The Islamic Rules of Warfare
Michael Young details how the attackers of the World Trade Center flagrantly violated the most basic Islamic conventions of war.
IslamForToday.com, September 16, 2001

Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman... She was not fighting. How then she came to be killed? - Prophet Mohammed

Irish victims Ruth McCourt and daughter Juliana, aged four.  Her brother escaped from the World Trade Center only to learn that they were aboard the first plane to hit the building.

Many Muslims contend that the West in general and the United States in particular are no friends of the world-wide community of Islam.  They point to decades of US subsidies to Israel, to the ruthless suppression of the Palestinian intifada with American-supplied weaponry.  They draw attention to the regular bombing of Iraq to enforce the no-fly zones and the suffering and death of young children resulting from ten years of sanctions.  As real as these concerns are, most believers would agree that they do not provide justification for the carnage inflicted apparently by our co-religionists upon America.  One need only look to the Quran:

If any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people - Quran 5:32

And in a hadith narrated by Abdullah bin Amr bin Al-As, God Told Mohammed :

You are neither hard-hearted nor of fierce character, nor one who shouts in the markets. You do not return evil for evil, but excuse and forgive. - Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 362

Many Islamic leaders and scholars both in the West and in Muslim countries have been quick to denounce Tuesday's attacks.  But even if one were to accept, and I do not, the fundamentalist argument that America is indeed at war with Islam, did those Muslims who attacked America in the name of Islam even do so in accordance with the Islamic ethics of warfare?  In the Quran God states:

Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. - Quran 2:190

But just what are these limits?  Chapter four of the book Human Rights in Islam by  'Allamah Abu al-'A'la Mawdudi is entitled The Rights of Enemies at War.  The author states: 

Islam has first drawn a clear line of distinction between the combatants and the non-combatants of the enemy country. As far as the non-combatant population is concerned such as women, children, the old and the infirm, etc., the instructions of the Prophet are as follows:

"Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman" (Abu Dawud). "Do not kill the monks in monasteries" or "Do not kill the people who are sitting in places of worship" (Musnad of Ibn Hanbal).

During a war, the Prophet saw the corpse of a woman lying on the ground and observed: "She was not fighting. How then she came to be killed?" From this statement of the Prophet the exegetists and jurists have drawn the principle that those who are non-combatants should not be killed during or after the war.

The Prophet also  prohibited the killing of anyone who is tied or is in captivity.

Do not transgress limits!

These points are reinforced by other sayings of Prophet Mohammed collected in The Book of Jihad and Expedition (Kitab Al-Jihad wa'l-Siyar)

It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah said: Do not desire an encounter with the enemy; but when you encounter them, be firm. - Muslim  Book 019, Number 4313

It is narrated on the authority of 'Abdullah that a woman was found killed in one of the battles fought by the Messenger of Allah . He disapproved of the killing of women and children. - Muslim Book 019, Number 4319

It is narrated by Ibn 'Umar that a woman was found killed in one of these battles; so the Messenger of Allah forbade the killing of women and children. - Muslim Book 019, Number 4320

Abu Bakr , the first caliph or successor to Prophet Mohammed established a detailed set of rules for Islamic conduct in war.  He gave these instructions to an Islamic army setting out for Syria, then still part of the Byzantine Empire:

"Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone"

Civilians fleeing down the stairs of the World Trade Center

Let us then examine Tuesday's attacks in light of the Islamic ethics of warfare.  

Do not desire an encounter with the enemy
They desired, planned and enacted not just an encounter but mass slaughter.

Those who are non-combatants should not be killed during or after the war.
The Pentagon is the heart of the American military, but the World Trade Center was a civilian site. Even if one argues that the Twin Towers were an economic or symbolic target, they were packed with thousands of innocent non-combatants at the time.  If the terrorists had to attack it, could they not have done so in the early hours of the morning when the building would have been virtually empty and civilian casualties hugely lower?

Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman
There were indeed old people, children and women on the planes and many women in the target buildings.  They were deliberately killed.  Could not the terrorists have achieved considerable destruction to buildings in New York and Washington with private planes packed with explosives?

The Prophet also  prohibited the killing of anyone who is tied or is in captivity.
Those on board the hijacked planes were, in effect, in captivity.  And according to reports, an air stewardess, whose body was found at the World Trade Center, had her hands tied behind her back.

The perpetrators of these monstrous acts, if indeed they were Muslims, have clearly transgressed the limits.  They have displayed not just a callous disregard for the thousands of innocent non-combatants deliberately killed in their attacks but also utter contempt for the rules of the very Islam in whose name they claimed to be acting.

"Allah loveth not transgressors!"

© IslamForToday.com 2001

MichaelYoung101@yahoo.com 

Read other articles by Michael Young here.