Chapter Eleven

relations with him or them so that dawah work can continue in a balanced manner. Apparent enmity must not be allowed to become a barrier in the way of interaction, because it is through interaction that dawah work continues—and dawah work has the power to turn even enemies into friends. However, the issue of combatants is different from this. Combatants are those who, without provocation, have engaged in physical war against the believers. These people should be dealt with on the basis of emergency principles, or the ethics of war, so much so that one can cut off all relations with them until they desist from war. This is an extremely important difference, which it is necessary to observe in practical life. If the believers do not understand this difference, they might start behaving in the same way with enemies as with combatants. The result of this would be that interests of the Islamic dawah would be hurt and the desirable dawah efforts would stop. One must adopt stern precautionary measures with regard to individuals or groups who launch aggressive war, even abstaining from normal relations with them. But as far as ordinary people are concerned, one should, without considering their apparent friendship or enmity, maintain the same human relations with all of them so that the work of Islamic dawah may continue uninterruptedly and under no condition comes to a halt. Islam clearly teaches us that even in a situation of an actual war one should distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. That is to say, a combatant can be fought, but never a non-combatant. In this regard, it may be argued that this principle was perhaps appropriate as far as war in the ancient past was concerned, but that today wars are fought using bombs and other modern weaponry and systems, and that, therefore, in modern wars it is not possible to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. The answer to this argument is that if such a situation arises that in the course of fighting non-combatants will also be killed,