ETHICS IN ISLAM

(BHM 4053)
CHAPTER 8:
ISLAMIC THEOLOGIES OF
NONVIOLENCE

by
DR. NIK SAFIAH NIK ABDULLAH
 8.1 INTRODUCTION
 Islam has never abjured the notion of war, and the Qur’an allows self-protection.
Similarly, there are a number of instances of the Prophet Muhammad taking up
arms. But the wars sanctioned by the religion and its texts are of a defensive nature
when the religion and its followers are under attack. The primacy of peace is
emphasized.
 Comparative religion expert J. Patout Burns asserts that there is nothing in Islam
holding back its adherents from taking the path of nonviolence. “Every religion
can foster either violence or nonviolence,” affirms nonviolence proponent
Professor Muhammad Abu-Nimer. “It is the responsibility of those who follow a
particular faith to cull those resources for nonviolence from their religious
scriptures.”
 Muslim nonviolence scholar K. G. Saiyidain asserts that the core of Islam is
nonviolence and that even if there are circumstances in which Islam contemplates
the possibility of war, the essential thing in life according to Islam is peace.
 In selecting the representatives as Muslim theologians of nonviolence, the
increasing numbers of Muslims who advocate nonviolence bears witness to the
contemporary relevance of this topic, both within Muslim circles and in broader
nonviolent advocacy and interfaith contexts.
8.2 KHAN ABDUL GHAFFAR “BADSHAH” KHAN (1890 – 1988)

 Under British colonial rule Khan was first an Indian Muslim, then, after Partition in
1947, a Pakistani. He was part of Gandhi’s movement for Indian self-rule and was most
active at the time of the Indian independence movement.
 Abdul Ghaffar Khan led a movement of peaceful civil disobedience, was imprisoned
by the British, and saw his followers, called Khudai Khidmatgars (servants of God)
killed even as they faced armed British soldiers unarmed and non-violently.
 This movement was initially founded to enjoin social and economic uplift among the
Pathans. It then became a formal ally of the Congress Party and Gandhi. Due to his
activities, the British exiled Khan in 1934. Later the Pakistan state imprisoned him for
supporting Pashtun nationalism and he lived in quasi exile in Afghanistan during much
of the 1960s up to the 1980s.
 In terms of his ideas, while primarily an activist, Khan saw nonviolence as an Islamic
approach that was resonant with the satyagraha ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. He tried to
demonstrate that the greatest figures in Islamic history were known more for their
forbearance and self-restraint than their fierceness (Pal, 102). He advocated a peaceful
and tolerant approach to interpreting Islam, advocating patience as a primary virtue and
the conviction that Islam is based on selfless service, faith, and love.
 8.3 MAHMOUD MOHAMMED TAHA (1890 – 1985)

 Taha was a traditional Sudanese religious scholar who was executed by the
military dictator Gafaar Nimeiri in 1985 on the basis that he had apostatized. In his
native Sudan Taha initiated a socio-religious movement, the Sudanese Republican
Brothers. His ideas have been publicized through translation and continued by his
students, including Sudanese-American Muslim scholar Abdullah Na’im.

 In his major work The Second Message of Islam, Taha puts forward his main thesis
regarding how Islam should be interpreted in a more flexible and compassionate
way. According to Taha, the Qur’an contained two messages revealed respectively
during the Prophet’s career in Mecca (610-622) and Medina (622-632). Islamic
jurists developed a principle of abrogation (naskh) which prioritized the authority
of later (Medinan) verses over earlier Meccan ones. In fact, the Medinan verses
contain many more specific injunctions since the role of the Prophet there was as
political leader and arbiter of disputes as well as religious guide.
 8.3 MAHMOUD MOHAMMED TAHA (1890 – 1985)
(Cont.)

 Taha, however, places emphasis on the more universal Meccan messages. He held
that the shariʿa in its ideal form should be able “to evolve, assimilate the
capabilities of individual and society, and guide such life up the ladder of
continuous development”. In fact, it is the Meccan verses that should form the
“basis of the legislation” for modern society.

 This response follows the Muslim modernist tactic of promoting the spirit of Islam
over literal and specific rules in order to provide a framework for religious
freedom, social justice and gender and economic equality. Taha also had extensive
background in Sufism which may have formed some of the background to his
promotion of nonviolence.

 In terms of nonviolence specifically, Taha invoked the example of Muhammad at

Mecca where his technique was persuasion. He observed that the warfare of later
periods was expedient for that time, but in the present era jihad by taking up arms
should be replaced by persuasion alone.
 8.4 WAHIDUDDIN KHAN OF NEW DELHI INDIA

 Wahiduddin Khan is a traditionally trained Muslim scholar who for a time was
associated with the Islamist Jamaat-i Islami movement, but later forged his own,
more liberal, interpretations of Islamic thought. He is a prolific writer and operates
a small intellectual center, al-Risala, in New Delhi, India.
 Wahiduddin Khan advocates nonviolence as an Islamic value. Central to his
project is a re-evaluation of jihad and the whole system of political Islam or the
caliphate (khilafa).
 In fact Wahiduddin Khan argues that all of the greatest successes of Islam were
achieved by nonviolent methods. His primary example is the Prophet’s life.
 Wahiduddin Khan states that of the 23-year period of his prophethood, during the
initial 13 years, when Muhammad was in Mecca, the Prophet adopted nonviolence.
When the Meccans became threatening and belligerent against him and his
followers, the Prophet chose to immigrate to Medina, which Khan considers to be
a form of nonviolent activism. Only when the Meccans unilaterally waged war
against Muhammad, the battles of Badr and Uhud took place.
 8.4 WAHIDUDDIN KHAN OF NEW DELHI INDIA
(Cont.)

 Khan points out how the Prophet made a 10-year treaty called the “Peace of al-
Hudaybiyah”, accepting all the conditions of his opponents. This peace treaty
paved the way for peaceful, constructive activities. Therefore, it is possible to say
that the Prophet had actively engaged in war for a total of a day and a half during
his entire career, and otherwise observed the principle of nonviolence throughout
his 23-year prophetic mission.
 Khan further distinguished between jihad and qital. Unlike active warfare (qital),
he portrays jihad as a psychospiritual phenomenon involving continuous effort by
individuals to act in concert with qur’anic values of justice, compassion, restraint,
and the quest for peace and ‘reconciliation as best’.
 For Khan, the purpose of jihad is therefore the endeavour to attain and establish
salam, namely peace. Re-visioning jihad, Khan states that it consists of nonviolent
activism. He invokes the Qur’anic verse “perform jihad with this (i.e. the word of
the Quran) most strenuously” (Q 25:52) in order to support this view. Because the
Quran is not a sword or a gun, but rather a book of ideology, Khan concludes
based on this injunction that performing jihad could only mean an ideological
struggle to conquer peoples’ hearts and minds through Islam’s superior philosophy.
 8.5 CHAIWAT SATHA-ANAND (QADER MUHEIDEEN)

 Satha Anand is an academic, a political scientist who, on the basis of observing

practices of conflict resolution among Thai Muslims, developed an Islamic theory
of nonviolence.
 Like Wahiduddin Khan and others, he refocuses jihad away from traditional
militant interpretations concluding that jihad means to stand up to oppression,
despotism, and injustice (whenever it is committed) and on behalf of the oppressed
(whoever they may be).
 In its most general meaning, jihad is an effort, a striving for justice and truth that
need not be violent. Perhaps Satha-Ananda’s most well-known contribution to a
theory of Islamic nonviolence is his eight theses on Muslim Nonviolent Actions.
These are:
1. Violence in Islam is a central moral question.
2. If violence has to be used, it should be governed by the rules of the Qur’an
and Hadith.
3. And if it cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, then it
can’t be used.
 8.5 CHAIWAT SATHA-ANAND (QADER MUHEIDEEN)
(C0nt.)

4. Modern technology, indiscriminate in its use, makes the use of violence in

Islam virtually unacceptable.
5. So, in the modern world, use of violence by Muslims is unacceptable.
6. The notion of the fight for justice in Islam is intertwined with the sacredness
of life.
7. Hence to be true Muslims, followers of Islam should engage only in
nonviolent action.
8. And Islam, due to its qualities (such as discipline and sacrifice) described
above offers a lot of rich material for nonviolent action.
 It is clear from these principles, especially number five, that Satha-Anand holds
nonviolence to be the only true option for Muslims today.
 8.6 JAWDAT SAID

 Said is a Syrian Muslim scholar and one of the most prolific Muslim writers on
nonviolence. However, most of his works are in Arabic and have not yet been
translated. He was born in 1931 and graduated from Egypt’s al-Azhar University in
1957. Jawdat Said adopted the doctrine of nonviolence in the 1960s and has been
arrested repeatedly in Syria because of his intellectual and religious positions.
 In the early 2000s, Said worked with a group of young people in Daraya, near
Damascus, to create a civil society movement that focused solely upon the city’s
affairs, including, among others, issues of culture and sanitation. However, the
regime was not tolerant of this move and arrested seven of the activists and
sentenced them each to five years in prison. In 2005, Said co-signed the renowned
“Damascus Declaration,” which became the major umbrella of the Syrian opposition
until the revolution in March 2011.
 The Doctrine of the First Son of Adam or The Problem of Violence in the Islamic
Action is Said’s most prominent book, written after his first arrest in 1966. Said
subsequently authored more than twelve books dedicated to the doctrine of
nonviolence and the reconsideration of the Qur’anic text from the perspective of
nonviolence
 8.6 JAWDAT SAID (Cont.)

 Based on the Adam story, Said posits a fundamental conflict between science and
violence. In Surah 2, verses 30-33, the angels protest God’s decision to put a human
representative on earth since humans will do nothing but create trouble and spill
blood. In response, God teaches Adam “all things and their names.” Said understands
this passage symbolizing the contrast between science or a rational approach and
violence by drawing out the language of the qur’anic verses. Thus this reflects the
opposition between “naming names” and “creating trouble and spilling blood”.
 Said does, however, allow some recourse to violence in limited situations as implied
in the case of the following qur’anic passage:
If two parties among the believers fall into a quarrel, make ye peace between them; but
if one of them transgresses beyond bounds against the other, then fight ye against the
one that transgresses until it complies with the command of God; but if it complies,
then make peace between them with justice, and be fair: for God loves those who are
fair and just (49:9).
 This addresses the situation of what to do in the case of violent threats from groups
who resemble the violent secessionist movements that appeared early in Islamic
history.
 8.7 MOHAMMED NIMER, UNITED STATES

 Palestinian American academic and peace-building activist Mohammed Nimer is a

prolific writer on the topic of Islam and nonviolence. He asserts the complete
compatibility between such methods of nonviolence and Islamic values and
beliefs. These instruct the faithful to resist injustice and oppression, to pursue
justice and sabr (patience), to protect the sacredness of human dignity, and to be
willing to sacrifice their lives for this cause. To fulfill and follow such values, the
Islamic approach to nonviolence can only be based on active rejection of and
resistance to zulm (aggression) and injustice.

 Abu-Nimer invokes many episodes in Islamic history that illustrate the use of
nonviolent methods and, like Wahiduddin Khan, he reminds us of Muhammad’s
thirteen years of nonviolent struggle and resistance during the Meccan period when
not a single violent act or expression was used or legitimized by the Prophet or his
early followers, despite severe persecution. Yet at this epoch Muslims were not
merely passive but rather they preached their message and faith and confronted
nonbelievers on a daily basis.
 8.7 MOHAMMED NIMER, UNITED STATES (Cont.)
 Abu Nimer observes that those who reject the Islamic nonviolent approach often
argue that later Muslims fought many battles and chose to defend themselves using
swords and other weapons. But it is important to emphasize that when Muslims used
such weapons or fought such wars, their intentions—and the teachings that guided
them—were not focused on killing or physically eliminating the others. On the
contrary, the objective of the struggle was to defend the faith and pursue justice, to
protect human lives, and to accept death as martyrdom in the cause of God). Within
that context, Caliphs Abu Bakr and Ali preached their famous instructions to their
military forces not to kill older men, women, children, animals, or destroy trees.
 Abu Nimer calls us to consider modern weapons systems and the massive destruction
that even the smallest war now must cause. On this basis it is clear that any violent
act employing such weapons must violate Islamic teachings. In the case of Palestine,
nonviolent resistance provides Muslims with an opportunity and framework to resist
and pursue justice without inflicting physical harm or suffering on the “other”. The
power of Islamic nonviolent resistance is its appeal to the morality and humanity in
every person, even the occupying soldiers. It is human nature to know and discover
what is right and sacred in God’s creation Nimer thus holds that “Islamic nonviolent
methods can ‘force and persuade’ the aggressors through unity and steadfastness in
the just cause.”
 8.7 MOHAMMED NIMER, UNITED STATES (Cont.)
 Such methods, if organized and designed correctly and implemented systematically,
can mobilize far greater segments of the Palestinian people in resisting oppression.
And they can provide the resister, or mujahid, with a sense of power and dignity far
greater than the effect that a suicide bomb leaves in the mind and heart of the same
mujahid or his supporters. Such nonviolent methods can also prevent further
dehumanization of Palestinians and Muslims around the world and convey a more
powerful and sacred Islamic message of resistance.
 Abu Nimer’s framework linking Islam and nonviolence is based on the centrality of
the principle of the pursuit of justice in the building of Islam. As divinely ordained in
the Qur’an, all Muslims have a duty to fight to remove injustice and bring justice in
the different aspects of their life. Abu-Nimer sees in this principle a call for
nonviolent activism in Islam.
 Another principle Abu-Nimer sees as being crucial to his framework is social
empowerment by doing good, both to oneself and to one’s fellow humans. This
second principle acts as an umbrella concept to many other ones, such as the dignity
of all human beings and the sacredness of their lives, equality, compassion,
forgiveness, patience and solidarity. All these concepts, he argues, provide a solid
ground for peace building in Islam.
 8.8 RABIA TERRI HARIS
 Harris, the only female on our list, has degrees in Islamic Studies and teaches in
the United States. She has been strongly influenced by Sufi Islam. She is also an
activist and founder of the Muslim Peace Fellowship on whose website we find the
following declaration: “The Arabic term for nonviolence as a life decision is Islam;
the Arabic term for nonviolence as a method is jihad; The Arabic term for the
principle underlying both aspects of nonviolence is tawhid, the affirmation of the
unity of God”.

 Harris critiques certain contemporary Islamic just war theorists, who draw
analogies “between the suffering Muslim peoples of today and the beleaguered and
vulnerable community around the Prophet. These theorists attempt, therefore, to
re-analyze the Prophet’s successful jihad to find those key political and strategic
insights which will once again liberate the oppressed. They hope thus to restore to
Islamic nations that life of dignity and meaning which is encapsulated in the phrase
‘the sovereignty of God”.
 8.8 RABIA TERRI HARIS (Cont.)
 Harris critiques this Islamist move as not fitting the current situation for multiple
reasons:
This [call for violent resistance] may mean pressuring present-day Muslims to
more closely approximate the image of those Muslims who were liberated long
ago—thus producing real oppression for the sake of an imagined liberation. Or it
may mean redefining “the enemy” to signify something the Prophet never would
have allowed… . Turning to God for the sake of sovereignty and power is different
from turning to God for the sake of God. Do religiously inspired political activists
genuinely seek liberation and godliness, as the Prophet did, or do they only seek a
release from humiliation and a return to empire? Perhaps they themselves are not
sure.
 Thus Harris is criticizing, as does Abu Nimer, the effectiveness of violent
resistance as well as its impact on the perpetrators of violent actions.
 8.9 CONCLUSION
 It seems that arguments by contemporary Muslim theologians are largely
philosophical rather than juridical, for example, they do not engage in the issuing of
formal legal opinions (fatwas). Their preferred methods rather include semantic
analysis of terms and expression of holistic views along the lines of Muslim
modernist evocations of the “spirit” of the texts rather than a literal reading.
 An important tactic of Muslim advocates of nonviolence is a reading of the Prophet’s
life (sira) that emphasizes peace making, especially drawing on the Meccan period
where the method of outreach and interaction was persuasion. Wahiduudin Khan, for
example, notes the limited engagement (one and a half days!) of the prophet in
warring activities. As Ednan Aslan’s contribution to this volume suggests, it is the later
Islamic tradition than glorified battles and armed struggle.
 Among the promises of Islamic theologies of nonviolence are their hopefulness and
their willingness to engage in an internal critique. At the same time we note that the
proponents of nonviolent Islam adopt a “modern” approach that shares strategies
with Islamic liberalism, pluralism, feminism, etc., for example, employing historical
contextual interpretation of sacred texts and pivotal events.
 In summary, there are now proponents of nonviolence within the Islamic tradition
who conclude that there is no theological reason for Muslims not to adopt
nonviolence. In fact, some have concluded that not to adopt nonviolence is
antithetical to Islam.
 THANK YOU

@NSNA2020
Source:
Aslan, E., & Hermansen, M. (2017). Religion and Violence: Muslim and Christian Theological and Pedagogical
Reflections. Germany: Springer VS.