The study which is here presented to the English-reading public appeared originally in the Dutch periodical De Gids, 1915, No. 1, under the title “Heilige Oorlog Made in Germany.” It has been ably translated by Professor Joseph E. Gillet of the University of Wisconsin, with the distinct attempt to preserve as much of the style of the author as the English language will permit. I am glad of the opportunity to express publicly my thanks to Professor Gillet for the readiness with which he accepted the task I laid upon him.
Richard Gottheil.
Columbia University in the
City of New York
March, 1915.
The Holy War
“Made in Germany”
The Holy War
“Made in Germany”
MORE than ten years ago I had a conversation with a Turk of a highly intellectual type about religious fanaticism and its bearing on political situations. He concluded his considerations on this subject about as follows: “In former times the inhabitants of the civilized world used to destroy each other for being at variance about the mysteries of the other world. Now, however, glory be to Allah, humanity has overcome this barbarous custom and everybody is free to believe what he likes. But what good is this to us, as long as wars continue to be waged on account of economic and political interests, wars of which the fanaticism is not to be outdone by that of the bitterest religious strife, and of which the destructiveness is continuously being increased by our immense technical progress? Under such circumstances a quiet enjoyment of the hard-won freedom of thought is out of the question.”
This utterance ever again obtrudes itself on my memory in connexion with the events that are taking place at present. Large groups of men, kept apart by varying political and economic interests, have for years and years consumed an important part of their intellectual and material resources in devising means by which, in the fulness of time, they might destroy each other; and now, at last, the long-expected spark has fallen on the accumulated fuel. Every one of the belligerents is horrified by the idea of responsibility for the crimes against mankind which they are perpetrating in common. The culture they shared with each other has been shelved and finds its only expression in a dull series of contentions where each one charges the other with the guilt of what they have all carefully planned together. The sceptical irony of my Turkish friend was not unjustified. Not that it teaches us anything new. Only in this respect might his utterance be somewhat surprising to those of us who are not familiar with the Mohammedan world, that it shows a Turk recognizing without restriction general religious peace and freedom of thought as an undisputed possession. Considered from this point of view the words quoted here are the more valuable, as they express with tolerable accuracy the opinion of all Turkish intellectuals on the problem of religion.
This tolerance seems irreconcilable with the prescriptions of the Mohammedan law concerning the attitude towards the adherents of other religions. For, according to this law, which as a whole claims divine authority, the whole world of man is to be subjected to the Mohammedan community and is also, as far as possible, to be incorporated by it in a spiritual sense. That this aim may be attained, the community of the faithful is to do jihâd, i. e., carry on a holy war against all that are still living outside the circle of its authority. The leadership in the jihâd, the determination of time, place, and means, is one of the chief duties of the head of the community, the Caliph, the successor of Mohammed as supreme governor, supreme judge, and supreme commander of all the Moslims. As the interests of Islâm in his opinion require it, he is to carry on this war with more or less energy or even temporarily to desist from it. Under no circumstances may he agree to a suspension of the offensive against a nation of unbelievers for more than ten years. Provided they subject themselves to the Mohammedan state-authority and are satisfied with the position of subjects without civic rights, adherents of the Jewish and of the Christian religion, and of such religions as obtain equal recognition with those, are granted the exercise of their religion, though with certain restrictions. In the case of real heathens subjection must be accompanied by conversion.
The jihâd-program assumes that the Mohammedans, just as at their first appearance in the world, continuously form a compact unity under one man’s leadership. But this situation has in reality endured so short a time, the realm of Islâm has so quickly disintegrated into an increasingly large number of principalities, the supreme power of the so-called Caliph, after flourishing for a short period, has become so much a mere word, that even the jihâd-prescriptions have had to be adapted to this state of crumbling authority. As in most other respects so also concerning the waging of the holy war, the law therefore transfers the authority and the duties of the one Caliph to the various territorial heads, to each one for the extent of his dominion. Now it is evident that this shifting of authority from one to many is a great simplifying influence for the internal government; but it is equally evident that by this disintegration the continuance of the world-conquest, as it was started in the first century of Islâm, is made impossible.
To be sure, there were a number of other causes which stemmed the first wild rush of the Moslim legions. They met frontiers where resistance could not be broken at once, and the enjoyment of what had been conquered weakened their energy. The great deeds of the first generations were idealized in the imagination of the later ones, the stains removed from them, and the theory of their desirable continuance elaborated in details, the more casuistical as their realization was getting further outside the sphere of possibilities. Only where a Mohammedan territory is attacked by a nation of unbelievers, there the duty of defence is put upon the whole of the population. Offensive action is justified only when it is ordered and regulated by a recognized head of the state. Where unbelievers succeed in subjecting a Moslim population, the latter must not resign itself to this state of submission, but must grasp the first opportunity for either throwing off the yoke or for emigrating to an independent Moslim country; and this as much in order to ward off the danger with which their own religion is threatened, as in order to strengthen the ranks of the faithful for the struggle against the enemy, i. e., the non-subjected unbelievers. Even if the impossibility of effective resistance or emigration should endure for centuries, the relation of dependency upon a non-Mohammedan state-authority created thereby is to be accepted only as temporary and abnormal.