Prominent Muslim scholars have always
maintained that jihad is allowed only under the authority of the
State:
And the third category of collective duties is
one in which [the authority of] the State is a [necessary] condition; for
example, jihad and the implementation of the law of punishments
in Islam. (fiqhussunnah, assayyidussabiq; vol.3, page 30)
Writes Ghamidi about the reason for this
opinion of Muslim scholars:
The reason for this [condition] is that without
political sovereignity jihaad becomes fasaad [disorder, chaos, anarchy,
etc]. How is it possible that a group which does not even have the right
to award punishment to a criminal should be given the right to wage war?
(meezaan, qaanuune da`wat; Urdu; page 35)
An explanation of this reason can be found
in Islaahi’s da`wate diin or us kaa tariiqe kaar (Urdu;
Chapter 14, pages 241 and 242):
The first reason [for this condition] is that
God Almighty does not like the dissolution and disintegration of even an
evil system until a strong probablity exists that those who are out to
disintegrate the system will provide people with an alternative and a righteous
system. Anarchy and disorder are unnatural conditions. In fact, they are
so contrary to human nature that even an unjust system is perferable to
them....this confidence [that a group will be able to harmonise a disintegrated
system and integrate it into a united whole] can be reposed in such a group
only as has actually formed a political government and has such control
and discipline within the confines of its authority that the group
can be termed as aljamaa`ah [the State, or the government]. Until
a group attains this position, it may strive [by religiously allowable
means] to become aljamaa`ah -- and that endeavour would be
its jihad for that time -- but it does not have the right to wage
an `armed’ jihad.
The second reason is that the import of the power which
a group engaged in war gets over the life and property of human beings
is so great that sanction to wield this power cannot be given to
a group the control of whose leader over his followers is based merely
on his spiritual and religious influence on them [rather than being
based on legal authority]. When the control of a leader is based merely
on his spirtual and religious influence, there is not sufficient guarantee
that the leader will be able to stop his followers from fassad fil’ard
[creating a situation of disorder, chaos, anarchy on the earth]. Therefore,
a religious leader does not have the right to allow his followers
to take out their swords [that is to wage an armed struggle] merely on
the basis of his spirtual influence over them, for once the sword is unsheathed
there is great danger that it will not care for right and wrong and that
those who drew it will end up doing all [the wrong which] they had sought
to end. Such radical groups as desire revolution and the object of whom
is nothing more than disruption of the existing system and deposition of
the ruling party to seize power for themselves play such games -- and they
can, for in their eyes disruption of a system is no calamity, nor is cruelty
of any kind an evil. Everything is right to them [ as long as it serves
their purpose]. However, the leaders of a just and righteous party must
see whether they are in a position to provide people with a system better
than the one they seek to change and whether they will be able to stop
their followers from doing such wrong as they themselves had sought to
root out. If they are not in that position, then they do not have the right
to play games with the life and property of people on the basis of their
confidence in mere chances and to create greater disorder than the one
they had sought to end.
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