Are Muslims Obligated to Engage in Holy War

Abstract

In the early twenty-first century, some—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—believe that Islam requires Muslims to engage in holy war or Jih d. This article concludes that this early twenty-first century notion that Muslims are obligated to wage holy war is based on a failure to appreciate that Jih d was never a universally agreed upon concept in Islam nor was there ever a universal obligation to participate in Jih d. In order to support the assertion that Muslims are not obligated to engage in holy war, this article looks to canonical texts from the anaf School of Islamic Law from the ninth through the fourteenth century CE. These texts are called Fatw collections because they compile legal opinions on a wide variety of matters. The first observation that the article presents is that some of these canonical Fatw collections do not even address the question of Jih d while other Fatw collections treat Jih d in at least three different ways. Thus the article demonstrates that the earliest Muslim legal scholars of the anaf School did not share a uniform understanding of what constitutes holy war nor did they agree on who is obligated to become a holy warrior. Indeed, the article concludes that early legal scholars especially disagreed on the obligation to engage in Jih d and on who qualifies to call for Jih d. Hence it is false to claim that Muslims are obligated now (or have ever been obligated) to engage in Jih d. * Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University. ** Doctoral Candidate, Emory University. The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Devin Stewart for his valuable insights and comments on this article. 377fiu_11-1 S heet N o. 5 S de B 048/2016 1011:02 37792-fiu_11-1 Sheet No. 5 Side B 04/28/2016 10:11:02