The Quran and nonviolence - 16 Jan 2009 - By: Jamal - 16 Comments
This is not a fatwa. This is not an informed religious opinion. What this is is an exercise in deductive logic.

Violence to reach political or otherwise ends is forbidden by the Quran, that is if you assume that the Quran is internally consistent, i.e. that one verse will not contradict another.

2:256 states that:

There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.

This raises the question of how to interpret something like:

9:5
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

There's no doubt that taken in isolation, 9:5 could be interpreted to mean that Muslims have the right to kill "idolaters" indiscriminately. However, you can't take it in isolation. Such an interpretation raises at least two problems. First, exactly what is an "idolater?" The question raises a problem with 2:256 which states that "The right direction is henceforth distinct from error."

Can anybody say exactly who's an idolater and who isn't? You can guess, but the answer belongs to God alone, not any human being.

The more glaring problem, however, is that killing someone constitutes "compulsion," which is also forbidden by 2:256.

There are many interpretations of 9:5 which don't involve killing, and don't involve compulsion. The ones that do, however, are systematically ruled out by 2:256.

The Prophet engaged in military battles where people were killed. There are a couple of things to consider about this fact. First of all, these battles were defensive in nature. It doesn't mean that you can just call something defensive and say that 9:5 all of a sudden sanctions killing. No, in this case 9:5 doesn't apply at all. It's two different issues, defense & aggressively confronting idolaters.

Does that mean you can simply call something "defense" and then have license to kill indescribably? Not unless you're "defending" your right to blockade and starve Gazans, which is to say the answer is no, you can't.

Again, we need to look at 2:256 which states "The right direction is henceforth distinct from error." Maybe it's self defense, maybe it's not. Maybe you're "on the side of God," or maybe you aren't. However, there is no practical way of telling.

We know the Prophet's actions were most likely free from error, which itself can be an issue of debate. He delivered the Quran, but it doesn't mean he was perfect. But more to the point, the only way we know our own actions are free from error in this sense is to make sure they're nonviolent.

Groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda claim to have license to commit violence from Islam. However, their arguments for using violence are characteristically secular. They tend to be based on the claim that their land and society have been violently invaded by foreign entities. Unfortunately there's a certain degree of legitimacy to these claims that can be found in international legal precedence, however not from the Quran. If you're going to claim Quranic justification, you need to follow all of the Quran, including 2:256.