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Ibn Khaldun: In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.
Yusra Ghannouchi @yusraghkh
Ibn Khaldun, historian, philosopher, father of sociology & historiography, born May 27 1332 #Tunisia pic.twitter.com/6N1ScY17Gp
3:52 AM – 30 May 13
Yusra Ghannouchi is an Ennahda spokesperson, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Tunisia, and the daughter of the party leader Rachid Ghannouchi. On the occasion of the Muslim thinker Ibn Khaldun’s birthday, she posted a message on Twitter to praise him. Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis on May 27, 1332 and died in Egypt in 1406.
In his Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun offers a justification for offensive jihad (presented as ‘holy war’ by his English translators) based on the nature of Islam itself. His justification goes along the same lines of what was written by twentieth century proponents of offensive jihad, such as Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Syed Maududi:
In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal authority are united in Islam, so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them (PdeB: religion and politics) at the same time.
The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save only for purposes of defence. It has thus come about that the person in charge of religious affairs in (other religious groups) is not concerned with power politics at all. (Among them) royal authority comes to those who have it – by accident and in some way that has nothing to do with religion. It comes to them as the necessary result of group feeling, which by its very nature seeks to obtain royal authority, as we have mentioned before, and not because they are under obligation to gain power over other nations, as is the case with Islam. They are merely required to establish their religion among their own people. (Volume 2, p. 183 Google Books)
Here is how Ibn Khaldun describes the program followed by the caliphs who succeeded Muhammad:
Abu Bakr discharged the duties of his office in a manner pleasing to God, following the traditions of his master (Muhammad). He fought against apostates until all the Arabs were united in Islam. He then appointed ‘Umar his successor. ‘Umar followed Abu Bakr’s example and fought against (foreign) nations. He defeated them and permitted the Arabs to appropriate the worldly possessions and their royal authority, and the Arabs did that. (Volume 2, p. 162 Google Books)
Ibn Khaldun considered that black people’s “qualities of character… are close to those of dumb animals” (p. 59). Ibn Khaldun claimed that it made them good prospects for enslavement:
Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated. (Volume 2, p. 117 Google Books)
During a presentation of his book Le génocide voilé (The Veiled Genocide) on French TV (video 5:26), historian Tidiane N’Diaye mentioned Ibn Khaldun’s endorsement of Muslim-Arab slavery practised during fourteen centuries.
In its decision rendered in the case X (Re) 2000 CanLII 21343, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board refused to grant refugee status to Tunisian Mohamed Zrig because he was involved with Rachid Ghannouchi’s Ennahda in the eighties and nineties while it organized terrorist acts. In section 5.3.16, the decision highlights the influence of Syed Maududi (Mawdudi 1903-1979), the founder of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, on Rachid Ghannouchi. It states that “Mawdudi too, the great Pakistani religious wise man by whom Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, is much influenced, considers slavery to be legitimate.”
Point de Bascule (October 27, 2011): Mohamed Zrig: An Accomplice of Terrorists and a Muslim Brotherhood candidate to Represent Canada at the Tunisian Constituent Assembly
Other Muslim Brotherhood leaders have praised Ibn Khaldun’s contribution to their doctrine in the past, including Tariq Ramadan who deems it a “decisive input” in his book What I believe (pp. 83-84).
Further reading
Point de Bascule (November 30, 2011): Rachid Ghannouchi praises a Saudi scholar who advocated that the earth is flat
