By Juan Cole | (Informed
Comment)
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, has
been convicted
on all counts in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Dzhokhar and his brother
Tamerlan were from a mixed Chechen and Avar family. Dzhokhar was born in
Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian republic that had been part of the Communist Soviet
Union. Being from a Soviet background, the Tsarnaevs were probably originally more
or less atheists, whatever they said later. Even Soviet Muslims from the
Caucasus and Central Asia who identified as “Muslims” mostly did so before the
1990s as a matter of ethnicity, not piety. Most Soviet Muslim men drank copious
amounts of vodka. Few knew how to pray in the Muslim manner with prostrations.
Being deracinated appears to have left the Tsarnaev boys open to the
blandishments of radical Muslim cults on the internet. But there was even so
not much recognizably Muslim in their style of life.
It is worthwhile reprising on
this day my 2013 posting on the ways that the Tsarnaevs broke Muslim law, which
I’ve very slightly revised:
1. Terrorism is above all
murder. Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. Qur’an 6:151 says, “and do
not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.” (i.e. murder is
forbidden but the death penalty imposed by the state for a crime is permitted).
5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be for murder or for wreaking
corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who
saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind.”
2. If the motive for terrorism
is religious, it is impermissible in Islamic law. It is forbidden to attempt to
impose Islam on other people. The Qur’an says, “There is no compulsion in
religion. The right way has become distinct from error.” (-The Cow, 2:256).
Note that this verse was revealed in Medina in 622 AD or after and was never
abrogated by any other verse of the Quran. Islam’s holy book forbids coercing
people into adopting any religion. They have to willingly choose it.
3. Islamic law forbids
aggressive warfare. The Quran says, “But if the enemies incline towards peace,
do you also incline towards peace. And trust in God! For He is the one who
hears and knows all things.” (8:61) The Quran chapter “The Cow,” 2:190, says,
“Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not
hostilities. Lo! God loveth not aggressors.”
4. In the Islamic law of war,
not just any civil engineer can declare or launch a war. It is the prerogative
of the duly constituted leader of the Muslim community that engages in the war. Qur’an 4:59 says “Obey God and the
Messenger and those in authority among you.” Nowadays that would be the
president or prime minister of the state, as advised by the mufti or national
jurisconsult.
5. The killing of innocent
non-combatants is forbidden. According to Sunni tradition, ‘Abu Bakr al-Siddiq,
the first Caliph, gave these instructions to his armies: “I instruct you in ten
matters: Do not kill women, children, the old, or the infirm; do not cut down
fruit-bearing trees; do not destroy any town . . . ” (Malik’s Muwatta’, “Kitab
al-Jihad.”)
6. Terrorism or hirabah is
forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and
extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for
money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land
is based on the Qur’an (Surah al-Ma’ida 5:33–34). Prominent [pdf]
Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn
`Abd al-Barr (d. 464/ 1070)) defines the agent of hiraba as ‘Anyone who
disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel,
striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or
violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah . . .”
7. Sneak attacks are
forbidden. Muslim commanders must give the enemy fair warning that war is
imminent. The Prophet Muhammad at one point gave 4 months notice (Q. 9:5).
8. The Prophet Muhammad
counseled doing good to those who harm you and is said to
have commanded, “Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if
others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong you
will do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do
good and not to do wrong (even) if they do evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
9. The Qur’an demands of
believers that they exercise justice toward people even where they have reason
to be angry with them: “And do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from
being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.”[5:8]
10. The Qur’an assures Christians
and Jews of paradise if they believe and do good works, and commends Christians
as the best friends of Muslims. I wrote elsewhere, “Dangerous falsehoods are
being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence
against Christians.
Quran 5:69 says (Arberry):
“Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those
Sabeaans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works
righteousness–-their wage waits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on
them, neither shall they sorrow.”
In other words, the Quran
promises Christians and Jews along with Muslims that if they have faith and
works, they need have no fear in the afterlife. It is not saying that
non-Muslims go to hell– quite the opposite.
When speaking of the
7th-century situation in the Muslim city-state of Medina, which was at war with
pagan Mecca, the Quran notes that the polytheists and some Arabian Jewish
tribes were opposed to Islam, but then goes on to say:
5:82. ” . . . and you will
find the nearest in love to the believers [Muslims] those who say: ‘We are
Christians.’ That is because amongst them are priests and monks, and they are
not proud.”
So the Quran not only does not
urge Muslims to commit violence against Christians, it calls them “nearest in
love” to the Muslims! The reason given is their piety, their ability to produce
holy persons dedicated to God, and their lack of overweening pride.
(For a modernist, liberal
interpretation, see this
pdf file, “Jihad and the Islamic Law of War.”
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