In the context of warfare, jihad has been used to describe either the fighting or the motives behind it.
The beginnings of Jihad are traced back to the words and actions of Muhammad and the Qur'an.[1] This encourages the use of Jihad against non-Muslims.[2] Sura 25, verse 52 states: “Therefore, do not obey the disbelievers, and strive against them with this, a great striving.”[3] It was, therefore, the duty of all Muslims to strive against those who did not believe in Allah and took offensive action against Muslims. The Qu’ran, however, never uses the term Jihad for fighting and combat in the name of Allah; qital is used to mean “fighting.” The struggle for Jihad in the Qu’ran was originally intended for the nearby neighbors of the Muslims, but as time passed and more enemies arose, the Qur'anic statements supporting Jihad were updated for the new adversaries.[2] The first documentation of the law of Jihad was written by ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Awza’i and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani. The document grew out of debates that had surfaced ever since Muhammad's death.[1]
The first forms of military Jihad occurred after the migration (hijra) of Muhammad and his small group of followers to Medina from Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam. The first revelation concerning the struggle against the Meccans was surah 22, verses 39-40:[4]
To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid. (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, "our Lord is Allah". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).
At this time, Muslims had been persecuted and oppressed by the Meccans.[5] There were still Muslims who could not flee from Mecca and were still oppressed because of their faith. Surah 4, verse 75 is referring to this fact:
And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?- Men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will protect; and raise for us from thee one who will help!
The Meccans also refused to let the Muslims enter Mecca and by that denied them access to the Ka'aba. Surah 8, verse 34:
But what plea have they that Allah should not punish them, when they keep out (men) from the sacred Mosque—and they are not its guardians? No men can be its guardians except the righteous; but most of them do not understand.
However hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari formalized the rules for warfare, which legitimized warfare against hypocrites.
It has been reported from Sulaiman b. Buraid through his father that when the Messenger of Allah appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him to fear Allah and to be good to the Muslims who were with him. He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. Then invite them to migrate from their lands to the land of Muhairs and inform them that, if they do so, they shall have all the privileges and obligations of the Muhajirs. If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of Bedouin Muslims and will be subjected to the Commands of Allah like other Muslims, but they will not get any share from the spoils of war or Fai' except when they actually fight with the Muslims (against the disbelievers). If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them. When you lay siege to a fort and the besieged appeal to you for protection in the name of Allah and His Prophet, do not accord to them the guarantee of Allah and His Prophet, but accord to them your own guarantee and the guarantee of your companions for it is a lesser sin that the security given by you or your companions be disregarded than that the security granted in the name of Allah and His Prophet be violated When you besiege a fort and the besieged want you to let them out in accordance with Allah's Command, do not let them come out in accordance with His Command, but do so at your (own) command, for you do not know whether or not you will be able to carry out Allah's behest with regard to them."[6]
The main focus of Muhammad’s later years was increasing the number of allies as well as the amount of territory under Muslim control.[7] The Qu’ran is unclear as to whether Jihad is acceptable only in defense of the faith from wrong-doings or in all cases.[1]
Major battles in the history of Islam arose between the Meccans and the Muslims; one of the most important to the latter was the Battle of Badr in 624 AD.[7] This Muslim victory over polytheists showed “demonstration of divine guidance and intervention on behalf of Muslims, even when outnumbered.”[8] Other early battles included battles in Uhud (625), Khandaq (627), Mecca (630) and Hunayn (630). These battles, especially Uhud and Khandaq, were unsuccessful in comparison to the Battle of Badr.[7] In relating this battle, the Qu’ran states that Allah sent an “unseen army of angels” that helped the Muslims defeat the Meccans.[9]
The European crusaders conquered much of the territory held within the Islamic state, dividing it into four kingdoms, the most important being the state of Jerusalem. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land(former Christian territory) from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern OrthodoxByzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. There was little drive to retake the lands from the crusaders, save the few attacks made by the Egyptian Fatimids. This changed, however, with the coming of Zangi, ruler of what is today northern Iraq. He took Edessa, which triggered the Second Crusade, which was little more than a 47-year stalemate. The stalemate was ended with the victory of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (known in the west as Saladin) over the forces of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin in 1187. It was during the course of the stalemate that a great deal of literature regarding Jihad was written.[7] While amassing his armies in Syria, Saladin had to create a doctrine which would unite his forces and make them fight until the bitter end, which would be the only way they could re-conquer the lands taken in the First Crusade. He did this through the creation of Jihad propaganda. It stated that any one who would abandon the Jihad would be committing a sin that could not be washed away by any means. It also put his amirs at the center of power, just under his rule. While this propaganda was successful in uniting his forces for a time, the fervor burned out quickly. Much of Saladin's teachings were rejected after his death.[10]
The medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back treasure and slaves. In raid against Lisbon, in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.[11]
The Almohad Dynasty (from Arabic الموحدون al-Muwahhidun ("the monotheists") or "the Unitarians"), was a Berber, Muslim dynasty that was founded in the 12th century, and conquered all Northern Africa as far as Libya, together with Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberian Peninsula). The Almohads, who declared an everlasting Jihad against the Christians, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly.[12] Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated.[13][14] Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands,[13] while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[15][16]
Sir Jadunath Sarkar contends that several Muslim invaders were waging a systematic Jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects."[17] In particular the records kept by al-Utbi, Mahmud al-Ghazni's secretary, in the Tarikh-i-Yamini document several episodes of bloody military campaigns. In the late tenth century, a story spread that before Muhammad destroyed the idols at the Kaaba, that of Manāt was secretly sent to a Hindu temple in India; and the place was renamed as So-Manāt or Somnath. Acting on this, the Shiva idol at the Somnath temple was destroyed in a raid by Mahmud Ghazni in CE 1024; which is considered the first act of Jihad in India.[18] In 1527, Babur ordered a Jihad against Rajputs at the battle of Khanwa. Publicly addressing his men, he declared the forthcoming battle a Jihad. His soldiers were facing a non-Muslim army for the first time ever. This, he said, was their chance to become either a Ghazi (soldier of Islam) or a Shaheed (Martyr of Islam). The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb waged a Jihad against those identified as heterodox within India's Islamic community, such as Shi'a Muslims.[19][20]
The Fula or Fulani jihads, were a series of independent but loosely connected events across West Africa between the late 17th century and European colonization, in which Muslim Fulas took control of various parts of the region.[21] Between 1750 and 1900, between one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves.[22]
In 1784, Imam Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen warrior and Muslim mystic, led a coalition of Muslim Caucasian tribes from throughout the Caucasus in a ghazavat, or holy war, against the Russian invaders.[23] Sheikh Mansur was captured in 1791 and died in the Schlüsselburg Fortress. Avarian Islamic scholar Ghazi Muhammad preached that Jihad would not occur until the Caucasians followed Sharia completely rather than following a mixture of Islamic laws and adat (customary traditions). By 1829, Mullah began proselytizing and claiming that obeying Sharia, giving zakat, prayer, and hajj would not be accepted by Allah if the Russians were still present in the area. He even went on to claim that marriages would become void and children bastards if any Russians were still in the Caucasus. In 1829 he was proclaimed imam in Ghimry, where he formally made the call for a holy war. In 1834, Ghazi Muhammad died at the battle of Ghimri, and Imam Shamil took his place as the premier leader of the Caucasian resistance. Imam Shamil succeeded in accomplishing what Sheik Mansur had started: to unite North Caucasian highlanders in their struggle against the Russian Empire. He was a leader of anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian War and was the third Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya (1834–1859).[24][25]
During the 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces.[26][27] Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi was a religious leader, who proclaimed himself the Mahdi—the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will appear at end times—in 1881, and declared a Jihad against Ottoman rulers. He declared all "Turks" infidels and called for their execution.[28] The Mahdi raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the Ottoman-Egyptian occupation of Sudan. Victory created an Islamic state, one that quickly reinstituted slavery. In the West he is most famous for defeating and later killing British general Charles George Gordon, in the fall of Khartoum.[29]
The Saudi Salafi sheiks were convinced that it was their religious mission to wage Jihad against all other forms of Islam. In 1801 and 1802, the Saudi Wahhabists under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the tombs of the Shiite Imam Husayn and Ali bin Abu Talib. In 1802 they overtook Taif. In 1803 and 1804 the Wahhabis overtook Mecca and Medina.[30][31][32][33]
Upon succeeding his father, Suleiman the Magnificent began a series of military conquests in Europe.[34] On August 29, 1526, he defeated Louis II of Hungary (1516–26) at the battle of Mohács. In its wake, Hungarian resistance collapsed and the Ottoman Empire became the preeminent power in Central and Eastern Europe.[35] In July 1683 Sultan Mehmet IV proclaimed a Jihad and the Turkish grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, laid siege to Vienna with an army of 138,000 men.[36][37][38]
On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares Jihad on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging Muslims all over the world—including in the Alliedcountries—to take up arms against Britain, Russia, France, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I.[39] On the other hand, Sheikh Hussein ibn Ali, the Emir of Mecca, refused to accommodate Ottoman requests that he endorse this jihad, a requirement that was necessary were a jihad to become popular, on the grounds that:
'the Holy War was doctrinally incompatible with an aggressive war, and absurd with a Christian ally: Germany'[40]
Ahmad Shah, founder of the Durrani Empire, declared a jihad against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes answered his call. The Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely Muslim and largely Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each, was waged along a twelve-kilometre front, and resulted in a decisive victory for Ahmad Shah.[41]
In response to the Hazara uprising of 1892, the Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan declared a "Jihad" against the Shiites. The large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was severely massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi, "thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir". Until the 20th century, some Hazaras were still kept as slaves by the Pashtuns; although Amanullah Khan banned slavery in Afghanistan during his reign,[42] the tradition carried on unofficially for many more years.[43]
The First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42) was one of Britain’s most ill-advised and disastrous wars. William Brydon was the sole survivor of the invading British army of 16,500 soldiers and civilians.[44] As in the earlier wars against the British and Soviets, Afghan resistance to the American invaders took the traditional form of a Muslim holy war against the infidels.[45]
During September 2002, the remnants of the Taliban forces began a recruitment drive in Pashtun areas in bothAfghanistan and Pakistan to launch a renewed "jihad" or holy war against the pro-Western Afghan government and the U.S-led coalition. Pamphlets distributed in secret during the night also began to appear in many villages in the former Taliban heartland in southeastern Afghanistan that called for jihad.[46] Small mobile training camps were established along the border with Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives to train new recruits in guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics, according to Afghan sources and a United Nations report.[47]
Most of the new recruits were drawn from the madrassas or religious schools of the tribal areas of Pakistan, from which the Taliban had originally arisen. As of 2008, the insurgency, in the form of a Taliban guerrilla war, continues.
Although there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency) provided arms to Afghan mujahideens resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,[48] and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets. Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."[49]
In 1830, Algeria was invaded by France; French colonial domination over Algeria supplanted what had been domination in name only by the Ottoman Empire. Within two years, Abd al-Qādir was made an amir and with the loyalty of a number of tribes began a jihad against the French. He was effective at using guerrilla warfare and for a decade, up until 1842, scored many victories. He was noted for his chivalry. On December 21, 1847, Abd al-Qādir was forced to surrender.[50]
Abd al-Qādir is recognized and venerated as the first hero of Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white standard was adopted by the Algerian liberation movement during the War of Independence and became the national flag of independent Algeria.
The Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. By 1997, the organized jihad in Algeria had disintegrated into criminal thuggery and Algeria was wracked by massacres of intense brutality and unprecedented size.[51][52]
Uyghur Muslim forces under Yaqub Beg declared a Jihad against Chinese Muslims under T'o Ming during the Dungan revolt. Yaqub Beg enlisted non Muslim Han Chinese militia under Hsu Hsuehkung in order to fight against the Chinese Muslims. T'o Ming's forces were defeated by Yaqub, who planned to conquer Dzungharia. Yaqub intended to seize all Dungan territory.[53][54]
The Boxer Rebellion was considered a Jihad by the Muslim Kansu Braves in the Chinese Imperial Army under Dong Fuxiang, fighting against the Eight-Nation Alliance.[55]
Jihad was declared obligatory and a religious duty for all Chinese Muslims against Japan after 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[56]
The following are some highlighted dates in timeline of violence by Islam (it includes: Muhammad's followers in Islam's early days acting for his honor/sake, Muslims using Islamic themes, Quranic text or/and ideas, mobilized forced conversions, "religious cleansing" campaigns to cleanse the area of non-Muslims, attacks by Islamic religious authorities often explained with declaration of clear 'Islamic' goals, violence with a clear subjugation of Dhimmitude / infidels status, [regarding the massacres in early Islam in Spain, during frictions, Christians and Jews were dehumanized and referred to as apes and pigs, a Quranic inspired idea.[57]] violence triggered by Islamic clerics preaching in mosques, battles described as Jihad or holy war and emerging of radical-Islamic movements- which take its roots from Muhammad/Quran - inspiring source for violence) from its early days till post WW2, 622-1946.
Early Islam - 622-634
1. The killing of Abu Afak.
The poet who mocked Muhammad was killed with "one blow of his sword when the latter slept outside his house."[58]
2. The killing of Asma Marwan.[58]
3. Attack upon the 'Banu Qaynuqa' Jews
4. The killing of Kab Ashraf[59]
5. The killing of Ibn Sunayna
The Jewish merchant who was killed at the hands of a Muslim zealot.[60][61]
6. Attack against the Banu Nadir Jews.[62]
7. Massacre of the Banu Qurayza Jews.
Medina in 627, Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves, after the Jewish tribes refused to accept Muhammad and convert to his movement.[63]
8. The killing of the shepherd.
9. The torture and killing of Kinana[64]
10. The slaying of an old woman from Banu Fazara[65]
11. The killing of Abdullah Khatal and his daughter.[66]
12. The attack upon Tabuk.[66] for becoming an apostate.[67]
Though they offered to surrender, Muhammad felt the need to make an example of them. "The adult males were condemned to death, and the women and children to slavery. Between 600 and 900 males were beheaded ."[62] Three large Jewish tribes dwelled in Medina in Muhammad's time: the Banu Nadir, Banu Kainuka, and Banu Qurayza. When war broke out between Muhammad's new supporters and the Meccans, the Jewish clans of Medina remained neutral and were at first unharmed. Nevertheless after the 627 failed Meccan siege of Medina, Muhammad accused the Jews of siding with the Meccans and ordered an attack on them. The reference to this episode in Islamic text is in Sura 33 of the Qu'ran, known as “The Clans.”[68] (The Quran tells of three Jewish tribes conquered by Mohammed near Medina, "Two were permitted to choose conversion or exile, but the third was allowed only conversion or death."[69]).
The Shia [Shiite] Martyrdom. - October, 680 It began on the morning of 3 October 680 CE. Some link it to the "Roots of terror: suicide, martyrdom, self-redemption and Islam."[70] Even outside the Shi'ite martyrdom, violent death seems to have followed the event.[71]
The Basiji in Iran, founded in 1979 by the order of Ayatollah Khomeini,[72] invoked the 680 Shia martyrdom to its "contemporary" Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, it promoted and established "soldiers of God," carried out and instituted self sacrifice which was accepted by at least 500,000 Iranian Shia Muslims ready for self infliction, it created child sacrifice, thousands of children, were sent out to clear the mines at the border with Iraq.[72][73] Between 700,000-800,000 Basij volunteers were sent to the front during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, when self-sacrifice was the quintessential value of the Islamic revolution, used as cannon fodder when the Islamic regime,[74] often with a plastic "key to paradise" hanging around their necks and the promise that they would automatically go to paradise if they died in battle."[72][75][76]
From a research on Child Soldiers:
in 1984, Iranian President Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani declared that "all Iranians from 12 to 72 should volunteer for the Holy War." Thousands of children were pulled from schools, indoctrinated in the glory of martyrdom, and sent to the front lines only lightly armed with one or two grenades or a gun with one magazine of ammunition. Wearing keys around their necks (to signify their pending entrance into heaven), they were sent forward in the first waves of attacks to help clear paths through minefields with their bodies and overwhelm Iraqi defenses. Iran's spiritual leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, delighted in the children's sacrifice and extolled that they were helping Iran to achieve "a situation which we cannot describe in any way except to say that it is a divine country."[77]
Córdoba revolt - 818 A revolt in Muslim Spain by Christians, which was put down by massacres for three days. Many of the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in the Qur'an (5:33): "The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage."[78]
Christians beheaded in Córdoba, Spain Between 850 and 859, accused of "blasphemy against Islam."[79]
What became known among Christians: The Martyrs of Córdoba[80] It included women like: the Spaniards Flora and Mary, that were beheaded in Córdoba in 851.[81]
Between 1010-1013 Anti-Jewish violence in Muslim Spain.
In the 1011 massacre in Córdoba Andalusia, Muslim Spain, an estimate of about two thousand Jews perished.[78][82][83]
Pogrom in Fez, Morocco, 1033. Between five and six thousand Jews lost their lives in the hands of Muslims.[78][82] The women were dragged off into slavery.[84] According to "Islam at war" more than 6,000 Jews died.[85]
Granada massacre of Jews by Muslims, Andalusia Spain - December, 1066.
The 1066 Granada massacre took place on 30 December 1066 (9 Tevet 4827),[86] when a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. "More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day."
According to historian Bernard Lewis, the massacre - in Muslim narrative - is "usually ascribed to a reaction among the Muslim population against a powerful and ostentatious Jewish vizier." Muslims' sentiments of resentments of refusal of Jews to be subjugated by Muslims as Dhimmis can be seen in the following:
Particularly instructive in this respect is an ancient Anti-Semitic poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Granada in 1066. This poem, which is said to be instrumental in provoking the anti-Jewish outbreak of that year, contains these specific lines: "Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on. They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violator? - How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent? - Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!"[87]
Historian Walter Laqueur characterizes this episode as a pogrom: "Jews could not as a rule attain public office (as usual there were exceptions), and there were occasional pogroms, such as in Granada in 1066."[88] Some 4000 Jews were massacred in the 1066 Granada pogrom, inspired in part by an anti-Jewish ode containing a line (based on a Quranic idea of referring to infidels as apes and pigs[89]), "Many a pious Muslim is in awe of the vilest infidel ape," referring to the Jewish communal leader, the vizier Joseph b. Samuel Naghrela. (In Spain, during periods of friction between the various religious communities, the Muslims called the Jews "apes" and the Christians "pigs and dogs." Research revealed that "viewing Jews as the 'descendants of apes and pigs' is grounded in the most important Islamic religious sources."[57])
The Almohads of Spain and North Africa between the middle of the 12th century and the 14th century.
The Almohads arose in the Atlas mountains and declared a Jihad on the moderate Almoravides in order to restore the original Islamic values, conquering most of Morocco, then invading (again) Spain in 1150 to combat Christians. The fanatical warriors alienated Muslims and Jews alike, causing the Arab-Jewish cooperation and the previous usual tolerance in Andalucia came to an end.[90]
When the liberal Almoravids came to power in 1062, conditions for Jews improved, but when the Almohades took over in the middle of the 12th century Jews were forced to embrace Islam or emigrate. It was during that time that Jews were forced to wear a particular costume a precursor of the Jewish badge. After the ouster of the Almohades in the 14th century the situation of Jews stabilized.[84]
It was during the reign of Abu Ya'Qub Yusuf (1165–84) when the upsurge in Almohad fanaticism in Fez came about, it brought a new wave of forced conversions. It was either convert or die.[91] "Thousands of Jews in Morocco had been forced to convert at the height of the Almohade persecutions."[92]
The Assassins - 1124 The fedayeen were the ardent followers of Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124), a leader of Ismail Shia in Iran, Iraq, and in Syria. Known to the west as theAssassins.[93] The Assassins are regarded as "the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon." Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they used assassination and terrorism with the aim of overthrowing Sunni Islam's order and establishing their own.[94]
The most open and clear religious fedayeen in the modern period were the Fedaiyan-i Islam. Through assassinations of secular officials they aimed at changing the regime in Iran towards Islamization and introduce Sharia law.[93]
In the 1890s the Shiite leadership in Iran became very involved in violence, terrorism via Fedayeen-i Islam. The "self-sacrifice" or devoutees of Islam under Shi'ite theologian, they have targeted British and Russian officials for assassination.[95]
Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Shiites in Iran was from the same area as the earlier "assassins". The Hur Brotherhood was another group of Assassins that emerged from a combination of religion and politics in the 1890s, modern fedayeen, like the Assassins, find strength in the promise of a reward in "paradise."[96]
The Ayatollah was very involved with the Fedayeen Islam who had a "network of holy killers engaged in repeated attempts at political assassinations." In 1944 he published: Kashf al-Asrar ("the Revealing of Secrets"), served as a guidance for the violent Fedayeen.[97] Indeed, the militant group covered for the Ayatollah Khomeini until he became in power.[93]
On both dates 1165 and 1678, forced conversions of Jews were carried out in Yemen, Jews were given the choice, convert or die.[98]
When al-Hadi offered the Jews the choice between the sword and conversion to Islam: "Many Jews chose death and the survival of the community."[99]
The Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism - 1263 - 1328
Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, is regarded as the Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism. He lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam.[100]
Ibn Taymiyya, dubbed 'the spiritual father of the Islamic revolution' preached that "Jihad should be waged against those who do not follow the teaching of Islam." He issued a Jihadi fatwa against the Mongols that they are not Muslim enough though they observed the Ramadan, that they are "takfir" (ex-communicated), adding that the Quran and Sunna state that those who forsake the law of Islam should be fought (without specifying what part of Sharia they violated).[101]
According to B. Lewis, the Mongol so-called converts were not considered "true Muslims," by the Islamists "since they continued to practice and impose the laws of Jenghis Khan. "Those who follow such laws are infidels, said the Islamist jurist and that they "should be combated until they comply with the laws of Allah." He explaines that "Such a combat was therefore a jihad, with all that entailed."[102]
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), father of Wahhabism is said to be "influenced by the fundamentalist thinker, Ibn Taymiyya."[103]
The Bahmani sultans and the genocide on Indians - 1347-1480.
The Bahmani Sultans declared Jihad against the infidels.[104]
Every new invader of India made (often literally) his hills of Hindu skulls. The Bahmani sultans (1347–1480) in central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 Hindus (kafir - non-believers) every year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100,000 captives in a single day.[105][106] Historian asserts that "These wars were fought in the true spirit of Jihad — the total annihilation or conversion of the non-Muslims."[107][108]
Timur
The Mongol conqueror Timur the Lame, sometimes called Tamerlane,[109] known for his ruthlessness, and his 'Islamic bigotry', carried out "blitzkrieg campaigns at the end of the fourteenth century."[110] He earned a reputation of torturing the population which resisted his conquering wars (like using thousands alive as "bricks" in walls, outrageous torture of inhabitants like crushing in presses, scorching in flames and revive the victims when near death, in order to repeat it). Timur declared a Jihad on New Delhi in 1398.[111]
As a "holy war" which he declared, he massacred many Hindus, not in context with battles.[112]
Fes Massacre - 1465 Morocco.
In 1465, Arab mobs in Fes slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, for 'Islamic honor', after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner". (Jews were not even supposed to surpass a Dhimmitude status, behold, if "the dhimma had been violated", much less holding office,[88]) The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.[63] some six thousand Jews were murdered in 1033." and massacres look place again in 1276 and 1465.[82]
The advent of the Safavid kings Iran 1501.
In Persia 1501, Shah Esmail founded the Safavid Dynasty. He was a Shia and waged a jihad against Sunni Islam over the next decade. He eventually conquered all of Persia.[113]
The Shiite Safavids made Shiite Islam the official religion of Iran. They created a "a rigid religious hierarchy with unlimited power and influence in every sphere of life." Minorities: Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews suffered harsh measures including strict segregation, the era brought persecutions, massacres and forced conversions to Islam. "Jews were forced to wear both a yellow badge and a headgear."[114]
Islamists' Massacre of 30,000 Indians - after battle for Chitod on 24 February 1568.
It was part of Mogul Empire's atrocities on Indians, by the order of Islamic Akbar.[115][116][117][118][119][120] Akbar -like all Mughal rulers- had the holy Muslim title of "Ghazi" (slayer of Kaffir - infidel).[121] Described as a 'holy war.'[122]
Barbary pirates - July 1625 and the 1700s.
The height of North African Arab Muslim pirates' violence against Christians, mainly British, Barbary pirates-called- Britain's 200-year jihad. There are tales of unspeakable barbarism including the Sultan, Moulay Ismail, who tortured and butchered the captives at whim. It involved also forced conversion of the British Christians into Islam. The "Sally Rovers" were called 'al-ghuzat'-- the term once used for the soldiers who fought with Muhammad—and were hailed as religious warriors engaged in a holy war against the infidel Christians who were pressurised to convert to Islam under threat of hideous punishment, writes historian Giles Milton.
In negotiating a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy, the future United States presidents Thomas Jefferson, John Adams questioned the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja as to "why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity." Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress,
"that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."[123]
The San'a expulsion of Jews of Yemen in the wake of Shiites' radical-Islam - 1679-1680. Religious cleansing.
In that year, the country returned to the Shi'ite rule of the Zaydi imams, and the legitimacy of Jewish presence in Yemen came under an attack which culminated in 1680 with the expulsion of the Jews from San'a and central Yemen.[124]
The 1660 massacre of Jews in Safed, Israel-Palestine.
At that oppressive era, to buy off the Muslim attackers, Jews had to borrow money from rich Muslims at compound interest, under threats of further attacks if they failed to repay." (see the Islamic concept of: Dhimmitude) When the Jewish community of its holy city of Safed was "massacred in 1660," and the town "destroyed by Arabs," only one Jew managed to escape.[125][126][127]
Rise of Wahabbism - 1744.
From a description of this radical Islamic movement:
Wahhabism is an extremist, puritanical, and violent movement that emerged, with the pretension of "reforming" Islam, in the central area of Arabia in the 18th century. It was founded by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who formed an alliance with the house of Saud, in which religious authority is maintained by the descendants of al-Wahhab and political power is held by the descendants of al-Saud: This is the Wahhabi-Saudi axis, which continues to rule today.[128]
From the more notable first wars of Wahabbi Islam, "in 1802 Wahhabi armies slaughtered thousands of Shiites in their holy city of Kerbala, situated in Ottoman Iraq." The second wave came with modern Saudi Arabia re-established the royal family ties with the Wahabbists pushing to create the fanatical Wahhabi army: the Ikhwan.
The Ikhwan waged a jihad against other Muslims in Arabia, including Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who established the Hashemite dynasty that ruled first in Arabia and then in Syria, Iraq and Transjordan. As many as 400,000 Arabs were killed or wounded in these campaigns.[129]
"The Butcher" — el Djezzar - 1783-1801.
Historian J. Peters:
The year 1783 brought the rise of an Albanian-born Mamluk "Arab," nicknamed "The Butcher" — el Djezzar — whose sadistic, wanton exploits became legend... The Christians in their holy town of Nazareth were also forced through maltreatment into fleeing. Even as late as 1801 Djezzar sent troops to destroy the standing crops in the environs of Nazareth. "Ramleh, however, bore the brunt of the Muslim wrath."[126]
The term "butcher" (in Arabic el Djezzar) was given to him by Arabs, as a result of the "ferocity with which he proceeded to subdue the Bedouins of the Delta."[130]
The Jews of Safed were attacked under the "sadistic Albanian-born Muslim" reign, as he's called.[131]
In an exchange with the "Butcher," the following text was sent by N. Bonaparte "that Islam was to be protected."[132][133]
Religious cleansing: In their days of ascendancy the Muslims in the Nablus of 1783 prohibited Christians from settling. "In 1801 those Christiansnot driven out of Ramallah and Nazareth were murdered."[125]
Tetouan Pogrom, Morocco 1790.
"Diaspora Research Institute" described the event:
As the new ruler (Mawlay Yazid) entered the city of Tetouan, he commanded that all the Jews should be gathered and imprisoned in a house, meanwhile permitting the Moors to rob all their homes and cellars, which they obeyed with their own particular ferocity. Thus, they stripped all the Jews and their wives of all the clothes which they had on their body with the greatest violence, so that these unfortunates not only had to watch all their belongings being stolen, but also had to bear the greatest injury to their honor... But on top of this, their bestiality showed itself to such an extent that they stripped the Jewesses of their clothes, forthwith satisfied their desires with them, and then threw them naked into the streets.[134][135]
This [Sultan Mawla] Yazid "had rabbis hung by their feet until they died, another burned alive for refusing to convert to Islam... had Jews crucified by nailing them to the doors of their houses... Jews were converted by force."[136]
Jihad in Africa (Mali) - 1810-18.
Jihad was a religious war fought from 1810 to 1818 in what is now the Mopti Region of Mali.[137] In either 1810 or 1818 (the exact date is uncertain), an Islamic fighter led a jihad against the Muslim chiefs in Masina, later the jihad expanded to include the Bambara. Seku Ahmadu established an austere Muslim empire ruled from the newly built city.[138] He led the "second major jihad of the 19th century" beginning in 1818. "His jihad brought about an Islam theocracy as a successor to the non-Islamic empire of Segou that had been established by the Bambara."[139]
The ruler launched from 1853 a series of expeditions against pagans, in Bambara in particular.[140] The 1818 "Fulani" Empire of Massina fell to a more militant movement.[141]
The Suleika affair - 1834.
A Jewish woman from Tangier, Morocco refused to convert and marry a high-ranking official, and was executed in Fez.[142][143]
A writer has put it:
Suleika, a 17-year-old girl with her entire life in front of her, offered everything under the sun if she would convert to Islam but who was beheaded on another sunny day in Morocco because she couldn't change what she was...[144]
The martyrdom of the beautiful Suleika, who, despite torture, refused to convert to Islam left a strong impression. A song was written in her memory, it was "sung by Jewish girls in Morocco to a sad, touching melody."[145]
1) The Safed plunder. 2) The massacre in Hebron, pillaging, looting, killing/rapes, in Jerusalem.
The pogrom - massacre, "plunder," by Arab-Muslims on Jews in Safed. It went on for 33 days.[146][147][148] It was incited by a highly religious cleric, a self proclaimed Islamic "prophet" Muhammad Damoor, who envisioned the massacre to which he agitated the "believers" to.[134][149]
The attacks in Hebron, Jerusalem, that year: In 1834, Egyptian soldiers massacred Jews in Hebron on the way of putting down a Muslim rebellion, local Muslims go on rampage, pillaging, rape, killing, looting in Jerusalem at that same era.[125][150][151]
According to professor M. Ma'oz, considered of great authority on that period, "a noticeable number of Christians and Jews, particularly children, were forced to adopt Islam....even the converts were persecuted as Jews."
[152]
Forced conversions of Jews in Meshed Iran and massacre - 1838/9.
There was a Massacre of Meshed Jews and forced conversions (to Islam) of the survivors.[87][134] A mob was incited to attack Jews, and slaughtered almost 40 of them. The rest were forced to convert.[153]
As a result, the entire community of Meshed was forcibly converted to Islam.[154][155]
However, these Persian Jews continued to practice Judaism privately[156] in their homes. They, their descendants were called Jugutis.[157]
Under Muhammad Shah. Oppression and persecution followed the forced conversions.[158]
Damascus Blood Libel - 1840. The Damascus affair[159][160] It brought with it riots and violence against Jews.[161] It was the beginning of a spiral of blood libels in many cities in Syria followed by outbreaks in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and (other) Arab countries of the Middle East.[162]
In his book Blood libel: the Damascus affair of 1840 author R. Florence describes the chain of blood libels that followed all over the Islamic world, including in western Iranian city of Hamadan where Jews were killed, burned alive, "many escaped the violence only by converting to Islam."[163]
In 1842, Muslims engaged in the following massacre:
Badr Khan Bey, A Hakkari Kurdish Amir, combined with other Kurdish forces led by Nurallah, attacked the Assyrians, intending to burn, kill, destroy, and, if possible, "exterminate the Assyrians race from the mountains." At the massacre, the "women were brought before the Amir and murdered in cold blood." one incident has been depicted to illustrates the revolting barbarity:
the aged mother of Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Church of the East, was seized by them, and after having practiced on her the most abominable atrocities, they cut her body into two parts and threw it into the river Zab, exclaiming, "go and carry to your accursed son the intelligence that the same fate awaits him."
An estimate of nearly ten thousand Assyrian men were massacred, and as many women and children were taken captive, most of the women were sold as slaves, many were presented as presents to influential Muslims.[164]
In 1847, Muslim forces massacred 30,000 members of the Assyrian Christian community. It was an example of (Ottoman) State complicity by the Khilafah in massacres of Christians.[165] The massacre was succeeded by another in 1896.[166]
The Kurdish chief, Bedr Khan who [also] massacred Assyrian villagers in 1847, was "able to assemble a tribal confederacy for a 'holy war against the infidels'."[167]
A letter to the New York Times in 1860 from the American consul at Beirut, after the brutal massacre, entails the phrase "Moslem fanaticism is now fully aroused."[168]
Jihad in Africa - 1861, in the region that is today an area in Mali, Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall took Ségou from its Bambara rulers and launched a fresh [second] jihad down river against the Massina.[137]
The Islamic jihad of El Had L'mar, which defeated the Bambara Kingdom in 1861 was an attempt to establish (again) a theocratic Islamic state.[169]
The Rafin Jaki battle - 1873.
Jihadists waged war on Africa in the region of present day Nigeria. The combined ethnic communities from present day Jos area, which is: the Afizere, Anaguta, Birom, defeated the Jihadists at the battle of Rafin Jaki.[170][171]
The April Uprising - 1876-1912.
In 1876 the Bulgarians staged a rebellion (April Uprising) against the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman forces responded with a brutal massacre in what quickly became known as "the Bulgarian horrors." By 1912, as new Balkan alliances were formed in opposition to Ottoman rule, the Turks again responded with massacre.[172] The Islamic Turks massacre 25,000 Bulgarian Christians, some claim, 100,000. Sixty to seventy villages were burned.[173]
Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro and some other European lands which had been under Ottoman rule declared their independence from Turkish rule, and tried to align themselves with Austria-Hungary. The Turks were outraged, and sent extra troops to the Balkans. Between 1909–12, Turks massacred (at least) 25,000 Bulgarian, Kosovar and Serbian citizens, in addition to the number of casualties inflicted during the actual fighting of the war.[174]
Historian states that "During that span of about five hundred years, the Christians of the Balkans, the majority of whom wereSlavs, lived under Ottoman Muslim rule, and were accorded the traditional Ottoman treatment of those of infidel status. The Balkan Christians, were subjected to heavy taxation (see: Dhimmitude), arbitrary violence, political disenfranchisement, and cultural oppression; some of whom converted to Islam."[172]
Opposing view: The Ottoman reprisals to the so-called Bulgarian horrors, received great publicity in Europe where only the Bulgarian side of the story was known. Estimates of the actual number of Bulgarians killed in the suppression of this revolt vary: the Ottoman figure is 3,100; the British, 12,000: the American, 15,000: and the Bulgarian, from 30,000 to 100,000.[175]
A Jihad in Sudan and in Egypt - 1880.
What is called the (major) "First Jihad", in 1880, Muslim fighter raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked. "The Mahdi's army crushed forces dispatched from British (controlled) Egypt." History of Mahdist Sudan[176][177]
Hamidian massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman empire - 1894-1896.
The Hamidian Massacres in 1894-1896 were the first near-genocidal series of atrocities committed against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.[178][179] Estimates of those killed range widely, anywhere between 100,000 and 30,000, with thousands more maimed or rendered homeless.[180]
Scholars cite an exemplary event in 1896 as part of Turks' overall jihad on Christians in that era: "The leader of the mob cried: 'Believe in Muhammad and deny your religion.' No one answered… The leader gave the order to massacre..."[181] Concluding that "This 1894-1896 Jihad against Christians in Eastern Turkey claimed 250,000 lives. Many Armenian women were forced into harems, and many women and children were sold as slaves. Rape, considered one of the rights of "booty" in Muslim Jihad."[182]
Settat and Taza pogrom, Morocco - 1903/1907.
Prior to the 1830 French occupation of Morocco, thousands of inoffensive Jews were brutually attacked in different parts of Morocco by hostile tribesmen and uncontrolled soldiery. As Jews sought refuge by the French Christians it caused even more massacres: in Settat and Taza 1903 and in 1907.[183][184][185]
The following text was written around that time: "We live among savages who have already tried to satisfy their ferocious hatred by making a carnage of all the Jews..."[186]
It is listed among dates in a timeline of "The End of Judaism in Islam's land."[187]
Greek Genocide - 1914-23.
1,400,000 Victims by the Muslim Turks.
In 1913, sixteen thousand Greek inhabitants of Eastern Thrace were atrociously murdered by the Turks. The clear anti-Christian drive manifested itself in an example: "On 27 May 1914, the Muslims ordered that all Christians leave the town of Pergamum within two hours."[188]
During the years 1914-1923, the indigenous Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey's predecessor, was subjected to a centrally-organized, premeditated and systematic policy of annihilation, perpetrated by two consecutive governments; the Committee for Union and Progress, later better known as the Young Turks, and the nationalist Kemalists led by Mustafa Kemal 'Atat'rk'. A lethal combination of labor brigades, internal deportations and massacres conducted throughout Anatolian Turkey resulted in the death of 1,400,000 Greeks.[189]
At the Hellenic Genocide (as it is called by the Greeks) most of the victims were massacred between 1895 and 1955. Also Serbs, and Bulgariansin Europe, were systematically massacred.[190]
In 2001, the "Greek genocide" decree angered Turks. Turkish officials have formally complained about a decree passed by the Greek parliament that accuses Turkey of genocide.[191]
A movement is calling for regcognition of the "Christian genocide" - the targeting of Greeks and Assyrians.[192]
Massacre, genocide of Assyrians by the Turks Ottoman empire and by local Muslims - 1914-1920.
Assyrian scholar Frederick Aprim describing his book "Assyrians: from Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein. Driving into extinction the last Aramaic speakers":[193]
As the Ottoman Empire entered WWI, it declared jihad (holy war) against its Christian subjects. Backed by Kurds, the Turkish army invaded northwestern Persia (Iran) and committed further atrocities against the Assyrian refugees who fled the Ottoman territories and against Assyrians of Persia as well. The jihad transformed into an ethnic genocide against the Assyrians that was perpetrated by the Turkish state and Kurdish warlords.[194][195]
An anti-Assyrian ethnic cleansing of Hakkari mountains[196] in July 1915 began on a small scale, it spiraled after a few months into a full scale operation. In referring to the ethnic cleansing of Hakkari, local Kurdish tribes spoke of if as the time of the "great jihad," the "great jihad" was also referred to the "massive campaign against the heartland of the Assyrian tribes in June 1915."[197]
In the book "The rage of Islam: an account of the massacre of Christians by the Turks in Persia"[198][199] the author gives examples of "Holy War" proclamations.[198]
The massacre of Assyrians in Urmia Iran between September 1914 and August 1915, was perpertrated by Ottoman (Turkish) troops,[196] and Kurdish tribal forces who began to "pillage, burn villages, destroy farmsteads, slaughter Christians, and fulfill any other obligations conceivably intrinsic to jihad."[197] In October 1914, the Russian vice consul in Urmia commenting on the anti-Christian nature of the destruction, he wrote: "The consequences of jihad are everywhere." The retreat of the Russian army from Urmia in January 1915 had further tragic consequences for Assyrians living in Iran. Turkish troops along with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughters of the Assyrian population.[200]
There are "lengthy first-hand descriptions of the barbarous jihad around Lake Urmia."[201] From a description of events:
All Christians were now branded as traitors, and any caught behind the Turkish lines were liable to be savaged by Turkish troops and their Kurdish auxiliaries in a cruel jihad sweeping Asia minor... By January 1917, when Semenov and the Transbaikal Cossacks arrived in the area, the Ottoman jihad had disfigured the landscape with scorched villages, wells stuffed with decaying corpses, meadows littered with human bones and tufts of drifting hair, gorges lined with mummified cadavers of the menfolk, and river banks coughing up the swollen remains of children. The countless crime scenes of brutal, individual murders contrasted sharply in scale and emotion with the endless fields of mass slaughter wrought by machine guns and artillery on the Eastern Front. Gaunt survivors, Assyrian and Armenian men and boys for the most part, weakened by typhoid and hunger, stumbled out of the hills to hail the Cossacks as saviors and beg for food. Girls and women were few and far between; most had been gang-raped and carted off to slavery in neighboring Muslim villages.[201]
Casualties figure of the genocide of Assyrians range in the hundreds of thousands.[200]
On "The Fall of Atra and the Dispersion of the Clans," Elizabeth Yoel Campbell in her memoir of her childhood in early twentieth century, describes the calling for jihad before the Muslims attacked the Assyrian Christians in Iran: <blockqote>Turks, the overlords of the land, had never before seen eye to eye with the fractious Kurds, except in times of jihad (holy war). Now, armed to the teeth, they fraternized in mosque and maidan, heads together, listening to the dangerous sermonizing of mullahs. And among Assyrians, one thought, one fear was dominant over all others, that of jihad, holy war against the infidel Christians. The ring around the Assyrians kep tightening slowly, but inexorably, as thousands joined the well-armed, well-trained Turkish ranks... As they closed in, ululating voices could be heard from surrounding camps, enticing the mob ... "Jee-haad, jee-haad, jee-haad!" and thousands of fervent voices took up the chorus in return, "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!" As the Assyrian lines grew thinner and thinner, women and older children took guns and daggers from fallen hands to try and hold back the invaders.
When it finally came down to hand-to-hand combat, women chose to jump the gap rather than surrender, taking their younger children with them. Those who were captured alive were thrown over after Kurd and Turk had no further use of them.[202]
Massacres were also carried out in Helwa.[197][203]
Within the First World War in the territory of Ottoman Turkey there were about 1 million Assyrians with common cultural, national traditions. Together with 1,5 million Armenians, from 500 to 750 thousand Assyrians have been brutally killed and tortured. It was 4 years after the Young Turk "Committee for Unity and Progress" declared its goal to "Turkify" all subjects in 1911. 'This implementation of the Pan-Turkic program and ideology can be described as the "dark Period" of ethnic and religious "cleansing" of the Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,' writes Assyrian historian.[204] The Assyrians claim to have lost "two-thirds of their population and most of their homelands in northern Mesopotamia during WWI" period.[205]
Some estimate that "Since 630 A.D., the coming of Islam, Assyrians have suffered 33 genocides at the hands of Muslims—an average of one every 40 years."[206]
The Ottoman Turks used 'Holy war' in their war against the British, France and Russians in World War I.[177] Historians,[207]
After the outbreak of war the Ottoman government had proclaimed a jihad, a holy war, against the allied and associated powers. It was feared that this appeal would have dangerous effects among Muslims under British rule,[208] as well as the BBC states that "The Ottoman Empire called for a military jihad against France, Russia and Great Britain in November 1914."[209]
In Iran, on November 12, 1914, Sultan Mehmed V issued a jihad, "in his capacity as Caliph, proclaimed holy war and appealed to the Muslim subjects of the Entente powers to join in a common struggle with the Ottoman Empire." Then, two days later, Shaykh-ul-Islam on November 14 issued a fatwa that "the holy war was directed against the enemies of Islam, particularly Britain, France and Russia."[210]
Armenian Genocide - 1915 1.5 Million Armenian Christians massacred.[211][212]
"The turkish government referred in 1915 to the Armenian genocide as a jihad."[213]
An increasing number of countries are recognizing the Armenian genocide as the first genocide of the 20th century.[214]
Scholar, on the events says:
To promote the idea of Jihad, the sheikh-ul-Islam, the most senior Sunni Muslim religious leader in Turkey, published a pamphlet with these words: "Oh Muslims, ye who are smitten with happiness are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your good for the cause of right…He who kills one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or in the open, shall be rewarded by God..."[182]
Bat Ye'or asserts that "The genocide of the Armenians was a jihad."[215]
The Islamic religious motifs were extensively researched. Six thousand four hundred Armenian children, young girls, and women from Yozgad, were decamped by their Turkish captors at a promontory some distance from the city. "of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques; of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were, after enduring unspeakable tortures, murdered on their refusal to accept Islam."[216]
From the Islamic holy war themes in the massacres:
Attack them from every side. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Quicken the failing proclamation of the Unity by the fire of your rifles and cannon, and by the blows of your swords and knives. cause the minarets and mountains and wildernesses to resound once more with the cry. "Allah! Allah!" Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems, blow the trumpet everywhere, of people of the Unity. The great God is ordering you to fight with your foes everywhere.'[217]
Or:
"Kill them: God will punish them in your hand and put them to shame; and ye will overcome them. He will rejoice the hearts of believers, and take away the wrath from the hearts unbelievers." (Text of the Koran.) ...Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems...[211]
Historian reminds that the British consul Henry Barnham, who oversaw Aintrab and Birecik in Aleppo Province, made it clear in his account how powerfully the killing of Armenians was motivated by Islamic fanaticism and a jihad mentality:
The Butchers and the tanners, with sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, armed with clubs and cleavers, cut down the Christians, with cries of "Allahu Akbar! ...Muslim clerucs played a perpetual role in the massacring of Armenians; imams and softas would often rally the mob by chanting prayers; and mosques were often used as places to mobilize crowds, especially during Friday prayers. Christians were murdered in the name of Allah...[172]
In 2007, three were arrested in Turkey for murder of Journalist Hrant Dink, who was outspoken on Turks' genocide of Armenians. Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's Armenian community.[214][218]
The fascist Arab-Islamic leader of Palestine Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti who was given sole religious and secular authority and vast unsupervised funds by the British in the early 1920s, was known for his ideological hatred of Jews and formenting mass violence against them from 1920, culminating in the Great Revolt of 1936-39, also leading deadly terror against his Arab-Palestinian opponents, and affirmation of Nazi genocide of Jews. It was suggested that "a key additional factor in the grand mufti's experience may well have been the Armenian genocide." Noting that "while training in the Ottoman Military Academy in Constantinople from late 1914 to mid-1915, Haj Amin must have been aware of the deportations and mass murders of Christian Armenians both in Constantinople and within the army itself."[219] Some analyze that the Nazis were inspired by the Armenian genocide. The Turks used primitive gas chambers and developed other murderous templates that were later adopted by the Nazis.[220]
Arab riots, Massacres, Pogroms on Jews in Israel / Palestine-1920-1921.[221]
On February 1920, the pogroms by Arabs on Jews in Jerusalem were orchestrated by two young Arab Muslim supremacists (prominent in Arab Palestine), Haj Amin al-Husseini [who later on became the Mufti] at that time served in the British army's intelligence and Aref al-Aref. A Hebron Muslim Sheik shouted: "Whoever has a stick, a gun' a knife or stone, shall go and exterminate the Jews, And in ecstasy screamed: "Adbachu Al Yahud" ['Kill the Jews!'].[222] Amin el-Husseini was using his considerable wealth and growing power to incite the masses.[223] Due to Haj Amin's overt role in instigating the pogrom, the British arrested him.[224][225]
Arab pogroms were launched against Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1939. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1920 to 1966, Arab terrorists murdered 1513 Jewish residents of British Mandatory Palestine.[226]
Islamists turned mosques into hubs instigating violence, "shrine into a center of unholy activity," explaines historian, where "political intrigue and violence were hatched, as were the bloody anti-Jewish riots of 1920, 1929 and 1936. Inside the Temple Mount enclosure, fanatical preachers incited the masses who then went on the rampage with shouts of Allahu akbar (Allah is great) mingled with Idbah al Yahud (Slaughter the Jews)."[227]
The Moplah rebellion - 1921, (also known as the Mopla riots) was a British-Muslim and Hindu-Muslim "conflict" in (Malabar) Kerala that occurred in 1921. It involved forced conversion to Islam.[228]
There were clashes that provoked arsonists who took to the street, burning and destroying government property. At first, the focus was on the British, but then it turned into a jihad[229] against Hindus.[230] A wave of large number of killings, massive forced conversions to Islam swept the region.[231][232] Some described it as: "Muslim violence is sheer religious bigotry, an unreasoning jihad."[233]
From Encyclopædia Britannica:
In Aug. 1921 the most serious of many unpardonable deeds of violence broke out. The Malabar country in Madras is occupied by 2,000,000 Hindus and about 1,000,000 Moplahs, an ignorant Mahommedan peasantry of mixed Arab and Indian decsent with an evil reputation for outbreaks of fanaticism. Among the latter the Khilafat excitement spread like wildfire... and attempted wholesale the forcible conversion of the Hindus to Islam.[228]
Moplah Fanatics Massacre is primarily understood the arose religious fanaticism and from the intense hatred of tic Moplahs, or Mohammedans of Arab descent, writes the New York Times.[234]
The second declaration of jihad was made by the Khilafat Committee and several Muslim groups in 1920s when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished, consequent upon the defeat of Turkey. It resulted from the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. The Moplahs of Malabar were suddenly carried off their feet by this proclamation of jihad by the Khilafat Committee. They resorted to large scale violence which was supposed to be a rebellion against the British Government. As a rebellion against the British Government the jihad could be understandable but what shocked most people was the horrid treatment meted out by the Moplahs to the Hindus of Malabar, in this Jihad.[235]
Pundits account that the "Moplah massacre was one of the most gruesome acts of murder by the Muslims rivaled only by the Razakars in Hyderabad in 47, and the ethnic cleansing in Pakistan and Bangladesh after partition."[236]
Revival of the old custom of forced conversion of Jewish orphans in Yemen - 1922-1929.
The 'stealing of orphans'[237] was under the Imam Yahya, under his drastic measures the re-introduction in 1922 of the old custom of the forced conversion of Jewish orphans - was implemented in Yemen. The edict was re-promulgated in December 1928.[99]
The Muslim Brotherhood - founded - 1928. In 1928, Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a rigidly conservative and highly secretive Egyptian-based organization dedicated to resurrecting a Muslim empire (Caliphate). According to al-Banna, "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."[238] The Muslim Brotherhood, also called Muslim Brethren (jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun, literally Society of Muslim Brothers), it opposes secular tendencies of Islamic nations and wants return to the precepts of the Qur'an, and rejection of Western influences.[239] Al Bana was Born out of the extreme Muslim right wing's desire to counter the ideology of modernization, the Brotherhood's platform included a strict interpretation of the Koran (Quran) that glorified suicidal violence. Along with Al Banna, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj-al Amin Al-Husseini was also an enormously influential Muslim leader of the time. Together, the two created a powerful and popular Islamist party by classically appealing to fundamentalist Islamic principals while blaming the world's problems on the Jews.[240] Al-Banna also gave the group the motto it still uses today: "Allah is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Quran our constitution, jihad our way and dying for God our supreme objective." The 9/11 Commission Report states the Brotherhood's influence on Osama bin Laden and on Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman responsible for the 1993 attack on the WTC.[238][241] An important aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is the sanctioning of Jihad such as the 2004 fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi making it a religious obligation of Muslims to abduct and kill U.S. citizens in Iraq.[239]
It advocated a war of Arabism and Islamic Jihad against the British and the Jews.[184]
The Muslim brotherhood waged a "Holy war" against Syria after the Hama massacre.[180]
The BBC explains how the roots of Jihad and the origins of Bin Laden's concept of jihad can be traced back to two early 20th century figures, who started powerful Islamic revivalist movements in response to colonialism and its aftermath. al-Banna blamed the western idea of separation between religion and politics for Muslims' decline. In the 1950s Sayed Qutb, Muslim Brotherhood's prominent member, took the arguments of al-Banna even further. For Qutb, "all non-Muslims were infidels - even the so-called people of the book, the Christians and Jews," he also predicted an eventual clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. "Qutb inspired a whole generation of Islamists, including Ayatollah Khomeini." The Muslim world widely accepted his ideology post Arabs' defeat in the 1967 war.[242]
The Muslim Brotherhood has been involved in violent attacks. From its Islamic theme in its symbolism: on its flag there's a brown square frames a green circle with a white perimeter. Two swords cross inside the circle beneath a red Koran. The cover of the Koran says: "Truly, it is the Generous Koran." The Arabic beneath the sword handles translates as "Be prepared." A reference to a Koranic verse that talks of preparing to fight the enemies of God.[243] It is among 17 groups categorized as "terrorist organizations" by the Russian government,[244] as well as in Egypt, where they started to perform terrorist attacks, now banned by that government.[245]
Scholar states that in "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe", its real goal is to extend Islamic law Sharia throughout Europe and the United States.[246]
Contemporary Islamism holds that Islam is now under attack, and therefore -experts explain-
Jihad is now a war of defense, and as such has become not only a collective duty but an individual duty without restrictions or limitations. That is, to the Islamists, Jihad is a total, all-encompassing duty to be carried out by all Muslims – men and women, young and old. All infidels, without exception, are to be fought and annihilated, and no weapons or types of warfare are barred. Furthermore, according to them, current Muslim rulers allied with the West are considered apostates and infidels. One major ideological influence in Islamist thought was Sayyid Qutb. Qutb, an Egyptian, was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. He was convicted of treason for plotting to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abd Al-Nasser and was executed in 1966. He wrote extensively on a wide range of Islamic issues. According to Qutb, "There are two parties in all the world: the Party of Allah and the Party of Satan – the Party of Allah which stands under the banner of Allah and bears his insignia, and the Party of Satan, which includes every community, group, race, and individual that does not stand under the banner of Allah."[247]
In the "Holy land foundation" case of the Palestinian Arab al-Arian's involvement in funding terror organization, the Muslim Brotherhood's papers detailed plan to seize U.S. The Group's takeover plot emerged when revealed a handful of classified evidence detailing Islamist extremists' ambitious plans for a U.S. takeover. Terrorism researchers said "the memos and audiotapes, many translated from Arabic and containing detailed strategies by the international Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, are proof that extremists have long sought to replace the Constitution with Shariah, or Islamic law", paving its way via a plot to form "a complex network of seemingly benign Muslim organizations whose real job, according to the (US) government, was to spread militant propaganda and raise money." The Muslim Brotherhood created some American Muslim groups and sought influence in others, many of which are listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case, such as CAIR.[248]
On a website devoted to Ramadhan, the Muslim Brotherhood posted a series of articles by Dr. Ahmad 'Abd Al-Khaleq about Al-Walaa Wa'l-Baraa, an Islamic doctrine which, in its fundamentalist interpretation, stipulates absolute allegiance to the community of Muslims and total rejection of non-Muslims and of Muslims who have strayed from the path of Islam. In his articles, the writer argues that according to this principle, a Muslim can come closer to Allah by hating all non-Muslims-Christians, Jews, atheists, or polytheists - and by waging jihad against them in every possible manner.[249]
Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood has a long-standing war on the West. From 1948 until the 1970s it engaged in assassinations and terrorism in Egypt, and has indoctrinated many who went on to commit acts of terror.[250] Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide issued the statement that Al Qaeda's "Bin Laden is a Jihad Fighter."[251]
The accused mastermind of the 9/11 terror massacre, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was raised in Kuwait and joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 16.[252][253]
The Hebron Massacre - August 1929
1929 Hebron massacre[254][255]' pogrom[256] the 'ethnic cleansing'[257] attack upon [mostly non- Zionist, religious] pious Jews by Arab Muslims in Israel / Palestine. Agitated by the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini's intentional inflammatory speeches who called the believers to rise up in defense of Islam's holy places.[258][259] The brutality -which included beheading of babies by sword, castrating old Rabbis, body mutilation,[260] castrating rabbis with their students before they were slain,[261] breasts and fingers sliced off, eyes plucked from their sockets[262]- was accompanied with cries of 'Itbach al Yahud' (kill the Jews). and “Allah akbar.”[263]
The massacres in Hebron and elsewhere of 1929, began in the wake of the Mufti's provocative speeches.[264] The mosques were used in numerous outbreak of violence in Palestine, such as the massacre of the Jews of Hebron in August 1929 which started with leaflets handed to the Muslims while leaving the mosques.[227] It was on August 23 (1929) when the riots erupted, as masses of Arabs, "leaving their mosques after Friday prayers, attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the vicinity." The violence spread to other parts of the country, reaching a peak in Hebron on August 24, when 66 Jews were murdered, and in Safed, on August 29, where the death tall was 45. The riots lasted a full week, leaving 133 Jews dead and 339 wounded."[265]
It started off with 2,000 Arabs bursting out of the Mosque of Omar on the Haram al-Sharif. The grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini admitted later on that "the speaker in the mosque that day had incited Arab worshippers to violence."
Hebron's Jewish population was not part of the Zionist movement and some link it to the unfortunate fact of its highest tall of victims. The Forward describes the scene:
The carnage in Hebron was particularly ugly, the mobs having sliced a variety of body parts off of their victims. Just over a half-dozen of the victims were American kids from New York and Chicago who had come to study at the famed yeshiva.
The Forward recalls:
New York’s Jews were horrified by the pogroms, and the story stayed on the front pages of the Forward for nearly a month. The paper’s Palestine correspondents delved deep into the issue of Arab-Jewish antipathies, discussing issues such as how Arabs were incited to violence during Friday afternoon worship in their mosques, as well as explaining to readers the concept of jihad and the 72 virgins a Muslim allegedly receives if he dies as a martyr.[266]
The Simele massacre (Simel), Iraq - August, 1933.
The massacre and ethnic cleansing by the Iraqi government, by Arab and Kurdish Muslim masses on Christian Assyrians, indigenous people. An estimated 3,000 Assyrians were systematically targeted by the Iraqi government[267] to cleanse the Assyrian race."[268]
From the British document of the time:
"Simel Massacre.. The culmination of the indiscriminate action against Assyrian men, regardless of party or guilt... Between the 8th and 10 August, widespread looting, raiding and burning of Assyrian villages in the Simel, Dohuk and Al Qosh areas had been in progress... Both Kurds and Arabs of the Shammar and Jabur tribes were implicated."[269]
For years the scars in the region remained unhealed. The surviving Assyrians were described as, "spiritless, cowed, and apprehensive" while the Kurds and Arabs were hideously inflamed.[82]
The Jaffa Massacre - 19 April 1936.
Inspired by the religious Islamic leader the Mufti, Arab rioters attacked Jaffa and killed 16 Jews.[270][271]
In September 1937, Armed Arab terrorism, under the direction of the Arab Higher Committee, was used for both; to attack the Jews and to suppress Arab opponents. This campaign of violence continued through 1938 and then tapered off, ending in early 1939. Researchers conclude about the terrible toll: "Eighty Jews were murdered by terrorist acts during the labor strike, and a total of 415 Jewish deaths were recorded during the whole 1936-1939 Arab Revolt period."
The attacks occurred as Islamic preachers incited the masses inside Mosques and the mobs attacked with the 'Islamic' shouts of "Allah Akbar!"[227]
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani declared a jihad against Great Britain in his pro-Nazi Golden Square coup of 1941.[272][273]
On February 28, 1941, Rashid Ali as well as the following Muslim personalities: Salah ed-Din es-Sabbagh, Fahmi Said and Mahmud Salman of the Golden Square, Rashid Ali el-Kilani, Yunis es-Sebawi, Shawkat and Hajj Amin, all swore on the Koran to be faithful to the [pro-Nazi] program.[274]
The Farhud pogrom on Jews in Iraq June 1941
It was followed agitation by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, perpertrated by a pro-Nazi Arab mob,[82] led by Al-Muthanna club's al-Futuwwa[275] Arab-Islamic Fascist paramilitary group.[276] Iraqi soldiers were among the first attackers. Jews were killed randomly, hundreds were injured, "women and children were raped in front of their relatives, babies crushed, children mutilated."[277][278]
The Farhud, the Mufti (who declared a jihad[270]) inspired Krystallnacht in Iraq, 1941, took place Sunday and Monday, 1 June and 2 1941.[278] The two days of murder, looting, rape and mutilation, shattered this ancient community’s self-confidence, and swiftly led to the exodus of over 90 percent of Iraqi Jewry.[279]
Arab Muslim leader the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini meets with Adolf Hitler 21 November 1941.[280]
The chief Muslim, Islamic legal religious authority and Muslim leader[281] from Palestine met the Nazi Führer.[282]
Prior to the meeting, in June 1940 the Mufti offered his services to the Nazi Reich government. In 1941, he went to Berlin via Tehran, where he explained to the German ambassador, Erwin Ettel, his plan to bring all Arabs under the banner of Pan-Arabism over to the side of the Axis (25 June 1942). Here he came out unconditionally for the "final solution" of the Jewish question, calling on the Germans to wipe out all Jews, "not even sparing the children."[283]
His meeting with Hitler evolved around Jews being "his foremost enemy". The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for his empowerment.[280] Though Adolf Hitler hated Arabs, considered them to be racially inferior just as Jews, Hitler refused to touch, shake the Mufti's hand, nevertheless, the Nazi Führer and the supreme religious authority of Islamic world were able to bridge in a common hatred of the Jews.[162] Prof. W. Phares explaines in a paragraph:Jihadists and World War II that "While Nazi infidels were ultimately anathema to jihadists, the alliance answered all their practical needs at the moment."[284]
From a description in the article "The Mufti of Berlin" (24 September 2009) in the Wall Street Journal how his legacy had an impact of future radical Islamists:
...the Palestinian wartime leader "was one of the worst and fanatical fascists and anti-Semites," .... He intervened with the Nazis to prevent the escape to Palestine of thousands of European Jews, who were sent instead to the death camps. He also conspired with the Nazis to bring the Holocaust to Palestine. The mufti "invented a new form of Jew-hatred by recasting it in an Islamic mold," according to German scholar Matthias Küntzel. The mufti's fusion of European anti-Semitism—particularly thegenocidal variety—with Koranic views of Jewish wickedness has become the hallmark of Islamists world-wide, from al Qaeda to Hamas and Hezbollah. During his time in Berlin, the mufti ran the Nazis' Arab-language propaganda radio program, which incited Muslims in the Mideast to "kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion." Among the many listeners was also the man later known as Ayatollah Khomeini, who used to tune in to Radio Berlin every evening, according to Amir Taheri's biography of the Iranian leader. Khomeini's disciple Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still spews the same venom pioneered by the mufti as do Islamic hate preachers around the world. Muslim Judeophobia is not — as is commonly claimed — a reaction to the Mideast conflict but one of its main "root causes." It has been fueling Arab rejection of a Jewish state long before Israel's creation.[285]
The exiled al-Husseini fled in 1941 to Berlin, serving the Nazi regime for four years in broadcasting jihadist as well as anti-British propaganda to the entire Middle East and by recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Wehrmacht, the SS.[286]
He heads the Nazi Muslim[288][289] brutal brigade, the SS division in (former) Yugoslavia, compiled of Muslim Bosnians and carries out atrocities against Serb Christians to be acting in "Christian Serbian genocide"[290] and against Jews.[289] Muslim Albanians were also recruited in Nazi divisions.
In speaking to potential recruits, al-Husseini stressed the connections they had to the "Muslim nation" fighting the British throughout the world. That it is about "defending Muslims."
There were three divisions of Muslim soldiers: The Waffen SS 13th Handschar ("Knife"), the 23rd Kama ("Dagger") and the 21st Skenderbeg. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men, and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states "These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. "The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies." All in the all, there were at least 70,000 Bosnian Muslims captured by the British. Some of these Muslim ex-soldiers participated in aiding Arabs in the anti Israel war of 1948.[291]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.