Dr. Mark Durie is vicar of St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Caulfield, Melbourne, Australia. He is fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and the author of Revelation? Do We Worship the Same God? Jesus, Holy Spirit, God in Christianity and Islam.

Reading the Qur’an poses various challenges. There is, for a start, the thorny problem of context. The Qur’an gives little help with this: it does not mark off specific passages one from another, and its 114 chapters (suras) are not laid out in chronological order.

The keys to unlocking the context for individual passages of the Qur’an can be found in the life of Muhammad, the Sunnah. The sources for the Sunnah are the traditions (hadiths), of which Sunnis recognize six canonical collections and biographies of Muhammad (sira literature). Although the volume of this material is considerable, it is now largely available in English translation, much of it on the Internet.

It is self-evident that some Qur’anic verses encourage violence. Consider for example a verse which implies that fighting is “good for you”: “Fighting is prescribed upon you, and you dislike it. But it may happen that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. And Allah knows and you know not” (2:216).

On the other hand, it is equally clear that there are peaceful verses as well: “Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious” (16:125).

Resolving apparently contradictory messages presents one of the central interpretative challenges of the Qur’an. Muslims do not agree today on how best to address this. For this reason alone it could be regarded as unreasonable to claim that any one interpretation of the Qur’an is the correct one.

Nevertheless, a consensus developed very early in the history of Islam about this problem. This method relies on a theory of stages in the development of Muhammad’s prophetic career. It also appeals to a doctrine known as abrogation, which states that verses revealed later can cancel out or qualify verses revealed earlier.

The classical approach to violence in the Qur’an was neatly summed up in an essay on jihad in the Qur’an by Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Hamid, former chief justice of Saudi Arabia: “So at first ‘the fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory: (1) against those who start ‘the fighting’ against you (Muslims); (2) and against all those who worship others along with Allah.”2

At the beginning, in Muhammad’s Meccan period, when he was weaker and his followers few, passages of the Qur’an encouraged peaceful relations and avoidance of conflict: “Many of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) wish that they could turn you away as disbelievers. But forgive and overlook, till Allah brings his command” (2:109).

Later, after persecution and emigration to Medina in the first year of the Islamic calendar, authority was given to engage in warfare for defensive purposes only: “Fight in the path of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for God does not love transgressors” (2:190).

As the Muslim community grew stronger, and conflict with its neighbors did not abate, further revelations expanded the license for waging war, until in Sura 9, regarded as one of the last chapters to be revealed, it is concluded that war against non-Muslims could be waged more or less at any time and in any place to extend the dominance of Islam.

Sura 9 distinguished idolaters, who were to be fought until they converted, from “People of the Book” (Christians and Jews), who were to be given a further option of surrendering and living under Islamic rule while keeping their religion. 9:5, the “verse of the sword,” targets the idolaters: “When the sacred months are past, kill the idolators wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every place of ambush.” 9:29 concerns itself with Christians and Jews: “Fight the People of the Book until they pay the poll tax out of hand, having been humbled.”

The following excerpt from Ibn Kathir (c. 1300–1373), one of the most prominent Qur’anic commentators of all time, whose fourteenth-century commentary is one of the most widely used by Muslims in the West today, illustrates how the doctrine of abrogation can be applied to reconcile the Qur’an’s verses:

But forgive and overlook (2:109) was abrogated by the verse kill the idolators (9:5), and Fight [the People of the Book] (9:29).3

Allah’s pardon for the disbelievers was repealed. It was abrogated by the verse of the sword. The verse till Allah brings His command gives further support for this view. The Messenger of Allah and his Companions used to forgive the disbelievers and the People of the Book, just as Allah commanded until Allah allowed fighting them. Then Allah destroyed those who he decreed to be killed.

The resulting doctrine of war has been elaborated by numerous Muslim scholars, including the great medieval philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), who like the Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti, adhered to the “three option” theory: “To discuss or argue with them is not up to us. It is for them to choose between conversion to Islam, payment of the poll tax, or death.”4

While a few brave individual Muslims in the modern day have called for the earlier, more peaceful verses of the Qur’an to be given priority over the later,5 more violent ones, such a call has received little support from the centers of Islamic authority in the Muslim world. Until such time as this approach to the Islamic sacred texts asserts itself, it will always be possible for the old program of military expansion to be resumed if and when it becomes practical to do so. The question of both the Qur’an and the life of Muhammad serving as triggers for violence needs to be openly discussed by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, without them becoming the target of intimidation, and subjected to accusations of ignorance, incompetence, or racism.

Footnotes:
1
This article represents an edited version of a longer article, see Mark Durie, “Does the Qur’an Incite Violence?” Melbourne Anglican, November 6, 2006, https://www.melbourne.anglican.com.au/main.php?pg=news&news_id=2014&s=1041(accessed April 27, 2007).

2
Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Hamid, “Jihad in the Qur’an and Sunnah,” Allaahuakbar.net, http://www.allaahuakbar.net/jihaad/jihad_in_qur’an_and_sunnah.htm (accessed April 27, 2007).

3
Italics added for emphasis.

4
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. F. Rosenthal, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

5
See Kairos Journal article, “Liberal Islam Speaks Out: The St. Petersburg Declaration.”

article adapted from Kairos Journal

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