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Prominent Muslim scholars have always maintained that jihaad is allowed only
under the authority of the State:
And the third category of collective duties is one in which [the authority
of] the State is a [necessary] condition; for example, jihaad and the
implementation of the law of punishments in Islam. (fiqhussunnah,
assayyidussaabiq; vol.3, page 30)
Writes Ghamidi about the reason for this opinion of Muslim scholars:
The reason for this [condition] is that without political sovereignity
jihaad becomes fasaad [disorder, chaos, anarchy, etc]. How is it possible that
a group which does not even have the right to award punishment to a criminal
should be given the right to wage war? (meezaan, qaanuune da`wat; Urdu; page
35)
An explanation of this reason can be found in Islaahi’s da`wate diin
or us kaa tariiqe kaar (Urdu; Chapter 14, pages 241 and 242):
The first reason [for this condition] is that God Almighty does not like
the dissolution and disintegration of even an evil system until a strong
probablity exists that those who are out to disintegrate the system will
provide people with an alternative and a righteous system. Anarchy and
disorder are unnatural conditions. In fact, they are so contrary to human
nature that even an unjust system is perferable to them….this confidence
[that a group will be able to harmonise a disintegrated system and integrate
it into a united whole] can be reposed in such a group only as has actually
formed a political government and has such control and discipline within
the confines of its authority that the group can be termed as aljamaa`ah
[the State, or the government]. Until a group attains this position, it may
strive [by religiously allowable means] to become aljamaa`ah — and that
endeavour would be its jihaad for that time — but it does not have the
right to wage an `armed’ jihaad.
The second reason is that the import of the power which a group engaged in
war gets over the life and property of human beings is so great that sanction
to wield this power cannot be given to a group the control of whose
leader over his followers is based merely on his spiritual and religious
influence on them [rather than being based on legal authority]. When the
control of a leader is based merely on his spirtual and religious influence,
there is not sufficient guarantee that the leader will be able to stop his
followers from fassad fil’arD [creating a situation of disorder, chaos,
anarchy on the earth]. Therefore, a religious leader does not have the
right to allow his followers to take out their swords [that is to wage an
armed struggle] merely on the basis of his spirtual influence over them, for
once the sword is unsheathed there is great danger that it will not care for
right and wrong and that those who drew it will end up doing all [the wrong
which] they had sought to end. Such radical groups as desire revolution and
the object of whom is nothing more than disruption of the existing system and
deposition of the ruling party to seize power for themselves play such games
— and they can, for in their eyes disruption of a system is no calamity, nor
is cruelty of any kind an evil. Everything is right to them [ as long as it
serves their purpose]. However, the leaders of a just and righteous party must
see whether they are in a position to provide people with a system better than
the one they seek to change and whether they will be able to stop their
followers from doing such wrong as they themselves had sought to root out. If
they are not in that position, then they do not have the right to play games
with the life and property of people on the basis of their confidence in mere
chances and to create greater disorder than the one they had sought to end.
Copyright (c) 1997. All Rights Reserved with the Author