A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád' / Showing that all the Wars of Mohammad Were Defensive; and / that Aggressive War, or Compulsory Conversion, is not / Allowed in The Koran - 1885

by Cherágh Ali

[313] The Koran, by George Sale. The "Chandos Classics." The Preliminary Discourse, Section II, pp. 37-38.

[314] London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1876, pp. 46-54.

[315] A Comprehensive Commentary on the Qurán; comprising Sale's Translation and Preliminary Discourse, with additional Notes and Emendations, by the Revd. E.M. Wherry, M.A., page 220; London: Trübner & Co., 1882.

[316] An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scripture, by Thomas Hartwell Horne, Esq., M.A. Vol. II, page 524; London. 1828.

[317] Commentary on the Qurán by the Revd. Wherry, page 358.

[318] Notes on Muhammadanism; being outlines of the Religious System of Islam, by the Revd. T.P. Hughes, M.R.A.S., C.M.S., Missionary to the Afghans, page 206; Second Edition, 1877.

[319] The Nineteenth Century; London, December 1877, page 832.

[320] This subject has been fully treated in my "The Proposed Political, Legal, and Social Reforms in Moslem States," pp. 22-25: Bombay Education Society Press, 1883.

[321] Sir W. Muir, with other European translators of the Koran, translates the word "they shall profess Islam" (The Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 39, footnote). It ought to be translated "they shall submit." There is a difference of opinion among the commentators and canonical legists in this word. Some translate the word Yoslemoon "shall profess Islam," and others "shall submit." This difference in the interpretation of the same word is merely of a sectarian nature, each party wishing to serve their own purpose. Those legists who held that the polytheists and idolaters may either be fought against or be submitted to the authority of Islam by being tributaries, took the word in its proper sense of submission. Those who held that "the people of the Book" ought only to be made tributaries, while all other idolaters and polytheists should be compelled either to perish or to embrace Islam, interpret the word technically to mean the religion of Islam. But as the verse is not a legal command, we condemn at once the casuistic sophistry of the legists.