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our present Treatise. It agrees very closely with what Muhammad had said when sending
Zaid ibn Harithah, his adopted son, on a similar expedition before the march to Tabuk
"Slay 1 your enemies and God's enemies that are in Syria. There you will
find a class of men who live retired in cells. Give them no trouble. And slay not woman
and boy and suckling; cut not down the date-palms and trees, nor destroy the houses."
But this must not be taken to indicate mercy to the women, for they were often reserved
for a fate far worse than death. We have already seen that Muhammad had caused women who
had offended him to be put to death in both Medinah and Mecca. Nor were the Muslims more
merciful to women after his death. As Suyuti tells 2 us of the treatment
suffered by two women of the Arabs, one of whom had abused Muhammad and the other had
lampooned the Muslims. In each case the woman's hand was cut off and one of her front
teeth knocked out. Abu Bakr, hearing of this, wrote to say that, if he had been consulted,
he would have ordered the former of the two to be put to death.
The spirit in which the conversion of the neighbouring countries was undertaken is
clearly shown in the following lines, ascribed to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib:
"Our 3 flowers are the sword and the dagger:
Narcissus and myrtle are nought.
Our drink is the blood of our foemen;
Our goblet his skull, when we've fought."
This is in accord with the teaching of the Qur'an, as far as putting opponents to death
is concerned, for in Surah v. 27, it is written: "Verily the recompense
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of those who wage war against God and His Apostle and run after evil in the land is
that they be slain or crucified, or that their hands and their feet be cut off on opposite
sides, or that they be banished from the land." In Surah ix. we find it enacted that,
after the end of the four sacred months of A.H. 11, no agreement with the Polytheists was
to be regarded as binding (vers. 1-4.). "When the sacred months are past, then slay
the Polytheists wherever ye find them, and seize them and besiege them and lie in ambush
for them in every ambuscade" (ver 5). Only on condition of their paying zakat
and observing the fixed times of prayer and repenting, that is, becoming Muslims, were
they to be spared. As for the "People of the Book", we find their sentence in
the same Surah, for to the Muslims is given the command: " Fight 1 ye
against those who believe not in God nor in the, Last Day, nor forbid what God and His
Apostle have forbidden, nor profess the true religion, from among those who have been
brought the Book, until they give the jizyah-tax out of hand and be brought
low" (or "are little "). This command is still incumbent upon Muslims,
whose duty it still is to compel Jews and Christians either to become Muslims or to be
reduced to a condition worse than that of slaves. As we shall now show, the early Muslims
recognized this obligation, and therefore conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Persia, and
other lands. Doubtless the chief reason with many of them for engaging in such conquests
was the love of war and the desire of plunder and female slaves: but all this was
sanctioned and encouraged by their religion. Hence the professed object of each war was
the spread of Islam, and thus it was proclaimed a Jihad. We have seen that Abu Bakr
called the invasion of Syria by this name. The Khalifah 'Umar, in the letter 2
in which he ordered Ayaz ibnu'l Ghanam to march to the conquest of Diar Bakr and
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