A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 12/130
[Sidenote: 130. The untenable theories of the Common Law and conclusion.]
It is only a theory of our Common Law, in its military and political chapters, which allow waging unprovoked war with non-Moslems, exacting tribute from "the people of the Book," and other idolaters, except those of Arabia, for which the Hanafi Code of the Common Law has nothing short of conversion to Islam or destruction by the sword. As a rule, our canonical legists support their theories by quotations from the Mohammadan Revealed Law, i.e., the Koran, as well as from the Sonnah, or the traditions from the Prophet, however absurd and untenable may be their process of reasoning and argumentative deductions. In this theory of waging war with, and exacting tribute or the capitation-tax from, the non-Moslem world, they quote the 9th and other Suras. These verses have been copied and explained elsewhere in this book. The casuistic sophistry of the canonical legists in deducing these war theories from the Koran is altogether futile. These verses relate only to the wars waged by the Prophet and his followers purely in their self-defence. Neither these verses had anything to do with waging unprovoked war and exacting tributes during Mohammad's time, nor could they be made a law for future military conquest. These were only temporary in their operations and purely defensive in their nature. The Mohammadan Common Law is by no means divine or superhuman. It mostly consists of uncertain traditions, Arabian usages and customs, some frivolous and fortuitous analogical deductions from the Koran, and a multitudinous array of casuistical sophistry of the canonical legists. It has not been held sacred or unchangeable by enlightened Mohammadans of any Moslem country and in any age since its compilation in the fourth century of the Hejira. All the Mujtahids, Ahl Hadis, and other non-Mokallids had had no regard for the four schools of Mohammadan religious jurisprudence, or the Common Law.