THE COMMAND OF WAR IN ISLAM

~ 61 ~ and only when avoidance has become impossible, is battle to be resorted to in self-defence. 3. According to the Qur’an, there was one form of war which was time-bound strictly in relation to its purpose. This was to put an end to fitna. ‘Fight against them until fitna is no more.’ (2:193) In this verse fitna signifies that coercive system which had reached the extremes of religious persecution. In ancient times this coercive political system prevailed all over the world. This absolutism had closed all the doors of progress, both spiritual and material. At that time God commanded the believers to break this coercive system in order to usher in freedom, so that all doors of spiritual and material progress might be opened to man. Bringing monarchy to an end and establishing the caliphate in its place in the first phase of Islam was the beginning of this process. The system was first established in Arabia. At that According to the teachings of Islam, war is to be waged not against the enemy but against the aggressor.