50s could no longer support even the bland religiosity of liberal Protestantism. Today, Yale and other elite institutions can be relied upon to provide anti-Christian propaganda. Stephen Pinker and Stephen Greenblatt at Harvard publish books that show how Christianity pretty much ruins everything, as Christopher Hitchens put it so bluntly. The major presses publish book after book by scholars like Elaine Pagels at Princeton, who argues that Christianity is for the most part an invention of power hungry bishops who suppressed the genuine diversity and spiritual richness of early followers of Jesus.

One can dispute the accuracy of the books, articles, and lectures of these and other authors. This is necessary, but unlikely to be effective. Experts savaged Greenblatt’s book on Lucretius, The Swerve, but it won the National Book Award for non-fiction. That’s not an accident. Greenblatt and others at elite universities are serving an important ideological purpose by using their academic authority to discredit Christianity, whose adherents are obstacles not only to abortion and gay rights, but to medical research unrestricted by moral concerns about the use of fetal tissue, to new reproductive technologies, to doctor-assisted suicide, and in general to liquefying traditional moral limits so that they can be reconstructed according to the desires of the Nones. Books by these elite academics reassure the Nones and their fellow travelers that they are not opposed to anything good or even respectable, but rather to historic forms of oppression, ignorance, and prejudice.

I cannot overstate the importance of these ideological attacks on Christianity. [emphasis added] Our Constitution accords us rights, and the courts cannot void these rights willy-nilly. But history shows that the Constitution is a plastic document. When our elite culture thinks something is bad for society as a whole, judges find ways to suppress it. The First Amendment offered no protection to Bob Jones University, which lost its tax-exempt status because of a policy that prohibited inter-racial dating. As the Supreme Court majority in 1983 wrote in that case: “Government has a fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education . . . which substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on [the University’s] exercise of their religious beliefs.

”In recent years the Supreme Court has been largely solicitous of religious freedom, sensing perhaps that our cultural conflicts over religion and morality need to be kept within bounds. But the law professors are preparing the way for changes. Martha Nussbaum, who teaches at the University of Chicago Law School, has opined that the colleges and universities run by Catholic religious orders that require their presidents or other leaders to be members of the order should lose their tax exempt status, because they discriminate against women. She allows that current interpretations of the First Amendment don’t support her view, but that’s not much comfort. All Nussbaum is doing is applying the logic of the Bob Jones case to the feminist project of eradicating discrimination based on sex.

Former Georgetown law professor Chai Feldblum—who is also a current Obama appointee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—has written about the coming conflicts between gay rights and religious liberty. With an admirable frankness she admits, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” Again, the Bob Jones case is in the background, as are other aspects of civil rights law designed to stamp out racial discrimination. For someone like Feldblum, when religious individuals and institutions don’t conform to the new consensus about sexual morality, their freedoms should be limited.

It is precisely the possibilities evoked by Nussbaum and Feldblum that now motivate the Obama administration’s intransigence about allowing places like Notre Dame to be classified as religious employers. In the Bob Jones case, the justices were very careful to stipulate that “churches or other purely religious institutions” remain protected by the First Amendment’s principle of free exercise. By “accommodating” rather than counting Notre Dame and other educational and charitable organizations as religious employers, secular liberalism can target them in the future, as they have done to Catholic adoption agencies that won’t place children with homosexual couples.

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. “There is no principled reason,” he writes, “for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection.” Leiter describes religious belief as a uniquely bad combination of moral fervor and mental blindness, serving no public good that justifies special protection. More significantly—and this is Leiter’s main thesis—it is patently unfair to afford religion such protection. Why should a Catholic or a Baptist have a special right while Peter Singer, a committed utilitarian, does not? Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody’s conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary “liberty of conscience.

”Leiter’s argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that’s an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism.

Let me give an example. The urban high school my son attended strictly prohibits hats and headgear. It does so in order to keep gang-related symbols and regalia out of the school. However, the school recognizes a special right of religious freedom, and my son, whose mother is Jewish and who was raised as a Jew, was permitted to wear a yarmulke. Leiter’s argument prohibits this special right, but his alternative is unworkable. The gang members could claim that their deep commitments of loyalty to each other create a conscientious duty to wear gang regalia. If everybody’s conscience must be respected, then nobody’s will be, for order and safety must be preserved.* * *The Arabic word dhimmi means non-Muslim. Under Muslim rule, non-Muslims were allowed to survive only insofar as they accepted Muslim dominance. Our times are not those times, and the secularism of the Nones is not Islam. Nevertheless, I think many powerful forces in America would like to impose a soft but real dhimmitude. The liberal and libertarian Nones will quarrel, as do the Shi’a and Sunni, but they will, I think, largely unify against the public influence of religion.

What can be done to prevent them from succeeding?
First and most obvious—defend religious liberty in the courts. Although I have depicted deep cultural pressures that work against religious liberty, we live in a society governed by the rule of law. Precedent matters, and good lawyering can make a substantive difference.

Second—fight against the emerging legal theories that threaten to undermine religious liberty. This is a battle to be carried out in the law schools and among political theorists. For decades, legal activists on the Left have been subsidized by legal clinics and special programs run in law schools. Defenders of religious liberty need to push back.

Third—fight the cultural battle. Legal theory flexes and bends in accord with the dominant consensus. This Brian Leiter knows, which is why he does not much worry about the current state of constitutional law. He goes directly to the underlying issues, which concern the role of religion in public life.

We must meet the challenge by showing that religion is indeed special. Religious people are the most likely Americans to be involved in civic life, and the most generous in their charitable contributions. This needs to be highlighted again and again. Moreover, we need to draw a contrast with the Nones, who tend to outsource their civic responsibilities and charitable obligations to government in the form of expanded government programs and higher taxes.

There is another, deeper argument that must be made in defense of religion: It is the most secure guarantee of freedom. America’s Founders, some of them Christian and others not, agreed as a matter of principle that the law of God trumps the law of men. This has obvious political implications: The Declaration of Independence appeals to the unalienable rights given by our Creator that cannot be overridden or taken away. In this sense, religion is especially beneficial. As Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both emphasized, it gives transcendent substance to the rights of man that limit government. Put somewhat differently, religion gives us a place to stand outside politics, and without it we’re vulnerable to a system in which the state defines everything, which is the essence of tyranny. This is why gay marriage, which is sold as an expansion of freedom, is in fact a profound threat to liberty.

Finally, we must not accept a mentality of dhimmitude. The church, synagogue, and mosque have a tremendous solidity born of a communion of wills fused together in obedience to God. This gives people of faith the ability to fight with white fury for what they perceive to be a divine cause, which is of course a great force for righteousness—but also a dangerous threat to social peace, as early modern Europe knew only too well.

In conclusion, I want to focus not on fury but on the remarkable capacity for communities of faith to endure. My wife’s ancestors lived for generations in the contested borderlands of Poland and Russia. As Jews they were tremendously vulnerable, and yet through their children and their children’s children they endured in spite of discrimination, violence, and attempted genocide. Where now, I ask, are the Russian and Polish aristocrats who dominated them for centuries? Where now is the Thousand Year Reich? Where now is the Soviet worker’s paradise? They have gone to dust. The Torah is still read in the synagogue.

The same holds for Christianity. The Church did not need constitutional protections in order to take root in a hostile pagan culture two thousand years ago.

Right now the Nones seem to have the upper hand in America. But what seems powerful is not always so. If I had to bet on Harvard or the Catholic Church, Yale or the Mennonites in Goshen, Indiana, the New York Times or yeshivas in Brooklyn, I wouldn’t hesitate. Over the long haul, religious faith has proven itself the most powerful and enduring force in human history. [emphasis added]

R. R. Reno is the editor of First Things, a journal of religion in public life. He received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University, and taught theology and ethics at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, for 20 years. He is the author of Fighting the Noonday Devil, Sanctified Vision, and a commentary on the Book of Genesis, as well as a number of other books and essays.

Copyright © 2011 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. Subscription free upon request. The original title of this speech, published in the April 2013 edition of Imprimis, was “Religion and Public Life in America.”

By Margaret Hilda Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, LG, PC, OM, FRS, Former Prime Minister of Great Britain

In November 1994 at Hillsdale College in Michigan, USA, Lady Thatcher delivered the concluding lecture at the seminar, “God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity in the 20th Century,” before an audience of 2,500 students, faculty, and guests. In this edited version of that lecture, she explores the truth that the Judeo-Christian faiths have served as the primary source of the moral foundations of America, Great Britain and other nations in the West—and explains why they are essential to the future freedom, prosperity and security of free peoples.

The Moral Foundations of the Ame rican Founding
History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. The American founding bears ample witness to this fact. America has become the most powerful nation in history, yet she uses her power not for territorial expansion but to perpetuate freedom and justice throughout the world.

For over two centuries, Americans have held fast to their belief in freedom for all men—a belief that springs from their spiritual heritage. John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote in 1789, “Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” That was an astonishing thing to say, but it was true.

What kind of people built America and thus prompted Adams to make such a statement? Sadly, too many people, especially young people, have a hard time answering that question. They know little of their own history (This is also true in Great Britain.) But America’s is a very distinguished history, nonetheless, and it has important lessons to teach us regarding the necessity of moral foundations.

John Winthrop, who led the Great Migration to America in the early 17th century and who helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared, “We shall be as a City upon a Hill.” On the voyage to the New World, he told the members of his company that they must rise to their responsibilities and learn to live as God intended men should live: in charity, love, and cooperation with one another. Most of the early founders affirmed the colonists were infused with the same spirit, and they tried to live in accord with a Biblical ethic. They felt they weren’t able to do so in Great Britain or elsewhere in Europe. Some of them were Protestant, and some were Catholic; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they did not feel they had the liberty to worship freely and, therefore, to live freely, at home. With enormous courage, the first American colonists set out on a perilous journey to an unknown land—without government subsidies and not in order to amass fortunes but to fulfill their faith.

Christianity is based on the belief in a single God as evolved from Judaism. Most important of all, the faith of America’s founders affirmed the sanctity of each individual. Every human life—man or woman, child or adult, commoner or aristocrat, rich or poor—was equal in the eyes of the Lord. It also affirmed the responsibility of each individual.

This was not a faith that allowed people to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences. The Ten Commandments, the injunction of Moses (“Look after your neighbor as yourself”), the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule made Americans feel precious—and also accountable—for the way in which they used their God-given talents. Thus they shared a deep sense of obligation to one another. And, as the years passed, they not only formed strong communities but devised laws that would protect individual freedom—laws that would eventually be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Freedom with Responsibility
Great Britain, which shares much of her history in common with America, has also derived strength from its moral foundations, especially since the 18th century, when freedom gradually began to spread throughout her society. Many people were greatly influenced by the sermons of John Wesley (1703-1791), who took the Biblical ethic to the people in a way that the institutional church itself had not done previously.

But we in the West must also recognize our debt to other cultures. In the pre-Christian era, for example, the ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had much to contribute to our understanding of such concepts as truth, goodness, and virtue. They knew full well that responsibility was the price of freedom. Yet it is doubtful whether truth, goodness, and virtue founded on reason alone would have endured in the same way as they did in the West, where they were based upon a Biblical ethic.

Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians’ dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.

To cite a more recent lesson in the importance of moral foundations, we should listen to Czech President Vaclav Havel, who suffered grievously for speaking up for freedom when his nation was still under the thumb of communism. He has observed, “In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, and for a sense that transcends the world of existence.” His words suggest that in spite of all the dread terrors of communism, it could not crush the religious fervor of the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

So long as freedom, that is, freedom with responsibility, is grounded in morality and religion, it will last far longer than the kind that is grounded only in abstract, philosophical notions. Of course, many foes of morality and religion have attempted to argue that new scientific discoveries make belief in God obsolete, but what they actually demonstrate is the remarkable and unique nature of man and the universe. It is hard not to believe that these gifts were given by a divine Creator, who alone can unlock the secrets of existence.

Societies without Moral Foundations
The most important problems we have to tackle today are problems that, ultimately, have to do with the moral foundations of society There are people who eagerly accept their own freedom but do not respect the freedom of others—they, like the Athenians, want freedom from responsibility. But if they accept freedom for themselves, they must respect the freedom of others. If they expect to go about their business unhindered and to be protected from violence, they must not hinder the business of or do violence to others. They would do well to look at what has happened in societies without moral foundations. Accepting no laws but the laws of force, these societies have been ruled by totalitarian ideologies like Nazism, fascism, and communism, which do not spring from the general populace, but are imposed on it by intellectual elites.

It was two members of such an elite, Marx and Lenin, who conceived of “dialectical materialism,” the basic doctrine of communism. It robs people of all freedom—from freedom of worship to freedom of ownership. Marx and Lenin desired to substitute their will not only for all individual will but for God’s will. They wanted to plan everything; in short, they wanted to become gods. Theirs was a breathtakingly arrogant creed, and it denied above all else the sanctity of human life.

The 19th century French economist and philosopher Frederic Bastiat once warned against this creed. He questioned those who, “though they are made of the same human clay as the rest of us, think they can take away all our freedoms and exercise them on our behalf.” He would have been appalled but not surprised that the communists of the 20th century took away the freedom of millions of individuals, starting with the freedom to worship. The communists viewed religion as “the opiate of the people.” They seized Bibles as well as all other private property at gun point and murdered at least 10 million souls in the process. Thus 20th century Russia entered into the greatest experiment in government and atheism the world had ever seen, just as America several centuries earlier had entered into the world’s greatest experiment in freedom and faith.

Communism denied all that the Judeo-Christian tradition taught about individual worth, human dignity, and moral responsibility. It was not surprising that it collapsed after a relatively brief existence. It could not survive more than a few generations because it denied human nature, which is fundamentally moral and spiritual. (It is true that no one predicted the collapse would come so quickly and so easily. In retrospect, we know that this was due in large measure to the firmness of President Ronald Reagan who said, in effect, to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “Do not try to beat us militarily, and do not think that you can extend your creed to the rest of the world by force.”)

The West began to fight the moral battle against communism in earnest in the 1980s, and it was our resolve—combined with the spiritual strength of the people suffering under the system who finally said, “Enough!”—that helped restore freedom in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union—the freedom to worship, speak, associate, vote, establish political parties, start businesses, own property, and much more. If communism had been a creed with moral foundations, it might have survived, but it was not, and it simply could not sustain itself in a world that had such shining examples of freedom, namely, America and Great Britain.

The Moral Foundations of Capitalism
It is important to understand that the moral foundations of a society do not extend only to its political system; they must extend to its economic system as well. America’s commitment to capitalism is unquestionably the best example of this principle. Capitalism is not, contrary to what those on the Left have tried to argue, an amoral system based on selfishness, greed, and exploitation. It is a moral system based on a Biblical ethic. There is no other comparable system that has raised the standard of living of millions of people, created vast new wealth and resources, or inspired so many beneficial innovations and technologies.

The wonderful thing about capitalism is that it does not discriminate against the poor, as has been so often charged; indeed, it is the only economic system that raises the poor out of poverty. Capitalism also allows nations that are not rich in natural resources to prosper. If resources were the key to wealth, the richest country in the world would be Russia, because it has abundant supplies of everything from oil, gas, platinum, gold, silver, aluminum, and copper to timber, water, wildlife, and fertile soil.

Why isn’t Russia the wealthiest country in the world? Why aren’t other resource-rich countries in the Third World at the top of the list? It is because their governments deny citizens the liberty to use their God-given talents. Man’s greatest resource is himself, but he must be free to use that resource.

In his encyclical, Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II addressed this issue. He wrote that the collapse of communism is not merely to be considered as a “technical problem.” It is a consequence of the violation of human rights. He specifically referred to such human rights as the right to private initiative, to own property, and to act in the marketplace. Remember the “Parable of the Talents” in the New Testament? Christ exhorts us to be the best we can be by developing our skills and abilities, by succeeding in all our tasks and endeavors. What better description can there be of capitalism? In creating new products, new services, and new jobs, we create a vibrant community of work. And that community of work serves as the basis of peace and good will among all men.

The Pope also acknowledged that capitalism encourages important virtues, like diligence, industriousness, prudence, reliability, fidelity, conscientiousness, and a tendency to save in order to invest in the future. It is not material goods but all of these great virtues, exhibited by individuals working together, that constitute what we call the “marketplace.”

The Moral Foundations of the Law
Freedom, whether it is the freedom of the marketplace or any other kind, must exist within the framework of law. Otherwise it means only freedom for the strong to oppress the weak. Whenever I visit the former Soviet Union, I stress this point with students, scholars, politicians, and businessmen—in short, with everyone I meet. Over and over again, I repeat: Freedom must be informed by the principle of justice in order to make it work between people. A system of laws based on solid moral foundations must regulate the entire life of a nation.

But this is an extremely difficult point to get across to people with little or no experience with laws except those based on force. The concept of justice is entirely foreign to communism. So, too, is the concept of equality. For over seventy years, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union had no system of common law. There were only the arbitrary and often contradictory dictates of the Communist Party. There was no independent judiciary. There was no such thing as truth in the communist system.

And what is freedom without truth? I have been a scientist, a lawyer, and a politician, and from my own experience I can testify that it is nothing. The third century Roman jurist Julius Paulus said, “What is right is not derived from the rule, but the rule arises from our knowledge of what is right.” In other words, the law is founded on what we believe to be true and just. It has moral foundations. Once again, it is important to note that the free societies of America and Great Britain derive such foundations from a Biblical ethic.

The Moral Foundations of Democracy
Democracy is never mentioned in the Bible. When people are gathered together, whether as families, communities or nations, their purpose is not to ascertain the will of the majority, but the will of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, I am an enthusiast of democracy because it is about more than the will of the majority. If it were only about the will of the majority, it would be the right of the majority to oppress the minority. The American Declaration of Independence and Constitution make it clear that this is not the case. There are certain rights which are human rights and which no government can displace. And when it comes to how you Americans exercise your rights under democracy, your hearts seem to be touched by something greater than yourselves. Your role in democracy does not end when you cast your vote in an election. It applies daily; the standards and values that are the moral foundations of society are also the foundations of your lives.

Democracy is essential to preserving freedom. As Lord Acton reminded us, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If no individual can be trusted with power indefinitely, it is even more true that no government can be. It has to be checked, and the best way of doing so is through the will of the majority, bearing in mind that this will can never be a substitute for individual human rights.

I am often asked whether I think there will be a single international democracy, known as a “new world order.” Though many of us may yearn for one, I do not believe it will ever arrive. We are misleading ourselves about human nature when we say, “Surely we’re too civilized, too reasonable, ever to go to war again,” or, “We can rely on our governments to get together and reconcile our differences.” Tyrants are not moved by idealism. They are moved by naked ambition. Idealism did not stop Hitler; it did not stop Stalin. Our best hope as sovereign nations is to maintain strong defenses. Indeed, that has been one of the most important moral as well as geopolitical lessons of the 20th century. Dictators are encouraged by weakness; they are stopped by strength. By strength, of course, I do not merely mean military might but the resolve to use that might against evil.

The West did show sufficient resolve against Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. But we failed bitterly in Bosnia. In this case, instead of showing resolve, we preferred “diplomacy” and “consensus.” As a result, a quarter of a million people were massacred. This was a horror that I, for one, never expected to see again in my lifetime. But it happened. Who knows what tragedies the future holds if we do not learn from the repeated lessons of history? The price of freedom is still, and always will be, eternal vigilance.

Free societies demand more care and devotion than any others. They are, moreover, the only societies with moral foundations, and those foundations are evident in their political, economic, legal, cultural, and, most importantly, spiritual life.

We who are living in the West today are fortunate. Freedom has been bequeathed to us. We have not had to carve it out of nothing; we have not had to pay for it with our lives. Others before us have done so. But it would be a grave mistake to think that freedom requires nothing of us. Each of us has to earn freedom anew in order to possess it. We do so not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our children, so that they may build a better future that will sustain over the wider world the responsibilities and blessings of freedom.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher earned a degree in chemistry from Somerville College, Oxford, as well as a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oxford. For some years she worked as a research chemist and then as a barrister, specializing in tax law. Elected to the House of Commons in 1953, she later held several ministerial appointments. She was elected leader of the Conservative Party and thus leader of the Opposition in 1975. She became Britain’s first female prime minister in 1979 and served her nation in this historic role until her resignation in 1990. In 1992, she was elevated to the House of Lords to become Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. She has written several books, including The Downing Street Years (1995), The Path to Power (1996), and Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (2003). Her last book, Margaret Thatcher in Her Own Words, was published in 2010.

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. Copyright 1994 by Hillsdale College. In this monthly publication, the College distributes an edited version of a significant speech delivered on-campus. It is available online at: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
You may also request a free subscription to the print version at the same online address.

Selected Quotations:
“For over two centuries, Americans have held fast to their belief in freedom for all men—a belief that springs from their spiritual heritage. John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote in 1789, ‘Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.’ That was an astonishing thing to say, but it was true.”

“Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians’ dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.”

“Why isn’t Russia the wealthiest country in the world? Why aren’t other resource-rich countries in the Third World at the top of the list? It is because their governments deny citizens the liberty to use their God-given talents. Man’s greatest resource is himself, but he must be free to use that resource.”

“Capitalism is not, contrary to what those on the Left have tried to argue, an amoral system based on selfishness, greed, and exploitation. It is a moral system based on a Biblical ethic. There is no other comparable system that has raised the standard of living of millions of people, created vast new wealth and resources, or inspired so many beneficial innovations and technologies.”

“We who are living in the West today are fortunate. Freedom has been bequeathed to us. We have not had to carve it out of nothing; we have not had to pay for it with our lives. Others before us have done so. But it would be a grave mistake to think that freedom requires nothing of us. Each of us has to earn freedom anew in order to possess it. We do so not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our children, so that they may build a better future that will sustain over the wider world the responsibilities and blessings of freedom.”

By  Bruce Sidebotham, D.Min, Director of Operation Reveille and Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel), Ret. U.S. Army Reserve

Excerpts from this essay:

If religions are different, and they lead to different moral convictions and values, then civic structures are not interchangeable between societies with different majority religions. In that case, it is absolutely essential for peacekeeping and stability operations to understand and accommodate religious differences;otherwise they are doomed to failure.

* * * * *

The cultural momentum in America towards denying the relevance of religion is causing military leaders and diplomats to treat democratic civic structures as if they are plug-and-play components between different societies. But they are not, and blindness to this reality is sabotaging efforts to facilitate democratic reform in the Muslim world.

Introduction
The faith of “no-religious-affiliation” is the fastest growing segment of the American population.¹ Its power over our peoples’ perceptions of spiritual truth undermines national security and sabotages peacekeeping among Muslims.

Here is how that undermining works. Civic structures cannot survive without underlying values that are based upon popular beliefs. Structure for government, justice, education, public works, civil defense, marriage, and family must connect to underlying values, which in turn are based upon spiritual beliefs. If religious affiliation is deemed irrelevant, then all religions are viewed as basically the same. If all religions are viewed in that way, then different religions are not the source of relevant differences in values. Viewed from that perspective, civic structures become interchangeable between societies that have different majority religions. Therefore, peacekeeping and stability operations do not need to accommodate values that are rooted in religion; a wholly secular methodology will suffice to bring about the desired result. But if religions are different, and they lead to different moral convictions and values, then civic structures are not interchangeable between societies with different majority religions. In that case, it is absolutely essential for peacekeeping and stability operations to understand and accommodate religious differences; otherwise they are doomed to failure. This may well be the flaw in our strategy in Iraq over the past ten years that is leading to great concern today.

This essay will explore six areas of theology to demonstrate that significant differences exist between Islam and Christianity. It will also show how those differences impact spiritual and moral behaviors that ultimately lead to vastly different, and even philosophically opposed types of civic-structures. Those structures are not amenable to the efforts of Westerners to enact a plug-and-play methodology between societies that have such widely different religious heritages, convictions and values.

The First Major Difference: What is God?
The Christian concept of God is three persons in one essence, while the Muslim God is a single, autonomous unity. The English technical term for the three-in-one Christian God is “trinity.”² The Arabic technical term for the solitary singularity of the divine essence is tawhid.³

Muslim scholars claim that tawhid is the most important article of Muslim faith and that all other Muslim doctrine springs from it. Tawhid means not simply that there is only one God (one person who alone is the true God, not three-in-one); it also means that nothing in creation can be associated with God, and God cannot associate himself with anything in creation. Allah is entirely separate from creation and isolated from the material world. The dominant position of tawhid in Muslim thinking generates a spiritual void among the common people filled by Sufism, folk Islam, and rampant witchcraft.

In chapter one of He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Francis Schaefer writes,

The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other and loved each other before the creation of the world…. This is not only an answer to the acute philosophic need of unity in diversity, but of personal unity and diversity. The unity and diversity cannot exist before God or be behind God, because whatever is farthest back is God. But with the doctrine of the Trinity, the unity and diversity is God Himself — three Persons, yet one God.

Honor, glory, love, integrity, morality, and truth demand relationships. These qualities cannot exist within a singularity. However, they can exist in a trinity. Eternity for glory, honor and love is possible because the persons of the trinity have been glorifying, honoring, and loving each other for eternity. Eternity for integrity, morality and truth is possible because the persons of the trinity have been holding each other accountable for eternity.

But if God is a singularity, then no interpersonal relationships exist within God, and moral qualities that depend upon relationships cannot be eternal. In that view, honor, glory, love, integrity, morality, and truth must be created. Therefore, God’s glory and honor are not eternally innate to him but depend upon his relationship with creation. If God has no innate honor, then he cannot potentially have innate shame. If God can potentially do nothing by himself to shame himself, then his behavior has no moral boundaries. He can lie, cheat, and steal without shame because God is only accountable to himself. If there are no relationships within God, then God has no accountability.

Now, how do these two beliefs about God affect civic structures?

In Christian society, nothing and no one can embarrass or dishonor God. His honor and glory remain intact no matter how people treat him. They are part of his eternal essence and depend on nothing other than God himself. Nothing in creation can ever change or diminish God’s honor and glory — even if God becomes a man and dies a humiliating death on a cross. Only God himself could even potentially shame himself, because the trinity has accountability within itself.

But in Muslim society, people must guard and protect God’s glory. Nowhere on earth and at no time in history (even when theocratic governments had anti-blasphemy laws) do we find Christians violently protesting in the streets when people insult God, his prophet, or his holy books. People in Christian societies know that God does not need his honor protected. But Muslims around the world and throughout history are paranoid about the glory of God. “Allah Akhbar,” the Arabic words for “God is Great,” are constantly on their lips. Insulting the prophet receives a death penalty in many Muslim countries. Defiling a Qur’an instigates murderous protests around the world.⁴

In Christian societies, God’s honor is certain and his integrity is an innate attribute. Christian doctrine holds that God’s integrity constrains his behavior so that he cannot lie. If God were to lie, then he would shame himself. Therefore, in Christian societies, integrity is more important than honor, and society expects people to tell the truth even if it means embarrassing themselves, their families, their business, or their leaders.

But in Muslim societies the relative esteem for integrity and honor is reversed. According to Muslim doctrine and according to the Qur’an itself, “Allah is the best deceiver.”⁵ In Islam, God’s honor depends upon how creation treats him, and integrity is not an innate part of his eternal essence.

Power, as an attribute, can be independent of relationships. Not surprisingly, therefore, power rather than integrity is the most vaunted attribute of the Muslim God. As a result, in Muslim societies, honor is more desirable than integrity, and people are expected to deceive in order to protect themselves, their families, their businesses, or their leaders from shame. Among Muslims, the notion that God would stoop to become a man and suffer at the hands of men is one of the most offensive blasphemies to comprehend.⁶

Because of tawhid, the Muslim God can only be dishonored by his creation, and he cannot dishonor himself. However, because of the trinity the Christian God can only be dishonored if He choses to permit it, and He cannot be dishonored by creation. For example, no level of disobedience or idolatry in mankind can ever bring shame upon God, but Jesus became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), a curse (Galatians 3:13), forsaken (Mark 15:35), and shame (Hebrews 12:2) for us. As a result, Christian societies do not worry about protecting God’s honor and care more about truth than honor, but Muslim societies are paranoid about God’s honor and care more about honor than truth.

The Second Major Difference: What is man?
Tawhid has implications for the nature of man as well as the nature of God. It means not only that there is one God, but also that nothing in creation can be associated with God and that God cannot associate himself with anything in creation. It means that the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is metaphysically impossible. It also means that there can be no image of God in human beings.

Since the Christian God is a trinity with eternally relational moral attributes like integrity and love, when God bestows those attributes upon part of His creation, then that part of creation becomes “made in the image of God.” But the Muslim God, as a singularity without eternal relational attributes, cannot bestow moral attributes upon any creatures as any portion of his own nature.

How does belief about man affect civic structures?
In Christian anthropology, the moral attributes of human beings participate in the infinite and eternal qualities of God. This makes each human life equally sacred and valuable with each other human life. God is infinite, so the likeness of God in mankind is also infinite. Compared to the infinity of God’s likeness in mankind, other differences between people (like gender, race, status, intelligence, disability, or religious affiliation) disappear into relative insignificance. Compared to infinity, anything else that is not also infinite resolves to zero. Therefore, before God all people are not only equal, but also significant because they participate in infinity. If human beings are “made in the image of God,” then laws against oppression based on race, or persecution based on religion, or discrimination based on disability, or disadvantage based on gender, are rooted in the eternal nature of God.

But in the Muslim theology of mankind, nothing in man can be anything like God. This means that mankind’s worth and moral attributes are part of creation and have no part in God or in eternity. Therefore, anti-discrimination laws in Muslim societies cannot be rooted in values associated with God’s nature, but must be rooted in values associated with creation. No part of human essence is either divinely sacred or joined to infinity in a way that by comparison eclipses physical and social differences. Islam does teach that God has created human beings with higher dignity than the rest of creation (Qur’an 17:70). However, in Islam, differences in gender and religious affiliation matter. In most versions of Muslim law, a man’s testimony has more weight than a woman’s.⁷ Even in its most liberal interpretations, Muslim law has different citizenship categories for Muslims and non-Muslims.⁸ Furthermore, in Muslim law, only non-Muslims have the freedom to change their religion. Non-Muslims may convert to any faith they choose, but Muslims are not free to leave Islam.⁹

Because of tawhid, in Islam, human dignity for Muslims flows from the specific, concrete ways that people are created or from the way that people behave rather than from any infinite likeness of God in mankind. As a result, human dignity varies from person to person depending upon physical characteristics, behaviors, and social affiliations. Because of the trinity, in Christian thought human dignity for each person flows from his infinite likeness to God  rather than from specific varieties of created characteristics or chosen behaviors. As a result, human dignity is the same among all people regardless of their differences or affiliations. Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians are all worth the same as human beings created in the image of God. Gender, race, and interfaith relations are a challenge in all societies, but gender, race, and religious discrimination pose much greater problems in societies with Muslim majorities such as Egypt than in societies with Christian  majorities, all because of different beliefs about the image of God in man.

The Third Major Difference: How does man relate to nature?
The image of God in man makes people different from everything else that God created, and it results in a divine expectation for people to be stewards of the rest of creation. In the Christian Scriptures it is written that on the sixth day of creation God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:26).

Furthermore, in the Christian gospels it is written that Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and calmed the storm (Acts 2:22). For Christians, Jesus is the behavior (way), character (truth), and will (life) of God incarnated into human flesh (John 14:6). Therefore, Jesus demonstrates the will of God for mankind (John 20:21). As a result, Christians believe that fighting against sickness, death, and natural disasters is fighting against evil and is according to the will of God.

How does belief about nature affect civic structures?

Western civilization has a rich heritage of struggling to improve and prolong human life with medical care, emergency services, community development, and disaster relief. However, most of the world, and particularly most of the Muslim world, does not share the Christian passion for excellence and constant improvement in medical care, emergency services, community development, and disaster relief. A natural disaster anywhere in the Muslim world almost always kills far more people than an equivalent disaster somewhere in the Western world.

When I was living among Muslims in Indonesia, I saved a man from drowning by performing mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration on him. The lifeguards at the pool had been performing the long discredited back-pressure-arm-lift method of resuscitation. I got him breathing again but not back to full consciousness, so he had to be taken to the hospital where the doctors and nurses thought that I had sucked the water out of his lungs in order to revive him. An article in the paper the next day said that fortunately for the young man a foreigner happened to be there to give him assisted breathing while removing the water that he had swallowed.¹⁰

While serving among embedded military advisors in Iraq, I observed that it was very difficult for American advisors to persuade Iraqi soldiers and military leaders to wear protective equipment, like eye protection, body armor, and helmets during security operations. The Iraqi response was always, “Insyallah.” They seemed to be saying that whether they lived or died was God’s will, so  they did not need to bother with wearing protective equipment. Of course they will take cover behind walls or sandbags from direct fire, but bullets that are flying differ from those that might never fly. They perceive a difference between a bullet that is flying and one that only might fly. Potential hazards are left in God’s hands, but when active combat ensues a Muslim soldier seeks cover and concealment.

Wearing protective equipment or trying to resuscitate a drowned man reveals a lack of spirituality and a lack of submission to God’s will. From the Muslim perspective, every phenomenon in the world, other than man, is administered totally by God-made laws. All natural events obey God and submit to his will. They are said to be in the “State of Islam.”¹¹ That is very different than the Christian view. The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that all of creation is in bondage to decay and waits patiently for restoration through the ones who are becoming children of God (Romans 8:20-22).

The word “Islam” comes from the Arabic root word “Salema” which means peace, purity, submission and obedience. At its essence, Islam is submission to the will of God and obedience to His law.¹² If nature is in a state of submission to the will of God, then that means that sickness, death, and natural disasters are according to his will. According to Muslim thinking, only human beings have the capacity to rebel against the will of God. Mankind is invited to submit to the will of God and to obey God’s law through the religion of Islam. Islam teaches that submission to the good will of God, together with obedience to his beneficial law, is the best safeguard for man’s peace and harmony.

At its logical conclusion, this thinking means that resisting the forces of nature that manifest themselves in sickness, death, and natural disaster is equivalent to resisting the will of God. In the Christian view, nature itself has been disturbed by evil, and one of God’s purposes for humanity is not only to struggle against evil in oneself, but also to struggle against evil in nature. In the Muslim view, however, God completely controls all of nature.

Islam does call upon humanity to struggle. The word for struggle is jihad.¹³ Muslims are called to jihad against everything that sets itself up against the will and law of God. Jihad can be an internal personal struggle against sin, and it can be an external communal defense of Islam. But Muslims are not called to jihad against death, sickness, and natural disasters the way that Christians are.¹⁴ Nature, for the Muslim, is still under the control and will of God.

The Fourth Major Difference: How do people get to heaven?

In both Christianity and Islam, salvation depends upon an exclusive faith-based identity. Muslims believe that forgiveness comes exclusively through Islam,¹⁵ and Christians believe that forgiveness comes exclusively through Jesus (John 14:6). But the similarity stops there.

Muslims believe an angel on the right shoulder records good deeds, and angel on the left shoulder records bad deeds. Going to heaven instead of hell depends upon being a Muslim and upon God’s mercy in evaluating one’s good and bad deeds.¹⁶

In Christianity, people cannot mitigate their own sins with words and deeds. Only God can mitigate sin. Theologians call the process “atonement.”¹⁷ It happens through the historical sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. God forgives sins, people repent, and a broken relationship gets restored.

Repentance for Christians involves confessing and taking responsibility for sins, and then turning away from sin through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Christians call this “salvation by grace through faith, not of works” (see Ephesians 2:8-9). It means salvation is not affected by good deeds but is a free gift to all who reconcile with God through a faith allegiance to the identity and work of Jesus Christ. Because forgiveness starts with God and is guaranteed, Christians have assurance that God won’t punish them when they confess and repent of their sins (1 John 1:9). From a relational point of view, forgiveness is not yet a relationship. Forgiveness merely forgoes the right to demand justice, punishment, or restitution. Forgiveness and repentance are both essential to a restored relationship.

How does belief about salvation affect civic structures?

The concept that people relate to one another based upon the way that they relate to God is part of Christian tradition. Jesus taught his followers that they were to forgive one another just as graciously as their heavenly Father had forgiven them (Matthew 6:12-15). In societies that follow the pattern for reconciliation set by God in Jesus Christ, people expect to be forgiven when they repent – that is when they take responsibility and promise to change. They expect mitigated consequences when they sincerely apologize.

In my experience among Muslims, people in Muslim societies rarely apologize as an initial step towards reconciliation. Rather, the offender will usually work on restitution and try to reestablish relationship first. If forgiveness from God is affected by merit, then forgiveness from one’s neighbor will be too. The more responsibility one accepts for an offense, then the higher the price of restitution. Muslims will often ask for forgiveness without admitting responsibility. Muslims who want to be in relationship will often mutually blame uncontrollable circumstances, someone else, or even God as a way to reduce the price for restoring the balance of good and bad deeds between them.

Apologizing for accidentally burning Qur’ans¹⁸ or for the existence of videos and cartoons that insult Muhammad¹⁹ is a mistake. So is apologizing for past offenses like the Crusades or Colonialism.²⁰ It’s like a doctor apologizing for accidentally sewing his scissors into a patient after removing an appendix. It just increases liability and the cost of settlement. Islam is a legal system as well as a religion. Forgiveness is earned. It may or may not follow restitution. Apologizing admits responsibility, so the more abject the apology, then the greater the admission of responsibility, and the greater the admission of responsibility, then the costlier the settlement.

Also, among Muslims, potential for reconciliation is higher for insiders than for outsiders. In the Christian theology of salvation, people reconcile with God first, and then they become “true” Christians. In Muslim salvation, people become “true” Muslims first, and then they can be reconciled with God. The Christian God treats everyone the same. He offers forgiveness to everyone who will receive it, whether Christian or non-Christian. The Muslim God treats Muslims and non-Muslims differently. Like their God, Muslims categorize insiders and outsiders differently.

Actually, Muslims often ask each other for forgiveness. In fact, requesting forgiveness from friends and relatives is an important part of Muslim holiday celebrations.²¹ In my experience of Muslim cultures, however, personal maturity and good character don’t require admitting faults or taking personal responsibility for mistakes. Offenses are often forgiven without anyone ever admitting guilt. It’s like a legal settlement out of court, or no-fault insurance where money changes hands but no one admits that they were wrong.

From a Muslim perspective, it is the Christian pattern for reconciliation that miscarries justice. It requires that the offended party be ready and willing to forgive once a sincere apology is offered. It means people don’t actually need to do anything in order to be forgiven. It means that even the wickedest person can reconcile with God and have absolute certainty of eternal salvation. It puts the offender rather than the offended in control. It turns justice and divine sovereignty upside down.

Christians believe that salvation to eternal life flows from a restored relationship with God through repentance and forgiveness, and that makes one a Christian. Muslims believe salvation into paradise happens only for Muslims as God mercifully considers their good and bad deeds. In interpersonal relationships, Christians are expected to grant forgiveness for sincere apologies while Muslims grant forgiveness when it is earned. These differences profoundly influence human relationships, resulting in different behaviors and social structures.

The Fifth Major Difference: What is the ideal future?

Muslims believe that Muhammad established an ideal society under Muslim law when he ran the government in Medina and eventually in Mecca. Most Muslims desire to return to that ideal by implementing Muslim law as closely as possible to the way that Muhammad would apply it under conditions that exist today.²²

Christians, on the other hand believe that, since the rebellion of mankind against God by Adam and Eve in the long-gone Garden of Eden, ideal civilization is impossible unless God establishes it himself. Christians believe Jesus is God, and they believe that Jesus will return to earth from heaven some day. Therefore, Christians believe that God will establish the ideal society on earth through Jesus. Christian waiting for Jesus is patient but not idle. Christians believe that while Jesus is gone they should do their best to follow Jesus’ example, but they do not believe it is possible to have an ideal society without Jesus.

How does belief about a future ideal government affect civic structures?

These different visions for the ideal future lead to different ways that Christians and Muslims engage in politics. Christians try to influence government and politics, but they no longer try to establish a theocratic government as the Byzantine emperors attempted from the fourth to the eleventh centuries. Jesus taught that his dominion was spiritual and non-material. He told the Roman governor who ordered his crucifixion that if his kingdom had been of this world his followers would have been fighting for him (John 18:36). He told the Jewish leaders who wanted to rebel against Rome to pay their Roman taxes. He said give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (Matthew 22:17-21). This teaching from Jesus establishes the concept in Christian theology for of a separation of powers between church and state.²³

Muslim theology has no such church-state separation paradigm. The Muslim ideal strives for uniting political and religious power rather than separating those powers.

Christianity grew and thrived for over three centuries as a persecuted religion in both Roman and Persian empires. But, as Bernard Lewis writes in his book, What Went Wrong (published by Oxford University Press in 2002):

Muhammad achieved victory and triumph in his own lifetime. He conquered his promised land, and created his own state, of which he himself was supreme sovereign. As such, he promulgated laws, dispensed justice, levied taxes, raised armies, made war, and made peace. In a word, he ruled, and the story of his decisions and actions as ruler is sanctified in Muslim scripture and amplified in Muslim tradition. (p. 101)

Lewis also notes:

The idea that any group or persons, any kind of activities, any part of human life is in any sense outside the scope of religious law and jurisdiction is alien to Muslim thought. There is, for example, no distinction between cannon law and civil law, between the law of the church and the law of the state, crucial in Christian history. There is only a single law, shari’a, accepted by Muslims as of divine origin and regulating all aspects of human life: civil, commercial, criminal, constitutional, as well as matters more specifically concerned with religion in the limited, Christian sense of that word. (p. 100)

Both Christianity and Islam are idealistic and triumphalistic; however, Christians believe that only Jesus can establish an ideal society, while Muslims strive for an ideal civilization on the earth through Muslim government and law. The results of these theological differences play out everywhere on the world stage. Politicians and diplomats ignore or minimize these differences to their peril.

The Sixth Major Difference: What is divine revelation?

Both Christianity and Islam believe in angels and prophets and in a God who communicates through Holy Scriptures, but their prophets and scriptures are functionally opposite to each other.

In Muslim theology, the Qur’an is a verbatim incarnation of God’s word. It is an extension of divine essence and a part of eternity.²⁴ In Christian theology, Jesus fulfills that role. While to most Christians the original manuscripts of the Bible were divinely inspired and thus without error, they do not believe it to be an extension of God’s essence. The Bible quotes God, but it is not word for word, in every word, a direct quote from the mouth of God.

Christians believe that Jesus is divine (John 10:30-33), so that every word of Jesus is a word straight from the mouth of God. That is how Muslims view the Qur’an. Christians believe that the Bible is divinely provided and protected in order to show us Jesus (John 5:39). Muslims believe that about Muhammad. They believe Muhammad was divinely provided and protected in order to give us the Qur’an.²⁵

How does belief about revelation affect civic structures?

As a result, in Muslim theology, burning a Qur’an would be like crucifying Christ or desecrating the Eucharist. Burning a Qur’an is exponentially more explosive than burning a Bible. In Indonesia, I saw a man die in a hospital from a beating after he’d been arrested for allegedly burning some verses of the Qur’an that were supposedly mixed in with some magic charms that he was destroying. In Christian theology, burning the Bible is like burning a valuable and special book, but it is nothing to Christians like burning a Qur’an is to Muslims. Functionally, for their respective groups, the Bible and the Qur’an are different, so the responses of the respective groups are different as well.

Functionally, the Muslim equivalent to the Christian Bible is the prophet Muhammad as he is known through the hadith and sunnah.²⁶ The hadith are written records of the sayings and actions of Muhammad. The sunnah is the “way” of Muhammad that the hadith reveals. Without knowing the “way” of Muhammad, there can be no authoritative application of the Qur’an. Similarly, without the Bible, there can be no authoritative knowledge of Christ.

Muslims do not study the Qur’an devotionally the way that Christians study the Bible. Rather, what Muslims study devotionally is the life of Muhammad. Muslims find life lessons in the way that Muhammad talked, ate, drank, slept, washed, and even had sex. Muhammad for Muslims is devotionally equivalent to the Bible for Christians. Functional equivalence between Christianity and Islam is between book and person and not from book to book or person to person.

Muslim clerics are legal scholars as well as theological ones. Muslim people leave interpreting the Qur’an to trained clerics the way that Americans leave interpreting the Constitution to trained lawyers. Muslims often memorize large portions of the Qur’an. But memorizing the Qur’an does not give one authority to interpret and apply it any more than memorizing the U.S. Constitution gives one credentials for practicing Constitutional Law.

For Christians, their political ruler is Jesus. Though he rules a heavenly rather than an earthly kingdom, he still rules. Christians call Jesus their Lord as well as their Savior. The Muslim equivalent to Jesus is the Qur’an. Muslims are devoted to the Qur’an the way that Christians are devoted to Jesus, and they treat it legally the way that Americans treat the U.S. Constitution. The Qur’an is a Muslim’s highest sovereign in the same way that Jesus is a Christian’s highest sovereign.

Both Christianity and Islam have prophets and scriptures; however, those prophets and scriptures don’t correlate with one another. Christians revere the man Jesus as the essence of God, whom they receive and understand through the Bible. Muslims revere the Qur’an as an essence of God, which they receive and understand through their prophet Muhammad. Functionally Muhammad correlates to the Bible and the Qur’an correlates to Jesus. Correlating Jesus with Muhammad and the Bible with the Qur’an is a mistake for Muslims trying to understand Christianity and for Christians trying to understand Islam.

Conclusion

Many more comparisons beyond these on God, man, salvation, nature, the future, and revelation could be made. Islam and Christianity are very different from each other. We must not embrace the logical consequence of having no religious affiliation, which is that all religions are essentially the same. Western civic structures are founded in a Judeo-Christian religious heritage. Conversely, Middle Eastern and Central Asian civic structures are founded in a Muslim heritage. Structures for government, justice, education, public works, civil defense, marriage, and family are connected to the corresponding, underlying beliefs and values of these two very different religious systems.

If all religions are basically the same, then civic structures would be interchangeable between societies regardless of different religious heritages. But Islam and Christianity are not the same. Their belief and values systems are different, and those differences result in vastly different behaviors and different civic structures. The cultural momentum in America towards denying the relevance of religion is causing military leaders and diplomats to treat democratic civic structures as if they are plug-and-play components between different societies. But they are not, and blindness to this reality is sabotaging efforts to facilitate democratic reform in the Muslim world.

Blindness to these spiritual realities not only undermines world peace, but it threatens religious freedom in America as well. If Christianity and Islam are essentially the same, then their fundamentalists are also the same. A potential challenge to religious freedom in America will likely come from people with no religious affiliation. These people may well begin to treat Evangelicals as if they were the same threat to civic order as their fundamentalist counterparts in Islam.

Bruce Sidebotham spent seven years doing cross-cultural ministry in Indonesia. The son of a Navy chaplain, he is a geologist, a civil engineer, and a former officer in the Army Corps of Engineers. He has a Master’s degree in Intercultural Studies and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from Columbia International University, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from New Geneva Theological Seminary.

Bruce and his wife, Lynn, have raised four boys. Their youngest son was born in Indonesia. As a chaplain (major) in the U.S. Army Reserves, Bruce spent a year in Iraq (2008-09), where he provided pastoral care to 39 different teams of embedded advisors throughout the province of Nineveh. Bruce directs Operation Reveille, a ministry that helps service personnel with cross-cultural relations. Contact information: bside@oprev.org

---

Endnotes

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/26/whats-the-fastest-growing_n_88540.html

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

3. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/584517/tawhid

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law

5. http://www.wikiislam.net/wiki/Allah_the_Best_Deceiver

6. http://www.answering-christianity.com/crucified.htm

7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_women’s_testimony_in_Islam

8. http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/the-khilafah/non-muslims/499-dhimmi-non-muslims-living-in-the-khilafah

9. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/16/egyptian-court-sentences-entire-family-to-15-years-for-converting-to/#ixzz2IAgic2Lz

10. http://www.oprev.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/singgalang-article.png

11. http://www.patheos.com/Library/Islam/Beliefs/Human-Nature-and-the-Purpose-of-Existence.html

12. http://www.barghouti.com/islam/meaning.html

13. http://www.thewaytotruth.org/jihad/meaning.html

14. http://www.justislam.co.uk/product.php?products_id=2

15. http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-433-3143.htm

16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiraman_Katibin

17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity

18. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/us-afghanistan-korans-obama-idUSTRE81M13W20120223

19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogk2dgSQETA

20. http://www.soon.org.uk/page15.htm

21. http://barefootmel.com/?p=2343

22. http://www.islamicbookstore.com/b9563.html

23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

14. http://www.iqrasearch.com/the-quran/the-quran-is-the-uncreated-speech-of-god.html

25. http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-8.htm

26. http://www.quranexplorer.com/Hadith/Default.aspx

By Reverend Wylie W. Johnson, D.Min., M.Div., M.S.S.; Chaplain (Colonel) U.S. Army Reserve (retired), Senior Pastor of Springfield Baptist Church, Springfield, Pennsylvania, and until his retirement in June 2012 the first Command Chaplain for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Readiness Command.

Quotations from this paper
Modern Muslims are faced with a nagging conundrum which we might put this way: ‘How is it that Islamic people, who are the possessors of the only true religion and who ought to be the most powerful people on earth, are now so poor, backward and powerless?’

Like most social movements, there have been many thinkers contributing to the Islamist idea. A Sunni Pakistani, Syed Abul A’ala Maududi (1903-1979), linked the ancient faith with the revolutionary fervor of the present. Maududi‘s experience was in the Indian conflict between Hinduism and Islam. He also developed a worldwide jihadistic vision for imposing a new Islamic order. Maududi, as many of his contemporaries, melded the political rhetoric of communism and fascism into a revolutionary Islamic ideology. The goal of such an insurrectionist religious vision is global hegemony.

Introduction: Threads of Understanding

To begin understanding the modern phenomenon of radical Islam, one must have a working knowledge of Muslim history, theology and contemporary events. In this article, I will knit together these three threads in order to contribute towards such an understanding.

For the purposes of this project, Islamic Radicalism, Salifism, and Islamism are used as interchangeable terms. Islamists hold to a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. They condemn all who differ as kafir¹ (hypocritical or heretical) and repress all divergence from their narrow view. The radical agenda includes a rejection of any form of civil law and strict adherence to Shari‘a law.² I would further add that my concentration in this project is specifically upon those various groups that have declared jihad³ on the United States at home and abroad, and are actively pursuing future operations.

Many Muslims feel that they have successively been defeated, resulting in the loss of power to other nations; the loss of authority within their own nations; and finally through the loss of “mastery in his own house from emancipated women and rebellious children”⁴ who model their behavior and expectations on the ‘Christian’ West. The following story simply explains Middle Eastern feelings and motivations.

One day an elderly Bedouin man discovered that by eating turkey he could restore his virility. So he bought himself a turkey and he kept it around the tent, and every day he watched it grow. He stuffed it with food, thinking, Wow, I am really going to be a bull. One day, though, the turkey was stolen. So the Bedouin called his sons together and said, “Boys, we are in great danger now – terrible danger. My turkey‘s been stolen.” The boys laughed and said, “Father, what do you need a turkey for?” He said, “Never mind, never mind. It is not important why I need the turkey, all that is important is that it has been stolen, and we must get it back.” But his sons ignored him and forgot about the turkey. A few weeks, later the old man‘s camel was stolen. His sons came to him and said, “Father, your camel‘s been stolen, what should we do?” And the old man said, “Find my turkey.” A few weeks later, the old man‘s horse was stolen, and the sons came and said, “Father, your horse was stolen, what should we do?” He said, “Find my turkey.” Finally, a few weeks later, someone raped his daughter. The father went to his sons and said, “It is all because of the turkey. When they saw that they could take my turkey, we lost everything.”⁵

This ancient story amply illustrates the Muslim community‘s sense of loss and vulnerability in a hostile world. Modern Muslims are faced with a nagging conundrum that we might put this way: ‘How is it that Islamic people, who are the possessors of the only true religion and who ought to be the most powerful people on earth, are now so poor, backward and powerless?’⁶

Muslims believe that ultimately all of humanity must accept Islam, which will eventually become the only worldwide faith. The Islamic Umma⁷ (the middle nation) is perfectly conceived and not prone to religious extremes of asceticism or depravity. “The Umma is the ‘assembly’ of the ‘party of God.’ It is the best nation and has a mission to be a witness over the nations.”⁸

Many Muslims hold an ideal in common with Christians—that of becoming the only world religion. In many ways, we may compare the Islamic notion of one world religion with the Christian Great Commission: Christ‘s imperative to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19-20). For both religions the individual believer is responsible for global mission. However, there are fundamental differences in method and purpose. Christianity, propagating a redemptive gospel, is essentially a non-state religion. Even when the Christian faith becomes entangled with political authority, it usually remains distinct from the state. Islam is a nomocratic (law-based) state with imperialistic pretentions. Islam has “combined the dualism of a universal religion and a universal state.”⁹

The mission of Islam comprises both da’wah (witness and invitation) and dawlah (political and territorial mission).¹⁰ In Islam, mission and the establishment of Islamic social order are nearly synonymous, since “extending Islamic authority over peoples and territory was the same as extending God‘s rule.”¹¹ Islamic rule has historically been extended by military conquest. In the Islamic faith, personal religion is ideally a matter of conscience, for the Qur’an teaches that, “There is no compulsion in religion” (Surah 2, 256). However, Muslim societies have been structured so that it is a burden to believe in any faith other than Islamic. The history of Islam has been an uneven balance between da’wah and dawlah over subject peoples.

It is not surprising that religious faiths come into conflict, particularly since each is convinced of its own exclusive veracity and its unique mandate for social unity. Religious conflict has intensified in the contemporary era. Benjamin R. Barber has declared that modern forms of traditional monotheistic religion “are parochial rather than cosmopolitan, angry rather than loving, proselytizing rather than ecumenical, zealous rather than rationalist, sectarian rather than deistic, ethnocentric rather than universalizing.”¹² Formerly peaceful (or generally peaceful) comity arrangements have deteriorated into hostility and outright conflict around the modern world.

Adam Garfinkle attributes the phenomenon of modern political Islam to “a condition of blocked or distorted modernization.”¹³ He sees Islamic societies negatively reacting to Western cultural-imperialism that requires radical change from traditional to modern methods and mores. Traditional societies are strained by globalized social pressures as well as urbanization, pluralism, lack of education and economic opportunity. Such influences alter established mores and behaviors.¹⁴ Many Muslims, proud of their faith and heritage, resent the pressures of Western (especially Christian) culture-driven modernization that undermines the functioning basis of their society.

Religious responses to such forces are often chiliastic, that is, understanding the current cultural drift as clear signs of the end-of-time demise of society. One sort of cultural religious response is to become quietist (e.g., the Sufis)—seeking retreat from society to develop isolated communities that preserve the old ways and values.¹⁵ Another response may be a turning to authoritarian rule in an attempt to restore the status quo (e.g., Taliban). Others, like bin Laden, developed a vision of worldwide conquest for the establishment of the true faith and moral attitudes. “At such times, believers usually think that violence is part of a divine plan to hasten the end of the world, bring the Mahdi; re-establish the Caliphate, or whatever the theology requires.”¹⁶

Middle Eastern cultures are structured with an endogamous family construct, meaning arranged marriages within the family. Such relationships define family within the tribal structure. This retains wealth and property in the family, as well as undergirding patriarchal authority.

In most Arab societies, everyone knows where they fit into the overall structure. Loyalty is to extended family, individual agency is weak, and the entire structure tends to resist outside influence. Religion is organic to birth and reinforces the authority of the patriarchal system. However, it is the social structure, which predated Islam that comes first. Assaults to tribe and family, real or imagined, are therefore assaults against religion, and vice versa. Endogamous social organization helps explain why these societies tend to split into factions when they come under pressure. The Taliban, which most Westerners consider motivated by religion, are as much driven by concern over their tribal structures‘ viability. Westerners divide politics from religion and religion from social structure by second nature, but these divisions have no parallel in the Middle East.¹⁷

Chronically impoverished Arab peoples have not shared in the economic prosperity that the developed world enjoys—“per capita income has been virtually unchanged since 1980; in some countries, including oil-rich Saudi Arabia, it has actually fallen. Real wages and labor productivity are about where they were thirty years ago.”¹⁸ Oil wealth in each Middle Eastern nation resides in the hands of a tiny ruling clique, while regional development remains minimal at best. “Outside the energy sector, trade is at a standstill: the entire region‘s non-oil exports are smaller than those of Finland….The Arab world has, in effect, disengaged from the world economy.”¹⁹

Traditional population distribution within the region has rapidly changed from a rural to an urban majority. Combine this with a populace where more than half are under age twenty. “High concentrations of young people in a society, especially teenagers, correlates well with violence and poorly with stability…“youth bulges” have accompanied many of history‘s most dramatic upheavals.”²⁰

Islamist Theoreticians

However, it is not the unwashed masses who are the ideologues and leaders of Islamist movements. While the foot soldiers of Islamic radicalism come from the economically disadvantaged, by contrast Islamist leadership originates from money, power and advanced educational status.²¹ These are the leaders who so clearly articulate the hopelessness of the Muslim masses by identifying their powerful enemy in the Great Satan (dajjal) – the USA, and life‘s answers in fundamentalist Islam. Religious fundamentalism always flourishes in an environment where its adherents perceive its beliefs and way of life are under attack. The modernist assault on Islam, “westoxification,”²² is popularly seen not only as confirmation of Islamist ideology but substantiation of the need for Muslims to return to a purer practice of their religion.

Al-Qaeda brought together strands of Arab Nationalism and Islamist fundamentalism as interpreted by an Egyptian philosopher, Sayyid Qutb.²³ Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden‘s organization, is representative of the current worldwide Islamist movement. The organization was created in the late 1980s by an affiliation of three armed factions—bin Laden’s circle of ”Afghan” Arabs, together with two factions from Egypt, the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the latter led by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s top theoretician.²⁴

Qutb was a leading thinker of the Islamic Brotherhood founded in Egypt by Hasan al-Banna. The Brotherhood is a nationalist, social and political movement highly critical of the Egyptian and other Middle Eastern governments during the 1950‘s and 1960‘s.

In a famous book, al-‘Adala al-ijtima‘iyya fi‘l-islam (Social Justice in Islam), Sayyid Qutb put forward a powerful interpretation of the social teaching of Islam. For Muslims, as distinct from Christians, there was, he suggested, no gap between faith and life. All human acts could be seen as acts of worship, and the Qur‘an and Hadith provided the principles on which action should be based. Man was free only if he was released from subjection to all powers except that of God: from the power of priesthood, fear, and the domination of social values, human desires and appetites.²⁵ 314

Egyptian authorities used Qutb‘s book, Milestones, to condemn him at his sedition trial. His execution in 1966 (interpreted by Islamists as martyrdom) by the Egyptian authorities gave his works credibility, creating interest throughout the Middle East. Milestones became a “classic manifesto of the terrorist wing of Islamic fundamentalism.²⁶

Qutb called “for a renewal of Islamic life, a life governed by the spirit and the law of Islam, which alone can produce that form of Islam that we need to day, and which is in conformity with the genuine Islamic tradition.”²⁷ While this sounds innocuous enough to the Western ear, Qutb is calling for nothing less than a radical reorientation and reform of present day Islamic social order. For Qutb, Islam teaches that there is a unity between the spiritual and temporal.

For the center of its being and the field of its action is human life in its entirety, spiritual and material, religious and worldly. Such a religion cannot continue to exist in isolation from society, nor can its adherents be true Muslims unless they practice their faith in their social, legal, and economic relationships. And a society cannot be Islamic if it expels the civil and religious laws of Islam from its codes and customs, so that nothing of Islam is left except rites and ceremonials.²⁸

Such a radical reformation necessitated the overthrow of the existing Islamic order as well as the need to militantly confront the remainder of the world through jihadist conquest. Qutb radically critiqued the settled orthodoxy that Islam had become. His was no less than a clarion call to overthrow what he perceived as pernicious Christian domination of the entire Islamic world.²⁹

Qutb‘s purpose was to politically reunify all Muslims worldwide under a restored, rightly guided Islamic Caliphate. His is a complete rejection of the Christian West and a reactionary view toward the progressiveness of the Islamic schools. “Qutb and the Islamists…pictured the resurrected caliphate as a theocracy, strictly enforcing Sharia, the legal code of the Koran.”³⁰ This required a total rejection of all things non-Muslim.³¹

Qutb held that every Muslim lived in direct relationship with Allah. There is no priesthood or other intermediary between “creature and the Creator”.³² This becomes the basis for his rejection of the religious hierarchy (the jurists of the orthodox schools). Qutb accused the orthodox legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali) of syncretism – combining Christian and pagan philosophies with the teaching of Islam. He thought this syncretism was an affront, because Islam is perfect as received from Allah through the Prophet. “Islam has one universal and integrated theory which covers the universe and life and humanity; a theory in which are integrated all the different questions….”³³ However, Qutb wrote that the “Islamic concept” was corrupted when, “Islamic philosophers borrowed certain concepts from Greek philosophy and terms from Aristotle, Plotinus and the Christian theologians, and merged them with the Islamic concept.³⁴ This dilution of the pure faith had profound consequences for the Muslim community.

When the life of the Muslims became free of the concerns of jihad and they surrendered to comfort and affluence; and when at the same time different opinions and schools of thought came into existence, largely because of political problems going back to the well-known conflict between ‘Ali and Mu‘awiya, they began to concern themselves with Greek philosophy and theological discussions relating to Christianity, which were then translated into Arabic.³⁵

Further, Qutb asserted that the reality of modern Muslim society is not Islamic in any sense. He proclaimed that as long as Muslims adhered to the purity of Islam, not only was there was no weakness in society but there would be no subordination to non-Muslim powers. He charged that when the Umma departed from true Islam, Muslim society lost its rightful place and authority in the world.³⁶ This state of affairs starkly contrasted with the belief that Islam ought to be – “ever in the forefront.” “You are the best nation which has been brought forth for men; you enjoin the good, and you forbid the evil.” (3:10)³⁷

Qutb was highly critical of domination of Muslim peoples by Europeans and their subsequent acceptance of Christian culture, values and mores. He interpreted European colonialization as a Christian desire to put an end to the entire Islamic culture. Qutb links the collapse of Islamic power with a Christian ascendancy that resulted in establishing cultural, economic and religious hegemony over Muslim lands.³⁸

…he traced the ‘new jahiliyya’ to the disintegration of the first Umma and that the creation of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires, where the notion of Allah‘s universal sovereignty succumbed to the reality of human kingship and hereditary rule in their most decadent and un-Islamic forms. In the following millennium the House of Islam would fluctuate between various levels of attainment, from the low ebbs of the Mongol and crusader invasions to the apogee of the Ottoman expansion. Yet it would never manage to rid itself of the new jahiliyya, let alone come anywhere near the lofty heights of the first Umma.³⁹

Qutb‘s remedy for this disastrous situation is to reinstitute a thoroughly Islamic society based upon Quranic teaching, and the strict observance of the Sharia. He wrote that three foundational principles are necessary for the establishment of justice – absolute freedom of conscience; the equality of all men; and the upholding of a mutual responsibility for society.⁴⁰

Like most social movements, there have been many thinkers contributing to the Islamist idea. A Sunni Pakistani, Syed Abul A’ala Maududi, linked the ancient faith with the revolutionary fervor of the present. Maududi‘s experience was in the Indian conflict between Hinduism and Islam. He also developed a world-wide jihadistic vision for imposing a new Islamic order. Maududi, like many of his contemporaries, melded the political rhetoric of communism and fascism into a revolutionary Islamic ideology. The goal of such an insurrectionist religious vision is global hegemony.⁴¹

Islam: A Religion of Both Peace and War

It is commonly asserted that Islam is a religion of peace—a fundamental belief for all of those faithful residing in the dar al-Islam (house of peace). However, the remainder of the world‘s population is believed by Muslims to live in the dar al-harb (house of war). Those peoples outside the dar al-Islam are, according to the administration of Islamic law, under an enduring jihad (struggle) with the faithful until all come into submission to Allah. “Any community which prefers to remain non-Islamic—in the status of a tolerated religious community accepting certain disabilities—must submit to Islamic rule and reside in the dar al-Islam or be bound as clients to the Muslim community.”⁴² Such a worldview leads those outside of Islam to be skeptical and uneasy concerning Islamic intentions.

No single teaching of Islam has engendered more misunderstanding, mistrust and outright confrontation than the idea of jihad.⁴³ Muhammad is thought⁴⁴ to have initially developed the concept of jihad to redirect Arab society‘s predilection for raiding and marauding into a religious duty supporting the spread of Islam.⁴⁵ “He developed and amplified this concept with the expansion of his political ambitions until it became a rallying cry for world domination.⁴⁶ The Prophet subordinated his culture‘s mindset with a moral and religious vision for a utopian future. “From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans…the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of never quiescent imperialist dreams.⁴⁷

Muhammad died in June 632. His followers immediately began the work of religiously motivated world conquest that within 12 years overthrew the Iranian Sassanid Empire and seized Syria and Egypt from Byzantium. Islam‘s empire grew in the early eighth century, encompassing central Asia and India to the frontiers of China, consumed North Africa, even laying siege to Constantinople.⁴⁸ “The Arab and Moorish surge west and north only ended at Tours in 732”⁴⁹ and at India‘s Indus River on the east. Incomplete world domination brought with it the unanticipated issue of relations with non-Muslim communities. This was thought to be a temporary state of affairs that would be resolved when Islam finally became the one world religion.⁵⁰

The early Caliphate‘s ruling class used Islam as a tool for legitimizing their efforts of building and unifying empire. Over time, the later Caliphs demonstrated less interest in inculcating the faith⁵¹ within the empire and little appetite for expanding Islam. In the modern era the Islamic mission passed by default from rulers to political activists, marking the rejection of traditional authority and the rise of Islamic individualism. “The Islamists, by contrast, modeled themselves on Islam‘s early conquerors, and aspired to nothing less than the substitution of Allah‘s universal empire for the existing international system.⁵²

Conflict continues between the tectonic plates of Islam and Christianity to the present day. In response to centuries of Islamic aggression, a series of Roman Catholic Crusades during the 11th to 13th centuries reclaimed the Holy Lands for Christianity. Ottoman Turks (14th – 17th centuries) countered by restoring the Levant to Islam then capturing Constantinople, seizing the Balkans and, in the process, twice attempting to reduce Vienna, in 1529 and in 1683. In recent times, the frontiers of Islam have increasingly been areas of bloodshed.

On the northern border of Islam, conflict has increasingly erupted between Orthodox and Muslim peoples, including the carnage of Bosnia and Sarajevo, the simmering violence between Serb and Albanian, the tenuous relations between Bulgarians and their Turkish minority, the violence between Ossetians and Ingush, the unremitting slaughter of each other by Armenians and Azeris, the tense relations between Russians and Muslims in Central Asia….”⁵³

Islam has not only contended with European Christianity. In Africa “the other great antagonistic interaction of Arab Islamic civilization has been with the pagan, animist, and increasingly Christianized peoples to the south.”⁵⁴ Modern examples of this conflict are raging in Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Mali and Chad, as well as intermittent clashes with Christian Copts in Egypt and Abyssinians in Ethiopia. To the East and South Islam contends with Asian people in historically Hindu and Buddhist regions as well as those adherents to a wide variety of Oriental religions.⁵⁵ When Pakistan and India were partitioned in 1947, millions of Muslims and Hindus were displaced resulting in about one million deaths. These two nations remain mutually hostile.

However, of all American actions in the region over the past 300 years, the Restorationist Movement⁵⁶ was to have the most profound impact. Restoration is the religiously motivated idea that the Jewish Diaspora should returned to the Holy Land to reestablish the nation of Israel, thus ushering in the return of the Messiah. Evangelical churches in the colonial era were strongly supportive of this popular movement, which subsequently “penetrated the mainstream” of American Christianity.⁵⁷ Ultimately, this Restorationist movement culminated in the 1948 UN Mandate establishing the modern state of Israel.

Over all, Islam has been in retreat since the second siege of Vienna (1683)—more than three hundred years ago. During that time Christian and post-Christian civilization has profoundly affected the economics, government, mores, society, and culture of the entire Muslim world.⁵⁸ These developments have brought forth overwhelming discontent and resentments throughout the Islamic world. While there are numerous causes for Islamic grievance against the West, none is more pronounced or focused than the existence of the modern state of Israel. Islamic fundamentalism has given voice to and demanded redress for the angry passions of the Muslim civilization.⁵⁹

The Islamic Law of War

In the initial centuries, Mujahidin⁶⁰ found astonishing success in all directions of the compass as they spread the faith by conquest. It is one thing to have a religion of personal piety but quite another to acquire an empire. The nascent Islamic state soon required a body of laws to regulate conduct with neighboring communities and with internally tolerated religious communities. “The special branch of the sacred law—the siyar–developed by the Muslim jurists to meet the need that may aptly be called the Islamic Law of Nations.”⁶¹ Islamic practice and laws of war developed from the example of the Prophet Mohammed‘s 27 battles and the commentaries testifying of his immediate successors Abu Bakr and ‘Umar.⁶² Kadduri notes that the law “precedes the state: it provides the basis of the state.”⁶³ It is therefore not God, but God‘s law which really governs; and, as such, the State should be called nomocracy, not theocracy.⁶⁴

In the Muslim view, Allah is ineffable and therefore not tainted by human interactions. What makes Islam a nomocracy is that a human ruler enforces the perfect, divinely-given law.⁶⁵ The state exists solely to enforce the divine law, and if it fails in that duty, the state “obviously forfeits its raison d’etre—the believer still remained under the obligation to observe the law even in the absence of any one to enforce it.”⁶⁶ Islamic law consists of faraid (obligations) illuminating the Sharia (the right path) to salvation. Sharia distinguishes between religious obligation (fard) and the religiously forbidden (haram). Between these two poles, Muslims have the freedom to express their faith positively (mandub) and to refrain from the unacceptable (makruh). There is also the category of jaiz, to which the law is indifferent and the believer has full freedom of action.⁶⁷

Kadduri notes there are three vital characteristics of the divine law. First, the law is permanent and applicable in all times and places. Secondly, the primary concerns of the law are the common interest of the Umma, thus the individual is protected only as long as the individual‘s rights coincide with the wellbeing of the Islamic community. Thirdly, the law must be sincerely followed in good faith.⁶⁸

Traditional Islamic culture rests upon a religion of laws and thus requires religious lawyers, or jurists, to interpret that law. Four centuries after Mohammed, four orthodox legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali) became recognized mainstream interpreters of Sunni Islam. Their legal opinions became the standard of orthodoxy, and any departure from these established legal opinions were “denounced as innovation (bida). As a result ijtiha”⁶⁹ was gradually abandoned in favor of taqlid (literally, “imitation” or “submission”) to the canons of the four schools, and the door of ijtihad was shut.⁷⁰

The issue of ijtihad gains increasing importance when consideration of current Islamist thought is taken into account, because Salifists discard standard interpretations for innovative understandings. Modern Islamic Radicals, contrary to accepted doctrine, teach that only violent confrontation with the dar al harb and kafir (hypocritical or heretical Muslims) will save Islam. Islamist pronouncements are considered by traditional Islamic jurists as originating from the unlearned and condemned as innovation (bida). Some have identified this trend toward independent Quranic interpretation as the equivalent of the “Protestant Reformation” in Islam. For instance, bin Laden issued a 1998 fatwa, “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” which legitimated subsequent attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa. Neither bin Laden nor any of his lieutenants are recognized clerics with alim (interpreter of Islamic law) credentials. These self-appointed interpretations are framed in traditional fatwa form to provide a perception of authenticity with Muslim masses.⁷¹

As originally formulated, the Muslim law of nations was a temporary situation—the institution of an Islamic nation(s) in relationship with non-Islamic nations. It is universally believed within Islam that “all people, except perhaps those of the tolerated religions, would become Muslims.”⁷² The entire world will be subordinated to the complete authority of the Caliph. The Muslim law of nations is a triumphalist worldview that recognizes no other legitimate authority.⁷³

Ibn Khaldun (AD 1332-1406) was one of the most prominent scholars to develop Muslim thought concerning war—naming “man‘s will-to-revenge” as its primary cause. Wars were not “casual social calamities”; rather, the causes were rooted from creation in the anger, avarice, emotions, guilt or jealousy of mankind. Thus groups or nations would conspire against one another and then make war.⁷⁴ War is an unnatural state entered into “because of man‘s carelessness and sins. Ibn ‘Abd-Allah…described wars as diseases…their frequency …arising from the very nature of man, makes their recurrence as permanent as social life itself.”⁷⁵

Islamic writers wrestle with the same sorts of just war issues that Christians have: i.e., varieties of conflicts, treatment of the defeated, establishment of (Islamic) law. ‘Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Awasi al-Ansari penned a 14th century work, The Dispelling of Fears in the Management of Wars, the 1961 edition of which “mentions over 40 classical Arabic texts on warfare written between the 8th and 15th century.”⁷⁶ A more recent text focusing upon Islamic international law is, The Book of the Law of Nations, by Shaybani.

Islamic jurists admit no legitimate cause for war except jihad. “Only a war which has an ultimate religious purpose, that is, to enforce God‘s law or to check transgression against it, is a just war. No other form of fighting is permitted within or without the Muslim brotherhood.”⁷⁷ The jihad concept set strict limits on the Arabic cultural proclivity for internecine conflict. Tribes could not go to war with Muslim coreligionists and justify this as jihad.

“In Muslim legal theory, the objective of war is neither the achievement of victory nor the acquisition of the enemy‘s property; it is rather the fulfillment of a duty—the jihad in Allah‘s path—by universalizing the Islamic faith.⁷⁸ Thus Hamas‘ declaration of “victory”⁷⁹ following the recent devastating three-week attack by Israel in the Gaza Strip has little to do with their military debacle and everything to do with the Islamic faith of the Palestinians.⁸⁰ Jihad is religiously-justified war, “not as an instrument of policy but as an emblem of identity, an expression of community, an end in itself.”⁸¹

Understanding Jihad

The word jihad, in English, literally means “struggle.” It is popularly translated as, “holy war, but that is only one of its derivative meanings. Kadduri philologically notes that the verbal form, jahada carries the meaning “exerted.“  “Its juridical-theological meaning is exertion of one‘s power in Allah‘s path, that is the spread of the belief in Allah and in making His word supreme over this world.”⁸² For the individual to sincerely make jihad is to be rewarded with Allah‘s salvation, the direct path to the Islamic paradise. Jihad is almost universally regarded by jurists as ‘a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community.’⁸³

Believe in Allah and His Apostle and carry on warfare (jihad) in the path of Allah with your possession and your persons. That is better for you. If ye have knowledge, He will forgive your sins, and will place you in the Gardens beneath which the streams flow, and fine houses in the Gardens of Eden: that is the great gain. [Q.LXI, 10-13]

Islamic Jurists have recognized four different manners in which the true believer may accomplish the obligation for jihad. The greater jihad (identified as such by the Prophet Mohammed) is that spiritual path whereby the believer submits one‘s heart to the will of Allah. The second and third manner of jihad, submission of the tongue and hands, are for the support of society by enforcing justice and correction of evil. All of Islam recognizes great worth in these spiritual devotions, observation of personal piety and communal obedience to Allah. The lesser jihad is accomplished by the sword, or by the conduct of war that defends or enlarges Islam. The fourth form of jihad, the conduct of holy war, “is concerned with fighting the unbelievers and the enemies of the faith. The believers are under the obligation of sacrificing their ‘wealth and lives‘ (Q.LXI, 11) in the prosecution of war.”⁸⁴

It is this lesser jihad, appropriately named “holy war,” that concerns the world community and is of primary concern to the Christian warrior both for the implications of that belief and for the real-world actions of Islamists. “In the words of Ibn Khaldun: ‘…the jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Islamic mission and the obligation [to convert] everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.’”⁸⁵

Muslims view Scripturaries, Jews and Christians, as people who responded to Allah‘s Prophets but tragically not to Mohammed. These “People of the Book” are subject to a limited jihad that renders three choices—convert to Islam; pay jizyah (the poll tax) and be allowed to live in the community as second-class citizens (dihimini); or receive the full consequence of jihad. The polytheists (a generic term for the remainder of the world‘s population) are given the choice either to convert or be subject to the sword. Any convert to Islam is granted full citizenship.⁸⁶ Kadduri remarks that jihad is a sanction or a punishment against those at variance with Islam. “The jihad, therefore, may be defined as the litigation between Islam and polytheism; it is also a form of punishment to be inflicted upon Islam‘s enemies and the renegades from the faith.” He goes on to assert that jihad is bellum justum—a just war.⁸⁷ Thus the jihad, reflecting the normal war relations existing between Muslims and non-Muslims, was the state‘s instrument for transforming the dar al-harb into the dar al-Islam.⁸⁸

The practice of lesser jihad against believers was permitted by Al-Mawardi against those apostatizing from the faith (al-ridda); against Muslims creating dissension in the Islamic community (al-baghi); and against those fomenting secession from Islamic rule (al-muharibun). Some other jurists concluded that protecting the frontiers of Islam (al-ribat) was also permitted.⁸⁹ 378

Much legal reflection has gone into defining qualifications for a Muslim waging jihad (holy war). The Shafii School identified seven tests to determine if a person was under obligation to perform the lesser jihad. The Jihadist must be a (1) believer in Islam; (2) mature and of sound mind; (3) male; (4) economically independent; (5) receive his parent‘s permission; (6) be of good intention; (7) fulfill certain spiritual duties while serving as a jihadi.⁹⁰

Jihad is divinely initiated war that is completely different from war initiated by humans for their own devices. Islamic nations or entities are fully convinced that they wage holy war at the instigation of God. “Islam, in its all-embracing creed, is imposed on the believers as a continuous process of warfare, psychological and political if not strictly military.”⁹¹ Kadduri notes that although jihad is the undeviating foundation for Islamic relations with its neighbors, it did not necessitate continual strife and that the jihad against Islam‘s neighbors could be accomplished by non-violent methods.⁹²

James Turner Johnson describes characteristics of holy war that are common across the monotheistic religious continuum. Holy War is conducted at God‘s command by his commissioned leadership, but the primary warrior is God who wages war against unfaithfulness inside and outside the people of God. Holy war is conducted to protect and purify the faith of nation and its society, to bring about true devotion and punish disobedience. In the conduct of holy war, human warriors are seen as morally righteous even in killing that is necessary during battle. Holy war is both an aggressively violent and nonviolent struggle for the accomplishment of God‘s purposes managed by spiritual leaders resulting in divinely miraculous results.⁹³

For the Islamic community, jihad “delivers a different set of virtues: a vibrant local identity, a sense of community, solidarity among kinsmen, neighbors, and countrymen, narrowly conceived.⁹⁴ However, this worldview, which necessarily excludes all except coreligionists, results in a constricted and un-accepting culture made secure by an attitude of conflict against outsiders. This sort of solidarity “often means obedience to a hierarchy in governance, fanaticism in beliefs, and the obliteration of individual selves in the name of the group.”⁹⁵ The principle of jihad is the basis of Islamic intolerance toward others and loyalty to the Umma. Jihad engenders “deference” to communal leadership and a corresponding suspicion about liberal-democratic values which teach that both men and women are “capable of governing themselves.”⁹⁶

Muslims are promised divine rewards for faithful service to this communal duty. Traditionally recognized authorities gave extravagant promises to martyrs of “eternal life in paradise immediately and without trial on the resurrection and judgment day for those who die in Allah‘s path. Such martyr remains were not ceremonially washed but were buried where they fell on the battlefield.⁹⁷

Who may legitimately declare jihad against others? Among the Sunna, the obligation for calling the faithful to war belongs to the state. “As a collective duty, the jihad is a state instrument; the imam, accordingly, as head or deputy head of the state, is charged with the duty of declaring it.”⁹⁸ The Shii regard this authority as belonging to the Rightful Imam (who has disappeared) leaving that duty without a proper declaratory authority.

Opinion differed as to the capacity of the mujtahids to act in the name of the imam in fulfilling the jihad obligation; but since the duty of calling the believers to battle is a matter in which an infallible judgment is necessary – since the interest of the entire community would be at stake – only an imam is capable of fulfilling such a duty. Further, it is deemed impossible to combat evil during the absence of the imam; the jihad, accordingly, is regarded as inconsequential. Thus in the Shii legal theory, the jihad has entered into a dormant stage – it is in a state of suspension. In contrast to the Sunni doctrine which requires the revival of the dormant jihad when Muslim power is regained, the resumption of the jihad in the Shii doctrine would be dependent on the return of the imam from his ghayba (absence), in the capacity of a Mahdi, who will triumphantly combat evil and reestablish justice and righteousness.⁹⁹

The Kharijis sect, distinct from both Sunna and Shii, holds that jihad is the sixth pillar of the Islamic faith and is compulsory for the entire community. Theirs is a jihad of compulsion by violence. Islam ought to be imposed on the unbeliever by the sword. “This is based on a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: ‘My fate is under the shadow of my spear.’”¹⁰⁰

Radical Islam and Holy War

A few months after moving his organization to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden published his first fatwa, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” in al-Quds al-Arabi, the Arabic language newspaper based in London.¹⁰¹ A fatwa is an Islamic religious opinion normally issued by an acknowledged scholar, and its importance depends upon the communally recognized status of that jurist. His work, known as the Ladenese Epistle, “is an endless list of charges…The most prominent grievance is bin Laden‘s hallmark: the ‘Zionist-Crusader Alliance,’ that amalgam of world infidelity, is waging a war against the people of Islam.”¹⁰² His declaration of war caught the attention of the entire Muslim world on two counts. First, bin Laden is not a recognized Quranic authority even if he might popularly speak for the masses. Secondly, as all Muslims know, ―the declaration of jihad creates a legal state of hostilities.¹⁰³ His subsequent attacks on the U.S. “stem from a pervasive fear—in the minds of bin Laden and many other Muslims—that American culture is crushing theirs.”¹⁰⁴ Bin Laden exploited the fact that there “is no ‘clear, decisive, and unequivocal’ religious authority [in Islam] able to declare that the killing of innocents by terrorist attacks is contrary to Islam….”¹⁰⁵

Bin Laden did not act within a vacuum; there were historical predecessors teaching radical interpretations of jihad. Ibn Taymiyya (1263 – 1328) was an early Islamic jurist who became a precursor for Islamist philosophers. Unlike most clerics, he added jihad as the sixth pillar of Islam.¹⁰⁶ Historically, most clerics didn‘t consider jihad (holy war) as essential to personal piety. Ibn Taymiyya noted that both prayer and the practice of jihad were “God‘s two essential requirements for all conscientious, able-bodied Muslims. The goal of jihad is God‘s victory; anyone who opposes jihad is therefore an enemy of God.”¹⁰⁷ He did not recognize a distinction between a greater and lesser jihad. “Along with his contemporaries, he considered the superior form of jihad to be combat against infidels. Spiritual jihad was important as preparation for the more physically demanding kind of jihad.”¹⁰⁸ Ibn Taymiyya’s stress upon holy war is taken as an article of faith for contemporary Islamists, rejecting an emphasis upon the spiritual without war making. He taught that religion was not subordinate to the state, but rather there must be agreement between the ruler and clerics. Further, if a ruler was not personally pious and would not enforce Sharia he was to be considered apostate and Muslims were obligated to depose him. Obedience to such a ruler was against one‘s religion.¹⁰⁹

Among modern Islamists, where there are few clergy, there is a rejection of orthodox religious opinion in favor their version of a return to an older, “purer” form of Islam. “Implicit in this is a disregard for generations of learning and religious authority, a repudiation that goes beyond the insistence of ibn Taymiyya on the individual struggle with the Quran and hadith.”¹¹⁰ Islamic scholars consider Islamist teaching ijtihad—the error of innovation. Bin Laden is a businessman who studied economics and business administration at a Saudi Arabian university. Yet he boldly rejected accepted scholarly judgment and issued an independent and ‘binding‘ religious opinion to the world Islamic community.

For Western minds it is difficult to understand that there is no separation of church and state in Islam. As currently practiced in Muslim society (except perhaps in Iran), official religion is subordinate to but inseparable from the state. (It must be noted that in Islamic nations, everything is conditioned by religion even if individual national leaders sometimes act out of seemingly non-religious motives). However, the Islamist world-view is quite opposite. Religion is primary over all things in the Salafist view; it directs the workings of government. Entirely within the context of Islamist thought, radical leaders like Ayman al-Zawahri “stress the requirement to achieve political power and control: the ‘victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established in the manner of the Prophet in the heart of the Islamic world.‘”¹¹¹ The Islamist goal is to establish the political unity of the Umma—a caliphate headed by a “Rightly Guided Caliph.”¹¹² Initially, the Caliphate must be restored in the heart of the Islamic world—the Levant, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and Iraq. From that position of moral and political strength the new Islamist revolution would be spread throughout the world.

The traditional Islamist position rejects all modern Muslim governments as counterfeits of the Islamic ideal. This is not a novel teaching, but dates from the thirteenth century. Ibn Taymiyya refused to acknowledge any primacy of the state over Islam. In his view, there was an authentic unity between the sovereign and the clergy. This was a vision to recreate the lost reality of the Prophet Mohammed‘s time. “His were serious demands: a ruler who did not enforce sharia or exhibit scrupulous personal piety would be no better than an apostate, and under Islamic law, Muslims were obligated to rebel against such a leader.”¹¹³ Obedience to an apostate monarch, especially one who violated the principles of the faith, was to be considered equivalent to rejection of the Qur’an and committing apostasy.

The modern Umma is confronted with the choice of adapting to a globalized existence of nation-state interdependence that has been created by the West or seeking some Islamic alternative. Existing national leaders in Muslim nations are often dictatorial, insular and grossly out of touch with their populations. The majority of Muslims are caught in a cycle of hopelessness, poverty and lack of opportunity. Radical Islam has given voice to popular Muslim grievances and because of that gained great popularity. Islamists also offer a hope of a unified Umma in a region that remains divided by tribal, religious, and political divisions, in which continued instability is inevitable.¹¹⁴

Islamism is a twenty-first century phenomenon that has emerged as an evolving insurgency “having broad appeal among the global Muslim community.”¹¹⁵ The primary objective of Islamist groups is to overthrow the existing nation-state structure within the Islamic world and to reconstitute a unified and worldwide Umma of Islamic piety and power. However, the overthrow of Muslim governments proved too great a task for the present. “In national struggles, the jihadists were overmatched by the security apparatus of the state.”¹¹⁶ Thus the enemy at hand—the governments of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, etc.—proved to be too powerful, even if the source of that power could be conveniently blamed upon the United States. Islamist attention shifted to the “far enemy,” the Christian West, and especially the USA.

The question debated in Islamist circles centered upon a strategy for confronting the far enemy. How could the movement successfully achieve its primary goal by defeating the Christian West? Abu Bakr Naji theorized a strategic vision for attaining Islamist ideological goals. He noted that Muslim governments were propped up by either of the superpowers (the Soviet Union or the USA). If a superpower could be “provoked” into an invasion of the Middle East it would facilitate a propaganda victory for four reasons.

…the people will 1) be impressed that the jihadis are directly fighting a superpower, 2) be outraged over the invasion of a foreign power, 3) be disabused of the notion that the superpower is invincible the longer the war goes on, and, 4) be angry at the proxy governments allied with the invading superpower. Moreover, he argues, it will bleed the superpower‘s economy and military. This will lead to social unrest at home and the ultimate defeat of the superpower.¹¹⁷ 406

Radical Islamic movements have conspired to implement variations on this strategy by patiently attacking American interests, including the following: Iran Embassy Hostages (1979); – Beirut, Lebanon, Embassy and Lebanon Marine Barracks (1983); – Lockerbie, Scotland, Pan-Am flight to New York (1988); – First New York World Trade Center attack (1993); – Dhahran , Saudi Arabia, Khobar Towers Military complex (1996); – Nairobi, Kenya, U.S. Embassy (1998); – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, U.S. Embassy (1998), and Aden, Yemen, the USS Cole (2000).¹¹⁸

Ineffective and tepid American responses encouraged the Islamists to regard the USA as a degenerate society unable to overcome their righteous cause. For this reason, the American responses to the September 2001 attacks on the New York World Trade Center and Pentagon were completely unanticipated by Islamists. However, though unforeseen, the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq brought the West into the Middle East where it could be confronted.

Such a shift in strategy from the near to the far enemy, a far more powerful opponent, meant a radical change in operational design. Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. If it were possible to confront and defeat the enemy directly, much time and effort could be saved. To directly confront America was simply out of the question. Dramatic terrorist attacks taking noncombatant lives would accomplish two objectives: gaining support from the – “Arab street,” – and striking fear into the U.S. population. Ayman al-Zawahri, writing in “Knights under the Prophet‘s Banner,” (2001) declared:

If the successful operations against Islam‘s enemies and the severe damage inflicted on them do not serve the ultimate goal of establishing the Muslim nation in the heart of the Islamic world they will be nothing more than disturbing acts, regardless of their magnitude, that could be absorbed and endured even if after some time and with some losses.¹¹⁹ 408

Fanaticism usually leads to the justification of terrible and forbidden actions on the basis of the results obtained. Thus we find the modern advent of the Islamic suicide bomber—whether the bomb is strapped to the person, carried in a vehicle, or loaded on an airplane. Traditional Muslim scholars argue that suicide is not Islamic, that it is an unpardonable sin and not a true martyrdom. “Naming a martyr is the business of Allah, the scholar Amir Taheri reminds us, not of those ‘in pursuit of political goals’…Muslims who implicitly condone terror know they cannot smuggle a new concept into Islamic ethics.”¹²⁰ On the other hand, Ayman al-Zawahiri noted that: “…the method of martyrdom operations [is] the most successful way of inflicting damage against the opponent and the least costly to the mujahidin in terms of casualties.”¹²¹ Suicide bombers are inexpensive, and they leave no one behind to implicate accomplices while achieving a maximum of killing and terror.

“Taheri argues that ‘not a single reputable theologian anywhere’ endorses the new trick word that has been added to the Islamic lexicon by those who are trying to get around restrictions against suicide bombings.”¹²² Declaring such suicide bombers as “martyrs” is to knowingly contravene 1,600 years of Islamic teaching and to glorify forbidden actions. “Radical clerics do not educate suicide-bombers and would-be jihadists on these finer points of Islamic law and its complexity.”¹²³ Further, such persons are made promises of paradise, common in popular Islamist cultural lore that “the martyr who kills for the faith and perishes in the process is given seventy-two black-eyed women to serve him. His reward will come ten minutes after his ‘martyrdom.’”¹²⁴ Many Islamic experts, such as Georgetown University Professor Yvonne Haddad, dispute this notion as “nowhere to be found in Islamic writings.”¹²⁵

Other excesses of religion have appeared in the recent past that are contrary to Quranic just war teaching. Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the chief cleric of Iran, issued a fatwa that permitted children as young as nine years old to fight a jihad against Iraq during the decade of the 1980s. Iranian propaganda was aimed at school children encouraging passion for martyrdom. “Competing legal traditions on the age of adulthood grant it at puberty, which could occur at age 12 in boys and age 9 in girls.”¹²⁶ Hezbollah and other radical Islamic movements encourage the making of martyrdom videos, manipulating the jihadist impulse in the Muslim community.¹²⁷ The Taliban, among others, have taken and beheaded hostages contrary to the clear teachings of the Qur’an (Q. Sur. 5, al-Maida).

Conclusion: The Islamists Will Continue to Present a Grave Threat to Free Peoples

Terrorism depends upon the sudden and random killing of innocents to gain political advantage. Zuhur references numerous texts from the Qur’an and hadiths that expressly forbid the indiscriminate killing of innocents.¹²⁸ Islamic radicals defend such wholesale tactics by asserting that “their victims are not innocent people” but collectively responsible for the affronts to Islam.¹²⁹ Others argue that these earlier verses protecting innocents are “abrogated’ by subsequent “sword verses.” Further, radicals blame Muslim governments for not acquiescing to Islamist demands, leaving them no other options against a more powerful foe. The claim that such actions are, in reality, a recompense for the sufferings of Muslims, and that this is war and in war innocent people die.¹³⁰

Islamists have rejected or radically reinterpreted orthodox teaching. Jihad is practiced as unrestrained warfare against both non-Muslim and apostate Muslims alike. Terror methodologies are a necessity in the confrontation of injustice. It is an “obligation that Muslims cannot ignore…assassinations, deception, kidnappings – these acts which are either justified or excused by the realities of the struggle that contemporary Muslims are commanded to undertake.”¹³¹

Zuhur points out that such doctrine, which labels a “Muslim as a non-Muslim (takfiri),” denies the legitimacy of the entire Muslim world (jahili, non-Muslim condition), and that the sole solution of jihad (holy war) “factionalizes‘ the Umma. “It distorts the classical definitions of war against apostates, unbelievers, rebels, and brigands, and misdirects the debate over the nature of the collective or individual duty to jihad.¹³²

Islamism is, depending upon the observer, both a natural outgrowth of Muslim theology and a heretical mutation of the true faith. What is abundantly clear to non-Muslims is that Islam is not a monolith with a univocal expression. There exists today a multitude of voices and organizations within the Islamic religion, all claiming to speak for the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims.

This has been a necessarily brief summary of the Islamic and Islamist concept of war, and of the current practice of Islamist terrorism. In it, I have attempted to contrast the orthodox and the Islamist positions and their views on the practice of jihad as war. I have also sought to cite important voices in the development of the Islamist ideal. In order to respond effectively to this very serious threat, we in the West need to become much more aware that the phenomenon of global Islamist aggression will continue to consume the attention of military and political leaders, our peoples, and much of our energy and resources, for the foreseeable future.

---

Wylie W. Johnson has served as the Senior Pastor of The Springfield Baptist Church, Springfield, Pennsylvania, since May 1997. Ordained in 1982, he served five years as Assistant Pastor at First Baptist Church, Metuchen, New Jersey; followed by 10 years in the active Army Chaplaincy prior to coming to Springfield. His education includes a D.Min. (Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia); M.Div. (Denver Seminary); MSS (U.S. Army War College), and a B.A. (The King’s College, New York).

He retired in 2012. His last assignment was service as the Command Chaplain for the Military Intelligence Readiness Command of the U.S. Army. He is a veteran of five conflicts and a master parachutist. In his Army career, Chaplain Johnson served in Honduras, Korea, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Haiti, Germany, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as numerous locations in the continental United States.

---

ENDNOTES

1.  In the Arabic language, kafir means “hypocritical or heretical“; a verbal variant, taqfir, is “to declare someone a hypocrite or heretic.”

2.  Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 3.

3.  Literally, “struggle”

4.  Lewis, Bernard. “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (The Atlantic, September 1990, accessed February 03, 2009) available from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199009/muslim-rage; internet.

5.  Friedman, Thomas L. From Beirut to Lebanon (New York: Anchor Books, NY 1989); p. 89.

6.  Muslims cite their scripture: “you are the best of all nations.” Qur’an 3:110 [also used by Bin Laden] which Muslims believe is absolutely true but incongruent with their present circumstances.

7.  Umma – all Muslim people of faith regardless of nationality.

8.  Shenk, David W. Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church: Exploring the Mission of Two Communities (Waterloo, Ontario: Herald Press, 2003); p.24.

9.  Kadduri, Majid. War and Peace in the Law of Islam (New York: AMS Press, 1979); p. 63.

10. Ibid, Shenk, p. 225.

11. Ibid, p. 49.

12. Barber, Benjamin R. “Jihad vs. McWorld” in Conflict After The Cold War: Arguments on Causes of War and Peace. updated 2nd edit. Richard K. Betts, edit. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005); p. 623-24.

13. Garfinkle, Adam. “How We Misunderstand Terrorism.” (E-Note from FPRI. 11 Sep 2008. Foreign Policy Research Institute, accessed 08 March 2009).

14. Ibid, Garfinkle.

15. Exemplified by Shi‘i Ayatollahs Abul Qasim al Khu‘I, Mirza Hosein Na‘ini, and Ali al-Sistani.

16. Ibid, Garfinkle.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon. p. 177-178.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid, p. 176-177.

21. Ibid, p. 79.

22. Ahmad, Jala Al-i & Hamid Algar Occidentosis: A Plague From the West (North Haledon, NJ, Mizan Press, 1984). The term ‘westoxification‘ originated in this book also, ‘Occidentosis.‘

23. Berman, Paul. “The philosopher of Islamic Terror” in the New York Times, March 23, 2003.

24. Ibid, Berman.

25. Hourani, Albert. A History Of The Arab Peoples (New York: MJF Books, 1991); p. 398.

26. Ibid, Berman.

27. Qutb, Sayyid. Social Justice in Islam (Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International, 2000); p. 261.

28. Ibid, p. 26.

29 Ibid, Berman.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid, Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, p. 19.

32. Ibid, p. 30.

33. Ibid. p. 37.

34. Qutb, Sayyid. Basic Principles of the Islamic Worldview, Islamic (North Haledon, NJ: Publications International, 2006); p. 97

35. Ibid, p. 6.

36. Ibid, Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, p. 262.

37. Ibid, p. 35.

38. Ibid, Qutb, p. 269-70.

39. Ibid, Karsh, p. 215-216.

40. Ibid, Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, p. 52.

41. Ibid, Benjamin, p. 60.

42. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 64.

43. Jihad – literally, “struggle”

44. This statement is from a Christian perspective only, Muslims regard the Qur’an to have been handed down from God in a complete and perfect form that admits no human motivations.

45. Karsh, Efraim. Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2007); p. 5.

46. Ibid, Karsh, p. 5.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid, Karsh, p. 23.

49. Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations? Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments on Causes of War and Peace, updated 2nd edit. Richard K. Betts, edit. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005); p. 38-39.

50. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 52.

51. In fact, non-Islamic peoples (dihimini) were obliged to pay the jizyah (the poll tax) which was a very lucrative income for the empire.

52. Ibid, Karsh, p. 212.

53. Ibid, Huntington, p. 40.

54. Ibid, p. 40.

55. Ibid.

56. Christian Zionism, an offshoot of this movement, militantly supports the (Jewish) Zionist ideal and radically opposes any Palestinian claim to the land of Israel.

57. Ibid, Oren, p. 141.

58. Ibid, Lewis.

59. Ibid.

60. Muslim warriors whose primary motivation is to either defend or expand the Islamic faith.

61. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 3.

62. Zuhur, Sherifa D., Youssef H Aboul-Enein. Islamic Rulings on Warfare (Carlisle PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, accessed Feb. 3, 2009, p. 1.); available from http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=588; internet.

63. Kadduri omits mention that the Muslim Law of Nations (Siyar) was not articulated for some 200 years after Muhammad, although it was founded upon Muhammad‘s example and the Qur’an.

64. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 16.

65. Ibid, p. 14.

66. Ibid, p. 24.

67. Ibid, p. 25.

68. Ibid, p. 26-7.

69. Ijtihad – making an independent interpretation of texts in the Quran or Sunnah.

70. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 36.

71. Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. The Age Of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002); p. 117.

72. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 44.

73. Ibid, p. 44-5.

74. Ibid, p. 69-70.

75. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 71-72.

76. Ibid, Zuhur, p.2.

77. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 69.

78. Ibid, p. 102.

79. January 30, 2009.

80. In Islamic Just War teaching, this is the defense of Islam as a religious duty.

81. Ibid, Barber, p.623.

82. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 55-56.

83. Ibid, p. 60.

84. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 56-57.

85. Ibid, Karsh, p.66.

86. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 80.

87. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 59.

88. Ibid, p. 53-54.

89. The outstanding case of apostasy was the secession of the tribes of Arabia after the death of Muhammad. Abu Bakr, the first caliph, warned them first to return to Islam, and those who did not return were severely fought, especially by Khalid ibn al-Walid, who burned a great number of them in spite of objections raised regarding the penalty of burning. The leaders of the apostated tribes were severely punished and most of them were slain. An eminent chronicler, al-Baladhuri, reports that nobody escaped death save those who returned to Islam. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 74.

90. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 84-87.

91. Ibid, p. 64.

92. Ibid.

93. Johnson, James Turner. The Holy War Idea In Western And Islamic Traditions (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); p. 37-39.

94. Ibid, Barber, p. 625.

95. Ibid.

96. Ibid.

97. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 59-60. [Q.IX,74].

98. Ibid, p. 94.

99. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 67.

100. Ibid, p. 67-8.

101. The Two Holy Places are Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

102. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon, p. 140-141.

103. Ibid, Kadduri, p. 94.

104. Johnson, Douglas V. and John R. Martin, “Terrorism Viewed Historically,” Defeating Terrorism: Strategic Issue Analyses. John R. Martin, ed. (Strategic Studies Institute, January 2002, 1-5); p. 3.

105. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 133.

106. The other five pillars of Islam are shahadah (profession of faith), salah (ritual prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting during Ramadan) and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

107. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon. p. 49-50.

108. Ibid, p. 48.

109. Ibid.

110. Ibid, p. 79-80.

111. al-Zawahri as cited in Kiras, James D. “Irregular Warfare: Terrorism and Insurgency” Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Eds. John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen, Colin S. Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); p.164.

112. This is the title given to the first four successors to Mohammad.

113. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon, p. 48.

114. Joint Operating Environment 2008: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force (United States Joint Forces Command, November 2008); p. 35.

115. Roper, Daniel S. Global Counterinsurgency: Strategic Clarity for the Long War (Carlisle PA: Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, Autumn 2008); p. 99.

116. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon, p. 120.

117. Brachman, Jarret M. & William F. McCants. “Stealing al-Qaida’s Playbook.” (Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. February 2006. p. 7, accessed August 03, 2009); available from http://www.ctc.usma.edu/pdf/Stealing%20Al-Qai’da’s%20Playbook%20–%20CTC.pdf; internet.

118. Many lesser known or remembered additional attacks were accomplished in a wide variety of nations over this same period.

119. Mahnken, Thomas G. Strategic Theory and Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies. Eds., John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen and Colins S. Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007. 66-81); p. 70.

120. Ibid, Elshtain, p. 11.

121. Ibid, Benjamin & Simon, p. 29-30.

122. Ibid, Elshtain, p. 11.

123. Ibid, Zuhur, p. 13.

124. Ibid, Elshtain, p. 43.

125. Ibid, p. 43.

126. Ibid, Zuhur, p. 13.

127. Ibid, p. 13.

128. Ibid, p. 22.

129. Evans, Ernest. The Mind of a Terrorist: How Terrorists See Strategy and Morality (World Affairs, Washington, Spring 2005, Vol. 167, Issue 4, p. 175-180).

130. Ibid, Evans, p. 175-180.

131. Kelsay, John. Islam and War: A Study In Comparative Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster: John Knox Press, 1993); p. 106-107.

132. Ibid, Zuhur, p. 29.

By Reverend Wylie W. Johnson, D.Min., M.Div., M.S.S.; Chaplain (Colonel), U.S. Army Reserve (retired), Senior Pastor of Springfield Baptist Church, Springfield, Pennsylvania, and until  his retirement this summer the Command Chaplain for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Readiness Command.

The critical question for the Christian regarding service in the armed forces is: “Did Jesus Christ teach a lifestyle of pacifism?” Pacifism, generally defined, is the belief that violence is never (or seldom) justified, war and killing are always unacceptable, and that non-violent means must always be pursued in the resolution of conflicts. By this standard, Jesus the Messiah did not teach pacifism. Jesus taught a lifestyle of dependence upon God, personal non-retaliation against fellow human beings, and love for one‘s neighbor requiring robust participation in human society.

A determined minority through the ages has made the persistent claim that Jesus the Messiah taught pacifism as the Christian lifestyle. Their emphasis is upon peace, non-violence, peace-making and radical Christian love as an alternative lifestyle. These are worthy ideals, and the rest of the Christian communion has much to learn from the pacifist point of view. That lifestyle, however, leaves the rest of the Christian communion (and others) to do the difficult work of ordering society and enforcing the peace. —these are excerpts from this paper

Was Jesus a Pacifist?

Some Christians through the ages have wondered why Jesus the Messiah never openly condemned killing in all of its forms. Why didn‘t Christ, who continually spoke of life and death, condemn the profession of arms, capital punishment, racism, oppression of the poor, official corruption and slavery among the other social ills of his day? Plainly, Jesus the Messiah was not focused upon political considerations.[1] If he had been, we would have received a qualitatively different Gospel. Jesus came to establish of the Kingdom of God in individual human hearts. When we come to the issue of pacifism, we must understand the Savior’s life, message and work fully in in the context of the entire scripture.

The critical question for the Christian / regarding service in a nation’s armed forces is: // “Did Jesus Christ teach a lifestyle of pacifism?” Pacifism, generally defined, is the belief that violence is never (or seldom) justified, war and killing are always unacceptable, and that non-violent means must always be pursued in the resolution of conflicts. By this standard, Jesus the Messiah did not teach pacifism. Jesus taught a lifestyle of dependence upon God, personal non-retaliation against fellow human beings, and love for one‘s neighbor requiring a robust participation in human society.

Throughout this paper a conservative-evangelical hermeneutic is employed. Interpretation of Scripture cannot and must not happen in a historical, philological or textual vacuum. Basic to a conservative-evangelical hermeneutic is the understanding that both the concrete and abstract concepts of Scripture are narrated to us in human language through the ongoing divine-human relationship rooted in time-space history.[2]  The Bible is interpreted as a unified whole, divinely revealed and composed by a variety of human authors. The person and work of the Redeemer-Messiah is the major theme of Scripture that weaves the scripture into a unified whole. This conservative-evangelical hermeneutic in no way disregards neither recent academic discussion on how biblical literature was composed, nor overlooks its various theological themes. However, the Bible is approached as a unity that is internally consistent.[3] Approaching the Scripture in this manner demands that the interpreter explore the meaning of Jesus Christ‘s life and work within the entire scope of Scripture.

Personal Non-retaliation, Not Pacifism

Jesus commanded his followers (in keeping with both the OT and NT ethic) to subordinate all desire for personal revenge to God (Lamentations // 3:30; /Matthew 5:39; Romans /./ 12:19; Hebrews/./ 10:30) against a future reckoning (/ Luke 21:22). The consequence of this charge is to eliminate the act of personal retaliation from the Christian life. / Believers are also directed to love their neighbors (/Matthew 19:19), which has an entirely different set of ethical responsibilities focused upon others, including one’s family. At no time is there a suggestion that the follower of Christ is to renounce civic or familial duties, rather Jesus taught a dual obligation.[4] Christ taught a robust life of faith lived to the fullest as a citizen of God‘s Kingdom and as an involved resident of this present world.

A determined minority through the ages have made the persistent claim that Jesus the Messiah taught pacifism as the Christian lifestyle. Their emphasis is upon peace, non-violence, peace-making and radical Christian love as an alternative lifestyle. These are worthy ideals, and the rest of the Christian communion has much to learn from the pacifist point of view. However the pacifist lifestyle leaves it to the rest of the Christian communion (and others) to do the difficult work of ordering society and enforcing the peace.

It might be easy enough to believe that Jesus was a thoroughgoing pacifist if one only studies the Gospel accounts. But even when exclusively considering the Gospel narratives there must be a degree of textual selectivity to find a truly pacifistic Christ. On the other hand, if one seeks to understand Christ within the entire context of scripture we find the Messiah progressively revealed in a multitude of roles. When one integrates all of these roles the answer to the question, “was the Christ a pacifist?” must necessarily be, “No.”

Which is the authentic and true Christ? Is the Christ to be understood as the sacrificial lamb of God (/ Isaiah 53:7); or the confrontational prophet (/ Matthew 21:12; /Mark 11:15); or the divine warrior (/Luke 10:18; /Acts 26:18); or the eternal judge (/Revelation 20:11-12); or the sovereign king (/Matthew 2:2; 21:5); or the final high priest (/Luke 7:50; Jn. 3:16); or perhaps by some other scripturally supported interpretive scheme? In reality // all of these perspectives are valid but incomplete, for the eternal Christ is revealed to us intricately, in multifaceted views. The careful interpreter will seek to comprehend and to integrate all that is disclosed about the Christ‘s person, life and work into a coherent understanding. The Christ of the Scriptures is revealed as Eternal God; who is not present in history to confirm our prejudices but to divinely transform individuals and their societies through them.

In the process of / I don’t think of biblical exegesis as “deconstruction.” Wouldn’t “evaluating” or “considering” be clearer?/ how we understand and interpret the person of Christ, we are confronted with the issues of accommodation with societal expectations, theological prejudices, cultural trends and personal biases. Social, philosophical and theological expectations obscure the evidence and inevitably lead to an over-emphasis upon one facet of Jesus’ character and teaching at the expense of others. For instance, believers of many ages who were weary of armed conflict focused upon Christ as peacemaker and further identified him as a pacifist. In the modern era, Christians fatigued by global wars, national jingoism, the threat of nuclear holocaust and international jihadist terror have selectively focused again upon the Jesus “meek and mild,” and rejected / his character as Divine Warrior. It is not surprising that some modern theologians, in the process of deconstructing texts [I think “deconstruction” applies appropriately to these persons], discover modern anachronisms inserted in first century accounts. In this way, some have found that Jesus was really a modern roughly inserted in the wrong milieu. This modern “Jesus” person thus teaches humanistic solutions to social conflict.

St. Anselm‘s “I believe that I may understand” becomes Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Without a reference outside himself, deracinated ‘modern man’ produces a newfangled definition of ‘peace’: “an absence of war, achieved by the rational efforts of mankind.” It follows from this definition that if nobody fights, or fights back when attacked, there will be no war, and mankind will have established ‘peace’ on earth—and all without the need of the Prince of Peace.[5]

To understand Jesus‘ concept of spiritual and communal order, one needs to integrate the fullness of the Old Testament, which teaches the proper uses of force necessary to order civilization. Because the Gospel accounts are focused upon Jesus‘ life and teachings, one could easily ignore Messianic teaching found throughout the pages of Scripture. Without an understanding of Old Testament faith and revelation, it is far too easy to make the Savior into a modern Western liberal.[6] Deconstructing Jesus outside of his Hebrew context and traditions results in a Christ created in our own image. The truth, however, is that in Jesus we find no ethical or spiritual discontinuity between the New Testament Kingdom of God and the Old Testament establishment of the Israelite kingdom.[7] In fact, Jesus declared his earthly ministry to be in full accord with the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17)

Many Old Testament texts glorify war, warriors[8] and GOD as the ultimate warrior: “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle” (Ps 24:8, NASB). [I won’t make the changes in the rest of this essay, but my practice is to spell out the titles of all biblical books, since the audience of the Journal will no doubt include some who are unfamiliar with their abbreviations.] As repugnant as these themes might be to some moderns, they are essential to our understanding of the nature of God received through inspired Scripture. “It must be stressed that the theme of God the Warrior is an important one in the OT, not something peripheral to the main subject matter.”[9] The /Old Testament acceptance of the fact of war also carries with it severe condemnations for those illicitly and wantonly ignoring revealed morality. Craigie notes that Christians need a complete perspective on OT war passages[10] to gain deep theological insight into our current world circumstance and human condition. We must study scripture to understand the just use of violent means.

God the Warrior is a central theme of the entire Old Testament literature.[11] Throughout the biblical texts we find references to God as the Victorious Warrior (Ex.15:3), Conquering King (Ps. 10:16), God Mighty in Battle (Ps 24:8), and Lord of Armies/Hosts (1 Sam. 1:11; 1 Chron. 17:24). Craigie points out that the term “Lord of Armies”[12] has more than two hundred occurrences in the Old Testament.[13] “As odd as it may seem to modern sensibilities, battle in the context of God-ordained Holy War is portrayed as an act of worship in the Hebrew Bible. The armies of Israel labored in the presence of their God, accordingly they had to be spiritually prepared.[14] God works out his salvific plan through fallen humanity and within their ordinary interactions with each other. “To state it another way, God employs, for his purpose of bringing salvation to the world, the very human beings who need salvation.”[15]

Messiah‘s work, prophetically unveiled in the Hebrew Scriptures, involves waging holy war. Isaiah [55:3-5; 61:1-3; 63:1-6] describes Messiah as “the one who is anointed by the Lord to be his conquering hero over all opposition and over all sovereignties.”[16] Messiah‘s mission is one of self-sacrifice, redemption, rescue and release but also one of divine vengeance against wrong doers in the final settling of accounts. The prophet Micah labels Messiah as “One who breaks” (2:13) the roadblocks that impede the faithful from returning to God‘s presence. The Messiah is the King who will victoriously lead the faithful (Isa. 63:1-6) against the nations. Jeremiah identifies Messiah as the Priestly King (30:9, 21). Ezekiel names Messiah as the One who unifies the nations (37:15-28). Zechariah foresees Messiah as King and Priest who rules over the nations (6:9-15).

In the New Testament, the Apostle John‘s Apocalypse is the summation of the Messiah‘s earthly work. The Christ revealed in the Apocalypse is the just and victorious leader at the head of Heaven‘s armies defeating (Rev. 19:17-21) the massed armies of a rebellious planet earth. This is hardly a pacifistic, non-violent portrayal of Christ, but is certainly in keeping with Messiah‘s role as OT prophet, priest, king and warrior.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords. (Revelation 19:11-16, NIV)

This portrayal of Christ, even if interpreted figuratively, does not measure up to modern humanist and pacifist expectations. The only way that we could possibly deconstruct Christ into that modernist mold is to divorce him from his Hebrew antecedents and NT apocalyptic faith traditions. Moreover, the atoning work of the all-powerful, Divine Warrior who meekly submitted to a sacrificial death as the Lamb of God is as astonishing as it is powerful.[17] Rather than remake Christ into our own image, we ought to recognize his divine person as self-revealed in scripture.

God and His purposes are disclosed in terms that are familiar through language, custom and form. The scriptures are given in human language, clearly expressed and understandable, and rooted in the divine-human relationship. God is neither ineffable nor unknowable but self-revealing in a time-space covenant. Our relationship to God is confined by our creaturely limitations, but this is precisely the mystery of the incarnation – that God became flesh so that we might comprehend Him. As a learned rabbi put it in the Talmud; “We describe God by terms borrowed from his creation, in order to make him intelligible to the human ear.”[18]

The following six of Jesus‘ teachings are interpreted through the lens of a conservative and evangelical perspective refuting the notion of Jesus as pacifist. Each of these passages, when taken out of the context of the entire scripture, may be misconstrued as supporting Christian pacifism; // however, when understood within the complete scriptural tradition it requires a much different conclusion. Christ‘s teachings are fully within the inter-testamental continuity of Messiah as revealed in scripture.

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9)

The Greek word for peace, εἰρήνη,  is found in the New Testament 92 times, with a range of meaning that is both temporal and eternal. It can denote national calm, or the absence of war; security or prosperity; spiritual peace brought only by the Messiah; a personal divine peace given by the ministry of the Holy Spirit; divine blessings resulting from faithfulness and obedience; and finally eternal reward and rest in paradise.[19] The New Testament conception of peace is firmly rooted in the Hebrew “Shalom,’ which is translated in the Septuagint[20] more than 250 times by the Greek word  for ‘peace’ (εἰρήνη). Shalom translates into English as “peace, prosperity, well, health, completeness, safety.”[21] Shalom can mean the ‘absence of strife,’ but also has that divine quality of wholeness or completeness that is only characteristic of divinely given peace.[22] Shalom is always the result of God‘s interaction with humankind through covenant. “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.” (Isa. 32:17).

What is a peacemaker (εἰρηνοποιοί)? The Reformer, John Calvin, defined peacemakers as “those who have an enthusiasm for peace.”[23] He went on to write: “it is a matter of toil and trouble to pacify those who are at dispute…Christ bids us look to the judgment of the Father, for as He is the God of peace.”[24]

That person, who would make peace, is surely not pacifistic in the sense of eschewing all force. Making peace in a conflicted and turbulent world is not only a matter of living on principle but of initiating and enforcing peace with justice between disputing parties. A clear, but violent example of this is found in the book of Judges where the tribe of Benjamin is confronted, evil is restrained, and peace is restored (21:13).

Recent American military experience confirms that making peace between belligerents is as dangerous and violent for the peacemaker as engaging in all out combat. Peacemakers often are targeted by all sides in a dispute. Peacemakers bear the blame for each belligerent‘s dissatisfaction. Peacemakers sacrifice wellbeing and personal safety for the establishment of peace. The preferred role of a peacemaker, even a military peacemaker, is one who exercises both active and passive means of deterrence to resist violence. Peacemakers are frequently wounded or killed in the process of establishing peace. Peacemakers sometimes are called to / physically confront and/or restrain  violent people in order to bring about the end of conflict and to enforce the peace. A harsh reality of life is that the death of a few violent persons may permit the whole of society to regain peace. The role of the peacemaker brings a reality check to the modernist conception of establishing peace without the employment of force.

Defeating evil reestablishes peace. In spiritual warfare, the peacemaker seeks to defeat evil on all levels – against spiritual powers, as well as humanly inspired evil in interpersonal and communal relationships. Jesus, breaking the Sabbath regulation as he fights a spiritual battle, heals “a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all” (Lk 13:11, NASB). The Messiah treats her as a casualty of war, cures her affliction by the power of his word, then confronts the critical hypocrisy of the religious leaders present.[25]  The woman finally knows physical peace coming from her healing and presumably finds spiritual peace in her Healer-Redeemer. The Messiah demonstrates that the believer establishes peace by defeating evil.

The Apostle Paul, writing in Romans 13, discussed the divine establishment of governing authority. The entire import of that chapter is that government is instituted by God to regulate order in society, promote justice, and preserve the peace. The principle that government is instituted by God is reiterated twice in the first verse. This divinely sanctioned order has the power of the sword (13:4) for the prosecution of its work. The work of government is to establish justice and keep the peace. Peace and peacemaking in the temporal realm are given to the governing authority. The establishment of peace and peacemaking may be accomplished by pagans (the Apostle‘s governing authority is the pagan Roman government). God‘s prevenient grace is worked out through human government as that authority does the work of justice.

TURN THE OTHER CHEEK

But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. (Matthew 5:39; cf. Lk. 6:29; Jn. 18:22-23)

It is Jesus‘ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount / that gives us most pause to consider that the pacifist case is possible. The immediate context for this saying is located within the context of Jesus‘ Kingdom ethic. He taught that the Kingdom of God is a present reality (Mt. 4:17ff) for first century listeners (as it is for those who followed throughout the centuries).

The key word in this passage is ‘resist‘ [ἀνθίστημι] which in all 14 NT uses carries the meaning “to set one‘s self against, to withstand, resist, oppose; and to set against.”[26] The word is useful for understanding the nature of both immediate and longer-term conflict. The immediate statement is intensely personal – an interpersonal principle that denies the believer the right of retaliation or vengeance – fully in keeping with the OT ethic.[27] Jesus amplifies the personal subordination of the NT believer to God by denying the individual the possibility of retribution. The debate ever since has been if and how this principle of non-retaliation applies beyond the individual to social relationships and ultimately to governing authority. Ramsey contends that Christian love must have a “preferential ethics of protection” toward others.[28] We must not misconstrue Christ‘s command to “turn the other cheek” (Mt. 5:39), which is intensely personal but does not also allow the believer to ignore the difficulty of another [missing word or phrase?]. “Coercive force, proportionate to the offense, is a just response in the face of violent aggression.”[29]

A matter of distress to all parties when considering the appropriateness of warfare for Christians is that Christ gave us no direction for the conduct of government, especially concerning the use of deadly force. Any application of Jesus‘ Kingdom ethic to the broader society is an argument either by extension or from silence. (The same could be said for many of the grievous social ills of Jesus‘ day – such as slavery, prostitution, usury, etc.) The principle of personal non-retaliation is not explained in detail by Jesus, it is left up to the individual and the church to work out the complexities of personal discipleship.

Christian Pacifists[30] argue the case by extension. The ethic of radical, personal nonviolence taught by Jesus is to be the norm throughout the continuum of all human interactions. “That is why Christian ethics is not first of all an ethics of principles, laws or values, but an ethic that demands we attend to the life of a particular individual: Jesus of Nazareth.”[31] To do this, the Christian must not ‘mimic‘ Jesus but to boldly live a virtuous life in a virtuous community.[32] The church without “the kingdom ideal” is without identity; and it is the church which gives that ideal its expression.[33] For Hauerwas this is neither an abdication of the public arena, nor ‘a form of monasticism’ which would deny any political significance to Christians practicing non-violence.[34] He maintains that there is a Christian responsibility to support the state except when “government and society resorts to violence in order to maintain internal order and external security.”[35] The Christian continues to ‘turn the other cheek‘ as a matter of practicing the radical virtues proclaimed by the Savior. Hauerwas believes in, “the responsibility of Christians to work to make their societies less prone to resort to violence.”[36]

The Christian Warrior must carefully listen to the pacifist, for in doing so one finds motivation to pursue peace by non-violent means as a virtue. Warriors are those who wield the tools of violence, who can become overzealous in the exercise of power and too willing to ignore peaceful alternatives.

There are numerous pacifistic positions, all of which radically apply Sermon on the Mount teaching. The pacifist of absolute principle couples turning of the cheek with the OT command “You shall not murder.” (Ex. 20:13). / Johannes Ude, admits no exception to this unconditional command – “It is on a higher level of authority than the various other political practices and prescriptions in the Old Testament which still left a place for violence.”[37] Thus for Ude, OT principle is completely superseded by NT grace.

All varieties of pacifists agree on the principle that violence is not the answer to life‘s problems and that peaceful, alternative pathways must be found to resolve conflicts between parties. Turning the other cheek, personal humility and sacrifice within the context of submission to God are the guiding attitude for establishing peace in all human relations.

Historically, the argument from silence has been developed by Just War advocates. Thomas Aquinas, writing on Christian charity, cites Augustine, who in a sermon cites John the Baptist giving ethical direction to soldiers (Lk. 3:14). The Baptist does not direct the soldiers to give up killing or warfare but rather gives a proscription of personal morality – “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyonefalsely, and be content with your wages” (Lk. 3:14). Augustine concludes. “If he commanded them to be content with their pay, he did not forbid soldiering.”[38] Aquinas goes on to argue: “Those who wage war justly aim at peace, and so they are not opposed to peace, except to the evil peace, which Our Lord “came not to send upon earth (Mt. 10:34).”[39] His view harmonizes with St Paul (Rom. 13:3-5). Aquinas again cites Augustine: “We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace.”[40]64

C.S. Lewis, writing in the same vein, understands Christ‘s teaching to turn the other cheek in a very literal and practical manner that does not eschew all violence, simply the right of personal retaliation. He interprets this command to turn the other cheek as an uncomplicated command without a secondary conclusion or effect. What is relevant is the personal injury and the Christian‘s response. The believer must submit individual desire for retribution to God (Dt. 32:35). Lewis maintains that when we read into this command any other conditions than the interaction between two individuals we have moved beyond the command. “Does anyone suppose that Our Lord‘s hearers understood Him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?” He denies this is contained in Jesus‘ words.[41] Lewis sees consistency with this viewpoint in the whole of Jesus teaching and the entirety of scripture. He cites Jesus praise of the Roman Centurion (Mt. 8:5-13; Lk. 7:6-10) ‘without reservation‘; the Apostle Paul‘s teaching on the right of the sword (Rom. 13:4ff) and St. Peter‘s confirmation of governmental authority (1 Pet. 2:14).[42] Lewis does not find a universal principle of non-resistance that applies in all circumstances, but one that Christ‘s hearers would plainly understand as a personal ethic and not more.[43]

LIVE BY THE SWORD, DIE BY THE SWORD

Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew. 26:52-54; cf. Lk. 21:24; Jn. 18:11)

In this command, the power of the divine Holy Warrior is revealed. “The idea of God actively being present in battle, not as sole combatant but as one who is personally present and assists the forces of good, is found very widely in Hebraic and later Christian tradition.”[44] Peter‘s impulsively loyal act of drawing his lone sword against (Jn. 18:11) the constabulary force, although futile, was fundamentally a confusion concerning which conflict was being fought. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of earth stand in stark opposition at this pivotal moment. This was not a simple arrest but a cosmic battle waged with divinely powerful (2 Cor. 10:4) weapons of righteousness (2 Cor. 6:7).

This episode in Christ‘s life demonstrates again that Holy War is fought by God himself.[45] Holy War is eschatological in nature and for the purpose of establishing the Kingdom of God. Although human believers are the soldiers of Holy War, it is not fought with worldly means. Messiah, as God‘s charismatic representative[46] engages in spiritual battle even though the humans involved are unaware of the celestial import of their actions. Human or political agency is not sufficient to bring about the divine program,[47] rather as the prophet Zechariah // proclaimed, divine action is required: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”[48] Messiah will fight his enemies (Lk. 10:19; 1 Cor. 15:21), no one else is capable of winning this battle, and “victory belongs to the Lord” (Prov. 21:31).

Is there, however, a contradiction in Jesus‘ teachings? In the arrest scene Christ commands Peter to put away his sword. How are we to understand that injunction in light of his command given to the disciples:[49] “Go out and purchase a sword” (Lk. 22:36) which is recorded by Luke just prior to the arrest? Because Luke develops the themes of human and spiritual conflict in his Gospel,[50] the distinction between the two kingdoms[51] is highlighted. Both instructions are given in the closing hours of Passion Week. The Messiah‘s eternal Kingdom purposes are primary and spiritual discernment is required on the part of his disciples.

We gain greater insight into the cosmic spiritual conflict afoot as Satan enters Judas (Lk. 22:1-6); darkness reigns (Lk. 22:53); and the Christ is arrested then condemned then executed (Lk. 22:54ff).[52] In unambiguous contrast, the human events recorded by Luke are mundane and even unremarkable for first century Israel – just as the spiritual insights into these ordinary events are startling. Such is the intertwining of the natural and spiritual realms in Luke‘s Gospel.

Calvin interprets the command to purchase a sword as a martial metaphor designed to prepare the Apostles for the conflict ahead. The Disciples are to strip themselves of every normal requirement of life, selling what is unnecessary to obtain everything essential to fight victoriously. But the battle call of Christ is not / a call to worldly strife but toward spiritual warfare, / a far more difficult task to which he has called them.[53]

The immediate and larger context of these sayings is solidly within the spiritual battle to establish the Kingdom of God. Jesus has amply demonstrated that he is not interested in a temporal kingdom as he battles Satan (Mt. 4:8-10) by refusing to trade worship for world hegemony. Jesus conceded that Satan had (albeit temporarily) the power to grant him all of the authority and splendor of the earth‘s nations (Lk. 4:5-6). The world is “under the power of the evil one” (1 Jn. 5:19) and Satan is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). “What Jesus would not do, however, was to give in to Satan‘s pernicious temptation to worship this illegitimate tyrant as a way of regaining the temporal kingdom (Lk. 4:7-8).”[54]

The Kingdom of God is not a worldly kingdom acquired by military might. Rather, Christ‘s Kingdom “is not of this realm” (Zech. 4:6; Jn. 18:36). So the Apostles are not to build the Kingdom of God by military might, or any other human methodologies. Just as Jesus the Messiah clearly delineates the separate concerns of church and state (Mt. 22:21), so he unambiguously defines how the Kingdom of God would be built. The sword, a weapon of the temporal world, is not an appropriate method for the Kingdom of God. Nations are a construct of human society, protected by military might and ordered by a constabulary. The Kingdom of God is created by the loving sacrifice of the Lamb of God (Zech. 4:6) exercising divine power.

From all of this we may derive a clear teaching of principle that delineates between church and state. The church must be built by the power of God and not the power of the sword. The unspoken corollary is that worldly power is divinely given for the building, defense and ordering of human society.

Almighty God shows us a great grace when he appoints rulers for us as an outward sign of his will, so that we are sure we are pleasing his divine will and are doing right, whenever we do the will and pleasure of the ruler. For God has attached and bound his will to them when he says, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar‘s” [Matt. 22:21, and in Romans 13:1], “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”[55]

Charles concludes that Christ‘s forbidding the disciples the use of armed force to establish the Kingdom of God is not an argument for pacifism. Nor, he notes, does it preclude the believer from ‘bearing the sword’ in public service for the good of society. He deduces that the NT does not teach that military service is “incompatible with the Christian faith.”[56]

Where does this leave the average Christian? Christians live in two worlds, both the Kingdom of God and this earthly kingdom. Christ‘s command to be the ‘salt of the earth’ (Mt. 5:13) directs believers to be participants in all walks of life, and for the believer to be there as agents of God‘s grace and divine transformation. Therefore, / some persons are vocationally called and gifted by God to be protectors of society. / They are suited for service in the constabulary and military forces ordained by God to maintain justice and peace.

TWO KINGDOMS

Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s. (Matthew 22:21; cf., Lk. 20:20-26)

Confusing the two kingdoms is a fundamentally modern mistake. Church and state ought not to transgress the prerogatives of the other. Christ‘s teaching is not a warrant to divorce church and state but rather to discern the appropriate realms of each.

A common secular misapprehension is to suppose the Kingdom of God to be merely a very nice copy of this world. This secular vision / fails to comprehendds the spiritual realm. One might attribute this attitude to either ignorance or ideological blindness. A reverse error is theological – to assume that there can be no good (complete depravity) in the world. This theological error lacks credible understanding concerning the creation and the imago dei resident (although damaged) in mankind.

Bock notes that the Savior’s “render to Caesar” pronouncement is the closest thing we have on record that might be construed as a political statement.[57] Human governments have “a right to exist and to expect its citizens to participate in contributing to its functions.”[58] We note that Christian faith neither confuses church and state, nor specifies what form government must take. The mission of the state is to order society. The mission of the church is to transform the individual (Jn. 12:35-36) and to judge (Jn. 7:24) this present order but not incorporate or imitate its worldly ways (Rom. 12:2).

Two kingdoms intersect in the Christian who is a citizen of both. We are created with dual spiritual and physical natures, and so we dwell simultaneously in both realms. God delegates different authority to rulers (Prov. 24:21; Rom. 13:1-7) and to spiritual leaders (Heb. 13:17). Since Christians dwell in both kingdoms, care must be taken to integrate the two kingdoms in faith and in deed.

For the very fact that the sword has been instituted by God to punish the evil, protect the good, and preserve peace [Rom. 13:1-4; 1 Pet. 2:13-14] is powerful and sufficient proof that war and killing, along with all the things that accompany wartime and martial law, have been instituted by God. What else is war but the punishment of wrong and evil? Why does anyone go to war, except because he desires peace and obedience?[59]

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia // wrote concerning the Apostle Paul‘s discourse in Romans 13:1-5: “the core of his message is that government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God.”[60] The state is “the minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty).[61] Government is accorded powers not divinely given to the individual, especially the power of temporal justice. He notes that this teaching from Romans concerning the powers of the state was the prevailing “consensus of Western thought,” both religious and secular, until modern times.[62]

A citizen of the Kingdom of God (Eph. 2:19) is necessarily a righteous inhabitant of this present realm; participating in society by supporting the ruling authorities (Tit. 3:1), paying taxes (Ro. 13:6) and living out one‘s calling. It therefore follows that a Christian may serve in government, in the military, in commerce, in medicine, in education, and in any other walk of life not expressly forbidden in scripture. The Christian is to discern the how to righteously live in two kingdoms and to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar‘s; and to God the things that are God‘s.”[63]

THE STRONG MAN

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. (Matthew 12:22-32)

Both Luke and Matthew record Jesus‘ teaching concerning the strong man. This is a spiritual-temporal metaphor concerning the exercise of power. The immediate scriptural context of this instruction has to do with the exorcism of demons.

…Luke presents the analogy of military force in the parable of the strong man. The ‘stronger one’ is implied to be a warrior who conquers or ‘overpowers’: (νικάω) – rather than ‘binds’ – the strong man who, fully armed (καθωπλισμένος), guards his own palace (αὐλήν) in order to ensure the safety (ἐν εἰρήνῃ) of his possessions. When the stronger one overcomes the strong, he takes the ‘armor’ (πανοπλία) in which the strong man trusted and divides up the ‘spoils’ (σκῦλα).[64]

The Messiah, as Divine Warrior, contextualizes his war-making inside his hearers‘ frame of reference and solidly within the framework of scriptural teaching. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of using demonic power to cast out evil spirits (Isa. 49:24- 25) – a charge he easily refutes. Jesus then proclaimed his exorcisms as proof that he had ushered in the Kingdom of God: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”[65] Calvin notes that this attack on Satan is accomplished in “open battle resulting in demonic defeat and leaving evil nothing.”[66] Christ is that someone stronger (ἰσχυρότερος) who overpowers (νικάω) the strong and, until now, uncontested ruler of this world (Jn. 12:31) and casts him out.

It is necessary for the ‘strong man‘ to be overpowered so that Jesus can repossess his stolen property – the creation (Mk. 3:27). Luke writes that this can only be done when “one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him” and thus “takes away his armor in which he trusted and then divides his plunder” (Lk. 11:22). So, the Messiah‘s entire ministry is about divinely overwhelming the powerful usurper who / had taken control of what was rightfully / God’s (Lk. 11:21), “namely, God‘s people and ultimately the entire earth.”[67] Christ‘s metaphor depends upon his hearer‘s understanding of power, and military might as then expressed by the oppressive Roman occupation of Israel. The subject here is the exercise of divine power wielded by the Messiah. Because of the Messiah‘s example we may conclude, prima facie, that resort to force is not evil in and of itself. A corollary deduction is that it is appropriate for the believer to oppose, restrain and confront evil. This is not a religious justification for resort to violence, rather a model for the restraint of evil.

An objection might be entertained that this exercise of power is entirely in the spiritual realm and does not affect the temporal. However, our human experience is that evil is objectified in earthly reality. The reason that this teaching is so readily understood is that the average hearer has experienced evil and knows / evildoers who must be confronted and restrained. Further, that the moral and civic costs of allowing evil to thrive are ruinous to the human soul and to society.

Christians are to overthrow the power of Satan by the power of God (Eph. 2:1ff) regardless of where it is manifested. In this present kingdom, we more readily see the physical effects of evil but may have difficulty identifying the spiritual force behind that evil. The Christian, in service of governing authority, may justly exercise coercive force to right wrongs, to establish justice and to enforce the peace as a righteous expression of faith.

Charles notes that biblical justice (Hebrew: mispat) is the cluster of principles / that guide how humans rightly interrelate. In the pursuit of justice, we distinguish good and evil, guilt and innocence (Gen. 18:25; Is. 5:20ff); protect the innocent and weak (Ex. 23:6–9; Lev. 19:9–10); prevent and correct injustice (Lev. 19:11–14; Is. 10:1–2). “This justice, moreover, is to be impartial (e.g., Ex. 23:3; Lev. 19:15). The Pentateuch defines the contours of justice, the Psalms extol God for his inherent justice, and the prophetic literature calls Israel to repent and do justice.”[68] Scripture contains crucial guidance for moral, ethical and spiritual boundaries.

The Christian serves as salt and light (Mt. 5:13) to bring the power of Christ into this world. Christians as citizens of two kingdoms must righteously integrate their faith and civic duty. The state ought to rightfully and righteously act to prevent oppression, fraud, murder, and all other crimes / that deny the establishment of justice and the protection of individuals. The church, as it ushers in the Kingdom of God, is not to use the methods and weapons of the world but the power of God and His righteousness.

JESUS AND THE ROMAN CENTURION

Throughout the Gospels Jesus always confronted /people with their spiritual needs. Often that confrontation was in the form of a pointed identification of personal sin followed by an immediate command to reform. For example, Jesus confronted the rich young ruler (Mt. 19:16-22) about his love of money; he challenged the woman at the well with her infidelities (Jn. 4:7ff); and he rudely challenged the Pharisees concerning their hypocrisies (Mt. 22:18; 23:13). In the Centurion passage (Mt. 8:5-13; Lk. 7:3-10) Jesus does not confront the Centurion (a professional soldier who is in the employ of an oppressive and imperialist state) about the evils of military occupation or the wickedness of the Roman Empire. Nor do we have record of the Centurion making a spontaneous vow to reform his life, as we do in the account of the taxman Zaccheus (Lk. 19:1-10), whereby we might surmise such a confrontation.

Further, this event illuminates a proper understanding of authority. The Centurion understood that a powerful prophet like Jesus rightfully exercised delegated divine power (Mt. 8:9). The Centurion expected that Jesus could simply give a command and it would be done. Jesus marvels at the Centurion‘s understanding and faith and holds him up as an example that others should follow.  Jesus then responded to the Centurion’s expression of belief by healing his servant (Heb. 11:6).

In the same way, John the Baptist‘s prophetic preaching demanded radical repentance for sinful actions. It is significant that in his recorded interaction with military his concern is with the soldier‘s personal conduct and not with their employment.

The account found in Luke 3:7-14, like the other Synoptic accounts, frames the encounter in terms of repentance. The demands of the Baptist are clearly ethical: “Produce fruit in keeping with your repentance!” ”But what should we do then?” the crowd asks…Then some soldiers asked, “And what should we do?” to which John replies, “Do not extort money and don‘t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.”[69]96

Both Jesus and the Baptist dismay both pacifist and just war theologian. Neither makes an unambiguous affirmation or condemnation of the military profession. Jesus makes no comment about the Centurion‘s profession. It therefore is an argument from silence to note that this commander of soldiers is engaged in an honorable profession. The (Gentile) Centurion‘s faith is exemplary – “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel” (Mt. 8:10).

There is not one condemnation for the honorable conduct of the profession of arms throughout the pages of scripture. This is not to say that evil and morally inexcusable actions have not been faithfully recorded in the Bible (such as the killing of infants, Mt. 2:16-18) and condemned. On the other hand numerous military heroes are lauded in the pages, such as King David‘s mighty men (2 Sam. 23). NT writers frequently import military allusions to explain faith concepts (2 Tim. 2:3-4; Heb. 11:32; Ja. 4:1; 1 Pet. 2:11).

CONCLUSION

Jesus the Messiah did not teach pacifism, he did teach a lifestyle of dependence upon God and non-retaliation against fellow human beings. The commands to love neighbor (Mt. 19:19) and to subordinate all desire for revenge to God (Rom. 12:19; Heb.10:30) against a future reckoning (Lk. 21:22) eliminates the possibility of retaliation from the Christian life.

While Christians are free, and even obligated, to forgo self-defense, they are not free to ignore the distress of others. Christians have an obligation of love / that requires them to protect others. Peaceful means must be explored first, and non-violent solutions to conflict valued above all others. If force is necessary, it must be proportionate to the offense as a just response in the face of violent aggression. This is the beginning and foundation of Just War teaching.

A citizen of the Kingdom of God (Eph. 2:19) is necessarily an inhabitant of this earth who supports the ruling authorities (Tit. 3:1), pays taxes (Ro. 13:6), and is a productive member of society (2 Thess. 3:10). It therefore follows that Christians ought to serve in government, in the military, in commerce, in medicine, in education, and in any other walk of life not expressly forbidden in scripture. The Christian is to discern the how to righteously live in two kingdoms, and to live boldly as Christ’s disciples regardless of the calling.

The military profession as it is justly practiced is an honorable vocation before God. Because human society must be rightly ordered and protected, there is an on-going need for human protectors of humanity. While we have much to learn from Christian pacifists about restraint of power and seeking peaceful resolutions to human conflicts, there will always be a need for those who make and restore peace by force of arms.

Finally, Jesus the Messiah taught a lifestyle of dependence upon God, personal non-retaliation against fellow human beings, and love for one‘s neighbor requiring robust participation in human society. We have reviewed many of the divine roles that describe the Christ and his ministry. In Jesus Christ we have both the Divine Warrior and the Lamb of God. Only the Messiah embodies and reconciles both of these roles (and many more). The entire Christian communion looks forward to the day when Christ returns and sets all things right.

---

[1] Whatever political issues arise from Jesus teachings are second and third order applications of Jesus‘ teachings, and are very open to debate as to the correctness of the interpretation.

[2] Longman III, Tremper & Daniel G. Reid. God Is A Warrior. (Grand Rapids, MI:. Zondervan Publishing House, 1995); p.15.

[3] Ibid, p.26-27.

[4] Matthew 22:21. “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar‘s; and to God the things that are God‘s.”

[5] Tarsitano, Louis R. Waging Peace: War, Christianity & the Divine Order (Touchstone October, 2002, accessed 02 February 2009); available from http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=15-08-031-f; internet.

[6] Modern Western Liberal is one who values a 21st century understanding of human rights, democratic governance, individual liberty, etc. This is not to be confused with theological liberals who generally hold a non-literal and progressivist interpretation of scripture.

[7] Charles, Daryl J. Between Pacifism And Jihad: Just War And Christian Tradition. (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, , 2005); p.94.

[8] 1 Chronicles 11:26 ff.

[9] Craigie, Peter C. The Problem of War in the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: MI Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1983); p.35.

[10] Ibid, p.16.

[11] Ibid, p.35-36.

[12] Most frequently translated “Lord of Hosts” which obscures the meaning in modern English.

[13] Ibid, Craigie, Peter, p.35-36

[14] Ibid, Longman et al, p.34.

[15] Ibid, Craigie, p.41.

[16] Kaiser, Walter C. Jr. The Messiah In the Old Testament. (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, , 1995); p.181.

[17] Warriors are often called upon to sacrificially lay down their lives, but this is never done without a fight. That Christ should meekly lay down his life as the atoning sacrifice brings in logic and purpose that is not human but divine.

[18] Ibid, Craigie, p.39.

[19] Strong, James: The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : electronic ed. (Ontario : Woodside Bible Fellowship., 1996); S. G1515

[20] An early Greek translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into biblical Greek by a group of 70 scholars.  Thus the Septuagint is abbreviated LXX.

[21] Harris, R. Laird, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Bruce K. Waltke. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago, Moody Press, 1980); 2401a.

[22] Ibid, Harris et al, 2401a.

[23] Calvin, John. Calvin‘s Commentaries, vol. 1. A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew Mark And Luke, A. W. Morrison, translator, David W. Torrance & Thomas F. Torrance, editors. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub Co., 1972); p. 172.

[24] Ibid, Calvin, p. 172.

[25] Boyd, Gregory A. God At War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997); p.183.

[26] Ibid, Strong, G436

[27] Deut. 32:35; Ps. 94:1; also cited in Rom. 12:9 and Heb. 10:30.

[28] Ibid, Charles, p.72-73.

[29] Ibid,. p.72-73.

[30] Speaking in general, noting that there are a wide variety of pacifist positions as noted by John Howard Yoder in his book, Nevertheless: Varieties of Religious Pacifism.

[31] Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom. The Hauerwas Reader. John Berkman & Michael Cartwright, edits. (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2005); p.121.

[32] Ibid, p.121.

[33] Hauerwas, Stanley. Against The Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society. (Notre Dame IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1992); p.112.

[34] Hauerwas, Stanley. Letter to the Editors (First Things, February 202, no. 120).

[35] Hauerwas, Stanley. Sectarian Temptation. The Hauerwas Reader. John Berkman & Michael Cartwright, edits. (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2005); p.105.

[36] Ibid, Hauerwas, Sectarian Temptation, p.105.

[37] Ude, Johannes. Cited by John Howard Yoder in Nevertheless, (Scottdale PA: Herald Press, 1992); p.33.

[38] Aquinas, St. Thomas. The Summa Theologica. (accessed July 6, 2007); available from http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3040.htm [Ep. ad Marcel. cxxxviii]

[39] Ibid, Ep. ad Marcel. cxxxviii.

[40] Ibid, Ep. ad Bonif. clxxxix.

[41] Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory: (Why I Am Not A Pacifist), (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1980);. p.85-86.

[42] Ibid, p.87.

[43] Ibid, p. 87.

[44] Johnson, James Turner. The Holy War Idea In Western And Islamic Traditions (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997);

[45] Ibid, p. 38.

[46] Ibid, p. 37.

[47] Von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology, vol. II., (New York: Harper & Row, Pub., 1965); p. 285.

[48] Zec. 4:6, NASB.

[49] Of the eleven remaining disciples, two already carried swords – Luke 22:38.

[50] Ibid, Longman et al., p.129.

[51] Lutherans understand this concept under Luther‘s teachings on ‘Two Kingdoms,’ and Catholics under the rubric of ‘Two Swords.’

[52] Longman III, Tremper & Daniel G. Reid. God Is A Warrior. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI. 1995, p.129.

[53] Ibid, Calvin, p.144.

[54] Ibid, Boyd, p.181.

[55] Luther, Martin. Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved. Luther/s Works, vol. 46, The Christian In Society, Robert C. Scultz, editor. (Philadelphia PA: Fortress Press, 1967); p.135.

[56] Ibid, Charles, p.97.

[57] Bock, Darrell L. The NIV Application Commentary: Luke, (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1996); p.512.

[58] Ibid, Bock, p.512.

[59] Ibid, Luther, p.95.

[60] Scalia, Antonin. God‘s Justice And Ours, (First Things, May 2002, vol. 123) p.17-21.

[61] Ibid, p. 17-21.

[62] Ibid, p. 17-21.

[63] Mt 22:21, NASB.

[64] Ibid, Longman et al, p.111.

[65] Mt 12:28, NASB.

[66] Ibid, Calvin, p.41.

[67] Ibid, Boyd, p.181-2.

[68] Charles, J. Daryl. Between Pacifism and Jihad, (Touchstone, Nov. 2003, accessed 02 February 2009) available from http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-09-028-f; internet.

[69] Ibid, Charles, p.93.

by Dr Joel Hayward, Dean, Royal Air Force College and Head of the Air Power Studies Division of King’s College, London

From the editor: While we expect that most of the content of this journal will be derived from the Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions that serve as the spiritual foundation of the English-speaking nations, we welcome the contributions of those of other major faiths, such as Dean Hayward, who are committed to our national ideals and the core values of our armed forces. We also welcome Dean Hayward as our newest Contributing Editor

A frequently quoted saying, with slight variations, insists that, while not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslims. This is a great untruth. According to be the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, Muslims have not been responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks identified and prevented or committed throughout the world in the last twenty years.¹ Yet it is true that, even before the Bush Administration initiated a concentrated campaign against anti-American terrorists around the world in 2001 — a campaign which quickly came to be known as the War on Terror — several states including America and Israel had already experienced terrorism undertaken unmistakably by Muslims. For example, the bombings of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the focused attention of American security services for the first time. These terrorists and their ideological bedfellows embraced an extreme minority opinion within Islam. According to that opinion, militant opposition to any ostensibly oppressive political activity that weakens Islamic states and their interests constitutes a righteous struggle (jihad) on God’s behalf (fi Sabi Lillah, literally “in the path of Allah”). Yet these “jihadists” (a phrase not widely used in those pre-9/11 days) did not garner much public interest until that dreadful day when nineteen of them hijacked four aircraft and carried out history’s worst single terrorist attack.

No-one can doubt that Western attitudes towards Islam changed for the worse at that time and have not returned to the way they were before 2001. Among widely held negative views of Islam is a perception (or at least a concern) that, while Western states adhere to the Just War tenets, other states and peoples, particularly Muslims in general and Arabs in particular, have no comparable philosophical framework for guiding ethical behaviour during international disputes and during warfare itself. According to this perception, the Western code of war is based on restraint, chivalry and respect for civilian life, whereas the Islamic Faith contains ideas on war that are more militant, aggressive and tolerant of violence.

This paper analyses the Qur’an and attempts to explain its codes of conduct in order to determine what the Qur’an actually requires or permits Muslims to do in terms of the use of military force. It concludes that the Qur’an is unambiguous: Muslims are prohibited from undertaking offensive violence and are compelled, if defensive warfare should become unavoidable, always to act within a code of ethical behaviour that is closely akin to, and compatible with, the Western warrior code embedded within the Just War doctrine. This paper attempts to dispel any misperceptions that the Qur’an advocates the subjugation or killing of “infidels” and reveals that, on the contrary, its key and unequivocal concepts governing warfare are based on justice and a profound belief in the sanctity of human life.

The Importance of the Qur’an

Sadly, people do not tend to read the holy scriptures of other faiths so it is not surprising that, although Muslims constitute one-quarter of the world’s population², very few Muslims have studied the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible or the Hindu Vedas and equally few non-Muslims have taken the time to study the Qur’an. Not many people ever even “dip” into other holy books to get a quick feel for the language, tone and message. Yet, given the geographical location of our major wars throughout the last two decades, the strategic importance of the Middle East, as well as the cultural origin of some recent terrorist groups, it is surprising that very few non-Muslim strategists and military personnel have taken time to read the Qur’an alongside doctrine publications and works of military philosophy. The Qur’an is certainly shorter than Clausewitz’s widely read and constantly quoted Vom Kriege (On War) and far easier to understand. The Qur’an is a relatively short book of approximately 77,000 words, which makes it about the size of most thrillers or romance novels and roughly half the length of the New Testament or one-seventh the length of the Old.³ It is not deeply complex in its philosophy or written as inaccessible poetry or mystical and esoteric vagueness.

Muslims understand that the Qur’an was revealed episodically by the angel Jibril (the biblical Gabriel) to Muhammad, a Meccan merchant in what is now Saudi Arabia, through a series of revelations from Allah (Arabic for “the God”), over a period of twenty-three years beginning in the year 610. Muhammad’s companions memorised and wrote down the individual revelations almost straight away and compiled them into the Qur’an’s final Arabic form very soon after his death in 632. That Arabic version has not changed in the last fourteen hundred years. The Qur’an is therefore held by Muslims to be the very words of Allah, recorded precisely as originally revealed through Muhammad. This explains why most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims⁴ endeavour to learn at least the basics of Qur’anic Arabic so that they can read and more importantly hear Allah‘s literal words as originally revealed. This is also why they consider all translations into other languages to be decidedly inferior to the original Arabic. Muslims usually explain that these translations convey the “meaning” of the revelations, and are therefore still useful, but not the exact word-for-word declarations of Allah.⁵

A fair and open-minded reading of the Qur’an will draw the reader’s eyes to hundreds of scriptures extolling tolerance, forgiveness, conciliation, inclusiveness and peace. These are the overwhelming majority of the scriptures and the central thrust of the Qur’anic message. A clear indication of that message is found in the fact that every one of the 114 Surahs (Chapters) of the Quran except one opens with a reminder of Allah’s loving and forgiving attitude towards humans: “Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim” (“In the name of God the All-Compassionate and the Ever-Merciful”). Muslims understand that the compassion and forgiveness extended by God to humans must be mirrored as much as is humanly possible by their compassion and forgiveness to each other.

Yet readers will also find a few scriptures in the Qur’an that seem to be “Old Testament” in tone and message and are more warlike than, for example, Christians are used to reading in the words of Christ and the New Testament writers. Critics of the Qur’an who advance what I consider to be an unsustainable argument that Islam is the world’s most warlike major faith — among whom the American scholar and blogger Robert Spencer is both the most prolific and influential⁶ — routinely highlight those Qur’anic passages to support their argument that Islam has a clear tendency towards aggressive war, not inclusive peace.⁷

Such writers commonly focus their attention on a few passages within the Qur’an which seem to suggest that Allah encourages Muslims to subjugate or drive out non-Muslims — and even to take their lives if they refuse to yield. The critics especially like to quote Surah 9, Ayah (Verse) 5, which has become known as the “Verse of the Sword” (Ayat al-Sayf). This verse explicitly enjoins Muslims to kill “pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war).”⁸

The critics often add to their condemnation of the aforementioned Surah 9:5 with equally strong attacks on Surah 9:29. This verse directs Muslims to “fight those who believe not in Allah” and the Day of Judgment, who do not comply with Muslim laws, as well as those Jews and Christians who reject the religion of Islam and will not willingly pay a state tax after their submission.⁹ Many critics assert that this verse directs Muslims to wage war against any and all disbelievers anywhere who refuse to embrace Islam or at least to submit to Islamic rule.¹⁰

The critics also place negative focus on Surah 2:190-194, which states:

190. Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits: for Allah loveth not the transgressors.

191. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque [Al-Masjid Al-Harim, the sanctuary at Mecca], unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

192. But if they cease, then Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

193. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.

You could not imagine gentle Buddha or the peaceful, cheek-turning Jesus ever saying such things, the critics of Islam assert, ignoring the heavily martial spirit and explicit violence of some sections of the Old Testament; a revelation passionately embraced in its entirely by Jesus. They also brush off some of Jesus’ seemingly incongruous statements as being allegorical and metaphorical — such as Luke 22:36, wherein Jesus encourages his disciples to sell their garments so that they can purchase swords, and Matthew 10:34 (“Do not think I come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”).¹¹

When they read the Qur’an, the opponents of its message place little importance on the obvious differences of experiences and responsibilities between Jesus and Muhammad. Jesus was the spiritual leader of a small and intimate group of followers at a time of occupation but relative peace and personal security throughout the land. He suffered death, according to the Christian scriptures, but his execution by the Rome-governed state came after a short burst of state anger that actually followed several years of him being able to preach throughout the land without severe opposition and with no known violence. By contrast, the Prophet Muhammad (in many ways like Moses or Joshua) found himself not only the spiritual leader but also the political and legislative leader of a massive community that wanted to be moderate, just and inclusive but suffered bitter organised persecution and warfare from other political entities which were committed to his community’s destruction. His responsibilities (including the sustenance, education, governance and physical protection of tens of thousands of children, men and women) were very different.

A double-standard also seems to exist. Many of the scholars and pundits who dislike the fact that Muhammad had to fight military campaigns during his path to peace, and who consider his religion to be inherently martial, overlook the fact that many biblical prophets and leaders — including Moses, Joshua, Samson, David and other Sunday School favourites — were also warriors through necessity. Despite our Children’s Book image of these warriors, their actions included frequent killing and were sometimes couched in highly bloodthirsty language. For example, the Book of Numbers (31:15-17) records that Moses ordered war against the Midianites, but was gravely disappointed when, after having slain all the men, his warriors chose not to kill the women. He therefore instructed his warriors to kill every male child and to leave alive no females except virgins, whom the Israelites were allowed to keep as slaves. This hardly fits with our Charlton Heston-esque view of a very popular Jewish and Christian prophet.

It is worth observing that among the scriptures that form the bedrock and bulk of the Judeo-Christian tradition — the Old Testament — one can find numerous verses like these that explicitly advocate (or at least once advocated) large-scale violence incompatible with any codes of warfare that Jews and Christians would nowadays condone. For instance, when Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land and promptly laid siege to Jericho, which was the first walled city they encountered west of the Jordan River, “they destroyed with the sword every living thing in it — men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”¹² The lack of what we would today call discrimination between combatants and non-combatants accorded with God’s earlier commandment that, in areas which God had set aside for their occupation, the Israelites were to ensure that, “without mercy,” they did not leave alive “anything that breathed”.¹³

The ancient world was certainly brutal at times, with military excesses sometimes involving deliberate widespread violence against whole civilian communities. “It is a wonderful sight,” Roman commander Scipio Aemilianus Africanus gushed in 146 B.C. as he watched his forces raze the enemy city of Carthage to the ground following his order that no trace of it should remain. “Yet I feel a terror and dread lest someone should one day give the same order about my own native city.”¹⁴

No-one can doubt that humanity has since made tremendous progress in the way it conceives the purpose and nature of warfare and the role and treatment of non-combatants. Yet we would be wrong to believe that the “Carthaginian approach” has disappeared entirely. The Holocaust of the Jews in the Second World War, one of history’s vilest crimes, involved the organised murder of six million Jews by Germans and others who considered themselves Christians or at least members of the Christian value system. Other crimes perpetrated by Christians during recent wars have included the (Orthodox Christian) Bosnian Serb massacre of 8,300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica in July 1995.

A fair assessment of historical evidence reveals that Christianity is a faith of justice that cannot reasonably be considered blameworthy in and of itself for the Crusades, the Holocaust, the Srebrenica massacre or the Timothy McVeigh terrorist attack in Oklahoma City in 1995, even though Christians committed those horrendous acts and many others. Similarly, a fair assessment of Islam reveals that it is equally a faith of justice that cannot fairly be seen as blameworthy in and of itself for the Armenian Genocide, the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait or the Al-Qaeda attacks on America in 2001, even though Muslims committed those disgraceful deeds. Certainly Islam’s framing scriptures, the Qur’an, contains no verses which are as violent as the biblical scriptures quoted above or any Qur’anic verses more violent than those already quoted. In any event, even the most ostensibly violent Qur’anic verses have not provided major Islamic movements, as opposed to impassioned minority splinter groups, with a mandate to wage aggressive war or to inflict disproportionate or indiscriminate brutality.

Understanding Abrogation

While Muslims hold the Qur’an to be God’s literal, definitive and final revelation to humankind, they recognise that it is not intended to be read as a systematic legal or moral treatise. They understand it to be a discursive commentary on the stage-by-stage actions and experiences of the Prophet Muhammad, his ever-increasing number of followers and his steadily decreasing number of opponents over the twenty-three year period which took him from his first revelation to his political hegemony in Arabia.¹⁵ Consequently, several legal rulings within the Qur’an emerged or developed in stages throughout that period, with some early rulings on inheritance, alcohol, law, social arrangements and so on being superseded by later passages; a phenomenon known in Arabic as “naskh” that the Qur’an itself describes. For example, Surah 2:106 reveals that when Allah developed any particular legal ruling beyond its first revelation and He therefore wanted to supersede the original verses, He would replace them with clarifying verses.

The removal or annulment of one legal ruling by a subsequent legal ruling in some instances certainly does not mean that Muslims believe that all later scriptures automatically cancel out or override everything, on all issues, that had appeared earlier. The Qur’an itself states in several Surahs that Allah’s words constitute a universally applicable message sent down for “all of mankind” and that it was “a “reminder” (with both “glad tidings and warnings”) to “all” of humanity.¹⁶ With this in mind, Muslims believe that to ignore scriptures on the basis of a that-was-then-this-is-now reading would be as mistaken as conversely believing that one can gain meaning or guidance from reading individual verses in isolation, without seeing how they form parts of consistent concepts which only emerge when the entire book is studied. Adopting either approach would be unhelpful, self-serving and ultimately misleading. It is only when the Qur’an’s key concepts are studied holistically, with both an appreciation of the context of particular revelations and the consistency of ideas developed throughout the book as a whole, that readers will be able to understand the Qur’an’s universally applicable ethical system.

Opponents of Islam take a different view. Embracing a view that all later Qur’anic scriptures modify or cancel out all earlier ones, they have devised an unusual narrative. They have routinely argued that, in the early years of his mission while still in his hometown of Mecca, the powerless Muhammad strongly advocated peaceful co-existence with peoples of other faiths, particularly Jews and Christians. Despite mounting resistance and persecution, some of it violent and all of it humiliating, Muhammad had to advocate an almost Gandhian or Christ-like policy of forbearance and non-violence. Then, after he and his followers fled persecution in 622 by escaping to Medina, where they had more chance of establishing a sizeable and more influential religious community, the increasingly powerful Muhammad became bitter at his intransigent foes in Mecca and ordered warfare against them.¹⁷ Finally (the critics claim), following the surprisingly peaceful Islamic occupation of Mecca in 630, the all-powerful Muhammad realised that Jews and others would not accept his prophetic leadership or embrace Islamic monotheism, so he then initiated an aggressive war against all disbelievers.¹⁸ The critics furthermore claim that, because Muhammad did not clarify or change his position before he died two years later, in 632, after Allah’s revelation to mankind was complete, the verses encouraging the martial suppression of disbelief (that is, of the disbelievers) are still in force today. These supposedly include the so-called “verse of the sword” of Surah 9:5 (and 29), quoted above and revealed to Muhammad in the year 631.¹⁹ As scholar David Bukay, a strong critic of Islam, wrote:

Coming at or near the very end of Muhammad’s life … [Surah 9] trumps earlier revelations. Because this chapter contains violent passages, it abrogates previous peaceful content.²⁰

The critics of Islam who hold this view insist that these warlike verses abrogate (cancel out) the scores of conciliatory and non-confrontational earlier verses which had extolled spiritual resistance (prayer and outreach) but physical non-violence.

They note that Osama bin Laden and other leading radical “Islamists” — who also insist that the later Qur’anic versus on war have cancelled out the earlier peaceful and inclusive verses — have justified their terror attacks on America and other states by quoting from the “verse of the sword” and the other reportedly aggressive scriptures mentioned above.

Bin Laden certainly did draw upon the verse of the sword and other seemingly militant Qur’anic scriptures in his August 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”²¹ as well as in his February 1998 fatwa.²² The first of these fatawaa (verdicts) instructed Muslims to kill Americans until they withdrew from their occupation of Saudi Arabia, and the second more broadly instructed them to kill Americans (both civilians and military personnel) and their allies, especially the Israelis, for their suppression of Muslims and their exploitation of Islamic resources in various parts of the world.

Of course, the obviously partisan bin Laden is not a cleric, a religious scholar or a historian of early Islam. He is an impassioned, violent and murderous extremist without judgement or moderation. He is not representative of Islamic belief or behaviour and he has no recognised status as an authority in Islamic Sciences that would allow him to issue a fatwa. His assertions that the verse of the sword and other martial Qur’anic verses are still in place and universally applicable therefore do not hold a shred of authority or credibility, except perhaps among already-radicalised fanatics who share his worldview and consider him worth following. Thankfully they are very few in number.

Certainly most Islamic authorities on the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad today, as opposed to scholars from, say, the war-filled medieval period, are firm in their judgement that the most warlike verses in the Qur’an, even those revealed very late in Muhammad’s mission, do not cancel out the overwhelming number of verses that extol tolerance, reconciliation, inclusiveness and peace.²³ For example, according to British scholar Dr Zakaria Bashier (author of many books on early Islam including a thorough analysis of war), all the beautiful verses throughout the Qur’an which instruct Muslims to be peaceful, tolerant and non-aggressive are:

Muhkam [clear in and of themselves] verses, i.e. definite, not allegorical. They are not known to have been abrogated, so they naturally hold. No reason exists at all to think that they have been overruled.²⁴

Bashier adds that even the contextual information revealed within the Qur’an itself will lead readers to the inescapable conclusion that the verse of the sword related only to a particular time, place and set of circumstances, and that, in any event, claims of it superseding the established policy of tolerance are “not borne out by the facts of history.”²⁵ Prolific British scholar Louay Fatoohi agrees, arguing that an “overwhelming number” of Muslim scholars reject the abrogation thesis regarding war. Fatoohi highlights the fact that throughout history the Islamic world has never acted in accordance with this extreme view. Fatoohi observes that Muslims have almost always co-existed very well with other faith communities and that the 1600 million peaceable Muslims in the world today clearly do not accept the view otherwise, if the did, they would all be at war as we speak.²⁶ Muhammad Abu Zahra, an important and influential Egyptian intellectual and expert on Islamic law, summed up the mainstream Islamic view by rejecting any abrogation thesis pertaining to conflict and stating that “War is not justified … to impose Islam as a religion on unbelievers or to support a particular social regime. The Prophet Muhammad fought only to repulse aggression.”²⁷

Explaining the Verse of the Sword

It is quite true that, taken in isolation, Surah 9:5 (the verse of the sword) seems an unusually violent pronouncement for a Prophet who had for twenty years preached tolerance, peace and reconciliation. Yet it is equally true that, when read in the context of the verses above and below Surah 9:5, and when the circumstances of its pronouncement by Muhammad are considered, it is not difficult for readers without preconceptions and bias to understand it more fully. Here is the verse again:

But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war).

The fact that the verse actually starts with the Arabic conjunction “fa,” translated above as “but,” indicates that its line of logic flows from the verse or verses above it. Indeed, the preceding four verses explain the context.

Ayah 1 gives the historical context as a violation of the Treaty of Hudaybayah, signed in 628 by the State of Medina and the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. In short, this was a peace treaty between Muhammad and his followers and those Meccans who had spent a decade trying to destroy them. Two years after the treaty was signed the Banu Bakr tribe, which had allied with the Quraysh, attacked the Banu Khuza’a tribe, which had joined the side of the Muslims. Muhammad considered the Bana Bakr attack a treaty violation, arguing that an attack on an ally constituted an attack on his own community.²⁸ Then, following his extremely peaceful seizure of Mecca and his purification of its holy site (he destroyed no fewer than 360 idols in the Ka’aba), the Qur’anic revelation contained a very stern warning. (Other sources reveal that Muhammad then explained it publicly from the steps of the Ka’aba and sent out deputies to the regions around Mecca to destroy pagan shrines and idols and utter the warnings to local communities.²⁹) The scriptural warning was clear: anyone wanting to undertake polytheistic pilgrimages to Mecca (or immoral rituals within it, such as walking naked around the Ka’aba³⁰) in accordance with existing agreements with the Quraysh tribe or with Muhammad’s own community should understand that henceforth they would not be permitted to do so. No polytheism (worship of more than one god) and idolatry (worship of any man or object instead of the one god) would ever again be tolerated within Islam’s holy city. From that time on it would be a city devoted to Allah alone.³¹ As Surahs 9:17 and 18 say:

It is no longer proper for idolaters to attend Allah’s mosques, since they have admitted to their unbelief. … Allah’s mosques should be attended only by those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, who observe prayer and give alms and fear none but God.

Ayat 2 and 3 were revealed through Muhammad to give polytheists or idolaters living in Mecca and its environs as well as any polytheistic or idolatrous pilgrims in transit along Muslim-controlled trade and pilgrimage routes a clear warning that they should desist or leave. The scriptures generously included a period of amnesty that would last until the end of the current pilgrimage season. Thus, Arab polytheists and idolaters would gain a four-month period of grace. Ayah 4 makes clear that during that period of amnesty, polytheists or idolaters were to be left untouched so that Muslims would not themselves become promise-breakers. (“So fulfil your engagements with them to the end of the term; for Allah loves the righteous.”) After clarifying that the threatened violence would apply only to those who had ignored the warnings and continued to practice polytheism or idolatry in and around the holy city and its sanctuary, and were still foolish enough not to have left after four months, Ayah 5 — the sword verse — clearly warned them that there would be a violent military purging or purification in which they seriously risked being killed.

Although this is sometimes omitted by critics of the Verse of the Sword, the verse actually has a secondary clause which, after the direction to root out and kill anyone who had ignored the clear and solemn warnings and continued their polytheism or idolatry, enjoined Muslims to remember that they must be merciful (“to open the way”) to those who repented and accepted their penitent obligations in terms of Islam. Moreover, the Verse of the Sword is immediately followed by an unusually charitable one — again ordinarily left out of Islam-critical treatments — in which any of the enemy who asked for asylum during any coming violence were not only to be excluded from that violence, but were to be escorted to a place of safety.³²

The rest of Surah 9 contains more explanation for the Muslims as to why they would now need to fight, and fiercely, anyone who broke their oaths or violated the sanctity of holy places, despite earlier hopes for peace according to the terms of the Treaty of Hudaybiyah. The “controversial” Ayah 29, which talks of killing polytheists and idolaters, actually comes right after Ayah 28, which speaks specifically about preventing them from performing religious rituals or pilgrimages in or around the newly purified sanctuary in Mecca. Ayah 29 thus also refers to the purification of Mecca and its environs as well as to the need to secure the borders of the Arabian Peninsula from greater external powers which might smother the Islamic ummah (community) in its infancy. The rest of Surah 9 also apparently contains scriptures relating to the later campaign against Tabak, when some groups which had treaty obligations with Muhammad broke their promises and refused to join or sponsor the campaign. It is worth noting that, in this context also, Muhammad chose to forgive and impose a financial, rather than physical, penalty upon those who genuinely apologised.³³

It is clear, therefore, that the Verse of the Sword was a context-specific verse relating to the purification of Mecca and its environs of all Arab polytheism and idolatry so that the sanctuary in particular, with the Ka’aba at its centre, would never again be rendered unclean by the paganism of those locals and pilgrims who had long been worshipping idols (reportedly hundreds of them) there.³⁴ It was proclaimed publicly as a warning, followed by a period of grace which allowed the wrong-doers to desist or leave the region, and qualified by humane caveats that allowed for forgiveness, mercy and protection. It is thus not bloodthirsty or unjust, as Robert Spencer and his colleagues portray it. Indeed, it is so context-specific that, even if it were still in force — and I share the assessment that it has not abrogated the scriptures encouraging peace, tolerance and reconciliation — it would only nowadays have any relevance and applicability if polytheists and idolaters ever tried to undertake and re-establish pagan practices in the Saudi Arabian cities devoted only to Allah: Mecca and Medina. In other words, in today’s world it is not relevant or applicable.

Critics apparently fail to grasp the specific nature of the context — the purification of Mecca from polytheistic and idolatrous pilgrimages and rituals — and even misquote the famous medieval Islamic scholar Isma’il bin ‘Amr bin Kathir al Dimashqi, known popularly as Ibn Kathir. Spencer claims that Ibn Kathir understood the Verse of the Sword to abrogate all peaceful verses ever previously uttered by the prophet.³⁵ Ibn Kathir said no such thing. He quoted an earlier authority, Ad-Dahhak bin Muzihim, who only stated that the Verse of the Sword cancelled out every treaty which had granted pilgrimage rights to Arab pagans to travel along Islamic routes, enter Mecca and perform unpalatable rituals there.³⁶ Because this earlier source referred to the Verse of the Sword “abrogating” something, Spencer mistakenly extrapolates this to claim that this one single verse cancelled out all existing inter-faith practices and arrangements and that it forever negatively changed attitudes to non-Muslims in general.

In case any readers are not convinced, there is another verse in the Qur’an — also from the later period of Muhammad’s life — which (using words virtually identical to the Verse of the Sword) also exhorted Muslims to “seize and slay” wrongdoers “wherever ye find them”. Yet this verse, Surah 4:89, is surrounded by so many other explanatory and qualifying verses that its superficially violent meaning is immediately moderated by its context of tolerance and understanding. First, it threatened violence in self-defence only against those people or groups who violated pacts of peace with the Muslims and attacked them, or those former Muslims (“renegades”) who had rejoined the forces of oppression and now fought aggressively against the Muslims. Second, it stated that, if those aggressors left the Muslims alone and free to practice their faith, and if they did not attack them, but offered them peaceful co-existence, then Allah would not allow Muslims to harm them in any way (“Allah hath opened no way for you to war against them”).³⁷ The verse went even further. It not only offered peaceful co-existence to those who formally made peace with the Muslims, but also to anyone, even backslidden Muslims, who merely chose to stay neutral; that is, who did not take either side in the tense relations between the Muslims on the one hand and the Quraysh and their allies on the other.³⁸

The Origins of Self-defensive Concepts of War

It is worth remembering that, for the first fourteen years of his public life (from 610 to 624), Muhammad had practiced and proclaimed a policy of peaceful non-resistance to the intensifying humiliation, cruelty and violence that the Quraysh, the dominant tribe of Mecca, attempted to inflict upon him and his fellow Muslims. Throughout that period he had strenuously resisted “growing pressure from within the Muslim ranks to respond in kind” and insisted “on the virtues of patience and steadfastness in the face of their opponents’ attacks.”³⁹ The persecution at one point was so severe that Muhammad had to send two groups of followers to seek refuge in Abyssinia. Even after he and the rest of his followers fled the persecution in Mecca and settled in Medina in 622, the developing ummah (Islamic community), experienced grave hardship and fear. Some of the non-Muslims in Medina passionately resented the presence of Muslims and conspired to expel them. From Mecca, Abu Safyan waged a relentless campaign of hostility against Muhammad and the Muslims, who had now become a rival power and a threat to his lucrative trade and pilgrimage arrangements. Abu Safyan sought no accommodation with Muhammad. In his mind, and according to the norms of Arabic tribal warfare, the only solution was the ummah’s destruction.⁴⁰

In 624, two years after the migration of Muslims to Medina — two years in which the Quraysh continued to persecute them and then led armies against them — Muhammad finally announced a revelation from Allah that Muslims were allowed physically to defend themselves to preserve themselves through the contest of arms. Most scholars agree that Surah 22:39 contains that first transformational statement of permission.⁴¹ Including the verses above and below, it says:

38. Verily Allah will defend (from ill) those who believe: verily, Allah loveth not any that is a traitor to faith, or shows ingratitude.

39. To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged — and verily, Allah is Most Powerful for their aid.

40. (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right (for no cause) except that they say, “Our Lord is Allah”.

These verses continue by pointing out that, had not Allah in previous eras allowed people to defend themselves from the aggression and religious persecution of others, there would surely have been the destruction of “monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure.” The verses add that Allah will surely aid those who aid him, and that he is truly mighty and invincible.

The references to defending the faithful from harm in Ayah 38, to those on the receiving end of violence in Ayah 39 and those who have been driven from their homes in Ayah 40 reveal very clearly that Allah’s permission to undertake armed combat was not for offensive war, but self-defence and self-preservation when attacked or oppressed. Interestingly, it even extols the defence of all houses of worship, including the churches of Christians and the synagogues of Jews.

This permission for self-defensive warfighting (the Arabic word is qital, or combat) corresponds precisely with the first Qur’anic passage on war that one reads when one starts from the front cover: Surah 2:190, which, as quoted above, states: “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits: for Allah loveth not the transgressors.” Thus, the purpose of armed combat was self-defence and, even though the need for survival meant that warfare would be tough, combat was to adhere to a set of prescribed constraints.⁴² The following verse’s instruction to “slay them” wherever they turn up commences with the conjunction “wa,” here translated as “and,” to indicate that it is a continuation of the same stream of logic. In other words, Muslims were allowed to defend themselves militarily from the forces or armies which were attacking them wherever that happened. Tremendous care was to be taken not to shed blood in the environs of Mecca’s sacred mosque, but if Muslims found themselves attacked there they could kill their attackers while defending themselves without committing a sin. This series of verses actually ends with instructions that, if the attackers ceased their attacks, Muslims were not to continue to fight them because Allah is “Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.”⁴³ Thus, continued resistance could — and nowadays can — only be a proportionate response to continued serious direct oppression.⁴⁴ In every Qur’anic example in which warfighting (qital) is encouraged for protection against serious direct oppression or violence, verses can be found that stress that, should the wrongdoers cease their hostility, then Muslims must immediately cease their own fighting.

The Qur’anic permission for defensive resistance to attacks or serious direct oppression does not mean that Muhammad enjoyed war, or took pleasure whatsoever in the fact that defensive warfare to protect his ummah from extinction or subjugation would involve the loss of even his enemies’ lives. He was no warmonger and forgave and pardoned mortal enemies whenever he could. This “reluctant warrior,” to quote one scholar, urged the use of nonviolent means when possible and, often against the advice of his companions, sought the early end of hostilities.⁴⁵ At the same time, in accordance with the revelations he had received, he accepted that combat for the defence of Islam and Islamic interests would sometimes be unavoidable. One of Muhammad’s companions remembers him telling his followers not to look forward to combat, but if it were to come upon them then they should pray for safety and be patient.⁴⁶

Critics of Islam are fond of quoting Surahs that seem to reveal a certain savagery that today seems bloodcurdling to them. “When you meet the unbelievers,” the Qur’an says in Surah 47:4, “strike at their necks until you weaken them [that is, defeat them] and then bind the captives firmly. Thereafter you may release them magnanimously or for a ransom.” In Surah 8:12 the Qur’an likewise commands soldiers in battle to strike at necks and fingers. Although these verses may seem out of place in a religious text, they are not out of place within advice given by a military commander before a battle. That was precisely the context of those particular revelations. Muhammad’s community had not yet fought a battle or formed an army and those Muslims who were about to become warriors needed to be taught how to kill immediately and humanely. Decapitation, as opposed to wild slashes at limbs or armoured bodies, ensured humane killing instead of ineffective and brutal wounding. Even better, if a soldier could make an enemy drop his weapon by striking at his hands, he might be able to take him prisoner. Having him alive as a captive who could later be freed, even with a wounded hand, was preferable to leaving him as a corpse.

Today all military or security forces in the world teach weapon-handling skills with the same focus. Recruits and officer cadets are taught how to kill or wound on firing ranges where instructors teach them which target areas will bring humane death and which ones will cause someone’s incapacitation without death. The two Qur’anic passages mentioned above should be read in that light. Moreover, they do not represent an instruction to all Muslims anytime to kill or wound all non-Muslims anywhere. That would violate every concept of justice embedded within Islam. The instructions were to one group of Muslims (the nascent ummah, which had not yet experienced combat) in anticipation of a specific conflict: the Battle of Badr fought in March 624.

The fact that these combat-related instructions are contained within a religious book which has powerfully clear central messages of forbearance, toleration and inclusiveness is easily explained by the fact that the Qur’an, revealed episodically over decades, was (and is) considered by Muslim’s to be God’s word. Every revelation on every issue was thus faithfully recorded and retained, including ones dealing with all sorts of things — war, combat, diplomacy, finance, marriage, child-rearing, divorce, death, education, science and so forth — with which the first Muslims had to deal. It is thus a manual for life, with sections on war and combat which are relevant when Muslims go to war for defensive reasons, and on, say, pilgrimage when Muslims go on the Hajj for spiritual fulfillment.

The Qur’an and the Hadith (the recorded words and actions of Muhammad) show that Muhammad took no pleasure in the fact that — as also taught in later Western Just War theory — the regrettable combatant-versus-combatant violence inherent within warfare would sometimes be necessary in order to create a better state of peace. Explaining to fellow Muslims the need in some situations to undertake combat, Muhammad acknowledged Allah’s revelation that warfare was something that seemed very wrong, indeed a “disliked” activity, yet it was morally necessary and thus morally right and obligatory under some circumstances.⁴⁷ Warfare was frightening and dreadful, but in extremis better than continued serious persecution and attack.⁴⁸

Muhammad’s greatest triumph — his eventual return to his hometown Mecca in 630 at the head of an army of 10,000 — was itself a bloodless affair marked by tremendous forgiveness and mercy. After his forces entered the city, the panicked Quraysh tribe, which effectively surrendered after realising that resistance to the Muslim army was futile, anticipated that their leaders and warriors would be slain.⁴⁹ After all, for two decades they had humiliated, persecuted and tried to assassinate Muhammad and had maltreated and even waged savage war against his followers. Yet, aside from four murderers and serious oath-breakers who were judged to be beyond rehabilitation, Muhammad chose to forgive them all in a general amnesty. There was no bloodbath. He reportedly asked the assembled leaders of Quraysh what fate they anticipated. Expecting death, but hoping for life, they replied: “O noble brother and son of a noble brother! We expect nothing but goodness from you.” This appeal must have relieved Muhammad and made him smile. He replied: “I speak to you in the same words as Yusuf [the biblical Joseph, also one of Islam’s revered prophets] spoke unto his brothers. … ‘No reproach on you this day.’ Go your way, for you are the freed ones.”⁵⁰ He even showed mercy to Hind bint Utbah, Abu Sufyan’s wife, who was under a sentence of death for having horrifically and disgracefully mutilated the body of Muhammad’s beloved uncle Hamzah during the Battle of Uhud five years earlier. Utbah had cut open Hamzah’s body, ripped out his liver and chewed it.⁵¹ She then reportedly strung the ears and nose into a necklace and entered Mecca wearing it as a trophy of victory. When justice finally caught up with her five years later she threw herself upon Muhammad’s mercy. Extending clemency of remarkable depth, Muhammad promised her forgiveness and accepted her into his community.⁵²

Proportionate Response, Last Resort and Discrimination

Mercy between humans, based on forgiveness of someone else’s acknowledged wrongdoing, was something that Muhammad believed precisely mirrored the divine relationship between the Creator and humans. The concepts of patience, forgiveness and clemency strongly underpinned the early Islamic practice of warfare. Proportionality — one of the core principals of Western Just War — also serves as a key foundational principle in the Qur’anic guidance on war. Doing no violence greater than the minimum necessary to guarantee victory is repeatedly stressed in the Qur’an (and described as “not transgressing limits”). So is the imperative of meeting force with equal force in order to prevent defeat and discourage future aggression. Deterrence comes by doing to the aggressor what he has done to the innocent: “Should you encounter them in war, then deal with them in such a manner that those that [might have intended to] follow them should abandon their designs and may take warning.”⁵³ With this deterrent function in mind, the Qur’an embraces the earlier biblical revelation to the Israelites, which permits people to respond to injustice eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Yet, like the Christian Gospels, it suggests that there is more spiritual value (bringing “purification”) in forgoing revenge in a spirit of charity.⁵⁴ This passage, interestingly, is from the same period of revelation as the Verse of the Sword, which further weakens the abrogation thesis mentioned above. Moreover, even on this matter of matching one’s strength to the opponent’s strength⁵⁵, the Qur’an repeatedly enjoins Muslims to remember that, whenever possible, they should respond to provocations with patience and efforts to facilitate conciliation. They should avoid fighting unless it becomes necessary after attempts have been made at achieving a peaceful resolution (which is a concept not vastly different from the Western Just War notion of Last Resort) because forgiveness and the restoration of harmony remain Allah’s preference.⁵⁶

Dearly wanting to avoid bloodshed whenever possible, Muhammad created a practice of treating the use of lethal violence as a last resort which has been imitated by Muslim warriors to this day, albeit at times with varying emphases.⁵⁷ Before any warfighting can commence — except for spontaneous self-defensive battles when surprised — the leader must make a formal declaration of war to the enemy force, no matter how aggressive and violent that enemy is. He must communicate a message to the enemy that it would be better for them to embrace Islam. If they did (and Muhammad liked to offer three days for reflection and decision⁵⁸) then the grievance ended. A state of brotherhood ensued. If the enemy refused, then a proposal would be extended that offered them peace in return for the ending of aggression or disagreeable behaviour and the paying of a tax. If the enemy refused even that offer, and did not cease his wrong-doing, they forfeited their rights to immunity from the unfortunate violence of war.⁵⁹

Islamic concepts of war do not define and conceptualise things in exactly the same way as Western thinking has done within the Just War framework. Yet the parallels are striking. The reasons for going to war expressed within the Qur’an closely match those within jus ad bellum, the Just War criteria which establishes the justice of a decision to undertake combat. The criteria include Just Cause, Proportionality and Last Resort. The behaviour demanded of warriors once campaigning and combat have commenced also closely match those within jus in bello, the Just War criteria which establishes the proper behaviour of warriors that is necessary to keep the war just. The Qur’an described this as a prohibition against “transgressing limits”.⁶⁰ Ibn Kathir, a famous and relatively reliable fourteenth-century scholar of the Qur’an, accepts earlier interpretations that the “transgressions” mentioned in the Qur’an refer to “mutilating the dead, theft (from the captured goods), killing women, children and old people who do not participate in warfare, killing priests and residents of houses of worship, burning down trees and killing animals without real benefit.”⁶¹ Ibn Kathir points out that Muhammad had himself stated that these deeds are prohibited. Another source records that, before he assigned a leader to take forces on a mission, Muhammad would instruct them to fight honourably, not to hurt women and children, not to harm prisoners, not to mutilate bodies, not to plunder and not to destroy trees or crops.⁶²

In the year after Muhammad’s death in 632, his close friend and successor Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, compiled the Qur’an’s and the prophet’s guidance on the conduct of war into a code that has served ever since as the basis of Islamic thinking on the conduct of battle. In a celebrated address to his warriors, Abu Bakr proclaimed:

Do not act treacherously; do not act disloyally; do not act neglectfully. Do not mutilate; do not kill little children or old men, or women; do not cut off the heads off the palm-trees or burn them; do not cut down the fruit trees; do not slaughter a sheep or a cow or a camel, except for food. You will pass by people who devote their lives in cloisters; leave them and their devotions alone. You will come upon people who bring you platters in which are various sorts of food; if you eat any of it, mention the name of God over it.⁶³

There is no explicit statement within the Qur’an that defines the difference between combatants and non-combatants during war, so readers might think that any man of fighting age (children, women and the aged having been excluded) is considered fair game. The Qur’an does not allow this. The verses that talk of combat are clear that war is only permissible against those who are waging war; that is, those in combat. Aside from those combatants and anyone acting unjustly to prevent Muslims from practising their faith or trying to violate the sanctity of Islam’s holy places, no-one is to be harmed.

The rationale for this is clear. Central to the Qur’anic revelation and stated unequivocally in many passages is the message that the decisions that pertain to life and death are Allah’s alone, and that Allah has proclaimed that human life — a “sacred” gift — may never be taken without “just cause”.⁶⁴ In the Qur’anic passages narrating the story of Cain and Abel (Surah 5:27-32, revealed very late in Muhammad’s life) one can read an explicit protection of the lives of the innocent. Surah 5:32 informs us that, if anyone takes the life of another human, unless it is for murder, aggressive violence or serious persecution, it is as though he has killed all of humanity. Likewise, if anyone saves a life, it is as though he has saved all of humanity. To discourage war, the very next verse is clear: those who undertake warfare against the innocent do not count as innocent, nor do those who inflict grave injustice or oppression upon the innocent. They forfeit their right to what we would nowadays call “civilian immunity,” and are liable to be killed in battle or executed if they are caught and have not repented.⁶⁵

Jihad

It should already be clear that, far from serving as the foundation of a callous faith in which human life is not respected, or a bellicose faith in which peace is not desired, the Qur’an presents warfare as an undesirable activity. It should be undertaken only within certain constrained circumstances and in a manner that facilitates the quick restoration of peace and harmony and minimises the harm and destruction that war inevitably brings. An analysis of such matters would not, of course, be complete without making some sense of jihad, that famous word and concept that nowadays is most controversial and misunderstood.

Interestingly, given that jihad is now associated with extremists who are full of hatred, like Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, the Qur’an does not allow hatred to form the basis of a military or other armed response to perceived injustices. It explicitly states that the hatred of others must not make anyone “swerve to [do] wrong and depart from justice. Be just.”⁶⁶ The Qur’an likewise praises those who “restrain their anger and are forgiving towards their fellow men”.⁶⁷ These and other verses communicating the same message are clear enough to prevent crimes perceived nowadays by Muslims from turning them into criminals.⁶⁸ They certainly made an impact on Muslims during Muhammad’s lifetime. During the Battle of Khandaq in 627, for example, Ali ibn Abi Talib (who later served as Caliph) reportedly subjugated Amr ibn Abd al-Wudd, a powerful warrior of the Quraysh. Ali was about to deal a death blow when his enemy spat in his face. Ali immediately released him and walked away. He then rejoined battle and managed to slay his enemy. When later asked to explain why he had released his foe, Ali replied that he had wanted to keep his heart pure from anger and that, if he needed to take life, he did it out of righteous motives and not wrath.⁶⁹ Even if the verity of this story is impossible to demonstrate (it is first found in a thirteenth-century Persian Sufi poem), its survival and popularity attest to the perceived importance within Islam of acting justly at all times, even during the heightened passions inevitable in war.

Despite some popular misperceptions that jihad is based on frustration or anger that many non-Muslims consciously reject the faith of Islam, the Qur’an is quite clear that Islam can be embraced only by those who willingly come to accept it. Islam cannot be imposed upon anyone who does not. Surah 2:256 is emphatic that there must be “no compulsion in religion.” Truth is self-evident, the verse adds, and stands out from falsehood. Those who accept the former grasp “the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks.” Those who accept falsehood instead will go forth into “the depths of darkness”: the same hell that Christ had preached about. The fate of individuals, based on the choice they make, is therefore Allah’s alone to decide. The Qur’an repeats in several other verses that coerced religion would be pointless because the submission of the heart wanted by Allah would be contrived and thus not accepted as genuine. When even Muhammad complained that he seemed to be surrounded by people who would not believe, a divine revelation clarified that Muslims were merely to turn away from the disbelievers after saying “peace” to them “for they shall come to know.”⁷⁰ The Qur’an itself enjoins believers to invite disbelievers “to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious … if ye show patience, that is indeed the best (cause) for those who are patient. … For Allah is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good.”⁷¹ At no point in Muhammad’s life did he give up hope that all peoples would want to get along harmoniously. Despite his grave disappointment whenever communities competed instead of cooperated, in one of his later public sermons he revealed the divine message that Allah had made all of mankind “into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other).”⁷²

This desire for tolerant coexistence even included other faiths and Muhammad never stopped believing in the commonality of belief between Muslims and the God-fearing among those who identified themselves as Jews and Christians (Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book). They shared the same prophetic line of revelation, after all. Despite rejection by several powerful Jewish tribes, and frustration over trinitarian concepts, Muhammad remained convinced that the Jewish and Christian faith communities (as opposed to some individual tribes which acted treacherously) were eminently acceptable to Allah if they followed their own scriptures. Verses saying precisely this were revealed very close in time to the Verse of the Sword. The verses encourage the Jews and Christians to believe (submit to God) and act faithfully according to their own scriptures, the Torah and the Gospel. The verses state that, if they do so, they, along with Muslims (fellow submitters⁷³), will have no need to fear or grieve.⁷⁴ The revelation of these religiously inclusive verses late in Muhammad’s life further undermines the thesis that the verses revealed late in his life undid all of the inter-faith outreach that Muhammad had preached years earlier.

So what, then, is jihad and why does it seem so threatening? The answer is that jihad, far from meaning some type of fanatical holy war against all unbelievers, is the Arabic word for “exertion” or “effort” and it actually describes any Muslim’s struggle against the things that are ungodly within him or her and within the wider world. One major form of jihad is the Muslim’s struggle against his or her “nafs”: an Arabic word that may be translated as the “lower self” and refers to the individual’s ego, carnal nature and the bad habits and actions that come from failure to resist temptation or desire.⁷⁵ For example, a Muslim who consciously strives to break the habit of telling white lies, or the drinking of alcohol, or who struggles against a bad temper, is involved quite properly in a jihad against those unfortunate weaknesses. In Surah 29:6 the Qur’an explains this by pointing out that the striving (jihad) of individuals against their personal ungodliness will bring personal, inner (that is, spiritual) growth. Yet the very next verse goes further by exhorting believers not only to work on their personal faith, but also to do “good deeds” to others. Devoting time and giving money to the welfare of the poor and needy (of all communities, not just Muslims), and to the upkeep and governance of the ummah, is mentioned in several scriptures as this type of divinely recommended effort (jihad). Winning souls to Islam through peaceful preaching is likewise a worthy effort. Muhammad himself revealed a divine exhortation to “strive” with “all effort” (in Arabic it uses two forms of the same word jihad) using the powerful words of the Qur’an to convince unbelievers.⁷⁶

Jihad is also used in the Qur’an to mean physical defensive resistance to external danger. It appears in thirty verses, six of them revealed during Muhammad’s years in Mecca and twenty-four revealed during the years of armed attack by the Quraysh tribe and its allies and then the protective wars to create security within and around the Arabian Peninsula.⁷⁷ Critics of Islam claim that this ratio reveals that jihad and qital (warfighting) are effectively synonymous regardless of context. This is incorrect. The struggle against ego and personal vice is a greater, non-contextual and ever-required struggle, as Muhammad revealed. After returning from a battle he told his supporters: “You have come back from the smaller jihad to the greater jihad.” When asked what the greater jihad was, Muhammad replied: “The striving of Allah’s servant against his desires” (“mujahadat al-‘abd lihawah”).⁷⁸

Moreover, the Verse of the Sword and the other supposedly bloody verses quoted in this article do not use the word “jihad” for the recommended defensive warfighting. They use “qital,” which simply means fighting or combat. Yes, qital is permitted as part of a defensive struggle against serious oppression or persecution, but that does not mean that all jihad is fighting. That would be using logic similar to saying that, because all fox terriers are dogs, all dogs are fox terriers. All lawful qital is jihad — a legitimately approved and rigorously constrained military struggle against evil — but not all jihad (or even much of it or the “greater” type) is warfare. Questions about who can legitimately call for or initiate qital as part of any jihad, in a world which no longer has caliphs leading the ummah, are debated by Islamic scholars, with a vast majority arguing that only state leaders in Islamic (or Muslim-majority) lands would be legitimately able to do so if a genuine just cause emerged. The fact that fatawa and other calls for fighting made in recent years by Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have not been accepted by the overwhelming majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims is a clear sign that few Muslims see them as legitimate leaders or agree that armed fighting would be a just and appropriate response to the alleged grievances.

Interestingly, all the verses mentioning jihad as armed struggle in defence of the Islamic people and polity are exhortative in nature: with pleas for effort, urgings of courage and a fighting spirit, assurances of victory and promises of eternal rewards for those who might die in the service of their community. This emphasis reveals that Muhammad recognised that wars were so unpalatable to his peace-loving community that, even though the causes of Muslim warfighting were just, he had to go to extra lengths — much as Winston Churchill did during the dark days of the Second World War — to exhort frightened or weary people to persevere, to believe in victory and to fight for it. On 4 June 1940 Churchill gave a magnificent speech to inspire the British people to continue their struggle against the undoubted evils of Nazism, even though the German armed forces then seemed stronger and better in battle. His speech includes the fabulous warlike lines:

We shall fight on the seas and oceans

We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be

We shall fight on the beaches

We shall fight on the landing grounds

We shall fight in the fields and in the streets

We shall fight in the hills

We shall never surrender.⁷⁹

No-one would dream of calling Churchill warmongering, much less murderous. Muhammad’s exhortations for Muslims to do their duty — a phrase used by Churchill in that speech and others — and to struggle against the threat of defeat at the hands of the Muslims’ enemies are best seen in the same light. Indeed, most of the verses which urge qital as part of the struggle (jihad) against enemies relate to the self-defensive wars mentioned above, with the remaining verses relating to the broader need to protect the nascent ummah from both the local spiritual pollution of intransigent Arab polytheism and idolatry as well as the external threat to unsafe borders around the perimeter of the ummah. No verses in the Qur’an encourage or permit violence against innocent people, regardless of faith, and no verses encourage or permit war against other nations or states that are not attacking the Islamic ummah, threatening its borders or its direct interests, or interfering in the ability of Muslims to practice their faith. Armed effort against any states that might do those oppressive things would still be permitted to this day, at least according to a fair reading of the Qur’an⁸⁰ — just as it is within Western Just War theory. Yet such a situation would involve a very different set of circumstances to those existing in the world today; those which somehow wrongly prompted a very small number of radicalised terrorists to undertake aggressive and offensive (not justly motivated and defensive) struggles. Their reprehensible actions, especially those that involve the taking of innocent lives, fall outside the behaviours permitted by a reasonable reading of the Qur’an.

Conclusion

This paper is not an attempt at religious apologetics. It is written by a scholar of military strategy and ethics for a general audience in an endeavour to demonstrate that the world’s second largest religion (only Christianity has more adherents) includes at its core a set of scriptures that contains a clear and very ethical framework for understanding war and guiding the behaviour of warriors. That framework only supports warfare when it is based on redressing substantial material grievances (especially attack or serious direct persecution), when it occurs after other means of addressing the grievances have been attempted, and when it includes the cessation of hostilities and the restoration of peace as soon as a resolution has been attained. It demands of warriors that they uphold the concepts of proportionality (doing no more harm than is necessary) and discrimination (directing violence only at combatants whilst minimising harm to civilians and their possessions and infrastructure). That framework is very compatible with the Western Just War philosophy that, for example, gave a moral underpinning to the United Kingdom’s war against Argentinean troops occupying the Falkland Islands in 1982, the US-led Coalition’s eviction of Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait in 1991, and NATO’s seventy-eight day air war against Slobodan Miloševic’s Yugoslavia in order to protect Kosovars from ethnic violence in 1999.

So, then, if the Qur’an itself condemns any violence that exceeds or sits outside of the framework for justice revealed within its verses, how can we explain the barbarous 9/11 attacks, the home-grown 7/7 attacks and other suicide-bombing attempts within our country and the murder of civilians by terrorists in other parts of the world who claim to act in the name of Islam? British scholar Karen Armstrong answered this obvious question so succinctly in the days after 9/11 that her words make a fitting conclusion to this article. During the twentieth century, she wrote, “the militant form of piety often known as fundamentalism erupted in every major religion as a rebellion against modernity.” Every minority fundamentalist movement within the major faiths that Armstrong has studied “is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion. Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. But in amplifying the more aggressive passages that exist in all our scriptures, they distort the tradition.”⁸¹ Armstrong is correct, but her word “distort” is too weak for Al-Qaeda-style terrorists. They have not merely distorted the Qur’anic message; they have entirely perverted it and in the process created additional unhelpful hostility towards Islam—a faith of justice which seeks to create peace and security for its believers and a state of harmony and peaceful co-existence with other faiths.

Dr Joel Hayward is the Dean of the Royal Air Force College and a Director of the Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies. He is also the Head of King’s College London’s Air Power Studies Division. Dr Hayward is the author or editor of eight books as well as many peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles, some of which have appeared in German, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian translations. He lectures widely throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and beyond on various political, defence and security topics. He also frequently teaches and writes on Islam, war and justice and speaks at anti-radicalisation workshops. He is a member of the British Armed Forces Muslim Association and serves as Strategic Policy Advisor to Shaykh Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri and the international Minhaj-ul-Quran welfare, human-rights and education organisation that Dr Qadri heads. Unusually for a social scientist, he is also active in the literary arts and has published both fiction and poetry. His second collection of poetry is due out in 2011. He writes regular columns in Emel and other Islamic magazines.

This paper was published in the Spring, 2011 edition of Air Power Review, a publication of the RAF College of the U.K. Used by  permission.

---

ENDNOTES

1. http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005/terror02_05. Scroll to the bottom for a chronological list commencing in 1980. Access date: 1 April 2011.

2 Muslims make up 23 percent of the world’s 6.8 billion humans. See the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, October 2009), p. 1. Cf.:

http://pewforum.org/Mapping-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx. Access date: 1 April 2011.

3. The King James Version of the Holy Bible contains 788,280 words: 609,269 in the Old Testament and 179,011 in the New Testament. Cf.:

http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.htm

4. Mapping the Global Muslim Population.

5. The very first word revealed to Muhammad was “Iqra,” which means “recite” and the word Qur’an itself originates from the root word Qara’a, which means “to read out” or “to recite”.

6. The title of Mr Spencer’s most controversial bestseller is: The Truth about Muhammad, Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (Washington, DC: Regnery Press, 2006). Spencer’s other books include: Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest Growing Faith (New York: Encounter Books, 2002); Ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law treats Non-Muslims (New York: Prometheus Books, 2005); The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), (Regnery, 2005); Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t (Regnery, 2007).

7. Cf. the published works, journalism and internet articles of Daniel Pipes, Benny Morris, David Horowitz, Bernard Lewis, Sam Harris, David Bukay and David Pryce-Jones, among others. I need to make my position clear. As a liberal and an academic I strongly support the liberal arts education model and the enhanced societal contributions made by critically educated minds. At the heart of my philosophy lies a passionate belief in the value of dialogue and debate. I therefore do not challenge the right of these scholars and pundits publicly to express their concerns about Islam, even though I do not share them.

8. There are numerous English-language translations of the Qur’an which give slightly different wordings, but the translation that I consider most reliable, easiest to read and closest to the meaning of the Arabic text is: The Holy Qur’an (English Translation / Irfan-ul-Qur’an) by Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (Lahore: Minhaj-ul-Quran International, 2006. 2009 edition). I also recommend the readability and reliability of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s translation, The Quran (New Delhi: Goodword, 2009). Another very popular modern translation is the so-called “Wahhabi translation”: Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur’an in the English Language: A Summarized Version of At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir with Comments from Sahih Al-Bukhari: Summarised in One Volume by Dr Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali (Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996. Revised edition 2001). It must be pointed out, however, that this easy-to-read translation has not been immune from criticism, particularly with regard to many interpolations that seem to provide a deliberately negative portrayal of Christians and Jews. For that reason I do not use it, and I believe others should read it, should they wish, with this caveat in mind. Cf. Khaleel Mohammed, “Assessing English Translations of the Qur’an,” Middle East Quarterly, Volume 12 No. 2 (Spring 2005), pp. 59-72.

9. Jizya was a tax levied by the Islamic state on non-Muslims. In return they gained exemption from military service and guarantees of safety within the state. This taxation arrangement, essentially a type of tribute, was a pre-Islamic practice merely continued by the Muslims. Cf. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 178.

10. Cf. Ibid., pp. 96, 163; Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 165. Spencer, ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance, pp. 43-44.

11. Cf. Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, p. 28. After negatively quoting a statement praising Muhammad as “a hard fighter and a skillful military commander,” Samuel P. Huntington writes that “no one would say this about Christ or Buddha.” He adds that Islamic doctrines “dictate war against unbelievers … The Koran and other statements of Muslim beliefs contain few prohibitions on violence, and a concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim doctrine and practice.” Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 263.

12. Joshua 6: 21.

13. Deuteronomy 7: 1-3 and 20: 16-17.

14. Polybius, Histories, XXXVIII.21.

15. Sohail H. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 196.

16. Surah 34:28, Surah 39:41 and Surah 81:27.

17. Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, pp. 24-26. Cf. also: http://www.answering-islam.org/Bailey/jihad.html

18. Cf. David Bukay, “Peace or Jihad: Abrogation in Islam,” in Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 3-11, available online at:

http://www.meforum.org/1754/peace-or-jihad-abrogation-in-islam. Access date: 1 April 2011.

19. Zakaria Bashier, War and Peace in the Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Markfield: The Islamic Foundation, 2006), pp. vii—viii; Khadduri, War and Peace, p. 105.

20. Bukay, “Peace or Jihad,” cited above.

21. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html. Access date: 1 April 2011.

22. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1998.html. Access date: 1 April 2011.

23. This is clearly the judgement of prominent intellectual Tariq Ramadan. Cf. his biography, The Messenger: The Meanings of the Life of Muhammad (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 91.

24. Bashier, War and Peace, p. 284. An interesting introductory book for anyone unfamiliar with Islam is Sohaib Nazeer Sultan’s amusingly titled, The Koran for Dummies (Hoboken: Wiley, 2004). Sultan makes the same point (pp. 278, 281) that the martial verse of the sword and those like it do not abrogate the more numerous peaceful, tolerant and inclusive verses.

25. Bashier, War and Peace, p. 288.

26. Louay Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an: The Truth from the Source (Birmingham: Luna Plena, 2009). Email from Dr Louay Fatoohi to Dr Joel Hayward, 23 August 2010.

27. Muhammad Abu Zahra, Concept of War in Islam (Cairo: Ministry of Waqf, 1961), p. 18, quoted in Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics, p. 208.

28. Michael Fishbein, trans., The History of al-Tabari (Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-muluk): Volume VIII: The Victory of Islam (State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 162-165; Bashier, War and Peace, pp. 224-226.

29. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 4 (Surat Al-A’raf to the end of Surah Yunus) (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2003 ed.), pp. 371-375; Safiur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet (Riyadh: Darussalam, 1979. 2002 ed.), pp. 351-353; Lt. Gen. A. I. Akram, The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed, His Life and Campaigns (New Delhi: Adam, 2009), pp. 97-98; Bashier, War and Peace, pp. 237-238, 241.

30. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 4, p. 371.

31. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford University Press, 1956. 2004 Edition), p. 311; Ibn Kathir, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi: Darul-Ishaat, 2004), pp. 516, 522; Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali, A Thematic Commentary on the Qur’an (Herndon: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2000), p. 182.

32. Surah 9:6.

33. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 4, pp. 369ff.; Sayyid Ameenul Hasan Rizvi, Battles by the Prophet in Light of the Qur’an (Jeddah: Abul-Qasim, 2002), pp. 126-130.

34. Ibn Kathir, Life of Muhammad,, pp. 516, 522.

35. Spencer, Religion of Peace?, p. 78.

36. Although Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim, as quoted by Isma’il ibn Kathir (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 4, p. 377) — sees this as a repudiation of Muhammad’s pilgrimage agreements with all pagans, other early sources insist that this was not the case and that it would have reflected intolerance that Muhammad was not known to possess. Rizwi Faizer, “Expeditions and Battles,” in Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ed., Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002), Vol. II, p. 151.

37. Surah 4:90.

38. Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an, p. 34.

39. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics, p. 201.

40. Armstrong, Islam, p. 17.

41. This is certainly the view of the influential eighth-century biographer, Ibn Ishaq: Alfred Gulillaume, trans., The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (Oxford University Press, 1955. 1967 ed.), p. 212. For modern writers who agree, see: Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an, p. 31; Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (London: Phoenix, 1991. 2001 edition), p. 168; Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life based on the Earliest Sources (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983. Islamic Texts Society edition, 2009), p. 135; Al-Mubarakpuri, The Sealed Nectar, p. 183; Sohail H. Hashmi, “Sunni Islam,” in Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and War (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 217. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics, p. 198.

42. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 1 (Parts 1 and 2 (Surat Al-Fatihah to Verse 252 of Surat Al-Baqarah)), p. 528.

43. Surah 2:192.

44. Surah 2:193.

45. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics, p. 204.

46. Sahih Al-Bukhari, 3025, trans. Dr Muhammad Muhsin Khan Vol. 4 Ahadith 2738 to 3648 (Riyadh: Darussalam, 1997), p. 164; Rizwi Faizer, ed., The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi’s Kitab al-Maghazi (London: Routledge Studies in Classical Islam, 2010), p. 546.

47. Surah 2:216 and see Surah 42:41.

48. Surah 2: 217, 2:191 and 4:75-78.

49. Bashier, War and Peace, pp. 229-233.

50. Ibn Ishaq, p. 553; The History of al-Tabari, Vol. VIII, p. 182.

51. Ibn Ishaq, p. 385; The History of al-Tabari, Vol. VIII, p. 182.

52. Ibn Ishaq, p. 553; The History of al-Tabari, Vol. VIII, p. 183.

53. Surah 8.57.

54. Surah 5:45.

55. Cf. Surah 2:194.

56. Cf. Surah 42:40-43.

57. Cf. Khadduri, War and Peace, pp. 96-98.

58. Ibid., p. 98.

59. Imam Muhammad Shirazi, War, Peace and Non-violence: An Islamic Perspective (London: Fountain Books, 2003 ed.), pp. 28-29.

60. It even applied to the quarrels that the Qur’an criticises most: those between different Muslim groups. If one side aggressively “transgressed beyond bounds,” the other side was permitted to fight back in self-defence, but only until the aggressor desisted, at which point war was to end and reconciliation was to occur. Cf. Surah 49:9-10.

61. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Volume 1, p. 528.

62. Shirazi, War, Peace and Non-violence, p. 29.

63. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics, p. 211; Fred M. Donner, trans., The History of al-Tabari (Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-muluk): Volume X: The Conquest of Arabia (State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 16.

64. Surah 6:151, 17:33, 25:68.

65. Surah 5:33-34.

66. Surah 5:8 (and see 5:2).

67. Surah 3:134.

68. Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an, p. 73.

69. Mathnawi I: 3721ff. published online at: http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/n-I-3721.html

70. Surah 43:88-89.

71. Surah 16:125-128.

72. Surah 49:13. The clause in parentheses is a contextual explanation by the translator.

73. Surah 2:62.

74. Surah 5:69.

75. Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an, pp. 25-26.

76. Surah 25:52.

77. Fatoohi, Jihad in the Qur’an, p. 87.

78. This Hadith is found in the book Kitab al-Durar al-Muntathira fi al-Ahadith al-Mushtahira for Jalal al-Deen al-Suyuti.

79. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/1940-finest-hour/128-we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches

80. Cf. Chapter V in Khadduri, War and Peace.

81. Karen Armstrong, “The True, Peaceful Face of Islam” Time, 23 September 2001, available online at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101011001-175987,00.html. Access date: 1 April 2011.