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In relation to Jihad, what is the meaning of the Quranic verse “So obey not the disbelievers and strive against them by means of the Qur’an with a mighty striving.” (25:53) ?

Dated: 04/09/1984

Location: The London Mosque

Language: English

Audience: General

In relation to Jihad, what is the meaning of the Quranic verse “So obey not the disbelievers and strive against them by means of the Qur’an with a mighty striving.” (25:53) ?

I have a couple of questions. I don’t know which one to ask. The first one is from Surah Furqan. Allah Ta’ala has told us to Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa jahiduhum bihi jihadun kabila Could you kindly translate this and give us the tashreeq please. The other one is… Translation you already know, don’t you? You see, I was doing tabligh the other day. That was Jihad-e-Kabir, so you already know that. I was confronted with the question that why you people don’t believe in jihad and all this. These are one of the questions. Jahiduhum bihi. What is meant by bihi? That is the most important thing. Jahiduhum means… Let me say, it is not to be translated as fight with them. The point is, mujahida means struggle. Is it translated in the holy book as… Jihad is not translated, you know.

The word jihad is kept as such. In Urdu it is understandable. But in English it is difficult and defies correct translation. In English, those who say fight with them, they do not do justice to the word jihad. Jihad does not mean fighting at all. Jihad means any serious struggle in which your whole being is involved. That is jihad. Jidduh juhud. That is from the same source, juhud. Not only just an ordinary effort, but an effort which is so serious-minded, in which your entire being and your life and soul is involved. That is truly jihad.

So the holy Qur’an tells the Prophet that you take up the Qajar for Islam and put in your best efforts and do it with the help of the holy Qur’an. Now fight your battle, if you must use the word fight, fight your battle with the weaponry of the holy Qur’an. So that shows that jihad literally and initially means preaching. Preaching through the holy Qur’an. Now jihad is equally applicable to the Muslim society as well as to the non-Muslim society. So once our Prophet was returning from one bazaar and he said, now we are returning from a smaller jihad to a bigger jihad. While he was returning home, what he meant was that now we are going to fight up the cause of Islam, take up the cause of Islam, against our own basal inclinations, that is the inclinations of the Nasee Ammara, which eggs you on to evil doings and things.

So Tarbiyyat, that is to say, to bring up someone according to Islamic teachings, is also a jihad. So jihad has two directions, one internal and one external. And the primary meaning and the most important meaning of jihad is a grave struggle against evil, whether it is internal or external. Now external evil can be fought through the agency of the holy Qur’an. That is what the holy Qur’an says. The he means with the help of the holy Qur’an, not with the help of sword. No sword is mentioned in that context anywhere. Not at all. The sword is not mentioned at all in the preceding so many verses, nor in the following verses.

So the situation is so clear that no two Muslim scholars disagree on this issue. They agree all of them, that here instead of the holy Qur’an, except for the holy Qur’an, nothing else is mentioned. So jahid bihi jihadin kabira is the most important way of taking up struggle in favour of Islam. If it is an internal struggle, we call it tarbiyyat. If it is an external struggle, we call it tabligh, or preaching. But when the evil forces against whom you are fighting, with the help of the holy Qur’an, take up sword to suppress you by force, then the third meaning of jihad is, that if you are permitted, then defend yourself against oppression. That is also struggling for the cause of Islam, against an evil, the choice of which has been made not by the Muslim society, but by the opponent society. So when the sword is chosen as a weapon, by your hostile opponents, then it is their responsibility. Otherwise Islam does not permit you the use of sword, anywhere, in whatever form. You understand the point? So this is exactly our belief about jihad.

All these three interpretations of jihad are entirely acceptable to us, what we say is simply this, that according to the teachings of the holy Qur’an, the jihad with sword is not the choice of the Muslim society, it is the choice of the hostile society. If they choose sword as their weapon of offence, then in defence you are permitted to use sword, not otherwise. Not a single verse of the holy Qur’an can be quoted to the contrary. So jihad with sword, that is the struggle of survival with sword, is also permitted, but not under the title of jihad, but under the title of Kitab. That is also a way of looking at Islamic concept of jihad. Sword is not mentioned under jihad, but it is mentioned under Kitab.

The verse to which I am referring is from Surah Jumu’ah. It says, Permission is now being granted to those against whom sword has already been raised. Not initially. It cannot be translated otherwise. It means those people against whom the sword has already been raised. So they are being permitted to defend themselves. So there is not a single verse in the holy Qur’an where the Muslim society is permitted to take sword in their hand initially and to begin an offensive war. Only war which is mentioned is in this verse, which means you are permitted as if sword has been raised against you. And the reason is not offense.

The reason being that they are being wronged. That is against wrongdoers who are wronging the Muslim society and they are completely innocent. They are neither initiating it, nor the sword is being raised against their folly, any folly of theirs. No fault is committed by them, yet the sword is being raised. That is the second condition of jihad. And after permitting them, suddenly the holy Qur’an draws our attention to the fact that if a people are so weak and humble that any Tom, Dick and Harry can choose to raise sword against them and try to trample them, then what is the sense of permitting them to defend themselves? Had they been strong enough to defend themselves, this enemy could not have dared to attack them.

This is the automatic question which comes to one’s mind. If, for instance, Enoki attacks you and you are being beaten one-sidedly and suddenly I permit you to defend yourself, what would be the result? The chance of your survival would finish there. Because the moment you raise your hand in defense, then that would be a different Enoki who will attack you the next time. And he will employ his full force to totally destroy you. While being beaten just one-sided was not as bad as trying to defend yourself against a strong enemy.

So this is exactly the situation of the holy war of Islam. The holy Qur’an is permitting a people who are being wronged one-sidedly for quite some time. People are raising sword against them. Unless they had taken them to be extremely weak, this could not have been done. This policy of oppression is obviously adopted against very weak people. And the holy Qur’an says, all right, we permit you. When this idea begins to disturb you, there the verse enters a different phase. It says, the power which is permitting you is all-powerful. You are weak. But the authority which is permitting you is not weak, that is Allah. So because with Allah’s permission you are going into a defensive war, rest assured that He would see to it that you become victorious and your powerful enemy becomes totally defeated. Now it makes sense.

A weak person is permitted, of course, but by a higher and stronger authority. And with that permission, if he goes into action, a weak person, then it is the responsibility of the higher and powerful authority to see to it that no harm comes his way because of this permission. This is the philosophy of jihad as we read in the holy Qur’an. Jihad with sword, I mean. But now, after this small diversion, to alleviate fears on the part of Muslims, that what would happen to us if we defend ourselves.

The holy Qur’an again takes up the same subject which was started initially. That is, the permission, why it is permitted and what happens and so on and so forth. And then the holy Qur’an continues to discuss it further and tells us, No. You are missing one part. Those people whom we are committing to defend themselves, they are so totally incapable of defense, from worldly point of view, that they have already been expelled from their homes, their properties, their country, and they are left with nothing.

Such are the people whom Allah is permitting to begin to defend themselves. But the reason why these wrongs were committed against them is only this, that they said Allah is ours and we belong to Allah. He is our Lord. Otherwise they did not commit any offense against any other person. Because they are being persecuted entirely because of Allah. This is why Allah is permitting them and this is what jihad is. So, we present this verse of the holy Qur’an to all our enemies and tell them that this is exactly our faith, our concept of jihad. Tell us what is wrong with this. And show us where this jihad has been contradicted by the holy Qur’an. This is the most beautiful teachings of jihad with which, if you are armed correctly, you can face any religion in the world and still hold your head high in pride.

Nobody can put you to shame with this teaching. There is nothing of cruelty in Islamic jihad. Nothing of transgression in Islamic jihad. It is totally a jihad of defense by a very poor and humble people who apparently, with this permission, should have been wiped out. But, again, jihad is a sign of their closeness to Allah. Despite their weakness, they are going to become victorious to prove to the rest of the world that Allah is with them. So, ultimately, this would also end up in preaching in the victory of Islam through conviction, not through sword. But then, after discussing this aspect of jihad with sword, Allah enters another subject and gives another reason about this permission and also tells us that jihad is not for the sake of one particular religion. Jihad is for the sake of liberty of religion. And Islam is not so narrow-minded as to permit Muslims jihad only for the sake of Islam, but jihad, fundamentally, is for the freedom of religion, whatever the name of that religion be.

Whether that religion is right or wrong, this is no concern. It is neither here nor there. The philosophy of Islamic jihad is that, in principle, religion has a freedom and must enjoy that freedom. If anyone tramples upon that freedom, then you should be permitted to defend religion against oppression by the non-religious forces. In the name of religion, maybe, but Islam treats them as non-religious forces who begin to interfere in religion with force. This is what I understand by the teachings of the Holy Qur’an. And the proof, where is it said in so many verses? I am coming to this. The same verse has not yet ended. It continues. It says, If Allah had not permitted some people to defend themselves against some others, what would have happened? The churches and the cathedrals of Christians would have been obliterated and destroyed. Where do they come into the picture?

The whole verse was, in fact, discussing Muslims and their plight, and what was happening to them, and oppression was being launched against the Muslim society. Why suddenly Islam, the Holy Qur’an, takes a volt of face and started discussing the cause of other religions? Because this is the principle of jihad. Allah does not mention the mosque in the first instance. It begins with the holy places of other religions. And starting with Christianity, it says, And the places of hermits, recluse, those who retire from the world and go to their sanctuaries to remember Allah. This place will also be destroyed if people are permitted to interfere into religious affairs by force.

That is the philosophy which is being discussed. Salawatun is the third, and that is Jews were placed to worship. Jewish places of worship is also mentioned in this verse of jihad, that even the places of worship of Jews would be destroyed. So if jihad was that which is understood by the mullah of today, what is their jihad? They are launching jihad against places of worship of all other religions. They say it is jihad if you destroy a temple of Jews, or a church of the Christians, or place of worship for anybody who is opposed to you. That is jihad.

This is exactly the jihad which they are launching in Pakistan against families. They are demolishing their mosques, and they say this is jihad. While the jihad with sword is mentioned in detail and discussed at length in this verse, and here Allah says if we had permitted people to transgress against others in the name of religion, what would have happened? The churches would have been destroyed, the places of worship of hermits and recluse would have been destroyed, the synagogues would have been obliterated, and mosques would have been destroyed. In the end the mosques are mentioned, not in the first place.

All are bracketed together in the philosophy of jihad. That shows that the philosophy of jihad simply deals with the freedom of religion. It is not a prerogative of Islam or any other religion. Religion as such is treated in jihad according to Islamic philosophy. Freedom of religion is a must. So whichever force takes recourse to suppression of any religion, not Islam alone, any religion, by sword, Allah says we permit them to defend themselves, and whoever dies in that cause would be a shaheed or a martyr. So this is our philosophy which is the Quranic philosophy. And this is the philosophy which is the most beautiful philosophy of jihad ever presented by any religion in the world.

If Muslims had stuck to this philosophy, they would not face other religions with a sense of complex and defeatism. They would walk into any region of the world with heads held high up in pride, with a challenge on their lips. Come, find fault with this philosophy. This is our jihad as told to us by the Holy Quran. Number one, jihad initially relates to struggle through or with the help of the Holy Quran. If it is internal, it is called tarbiyah. If it is external, it is called preaching. But no force is employed. When force is permitted, it is only permitted in defense. And it is permitted while you are weak.

So nobody can say that when you gain strength, you start attacking. Yet Allah guarantees and the proof that Allah has permitted and Allah has guaranteed lies in the fact that such people who are indulging in true jihad would positively emerge victorious. No power on earth can then destroy them, however weak they may appear. This is the proof that the permission was from Allah. And this jihad is not only applicable to safeguard Islam, but to safeguard every other religion, mainly the well-known religions of the time as they were at that time and still are, Christianity and retreat into private places of worship.

This is a religion, in fact in this philosophy, all the Buddhist philosophy and Confucius philosophy is mentioned. This is their way of remembering Allah. To get lost to the world and disappear and escape into your own individual hideouts and love and remember Allah there. Or whatever considered deity you have. So these religions, without naming them, have also been mentioned. And the Jewish religion has also been mentioned. This is the philosophy of jihad for which we are committed deeply in every sense.

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