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The notion of terrorism (irhab) in traditional Islamic thought and its significance today
The use of the word �terrorism� has become a regular phenomenon not only in modern mass media but also in everyday life. Moreover, the notion of �terrorism� today is often considered to be inseparably connected with Islam. And the need to investigate whether or not the notion of terrorism is rooted in traditional Islamic thought, is obvious. Here I would like to present in a whole just etymological and partly historical point of view on this issue.
The Arabic language mass media use for terrorism the term of irhab which derives from the root of ra-ha-ba. In its verbal form � rahiba � the root means �to fear� or �to dread�, and irhab means �to put fear into somebody�. Derivatives of the root occur in the Quran 12 times. The Quranic context clearly shows that nearly in all cases the root and its derivatives indicate a so-called pre-Islamic fear of God (or in front of God). And, strictly speaking, even the Christian fear of God. Everybody can trace it, using any printed concordance of the Quran. Hence, the one who is fearful of God, is called rahib (plural form: ruhban), a term traditionally translated into English as �Christian monk.� In Persian language, the term of tarsa � most likely to be a word-for-word translation from the Arabic rahib � is solely used to denominate a Christian, not the Christian monk. One more Quranic derivative of the root, namely rahbaniyya is usually understood as Christian monkish life, or monkhood. But in the Quran, there is no mention of irhab at all, in this particular form. However, due to the definite Quranic meaning of its root, irhab could have been comprehended by a medieval Muslim as �to put the Christian fear of God into a Christian�. Hence one is inclined to ask: whether or not this would also be meaningful for the former to do so with the latter or, in other words, to act as a terrorist?
To answer this question we have to fully realize that the notion of �terrorism� relates to peace times only. Conversely, under the war conditions, it looses its meaning. And if we follow up this line of thought to its logical outcome, everybody would even become a terrorist under war conditions, imposing fear onto the enemy in order to overcome the enemy and to win battle or war. The negative connotation implied in the word �terrorism� would be lost indeed; instead, it would signify now �heroism� and �self-sacrifice.� There are thousands samples of such behavior in any war, including the First and the Second World War.
While speaking about self-sacrifice, traditional Islamic thought takes into consideration the same two states: war and peace. For the state of peace, a Muslim can put the fear of God into another Muslim even by force and even being threatened with death in order to fulfill amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar if this other Muslim does anything against Islamic commandments. What for? To get an afterlife�s reward. There are many samples of such behavior between Muslims under peace conditions, noted by written tradition throughout the Islamic history. But the term being in used in such case for fear is takhwif and khawf deriving from the root of kh-a-fa which means �to fear Allah�. This root is likely to be hardly valuable for non-Muslims, or rather isn�t applicable to non-Muslims at all. So, the sphere or field of using takhwif is limited with the context of amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar which means �an imperative to the declared postulates and a prohibition against the rejected things�.
Being in this context, we face two important facts: the first one, any Muslim should fulfill amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar; and the second one, only imam, or the leader of a Muslim community has the full right to change the peace conditions for those of war, or, in other words, to declare the war between two Muslim communities. As we told above, terrorism looses its meaning under the state of war; therefore we�ll consider just the first case. According to the Sunni tradition, there are several general regulations for a Muslim to put fear of Allah into another Muslim in order to curb or to stop the rejected things. Such action has its own juridical term � hisba.
The first pattern of behavior: when he knows that he would be certainly beaten by sinners, and they wouldn�t recant to sin. In this case he is allowed to stop them by words or by hands and to suffer from their beats, but this is not obligatory for him to do so.
The second pattern: when he knows that he can restrain them from a sin without any apprehension and risk. In such circumstances he should do it, otherwise he himself becomes a sinner.
The third pattern: when he knows that they wouldn�t recant to sin but they can�t beat him as well. In such circumstances it�s obligatory for him to curb them just by words in order to glorify the canon of God. I would like to attract your attention to this pattern, since this algorithm of behavior is widespread among modern Muslim leaders, while Western mass media often consider it or at least present such oral statements as a direct threat, in most cases intentionally.
The forth pattern: when he knows that he can eradicate a sin but he would be beaten by sinners for sure, for example, he breaks a bottle with wine in the hands of a Muslim. In this case he is allowed to do it, but this is not obligatory for him.
As you see, each regulation which consists of oral takhwif and accompanying actions depends on a religious environment. It should be added that even if the Muslim who belongs to one juridical school (madhhab) sees something controversial done by a Muslim of another school in accordance with the latter norms and prescriptions, he has no right to put him into fear and to force him to act in a different way. The point is that the above-mentioned regulations don�t lead to self-sacrifice. By the end of the eleventh century, imam al-Ghazali in his famous writing entitled as the Ihya� �ulum al-din (�Revitalization of the religious sciences�
says about the religious environment more clearly:
�If a Muslim sees the dissolute one having a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in another, and he knows for sure that if he would go for him then the dissolute one drains the cup and wrings his neck, in this case I see no reason to curb, since it looks like the ruination of him. While the reason is that his self-sacrifice should anyhow affect the religion. Otherwise, to doom oneself to be ruined for nothing doesn�t mean anything. Moreover, it should be prohibited�.
I have to remind you that here al-Ghazali speaks about Muslim sinners and Muslim environment. The Shi�a Muslims even came to a principle of takiyya for any hostile environment that is to cover religious affiliation in order to survive. All these ways of behavior correspond to the content of the 195th Quranic verse of surat al-Baqara which in translation sounds like this: �Expend on the way of Allah, and don�t doom yourself with your own hands to ruin�. It should be noted here that there are many understandings and interpretations (tafasir) of the meaning of this verse, sometimes very and very contradictory. However, elaborations of the main Muslim juridical schools show that the proposed interpretation seems to be closer to the truth than any possible others, wa-Allahu a�lam.
Hence, the religious environment becomes a main condition when the Muslim finds himself in the non-Muslim environment being, for example, on the Christian territory. Then there is no reason for him to put fear into Christians by fulfilling amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar, for example, to break the bottles with wine, to force the Christian women to put on hijab, and to act more dramatically. All these actions will be useless, since the things rejected by Islam wouldn�t be removed, and therefore the Muslim who sacrifices himself in such circumstances, doesn�t become a shahid. In the opposite case, all Muslim travelers and merchants, visited non-Muslim territories in medieval times, should have been involved there in prohibiting the things that rejected by Islam, or all of them, without exclusion, should have been sinners.
To sum up. Terrorism as a phenomenon which has its sense only under peace conditions can hardly be traced in Medieval Islamic thought. As for the Isma�ili murderers in medieval times, they are considered by me perhaps to have paralleled with some kind of the politically ordered murders which, being distinguished from the acts of terror, often happens nowadays also. The term of irhab, strictly speaking, should have been meaningless for the Muslims, and the Christian fear of God doesn�t make any sense for them, since they have their own fear � fear of Allah, i.e. khawf. To my mind, the Arabic language has just found a denomination for this unfamiliar notion, belonging to another cultural tradition. Irhab is likely to be some kind of an Arabic neologism, a newly-invented word, which came into being, perhaps, by the second half of the 20th century. This supposition is confirmed by the Persian language where the word �terrorism� has entered as such.
One question still remains unanswered, that�s: why we see most of the acts of terrorism done by the Muslims? There are two possible answers. The first one. Some political purposes are covered with religious slogans which have nothing to do with Islamic religion. The second one. Some Muslim communities being led by their leaders (imams and mujtahids) are in the state of war due to different reasons. In other words, many things that are shown by mass media from the one side as the acts of terrorism done under peace conditions, from the other side are the acts of heroism and self-sacrifice done under war conditions. Therefore, each case should be scrutinized separately and carefully.
The notion of terrorism (irhab) in traditional Islamic thought and its significance today
The use of the word �terrorism� has become a regular phenomenon not only in modern mass media but also in everyday life. Moreover, the notion of �terrorism� today is often considered to be inseparably connected with Islam. And the need to investigate whether or not the notion of terrorism is rooted in traditional Islamic thought, is obvious. Here I would like to present in a whole just etymological and partly historical point of view on this issue.
The Arabic language mass media use for terrorism the term of irhab which derives from the root of ra-ha-ba. In its verbal form � rahiba � the root means �to fear� or �to dread�, and irhab means �to put fear into somebody�. Derivatives of the root occur in the Quran 12 times. The Quranic context clearly shows that nearly in all cases the root and its derivatives indicate a so-called pre-Islamic fear of God (or in front of God). And, strictly speaking, even the Christian fear of God. Everybody can trace it, using any printed concordance of the Quran. Hence, the one who is fearful of God, is called rahib (plural form: ruhban), a term traditionally translated into English as �Christian monk.� In Persian language, the term of tarsa � most likely to be a word-for-word translation from the Arabic rahib � is solely used to denominate a Christian, not the Christian monk. One more Quranic derivative of the root, namely rahbaniyya is usually understood as Christian monkish life, or monkhood. But in the Quran, there is no mention of irhab at all, in this particular form. However, due to the definite Quranic meaning of its root, irhab could have been comprehended by a medieval Muslim as �to put the Christian fear of God into a Christian�. Hence one is inclined to ask: whether or not this would also be meaningful for the former to do so with the latter or, in other words, to act as a terrorist?
To answer this question we have to fully realize that the notion of �terrorism� relates to peace times only. Conversely, under the war conditions, it looses its meaning. And if we follow up this line of thought to its logical outcome, everybody would even become a terrorist under war conditions, imposing fear onto the enemy in order to overcome the enemy and to win battle or war. The negative connotation implied in the word �terrorism� would be lost indeed; instead, it would signify now �heroism� and �self-sacrifice.� There are thousands samples of such behavior in any war, including the First and the Second World War.
While speaking about self-sacrifice, traditional Islamic thought takes into consideration the same two states: war and peace. For the state of peace, a Muslim can put the fear of God into another Muslim even by force and even being threatened with death in order to fulfill amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar if this other Muslim does anything against Islamic commandments. What for? To get an afterlife�s reward. There are many samples of such behavior between Muslims under peace conditions, noted by written tradition throughout the Islamic history. But the term being in used in such case for fear is takhwif and khawf deriving from the root of kh-a-fa which means �to fear Allah�. This root is likely to be hardly valuable for non-Muslims, or rather isn�t applicable to non-Muslims at all. So, the sphere or field of using takhwif is limited with the context of amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar which means �an imperative to the declared postulates and a prohibition against the rejected things�.
Being in this context, we face two important facts: the first one, any Muslim should fulfill amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar; and the second one, only imam, or the leader of a Muslim community has the full right to change the peace conditions for those of war, or, in other words, to declare the war between two Muslim communities. As we told above, terrorism looses its meaning under the state of war; therefore we�ll consider just the first case. According to the Sunni tradition, there are several general regulations for a Muslim to put fear of Allah into another Muslim in order to curb or to stop the rejected things. Such action has its own juridical term � hisba.
The first pattern of behavior: when he knows that he would be certainly beaten by sinners, and they wouldn�t recant to sin. In this case he is allowed to stop them by words or by hands and to suffer from their beats, but this is not obligatory for him to do so.
The second pattern: when he knows that he can restrain them from a sin without any apprehension and risk. In such circumstances he should do it, otherwise he himself becomes a sinner.
The third pattern: when he knows that they wouldn�t recant to sin but they can�t beat him as well. In such circumstances it�s obligatory for him to curb them just by words in order to glorify the canon of God. I would like to attract your attention to this pattern, since this algorithm of behavior is widespread among modern Muslim leaders, while Western mass media often consider it or at least present such oral statements as a direct threat, in most cases intentionally.
The forth pattern: when he knows that he can eradicate a sin but he would be beaten by sinners for sure, for example, he breaks a bottle with wine in the hands of a Muslim. In this case he is allowed to do it, but this is not obligatory for him.
As you see, each regulation which consists of oral takhwif and accompanying actions depends on a religious environment. It should be added that even if the Muslim who belongs to one juridical school (madhhab) sees something controversial done by a Muslim of another school in accordance with the latter norms and prescriptions, he has no right to put him into fear and to force him to act in a different way. The point is that the above-mentioned regulations don�t lead to self-sacrifice. By the end of the eleventh century, imam al-Ghazali in his famous writing entitled as the Ihya� �ulum al-din (�Revitalization of the religious sciences�
says about the religious environment more clearly:�If a Muslim sees the dissolute one having a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in another, and he knows for sure that if he would go for him then the dissolute one drains the cup and wrings his neck, in this case I see no reason to curb, since it looks like the ruination of him. While the reason is that his self-sacrifice should anyhow affect the religion. Otherwise, to doom oneself to be ruined for nothing doesn�t mean anything. Moreover, it should be prohibited�.
I have to remind you that here al-Ghazali speaks about Muslim sinners and Muslim environment. The Shi�a Muslims even came to a principle of takiyya for any hostile environment that is to cover religious affiliation in order to survive. All these ways of behavior correspond to the content of the 195th Quranic verse of surat al-Baqara which in translation sounds like this: �Expend on the way of Allah, and don�t doom yourself with your own hands to ruin�. It should be noted here that there are many understandings and interpretations (tafasir) of the meaning of this verse, sometimes very and very contradictory. However, elaborations of the main Muslim juridical schools show that the proposed interpretation seems to be closer to the truth than any possible others, wa-Allahu a�lam.
Hence, the religious environment becomes a main condition when the Muslim finds himself in the non-Muslim environment being, for example, on the Christian territory. Then there is no reason for him to put fear into Christians by fulfilling amr bi-l-ma�ruf wa nahiyy �an al-munkar, for example, to break the bottles with wine, to force the Christian women to put on hijab, and to act more dramatically. All these actions will be useless, since the things rejected by Islam wouldn�t be removed, and therefore the Muslim who sacrifices himself in such circumstances, doesn�t become a shahid. In the opposite case, all Muslim travelers and merchants, visited non-Muslim territories in medieval times, should have been involved there in prohibiting the things that rejected by Islam, or all of them, without exclusion, should have been sinners.
To sum up. Terrorism as a phenomenon which has its sense only under peace conditions can hardly be traced in Medieval Islamic thought. As for the Isma�ili murderers in medieval times, they are considered by me perhaps to have paralleled with some kind of the politically ordered murders which, being distinguished from the acts of terror, often happens nowadays also. The term of irhab, strictly speaking, should have been meaningless for the Muslims, and the Christian fear of God doesn�t make any sense for them, since they have their own fear � fear of Allah, i.e. khawf. To my mind, the Arabic language has just found a denomination for this unfamiliar notion, belonging to another cultural tradition. Irhab is likely to be some kind of an Arabic neologism, a newly-invented word, which came into being, perhaps, by the second half of the 20th century. This supposition is confirmed by the Persian language where the word �terrorism� has entered as such.
One question still remains unanswered, that�s: why we see most of the acts of terrorism done by the Muslims? There are two possible answers. The first one. Some political purposes are covered with religious slogans which have nothing to do with Islamic religion. The second one. Some Muslim communities being led by their leaders (imams and mujtahids) are in the state of war due to different reasons. In other words, many things that are shown by mass media from the one side as the acts of terrorism done under peace conditions, from the other side are the acts of heroism and self-sacrifice done under war conditions. Therefore, each case should be scrutinized separately and carefully.
The notion of terrorism (irhab) in traditional Islamic thought and its significance today
