Geopolitical Islam and the concept of Jihad
By Junaid A. Maik
“Islam; the religion of peace” a favorite narrative of apologists, quite often repeated despite all the historical evidence which goes against it. Unfortunately these apologists are completely ignorant of the core ideology or the basic concepts of Islam and Sharia. Same is the case with self-proclaimed “reformers” who are hell bent on deceiving the world, depicting a false picture of Islam, misrepresenting the core ideas, while completely ignoring its roots attached to a long history of belligerence, recorded by the renowned and widely accepted Muslims scholars in the earliest available authentic books of Sirah (Biography of Prophet), Islamic history and Hadith (Sayings and deeds of Prophet). All these authentic records clearly reflect Islam as a religion emerged from hostility and the Prophet himself fought battles or ordered people to be killed. More importantly Quran, the most authentic scripture, itself commands Muslims to fight against disbelievers and impose the system of God through the land.
8:39: And fight them until there is no fitnah and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah. And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is seeing of what they do.
9: 29: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Apologists and self-proclaimed reformers usually ignore the basic and probably the most important factor i.e. Islamic Jurisprudence and Ijtihad. Early Islamic jurists have devised the concepts of Geopolitical Islam through Quran and Sunnah. According to Islamic jurisprudence, the geopolitical world is divided into two basic categories; Darul-Islam and Darul-Harb. The notions of “houses” or “divisions” of the world was devised to denote legal rulings for ongoing Muslim conquests. The very first use of the terms was in Iraq by Abu Hanifa and his disciples Abu Yusuf and Al-Shaybani. Imam Abu Hanfia, Imam Sirkhasee, Imam Tahavi, Imam Ibn al-Qayam, Ibn e Tamyia, Imam Shaafi, Imam Maliki, Imam Hanbal, all four Sunni schools, even the Jafari School of thought, unanimously agree upon this idea.
Darul-Islam (house of Islam or abode of Islam; also known as Dar as-Salam, house of peace or abode of Peace; and at times referred as Dar al-Tawhid, house of monotheism or abode of monotheism) means regions or countries where Muslims can practice their religion as the ruling sect and where other religions are to be tolerated only in so far as their proselytes pay the jizya. The term appears in the Quran in 10.25 and 6.127 as Paradise. According to Imam Abu Hanifa, the requirements for a country to be part of Dar al-Islam are;
1) Muslims must be able to enjoy peace and security with and within this country.
2) The country should be ruled by a Muslim government
3) the country shares common frontiers with some Muslim countries.
Darul-Harb (also referred to as Dar al-Garb “house of the West” in later Ottoman sources) is a term classically referring to those countries where the Muslim law is not in force, in the terms of worship and the protection of the faithful and dhimmis. It is unclean by definition, and will not become clean until annexed to the House of Peace. Its denizens are either to be converted or, if people of the book, tolerated as long as they pay the jizya. According to the majority of Muslim Jurists, the leader of the Muslims must fulfill the obligation of “calling” the people of a non-Islamic territory to Islam. This invitation is based on the following conditions;
1) to establish Islam as the state religion
2) to enter into a tributary arrangement with the leader of the Muslims
Upon refusal, it is understood that war could follow. In accordance with normative traditions, this war is regarded as an aspect of jihad or the struggle towards “Allah’s cause”, specifically by spreading Islamic government throughout the earth. It is important to note that the purpose of the war to expand the territory of Islam is not to make converts, rather to establish Islamic government.
The term Jihad (derived from the root Jhd) connote the idea of exertion or struggle. Jihad is a derivative of jahada (struggle or strive), which make Jihad as a physical struggle in the cause of Allah. The term Ijtehad has been derived from the same root i.e. Jhd and it means intellectual struggle. Islamic theology, in accordance with Quran, Sirah, hadith, hadith and jurisprudence define Jihad as “Holy War”. Apologists and self-proclaimed reformers in an attempt to present Islam in most innocuous terms possible, usually indulge in wordplay by arguing that the actual jihad is Jihad e Akbar (which denotes an inner or spiritual struggle to purify oneself) while declaring the concept of belligerence as Jihad e Asghar (Lesser Jihad), in defiance of all the religious and historical evidence to the contrary. The idea of Jihad e Akbar or the greater jihad is actually linked to Sufism, which emphasizes the mystical or inner identification with Allah. However, mainstream Islam has always been hostile to Sufism and it prefers a literal and legalistic interpretation of Quran and Hadith. Muslim apologists rediscovered the idea of Jihad e Akbar in nineteenth century and have been emphasizing it ever since as normative expression of jihad, while ignoring the evidence in form of Quranic interpretations or tafseers, classical works on the subject by authentic scholars and historians, along with Sunni jurisprudence as well as the Shia tradition which refer to physical struggle as the only form of jihad while rejecting the idea of greater jihad in its entirety.
These concepts of Geopolitical division are a part of Islam since the last 1300 years, and all schools of thought, form mainstream Islam, agree upon these notions. This clearly means that the current Jihadi movements are as legitimate as those that have existed in classical Islam. Few simple questions that comes in the mind of readers:
1) Why and how do apologists consider Islam a religion of peace?
2) On what basis do they deny the authentic records including Tafseer, Hadith, Sirah and Islamic history?
3) And on what authority do they deny Ijtihad and the views of authentic scholars and jurists?
““the authority is derived from the Quran itself”
A book, a dead thing, cannot have authority. A book only comes “alive” by a living human being though his interpretation. Obviously the prominent muslim scholars and the adherents of ISIS come after reading of the quran to different opposite conclusions. Who is correct, or are both wrong? What is lacking in islam is a divinely guided authority to interpret the holy writ with infallibility. Therefore their convictions are mere opinions that conflict with each other.
The Catholic Church, the Church Jesus founded, claims to infallible interpret the Holy Bible. To examine Her claim you can read the relevant part of the catechism:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
Interesting articles about the subject you will find here:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/
and here:
http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.nl/
Islam divides Mankind into 2 Groups. 1. Fans of Allah (Superior Bosses), 2. Foes of Allah (Inferior Creatures; all those who are Not Fans are Foes). Fans have to Show the Might of Allah by Butchering the Foes!
Allah is the Creator.Why did he Create Foes?
Was/Is he so powerless to depend on humans to destroy the Foes?
What they are fighting for is really the right to practice and absolution from ignorance, thuggery, rape of non gang members and most importantly freedom to show the love of paedophillia.
It’s all about the attainment of ‘ manly’ power by fair means or foul…..
As the Sufi mystic of Anal haq (I am the truth or I am the god) fame, AL hajaj said, Iblis (devil) was the truest monotheistic. This is because Iblis alone could not accept any partner to Allah and hence would not bow to Adam. It is said that ‘devil is in details’ that’s why Quran is so concerned about which hand to use to clean shit or what number of stones to use and so many other trivial methods. Quran is least concerned about spirituality and imprisons a person in mundane trivialities. No other religion pays attention to social norms in such detail. Infact all religions like Hinduism,Buddhism, Jainism,Christianity,Shintoism speak against lust and desire and consider them roadblocks in spiritual evaluation. But the Quran by its advocacy of polygamy, pedophilia, concubinage, slavery is very much concerned about halting of the spiritual progress of a person. As Mr Junaid rightly shows that Quran is deceptive when it appeals to the conscience of people in few of its verses that leads the gullible apologists astray. These apologist, for the sake of their conscience and their cowardice to abandon islam, invent new meanings or change the meanings of the Quranic verses, for they cannot bear the assault on their conscience by these perverse verses. I pity them for the torture they undergo within themselves, but it is also true that not only they hinder their own spiritual growth but also dellude the uneducated (in knowledge of Islam) astray. I do not believe in this devil stuff, but if it exists then this is it.
As for this “peaceful religion” the Koran in 9:11. instructs “The believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, they kill and are killed…” This is another verse from the Koran that I had look up in a English Koran “translated ” and printed year after 9/11 and this is also Koranic verse that was changed to sound peaceful when read. Nevertheless we all may be sure that the Arabic Koran always reads the same on violent and deadly ways. One point to be made is is this very verse has, among other Koranic verses, has the power to lead to jihad suicide/homicide attacks. Furthermore, The Koran also teaches about a lust-filled filled paradise with many virgins, houris, in it for the male Muslim who dies in the jihad as a “martyr” for the cause of Islam. As seen ,for example, in the Koranic verses of 44:54. 55:65. 78:31. The Muslim clerics, such has the imams and mullahs, very thoroughly brainwash this Koranic doctrine/story of a lust -filled place with virgins into the hearts and minds of others in both madrases and mosques. Those who comes out of those place of Islamic mind programming centers are so very indoctrinated, as well as warped in both mind and soul that they are literally dangerous to self and others. In ,fact, the are so mind warped that they actually view the murderous actions of jihad suicide/homicide bombings as “martyrdom operations.” The Bible warns about such false teacher as those imams and mullahs ,who ingrain this type of doctrine /story as of a lust-filled place with virgins in to the thoughts of others. For the Bible in Second Peter 2:18. reads “For they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh…” Moreover, many a times a brainwashed jihad minded Muslim in his death recording talks about “the wedding with the virgins” that he will have after he becomes a “martyr.” Such a belief Jesus would denounce as being based on false teaching. For Jesus taught “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry ,or are given in marriage, but are as the angles in heaven.” Matthew 22:29,30. In contrast to the Islamic pipedream of the jihadist in the Koranic story/doctrine of a place with virgins, Christians have the reality of Second Peter 1:16. Which reads “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…” [K.J.V.]
The “holy book ” of Islam ,the Koran instructs in 47:4 “Whenever you encounter the unbelievers strike off their heads until you make a great slaughter among them…” That’s very strange teaching for a “peaceful religion.” There are many other verses and places in the Koran that also teach the use of violence and killing, as in for example 9:5. One thing that many scholars of Islam, such as Robert Spencer, have said that after September 11, 2001 many English translations of the Koran have since been changed, as in watered down, to hide the brutality violent and deadly nature of this religion. As in a religious cover up of the truth. One thing about this is that way before 9/11 I had looked up that very verse of 47:4. in the Koran as it read as above. Much latter about twelve years after September 11, 2001 I have looked that same verse in a English translation of the Koran that the made translated and printed years after 9/11 and that verse did sound rather peaceful when read. This shows that such non-Muslim scholars of Islam like Robert Spencer did have a valid point in what they said.