Jihad

Jihad, from an Arabic root meaning to strive or to struggle, names in classical Islamic thought a range of effort undertaken for the sake of God, of which armed struggle is only one form and, in the tradition's own internal ranking, generally considered the lesser one. A hadith widely cited across classical sources, though its precise chain of transmission has been questioned by some hadith scholars, has the Prophet Muhammad returning from a military campaign and declaring that the community had returned from the lesser jihad, al-jihad al-asghar, to the greater jihad, al-jihad al-akbar, the struggle against one's own soul and its base inclinations.

Classical Islamic scholarship built an extensive juristic literature specifically around jihad in its martial sense, treating it as a distinct category of religious law, fiqh al-jihad, with its own conditions, forms and rules of conduct, rather than as a single simple concept, distinguishing at minimum defensive jihad, obligatory on the whole community when Muslim territory is attacked, from more restricted forms requiring authorization from a legitimate ruler. Classical legal manuals accordingly devote separate chapters to each category, treating fiqh al-jihad as a specialized field of religious law with its own recognized experts, comparable in status to other major divisions of Islamic jurisprudence.

Classical Sunni jurisprudence generally held that offensive jihad required declaration by a legitimate caliph or recognized ruler, making it, in the standard juristic category, fard kifayah, a collective obligation satisfied if enough of the community undertakes it, while defensive jihad against an invading force became fard ayn, an individual obligation binding on every capable Muslim in the threatened territory regardless of any ruler's call. The four classical Sunni schools of law developed their own detailed and not always identical positions on questions including which non-Muslims could be fought, the status and treatment of prisoners, and the distribution of any resulting spoils, while agreeing on a core set of conduct rules drawn from hadith attributed to the Prophet and his companions: prohibitions on killing non-combatants including women, children and monks, on destroying crops and orchards without military necessity, and on mutilating the dead, rules classical jurists treated as binding limits on legitimate warfare rather than as optional counsel.

Twelver Shia classical jurisprudence developed a further distinctive position, holding that offensive jihad required the presence of the infallible Imam and was therefore suspended during his occultation, permitting only defensive jihad in his absence, a doctrinal difference with substantial historical consequences for Shia political theology.