ABSTRACT
Jihad and martyrdom have arguably become the most common words associated with Islam and Muslims in the post-September 11 period. More misconceptions than historically accurate perspectives abound in regard to these two emotive issues, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. Ideological assertions and political claims have muddied the waters considerably in discussions of these topics in the contemporary period. The main purpose of this chapter is to outline broadly the historical trajectory of the meanings ascribed to jihad in early Islamic sources, starting with the Qurʼan followed by hadith works containing statements attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions, and thus to offset them against later, post-classical meanings to indicate the semantic transformations that occurred over time. It will be argued that the Arabic terms for ʻmartyr ʼ and ʻmartyrdom ʼ also evince a similar evolution in their spectrum of meanings, which were tied to a considerable degree to the particular inflections of the term jihad in varying historical circumstances. This study is far from being an exhaustive treatment of this subject.1 Other important perspectives such as the Sufi and the Shia are not part of our discussion, primarily due to constraints on length and also because they fall somewhat beyond the temporal purview of this essay. More modestly, I seek to establish the wider range of meanings associated with these terms in the early period when these groups, which were themselves influenced by these early trends in their subsequent development, had not fully emerged. By the early third century of the Islamic era – that is, in the ninth century CE – jihad as primarily ʻarmed combat ʼhad become the accepted meaning in influential circles, particularly in the administrative and juridical ones. This occurred despite the fact that the term jihad in Qurʼanic usage is clearly a polyvalent word and, as even a cursory reading of some of the related literature reveals, was understood as such by several early religious authorities and scholars. Exegetical glosses on the full Qurʼanic phrase ʻaljihad fi sabil Allah ʼ(translated as ʻstriving or struggling in the path of Godʼ) explain it as referring to a wide array of activities: embarking on pursuit
of knowledge, earning a licit livelihood and engaging in charitable works, in addition to military defence of Islam. Concomitantly, extra-Qurʼanic literature (primarily exegesis and hadith) records various perspectives on martyrdom (Ar. shahada, a term which does not occur in the Qurʼan in this sense) that reflect the polyvalence of the term jihad. As we shall see later, a believer who met with death while struggling in any licit and noble pursuit during his mundane existence on earth could be called a martyr (Ar. shahı¯d, pl. shuhadaʼ). The different legal and ethical articulations of war and peace that have emerged in Islamic thought testify to the different – and conflicting – ways of reading and interpreting some of the key Qurʼanic verses dealing with this topic. Some of these variant ways of understanding the text will be outlined below. A comprehensive understanding of the Qurʼanic treatment of the term jihad and other related terms is a necessary prelude to our discussion of the concept of martyrdom which appears to be a later, extra-Qurʼanic, development.
