Jihad re-examined: Islamic law and international law

Abstract

The Arabic term jihad, which means striving, endeavouring, and struggling, has widely been conceptualised to include ‘armed struggle’ as one of the forms of jihad. Jihad has been used by political leaders in some Islamic States or increasingly by non-State actors either to justify the use of force (e.g. Al-Qaeda’s 1996 ‘Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places’, and the 1998 World Islamic Front pronouncement signed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, among others, declared ‘jihad against Jews and Crusaders’) or to condemn the use of force as unlawful. Jihad has inspired many recent armed conflicts including that of the resistance to the US war against Afghanistan in 2001, the US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the struggle for self-determination in Kashmir since 1947, the Palestinian struggle for reclaiming land from Israel since 1948 and the on-going armed conflict in Somalia. In recent times, the application of jihad to justify the use of force or its condemnation has raised questions regarding the compatibility of the jihad concept as conceptualised in Islamic law or by leaders of some Muslim groups with modern norms of international law as enunciated in the United Nations Charter. This article seeks to examine the evolving concept of jihad in Islamic law, its contemporary application and its compatibility with international law, in particular the relationship between jihad, freedom of religion/belief, and the prohibition on the use of force.