stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
... It basically boils down to "only fight those who fight you" and "if they stop fighting, you stop"....
When I summarized the Qur'an, I addressed this as follows:
For Mohamed to order military action "in the cause of God", he was faced with being able to claim that a clearly offensive strike would be justified and in compliance with God's wishes. The Qur'an would therefore have to supply him with two revelations that were not so much as hinted at in all previous surahs - a direct command to fight, and moral justification for taking lives. To that end, the following two verses were conveniently revealed:
- 2:190 "Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors".
- 2:191 "And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression (fitnah) are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith".
Verse 190 provided the order to fight, but only in self defense, which by itself did not justify an attack against the pagans as there is no indication in the Qur'an that any Muslims had been killed. Therefore, Mohamed could not accuse them of being "those who fight you". He immediately solved that problem in 191 by providing a work-around that moves the goal posts in such a vague and open-end manner as to designate virtually any unbeliever an enemy. It breaks down as follows:
- "And slay them wherever ye catch them", removed any doubt that blood-letting had been introduced to Islam.
- "and turn them out from where they have turned you out", is a clear reference to Mohamed's claim that he was forced to flee Mecca.
- "for tumult and oppression (fitnah) are worse than slaughter", introduced 'fitnah' as a catch-all crime against Islam that, in the space of one verse, effectively dropped self defense to second place as a reason to make war.
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