A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Introduction/1

by Moulavi Gerágh Ali

[Sidenote: Object of the book.]

1. In publishing this work, my chief object is to remove the general and erroneous impression from the minds of European and Christian writers regarding Islam, that Mohammad waged wars of conquest, extirpation, as well as of proselytizing against the Koreish, other Arab tribes, the Jews, and Christians;^[1] that he held the Koran in one hand and the scimitar in the other, and compelled people to believe in his mission. I have endeavoured in this book, I believe on sufficient grounds, to show that neither the wars of Mohammad were offensive, nor did he in any way use force or compulsion in the matter of belief.

Footnotes

1. "He now occupied a position where he might become the agent for executing the divine sentence, and at the same time triumphantly impose the true religion on those who had rejected it." The Life of Mahomet, by Sir W. Muir, page 211. London, 1877. (New Edition.) "The free toleration of the purer among the creeds around him, which the Prophet had at first enjoined, gradually changes into intolerance. Persecuted no longer, Mohammad becomes a persecutor himself; with the Koran in one hand, and scymitar in the other, he goes forth to offer to the nations the three-fold alternative of conversion, tribute, death."—Mohammed and Mohammedanism, by Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, page 137. Second Edition.