A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 12/131
[Sidenote: Sura XLVII, 16, and Sura XLVII, 4 and 5.]
Sura XLVIII, 16, is not generally quoted by the canonical legists in support of their theory of Jehád, but by some few. It is not in the shape of a command or injunction; it is in a prophetical tone:—
"Say to those Arabs of the desert who stayed behind, Ye shall be called forth against a people of mighty valour; Ye shall do battle with them, or they shall submit (Yoslemoon)[1]...."
The verses 4 and 5 of Sura XLVII, like all other verses on the subject, appertain to the wars of defence, and no one has ever quoted them for wars of aggression. These verses have already been quoted at page 85. The abolition of the future slavery as enjoined in the 5th verse has been treated separately in Appendix B. The Arabs, like other barbarous nations round them, used either to kill the prisoners of war or to enslave them; but this injunction of the Koran abolished both of these barbarous practices. The prisoners henceforward were neither to be killed nor enslaved, but were to be set at liberty with or without ransom.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ Sir W. Muir, with other European translators of the Koran, translates the word "they shall profess Islam" (The Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 39, footnote). It ought to be translated "they shall submit." There is a difference of opinion among the commentators and canonical legists in this word. Some translate the word Yoslemoon "shall profess Islam," and others "shall submit." This difference in the interpretation of the same word is merely of a sectarian nature, each party wishing to serve their own purpose. Those legists who held that the polytheists and idolaters may either be fought against or be submitted to the authority of Islam by being tributaries, took the word in its proper sense of submission. Those who held that "the people of the Book" ought only to be made tributaries, while all other idolaters and polytheists should be compelled either to perish or to embrace Islam, interpret the word technically to mean the religion of Islam. But as the verse is not a legal command, we condemn at once the casuistic sophistry of the legists.