How do you do it? What is fair to you?
Do you think that Jihad is an important aspect of Islam
It seems to be, in one way or another.
and that a good Muslim has to obey this command when necessary?
What do you mean by “a good Muslim”? I gather that you don’t mean “a good person who is a Muslim.” You seem to mean “good by the standards of Islam.” But of course, only Muslims get to say what the standards of Islam are. And if one Muslim says that the standards are one thing, and another Muslim says that the standards are something else, there is no criterion whatever by which you and I can adjudicate the dispute. Of course we can observe what appears to be the mainstream position, both at the present moment and/or throughout history. And of course we can engage in historical inquiry as to what Muhammad and the early Muslims thought. But historical inquiry engaged by outsiders as to what the founders of a religion thought rarely coincides with what insiders to a religious tradition believe to be the core meaning of the tradition. (Find me a non-Christian scholar of early Christianity who thinks that Jesus intended to found Christianity in anything remotely like the form in which it now exists.) Furthermore, in fact professional scholars of Islam generally do not agree with the very dark picture painted by anti-Islamic polemicists. It’s certainly possible that these scholars are trying to hard to be fair to Islam, and thus are engaging in a certain amount of whitewashing. And of course serious scholars of Islam recognize that there’s been violence in Islam pretty much from the beginning. But in fact what you and others are claiming to be “real Islam” does not actually coincide (in all its particulars–not saying it has no scholarly support) with what scholars such as Marshall Hodgson or John Esposito regard as the historic mainstream of the tradition.
What do you think that Jihad entails in a way that is fair to you?
Many Muslims today regard jihad either in a purely spiritualized sense or as a struggle for righteousness which may involve defensive warfare. It seems pretty clear that traditional Islamic law does not take that position.
The traditional schools of Islamic law, as far as I’m aware, regard jihad as a war against non-Muslim governments, with the purpose of establishing Islamic law over all the world and forcing non-Muslims to pay tribute. The duty of jihad devolves primarily on Islamic governments, but also is binding to some degree on individual Muslims (I believe that the different schools differ somewhat on this point). Theoretically, traditional law does not recognize the possibility of a permanent peace between Muslim and non-Muslim governments, although there can be periods of truce which in practice may last for centuries.
Apart from those Muslims who simply choose to disregard Islamic law and take a more liberal position (unfortunately, there are those, such as Osama bin Laden, who disregard traditional law on the other side, rejecting the limits which the traditional schools place on the conduct of warfare), there are also those who argue that the traditional categories apply only to non-Muslim governments that persecute Islam. In the Middle Ages, the argument goes, this would have applied to all governments. Of course, that position lays itself open to the argument (made by bin Laden in his 1996 fatwa) that U.S. support for Israel and military presence in the Middle East constitutes aggression/persecution against Islam.
At any rate, I cannot see that the reinterpretations of the tradition engaged in by moderate Muslims are any more intellectually dishonest or historically bogus than many similar reinterpretations of Scripture and tradition engaged in by Christians (particularly Catholics with regard to tradition, since Protestants are willing to disregard non-Biblical tradition if necessary). Religious traditions develop and are frequently reinterpreted. If Muslims choose to engage in such a reinterpretation in a moderate direction, I see no reason to stand in their way, and I have no criterion by which to declare their views to be “bad Islam” even if I had the desire to do so!
Edwin
