Chapter Two

Jihad, in essence, is a form of peaceful struggle. One form of this peaceful struggle is dawah, inviting people to tread the path of God. Dawah is communicating to others the word of God (25:52). The jihad that this Quranic verse refers to is not military warfare. Rather, it connotes a wholly intellectual and ideological process. In short, it means refuting falsehood and affirming the Truth. Jihad in the form of qital or war in its primary sense is also another name for peaceful struggle. That is to say, if an enemy challenges one militarily, even then, to begin with, one should still strive, to the utmost possible extent, to respond through peaceful means. Peaceful methods should be abandoned only when it is no longer possible to use them, when fighting remains the only possible option left to respond to the war initiated by others. In this regard, a statement recorded in the Sahih al-Bukhari, and attributed to Aisha, wife of the Prophet, serves as a guiding principle for us. According to this report, whenever the Prophet was faced with two possible courses of action, he would always opt for the easier one. This practice, or sunnat, of the Prophet applies not only to the routine affairs of life but also to serious matters such as war, which by their very nature present difficult options. A study of the life of the Prophet reveals that he never initiated fighting himself. And, whenever his opponents sought to entangle him in fighting, he would always seek some way to avoid it and stave off war. He engaged in war only when there was no other way left at all. Thus, according to the Prophet’s sunnat, aggressive war is forbidden in Islam. Islam allows only for defensive war, and that, too, only when it becomes absolutely unavoidable. In life, one is oftenfaced with the issue of having to choose between two paths to follow: the peaceful and the violent. The accounts of the Prophet’s life tell us that always, and in every matter, he adopted peaceful methods, totally shunning violence.