The use of politically and religiously-motivated violence in Islam dates back to its early history. Islam has its origins in the behavior, sayings, and rulings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his companions, and the first caliphs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries CE. Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including corporal and capital punishment, as well as regulations on how, when, and against whom to wage war.
Legal background
Sharia law is the basic Islamic religious law derived from the religious precepts of Islam. The Quran and opinions of Muhammad (i.e., the Hadith and Sunnah) are the primary sources of sharia.John L. Esposito, Natana J. DeLong-Bas (2001), Women in Muslim family law, p. 2. Syracuse University Press, . Quote: "[...], by the ninth century, the classical theory of law fixed the sources of Islamic law at four: the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet, qiyas (analogical reasoning), and ijma (consensus)." For topics and issues not directly addressed in these primary sources, sharia is derived. The derivation differs between the various sects of Islam (Sunni and Shia are the majority), and various jurisprudence schools such as Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Jafari.Hisham M. Ramadan (2006), Understanding Islamic Law: From Classical to Contemporary, Rowman Altamira, , pp. 6–21 The sharia in these schools is derived hierarchically using one or more of the following guidelines: Ijma (usually the consensus of Muhammad's companions), Qiyas (analogy derived from the primary sources), Istihsan (ruling that serves the interest of Islam in the discretion of Islamic jurists) and Urf (customs). Sharia is a significant source of legislation in various Muslim countries. Some apply all or a majority of the sharia, and these include Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen and Mauritania, respectively. In these countries, sharia-prescribed punishments, such as beheading, flogging and stoning, continue to be practiced judicially or extrajudicially.Nisrine Abiad (2008), Sharia, Muslim States and International Human Rights Treaty Obligations, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, The introduction of sharia is a longstanding goal for Islamist movements globally, but attempts to impose sharia have been accompanied by controversy,Hamann, Katie (29 December 2009). "Aceh's Sharia Law Still Controversial in Indonesia". Voice of America. Retrieved 19 September 2011. Iijima, Masako (13 January 2010). "Islamic Police Tighten Grip on Indonesia's Aceh". Reuters. Retrieved 18 September 2011. "Aceh Sharia Police Loved and Hated". The Jakarta Post. violence,Staff (3 January 2003). "Analysis: Nigeria's Sharia Split". BBC News. Retrieved 19 September 2011. "Thousands of people have been killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims following the introduction of sharia punishments in northern Nigerian states over the past three years". Harnischfeger, Johannes (2008). p. 16. "When the Governor of Kaduna announced the introduction of Sharia, although non-Muslims form almost half of the population, violence erupted, leaving more than 1,000 people dead." p. 189. "When a violent confrontation loomed in February 200, because the strong Christian minority in Kaduna was unwilling to accept the proposed sharia law, the sultan and his delegation of 18 emirs went to see the governor and insisted on the passage of the bill." Mshelizza, Ibrahim (28 July 2009). "Fight for Sharia Leaves Dozens Dead in Nigeria – Islamic Militants Resisting Western Education Extend Their Campaign of Violence". The Independent. Retrieved 19 September 2011. "Nigeria in Transition: Recent Religious Tensions and Violence". PBS. Staff (28 December 2010). "Timeline: Tensions in Nigeria – A Look at the Country's Bouts of Inter-Religious and Ethnic Clashes and Terror Attacks". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 19 September 2011. "Thousands of people are killed in northern Nigeria as non-Muslims opposed to the introduction of sharia, or Islamic law, fight Muslims who demand its implementation in the northern state of Kaduna.". Ibrahimova, Roza (27 July 2009). "Dozens Killed in Violence in Northern Nigeria" (video (requires Adobe Flash; 00:01:49)). Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 19 September 2011. "The group Boko Haram, which wants to impose sharia (Islamic law) across the country, has attacked police stations and churches." and even warfare.Sudan - Government. Library of Congress Country Studies: Sudan:. "The factors that provoked the military coup, primarily the closely intertwined issues of Islamic law and of the civil war in the south, remained unresolved in 1991. The September 1983 implementation of the sharia throughout the country had been controversial and provoked widespread resistance in the predominantly non-Muslim south ... Opposition to the sharia, especially to the application of hudud (sing., hadd), or Islamic penalties, such as the public amputation of hands for theft, was not confined to the south and had been a principal factor leading to the popular uprising of April 1985 that overthrew the government of Jaafar an Nimeiri". Marchal, R. (2013), Islamic political dynamics in the Somali civil war. Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Relations and Political Reform, pp. 331–52
Tibi, Bassam (2008). Political Islam, World Politics and Europe. Routledge. p. 33. "The shari'a was imposed on non-Muslim Sudanese peoples in September 1983, and since that time Muslims in the north have been fighting a jihad against the non-Muslims in the south." The differences between sharia and secular law have led to an ongoing controversy as to whether sharia is compatible with secular forms of government, human rights, freedom of thought, and women's rights.Encyclopædia Britannica, see article on Shari'ah (Islamic law), 2006 Otto, J. M. (2008). Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries (Vol. 3), Amsterdam University PressAbdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, "Islamic Foundations of Religious Human Rights", in Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives, pp 351–56 (John Witte Jr. & Johan D. van der Vyver eds., 1996).Hajjar, Lisa. "Religion, state power, and domestic violence in Muslim societies: A framework for comparative analysis." Law & Social Inquiry 29.1 (2004); pp. 1–38Al-Suwaidi, J. (1995). "Arab and western conceptions of democracy"; in Democracy, war, and peace in the Middle East (Editors: David Garnham, Mark A. Tessler), Indiana University Press, see Chapters 5 and 6;
Types of violence
Islam and war
The first military rulings were formulated during the first hundred years after Muhammad established an Islamic state in Medina. These rulings evolved in accordance with the interpretations of the Quran (the Muslim Holy scriptures) and Hadith (the recorded traditions of Muhammad). The key themes in these rulings were the justness of war (see Justice in the Quran) and the injunction to jihad. The rulings do not cover feuds and armed conflicts in general. The millennium of Muslim conquests could be classified as a religious war.
Some have pointed out that the current Western view of the need for a clear separation between Church and State was only first legislated into effect after 18 centuries of Christianity in the Western world."Separation of Church and State: In the West and Under Sharia" By Immanuel Al-Manteeqi. Counter Jihad. 17 August 2016. Downloaded 1 March 2017. While some majority Muslim governments such as Turkey and many of the majority Muslim former Soviet republics have officially attempted to incorporate this principle of such a separation of powers into their governments, yet, the concept somewhat remains in a state of ongoing evolution and flux within the Muslim world. Islam has never had any officially recognized tradition of pacifism, and throughout its history, warfare has been an integral part of the Islamic theological system.Lews, Bernard, Islam and the West, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 9–10 Since the time of Muhammad, Islam has considered warfare to be a legitimate expression of religious faith, and has accepted its use for the defense of Islam.Aboul-Enein, H. Yousuf and Zuhur, Sherifa, Islamic Rulings on Warfare, p. 22, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Diane Publishing Co., Darby PA, During approximately the first 1,000 years of its existence, the use of warfare by Muslim majority governments often resulted in the de facto propagation of Islam.
The minority Sufi movement within Islam, which includes certain pacifist elements, has often been officially "tolerated" by many Muslim majority governments. Some notable Muslim clerics, such as Abdul Ghaffar Khan, have also developed alternative non-violent Muslim theologies. Some hold that the formal juristic definition of war in Islam constitutes an irrevocable and permanent link between the political and religious justifications for war within Islam. The Quranic concept of Jihad includes aspects of both a physical and an internal struggle.
Jihad
Jihad () is an Islamic term referring to the religious duty of Muslims to maintain the religion. In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning "to strive, to apply oneself, to struggle, to persevere". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural of which is mujahideen (). The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran, often in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)", to refer to the act of striving to serve the purposes of God on this earth., Jihad., Jihad. According to the classical Sharia law manual of Shafi'i, Reliance of the Traveller, a Jihad is a war that should be waged against non-Muslims, and the word Jihad is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, a mujahada is a war which should be waged to establish the religion. Jihad is sometimes referred to as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status. In Twelver Shi'a Islam, however, jihad is one of the ten Practices of the Religion.
Muslims and scholars do not all agree on its definition. Many observers—both MuslimJihad and the Islamic Law of War and non-MuslimRudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism. The doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (Mouton Publishers, 1979), p. 118—as well as the Dictionary of Islam, talk of jihad having two meanings: an inner spiritual struggle (the "greater jihad"), and an outer physical struggle against the enemies of Islam (the "lesser jihad") which may take a violent or non-violent form.DeLong-Bas (2010), p. 3 Jihad is often translated as "Holy War",cf., e.g., BBC news article Libya's Gaddafi urges 'holy war' against SwitzerlandRudolph Peters, Jihad in Medieval and Modern Islam (Brill, 1977), p. 3 although this term is controversial.Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 363Khaled Abou El Fadl stresses that the Islamic theological tradition did not have a notion of "Holy war" (in Arabic al-harb al-muqaddasa), which is not an expression used by the Quranic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology, war is never holy; it is either justified or not. He further states that the Quran does not use the word jihad to refer to warfare or fighting; such acts are referred to as qital. (source: According to orientalist Bernard Lewis, "the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists", and specialists in the hadith "understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense."Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 72. Cf. William M. Watt, Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War in: Thomas P. Murphy, The Holy War (Ohio State University Press, 1974), p. 143 Javed Ahmad Ghamidi states that there is consensus among Islamic scholars that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against wrongdoers.