Tariq Mehanna
In Surat al-Baqarah, v.217, Allah said, {"They ask you about fighting in the Sacred Months. Say: Fighting is a great transgression therein, but a greater transgression is to prevent people from the path of Allah, disbelief in Him, preventing access to the Sacred Mosque, and to drive out its inhabitants…"}
This verse was revealed in the second year after Hijrah. The Prophet had dispatched 'Abdullah bin Jahsh and a dozen others to intercept a food caravan of Quraysh at a place called Nakhlah (between Makkah and at-Ta'if) and find out what they were up to. Once Ibn Jahsh had gotten to the caravan, he and the others discovered that it contained some of the pagans who had meted out the worst oppression to the Muslims back when they were in Makkah – stealing their money, kicking them out of their homes, torturing the Companions, repeatedly attempting to kill the Prophet – and the idea occurred to them to confront them and take back the value of some of what was taken from them back in Makkah. The only problem was that this was in the month of Rajab, which was a Sacred Month during which it was forbidden to engage in hostilities. After long contemplation, the group of Muslims decided that which was a justifiable exception in light of the circumstances and history, and they fought the Qurashi pagans and took back some of their usurped wealth.
This troubled the Prophet greatly, and the pagans capitalized on this event as an opportunity to create an uproar and turn public opinion against the Muslims by claiming that they had violated the divine rules of warfare; that they were violent, militants, warmongers; that they were against peace and freedom, and so forth. At the end of the day, the fact that Ibn Jahsh and his small group had indeed initiated military action against the caravan left the rest of the Muslims divided as to how to respond to these allegations. Finally, to answer the question, Allah revealed this verse, confirming that yes, it was forbidden to initiate combat during the Sacred Months, but what was worse was what the pagans of Quraysh had been doing to the Muslims all along that led up to this violation of the Sacred Month occurring, and that this latter point nullified the legitimacy of their uproar against the Muslims.
This verse contains a valuable lesson in dealing with similar situations. That lesson is that when the opponents of Islam capitalize on certain events to put us on the defensive, our response should be to instead go on the offensive. The pagans focused on that one apparent transgression by Ibn Jahsh in a deceptively compartmental manner that completely ignored their own myriad of transgressions that served as the direct catalyst for what they were now making an uproar about. Rather than give them the pleasure of a defensive, apologetic response, Allah directed the Muslims to instead point out what the pagans had been doing to them all along, as if to say: 'Excuse me? Who are you calling violent?! Just look at your own record!'
Obvious to all, we find ourselves today in identical circumstances. When we are faced with accusations of terrorism, violence, and the other terms you are more than familiar with, the tendency on the part of many – even those with good intentions – is to lapse into defensive mode, with: 'Don't let the actions of a few ruin the reputation of many.' 'We are a peace-loving people,' 'Islam condemns the killing of innocents,' among other trademark slogans thrown around. While the statements may be true in and of themselves, their utterance overtly manifests the defensive and apologetic mindset that characterizes Western Muslims. This is a trap set for us by our opponents: they want us to react defensively and apologetically in order to provide a smokescreen for their own violent, bloody history of terrorizing others. For this reason, the verse teaches us to do away with the pathetic knee-jerk reactions and instead turn the tables on our opponents by laying out their dirty laundry. And there is plenty.
Just as the verse instructed the Muslims to outline the past transgressions of Quraysh one by one to silence their uproar, we should learn about and list the transgressions of our opponents and bring them up whenever they have the audacity to accuse us of being 'violent' or 'terrorists' while portraying themselves as benevolent peacemakers.
So, we should study the genocide of the Native Americans, who were 10 million-strong in the current United States upon the arrival of Columbus, but were eventually reduced to less than a million after European invaders came into the picture.
We should study the history of slavery in Africa, where a total of 50 million human beings lost their lives in the centuries considered to be the beginnings of modern Western civilization at the hands of slave traders and plantation owners in Western Europe and America – the countries deemed to be the most 'civilized' in the world.
We should study the history of the Mexican-American war, and the meaning of the term 'manifest destiny.'
We should study the history of the Filipino revolt against American occupation at the end of the 19th Century.
We should read about the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which instantly incinerated over 150,000 people who were just living their everyday civilian lives – the only time in the history of mankind that one nation used nuclear weapons on another, and ironically by the same nation which now traverses the globe lecturing others about not letting nuclear weapons fall into the wrong hands. (Check out 'Hiroshima' by John Hersey)
We should study the history of America's involvement in Latin America, specifically El Salvador, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, and Guatemala. (Howard Zinn's books are a good start)
We should study the history of the Gulf War of 1990 and the ensuing US-led embargo, in which the starvation of children and preventing them from medicine was used as a method of warfare. In a 1996 interview on '60 Minutes,' Madeline Albright confirmed it to be "worth it" to have starved more Iraqi children to death than were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
We should study the history of the 1993 US invasion of Somalia which killed no less than 2,000 Somalis.
We should study the details of America's aid to Israel, which is directly manifested in every bullet, missile, bomb, bulldozer, and warplane that is used to kill our own brothers and sisters in Palestine. (See Norman Finkelstein's books)
We should ask how they have the audacity to call us violent at a time when they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year invading, occupying, and bombing two of our countries.
There is a concept in psychology known as psychological projection, in which one who is guilty of a particular misdeed will attempt to relieve his conscience by deflecting attention from himself and accusing others of what he is guilty of. Perhaps this phenomenon plays a role when it comes to much of what we hear today from our opponents and enemies. In any case, Allah teaches us clearly in this verse how to respond to what we hear (and how not to).
