Sister Amy, Read Post #169. She’s looking for the correct interpretation of those verses.
Thanks! I really should learn to read back…
While I was browsing back pages I noticed someone remarked on the term “Paki.” It’s more or less a pretty offensive slur in the UK (not so much in the US–there’s a shirt out there that says on it “Good things come in small Pakis” that I’ve seen a lot of Muslim girls wear).
On to Post #169:
I said I wanted people to learn the correct “interpretation” of these instead of following their whims on them.
9:29 “Fight against 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.”
47:4 “When ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks”
4:74 “To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah soon shall we give him a reward of great value.”
And from the Hadith:
Allah 's Apostle 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 but Allah,’ his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah, (either to punish him or to forgive him.)"
Now, some people might think I’m someone who gets up and says “Islam is peace” all the time… but I know (or at least hope) that those of you who read my posts more carefully know that is not my mantra at all. I don’t think it’s useful to classify any religion as violent or peaceful, and Islam is definitely not a pacifist religion.
And there are over 6000 verses in the Qur’an. Whoever made this post picked three. Three verses out of
6,000.
And while of course there are more than three verses about fighting, it certainly isn’t the bulk of Islam, or of the Qur’an. And while I do think it’s important for people to learn the interpretation of verses such as these, I myself fall into the category of people who need to learn, and not of those who are qualified to teach. So I had to do some research for this answer… if you can bear with me for a moment.
Of course Islam allows fighting, at times it even mandates fighting. This should not be a surprise to anyone, nor do I think it is something exclusive to Islam or something which should be considered strange. Yet to avoid going off-topic I’ll not continue on that train of thought.
The following page is a short article written by a well-known scholar in Saudi Arabia, and is a good resource on this topic. I’d advise against accepting everything on the site because not everything is approved by a scholar. But
this piece is.
So let me get to it…
There is fighting, in Islam, against disbelievers, oppressors, and innovators–and this developed in a series of stages. The first stage wasn’t fighting at all, when Muhammad (saws) became a Prophet and warned the people around him. For 10 years Muhammad (saws) preached and warned without any fighting, instructing patience and forbearance even while the Muslims were being persecuted.
Then permission was given for him to migrate and leave the city where they were plotting to kill him. And then permission was given to fight (because they were being attacked, their things had been stolen, etc.) And then the Muslims were commanded to fight those who fought them, and refrain from fighting those who didn’t fight them. And then fighting was commanded against specific groups of people to implement Islam not at an individual level but at a state-wide or nation-wide level. After this fighting was commanded, disbelievers fell into 3 categories: those with whom there was a truce or peace treaty; those with whom he was at war; and those who lived under the rule and protection of the Islamic state. (This is from Ibn al-Qayyim, btw.)
Now, I think this context is important for Muslims to understand in particular, so they don’t start foolishly picking out verses from the Qur’an that they want to follow, while leaving those they don’t want.
Glass houses and all that stuff…