grew up slowly. It is clear that the earlier jurists did not go as far as their later annotators. Notwithstanding the wrong conception which was introduced into the meaning of jihād, by not paying proper attention to the context of the Holy Qur’ān and the circumstances under which the Holy Prophet fought, they still recognized that the basic principles of jihād was the repelling of the enemy’s mischief, and that hence peace with the unbelievers was jihād in spirit. But the later generation would not tolerate even this much. Some of them have gone to the length of holding that no permanent peace but only peace for a limited period can be concluded with the unbelievers, an opinion flatly contradicting the Qur’ānic injunction in 8:61. It must however be repeated—and it would bear repetition a hundred times—that, essentially, the Holy Qur’ān is opposed to taking the life of a man for unbelief. It gives full liberty of conscience by stating that there is no compulsion in religion (2:256); it establishes religious freedom by enjoining war to cease when there is no religious persecution, and religion becomes a matter between man and his God (2:193); it plainly says that the life of a man cannot be taken for any reason except that he kills a man or causes mischief (fasād) in the land (5:32).
With the new notion introduced into the word jihād, the jurists artificially divided the whole world into dār al-ḥarb and dār al-Islām. Dār al-ḥarb literally means the abode or seat of war, and dār al-Islām, the abode of Islām. The words are not used in the Holy Qur’ān, nor are they traceable in any ḥadīth. Bukhārī uses the word dār al-ḥarb in the heading of one of his chapters: “When a people embrace Islām in dār al-ḥarb” (Bu. 56:180). Two ḥadīth are mentioned under this heading, in neither of which do the words dār al-ḥarb occur. The first speaks of Makkah, and its subject-matter is that when, after the conquest of Makkah, the unbelieving Quraish accepted Islām; they were recognized as owners of property of which they had become masters, though it originally belonged to those Muslims who had fled to Madīnah. The second speaks of Rabdhah, a place at a distance of about three day’s journey from Madīnah, the lands near which were