A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihad' Part 29

4. What is called the cla.s.sical language of Arabia or the _loghat_, and is an authority for the genuineness of the Arabic terms and their significations, is the language which was spoken throughout the whole of the Peninsula previous to the appearance of Mohammad. After the death of Mohammad the language was rapidly corrupted by the introduction of foreign words. This was doubtless owing to the great extension of the Mohammadan power at this period. The cla.s.sical poets are those who died before these great conquests were effected, and are the most reliable authorities for Arabic words and their significations, and they are called _Jahili_. Next to the cla.s.sical poets are the post-cla.s.sical, or _Mokhadrams_, _Islami_ and _Mowallads_. Mokhadram is a poet who lived partly before and partly after Mohammad, and who did not embrace Islamism during the life of the Prophet. The Islami poets are the Mohammadan poets of the first and second centuries of the Hejira, and Mowallads, the poets of the fourth rank, followed the Islamis. The earliest cla.s.sical poets date only a century before the birth of Mohammad, and the latest, about a century after his death. The period of the Islami poets is the first and second centuries,--_i.e._, those who lived after the first corruption of the Arabic language, but before the corruption had become extensive.

The Mowallads co-existed with the general and rapid corruption of the language from the beginning or middle of the second century.

[Sidenote: The conjugation and declension of _Jahd_ and _Jihad_]

5. The words _Jahd_ and _Jihad_ and their derivations, amounting to fourteen in number, occur in the following pa.s.sages in the Koran:--

1. "Jahada" Chapter xxix, 5; ix, 19.

2. "Jahadaka" Do. x.x.xi, 14, xxix, 7.

3. "Jahadoo" Do. ii, 215; viii, 73, 75, 76; ix, 16, 20, 89; xlix, 15; iii, 136; xvi, 111; xxix, 69.

4. "Yojahido" Do. xxix, 5.

5. "Yojahidoona" Do. v, 59.

6. "Yojahidoo" Do. ix, 44, 82.

7. "Tojahidoona" Do. lxi, 11.

8. "Jihad" Do. xxv, 54; xxii, 77; ix, 24; lx, 1.

8.* "Jahd" Do. v, 58; vi, 109; xvi, 40; xxiv, 52; x.x.xv, 40.

9.* "Johd" Do ix, 80.

10. "Jahid" Do. ix, 74; lxvi, 9.

11. "Jahidhoom" Do. xxv, 54.

12. "Mojahidina" Do. iv, 97; bis. xlvii, 33.

13. "Mojahidoona" Do. iv, 97.

14. "Jahidoo" Do. v, 39; ix, 41, 87; xxii, 77.

[Sidenote: The number of instances in which they occur in the Koran.]

6. There are altogether 36 verses in the Koran containing the words noted above, in the following chapters and verses:--

Chapter ii, 215.

Do. iii, 136.

Do. iv, 97.

Do. v, 39, 58, 59.

Do. vi, 109.

Do. viii, 73, 75, 76.

Do. ix, 16, 19, 20, 24, 41, 44, 74, 80, 82, 87, 89.

Do. xvi, 40, 111.

Do. xxii, 77.

Do. xxiv, 52.

Do. xxv, 54.

Do. xxix, 5, 7, 69.

Do. x.x.xi, 14.

Do. x.x.xv, 40.

Do. xlvii, 33.

Do. xlix, 15.

Do. xl, 1.

Do. xli, 11.

Do. xlvi, 9.

[Sidenote: In what sense they are used in the Koran.]

7. Out of the above, the verses containing the words "Jahd" and "Johd,"--_i.e._, v, 58; vi, 109; xvi, 40; xxiv, 52; x.x.xv, 40; and ix, 80, marked *, are altogether out of dispute, as in all the former pa.s.sages, except the last one, its obvious meaning is _most_ or _utmost_ solemn oaths,[325] or most _energetic_ oaths or _strongest_ or most forcible oaths,[326] and the latter signifies small provisions upon which a man possessing a little property can live with difficulty. The rest are of two kinds--_first_, the verses occurring in the Meccan Suras. As then the Moslems had not resorted to arms in their defence, though suffering from persecutions, Mohammadan commentators and jurists and Christian writers are unanimous in construing _Jihad_ in its natural sense of exertion, effort, energy, and painstaking. Secondly, the verses containing the same words occurring in the Medina Suras, which were revealed or published when the Moslems had taken arms in their defence.

As regards this period, the words are considered to have an entirely new and an altogether fortuitous meaning, _viz._, a religious war of aggression. Even some verses of this period are rendered by Mohammadans and Christians in the literal sense of the word.

[Sidenote: Conventional significations of _Jihad_.]

8. I fully admit that in the post-cla.s.sical language of the Arabs,--_i.e._, that in use subsequent to the time of Mohammad, when the language was rapidly corrupted, the word "Jihad" was used to signify "warfare" or fighting, but this was in a military sense. Since that period the word has come to be used as meaning the waging of a war or a crusade only in military tactics, and more recently it found its way in the same sense into the Mohammadan law-books and lexicons of later dates. But the subsequent corrupt or post-cla.s.sical language cannot be accepted as a final or even a satisfactory authority upon the point.

"It was decided by common consent," says Mr. Edward William Lane, in his Arabic-English Lexicon (Preface, pp. viii and ix), "that no poet, nor any other person, should be taken as an absolute and unquestionable authority with respect to the words or their significations, the grammar, or the prosody of the cla.s.sical language, unless he were one who had died before the promulgation of El-Islam, or who had lived partly before and partly after that event; or, as they term it, unless he were a 'Jahilee' or a 'Mukhadram,' or (as some p.r.o.nounce it) 'Mukhadrim,' or 'Muhadram'

or 'Muhadrim.' A poet of the cla.s.s next after the Mukhadrams is termed an 'Islamee:' and as the corruption of the language had become considerable in his time, even among those who aimed at chasteness of speech, he is not cited as an authority absolutely and unquestionably like the two preceding cla.s.ses. A poet of the next cla.s.s, which is the last, is termed 'Muwelled;' he is absolutely post-cla.s.sical; and is cited as an unquestionable authority with respect only to the rhetorical sciences. The commencement of the period of the Muwelleds is not distinctly stated: but it must have preceded the middle of the second century of the Flight; for the cla.s.sical age may be correctly defined as having nearly ended with the first century, when very few persons born before the establishment of El-Islam through Arabia were living. Thus the best of the Islami poets may be regarded, and are generally regarded, as holding cla.s.sical rank, though not as being absolute authorities with respect to the words and the significations, the grammar, and the prosody of the cla.s.sical language."

Mr. Thomas Chenry, M.A., writes:[327]--

"Within a century of Mohammad's flight from Mecca, the Moslem empire stretched from Kashgar and Mooltan to Morocco and the Pyrenees, and the Arab man of letters was exposed to the corrupting propinquity of men of very different races. Only a poet of Ignorance, that is, one who died before the preaching of Islam, or a Mokhadram, that is, who was contemporary with it, was looked upon as of paramount and unquestionable authority. An Islami, that is, one who was born after the rise of Islam, was of least consideration, and after the first century, the poets are called Muwalladun and are only quoted for their literary beauties, and not as authorities for the Arab tongue."

[Sidenote: Mohammadan commentators, &c., quoted.]

9. All commentators, paraphrasts, and jurisconsults admit that the primary and original signification of the words "_Jahad_" and "_Jihad_"

is power, ability, and toil, and that its use, as making wars or crusades, is conventional and figurative. Ibn Attiah says regarding verse 69, Chapter XXIX, that it is Meccan, and was revealed before the enjoining of the _Orfee_ or conventional _Jihad_ (_vide_ Fat-hul bayan fi maquasidil Koran, Vol. II, page 517, by Siddik Hussan). Khateeb Koostlane, in his _Irshadussari_, a paraphrase of Bokhari, says that "_Jihad_ is derived from _Jahd_, which means toil and labour, or from _Johd_, which means power. And in technical language it means fighting with infidels to a.s.sist Islam" (Vol. V, page 26). Mohammad Allauddin Al Haskafi (died 1088 A.H.), the author of Dur-ral-Mukhtar, a commentary on Tanviral Absar, by Sheikh Mohammad Al Tamartas.h.i.+ (died 1004), says in the chapter on _Jihad_, that "in the cla.s.sical language it is the infinitive noun of _Jahada fi Sabil-Allah_, and in the language of the law it means inviting the infidels to the true faith and fighting with him who does not accept it." And Ibn abidin Shami, in his annotation on the above work, says:

"The infinitive noun of _Jahada_ means to do one's utmost, and that it is general, and includes any person who supports all that is reasonable and forbids what is wrong."

[Sidenote: When the word Jihad was diverted from its original signification to its figurative meaning of waging religious war?]

10. It is admitted by all lexicologists, commentators, and jurisconsults that _Jihad_ in cla.s.sical Arabic means to labour, strive earnestly, and that the change of its meaning or the technical signification occurred only in the post-cla.s.sical period, _i.e._, long after the publication of the Koran. It is obviously improper, therefore, to apply the post-cla.s.sical meaning of the word where it occurs in the Koran. This fact is further admitted by all the Mohammadan commentators and English translators of the Koran, who render the word in its original and literal meaning in all the Meccan and in the early Medinite Suras or Chapters of the Koran.[328]

It is only in a few of the latest chapters of the Koran published at later dates at Medina, that they (the commentators and translators) deviate from the original meaning, and prefer the subsequent uncla.s.sical and technical signification of waging war or crusade.

[Sidenote: All verses of the Koran containing the word Jihad and its derivation quoted and explained.]

11. I herein place in juxtaposition the several English translations of the word "_Jihad_," together with its etymological derivation and several grammatical forms, to show, in the first place, that Mr. George Sale and the Rev. J.M. Rodwell and other European authors generally give the literal, original, and cla.s.sical meaning; and in the second place, to show how they differ in giving various meanings, literal and technical, in some pa.s.sages to the same word in the same verses.

It will be observed from a perusal of the statement, that the Rev. Mr.

Rodwell, M.A., is more correct than the earliest English translator of the Koran, Mr. George Sale, and the latest, Mr. W.H. Palmer. The latter is the most unsatisfactory of all in this respect, as everywhere, except in six places--XXIX, 7; V, 39, 59; IV, 97; and IX, 74, 89--he translates _Jihad_ as meaning fighting--a circ.u.mstance which not unnaturally leads to the supposition that he had paid but slight heed to the context.

|----+-----+----+----+----+--------------------------------------------- |Serial No.

| | No. of the Chapter and the Verse of the Koran.

| | | Original Words. ---------------------------- | | | | George Sale's Translation. } ENGLISH | | | | | Rev. Rodwell's Translation. } | | | | | | Henry Palmer's Translation. } TRANSLATIONS.

|----+-----+----+----+----+--------------------------------------------- | 1 | | | x.x.xI. 14 | | | "Jahadaka"

| | | | "Strive"

| | | | | "Endeavour to prevail"

| | | | | | "Strive."

| 2 | | | XXV. 54 | | | "Jahid," "Jihadan."

| | | | "Oppose them herewith with strong opposition."

| | | | | "By means of the Koran strive against them with | | | | | a mighty strife."

| | | | | | "Fight strenuously; strenuous fight."

| 3 | | | XXII. 77 | | | "Jahidoo"

| | | | "Fight in the defence of G.o.d's religion."

| | | | | "Do valiantly"

| | | | | | "Fight strenuously."

| 4 | | | XVI. 111 | | | "Jahadoo"