Pacifism in Islam
Encyclopedia
Quran
In the Islamic telling of Cain and AbelCain and Abel
In the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....
, Abel tells his murderous brother that "If thou dost stretch thy hand against me to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee: for I do fear Allah". Some scholars, such as Jawdat Said
Jawdat Said
Jawdat Said is an Islamic scholar, of Circassian descent, who belongs to the School of the famous Islamic thinkers professor Malek Bennabi and Muhammad Iqbal.- Biography :...
, have identified this as the beginning of the traditions of pacifism and non-violence.
Prior to the Hijra
Hijra (Islam)
The Hijra is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Alternate spellings of this Arabic word are Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira, the latter following the spelling rules of Latin.- Hijra of Muhammad :In September 622, warned of a plot to...
travel, the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
struggled non-violently against his oppressors in Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
. It wasn't until after the exile that the Quranic revelations began to adopt a more militant perspective. From that point onward, those dubious about the need to go to war were typically portrayed as lazy cowards allowing their love of peace to become a to them.
Harun Yahya has suggested that the Quran demonstrates that war is an "unwanted obligation which has to be absolutely carried out with strict observance of particular humane and moral values and resorted only when it is inevitable".
History
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
has traditionally tended more towards interpreting love of fellow men as an extension of love for Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
, and thus been historically seen as the most peaceful. Though Sufis put greater emphasis on spiritual struggle, or Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
, they do not reject military struggle in toto. For instance, in the 19th century the Naqshbandi Imam Shamil
Imam Shamil
Imam Shamil also spelled Shamyl, Schamil, Schamyl or Shameel was an Avar political and religious leader of the Muslim tribes of the Northern Caucasus...
fought a Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
against the Russians in Caucasus, while the Qadiri Emir Abd al-Qadir led the Algerian resistance against the french.
Similar to Just War
Just War
Just war theory is a doctrine of military ethics of Roman philosophical and Catholic origin, studied by moral theologians, ethicists and international policy makers, which holds that a conflict ought to meet philosophical, religious or political criteria.-Origins:The concept of justification for...
theory, Muslim scholars have typically tried to set rules limiting warfare, including that it must be waged with good intention, only caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
s can declare a war, and that non-combatants should be spared unless directly aiding the enemy.
In 19th-century Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, Amadou Bamba
Amadou Bamba
Ahmadou Bamba, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké , was a Muslim Sufi religious leader in Senegal and the founder of the large Mouride Brotherhood Ahmadou Bamba, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké (1853-1927) (Aamadu Bamba Mbàkke in Wolof, Shaykh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb Allāh also known as Khadīmu...
founded the Mouride brotherhood, a sect of Islam dominated by his "profoundly pacifist" teachings.
There have been many cases of Muslims, whether or not totally pacifist, engaging in nonviolent action. Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India...
, a contemporary colleague of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, helped lead the Pathan
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
s in non-violent resistance of British rule. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1985. Upon his death, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, both sides declared a ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
to allow his burial to pass peacefully. In Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, the 1979 Islamic revolution was the result of a popular nonviolent campaign of civil resistance
Civil resistance
The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...
which had started in 1977. There have been many other movements of nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
(also often called civil resistance
Civil resistance
The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...
in Islamic societies.
Recent movements
Some scholars, such as Bawa MuhaiyaddeenBawa Muhaiyaddeen
Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was a saintly Tamil-speaking teacher and Sufi mystic from the island of Sri Lanka who first came to the United States on October 11, 1971 and established the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship in Philadelphia...
, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, also known as Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was a Sudanese religious thinker, leader, and trained engineer. He was executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by regime of Gaafar Nimeiry....
and Kamil Husain have tried to re-visit the Quran and Sunnah
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...
and apply a pacifist undertone. Taha managed this by arguing that the Medinan suras of the Quran, the only ones dealing with warfare and legalism, were valid only pertaining to the Prophet himself, and the Meccan sura
Meccan sura
The Meccan suras are the chronologically earlier suras of the Qur'an that were, according to Islamic tradition, revealed anytime before the Hijrah . The other type of sura is the Madinan sura....
s were the only ones intended to guide future generations.
Movements headed by Said Nursî
Said Nursî
Bediuzzaman Said Nursî ,commonly known as Bediüzzaman , which means "The Wonder of the Age" was a Muslim scholar who wrote the Risale-i Nur Collection, a body of Qur'anic commentary exceeding six thousand pages. . He was born in Nurs, a village in the Ottoman Bitlis Province in eastern Anatolia. He...
and Fethullah Gülen
Fethullah Gülen
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish preacher, author, educator, and Sufi Muslim scholar living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania . He is the founder and leader of the Gülen movement...
emphasized the need for religious dialogue, education and service to the poor as the backbone of Islam.
The Palestinian activist Nafez Assaily
Nafez Assaily
Nafez Assaily , born in 1956 in the West Bank, in the Old City of Jerusalem grew up in Hebron, and is a noted Palestinian peace activist.- Life and activism :...
has been notable for his bookmobile
Bookmobile
A bookmobile or mobile library is a large vehicle designed for use as a library. It is designed to hold books on shelves so that when the vehicle is parked the books can be accessed by readers. It usually has enough space for people to sit and read books inside. Mobile libraries are often used to...
service in Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
dubbed "Library on Wheels for Nonviolence and Peace", and hailed as a "creative Muslim exponent of non-violent activism".
Ahmadiyya
According to the AhmadiyyaAhmadiyya
Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious revivalist movement founded in India near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as...
understanding of Islam, pacifism is a strong current, and jihad is one's personal inner struggle and should not be used violently for political motives. Violence is the last option only to be used to protect religion and one's own life in extreme situations of persecution. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad was a religious figure from India and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Community. He claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah , and the Mahdi awaited by the Muslims in the end days...
, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, said that in contrary to the current views, Islam does not allow the use of sword in religion, except in the case of defensive wars, wars which are waged to punish a tyrant or those which are meant to uphold freedom.
Ahmadiyya claims its objective to be the peaceful propagation of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
with special emphasis on spreading the true message of Islam by the pen. Ahmadis point out that as per prophecy, who they believe was the promised messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, rendered the concept of violent jihad unnecessary in modern times. They believe that the answer of hate should be given by love.