Islam’s war doctrines ignored
May 29th, 2008 by MESH
From Raymond Ibrahim
At the recent inaugural conference for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), presenter LTC Joseph Myers made an interesting point that deserves further elaboration: that, though military studies have traditionally valued and absorbed the texts of classical war doctrine—such as Clausewitz’s On War, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, even the exploits of Alexander the Great as recorded in Arrian and Plutarch—Islamic war doctrine, which is just as if not more textually grounded, is totally ignored.
As recent as 2006, former top Pentagon official William Gawthrop lamented that “the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered.”
This is more ironic when one considers that, while classical military theories (Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, et al.) are still studied, the argument can be made that they have little practical value for today’s much changed landscape of warfare and diplomacy. Whatever validity this argument may have, it certainly cannot be applied to Islam’s doctrines of war; by having a “theological” quality, that is, by being grounded in a religion whose “divine” precepts transcend time and space, and are thus believed to be immutable, Islam’s war doctrines are considered applicable today no less than yesterday. So while one can argue that learning how Alexander maneuvered his cavalry at the Battle of Guagamela in 331 BC is both academic and anachronistic, the same cannot be said of Islam, particularly the exploits and stratagems of its prophet Muhammad—his “war sunna”—which still serve as an example to modern day jihadists.
For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s 7th century, hijacked planes or WMD by analogy today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or hudna, is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.
Quranic verses 3:28 and 16:106, as well as Muhammad’s famous assertion, “War is deceit,” have all led to the formulation of a number of doctrines of dissimulation—the most notorious among them being the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble whenever they are under the authority of the infidel. Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: “[I]n the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than [the need for] courage” (The Al Qaeda Reader, 142).
Aside from ignoring these well documented Islamist strategies, more troubling is the fact that the Defense Department does not seem to appreciate Islam’s more “eternal” doctrines—such as the Abode of War versus the Abode of Islam dichotomy, which in essence maintains that Islam must always be in a state of animosity vis-à-vis the infidel world and, whenever possible, must wage wars until all infidel territory has been brought under Islamic rule. In fact, this dichotomy of hostility is unambiguously codified under Islam’s worldview and is deemed a fard kifaya—that is, an obligation on the entire Muslim body that can only be fulfilled as long as some Muslims, say, “jihadists,” actively uphold it.
Yet despite all these problematic—but revealing—doctrines, despite the fact that a quick perusal of Islamist websites and books demonstrate time and time again that current and would-be jihadists constantly quote, and thus take seriously, these doctrinal aspects of war, apparently the senior governmental leaders charged with defending America do not.
Why? Because the “Whisperers”—Walid Phares’ all too apt epithet for many Middle East/Islamic scholars, or, more appropriately, apologists—have made anathema anyone who dares imply that there may be some sort of connection between Islamic doctrine and modern-day Islamist terrorism, such as in the recent Steven Coughlin debacle. This is a long and all too well known tale for those in the field (see Martin Kramer’s Ivory Towers on Sand: the Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America).
But consider for a moment: though there are today many Middle East studies departments, one will be sorely pressed to find any courses dealing with the most pivotal and relevant topics of today—such as Islamic jurisprudence and what it has to say about jihad or the concept of Abode of Islam versus the Abode of War—no doubt due to the fact that these topics possess troubling international implications and are best buried. Instead, the would-be student will be inundated with courses dealing with the evils of “Orientalism” and colonialism, gender studies, and civil society.
The greater irony—when one talks about Islam and the West, ironies often abound—is that, on the very same day of the ASMEA conference, which also contained a forthright address by premiere Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis (“It seems to me a dangerous situation in which any kind of scholarly discussion of Islam is, to say the least, dangerous”), the State Department announced that it had adopted the recommendations of a memo stating that the government should not call Al Qaeda-type radicals “jihadis,” “mujahidin,” or to incorporate any other Arabic word of Islamic connotation (“caliphate,” “Islamo-fascism,” “Salafi,” “Wahhabi,” and “Ummah” are also out).
Alas, far from taking the most basic and simple advice regarding warfare—Sun Tzu’s ancient dictum, “Know thy enemy”—the U.S. government is having difficulties even acknowledging its enemy.
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8 Responses to “Islam’s war doctrines ignored”
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Raymond Ibrahim rightly notes the value of LTC Joseph Myers’ presentation at the first annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).
Myers discussed an obscure—to the West, at least—text on Islamic war doctrine: Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik’s The Quranic Concept of War. The book is rarely found in Western military libraries. It has been published in English, but by an Indian publication house (Himalayan Books in New Delhi) in 1986, which may explain its obscurity to the West.
Myers argued that to understand the enemy, we must understand his doctrine and believes Malik’s work may be the one to study. Having read the book (after an almost fruitless search on the internet for it), I would agree in part. It certainly has the ring of authenticity to it, despite—or because of—its similarity to reading classical Soviet literature on war, heavy with ideological and hagiographical references.
But I wonder if we can consider Malik’s work “canonical.” Malik’s Quranic Concept of War is a noble and pure doctrine, limiting what a Muslim warrior can do in war. Sounds good, but which terrorist group abides any of the limitations? A thorough study of this and other works would determine whether Malik’s views are determined more by a desire to ennoble Islam’s war doctrines than by a desire to explicate Islam’s prescriptions for combat. Further, I would like to see whether any non-Pakistani Muslim army has adopted Malik’s work, or even cited it doctrinally. However, the mere mention of Malik’s work is a good starting point and Myers has served us by introducing the text. More study is needed.
But Ibrahim discusses the failure of the United States to give serious attention to Islam’s war doctrines. He also points out a new State Department and Department of Homeland Security mandate publicized on the last day of the conference delimiting the choices of words U.S. officials may use in discussing radical Islam. According to officials, using the words “jihad,” “jihadist,” or “caliphate” somehow legitimizes the radicals; just as, apparently, our having called Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles “strategic” somehow legitimized Soviet weapons.
Ibrahim acknowledges at the end that the United States is having difficulty even acknowledging its enemy. I would add that we may have just crippled ourselves intellectually as well.
Mark T. Clark is a member of MESH.
I must agree with Raymond Ibrahim that there is a desperate need for the study Islamic laws and practices of warfare in the United States, and in the West more generally.
However, I do not agree with his depiction of these—namely, that Islamic law sanctions indiscriminate violence in war against non-Muslims. There are discussions among Muslim jurists about norms of proportionality and discrimination in targeting, and that can be used to refute Al Qaeda jihadists. For example, there is a strong condemnation of killing fellow Muslims and justifying this through the unconstrained use of takfir. There is also discussion about the inviolate status of non-combatants (women and children, the aged and even Christian monks).
These norms, however tenuous or poorly applied in historical practice, can be invoked against Al Qaeda, and a number of Arab countries have now done this to some effect. Michael Hayden, the head of the CIA, has acknowledged recently that Al Qaeda has been defeated in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In my view, this can only have been accomplished through a combination of strong-arm tactics as well as the use of Islamic propaganda that delegitimizes the truth claims of Al Qaeda’s ideologues.
Bernard Haykel is a member of MESH.
Unbeknownst to both commentators, Mark Clark’s and Bernard Haykel’s responses to my posting complement one another; more to the point, the former responds to the latter. First, I am in total agreement with Clark’s appraisal of S.K. Malik’s The Quranic Concept of War. Having just finished reading the book, it is clear that, while revealing and important in some ways, it is also something of a euphemistic interpretation of Islam’s notions of war. To be sure, it does not apologize or lie—that is the territory of the Western, non-Muslim academic—as much as it tries to portray Islam’s war practices and doctrines as noble, almost “humanitarian.”
However, Clark is right to question if Malik’s treatise is “canonical.” It is not. As Clark notes: “Malik’s Quranic Concept of War is a noble and pure doctrine, limiting what a Muslim warrior can do in war. Sounds good, but which terrorist group abides any of the limitations?”
This leads to, or answers, rather, Haykel’s response. Haykel suggests that I believe Islamic law sanctions “indiscriminate violence” against the non-Muslim, and he cites in particular, fellow Muslims, women, children, the elderly, and (the more than moot in today’s era) monks. Now, I never said that, exactly. I wrote that “most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s 7th century, hijacked planes or WMD by analogy today)…” Well, it just so happens that, of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, the only school that appears to categorically ban an attack on those whom Haykel mentions is the Maliki school (as well as the Awza’i school, which, of course, is no longer valid): the three other “orthodox” madhhabs have made their blood halal, if exigency demands so.
And, as Ayman Zawahiri cogently argues (unfortunately), the question of whether women, children, et al, can be killed, was decided upon by the fuqaha when Islam was on the ascendancy, and engaging in offensive warfare; in other words, the question of killing women, children, and the rest was relevant only when Muslims were the aggressors, invading infidel territory. Writes Zawahiri: “But when Muslims are defending their religion and their sanctities, and the infidels are surrounding them from every corner, and instead they [infidels] are the ones ones seeking them out and pursuing them… —in these situations it becomes a binding obligation on every Muslim to fight them anyway he can… [even if] some Muslims might be killed mistakenly” (The Al Qaeda Reader, 168).
As for women and children, there are the troubling—yet canonical (as opposed to Malik’s work)—hadiths that permit their killing: Muhammad authorized his followers to use catapults when he besieged the town of Taif in 630 AD (for nothing less than they would not submit to Islam), though he was aware that women and children were sheltered there. Also, when asked if it was permissible to launch night raids or set fire to the fortifications of the infidels if women and children were among them, the prophet is said to have responded, “They [women and children] are from among them [infidels]” (Muslim B19N4321). These two anecdotes are much more important than all the non-binding “discussions” of the ulema.
In short, just as Clark points out that Malik’s work is, in fact, non-canonical, so too does Haykel’s notion that “There are discussions among Muslim jurists (such as Malik) about norms of proportionality and discrimination in targeting, and that can be used to refute Al Qaeda jihadists” not impress me. Why? Because that’s all they are: discussions—not established precedents, sunna, law. Even Haykel seems to agree with this, as he makes the (somewhat contradictory) statement: “These norms [i.e., Islam’s “noble” war codes], however tenuous or poorly applied in historical practice, can be invoked against Al Qaeda…” If they are tenuous and historically aberrant, what makes them “norms”?
Bottom line: yes, there are Islamic war interpretations that are less radical. However, they are not “canonical,” nor can one expect jihadists to abide by them when they are convinced that they are fighting for Islam’s very existence. Nor are they very relevant when one keeps in mind that one pivotal, binding Islamic doctrine: that total war (whether monks are targeted or not) must persist until Islam dominates the world.
Raymond Ibrahim is a member of MESH.
Raymond Ibrahim’s very interesting post on Islamic doctrines of war deserves careful scrutiny and much praise. He is certainly correct that Western analyses of Islamic doctrines of war are sorely lacking. I think his argument is also important since it demonstrates the importance of thinking about the content of religion as much as religion itself. When people tend to consider whether or not religion influences behavior, like behavior in wartime, they tend to think about it as a binary: either it is on or it is off. However, it is also possible that the content of the religion itself matters, so studying Islamic doctrines concerning war may help us learn important lessons for dealing with Salafi Jihadi groups.
Ibrahim is also correct, at least based on my reading, that Salafi Jihadi groups have read Islamic war doctrines carefully. This debate has some interesting links to the debate over the impact of Sun Tzu on Chinese thinking about warfare. While some scholars argue that Chinese strategists read Sun Tzu to provide justifications for actions they already want to take, others say Sun Tzu’s writings actively influence the way Chinese strategists think about warfare, and some even argue Sun Tzu is irrelevant for thinking about Chinese behavior. One can and should ask similar questions about Jihadis today.
Another interesting analogy is the way that Catholic Christians read Christian doctrine on war during the early Crusading period. Christianity originally began as a religion theoretically predicated on non-violence. However, over time, for a variety of reasons, Christian doctrine on warfare changed so that war became, first, a spiritually neutral act when conducted for the purposes of protecting the Church, and then a positive act for which no apology was necessary and which possibly even conferred spiritual benefits. The texts did not change—only the interpretation. This suggests that there is something else besides doctrine influencing behavior.
Now it is certainly true that Islamic doctrines on war are quite a bit more specific than Christian doctrines, at least in terms of texts considered definitive from a religious perspective. However, this also means that in addition to the question of what the doctrine says, we also need to try to figure out when particular interpretations of doctrine will be activated.
I think the question of terminology is especially interesting. If the State Department is banning the use of terms like Jihadi, etc., is that because of arguments about whether calling Al Qaeda Jihadis legitimizes them under Islamic law? In that case, the motive would be very different than if the term was on the outs because the State Department did not want to offend their sensibilities. I would be interested in hearing from someone with insight on this decision. What will be the new label for the groups “formerly known as Salafi Jihadis”?
Will McCants over at Jihadica has commented on Ibrahim’s post (here), and I agree with much of what he said. For example, it seems cost-benefit analysis is also an important part of Islamic warfare. McCants cites medieval Islamic war doctrines on suicide attacks saying that the benefits must outweigh the costs. Similarly, Martin Kramer, in one of his writings on Hezbollah and their decision-making in Lebanon in the 1980s, cited the declining benefits of suicide attacks as an important reason why Hezbollah abandoned the tactic.
McCants also cites some other things to consider when thinking about the relationship between Islamic doctrine and Islamic warfare practice, including:
• contradictions in classical Islamic writings on war, something Bernard Haykel has already commented on;
• disagreements among today’s Jihadis on tactics; and
• academic studies showing the way organizational and politics also shape behavior, not just Islamic war doctrine.
One book dealing with this issue, in part, is War, Terror & Peace In The Qur’an And In Islam: Insights For Military & Government Leaders, by Timothy Schwartz-Barcott. The book attempts to outline classical Islamic doctrines on war and then “tests” them against the actual behavior of Muslims in war from the classical period through the present.
I would tend to think that doctrine shapes behavior rather than determines behavior. That is to say, it is one input that is useful in predicting the behavior of Jihadis, but certainly not the only one. So Ibrahim is certainly correct in urging us to read and analyze Islamic war doctrines more carefully. However, we also need to be careful that we read those doctrines in context. Ibrahim’s post importantly points out one shortcoming in America’s strategic “education” on the way the Jihadis fight, and I hope it receives a great deal of attention.
Michael Horowitz is a member of MESH.
As noted above, I have already commented on the bulk of Raymond Ibrahim and Bernard Haykel’s exchange yesterday (here). But I wanted to speak to Ibrahim’s follow-up to Haykel’s response.
Ibrahim makes a distinction between Islamic doctrines and Islamic discussions of doctrine. This is not a meaningful distinction. The convoluted discussion is the doctrine, which is why it does not make sense to talk about a coherent Islamic doctrine of warfighting. So when Ibrahim identifies “total war… until Islam dominates the world” as a doctrine, he must know that this “doctrine” is the result of endless discussions, and not a given gleaned from Islamic scripture. He may argue that the ulama are just reflecting what is in the Quran and hadith, but I do not believe any scholar comes to a text without preconceptions of what it should say (which in turn are shaped by earlier interpretations, social influences, etc.) I am not a clean slate and neither is Ibrahim. This is not to say there isn’t rough stuff in the Quran and Sunna; there is. But it is the raw building material for the scholarly architects and engineers.
A final point on which I would like Ibrahim’s response. He seems outraged by the fact that medieval clerics permit collateral damage in warfare. Why?
William McCants is an independent consultant on militant Islamism living in the Washington, D.C. area.
To be brief, William McCants errs by conflating those Islamic aspects that are “airtight” with those many others—such as the status of women and children during a ghazwa—that are not and that are, indeed, open to debate (though as noted, most legal conclusions reached regarding the lot of women and children intermingled with infidels are not very favorable). However, the concept that Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam must constantly be in a state of strife until the latter subsumes the former is hardly a “result of endless discussions, and not a given gleaned from Islamic scripture”—no more than the Five Pillars of Islam are. “Discussion” is necessary only for those questions that are neither clearly forbidden nor clearly obligatory—those many aspects of daily life that end up being labeled either “disliked,” “permissible,” or “recommended” according to Ahkam al-Islam.
The concept that jihad must be waged until the entire globe is governed by Islam, like prayer, fasting, zakat, and the hajj (not to mention the shahada) is an obligation. Well-known jurist, Majid Khadduri, who lived and taught in the United States, after describing the Five Pillars and their individually-binding nature, moves on to jihad, which he reminds us is often called the “Sixth Pillar”: “The jihad, on the other hand—unless the Muslim community is subjected to a sudden attack and therefore all believers, including women and children, are under obligation to fight—is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community.” (From his highly elucidating War and Peace in the Law of Islam, 1955, p. 60.)
As for McCants’ statement regarding Quranic/hadithic exegesis: “I do not believe any scholar comes to a text without preconceptions of what it should say (which in turn are shaped by earlier interpretations, social influences, etc.) I am not a clean slate and neither is Ibrahim.” That’s fine; I partially agree. However, there is no denying that certain Quranic verses (e.g., 2:193, 2:216, 8:39, 9:5, 9:29, let alone hundreds of hadiths) make a clear imprint, even on the tabula rasa. What, I wonder, does 9:29 “mean” to McCants: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Hardly ambiguous, the verse, in effect, declares all-out war. Moreover, the troublesome word “until” (hata) indicates that this is a divine commandment that still applies today, since there are millions of “people of the book” (not to mention al-mushrikin) who are not living in submission to Islam, “feeling themselves subdued.” “Preconceived notions” are hardly needed to understand the Quran’s very plain war verses.
Thus McCants’ somewhat “postmodern” suppositions—there are no absolutes or “truths” in Islam—are false. Yes, somethings, lots of things in Islam require debate and discussions; jihad in order to make the world subject to the sharia of Allah is certainly not one of them—at least not according to the orthodox madhhabs.
As for his final point, that somehow I am “outraged by the fact that medieval clerics permit collateral damage in warfare,” I confess that I am at a loss. Here is the paragraph where I discuss the ulemaic green-light for “collateral damage”: “For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s 7th century, hijacked planes or WMD by analogy today)…”
How does that sound “outraged”?! (Incidentally, the exclamation mark in my question is meant to indicate outrage.)
Raymond Ibrahim is a member of MESH.
I don’t think Raymond Ibrahim’s choice of 9:29 is a good one for bolstering his argument. The Arabic is notoriously vague, as the parenthetical “even if they are” indicates. He might have used 4:34 instead.
I agree that most medieval scholars believed that jihad against the infidel was obligatory until the whole world was under the political rule of Islam. But I stand by my assertion that this doctrine developed over time and is not obvious from the Quran. There are some verses that support this sentiment and lots of verses that contradict it, which is why the doctrine of abrogation and even Muhammad’s biography had to be developed in order to make sense of the contradictions.
Let’s leave aside the question of whether or not there are obvious doctrines to be gleaned from the Quran and hadith. It was a small part of my larger point that studying Islamic doctrines of warfare—an extremely valuable enterprise—will not help us predict what Jihadis will do. What does Ibrahim make of the rest of my arguments in this regard?
Finally, I seem to have misunderstood the tone of his initial post and his follow-up to Haykel’s comment. When he wrote about the “troubling” implications of Islamic doctrines of warfare for international relations or the “troubling” hadiths that permit the killing of women and children, I thought he was saying that they bothered him or should bother others. My bad.
William McCants is an independent consultant on militant Islamism living in the Washington, D.C. area.
To anyone remotely interested in this increasingly pedestrian debate with William McCants, here goes:
1. There is nothing ambiguous about 9:29—at least not to native Arabic speakers. Responding to a critic, not writing an original piece for an audience—i.e., merely trying to get the point across—I simply copied and pasted that Quranic verse without providing my own translation. To be sure, the “even if they are” does not belong there, and the Arabic simply says “fight those … from the people of the book…” In the words of McCants, “My bad.”
2. No, I don’t believe that studying Islam’s doctrines of war will lead to omniscience in regards to the jihadists’ every move, as they are not automatons. Still, I think that classes dealing with Islam’s war doctrines would be extremely relevant and useful, and, on an intellectual and strategic level, a strike against Islamists.
In closing, I’d like to thank all who opined—pro and con—as meaningful debate is always welcome.
Raymond Ibrahim is a member of MESH.
This discussion thread is now closed. —MESH Admin