ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Jihad The Holy War of Islam and Its Legitimacy in the Quran Lecture Four: The Question of Abrogation A- Abrogation Our discussions have been about Islamic jihad. Tonight, there are three issues that I wish to speak about, one of which is based on Qur’an, the other based on reason, and the third, based on both Qur’an and history. The issue with the Qur’anic basis is in connection with the verses about jihad.

Before, we had said that some of the verses about jihad are unconditional while others are conditional. Unconditional verses are those where the command to fight the polytheists or the People of the Book has been issued without any conditions and conditional verses are those which have given the command accompanied by special conditions.

For example, it has been stated that we must fight them if they are fighting us, or if they are in a state of war with us, or if we have reason to fear an imminent attack from them.

To the question as to which verses should be observed, the conditional or the unconditional, we say that in the view of the ulama’, there exists no difference of opinion to leave us in doubt, for, if we are aware of the rule and we study both types of verses, we will realize that the conditional verses are explanations of the unconditional ones.

So, according to this, we must get the meaning of jihad from what is explained by the conditional verses, which means that the Qur’anic verses do not recognize any verse about jihad as being obligatory. Yet, some commentators have brought up this issue of abrogation. They agree that many verses of the Qur’an set conditions for fighting against the non-Muslims, but they say that other verses have been revealed that abrogate all those instructions and conditions.

Thus, we come to the issue of abrogations, about that which abrogates and that which is abrogated. Some think that the first verse of Surah at-Tawba - which issues the complete command of jihad and immunity to the polytheists, fixing a period for them to stay in Mecca after which they had to leave and the Muslims were to besiege them in their fortifications and hiding places and kill them, and which, furthermore, was revealed in the ninth year of the Hejira - has in one blow abrogated all the instructions about jihad that were previously revealed.

Is this the correct view? No, this view is incorrect. Why? For two reasons.