who thus sought to exterminate the Muslims or to compel them to forsake their religion: “And they will not cease fighting with you until they turn you back from your religion if they can” (2:217). It was a holy war in the truest sense because, as stated further on, if war had not been allowed under these circumstances, there would be no peace on earth, no religious liberty, and all houses for the worship of God would be destroyed. Indeed there could be no war holier than the one which was needed as much for the religious liberty of the Muslims as for the principle of religious liberty itself, as much to save the mosques as to save the cloisters and the synagogues and churches. If there had ever been a just cause for war in this world, it was for the war that had been permitted to the Muslims. And undoubtedly war with such pure motives was a jihād, a struggle carried on simply with the object that truth may prosper and that freedom of conscience may be maintained.
The second verse giving to the Muslims permission to fight runs as follows: “And fight in the way of Allāh against those who fight against you, and be not aggressive; surely Allāh loves not the aggressors” (2:190). Here again the condition is plainly laid down that the Muslims shall not be the first to attack, they had to fight—it had now become a duty—but only against those who fought against them; aggression was expressly prohibited. And this fighting in self-defence is called fighting in the way of Allāh (fi sabīli-llāh), because fighting in defence is the noblest and justest of all causes. It was the cause Divine, because if the Muslims had not fought they would have been swept out of existence, and there would have been none to establish Divine Unity on earth. These were the very words in which the Holy Prophet prayed in the field of Badr: “O Allāh! I beseech Thee to fulfil Thy covenant and Thy promise; O Allāh! if Thou wilt (otherwise), Thou wilt not be worshipped anymore” (Bu.56:89). The words fi sabīli-llāh are misinterpreted by most European writers as meaning the propagation of Islām. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Muslims were not fighting to force Islām on others; rather they were being fought to force them to renounce Islām, as shown by 2:217 quoted above. What a travesty of facts to say that war was undertaken by the Muslims for the propagation of Islām!