This page situates jihad and fighting within the reading Shahrur and Human Rights. Its strength is that it prevents the file of political violence from swallowing the axis of freedom of belief, and at the same time prevents jihad from being reduced to fighting.
Judgment after examination: what is established here is a strong rights-based/ethical principle, not a complete legal theory of political violence or the law of war. What is established is the negation of coercion, the precedence of the word over violence, and the confinement of fighting to defense or deadlock. What is not established is a complete legal system for the use of force or detailed rules of international humanitarian law.
The strongest evidence
Jihad begins with the word: The strongest evidence is Jihad begins with the word and ends with violence when deadlock occurs. It places jihad on a path that begins with speaking the truth and the word, and does not make violence a primary origin.
Freedom of peaceful expression: It is supported by Freedom of peaceful expression. This links jihad to the word and peaceful objection before any move toward force.
No coercion in religion: No coercion in religion as a categorical negation together with al-Baqara 256 remains an upper limit: fighting cannot be a means of coercing belief.
Apostasy is not a worldly legal penalty: The structure of historical apostasy, in which the religious and the political became intertwined, and in which there is no worldly legal penalty helps remove the punitive pretext from belief, but by itself it is not enough to build a detailed legal system.
Combative creed and combative narrative: Combative creed is of two different kinds and the combative narrative is not a Qur’anic principle help distinguish the defense of values and homeland from turning the combative narrative into an absolute religious principle.
What does this axis establish?
- It establishes that jihad is broader than fighting.
- It establishes that the word and peaceful expression come before violence.
- It establishes that religious coercion is not a legitimate end.
- It establishes that apostasy and religious difference do not provide, in this reading, a basis for a worldly legal penalty.
- It establishes that Shahrur’s critique of violence is linked to a critique of using religion to justify domination.
What does it not establish?
- It does not establish a complete law of jihad and fighting.
- It does not establish a complete rights-based theory of political violence.
- It does not establish detailed rules of international humanitarian law.
- It does not establish a detailed legal right to the use of force.
- It does not allow jihad to be reduced to a legitimate attack or open-ended violence.
Its place within the path
This page functions as a second case study after Women and the Family within Human Rights. Women and the family test authority inside the home, whereas jihad and fighting test authority when it speaks in the name of religion, politics, and violence.
Therefore this page is not read in place of Freedom of Belief, Opinion, and the Limits of Coercion, but after it. Freedom of belief is the foundation, and this axis is its test at the point of violence.