Islam and war

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Muslim warfare.

From the time of

Muslim states and empires have been involved in warfare. The concept of jihad, the religious duty to struggle, has long been associated with struggles for promoting a religion, although some observers refer to such struggle as "the lesser jihad" by comparison with inner spiritual striving. Islamic jurisprudence on war
differentiates between illegitimate and legitimate warfare and prescribes proper and improper conduct by combatants. Numerous conquest wars as well as armed anti-colonial military campaigns were waged as jihads.

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Islamic concepts concerning war

Main article: Islamic military jurisprudence

Islamic concepts concerning war refer to what have been accepted in

prisoners of war.[5]

History

Early instances

Main articles:
List of battles of Muhammad

The earliest forms of warfare by Muslims occurred after the migration (

Ka'aba
.

Major battles in the history of Islam arose between the Meccans and the Muslims; one of the most important to the latter was the

angels" that helped the Muslims defeat the Meccans.[8][page needed
]

Warfare by Islamic forces before 1918

Islam in the Iberian Peninsula

Main articles:
Umayyad conquest of Hispania and Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula

The

Muslim rule into Europe. The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers. Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the faraway mountainous north of the peninsula. The medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare between the Muslim al-Andalus (and later Taifas
) and Christian kingdoms.

The

Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly.[9] Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated.[10][11]

The Almohads soon embarked in a campaign to destroy the Catholic kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. Outnumbered, the defending army led by King

Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Las Navas de Tolosa is sought as the turning point of the Reconquista and the end of the Muslim dominance in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, the Granada War marked the end of the Reconquista, resulting in the defeat of the Emirate of Granada
, ending all of Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula.

Crusades

The European

amirs at the center of power, just under his rule.[12]

South Asia

Sir

Meenas at the battle of Khanwa
. Publicly addressing his men, he declared the forthcoming battle a Jihad. His soldiers were facing a non-Muslim army for the first time ever. This, he said, was their chance to become either a Ghazi (soldier of Islam) or a Shaheed (Martyr of Islam).

In 1567,

idolaters and issued a victory letter expressing about his victory in sentiments of Islamic inconoclasm.[17][18]

Akbar's grandson emperor

Shi'a Muslims.[19][20][page needed
]

Barbary Pirates

Main article:
Barbary Pirates

After the Spanish reconquered Granada from the Moors in 1492, many Moors exiled from the Spanish Inquisition fled to North Africa. After attacks against Spanish shipping took place from North Africa, the Spanish retaliated by seizing Oran, Algiers, and Tunis. By 1518, the pirates were serving in the navies of North African Sultans, conducting activities that included attacks on enemy (especially Christian) trade and raiding European coastlines for potential slaves. However, by 1587, their activity became much more decentralized, and more like traditional piracy.[21]

Much of the Barbary activity was funded through the enslavement of European Christians. In the beginning of the 17th Century, there were more than 20,000 captives to be sold into slavery in Algiers alone. Although people from all over Christendom suffered Barbary attacks, the people who were the most likely victims were from

Eyalet of Tripolitania, or the Regency of Algiers could have been subject to attack.[21]

In 1800, the

U.S. Navy being used again in the Second Barbary War, which also resulted in a US victory and the ceasing of all Barbary attacks on American shipping without tribute.[22]

Ottoman Empire

Upon succeeding his father,

Mehmet IV proclaimed a Jihad and the Turkish grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, laid siege to Vienna with an army of 138,000 men.[25]

On November 14, 1914, in

Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
, refused to accommodate Ottoman requests that he endorse this jihad, a requirement that was necessary were a jihad to become popular, due to British pressure and on the grounds that:

the Holy War was doctrinally incompatible with an aggressive war, and absurd with a Christian ally: Germany[27]

Central Asia and Afghanistan

Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely Muslim and largely Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each, was waged along a twelve-kilometre front, and resulted in a victory for Ahmad Shah.[28]

In response to the

Pashtuns; although Amanullah Khan banned slavery in Afghanistan during his reign,[29] the tradition carried on unofficially for many more years.[30]

Wahabbists

Main article: Wahhabism

The

Ali bin Abu Talib. In 1802 they overtook Taif. In 1803 and 1804 the Wahhabis overtook Mecca and Medina.[31][32][33][34]

Fulani jihads (West Africa)

The Fula or

European colonization, in which Muslim Fulas took control of various parts of the region.[35] Between 1750 and 1900, one-third to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves.[36]

Anti-colonial warfare in Muslim areas

Caucasus

In 1784, Imam

Ghimry, where he formally made the call for a holy war. In 1834, Ghazi Muhammad died at the battle of Ghimri, and Imam Shamil took his place as the premier leader of the Caucasian resistance. Imam Shamil succeeded in accomplishing what Sheik Mansur had started: to unite North Caucasian highlanders in their struggle against the Russian Empire. He was a leader of anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian War and was the third Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya (1834–1859).[38][39]

Mahdists in Sudan

Main article: Mahdist War

During the 1870s, European initiatives against the

execution.[42] The Mahdi raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the Ottoman-Egyptian occupation of Sudan. Victory created an Islamic state, one that quickly reinstituted slavery. In the West he is most famous for defeating and later killing British general Charles George Gordon, in the fall of Khartoum.[43]

Afghanistan

The First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42) was one of Britain's most ill-advised and disastrous wars. William Brydon was the sole survivor of the invading British army of 16,500 soldiers and civilians.[44]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was also a disaster and considered to be their "Vietnam".[45] The invasion and atrocities compelled the west into providing aid to the mujaheddin. The Russian invasion was also the historical event that provoked Osama bin Laden into migrating to Afghanistan in 1979, the same year he graduated from University.[46]

As in the earlier wars against the British and Soviets, Afghan Resistance to the American invaders took the traditional form of a Muslim holy war against the infidels.[47]

During September 2002, the remnants of the

Pashtun areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan to launch a renewed "jihad" or holy war against the pro-Western Afghan government and the US-led coalition. Pamphlets distributed in secret during the night also began to appear in many villages in the former Taliban heartland in southeastern Afghanistan that called for jihad.[48] Small mobile training camps were established along the border with Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives to train new recruits in guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics, according to Afghan sources and a United Nations report.[49]

Most of the new recruits were drawn from the

Taliban guerrilla war, continues.[citation needed
]

Although there is no evidence that the

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,[50] and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets. Osama bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers.[citation needed
]

The Soviets completely withdrew from Afghanistan by 1989, ending a war which had become an embarrassment for politicians in Moscow.[51]

Algeria

In 1830,

Abd al-Qādir was made an amir and with the loyalty of a number of tribes began a jihad against the French. He was effective at using guerrilla warfare and for a decade, up until 1842, scored many victories. He was noted for his chivalry. On December 21, 1847, Abd al-Qādir was forced to surrender.[52]

Abd al-Qādir is recognized and venerated as the first hero of Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white standard was adopted by the

Algerian Liberation Front during the War of Independence and became the national flag of independent Algeria.[citation needed
]

The

massacres of intense brutality and unprecedented size.[53][54]

Southeast Asia

In 1527, an invasion from the Demak Sultanate caused the destruction of the Hindu and Buddhist Majapahit empire.

Minh Mang.[56][57][58]

China

Turkic Kokandi Uzbek Muslim forces under

Dungan revolt. Yaqub Beg enlisted non Muslim Han Chinese militia under Hsu Hsuehkung in order to fight against the Chinese Muslims. T'o Ming's forces were defeated by Yaqub, who planned to conquer Dzungharia. Yaqub intended to seize all Dungan territory.[59][60]

The Boxer Rebellion was considered a Jihad by the Muslim Kansu Braves in the Chinese Imperial Army under Dong Fuxiang, fighting against the Eight-Nation Alliance.[61][62]

Jihad was declared obligatory and a religious duty for all Chinese Muslims against Japan after 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[63]

Axis Europe

Main article: Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world

Among the Nazi leadership, the greatest interest in the idea of creating Muslim units under German command was shown by Heinrich Himmler, who viewed the Islamic world as a potential ally against the British Empire.

Bosnian Muslims" for the German Armed Forces or Wehrmacht.[68]

The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states "These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. "The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies." Husseini asked that Muslim divisional operations to be restricted to the defense of the Moslem heartland of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[69] The Handschar earned a repute for brutality in ridding north-eastern Bosnia of Serbs and partisans: many local Muslims, observing the violence, were driven to go over to the communist partisans.[70][71] Once redeployed outside Bosnia, and as the fortunes of war turned, mass defections and desertions took place, and Volksdeutsche were drafted to replace the losses.[72]

There were at least 70,000 Bosnian Muslims captured by the British. Some of these Muslim ex-soldiers participated in aiding Arabs in the

1948 Arab-Israeli war.[73]

See also

Political and military aspects

Related concepts

References

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Further reading

External links

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