the qur'an, muhammed, and jihad in context

8/14/2019 The Qur'an, Muhammed, and Jihad in Context

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TH DESTRUCTIVEPOWER OF RELIGION

iolence in Judaism,Christianity, and IslamVolume 1

Sacred Scriptures, Ideology, and iolenceHarold Ellens, Editor

Foreword y M art in E. M artyd Testimonium by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Contemporary PsychologyChris E. Stout, Ser ies EditorWestport, ConnecticutI P M I G I ~ London


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Library of Congtess Catalogin n Publication DataThe destructive power of religion: violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam /edited by J Harold Ellens; foreword by Martin E. Marty.

p. cm. Contempora ry psychology, ISSN 1546- 668X)Includes bibliographica l references and index.ISBN 0 275 97958 X (alk. paper)I Viol ence----Religio us aspects. 1 Ellens, J. Harold, 1932- II. Contemporarypsycho logy (P raege r Pub lishe rs)

BL65.V55D4720042911 78 dc21 2003051061British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.Copyright 2004 by J Harold E llensAll rights reserved. No por tion of this book may bereproduced, by any process or technique, without theex press written consent of the publisher.Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 200305 106 1ISBN: 0- 275 97958-X (se t)

0 275- 97972- 5 (vol. I)0 2 75- 97973- 3 (vo l. II )0 2 7 5 9 7 9 (vol. 1lI0- 275 98 146 0 (vo l. IV)ISSN: 1546 668X

First published in 2004Pra eger Publishers, 88 Pos t Road We st, Westport, CT 0688 1An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.www.pra ege r.comPrinted in the U nited States of Amer ica

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CH AP TE R 11

TH E Q UR 'AN, M UHAMMAD, AND'.,.',.JIHA D IN C ONTEXT 'I, .

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: :',. '.,,,"- .-.'..111, ' l , ,.Judaism, Christianity, and Islam often relate as if they we re member s 1\1 'Iof a dysfunctional fami.1y. Negative archetypal energies, strong emo : > : rtions, surface from the unconscious to block dialog. Even before 9/11 \.',I',Christians heard the term jihad as having an alien and menacing ring.

\;Ve are tempted to see a simplistic contrast between a peaceful -:Ch ri stianity and a militan t Islam, forgetting that Christians have ha d ' ra theological rationale for the j list war" since St. Augustine (fifth ~ r . jIentury) and archetypal images of the Christian as a Warrior-M ar tyrsince the appearance of the St . George Legend at the end of the third F ~ ~century. For vVesterners, the mention of a crusade evokes positiveimages of courageous Christian soldiers. 'vVe fail to perceive that theterm crusade evokes exceptionally strong nega tive, threateningimages of Christian hostility for the M uslim. Such responses on bothare deeply rooted in both hi storical events and the unconsciousstructure of the personali ty. But there are other barriers toMuslim/ Christian dialog that are apt to become ex aggera ted byrecent events. Since Jews, Christians, and M uslims share mall Y common elements, we are easily deceived into thinhi ng that th ey understand matters like prophethood, holy scr ipture, law, co mmunity,interpretation, and the just war in comparable ways.As we Westerners consider M uhammad and the Qur'a n, we tend toregard our Christian and Western religiou s and scholarly traditionsas if they were absolute Truth . It is true that Judaism, Chris tianity.


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and Islam are generally alike in having the twin focal points of aprophetic founder and a book of scripture: Moses and the Torah;Jesus and the Bible, M uhammad and the Qur'an. Christians andM uslims also have doctrines defining the just war and religious militancy. Here the similarity ends. The methods by which one appropriates the founder and the scripture are quite differe nt in the threecommunities. Our ability to have empathy with other members of theJudeo-Christian-Islamic family can be greatly enhanced as we respectboth the similarities and the differences between the Bible and theQur'an, Jesus and Mo ses, Jesus and M uhammad, and jihad and theju st war.The Scriptures: ebrew Bible, New Testament, Qur anw C. Smith 1993) reminds us in W hat Is Scrzpture? that people

a given community-make a tex t into a scripture, or keep it scripture:by treating it in a certain vvay (18 ) appropriate to the life of thecommunity. The books of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Torah,the Pr ophets, and the W ri tings, or TANAK), the Christian Bible, andthe Qur 'an were not scripture wh en first written but literary texts.The various books became scripture through th eir impact upon thelife of th e community and the process of canonization; consequently,scripture never exists apart from a particular community's interpretation of the texts. Interpretation creates scripture.

In terpretation may be either oral or written. The term M lkra isused as a synonym for TANAK by Jewish scholars in M lkra: TextTranslation Reading and Interpretation i he Hebrew Bible in AncientJudaism and Early Christianity and suggests both the correct readingof the sacred words, as they have been handed down ... [and] theway in which the sacred text has always been and ought to berecited ... and understood by those who have been closely connectedwith the texts (M ulder, 1990, xiii). Contemporar y Christianity, incontrast, places the most emphasis upon the intellectual act of r eading despit e the origins of much of th e ::ew Testament as oral proclamation. T he Q ur 'an, like Mikra, places the central emphasis uponth e act of recitation as worship. Muhammad wrote, or dictated, theauditory rev ela tions he received. Christians study the Bible;M uslims chant the Qu r 'an. The written tradition of interpretation iscentral for Christians rath er than the cadences used in worsh ip.There are other major differences affecting how we regard thesacred tex ts.

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Koran, thirteenth-century Seljuk era, from Iran. The ArtArchive/T urkish and Islamic Art Museum IstanbuliDagliOrti (A) .

The Jewish TANA K (Protestant Christian: Old Testament), likethe Ne w Testament, derives from multiple authors and includesbooks collected over time. This allows for the lively historical and literary study of these works by scholars apart from any considerationof their status as scripture. Since the Qur'an derives from a singleprophet who received revelations between 610 C.E. and 632 C.E. itdoes not provide a very bountiful field for the application of thescholarly methods so fruitful for the study of the Bible. As Smith1993) observes, critical biblical scholarship studies biblical books at

that historical point when these texts were not yet scripture (3).T he most criticism can do with the Qur'an is to classify and d escribethe characteristics of the Suras deriving from the early work ofM uhammad in Mecca as opposed to those that derive from M edinawhere the Prophet was the leader of the first M uslim community orummah. It can also seek to construct the biography of the Prophetand to identify historically reliable reports about the acts of theProphet. Muslim scholars have engaged in such studies for centuries,but they do little more than prepare a reader for approaching theQur'an as scripture, the Word of Allah (God ). Critical studies do nottouch the essence of the Qur'an as an oral recitation that has beenpreserved in a scripture and a continuous history of worship.

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The Bi ble has a loose narrative structure. As one reads flomG enesis to f Chronicles (TANAK) or the Revelation of S t. John,events follow a discernible historical progression. In contrast, theQur'an has an arbitrary arrangement of Suras, or chapters, movingfrom the longest (Sura 2) to the shortest (Sura 11 4). It defies thereader looking for a nar rative to which familiar reading methodologies might be applied.

T he Jewish, Christian, and M uslim scriptures became scr ipturet hrough very different historical processes. Ass umptions that applyto the TANAI-\: and/or the Christian Bible cannot be easily transfelTed to the reading of the Q ur'an, as the following brief summariesof their different histories will make clear.

TheTANAKSte rn (1976) observes in A II istory cifthe Jewish Peopl that next to

monotheism the rule of the Torah, which encompassed all aspects ofLife, leaving nothing untouched, was one of the most outstandingcharacteristics of the development of Judaism . . . (283). How did thebooks of the Jewish Bible become the Torah, the comprehensive planof God for Creation::>

T he Torah Book, that is, Genesis through Deuteronomy, was firsta Je vv ish legal code issued by the prophet Ezra around 400 B.C.E. to beused as the law binding upon Jews in Palestine under the generalumb rella of Persian law. In the centuries that followed, the propheticbooks and the writings were added as a commentary upon the Torahto be utilized in determining how to apply the Torah's legal provisions to contemporary social problems. T his mode of interpretationwas radically al tered when Antiochus IV revoked the code andimposed Greek law and religion upon Palestine. This action precipita ted the M accabean Revolt (167-164 B.C.E.), a successful militarydefense of the Torah and its tradition. According to R T Beckwith( 1990) in lvIlkra the complete TANAK already existed by 164 B.C.E .\vhen the Maccabees restored the scriptures that had been destroyedduring the persecution waged by Antiochus IV (57 ). The Hasidim, orPious On es, who were the backbone of the revolt, would begin toevolve a new approach to Torah through oral in te rpr etation according to which the TANAK would become a scripture interpretedaccording to th e doctrine of God's plan for creation that now informsevery aspect of Jewish life (St ern , 1976, 57). It was in the first century B.C.E. with the development of the or al tradition of halakah- thepath where Isr ael walks t h a t the TA NAK was transformed by the

----- - -- - - -- --oral tradition 's Torah doctri.ne (Ste rn, 1976, 57 ). At this point, vemay speak of the Torah Book as scripture with a high degree of certain ty. W hen the Roman conquest of Palestine and the destruction ofthe T emple (66 - 72 C.E.) eliminated the option of interpreting theTo ra h as civilla \v, it was the rabbinic formulation that survived. How,then, was the Torah understood and interpreted as scripture ratherthan as civil law?

We kno w historically from the evidence of the D ead Sea Scrollsthat the people of Qumran regarded the scripture as a revelationgiven in historical stages by God to Moses and then to the prophetsand finally to the people of Qumran through their inspired Teacherof Righteousn ess. M . F ishbane ( 1990) observes in M ikra that thesec tarians viewed th e relationship between th e Mikra andIn terpretation as a continuity of divine revelations, viz. the revelations to M oses and the prophets were succeeded by exegetical revela-tions to the authoritative teachers of th e sect (3 76 ). This historicalunderstanding is carried forth in the New Testament, and Islam hasthis same concept of the succession of prophetic revelations. A trajecto ry of revelation extends from Adam to M uhammad, culminatingin the final revelation of Allah's Q ur'an th rough M uhammad-thefinal prophet, the Seal of Prophecy. Ironically, this historical elementis lost in Rabbinic Judaism as the Bible is transformed through halakic interpr etation into an eternal text revealed in toto by God toM oses in the presence of the community at Sinai. This leads to theprimacy of midrash, or metaphorical interpretation, that completelyignores both the contex t and the rules of biblical language (Kasher,1990, 560). T he tex t is henceforth regarded as the Word of G od,v hich ex isted even prior to creation as a blueprint utilized by G od in

creating the wo rld. Since every word of th e TANAK is regarded as ifit were dictated to M oses at the same time, all texts may be interpre ted in light of each other. The scripture is no longer interpretedin a temporal-historical context. Christianity continued the de\ ''.o.lopment of metaphorical interpretation without abandoning the historical inter pre tation inherited from Qumran. Christians read scripturein ter ms of the historical promise of G od/ fulfillment pattern evenas they search for eternal tr uths. [n Islam, the greatest weight isplaced upon hi storical interpretation with a single major legal school(the M Utazilites) developing metaphorical in terpretation as its complement.

The shi ft in Jewish interpretation from the historical chain ofprophetic revelation to the image of the Bible as an eternal text res

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onates with the M uslim claim that the O ur'an is recited by God froma heavenly archetype (Esposito, 1991, , but the shift from an historical perspective on revelation to a metaphorical emphasis upon the'spiritual nature of revelation creates a tension between M uslim andRabbinic interpretation. Islam views this shift as a corruption of theprophetic revelation that is being corrected by the Qur'an.

The New TestamentThe writings of St. Paul and the four G ospels were collected and

circulated very early. We know from the M uratorian Canon that thesetex ts in practice had become scripture by the end of the second century. It was the struggle over the correct interpretation of these textsthat primarily led to the creation of the New Testament.

W ithin a religious tradition, there arises a multiplicity of experiences leading to a "vide variety of interpretations. Groups may evendiffer as to what constitutes the root story-the founding story-ofthe tradition. At some point, the community has to determine whichof its experiences constitute the normati"e revelation. The varioussubgroups that make up the larger tradition interact and debate themerits of their experiences. Out of this process of debate and interaction, there arises a canon, a collection of sacred writings that are tobe used by later generations as a yardstick for measuring what is"true" experience within the community. This process of debate maysplit a tradition into factions of "orthodoxy" and "heresy." If theheresy is large and well organized, it may survive, as did the RomanCatholic Church when it split from the Orthodox Church andProtestantism when it split from the Roman Catholic Church.Otherwise, it becomes an historical footnote like the Arians, theSabellians, the Gnostics, and the Ebionites.

The first group to proclaim Jesus as the Prophet-Teacher, theJudaizers, or Ebionites, was destined to become a heresy and perish.The Ebionites viewed the man Jesus as the bearer of the final andperfect interpretation of the Jewish Torah given by God to M oses.One had to be Jewish and live by the Torah in order to follow Jesusas the ultimate rabbi. The Gospel of Ma tth ew stands very close tothis early tradition. The affinity of this tradition with the Qur'anicview of Jesus as a final, exemplary prophet is most evident. TheQur'an does not, however, accept the claim that Jesus is the last anddefinitive guide for God's people. T hat honor belongs to M uhammad.

T he followers of Stephen, the D eacon, proclaimed Jesus as a universal savior. The proclamation that Jesus was risen to become the

King of a Heavenly kingdom open to all mankind led immediately toStephen's death (Acts 7) at the hands of the elders of the Sanhedrin,the ci ty council of Jerusalem and chief religious court for Jews in theRoman Empire. The Pharisee Paul took Stephen'S place and becamethe guardian of the pagans who followed Jesus as the savior, the socalled Christians (Acts 11: 19ff.). Paul largely created the ChristianChurch as he untiringly covered the Me diterranean proclaiming thesalvation that comes as an act of divine grace apart from the Torah.Inevitably, the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem had to decide if Paulwere proclaiming a heresy. This story is played out in the book ofAc ts, chapters 1-15. T he initial decision of James, the presiding elderin Jerusalem (Acts 15), was that both the Christians and theEbionites, as they were later called, had the right to follow Jesus butthat the Christians were dependent upon the authority of the Churchin Jer usalem.

T he decision of James ignored the key issue. How could one reconcile Paul's claim that the Bible (Torah) had been transcended by aninner, mystical Christian experience open to all races and cultureswi th the l':bionite claim that the Torah was eternally valid as the soleguide for living according to the will of God? l ~ v e n t u a l l y the difficultissue was faced and the Ebionites lost. They became a heresy. PaulineChristianity prevailed. Historical events ensured Christian domination of the ne\-\ faith. The destruction of the Jewish followers duringthe Roman invasion of Palestine left the Christians as the dominantgroup. Although a weakened Jewish "christianity" would survive foranother 2 years, they were never again a major force in the newmovement. The focal point of Christianity shifted to four great patriarchal centers: Jerusalem, Antioch, AJexandria, and Rome. In time,Rome would become the center of Western Christianity and theBishop of Rome would be declared the Pope, the Holy Father(approximately 1 C.E. . The Orthodox, or Eastern, Church retainsthe patriarchy.

W ithin the new Christian community, a tension developed betweenthe Gnostics and the regular Christians that led to the condemnationof the G nostics as heretics. This event is critical to our understanding both of the rise of the New Testamen t canon and the M uslim perception of Christian doctrine. The Gnostic debate was complicated byan important Pauline "side issue"; what is the status of the Torah inChristian experience now that it has been superceded by the Gospel?

A Gnostic teacher in Rome named M arcion-a wealthy, retired seamerchan t was the first person to declare a collection of books to be

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Christian scripture. Following Paul, Marcion emphasized the mysti-cal experience. He rejected the Old Testament on the grounds that itwas the story of an angry and oppressive god from which Christianshad been liber ated by the atoning death of Jesus. M arcion's canon wasthe Gospel of Luke, minus the nativity stories, and ten letters that heconsidered to have been written by Paul. This initiated the debatethat led after several centuries to a tacit acceptance of the OldTes tament as defined by the Septuagint translation of the JewishBible (150 B.C.E.) and 27 books of the New Testament. At the centerof this controversy with the Gnostics was the question of correctinterpretati on of the nature of Christ and of salvation. The Gnosticswere condemned for denying both the humanity of Christ and thegoodness of God's creation.T he M onophysite controversy of the fifth century is another facetof this christological discussion. Th e Monophysites, largely fromEgypt, argued that though Christ was of tvvo natures before theIncarnation, the divili ;: and the human, he possessed only one nature,the divine. after his birth (Cannon, 1960,27 . The orthodox positionenunciated by the Council of Cha1cedon stated that through theIncarnation Christ \as one person with two separate and distinctnatures the divine and the human (Cannon, 1960, 27 ). TheMonophysites created a new Christian community that still exists inthe Middle East.

Careful study of the Qur'anic understanding of Christian doctrineleads to the conclusion that both the Ebionite and the M onophysitetypes helped form M uh ammad's understanding of Christian teaching(Andrae, 1960, 87, 100-102 . Andrae comments in j\lluhammad: Th e

all and is Faith that it is clear that M uhammad must have beeninfluenced by the struggle for religious independence that hadgiven Mani and the Gnostics such a strong position among the peo-ples of the Orient ( 106. In addition, the Sufi interpretation of theQu r'an and its tradition places central emphasis upon gnosis ormystical knowledge a fact explicated most fully by Nasr (1989) inKnowledge and the Sacred Th e Qur'anic understanding of Christianitytends to offend Christian readers since it places emphasis uponunderstandings that Christians relegated to heresy. T here can be noeasy bl ending of Christian and Muslim perspectives. [slam urgesJews and Christians to abandon their corrupted revelations and sub-mit to the purified message of the Qur 'an. Th e absolute of one tradition is imposed upon another.

he QuranThe Qur'an derives solely from revelations received by the prophetM uhammad between 610 C.E. and his death in 632 C.E. T he Qur anwas collected and standardized by the caliphs who were his immedi-ate successors. Collection was begun under the first caliph, AbuBaker, and the standard edition was issued by Caliph Uthman ibnAffan in 650 C.E. and deviant texts were destroyed. There is no com-

plicated history of the Muslim canon such as we find in Judaism andChristianity Fr om this perspective, the Qur an is radically differentfrom the TANAK and the Christian Bible. A rich patristic debate ledto the formation of Christian doctrine and canon through generalcouncils of the Church. Centuries of rabbinic oral teaching and debateled to the Talmud 's commentary on the Torah. In Islam, we find therise of the legal schools that must both interpret the Qur'an and applyit to the life of the Muslim state. Law rather than theology is domi-nant in Islamic life. This requires that Westerners adjust their concepts of religion. I t is the Islamic state rather than the Church orSynagogue that is central for the religious life of the M uslim.Christians in the West loosely linked the state and the churchthrough the concept of the Ho ly Roman Empire initiated in 962 byO tto I, the successor of Charlemagne. The Pope crowned theEmperor from 800 until 1562. The French Revolution terminatedthis alliance in 1806 . Under the impact of the Revolution, Christiansincreasingly separated the obligations of faith and citizenship, asreflected in the term personal religion proposed by Rousseau. TheRevolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man effectively separatedmodern Jevvish political life from religious life. For the first timesince the Jews were expelled from Palestine in 135 C.E., they had therights of citizenship. This process of secularization has not takenplace in Muslim society, where religion and citizenship are theoreti-cally inseparable.Judaism, Christianity, and Islam agree that their scriptures are holy,the \lVo rd of God, but they interpret this claim in very different ways.For Judaism the TANAK is the Word of God revealed in total toMoses in the Hebrew language at Sinai The Word of God cannotexist in translation lest human intrusions find their way into the text.This further implies that God's act of revelation is instantaneous andperfect but that the process of the human interpretation is an open-ended one. The Mu slim claim for the Quran is the same with theexception that the holy language is Arabic rather than Hebrew. Like

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the TANAK the Qur'an exists at two levels. Essent ially, it is an eternal or archetypal en tity in the mind of G od. Secondarily, the Q ur'anr ecited by M uhammad is the best possible historical approximation ofthe heavenly Q ur'an. T he study and application of the Q ur'anthrough the centuries are a process through which the M uslim comesto understand the Word and W ill of G od.

For Christians, the true Word of God is Christ. The Bible points toChris t, the Logos. Th e function of the Bi ble as a pointer is in no manner disturbed by the act of translation. T he Christian Bible is onlyrelatively holy, while the TANAK and the Qu r 'an are absolutely holy.The Q ur'an occupie s a place in M uslim life comparable to the place ofChTist in the Chris tian communi ty. The Qu r 'an, like Christ, is thetrue Word of G od uncontaminated by man. The M uslim doctrineth at Mu hamm ad was unlettere d seeks to protect th e Qur'an fromsuch in ter pretations as would center upon M uhammad as the author.He is merely the pu re vehicle used by Heaven. This is similar to theChristian claim that the Virgin M ary vas pure and absolutely sinless.She too is the pur e vehicle of Heaven. Ne ither M uha mm ad nor M arycontaminates th e Word of God despite their intimate association v,ithits entry into the historical process.

Muh ammad is both the vehicle for the revelation and the bestexample of how to apply th e Qur'an in one's o,vn life. T he Sunnah,the customs of th e P rophet , is contained in a collection of authenticated testimony, H adith, to the practice and exemplary behavior ofM uhammad. The Sun nah, no,v contained in the H adith, is the firstcommentary upon the Qur'an. Islam , like Judaism, is preeminently alife to be lived according to the plan of God for creation.

The Shariah-the Isl am ic path defined by the legal scholars-extends the exposition of the Life of M uhammad and is regarded asthe authoritative guide to the under standing of th e Q ur'an. Gaetje(1971) observes in T he Quran and Its E xegesis that in time, the consensus zima) of the scholars came to be taken as a practicalauthority concerning decisions of law and faith, proceeding from aTradition according to which the P rophet and his community wouldnever agree upon a mistake 17).Holy War jihad The Just War

Smi th (1993) argues in W hat Is Scrzpture? that the meaning of theQ ur'an is the history of its meanings-a dynamic, rich, creative, continuing complex ; one that is deeply in tert wined w ith the lives of sev

eral hundreds of millions of persons over many centuries and manylands (90). t is from this perspective that we must approach thedevelopmen t of an unders tanding of the pr actice ofjihad and its relationship to Christian just war theology. T here is no central Islamicdictionary from which we may appropriate the difinition. The practiceof Jihad must be understood within the context of a multiplicity ofM uslim communi ties through the centuries. The particular application ofjihad to contempor aTY struggles for liberation must be understood in the con tex t of each organization's relationship to the largerM uslim T radition. In Unholy JFar: Terror in the N ame o Islam, JohnEsposito (2002) stresses that jihad is an integral part of Islam whenhe wr ites: M uslims are enjoined to act, to struggle jihad) to implement their belief, to lead a good life, to defend religion, to contributeto the development of a ju st Islamic society throughout the world 5).Esposito's point is clear. Jihad is not a theological frill but an integralpart of the M uslim life regardless of how jihad may be interpreted ina particular community. The development of the concept of jihad hasa rich and varied history, as does the Christian theology of the justwar.The roots of jihad are in the life of the Prophet M uhammad, whowaged war in order to establish the first Muslim state in M ecca. It isnot the historical achievement of M uhammad that is central for Nasr(1966) in his Ideals and Reallties o Islam but the universal, or archetypal, characteristics of the Prophet. M uhammad is a model for all tofollow. Nasr (1966) writes of M uh ammad as a particular spiritualprototyp e of the true life of piety who also

had a quality of combativeness, of always being actively engaged incombat against all that negated the Truth and disrupted harmony.Ex ternally it meant fighting wars, either military, political or socialones, the war which the Prophet named the little holy warInwardly this combativeness meant a continuous war against the carnal soul against all that in man tends towards the negation of Godand Hi s will, the great holy war. 73)

N asI' (1966) observes further that the purpose of war from theMuslim per spe ctive is that it tries to establish equilibrium betweenall the ex isting forces that surround man and to overcome all theexist ing forces that tend to destroy this equilibrium (73). The goalof jihad is the establishment of harmony either within the psyche(great jihad) or within society (little jihad). W ar is an acceptablemeans to achievin g a social harmony. t is a medicine for treatingsocial ills.

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We tend to have archetypal images of our saints. W hen we think ofChrist, we picture the crucifix-an image deeply rooted in Pearson's(1989) archetypal Martyr soul-plot. We imagine Moses with the twotablets in hand descending the mountain from his discourse withGod. He is the Sage, th e ultimate Rabbi. Nasr (1966), a Sufi Muslim,suggests that we image the Prophet as a rider sitting on a steed withthe sword of justice and discrimination drawn in his hand and galloping at full speed, yet ready to come to an immediate hal t before themountain of Truth (1966, 74). Nas r risks activating the Westernstereotype of Islam as a warring religion in order to reclaim the truthhidden under the stereotype. t is vital that we contact the archetypalsoul-plot that came to expression through Muhammad the Warriorto supplement the images of the Jewish Rabbi and the ChristianMa rtyr. T his leads us into the archetyp al roots of each tradition.

The Warrior Archetypal Plot and JihadThe unconscious supplies us with archetypes, that is, soul-plots,typical patt erns, or templates for action and understanding. The fol

lowing description of this archetypal warrior hero plot is based uponCarol Pearson's ( 1989) Jungian analysis in The Hero If lthin andJoscelyn Godwin's ( 198 1) cultural analys is in Jvlystery Religions in thenclent WorldThe Crusade Model fo r warriors is well att ested in our societyfrom the crusades of the Middle Ages to those of evangelist Billy

Graham and other Christian soldiers. The pattern is constant. Warmust be waged against sinners so that the better world (I\ ingdom ofGod) can appear. In variation one of the Warrior plot, sinners aresimply killed-burning at the stake being a favorite medieval method.In variation two, sinners are converted into true believers and incorporated into the community. In variation three, one senses the salvivic trends that are moving in the universe and supports them. Jihadcan be defined in terms of any of these three stages.

The first approach is presupposed by the P akistani reformerMaududi ( 1971) in his Come L et Us Ch ange Th is IVorld although therhetoric is shaded to encompass both of the fi rst two stages Hewrites:

We are not opposed to the modern sciences or the technical progressbrought about by them. Our rebellion is agains t that civilization andculture which has been created by the western philosophy oflife and itsph iloso phy of morality. . .. 'We aim at picking out and organizing people wh o would be ready to fight both backwardness and modernity for

the supremacy of the real Islam of the Quran and the Sunnah Thereal thing before us is not a govern ment by M uslims but th e gx)Vernment of Islam; of that Isl am which embr aces the universal pr inciples ofhonesty and integrity, and a high civic sense. (8 9 , 91)

T aking note of the Fr ench Revolution and the Russian Revolution,Maududi calls for the Islamic revolution that is needed to overcomethe evil effects of the t'vvo prior revolutions (100). Such is the goal ofJamaat-e-I slami in Pakistan.Esposito (2002) correctly argues that Maududi envisions Jihad prima rily as an instrument of social reform. He notes that Ma ududiarg ues that Islam needs to transform itself through political actionboth against European colonialism and against corrupt , unIslamic M uslim stat es (2002, 54). Nevertheless, Esposito concedesthat Maududi approves of a defensive jihad waged by Islam againstcolonialism and injustice (2002, 54 ). Since many, if not most,MLlslims view themselves as the victims of European colonialism, thedefensive caveat would allow for a jihad against the civilization andculture which has been created by the western philosophy of life andits philosophy of morality (Maududi, 1971, 89). will see the samepossibility of a double reading in the work of Muhammad Qutb, oneof Osama bin Laden's professors at King Abdulaziz University inSaudi Arabia (Esposito, 2002, 8) . (This is not to suggest that Qutb isresponsible for his st udent's actions.)In his early 'vvork, Islam: Th e Misunderstood Religion MuhammadQutb (1964) also explicates jihad in terms of the fight for social justice. He writes, noth ing but evil will result from people's forbearingfrom the struggle for social justice (304 ) as he argues for an equitabledistribution of wealth. This position may be somewhat deceptive.Qutb is the brother of Sayyid Qutb, who is widely acknowledged asthe father of militant jihad, a major influence on the worldview of radical movements across the Muslim world, and a venerated martyr ofcontemporary Islamic revivalism (Esposito, 2002, 8) . It may be thatQutb 's work is read differently by Westerners and by those who feelthemselves victimized by colonialism and the Western lifestyle. Thismuch, however, is clear. Islamic reform is not new. It was advocatedlate in the nineteenth century by Jamal ad-Din aI-AfghanI (died1897), Muhammad 'Abduh (died 1905), and M uhammad RashId Rida(died 1935). Gaetje (1971 ) notes of these three reformers that allthree viewed the liberation of all Islamic peoples from foreign rule asan essential prerequisite for the revival of Islam (22). Since thisbeginning of Islamic reform, the Islamic understanding of jihad has

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moved fl'om social reform to armed conflict as the Warrior soul-plothas been more tightly linked with the Ma rtyr plot. Soldiers of Godfightillg in a just cause can expect to reap the rewards of Paradise'(Estlo';ito, 2002, 69). From th e archetypal point of view, we can seethat Saddam I Iussein is playing on a partial truth when he claims thatsuicide bombers are not terrorists, i.e., secular warriors, but martyrs.Of course, it is politically conven ient for him to neglect the Warriorplot linkage that this type of mar tyrdom requires.

The third variation on the Warrior plot is seen in th e Sufi interpretation of Nasr (1966). Both the greater and the lesser jihad are inaccordance with , in defense of and for the sake of the SharT'ah, thedivinely re\'ealed Layv (1966, 117). All jihad is in support of this cosmic order. \Var may be required to achieve this goal.

One might ask, Vhy don't we just eliminate the Warrior mode ofreligious existence? The Warri or soul-plot is deeply rooted in theunconscious. It cannot be eliminated through either education or byforce. Nor should we wish to. It is in our capacity as Warrior that weface our fears assert the tru e self and live in confidence that the worldcan be a bett er place as a result of our positive effort. All members ofthe Judeo-Christian-M uslim tradition advocate that their members bewarrior s social activists. Via r is a social medicine in tended to restoresocial balance to the body politic. The cen tral question is W hen iswar justified and by what means may it be fought legitimately? Greatcare must be taken to separate the cause of the war from the actionstaken in war. Can terror ever be legitimized as a means even if thecause can be viewed as just? Terror is not a part of the larger IslamicTra di tion of jihad or of the Christian just war.

Godwin notes historically that the Warriors' view of the world isdualistic-good and evil, light and dark, angels and demons, heavenand earth, the G reeks and the Barbarians, insiders and outsiders,friends and enemies are self-evident dualities. his dualism may beperceived at every level of the cosmos. In the Warri or 's vievi of theworld, the practical values of gaining wealth for self and communitytend to attract abstract ideals like justice, truth, and righteousness.Warriors often project their own evil on others say ing things likeMy communi ty's war is just, God is on our side, O ur enemies tie

and are villainous but we are righteous persons fighting for 'truth,justice, and the American W ay,''' to draw on an allusion from popularcultur e (e.g., Batman). Warriors tend to associate their enemies witharchetypal shadow images. i.e., images of th e evils, weaknesses, andunrealized potentials that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves.

T he W arrior's view of the world is also hierarchical. Our side isdualistic by rank. One is an officer or a soldier; a knight or a serf; aking or a sub ject; God or creature. Both M uslim militants and con temporary Christian Fundamentalists share this apocalyptic viewthat posits a struggle (jihad) between the forces of G od and Satan,good and evil, da r kness or ignorance Uahiliyyah) and light(Esposito, 2002, 53). For M uslims and Christians, the righteouscommunity is the Lord's army in a cosmic battle, an apocalypticstruggle.The warr io r must resign or submit himself or herself to the causeof Justice. Nasr's (1966) sugges tion of the warrior image forM uhammad is suppor ted by the ver y name Islam. According to theIs lam ic Foundation (England), ''' Islam' is an Arabic word. t meansthe act ofresign ation to God. T he root word is SLM .. . which meanspeace from which comes the word aslama which means he submitted, he resigned himself. Al-Islam or Islam is the religion whichbrings peace to mankind when man commits himself to God and sub mits himself to His will (Ahmad, 1975,21). Islam is thus stronglyrooted in the W arrior plot where the prime virtue is submission.

The Warrior must learn the virtue of submission in several ways.F irst, he must place the cause of his co un try above personal survival;this shifts the focus from his ego to a transcendent idea of G od,Cause, or Country. Second, he must submit to hardship in the field.Third, in uniform, he surrenders his individuality to a group identity. Fourth, he must forgo personal judgment and submit to theorders of his superior of f ers. M aududi (1971) writes apropos of thefirst and second virtues that the members of Jamaat are ready toundergo persecution and even impr isonment and tortures and , if itcomes to that, are not afraid even of laying down their very lives forthe cause (99). M aududi stresses loyalty to the group and its members as absolute. He warns the prospective member of Jamaat thatill-feeling against the group, or the harbouring of any grudges,

hate, jealou sy or suspicion, or the desire to hurt others, are the worstof cri me s which Allah and His P rop het have condemned.. .. ( 10 1).T he bond of the community, however, is not based upon ideology butupon submission to All ah. Members of the Jamaat are not to be blindsupporters of the organization. It is the obligation of members toprevent the organization from swaying from the right path (103) ofIslam lest it become enmeshed in worldly values. The just causemust be supported by right action for Islam to be actualized in th estruggle.

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T he Warrior s primary image of God tends to be that of God theJudge or of God the Avenger. W hen one must oppose family andfriends, it may be difficult to submit to the voca tion of killing in thename of justice. The Bhagavad Gita is the story of the great warriorArjuna, who upon beholding in the ranks of the enemy his "fathers,grandfath er s, sons, grandsons" \NaS overcome by grief and despair.He raises a critical question, "Shall we not, who see the evil ofdes truction, shall we not refrain from the terrible deed;J" 1fis god,Kr ishna, ansv,ers with thi s ex hortation:

Fall not into degrading weakness.Throw off this ig'noble discouragement,and arise like a fire that burns all before it ..The wise grieve not for those who live;and they grieve not for those who die--fo r life and death shall passawayIn death thy glory in heaven, in victory thy glory on earth.Arise , therefo re, Arjuna, with thy soul ready to fight.Prepare for war with peace in thy soul.Be in peace in pleasure and pain, in gain and in loss, in victory or inthe loss of a battle.In this peace there is not sin. (2:3, 48)The \Varrior must learn the virtue of detachmen t by overcominghis o\vn ambitions and fear s. He must act without concern for himself

in th e heat of battle. He may plan before a battle, but in the field hemust rely upon his intuitive sense of how the battle is flowing andchange his plans accordingly.

The Warrior can understand li fe as a war between the forces ofhealing and those of de8th and decay. M,wkind is an animal with thepotential to become a god, but he or she must fight to actualize thispotential. Inevitably, this leads one toward peace and community asthe most life-fulfilling alternatives to fragmentation and war. W henAlexander the Great was questioned by the Brahmins of India as towhy he continued to wage war, he replied:

t is ordained by heavenly Providence that we should be servants of thegod's decree . .. Man does no t act unless he is imp elled by the heavelllyProvidence. I would willingly desist from making war, but the Lord ofmysp irit does not suffer me to do so. For if all were of one mind, th e cos moswould stand still. (Pseudo-Callisthenes 3,6 cited by Godw in , 1981, 15)In short Alex ander, like many great achievers, understood himself tobe called, that is, to have a vocation, by a des tiny imprinted upon his

soul. Alexander had a transcendental calling to be a warrior. He co uldnot do ot herw ise and pre serve his psychic integrity. Th e M uslimmu ahzdln (soldiers of God) share this sense of a transcendental callingwith Christian soldiel-s

From antiqLlity through th e M iddle Ages, swords are named andhave a genealogy that traces back to ancient heroes or even to thegods. For th e ancient and medieval W arrior, the weapon is a transitional object making present the unity of th e gods with the warriorhims elf. Recall that King Arthur receives his svvord through a miraculous sign. It was decreed by Heaven that only the true king couldpull the sword from the ston e. U pon Ar thur s death, Excalibur is castin to the lake where it is received by the hand of the Lady of the Lake.T his suggests that both Arthur s sword and his des tiny aros e fromLady Soul (An im a), the inner 'vvoman vho resides in the unconscious..l\asr ( 1966) identifies the sword of M uhammad as the sword of discrimination-that psychic quality of cutting through all that is illusory to arrive at the deepest stratum of T ruth.For the M uslim, the key transitional object is the earthly Qur an andall of its correct interpretation through the ages. The Qur'anic tradition connects one to the Heavenly Qur an in the mind of God.Subm ission to G od is made possible by means of the Qur'an and theexample of Muhammad. The application of Qur'anic principles is theweapon of the Islam ic warrior just as the Bible is regarded as the T woEdged S'word of the Lord Jesus by militant Christians .

The Archetypal Warrior Plo t and the Just WarM uslims have the historical example of M uhammad as a warrior

and a Cali ph, but Christiani ty did not inh eri t i ts commi tmen t to theW arrior plot from Jes us. Certainly, the disciples stood in a traditionof apocalyptic pol i i cal hope, and they expected Jesus to be the grea tWar r ior I\ ing, the Christ, who would app ear just prior to the Endto lead Israel in battle against her enemies. Victorious, he wouldes tablish a final Jew ish kingdom th at might last a thousand yearsbefore the End came. According to th e G ospel of M atthevv (4:8-10),Jesus rejected Sat an s offer to become this king: Jesus said to him,:A..w ay with you, Satan for it is written, 'Worship th e Lord yourG od, and serve only him ' (M att. 4,:10, NRSV ). Jesus chooses toimagine him se lf as th e Servant of G od rather than as the vVarriorexpected by tradition. He rejects the Warrior plot for the M artyrplot. Jesus' foll owe rs did not unders tan d this and persisted in thehope that ]co L1S would be the grea t . . arrior, the Messiah (Matt.

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26:51-56). W hen the disciples finally perceived that this was not tobe Jesus' role, they fled from the opportunity to embrace theM artyr's plot with Jesus. The disciples \Je r ready to die for th'egreat warrior, the Me ssiah, but not for a sage or a martyr. Throughthe early centuries, the Christian had to choose the Martyr plot tothe exclusion of the Warrior plot, but slowly this view changed asa theology of the just war developed.

The prototype of the Christian Warrior is the figure of SaintGeorge associated by legend with Lydda in Palestine. T here is no historical evidence for the man's existence, but his cult is amply documented. The cult is attested as early as 367 by an inscription inT rachonitis. By the sixth century, churches were dedicated to himthroughout the East and the yVest (Holweck, 1924, 423). His cultcame to England in the eighth century (Coulson, 1990, 196). RichardLionheart placed his crusading army under the protection of St.George; the T eutonic Knights embraced him as their patron saint(Hohveck, 1924, 423). T he figure of St. George sho ws us that thelater development of the Christian Warrior archetype is stronglyinfluenced by the Christian encounter with the Islamic world. T hreeorders of Christian soldiers emerged as opponents of the M uslim,protectors of pilgrims, the sick, and Christian civili zation: theKnights Templar (1119), the Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers(1070), and the Teutonic Knights (1190).

Andre Jolles (1958) in Einfache Formen notes that the legend of St.George arose out of the Diocletian persecution. W hen this Christiansoldier's obligation to the evil emperor proposing the persecution ofChristians cannot be reconciled with his responsibility to the Christianfaith, George resigns his commission, challenges the emperor's decision, and is martyred. T he soldier's vocation clashes with his Christiancalling to endure martyrdom in defense of the faith. Legend reflectsthe practice of the faith. Tomaz Mastnak (2002) in Crusading P eace:Christendom the M usllm Torld and Tf/estern Political Order notes thattraditionally, the Church had been averse to the shedding ofblood . . . [and] participation in warfare was regarded as an evil . . .Even if a Christian stained his hands with blood in a just \var, he stillsinned (16).

The legend of St. George evolves with the developing theology ofthe Church. Jolles (1958) notes that at a later stage in the development of the legend, the obligation to valor and the obligation to faithcoincide' (48) to form the Soldier-Saint as an archetypal pattern.M astnak (2002) notes that the term soldiers o Christ originally

applied to Christians in general, but from late antiquity onwards theterm . . . became increasingly reserved for the monks-in contrast tothe 'secular soldiers.' He quotes Carolingian Abbot Smaragdusspeaking in 820 as saying th at Christian soldiers fight agairlst evilso that after death they may gain the reward of eternal life (22). T heSoldier-Saint has appeared. The old dichotomy of Christian andWa rrior has collapsed.

Theological developments led to the legitimization of war as aChristian vocation. Mastnak (2002) argues that Odo, abbot of Cluny(926-44), '\-vas one of the first to argue that it was possible to concluc t warfare from proper motives and th us to promote a newethics of war, that is, Christian militarism (17). By the eleventh century, it could be argued that warfare in service of the Church waslegitimate (18) The shedding of blood was acceptable when used tocombat the aggression of the M uslim (21) and any who ignoredChrist and resisted His Church (43). The legend of St. George againmaintained its relevance.

The Christian Soldier became a significant political reality in theFirst Crusade, proclaimed by Urban II in 1096 for the purpos e of rescuing the holy places from the hand of the M uslim. The five crusades,extending from 1096 to 1291, were strategic and spiritual failures.W illiston \iVa lker (1959) observes that

they mad e no permanent conquest of the Holy Land. It may be doubtedwhether th ey greatly retarded the advance of Mohammedanism. Th eircosts in lives and treasure were enormous. Though initiated in a hi ghspirit of devotion, their conduct was disgraced th roughout by quarrels,divided motives, and low standards of personal conduct. (224)

This historical failure did not prevent the Crusades from enteringChristian imagination as a glorious war for Christ.D uring the twelfth century, the St. George legend came to includethe episode of St. George rescuing a king's daughter from a dragon,reminding some of the Perseus myth of the rescue of Andromeda. Inthis late development of the archetypal pattern, Saint George is nolonger the Soldier-Martyr but simply the soldier, the dragon-slayer,and the defender of virtuous young women (Jo lles, 1958, 49). St.George was the Defender of the Faith. As the legend vas developingin the Christian church along with a theology of the just war, theArthurian legends were being created in historical and literaryworks. Th e Warrior hero pattern is deeply ingrained in bothChristian imagination and thought.

Despite the facts documenting military and personal moral fail onclusion


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ure, th e Crusades are remem bered as a model of Christian militancy. T his conflict be tween imagination and historical fact is anind ication that our image is rooted in an archetypal base. heChristian I{ night Crusaders we re not evaluated and rememberedempirically. T hey became archetypal figures rooted in theChristian imagination as brave and powerful warriors defendingthe faith against the infidel, guided by their Christian commitment.On the other hand, the M uslim defenders en tered Western imagination as hell-sent bearers of a pagan religion to be imposed by thesword. T he M uslim became one of the shadow figures of theChristian world .The M uslim image of the Crusades is very much the opposite ofthe Christian image. Any reference to a crusade will call forth adeeply emotional response from a M uslim. Es posito 2002 ) notes thatthe Crusades and European colonialism have had a universal and

lasting impact on the M uslim imagination For M uslims,Christianity is the religion of the Crusades and hegemonic ambitions 74-75 . The chilling implication is that the Christian is possibly inseparable in the M uslim mind from the experiences ofcoloniak,l1 and thus a potential enemy of God.

The warrior images of both Christianity and Islamic imaginationpose a major barrier to meaningful dialogue. John Renard 1992)comments in In the Footsteps C/fP uhammad:

Christians, for example, who find it quaint and dangerous that Muslimsbelieve God has prepared rewards in paradise for those who die a martyr 's death, might well recall that Christianity too has its tradition ofmartyrdom. If Jews and Christians take offense at the idea that the Godof Islam sanctions certain forms of violence , they would do well torecall not only the just wa r theory; but the shockingly sanguinaryimages of God in Deuteronomy and other early sections of the Hebrewscriptures . (19)Les t images of De uteronomy seem archaic and irrelevant in thelight of the Gospel, one needs to observe that Od o, the abbot ofCluny, ar g ued from the Old T estament that fighting was not preclu ded by Christian pie t y since Christians are following in the footsteps of the Pa triarchs (M astnak, 2002, 17). Scripture-of anyreligion-can be used all too easily as a club, as an easy justification fOj depriving others of rights, of life, liberty, and the pursuitof happiness.

I t is v itally important to recognize that the roots of ChristianM uslim antipathy are to be found in the unconscious. Each side tendsto project its images of evil and darkness upon the other. It is only aswe are able to withdraw our projections and take responsibility forour own evil that we can hope for meaningful dialogue. We can thenexplore the historical moments when the M uslim world enriched theChristian world. W here would th e West be intellectually, for example, had it not received the works of Aristotle from the M uslimphilosophers?

As we approach the Qur'an, we need to be aware of the differencesthat separate the Jewish, Christian, and M uslim conceptions of scripture. Each tradition has its O\Nn unique history of canonical development that cannot fairly be imposed upon another religion. Moses, Jesus,and M uhammad should not be simplistically compared. Each figure isassociated with a unique calling. Moses is the Master Teacher; Jesus isthe Martyr; and Mu hammad is the \Varrior-Statesman who perfectlyembodies the Universal Man, the prototype of all creation, the normof all perfection, the first of all beings (NasI', 1966, 88 .

M uslims do not have a monopoly upon the theology of the SoldierSaint. Christians have their own theology of the Just W ar, and codesfor the conduct of Christian soldiers were formulated during theM iddle Ages. M uslims and Christians traditionally agree that violence must be controlled even in the just war. The promise of Heavenas a reward for Christian soldiers differs little from the M uslim hopeof Paradise for warriors. In the light of historical events in a geographically sh rinking world, it is time that we become more aware ofour own history and theology as 'Nell as better informed about theM uslim tradition. This is no matter of simple Good (Us) challengedby Evil (Them). As we reclaim our projections, we will be empoweredto seek understanding and reconciliation.eferences

Ahmad, K. (Ed.). (1975). Islam: Its meaning and message London: IslamicCouncil of Europe.Andrae, T. 1960). Muhammad: The man and hisfalth New York: Harper andRow.Beckwith, R T 1990). Formation of the Hebrew Bible. M lkra: Text transla-tion reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in ancient Judaism andearly Chrzstzanzty. Minneapolis: Fortress.

the qur'an, muhammed, and jihad in context

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