Violence in Early Islam: Religious Narratives, the Arab Conquests and the Canonization of Jihad

Muslim views on violence, and specifically conceptions of jihad (al-jihād fī sabīl Allah; ‘striving for the sake/in the path of God’), continue to be a topic of debate amongst scholars and policymakers, with the focus heating up following the 9/11 al-Qaeda hijackings and suicide attacks on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001. Scholarship over the past couple of decades has shed more light on the factors and dynamics at play in the Late Antique milieu in which Islam emerged and expanded, and on how these may have influenced the development of the new monotheistic faith. In Violence in Early Islam, Marco Demichelis argues against claims that violence has been an essential part of Islam since its founding, exploring how the first Muslims were influenced by neighbouring civilizations including the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. The book draws upon various types of primary sources including historical writings of both the first Muslims and their non-Muslim contemporaries, archaeological and numismatic sources (through the use of studies by specialists in these fields), and early Islamic pietistic works and literature on Hadith and war-and-peace. Demichelis builds on the arguments put forward by Fred Donner that the early Muslim community did not see itself as exclusivist but rather as a more ecumenical umbrella for monotheistic believers – this inclusivity persuading disaffected Arab Christian tribes living in Byzantine territories in Syria and Palestine to side with the emerging Arab-Muslim political order against the stagnant Byzantine and Sasanian imperial systems. Muslim historical writings from the eighth century onward, such as those by AbūMikhnaf (d. 774) and Ibn Isḥāq (d. circa 767), significantly influenced later Islamic historical writing by introducing a ‘“politicalreligious” understanding’ (46) of the Arab conquests of the seventh century. This frame, which Demichelis argues is not based on concrete historical or archaeological evidentiary foundations, was subsequently adopted by later Muslim historians including Ibn Hishām (d. 835), al-Wāqidī (d. circa 823), Ibn Saʿd (d. 845), al-Balādhurī (d. 892) and al-Ṭabarī (d. 923). Contrary to what become the dominant Islamic narrative of these later historians, there was a significant degree of ‘political-religious continuity in Iraq, Syria, and Palestine’ (59) following the Arab conquest of these territories. The shift by Muslims towards the implementation of a more exclusivist form of religious identity did not take place until the late seventh and early eighth centuries under the Umayyad caliphs, such as ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (d. 705; r. 685–705), who began building a more distinct Islamic socio-political order (68, 72). Jihad as a professional form of warfare and military activity – differing from the individualized ascetic understandings of jihad held by early Muslim frontier warriors such as ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Mubārak (d. 797) – began to appear in juridical writings of Sunni jurists including al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820) and were furthered in the works of later scholars such as al-Māwardī (d. 1058). The ‘canonization’ of jihad, Demichelis argues, did not take place until the late eighth and early ninth centuries, and was a process highly influenced by the idealized image of the ascetic ghāzīwarrior and raider stationed (ribāt)̣ on the frontiers (thughūr) between the lands held by Muslims and those held by their non-Muslim enemies. Muslim juridical and political views of