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Responses to Questions 

1. QUESTION (e-mail: <Talha5458@aol.com>): Can you please explain the meaning of `aqiqa and when is it necessary?

• The term ‘aqiqa in Islam refers to the practice of sacrificing an ewe for every male or female child born to a Muslim family on the seventh, fourteen, or twenty-first day after its birth, or, in some cases, two ewes for a male child and one for a female. The ‘Aqiqa is not enjoined by the Sfet, and Muslim jurists disagree as to whether or not it is an authentic sunna enjoined by the Prophet Muhammad. All, however, consider the practice acceptable, if not also recommendable, at least for families that can afford it. Half of the ‘aqiqa is normally distributed to the poor, but this practice, through common, remains optional.
   

2. QUESTION (e-mail: <Talha5458@aol.com>): My question is that Who was the first child to accept Islam?

• According to Islamic tradition, the first adult female convert to Islam was the Prophet's wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid, and the first adult male convert was Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, who became the first caliph of Islam after the Prophet's death. The same tradition considers 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's first cousin (who later became the fourth caliph), to have been the first child convert. Some sources say he was converted at the age of seven; others at the age of eight, nine, or ten. It is said that 'Ali, as a child, lived in the Prophet's home and learnt to perform the Muslim prayer from the Prophet and his wife Khadija, whose daughter Fatima he was to marry.

3. QUESTION (e-mail: S.F.<franklsu@ohsu.edu>): 
I am wondering if you could describe any Muslim birth practices. Specifically, I am wondering about a practice of whispering a prayer into a baby's ear at the moment of birth. Any information would be very helpful.

• In accordance with the sunna (or tradition) set by the Prophet Muhammad, the adhan must be recited in a low voice or whisper in the right ear of a baby as soon as it is born to a Muslim family, after which the iqama is recited in the same manner in the baby's left ear. (The adhan is the regular Muslim call to prayer, and the iqama is a shortened form of the adhan recited before the actual performance of the prayer.)
  
  Thus, it is believed, the essential tenets of Islam, as abridged in the words of the adhan and the iqama, are inculcated into the baby's heart and soul from the moment of birth, to spare it the influence and wiles of Satan.
  
  In addition, several other customs are commonly --though not universally-- practiced by Muslim families in connection with childbirth.
  
  One, called the tahnik (literally, "jawing"), involves chewing a date, then rubbing the new-born baby's gum with the chewed pulp. Another is to shave the baby's hair on the seventh day after birth and donate the hair's weight in gold or silver to charity. By this time, the baby would have been named, as it is preferred not to delay the naming of a baby for more than a week. In some Muslim countries, the naming of the baby on the "seventh day" (usbu') is an occasion for celebration, the related rituals differing from one Muslim subculture to another. Yet another common practice, called the 'aqiqa, involves the slaughtering of a sacrificial she-goat for the baby on the seventh day after birth, or shortly after, in thanksgiving.
  
  Muslims believe a child is entitled to nurse at its mother's breast for a full two years.
  
  The circumcision of boys is a practice enjoined by the sunna (not the Koran), and it is common today for baby boys born in hospitals to be circumcised shortly after birth. Traditionally, however, the circumcision of boys was normally delayed for a few years, although it was normally expected to take place before the onset of puberty.

4. QUESTION (e-mail: N.C. <ehohnoonoo_88@hotmail.com>): I was wondering if you could explain what the role and function of an Imam in a Sunni mosque is exactly and also the role and function of the mosque in the Muslim community. Also do you need to go to the mosque to be a good Muslim? 

• To Sunni Muslims, the mosque is the house of God where they perform the Friday communal prayer, and where it is recommended that they perform the five prescribed daily prayers in congregation whenever possible. The mosque is furthermore a sanctuary where Muslims can retire at will by day or night, and for any length of time, for private spiritual contemplation.
  
  Historically, however, the mosque has not only served as a house for prayer and contemplation, but also as a center of learning and teaching, from which students graduated. As well, it has served as a forum for the open discussions of religious, political and social issues, and for the arbitration of disputes. The Koran recommends the building and endowment of mosques as a meritorious act. Sunni tradition considers regular mosque attendance also meritorious, though not compulsory, particularly for the dawn prayer.
  
  Communal prayer in the Sunni tradition requires a leader, and the imam in a Sunni mosque is the person who leads the prayers. An imam is required to be pious, knowledgeable of the Koran and of Muslim religious ritual, of good repute, and acceptable to the majority of the mosque congregation. A woman cannot lead men in prayer, and hence cannot serve as an imam in a mosque. It is permissible, however, that women join communal prayers in mosques, provided they range themselves in special lines behind the men.
  
  The congregation, in mosque prayer, must follow the lead of the imam in performing every movement of the ritual. Should he, for any reason, commit a ritual error any member of the congregation can correct him.
  
  In principle, the imam in a mosque need not be a religious functionary, as any knowledgeable man of good repute is acceptable as a leader of communal prayer. In practice, however, mosque imams have come to hold their positions by appointment, receiving payments for their services from the pious endowments on which the maintenance of mosques depends. As appointees, they are supposed to commune with their mosque congregations, arbitrate disputes among them, provide them with religious advice, visit them in their homes, and attend to their needs generally.
  

5. QUESTION (e-mail: R. G. <rgould7@pacbell.net>): I'm hoping you can help me understand the context of the following passages. Were they intended as general instructions or where they specific to a particular campaign?

Qur'an [9.14]: Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace, and assist you against them and heal the hearts of a believing people.
Qur'an [9.5]: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
Qur'an (2:191): "And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith."

• According to standard Koranic interpretations, all three of the Koranic passages you cite refer to a particular historical context, which was the conquest of Mecca in AH 8 /AD 629. In the preceding year, the Prophet Muhammad had concluded a peace between the Muslim community in Medina and the pagan Quraysh of Mecca. Shortly after, fighting broke out between the Khuza'a and Bakr clans in the vicinity of Mecca, and the more belligerent party among the Quraysh decided to support the Bakr, who were their clients, against the Khuza'a, who were the clients of the Prophet. Considering this to be a breach of the recently concluded peace, the Prophet decided to attack and conquer Mecca, expecting strong resistance by the Meccans. Hence the military instructions in the Koranic passages you cite. As it turned out, however, he was able to enter the city practically without struggle, whereupon almost all of its inhabitants accepted Islam.
  
  With respect to the first passage you cite (Koran 9:14), some scholars suggest that it might have referred to the battle of Badr between the Muslims of Medina and the Meccans, which was won by the Muslims (AH 2/ AD 623). Others take it to refer to the action taken by the Prophet against a Medinan Jewish clan (the Banu al-Nadir), which, in some way, had broken faith with him; this resulted in the forced expulsion of the offending clan from Medina. (The date of this event is difficult to determine.)
  

6. QUESTION (e-mail: <Princesalman3@aol.com>): What do the ISMAILI pray for. Are they same as Sunni or different?

• Of the two Ismaili Muslim sects, the Bohra Ismailis perform the regular five daily prayers, as the sunnis do, except that they follow the Twelver Shia practice of performing the noon and mid-afternoon prayers as well as the sunset and dinnertime prayers together. Hence, they actually perform three rather than five times a day.
  
  The Nizari Ismailis do not perform the five daily prayers, although they are not forbidden their performance. Normally, however, they do not perform them. However, they do perform a communal du'a, or invocation, twice a day, which non-Ismailis may not attend.
  

7. QUESTION (e-mail: K.L.<keefer49er@earthlink.net>): My question is, the so-called fundamentalists or those who seem to live on hatred and violence and causing horror and grief around the world – what sect do they belong, as far as theological school of thought? It seems they have splintered off and from their quotations, do not reflect the true teaching Muhammad who respected the “People of the Book.” Are these individuals/organizations aforementioned – Sunni or Shiite or something else?

• The norm among Muslims is not to "live on hatred and violence and causing horror and grief around the world" (as you put it in your question). The overwhelming majority among Muslims as among non-Muslims are people who value goodwill and peace and accord among individuals and nations, and who recoil in horror from acts of hatred, violence and ill will. Among Muslims as among non-Muslims, however, there are the normal and the paranoid, the sane and the insane. And no paranoid individual, no matter the faith to which he or she may belong, can be reasonably taken to be the typical representative of a community. 
  
  The "so-called [Muslim] fundamentalists" about whom you inquire act upon interpretations of Islam that are idiosyncratic, not canonical. They are the followers of self-appointed preachers of an Islam which ordinary Muslims do not accept. What you describe in your question is not the case of Islam against the world, but of instances of insane group behaviour which can be Muslim as well as non-Muslim threatening the sane of the world. 

8. QUESTION (M.C.,Timberlake, NC): I have a question about Mohammed's teachings. To limit promiscuity Mohammed said only four wives yet as many concubines as you want. How can this limit promiscuity or is that the wrong interpretation of that passage?

• The Muslim ruling legalizing the marriage of a man to more than one wife, in addition to concubines, does not come from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, but from the text of the Koran where it says (4:2-3, rendered in free English paraphrase for maximum clarity):

   

  Give orphans [under your care] what belongs to them… Do not absorb their wealth into your own; that would be a great sin. And if you fear that you will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry two or three or four of the ones who please you; and should you fear that you cannot treat [that many] on an equitable basis, then [marry only] one, or the [women slaves] you possess….

   

  This Koranic passage has been traditionally interpreted to mean that a man may take as many as four wives in legal marriage at the same time, along with any number of concubines he may possess (this, at a time when slavery was universally accepted). Socially, however, the norm is for a Muslim to have only one wife, and not to take another unless his wife cannot bear children, in which case she may actually urge her husband to take another wife, and sometimes help him find one. In some instances, a man whose wife is disabled by, say, incurable insanity, may take another wife to care for his children and household. Muslim law, however, permits a man to have as many as four wives at a time, and some Muslim men do avail themselves of the opportunity to maintain polygamous households by choice, provided they can afford it. 

   

  It must be noted, in this connection, that the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) takes the existence of polygamy among the ancient Israelites for granted, although monogamy among them was clearly the norm (as it is among Muslims today). The Christian scriptures (or New Testament) nowhere rules on monogamy or condemns polygamy. The explanation here may be that monogamy was so much the norm among the Israelites of the time of Jesus that the question of single or multiple marriages was not one to elicit comment.   

  
  
  
  

9. QUESTION (E.T., Lawrence, KS): We have been looking at the Koran and trying to understand it and I was wondering if you would be able to help me. I am wondering how does the Koran view Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mary?

• The Koran presents the message of Islam as having been revealed to mankind by a succession of "prophets" (anbiya' , singular nabi) or "messengers" (rusul, singular rasul), the last of whom was Muhammad. The most pre-eminent among the earlier prophets, according to the Koran, were Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Abraham was distinguished by having arrived at the idea of monotheism, of which he is revered as the founder, through logical deduction; Jesus by having been virgin-born and endowed with the "spirit of holiness" (ruh al-qudus, as distinguished from the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit, which in Arabic would be al-ruh al-qudus). The Koran also calls him "the Christ" (al-Masih). His divinity, however, which forms the doctrinal basis of Christianity, is denied.
  
  The revelations received by Moses are the Torah, and those received by Jesus are the Injil (Arabic form of the Greek evangelion, meaning "good news", or "gospel"). According to the Koran, however, Abraham also received revelations that were recorded in "tablets" (suhuf, singular sahifa), much like the "tablets" revealed to Moses (obviously, a reference to the tablets of the Ten Commandments).
  
  As the virgin mother of Jesus, Mary is presented in the Koran as a particularly holy and pure person of miraculous birth - a presentation of her that long antedates the Roman Catholic doctrine of her birth by immaculate conception. Mary is the only woman mentioned in the Koran by name, and the Koran has much more to say about her than do the Gospels. 
  
  
  
  

10. QUESTION (M.B., FL): What exactly does the veil mean? Is a Muslim woman required by her religion to wear a veil, or is that a decision she may make as she chooses? Is there a cultural influence on whether a woman makes that choice, i.e.: peer pressure? Can her husband make that choice for her and enforce it?

• The Koranic authority from which the veiling of women in Islam derives is the verse that says: "Tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest… and to draw their head covers (Arabic khumur, singular khimar) over their bosoms" (Koran 24:31). This verse has been variously interpreted to mean that Muslim women are required to veil either the head along with the whole body, leaving only the face uncovered, or to veil head, body and face as well.
  
  Historically, the veiling of women in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean basin and beyond antedates Islam, as it was common practice among urban women of high social status in the Byzantine as well as the pre-Islamic Persian empire. The practice then continued under Islam, Muslim jurisprudence justifying it on the basis of the Koranic verse quoted above and urging that the veiling of women protects them from unwelcome advances by males, preserves their social respectability and prevents them from becoming mere sex objects over which men may contend. The fact remains, however, that Christian urban women in the Arab world also wore the veil until certainly the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as did Jewish urban women, judging by the historical evidence available. On the other hand, rural women in the area -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- were never known to have veiled. They simply wore headscarves - and normally colourful ones -- as did peasant women in all the lands of the Mediterranean basin.
  
  Men and women feminists began to wage strong attacks on the veil in Egypt and the lands of the Ottoman empire starting with the onset of the twentieth century. In the years following the end of World War I and the destruction of the Ottoman empire, the veil was banned in the Turkish Republic established by Mustapha Kemal Pasha (or Kemal Ataturk). It next went rapidly out of fashion in Egypt following the succession of the young and handsome King Farouk in 1936 and his marriage to the beautiful and unveiled Queen Farida, with whom he regularly appeared in public. By the middle decades of the century, the veil had all but totally vanished elsewhere in the Arab world, except for the Arabian peninsula. But in due course a number of upper and middle class women in the Gulf countries began, partially or totally, to unveil. Few women remained veiled in South Yemen under the Marxist-oriented regime established in Aden between 1967 and 1989. When this regime collapsed, and South Yemen was united with North Yemen, the veiling of women in the region was enforced again. 
  
  The large-scale return to the veil -- this time in the standardized form known as Shar`i (or "canonical") dress -- began with the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. This Shar`i dress is believed to have been devised in Lebanon in the early 1970's by the Shiite Muslim religious leader Musa al-Sadr. It consists of a plain, long-sleeved garment made of opaque fabrics in austere colours covering the body down to the ankles, and of a head cover much like a nun's wimple concealing the head and the upper part of the forehead, hugging the chin from below, covering the neck, and falling down over the chest and back. In the Arab world, the extent of the use of this new Shar'i dress -- or other forms of veiling -- varies from country to country; and while it may be on the increase in some, it may be on the decrease in others. Normally, it is the woman -- married or unmarried -- who individually takes the decision to return to the veil although, in some cases, husbands ask their wives to veil if they were unveiled at the time of engagement or marriage. On the other hand, the traditional headscarf -- as distinct from the standardized Shar`i head cover -- does naturally survive as part of the conservative apparel worn by women in provincial Arab communities as yet untouched by Western ways.
  
  Why many Muslim women today choose to veil, when not compelled to do so by custom or law, would vary with the individual case. A Muslim woman may be convinced that her religion requires her to do so, or that veiling is the proper thing for her to do. If still unmarried, she may believe it advances her chances of a respectable marriage. Or she may opt for the veil to assert her Muslim identity (as may well be the case among women in transnational Muslim communities), or to signal her rejection of the impact or imposition of Western values on Muslim society and tradition. It has further been suggested that a Muslim woman who is basically liberal and fully attuned to the modern world may take on the veil to desexualize the public social space of which she forms part, and so gain her freedom to become a fully independent and rational human being rather than remaining a mere sex object.
  
  The recent return of women to the veil is a subject of controversy among Muslims today, rather than being one that meets with general approval. This is the case most of all in Turkey and the more modernized Arab countries. However, except in Muslim countries where the veiling of women is compulsory by law, even Muslims most opposed to the veil do not challenge the right of a woman to opt for wearing it if she so chooses by her own free will. 
  
  
  
  

11. QUESTION (e-mail: Patti <patti05@sbc.edu>): Do you think in what sense is Islam basically Arabic? and thus is Islam universal?

• The text of the Koran which is the sacred book of Islam is Arabic just as the original text of the Christian Bible is Hebrew and Aramaic in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament. This does not make Islam an Arab or Arabic religion any more than it makes Christianity a Greek religion with Hebrew and Aramaic antecedents, as the theological and ethical issues addressed in the Koran, as in both parts of the Bible, are universal, not parochial ones.
  
  Christianity originated among Jews and related communities in Roman Syria (the "Hebrews" as opposed to the "Hellenes" or "Hellenists", see Acts 6:1) who spoke Aramaic and communicated with the peoples of the Mediterranean world in Greek, which was then commonly spoken among the literate classes throughout the area. To preach their new faith to communities of non-Syrian origin, or to migrant Syrian communities living in different parts of the Roman world, who had ceased to be familiar with the Aramaic language of their ancestors, the Christian apostles had no recourse but to use Greek. Islam, on the other hand, originated in Arabia, where Arabic was used almost exclusively. This explains why the text of the Koran is Arabic. 
  
  When the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries carried Islam to non-Arab lands as far west as the shores of the Atlantic, and as for east as the borders of China, the faith began to gain converts among non-Arab peoples. And the Arab sea trade in the Indian Ocean subsequently carried the faith to other parts of East Africa and Asia which the Arabs never conquered. As Muslims held the Arabic text of the Koran to be sacred, the literate non-Arab converts to Islam had to learn to read the Koranic text in Arabic and paraphrase or explain it to others. Had the preaching of the Koran been addressed to Arabs alone and not to all mankind, non-Arab conversions to Islam would not have occurred, nor would Muslim Arabs have cared to spread their faith outside their own world.
  

12. QUESTION (R.I., Denton, TX): I attended a remembrance for September 11 and an Islamic "preacher" spoke and led prayer. Would this person correctly be called a KHATIB? 

• The person who leads Muslims in communal prayer, on any occasion and anywhere, is called an IMAM (literal meaning, the 'one in front'). The one who delivers the oration (Arabic, KHUTBA) before the prescribed Friday prayer, normally in a mosque, is the KHATIB (meaning 'orator'), who would preferably though not necessarily proceed to lead the prayer as IMAM. In the absence of a person appointed for the function, any competent Muslim can serve as KHATIB and/or IMAM in a Friday prayer, or as IMAM in any communal prayer.
  
  Unless the remembrance you attended for September 11 was a Friday prayer, the person who spoke and led prayer on the occasion would correctly be called an IMAM, as it is not uncommon for an IMAM to deliver an informal sermon or religious talk (called DARS) before or after leading any communal prayer.
  
  

13. QUESTION (e-mail: IShallRise@aol.com): I am trying to understand what it means to care, and what the Koran says about caring? caring for others and one's expression of that concern: care. 

• There is no text in the Koran elaborating on the abstract concept of charity in the sense of love or selfless care for others, as in I Corinthians 13:1-13. On the other hand, the Koran repeatedly connects charity or care for others (Arabic al-ma'ruf, al-'amal al-salih, al-khayr) with faith in God and the Latter Day (or Day of Judgement), the implication being that faith does not suffice unless accompanied by care for others.
  
  Passages of the Koran commanding care for the needy and helpless, such as orphans, widow, or strangers are too numerous to enumerate. So are the passages condemning greed, avarice and pride, and selfish attitudes and behaviour in general. Moreover, the Koran institutionalizes care for others in the zakat (the tithe for the care of the needy), placing the zakat second only to prayer (salat) among the duties incumbent on the faithful.
  

14. QUESTION (T.W., Santa Cruz, Ca.): When Muhammad was a small boy living at home, what was the religion of his parents?

• Muslim tradition maintains that the Prophet Muhammad came from a pagan background. His father, however, was called 'Abdallah ('Abd Allah, the "servant of God"), which suggests that his background was not entirely alien to monotheism. While Mecca, where the Prophet Muhammad was born and raised, was a center of pagan worship, its main sanctuary, the Kaaba, not only housed idols, but also Christian and Jewish icons - among them, reportedly, one representing Abraham, and another representing the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. And in Mecca, as elsewhere in Arabia, there were large communities of Christians and Jews, the Arabian Christians belonging to different denominations. While some followed Apostolic Christianity, conceiving of God as a Trinity and believing in the divinity of Jesus as the Son of God, others were Nazarenes who honoured Jesus as a prophet pre-eminent for his holiness but otherwise followed strictly the Law of Moses, or Torah. (What made them different from the Jews is that they rejected the authority of the Oral Torah, which subsequently came to form the substance of the Jewish Talmud). One of the Nazarene Christians of Mecca was the bishop, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who was a kinsman of Muhammad's wife Khadija; he reportedly testified to the validity of the first Koranic revelations received by Muhammad. 
  
  Alongside Christianity and Judaism, there appears to have existed in pre-Islamic Arabia a diffuse from of folk monotheism combined with traditional pagan beliefs and practices. This could have been the monotheism of those whom the Koran refers to as the Ummiyyun (possibly the Arabic equivalent of the Biblical Hebrew Goyim, traditionally translated into English as Gentiles). The Koran depicts Muhammad as the Prophet of the Ummiyyum (Koran 62:2), who - unlike the Christians and Jews - had no Kitab, or scriptures (Koran 2:78, 3:20), before the Koran was revealed.
  
  Accordingly, one may assume that the Prophet Muhammad was born and raised in accordance with the monotheistic tradition of the Ummiyyun, which honoured the One God of Christianity and Judaism within the context of traditional Arabian paganism.
  
  
  
  15. QUESTION (G.B., Westminster, CO): In their Friday mosque prayer, Muslims say: 'God, give victory to Islam and the Muslims and destroy the enemies of the faith'. Who are the enemies of the faith?
  

• The passage you quote often features in the invocations (Arabic du`a') following the oration (khutba) and immediately preceding the Friday communal prayer. These invocations are the  Muslim equivalent of the ritual intercessions in a Christian church service, where God may be invoked to bless the community, nation, or rulers, and give them victory over their enemies in times of war. In churches today following the Greek rite established under the Byzantine  emperors of Constantinople, one passage of  the intercessions continues to invoke God to 'give victory to our faithful kings over the barbarians' -- i.e., to help them prevail over the Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and other non-Greek (and originally non-Christian) peoples with whom the Christian Byzantine state was perennially in conflict.   
  
  The authority for the wording of the Muslim invocation in question derives neither from the Koran nor from the Prophet's sayings (Arabic hadith), and its antiquity cannot be determined. Its use in the Friday mosque service, though common, is not mandatory, and a mosque orator (Arabic khatib) may choose to omit it or satisfy himself by saying: 'God, give victory to Islam and the Muslims'. In circumstances when Muslims perceive their community to be threatened, the invocation may be elaborated by the khatib to name the 'enemies of the faith', identify their transgressions, and specify the manner in which God might avenge the Muslim faithful against them. Such detailed forms of the invocation gained popularity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as Western powers began to encroach on Muslim lands and control their destinies.

16. QUESTION (H.K., Meadville, PA): What does it mean that anyone who is killed for the cause of God enters paradise? Does this apply to suicide bombers and terrorists? How does Islam define who is killed for the cause of God? 

• Speaking of the followers of the Prophet Muhammad who were killed in the first two battles fought between the Muslims in Medina and the unbelievers of Mecca, the Koranic verse you have in mind says: "Think not that those who were killed for the cause of God are dead, for they are alive and prospering with their Lord" (3:169). The reference, accordingly, is to  warriors fighting to defend their religious community against an enemy seeking its destruction. Islam considers such action justified, and its victims as martyrs for the cause of God. Whether or not the principle in question could be interpreted to apply to terrorists or suicide bombers is a matter on which Muslims may disagree. Yet, while Islam clearly commends rising valiantly in defence of faith and community, it just as clearly rules against acts of war that victimize the innocent and defenceless or involve wanton destruction. Hence, conscientious Muslim opinion cannot justify terrorism on religious grounds any more than it can accept moral justification for any form of warfare in which innocent civilians are the chief sufferers. 
  

17. QUESTION (M.S., Berlin): What keeps a Muslim always a Muslim, no matter how Westernized, reasserting his identity as a Muslim whenever push comes to shove? 

•   Islam conceives of the Muslim faithful as a community (Arabic umma or jama`a), with the Koran enjoining solidarity and mutual support among its members, especially in the face of external threats or dangers. Hence, according to the tenets of Islam, Muslims are expected to place allegiance to faith and community above other social or political considerations. (The same applies to Judaism, though less certainly to Christianity.) In practice, not all Muslims give their prime allegiance to Islam, but those among them who do naturally attract more external attention than those who do not. In the absence of the necessary statistics, the ratio between the two categories cannot be established. Admittedly, however, the first of these would account for a substantial majority.  

Among Muslims in the Arab countries, real or professed allegiance to Islam normally comes first, though not to the exclusion of other allegiances that are equally real, to country, for example, or to the sense of Arab community. Judging by social and political behaviour, and no matter the theory, Muslim Arabs seem distinctly to identify and sympathize more with Christian Arabs and compatriots than with non-Arab Muslims. Likewise, Christian Arabs normally identify more with Muslim Arabs than they do with Christians elsewhere, their sympathy for Islam often going beyond the Arab world.   

What needs to be established is the extent to which Muslims living in the US and other Western countries have come to be politically and culturally integrated into Western society, regardless of the degree to which they continue to practice Islam or remain conscious of being Muslim. Most studies, so far, have been focused upon Muslims in the West who have had problems with integration. Faced with such problems, or with real or imagined discrimination (i.e., “when push comes to shove”), minority groups in any society, no matter how integrated, tend to react by reasserting their sense of ethnic or communal identity. In this respect, Muslims are no exception. 
 

18. QUESTION (A.B., Evans City, PA): Why does Islam preach war, fighting and killing?   

•  Islam does not preach random violence or unjustified aggression. Where the Koran speaks of war, it is usually in reference to the struggle between the Prophet Muhammad and the unbelievers of Mecca who opposed his religious mission. Notable exceptions are the following:  
  
  1. One Koranic verse urges the Muslim faithful to wage war against any Muslim group that attacks another Muslim group if the former cannot be persuaded to cease its aggression by peaceful means.  
  2. Some Koranic verses justify war against non-Muslims who enter into truce with the Muslim community then break the truce. These verses are sometimes interpreted to refer to the Jews of Medina and its vicinity in the Prophet's time.  
  3. The Koran justifies war against those who persecute Muslims and evict them from their homes.  
  4. One Koranic verse justifies war against Christians or Jews who do not follow the teachings of their respective scriptures. Jurists give different interpretations of this ambiguous verse.  
  

• One Koranic verse rules unequivocally against wars of aggression and condemns aggressors. Another recommends that Muslims should only fight in self-defence, in which case they should come to terms with parties waging war against them as soon as such parties sue for peace.
  

19. QUESTION (A.B., Evans City, PA): What about Jihad?

• JIHAD, in Arabic, signifies any 'effort' exerted toward the achievement of a definite goal. As used in the Koran, it has been interpreted to indicate military service in addition to other efforts. The term occurs in four verses of the Koran, and derivatives of it (verbs or nouns) appear in 27 others, but in no case is it specified what is actually involved in jihad, apart from its being a meritorious act serving the good of Islam and the Muslims. Two verses indicate its being a voluntary effort; six others suggest that it can involve material sacrifice as well as personal effort. In three verses, the Prophet Muhammad is urged to undertake and press jihad against his opponents, again without specifying the nature of the action. 

• Historically, the consensus of Muslim learned opinion has defined jihad as the exertion of every possible effort to (a) defend Islam against aggression; (b) suppress religious or political sedition among Muslims; (c) maintain peace, security and justice in the community;  (d)  fight corruption; and (d) strengthen one's personal integrity to attain moral perfection (what has been called ’the greater jihad’). Some jurists have gone so far as to consider jihad as one of the PILLARS of Islam, but the Sharia does not generally uphold this view. 

• Where it entails military action, jihad, according to the SHARIA consensus,  has to be waged and led by the legitimate leader of the community, who must then be obeyed. Before undertaking military jihad, Muslims must make certain of the purity of their intentions, as all actions are judged by the intent in Islam. They must also seek permission of their parents,  if  alive, and be adequately prepared  for the undertaking. Seen in this perspective, jihad, as a war effort, is no more than voluntary military service to the community when it is in danger.   

• Jihad has sometimes been interpreted to include military action aiming at the expansion of Islam. Today, however, the prevailing view is that Islam can only expand by persuasion and peaceful means, and that jihad is only authorized in self-defence. 

•  In the accepted forms of the Sharia, justified jihad does not include acts of terrorism or random violence against innocent parties. Hence, the distinction in Islam between jihad and irhab, the latter being the modern Arabic rendering for 'terrorism', and a new term in Arabic usage. 

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