Jihad: The forgotten obligation

36: The Order to Fight

Narrated Abu Huraira (ra) Allah's Apostle (saw) said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah," and whoever says, "None has the right to be worshipped except Allah", his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his account will be with Allah (either to punish him or forgive him)." (Sahih Bukhari, p.414, vol.1)

The above hadith states clearly that Jihaad is an obligation ordained by Allah. The obligation is binding until everyone professes that there is no God (worthy of worship) but Allah. The understanding of this is that either the unbelievers accept Iman or surrender themselves to live under the system of the Believers.

It is therefore clear, that there is power behind the dawah of the Kalimah. When the muslims invite the unbelievers towards Islam the power of fighting is conveyed with the message and any resistance is crushed.

The revelations relatiing to fighting enables the Muslims to remove the Ruler who rejects the call to Islam and the payment of jizya (a tax imposed on the unbelievers). The ruler therefore cannot continue to govern his country in accordance with his pleasure and obstruct his people from the call to Islam. The order of fighting was revealed so that such tyrant rulers could be either converted or removed to allow the free propogation of Islamic dawah. This was the adopted method of the Sahaba (ra) of giving dawah.

When they used to invite the Kings towards Islam they informed them in a clear manner that the dawah of the last Prophet (saw) was not weak and that if it was not accepted they would go back quietly. On the contrary, the Islamic system has been revealed to dominate over all others and as such is to be spread to every corner of the world. The Sahaba (ra) made it clear that all obstacles in their path in conveying the message of Islam would be crushed. This has been stated in Bukhari as follows:

Narrated Jubair ibn Haiya that Umar (ra) sent us to Khusra appointing, an Numan bin Mukrin as our commander. When we reached the land of the enemy the representative of Khusra came out with forty thousand warriors, and an interpreter got up saying, "Let one of you talk to me!" Al Mughaira (ra) replied, "Ask whatever you wish". The other asked, "Who are you?". Al Mughaira (ra) replied, "We were some people from the Arabs, we led a hard, miserable and disastrous life, we used to suck hides and the date stones from hunger. We used to wear clothes made up of fur of camels and hair of goats and used to worship trees and stones. While we were in this state the Lord of the Heavens and the earths, Elevated is His Rembrance and Majestic is His Highness, sent to us from amongst ourselves a Prophet whose father and mother are known to us. Our Prophet (saw) the Messenger of our lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or give jizyah; and our Prophet (saw) has informed us that our Lord says: "Whoever amongst us is killed (ie Shaheed) shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen and whoever amongst us remains alive, shall become your master".(Sahih Bukhari, p.446, vol.1)

The existence of the strength of fighting with the dawah of iman is also verified in the Qur'an as Allah says

"You (the true believers in tawheed, and the real followers of the Prophet (saw) and his sunnah) are the best of people ever raised up for mankind, you enjoin al ma'ruf (tahweed and all that Islam has ordained), and forbid what is al munkar (shirk, kufr and all that Islam has prohibited), and you believe in Allah.." (Surah Imran: 110)

The explanation of this verse by the greatest commentator of the Qur'an, Ibn Abbas (ra), is you order them to give evidence that "there is none worthy of worship except Allah", and to admit what Allah has revealed and you fight against them on this (cause). Meaning that if they don't accept, you fight. The Kalimah is the greatest ma'ruf (good) mentioned in the verse, and to deny this is the greatest munkar (evil)." (Tafseer al-Kabeer, ar-Razi, p.180, vol.8)

The points which are raised in this ayah are that the iman, ordaining of good, forbidding of evil existed in the nations that precededus and these three factors have been confirmed as the main reason for this ummah being the best.

"So Jihaad is the protector of the deen from the most harmful thing which is kufr, so that the people can reach the most beneficial thing (deen). By considering all this it can be concluded that the status of Jihaad in acts of worship is the greatest and when Jihaad was revealed in the Shariah of Muhammad (saw) with much more emphasis and power than the other Shariahs before it. This is why our Ummah has been given superiority over other nations." (Tafseer al-Kabeer, ar-Razi, p.180, vol.8)

Although Jihaad existed in the nations before us, the Jihaad performed by this ummah have been more numerous than in the past. The great importance of Jihaad on our ummah, never existed in the ummah before us and Jihaad will continue in this ummah till the Day of Judgement. It is stated that the last Jihaad group is the one who will clash with Dajjal.