with respect to those who flee after they are persecuted then struggle hard (jāhadū) and are patient (ṣabarū), surely thy Lord after that is Protecting, Merciful (16:110). There is another prevalent misconception, namely, that at Makkah the Holy Qur’ān enjoined patience (ṣabr) and at Madīnah it enjoined jihād, as if patience and jihād were two contradictory things. The error of this view is shown by the verse quoted, since it enjoins jihād and patience in one breath.

Two more examples may be quoted of the use of the word jihād in the Makkah revelations. In one place it is said: “And strive hard (jāhidū) for Allāh with due striving (jihād)” (22:78). And in the other: “So obey not the unbelievers and strive (jāhid) against them a mighty striving (jihādan) with it” (25:52), where the personal pronoun it refers clearly to the Holy Qur’ān, as the context shows. In both these cases, the carrying on of a jihād is clearly enjoined, but in the first case it is a jihād to attain nearness to God, and in the second it is a jihād which is to be carried on against the unbelievers, but a jihād not of the sword but of the Holy Qur’ān. The struggle made to attain nearness to God and to subdue one’s passions, and the struggle made to win over the unbelievers, not with the sword but with Holy Qur’ān is, therefore, a jihād in the terminology of the Holy Qur’ān, and the injunctions to carry on these two kinds of jihād were given long before the command to take up the sword in self-defence.

Jihād in Madīnah revelations

A struggle for national existence was forced on the Muslims when they reached Madīnah, and they had to take up the sword in self-defence. This struggle went, and rightly, under the name of jihād; but even in the Madīnah chapters the word is used in the wider sense of a struggle carried on by words or deeds of any kind. As a very clear example of this use, the following verse may be quoted which occurs twice: “O Prophet! strive hard (jāhid from jihād) against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them; and their abode is Hell; and evil is the destination” (9:73:66: 9). Here the Holy Prophet is bidden to carry on a jihād against both unbelievers and hypocrites. The hypocrites were those who were outwardly Muslims and lived among, and were treated like, Muslims in all respects. They came to the mosque and prayed with the Muslims. They even paid the zakāt. A