The Truth:
This game involves finding a verse from the Quran that
authorizes fighting in self-defense, and then ignoring others. It is sometimes bolstered by disingenuously slipping in the word
"only" to make it appear as if fighting for Allah is limited by this condition.
The Quran certainly gives Muslims permission to fight in
self-defense, but it is not the only circumstance under which they may take the
lives of others. Fighting
is urged in other places "until all religion is for Allah".
The faithful are told to fight unbelievers who offer
resistance to Islamic rule until they are subjugated.
The myth of killing only in
self-defense is easily disproven from the accounts of Muhammad’s own life.
His career of violence began with raids on merchant caravans traveling between Syria
and Mecca. His men would sneak up on unsuspecting drivers and kill
those who defended their goods. There was no self-defense involved (on the part of the Muslims, at least). This was old-fashioned armed robbery and murder – sanctioned by Allah
(according to Muhammad, who also demanded a fifth of the loot for himself).
The first true battle that Muhammad fought was at Badr, when a Meccan army of 300 was
sent out to protect the caravans from Muslim raids. The Meccans did not
threaten Muhammad, and (turning this Muslim myth on its ear) only fought in
self-defense after they were attacked by the Muslims. Following the
battle, Muhammad established the practice of executing surrendered captives –
something that would be repeated on many other occasions.
The
significance of this episode can hardly be overstated, because it set in motion
a long chain of Muslim violence that eventually passed through the heart of America on 9/11. The early Muslims
were
not being threatened by those whom they attacked, and certainly not by those
whom they had captured. They staged aggressive raids to eventually provoke
war, just as al-Qaeda attempts to do in our time.
Muslims try
to justify Muhammad's violence by claiming that he and his followers
“suffered persecution” at the hands of the Meccans in earlier episodes. It is true that Muhammad was evicted from the city of Mecca and had to seek refuge at
Medina. But even the worst of this persecution
did not rise to the level
of killing. Nor were Muhammad and his
Muslims in any danger in their new home at Medina. They were free
to get on with their lives.
Even
Muhammad’s own men evidently questioned whether they should be pursuing and
killing people who did not pose a threat to them, since it seemed to contradict
earlier, more passive teachings. To convince them, Muhammad passed along a
timely revelation from Allah stating that “the persecution of Muslims is
worse than slaughter [of non-Muslims]” (Sura 2:191). This verse
established the tacit principle that the authority of Muslims is of higher value
than the very lives of unbelievers. There is no larger context of morality
against which acts are judged. All that matters is how an event
impacts or benefits Muslims who follow Islam.
Under
Muhammad, slaves and poets were
executed, captives were
beheaded and adulterers
were put into the ground and stoned. None of
this was during the
heat of battle or necessitated by self-defense.
In addition to the Quran's instruction of violence against unbelievers and non-practicing Muslims (Sura 9), Islamic law
mandates death for certain crimes such as blasphemy and apostasy. How does killing a blasphemer, an adulterer or someone who leaves Islam qualify as self defense?
Following
his death, Muhammad’s companions stormed the Christian world - taking the Middle
East, North Africa and parts of Europe. They attacked and conquered to the
east as well, including Persia, Central Asia, and the Indian
sub-continent. Few, if any, of these campaigns involved even the pretense of
self-defense. They were about Jihad.
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