The Quran (9.10) makes the point quite clear. The mujAhid (Muslim who engages in jihAd) is presented as far superior to the mere mu min� (person who affirms that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah). Allah asks the Prophet (Quran, 9.19), Do you� make the givers of drink to pilgrims or the maintainers of Scared Mosques equal to the believers in Allah and Last Day, and the crusaders (mujAhids) in the cause of Allah? He himself provides� the answer in the same verse. They are not, he announces, comparable in the sight of� � � Allah. And Allah guides not those who do wrong.�
The Sahih Muslim is the second most important collection of Hadis. It reports the Prophet as saying: Whoever cheerfully accepts Allah as his Lord, Islam as his religion and Muhammad as� his Apostle is necessarily entitled to enter paradise... (yet) there is another act which elevates the position of a man in paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth... What is that
act? JihAd in the way of Allah! JihAdin the way of Allah !�14
The GhAzi
A still higher grade goes to the ghAzi, that is, one who slays an infidel with his own hands.� � That is why this appellation was flaunted by all Muslim sultans who invaded or thrived in India at one time or the other. Babur became a ghAzi by raising tower after tower of severed Hindu heads in the wake of his victory over Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. Akbar also earned the rank when as a boy of only thirteen years, he was made to cut off the head of a defeated and half-dead Hindu king, Himu, after the Second Battle of Panipat. The Later Mughals, some of whom never went anywhere near a battlefield, claimed that they had inherited the title from their more renowned ancestors.
The ShahId
It is, however, the shahId (martyr) who gets the highest grade in the Islamic roll of honour. ThemujAhid who gets killed in a jihAd becomes a shahId and goes straight to jannat (paradise) without having to wait for the Day of Judgment like the rest of the mu mins.� Muhammad did not believe in rebirth, nor in traffic between heaven and earth. But he forgot his own teaching when he tried to glorify a martyr. A martyr, he proclaimed, will desire to return to this world and be� killed ten times for the sake of the great honour that is bestowed upon him.�15
If one is really interested in getting at the core of the Quran, one should go to the original sources rather than read the modern apologists who sell only sweet tales in the name of Islam. The earlier imams and sufis were far more honest and straight-forward in stating what the Quran stands for. They had no use for twentieth-century humanist notions which the apologists have been trying to foist on Allah and his Prophet.
Modern Islamic Apologetics
The Apologetics that presents Islam as a mission of peace, human brotherhood, social equality and the rest, is a recent development in the history of Islam. Till the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Islam had in its armoury only two weapons which have been wielded by all aggressively imperialistic and totalitarian ideologies - Dogmatics and Polemics. Muhammad had started with Dogmatics which we find in the earlier sUrahs of the Quran. It was not long before he evolved his poisonous Polemics to be hurled recklessly at what he described as kufr and shirk the religion prevailing among the Pagans of Mecca. He suffered a setback when the Pagans hit back, asking inconvenient questions about his pedigree, his person, his prophethood, his mentors, his
promises, and his threats. He was thrown on the defensive, and displayed the first Apologetics in the history of Islam.16 But he returned rather fast to Dogmatics and Polemics when his own
followers showed signs of rebellion against him after he revealed the famous verses from� � Satan in a bid to reach a compromise with the Pagans. Since that time, Islam was never in need of Apologetics as its military machine designed by Muhammad himself continued to march triumphantly in West Asia, North Africa, and parts of Europe. The heresies that arose in subsequent centuries, particularly the Shia sects and the sufi silsilas, were more fanatic and fundamentalist than the four Sunni mazhabs - Hanafi, Hanbali, MAliki, and ShAfii.
The development that really shook Islam for the first time was the breakdown of the Safavi empire in Iran, the Mughal empire in India, and the Ottoman empire spread over West Asia, North Africa and southeastern Europe. European empires had risen everywhere on the debris. The reaction among a section of Muslim intellectuals has been what H. Lammens labels as� �
modernism and K.S. Lal describes as hiding the true face of Islam , particularly in Turkey,
� � � �
Egypt, and India. The most moderate amongst them, observes Lammens, have� � �
undertaken the mission of showing the complete agreement between IslAm sanely interpreted, and the progress and aspirations of modem times. They protest that misunderstanding has given rise to a belief in their antinomy and they are resolved to dissipate it.�17 Again, All vie�
zealously with one another in the apologia of IslAm. They often enhance the credit of Quranic institutions by pointing to the temperance campaign and the recrudescence of divorce among Christian peoples. Above all, the progressivists boast they can prove that as far as liberty of conscience, the rights of man and other conquests of modem civilization are concerned,� � Islam is several centuries ahead of Europe... All are agreed in affirming that, judiciously
interpreted, the QorAn not only proclaims the complete equality of sexes, but that in its efforts to raise the status of woman, it has outstripped all other religions.�18
Coming to India, Lammens traces the rise of modernism to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his� � Aligarh movement. Very eclectic in the matter of traditions, they do not trouble about� the hadIth, when the latter fail to accord with modem progress; they then refute them
unhesitatingly by recourse to inner criticism. Here again their line of argument which is entirely subjective, is lacking in logic and does not shrink from distorting history, for instance, to suit their ends. They describe the life of Medina in the first century A.H. and the reign of the four first Caliphs as inspired by tendencies of the most advanced liberalism. A Persian newspaper Al-Habl
al-matIn (27th of May, 1915) [published in India], shows us FAtima and Ayesha in the intimate� circle of the Prophet engaged in philosophical arguments.�19 Again, According to them,�
Muhammad was the declared adversary of slavery. If any mistake has been made on the subject, it is through misinterpretation of the QorAnic texts which appear to make this institution lawful... The jehAd troubles them considerably... Their theory is that the QorAn contemplated only defining [defensive?] warfare and that its recommendations, were valid only in the Prophet s� own time.�20
Much water has gone down the Ganges after Lammens wrote in 1929. Islamic Apologetics in India since then has progressed by leaps and bounds. The Quran has been roped in to prove that Islam stands for equality of all religions and religious tolerance. There are some, writes� � Dr. Harsh Narain (1990), who find in the Qu rAn glimpses of equal respect for all religions,� � indeed for polytheism and idolatry as well. One of its verses relied upon by them runs thus:
Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion. But this verse teaches nothing like
� �
respectability of all religions. After quoting the full verse (109.6), he cites renowned Islamic� theologians - JalAluddin SiyUti, Hussain Waiz KAshfi, Ibn Kathir, Abul AlA Maududi, Ashraf Ali ThanawI and Abdul Majid DaryAbAdi - who either say that this verse has been abrogated by the verse on jihAd (Ayat as-sayf, 9.5) or that it means the opposite of what it is being made to mean by modem apologists. In other words, Islam is Islam and Kufr is Kufr, and never the twain can� meet.�21
Another oft-quoted verse, he continues, is, There is no compulsion in religion. From it,
� � � � �
too, the unwary or the unscrupulous are wont to hear a declaration of religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence of Islam with other religions. Again, after quoting the full verse (2.256), he� cites Islamic theologians to the effect that this verse, too, has been abrogated by the aforesaid verse on jihAd. Shah WalI AllAh interprets it in such a way, however, that it ceases to rule out� the use of force in propagation of Islam and, instead, provides a basis for just the use of such force. He writes: There is no compulsion for the sake of religion, that is, the doctrine of Islam� has been demonstrated. Hence it is not tantamount to compulsion, as it were, though compulsion it is, on the whole.��22
Even if we accept that these verses mean what the apologists say they mean, it has to be pointed out that the exercise only proves the poverty of the Quran in matters of tolerance and peaceful coexistence. One wonders why it does not occur to them that they are able to quote only one line each from two long verses out of the more than 6,200 verses which comprise the Quran. Why do they fad to take into account the rest of the Quran which is brimful of transparent intolerance and vociferous war-mongering? Are they fools or knaves to go on parroting ad nauseam these 15 words out of the more than 3,23,600 words which Allah is supposed to have addressed to their prophet?
Dr. Harsh Narain has not mentioned many other acrobatics of modem Islamic Apologetics in India because he was dealing only with the myth of equality of all religions. That has been taken care of by Prof. K.S. Lal in his latest (1999) book. These days, he writes, a group of Muslim� � � writers is busy making an all out effort to present Islam with a benign face. A long series of defeats at the hands of Christian Europe and persistent resistance of Hindus in India, has resulted in inculcating in the Muslim masses a hatred of the West and the Hindus. At the same time it has prompted some Muslim scholars to present Islam as religion of peace, to put it on par with, say, Hinduism, Jainism or Buddhism��23 He quotes at some length the prolific�
writer� Asghar Ali Engineer who says in so many words that � jihAd is essentially a war for justice, not for aggression or lust for power , that sufis practised absolute nonviolence , and� � � that Islam is as non-violent a religion as any religion can be .� �24 And Maulana Wahiduddin of
the Islamic Centre in New Delhi who writes that Islam is as tolerant a religion as any other ,� � that so far as forced conversion is concerned it is totally unlawful in Islam , and that although� � the Prophet was persecuted by others, he strictly avoided confrontation, and followed the path� of forbearance .�25 And Zafar Jung, President of the Muslim Mainstream Movement, New Delhi,
who proclaims that the word Islam means peace , and that the Quran and HadIth foster� � � communal harmony .�26
These writers, observes Prof. Lal, may be sympathised with as they are not historians and belong to institutions which receive liberal funds from Gulf states for giving a face-lift to Islam. What he finds inexcusable is that renowned historians have joined the game. Many writers on medieval� Indian history find in conversion of many low caste Hindus to Islam a hand of the oppression of Hindu upper castes, or the Hindu caste system itself, and the attraction of the democratic spirit� of Islamic brotherhood and equality .� �27 He cites Muhammad Mujeeb in this context who
misinterprets well-known facts in cleverly carved language , and tries to prove that
� � Islam�
was adopted by families or groups of families who were regarded as outcasts in Hindu
society .�28 And Mohammad Habib who proclaims that the Muslim state in medieval India was�
not a theocratic state in any sense of the term and that its foundation was non-religious and� � secular .�29
Prof. Lal wonders why these Muslim apologists ignore what has been said by contemporary� chroniclers of the medieval period .� His explanation is that Probably they are shocked at the� barbarous conduct of their medieval brethren and want to salvage the reputation of Islam, although whatever was done was done in accordance with the canons of their creed .� He goes on to show how the two versions of medieval Muslim history - medieval chroniclers and the� modem apologists - contradict one another.� Muslim historians of the medieval period� honestly state that non-Muslims were converted to Islam through force; modern Muslim apologists claim that conversions were effected through peaceful means. Medieval chroniclers take pride in the iconoclastic zeal and achievements of their heroes; modem apologists plead otherwise. Medieval historians credit Muslim invaders with fighting Jihad for spreading Islam; modem Muslim writers say that their motive was economic - that the invaders were interested in loot and plunder and had little to do with religion. It needs to be emphasized that the truth here does not lie midway. It lies on the side of the medieval chroniclers. Still the apologists complicate matters by contradicting the versions of their own coreligionists who were closer and more
intimately associated with events about which they wrote than our modern apologists. The idea of a secular Muslim state is an innovation of a few progressive writers who wish to bracket� � Muslim civilization with tolerant civilizations.�30
He continues, This phenomenon baffles Indian Muslims to this day - why could India not be� made a Muslim country despite the exertion of more than a thousand years? The apologists try to explain it by discovering that Muslim state was a secular state.� � They do not attribute it to persistent Hindu resistance, nor to the continuance of the great Hindu civilization to which should go the real credit.�31Again: There is no need to feel apologetic if most conversions were�
forcible. Force and violence have special place in Islamic history throughout the world. The heroes of Islam in India are men like Muhammad bin Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazni, Timur and Aurangzeb. They, their poets and chroniclers, all become lyrical when they describe their
achievements in the service of Allah which included conversions by force. There is no justification for M. Mujeeb to unseat these old Muslim heroes from their ferocious pedestals and turn them into pacifists like Hindus and Buddhists.�32
We are afraid, Justice Basak s comments on the Quran appear to be more in line with modem� Islamic Apologetics than with Islamic Dogmatics and Polemics which still dominate the
overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country as well as elsewhere. Modem apologists of Islam have been increasingly marginalised by the resurgence of Islamic fanaticism since the seventies of this century. Oil wealth of the Arab countries has encouraged and equipped Islam to go on the offensive everywhere, particularly against the West and Hindu India which it perceives as stumbling blocks in the way of its triumphant march towards world domination. Muslim seminaries everywhere are training terrorists for doing service to Allah, and Muslim publishing houses are flooding the markets with primary source materials on Islamic theology and history. The Quran is now available in authentic translations undertaken by orthodox Muslim scholars. The picture of Islam that emerges from this material is being presented in the pages that follow. Comprehensive concept of JihAd
Modem writers by and large including modem apologists of Islam state that AyAts on jihAd were revealed to the Prophet after his migration to Medina.
� � They explain that jihAd was the last
course to which the Prophet was forced to resort because his peaceful preaching in Mecca� � was not only rebuffed but also met with persecution by the Meccan pagans .� � They locate and give a count of theAyats on jihAd in the Medinan surAhs. Brigadier S.K. Malik has collected these Ayats in the context of military strategy; they add up to 267 spread over 17 sUrahs out of around 1457 Ayats spread over 23 sUrahs which were received by the Prophet at
Medina.�33 The rest of the Ayats in the Quran - around 4754 in 91 Meccan sUrahs and around
1190 in 23 Medinan sUrahs -, the apologists insist, pertain to other subjects such as beliefs, prayers, rituals, ethics, social rules and regulations etc.
Brigadier Malik, however, does not agree with this concept of jihAd which, according to him, is far more comprehensive. Let us listen to what he has to say on the subjects. He writes:
The first step to this study is to understand the difference between total strategy, that is Jehad, and military strategy. The term, Jehad, so often confused with military strategy,
is, in fact, the near-equivalent of total or grand strategy or policy in execution. Jehad
entails the comprehensive direction and application of power while military strategy� � deals only with the preparation for and application of force. Jehad is a continuous and
never-ending struggle waged on all fronts including politica4 economic, social,
psychological, domestic, moral and spiritual to attain the object of policy. It aims at a g
the overall mission assigned to the Islamic State, and military strategy is one of the
means available to it to do so. It is waged at the individual as well as collective level; and
at internal as well as external front.
Waged in its true spirit, and with multiple means available to it, the Islamic concept of total strategy has the capacity to produce direct results. Alternately, however, it creates
conditions conducive to the military strategy to attain its objectives speedily and economically. Military strategy thus draws heavily on the total strategy (Jehad) for its
successful application. Any weakness or strength in the formulation, direction or application of the total strategy would affect military strategy in like manner. In the absence of Jehad, the preparation for and application of force to its best advantage� � would be a matter of exception, not rule. Conversely, optimum preparation and
application of military instrument forms an integral part of Jehad.34
The Hadis collections, commentaries on the Quran (tafsIr), and treatises on this specific Islamic lore also proclaim that the so-called Ayats on jihAd revealed at Medina pertain to only one� � form ofjihAd, namely, jihAd bil saif - striving by the sword. At the same time they mention three other forms of jihAd as follows: