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Jihad and Human Rights Today
An active ideology incompatible with universal standards of freedom
and equality.
By Bat Yeor
Human rights and the concept of jihad are two incompatible ideas. In
Judeo-Christian societies, the concept of human rights is based on the
biblical interdiction against killing, and the equality of all human beings.
Though it has religious roots, this notion of human rights evolved mainly
from the 19th century in a secular European and American framework. It
then acquired a universal character, proclaiming the equality of all human
beings and the inviolability of their natural human rights. But it was
only after World War II that this concept became the core of an international
legal system, as a tool to prevent political abuses and to protect civil
populations from genocidal policies.
Other major civilizations including the Chinese, Hindu,
and Islamic have also conceived legal systems which protect the
rights of their citizens. However, in the Islamic case, specifically,
the 54 Muslim countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
have conceived their own human-rights charter, contained in the 1990 Cairo
Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.
This document states in its preamble, and in articles 24 and 25, that
all its provisions are in conformity with the sharia, the religious Islamic
law, which has primacy. Moreover, it proclaims that God has made the Islamic
community (umma) the best nation and, hence, its role is to guide humanity.
We can see here the differences between the Cairo Declaration and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which does not refer to any religion
or to the superiority of any group over another, but stresses the absolute
equality of all human beings.
The institution of jihad belongs to a religious, Islamic domain, outside
the realm of Western universalism and secularism. These two domains do
not meet. Secular laws can be changed, abrogated, or ameliorated, but
jihad regulations are believed to express divine commands. By definition,
human beings can neither discuss nor scrutinize the divine will, and so
those jihad obligations attributed by the theologians to Allah place
jihad in the domain of faith. I would like to emphasize strongly that
jihad is a special domain of Islamic law. Not all Muslims know it, and
many reject its ideology. It would be a great mistake to believe that
each and every Muslim identifies with the jihad-war ideology.
The ideology of jihad was formulated by leading Muslim theologians and
scholars from the 8th century onward. Their voluminous writings make clear
the notion of jihad as a holy war of conquest. Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani
(d. 966), for example, stated,
Jihad is a precept of Divine institution... We Malikis [one of four
schools of Muslim jurisprudence] maintain it is preferable not to begin
hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace
the religion of Allah, except where the enemy attacks first. They have
the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax
(jizya), short of which war will be declared against them...
Jihad ideology separates humanity into two hostile blocs: the community
of Muslims (Dar ul-Islam), and the infidel non-Muslims (Dar ul-Harb).
Allah commands the Muslims to conquer the entire world in order to rule
it according to Koranic law. Hence Muslims must wage a perpetual war against
those infidels who refuse to submit. This is the motivation for jihad.
It is based on the inequality between the community of Allah and the infidels,
as was re-emphasized in the Cairo Declaration. The first is a superior
group, which must rule the world; the second must submit. The current
relevance of this ideology is apparent, and disturbing.
For example, Al-Muhajiroun, an Islamist newspaper in London, published
an article on January 27, 2001, which declared:
Upon the establishment of the Islamic State, the whole world will
potentially be Dar ul Harb since the foreign policy of the Islamic state
is aimed at conquering the world... Once the Islamic State is established
anyone in Dar ul Harb will have no sanctity for his life or wealth hence,
a Muslim in such circumstances can then go into Dar ul Harb and take
the wealth from the people unless there is a treaty with that state.
If there is no treaty, individual Muslims can even go to Dar ul Harb
and take women to keep as slaves.
Such an attitude assumes that the infidels have no rights and are totally
dehumanized. It breeds hatred and contempt and has led to historical negationism,
and the destruction of non-Muslim cultures. Moreover, such views are not
confined to the most radical Islamists. They were confirmed in the Proceedings
of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research, held in 1968
(General Organization for Government Printing Offices, Cairo, 1968), and
regularly since then by eminent Islamic scholars. These authoritative
pronouncements have recapitulated the theory of jihad in a manner completely
consistent with the Al-Muhajiroun statements.
The theory of jihad against the infidels is composed of two parts: the
ideology, and the military institutions aimed at implementing this ideology.
According to these rules the infidels without a treaty have no rights
at all: they can be deported, reduced to slavery, abducted for ransom,
or killed. Women and children can be taken into slavery. Infidels can
be spared by a temporary treaty which should not go beyond ten years.
The treaty must conform to Islamic rule and serve Islamic interests, hence
a ransom should be paid. The infidels who submit to Islamic rulers are
given a pledge of security against the rules of jihad, so long as they
accept a condition of humiliation, and of total inferiority to Muslims.
Jihad is therefore a genocidal war, according to the modern definition
of genocide. It encourages terrorism against civilians and does not differentiate
between innocent civilians and soldiers. All infidels without a treaty
of protection can be killed. Jihad does not recognize universal human
rights, for there is no equality between Muslims and infidels, and no
reciprocity between Muslims and infidels in legal matters. Jihad warriors
do not accept that either the Geneva Conventions or the conventional rules
of war have any validity for them.
Jihadists have associated the notion of a reward in paradise with the
practice of killing infidels. Killing at war was, and still is, practiced
by all societies. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, wars, because they
imply the acts of killing, are hateful and peace is praised. In the jihadist
ideology, it is war that is praised, along with the killing of the infidels.
Tragically, jihad ideology will not disappear soon. It is shaping the
minds of a generation of young Muslims in many countries. Jihad ideology
is a well-constructed system, created after the death of the prophet Mohammed.
It has remained alive and well since then except under secularized Muslim
governments like that of Turkey, after the Kemalist revolution. It is
delusional and dangerous to maintain that this ideology is rooted in social
deprivation, backwardness, injustice, or despair. Moreover, paying subsidies
to suspend global jihad terrorism is tantamount to paying a tribute to
terrorist states, and buying one's own peace and security as temporarily
ransomed privileges instead of living by the principles of universal
human rights, which proclaim the inviolability of every human being. Societies
that pay a tribute to survive are destined to disappear.
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