WAR AS AN INSTRUMENT TO ACQUIRE POWER — Absolutely Obsolete

WAR AS AN INSTRUMENT TO ACQUIRE POWER The Quran lays down: Fight them until there is no more [religious] persecution, and religion belongs wholly to God: if they desist, then surely God is watchful of what they do. THE QURAN 8: 39 T HIS verse has two parts. The same point is made, first in the form of a negation, and then as an affirmation. The verse indicates that persecution or fitna should be put an end to in such a way that an environment entirely free of persecution is established. The persecution that this verse mentions relates to compulsion in religious matters, which, in ancient times, prevailed all over the world. At that time, monarchy was the norm almost everywhere. The two fundamental bases of power were political position and ownership of land. Generally, both rested in the hands of the monarch. In this way, almost the whole sphere of human life was practically under the monarch’s control. People were even compelled to follow the same religion of their rulers. Communities which have discovered the power of modern institutions have been able to achieve impressive success despite not possessing political power. This sort of coercion was opposed to the scheme of Nature devised by God. Under this coercive system, people could not do anything at all without the monarch’s consent. Ordinary people simply had no freedom whatsoever. The situation was akin to Communist rule under the Soviet Union. God wanted this unnatural system of political coercion to end and for the whole of human life to run according to the natural conditions that He has devised. He wanted people to be free of political coercion. In the early Islamic period, the overthrow of monarchical despotism and its replacement by the Caliphate was the beginning of this process. This Caliphal system was first established in Arabia. At that time, there were two big empires in the region — the Byzantine Empire and the