(thank you, james, for the link)
Interpreting the words of Muslim scripture so that they pose no threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers is a large challenge.
by Gordon Nickel The problem of Muslim radicalization has been on the agenda of all nations since 9/11. But Canada faces a unique dilemma because the doctrine of multiculturalism is seen as intrinsic to our national identity. The [June 2006] disruption of an alleged homegrown Islamist terror plot has caused many Canadians to ask: How can multiculturalism—which preaches tolerance above all else—be squared with a militant, intolerant creed that demonizes non-believers? [Here] … Gordon Nickel examines the claim that Islam is inherently a "religion of peace."
Since the London bombings of 7/7, there has been a renewed effort among Muslims in the West to present Islam as a religion of peace. This has come in response to persistent probing of the relationship between Islam and violence. Here in Canada, this issue leapt to the front pages following news that all 17 suspects in an alleged Ontario-based terror plot are Muslim.
The Koran contains five commands to kill and 12 commands to fight …
For some Muslims, the rise of homegrown terror has meant an interest in re-examining the foundational texts that extremists have used to justify their attacks—the Koran, the Hadith (traditions of what the prophet of Islam said and did), the Sira (earliest biography of the prophet), and works of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Some are challenging classical interpretations of these texts that have held sway for centuries.
When the Koran is cited by Muslims in response to questions about violence, it is often discussed in such a way as to shut down a meaningful exploration of the text. One or two mild passages are usually offered, as if these fully represented the contents of a scripture containing 6,000-plus verses. But the Koran—literally "recitation"—is a collection of diverse materials that include polemic, praise, eschatology, law, narrative, battle calls, and details of the domestic life of the prophet.
In particular, the sourcebooks contain a great deal of material relating to violence. This article reviews that small part of the material that is directly relevant to any debate about the link between Islam and terror: the commands to fight and kill.
The Koran contains five commands to kill and 12 commands to fight (literally, "try to kill"). Most are found in the second (verses 190, 191, 193, 244), fourth (vv. 76, 84, 89, 91) and ninth (vv. 5, 12, 14, 29, 36, 123) suras.
The commands address a number of different situations, from "fighting those who fight you" to "fighting totally." The objects of the fighting and killing include the unbelievers, the "associators" (mushrikin, or polytheists) and "the friends of Satan."
In classical Muslim discussions of these verses, two verses attracted more attention than any others. They came to be known as "the sword verse" (9.5) and "the verse of tribute" (9.29).
The verse of tribute concerns the "people of the book"—generally understood by Muslims to be faith communities possessing a scripture, especially Jews and Christians. The command is to fight those who have been given the book "until they pay the tribute (jizya) out of hand and have been humbled." The command in the sword verse is to "kill the associators (mushrikin) wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush." At face value, therefore, polytheists appear to be at greater risk than Jews or Christians.
The Arabic verb in all of these verses is not the verb related to jihad. Rather, it is the verb qatala in its first ("to kill") and third ("to fight, try to kill") forms. The Koran contains many other verses using forms of qatala which—though not imperatives—appear to encourage fighting or killing. Among these is 61.4: "Allah loves those who fight in his way."
These are the commands. But what do they mean? That is, of course, a matter of interpretation. Those who want to give a peaceful interpretation to these verses face challenges from both the classical medieval Muslim consensus and the interpretations of popular figures within the 20th-century Islamic revival.
Muslim scholars have produced lively commentaries (tafsir) on the verses of the Koran from the second Islamic century up to the present. The earliest complete commentary on the Koran was written by Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767). Muqatil seems to take the commands to fight and kill at face value.
One of the interpretive principles that Muqatil and later commentators used was to link passages in the Koran with events in the story of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. These events are arranged in a continuous narrative in the Sirat Rasul Allah of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767).
Muslim scholars assigned each of the Koran's 114 suras to initial recitation by Muhammad in either Mecca or Medina; and within those main divisions, they gave each sura a place in a definite chronology. The establishment of such a chronology permitted the concept of abrogation—by which recitations originating later in time took precedence over apparently contradictory passages recited earlier.
The classical Muslim understanding that developed from these principles was that the commands to fight and kill could be arranged chronologically in the prophet's lifetime—from the initial permission Muhammad gave to his followers to fight, to instructions on defensive warfare, to conditional aggression, to open unrestricted warfare as the prophet's forces grew stronger later in his life. Peaceful passages in the Koran were considered to be superseded by materials with a warlike tone, especially Sura 9.
David S. Powers, professor of near eastern studies at Cornell University, has noted that Muslim scholars of abrogation such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) claimed the "sword verse" cited above (9.5) had abrogating power over 124 other verses, including "every other verse in the Koran which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the non-believers." U.S.-born historian John Wansbrough found that the sword verse "became the scriptural prop of a formulation designed to cover any and all situations which might arise between the Muslim community and its enemies." Influential Islamist authors such as 'Abd al-Salam Faraj, Maulana Maududi and Sayyid Qutb have all expressed their agreement with the classical interpretation of the commands to fight and kill.
A famous illustration of this Islamist tendency is in the pre-9/11 communiqués of Osama bin Laden. His "Declaration of War" of October, 1996, makes prominent use of Koranic commands to fight and kill. His Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders of February, 1998, opens with the sword verse and applies it directly to those he considers to be the modern enemies of Islam.
Indeed, one of the greatest challenges facing peace advocates in Muslim nations is that the Islamist voices that seem to have the greatest appeal to youth are those that portray the Koranic commands to kill as clear and unequivocal. Some of these Islamists have already carefully processed Western criticisms and have deliberately reasserted the classical understandings. For instance, Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, a guiding force of the Muslim Brotherhood (from which al-Qaeda sprang), wrote that the tendency to interpret the Koran as if it enjoins only defensive war is an error of Muslims' minds "defeated by the pressure of unfavorable conditions and the treacherous propaganda of the orientalists."
But this need not be the only way of interpreting these texts. One alternative—quite common in some faith communities—might be to decide that these were commands for a very particular set of circumstances, but that they no longer apply to modern believers in this time. Another option, advanced recently by the Turkish scholar Israfil Balci, is to reject the classical interpretations of these commands as a product of the political tensions of the period.
Muslims are not the only scriptural community to face challenges of interpretation. Jews and Christians who regard the Hebrew Scriptures as the Word of God must deal with the conquest of Canaan, the commandment of total cherem destruction, the violence of judges like Samson and the bloodshed of kings like David—among many other materials that suggest godly approval for aggressive warfare against non-believers.
Conversely, warring Christians who accept the authority of the Gospel must deal with the apparent prohibition of violence in the teachings and life example of Jesus. This discussion has been going on among Christians at least since the Crusades, when critics were heard to say "that it is not in accordance with the Christian religion to shed blood in this way, even that of wicked infidels. For Christ did not act thus."
Within the Christian community, one interpretive option is to read the Hebrew Scriptures through the prism of the Gospel. According to the Gospel, Jesus said that He had come not to abrogate the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. Jesus then immediately replaced the law of retaliation with non-resistance, and commanded love for enemies (see Matthew 5:17, 38, 39, 44). This way of dealing with difficult materials raises many questions, but it has allowed Christians to pursue pacifism while holding to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Unfortunately, the Islamic principle of abrogation runs in the opposite chronological direction in relation to violence. Because the commands to fight and kill in the Koran are considered by Muslims to be among the recitations made very late in the life of the prophet of Islam—at a time when his conquest of Arabia was almost complete—Muslims scholars have been inclined to read the peaceful texts as subordinate to the later ones.
In other words, Muslims seeking to find a peaceful message in the Koran must fight not only the plain meaning of the Koran's text and the current fashion for militancy, but also the arrow of Muslim history.
Interpreting the words of Muslim scripture so that they pose no threat to peaceful coexistence with non-believers thus seems a large challenge. In view of the high stakes in the world today, however, it is certainly a challenge worth taking up. Otherwise, Canadian proponents of multiculturalism will have a harder time arguing that traditional Islam is just another peaceful element in Canada's multicultural quilt.
Gordon Nickel has a PhD in the earliest commentaries on the Koran and teaches at the Acts Seminaries, Langley, B.C.
Originally published in the National Post, June 13, 2006.
