Malfuzat - Volume VIII — Page 7
2 October 1905 7 Accordingly, the first verse commanding the carrying out of jihad was: 1 َنِذُا َنْيِذَّلِل َنْوُلَتٰقُي ْمُهَّنَاِب اْوُمِلُظ َنِذُا َنْيِذَّلِل َنْوُلَتٰقُي ْمُهَّنَاِب اْوُمِلُظ Meaning that, those who have been wronged are permitted to fight. The Muslims were the oppressed; they were not the insti- gators. On the contrary, the disbelievers of Makkah were the aggressors. Even in this situation, it was only when their trans- gressions reached the point of extremity that Allah the Exalted gave him s as the command to fight back in self-defence. Therefore, the criticism that those battles were for reli- gious reasons is simply frivolous and futile. Had they been undertaken only for the sake of [spreading the] religion, why would they have been abandoned in cases where jizyah [tax on non-Muslim citizens] was given? Furthermore, I say that Christians cannot raise this type of criticism at all. They should assess their own situation whether the Islamic battles are any worse than the Mosaic battles. And since they also believe Jesus to be (God forbid) the God of Moses, peace be on him, the blame for these battles falls upon the Christians according to the prevailing standard, particularly given the situation that those battles were far more fierce and bloody than the Islamic wars. In the Islamic battles, children, women, and the elderly were protected and not killed, but these standards were not adhered to in the Mosaic battles. Similarly, in Islamic wars, religious places of worship and fruit-bearing trees were not destroyed. However, in the Mosaic battles, fruit-bearing trees 1. Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made, because they have been wronged ( S u rah al- H ajj, 22:40). [Publisher]