islamic code of war never inhuman.

Submitted by bayezid (Bangladesh), Jan 4, 2009 at 06:29

before i set to answer the questions and criticisms about islamic laws of warfare , id like to present to you those things that constitute s islamic code of war .

the prophet muhammad peace be upon him taught :

do not commit treachery ( meaning do not go against a treaty and do not make excuses to start fights)

do not break treaty once made with enemy (even if it means the enemy is attacking muslim minority in enemy territory)

prisoners of war are not to be harmed in any way. captives are to be treated well and provided with all that they need. tortue is forbidden

do not kill or harm non combatants. do not under any circumstances harm women, children and senior citizens.

do not harm the cattle and livestock with malicious intent.

do not cut down trees or plants in enemy territory with malicious intent

do not harm the monks in monasteries and other religious minorities. do not attack temples of other religions at all

fire is not to be used to punish the enemy . th use of fire is unacceptable in its implementaion as a weapon

the above are laws of war of islam stated by me from memory. so as you can see laws of war constitute the conduct of muslims in war. it seems you have disregarded the things i have mentioned above and for some mysterious reason labelled islamic war code as inhuman. you used the case of booty which hardly makes up a law of war.

booty is natural in war and needs no law to be established. if war is declared on the enemy, it is taken for granted that both parties have aken up the last resort, and anyone victorious will claim what the defeated party has. this is never unnatural or anomalous a behaviour in any way. thats why it is called war.

"And indeed whosoever takes revenge after he has suffered wrong, for such there is no way (of blame) against them" – i.e., blaming them or declaring them to be sinners – "The way (of blame) is only against those who oppress men and rebel in the earth without justification" [al-Shooraa 42:41-42]

"So enjoy what you have gotten of booty in war, lawful and good' [al-Anfaal 8:69].

there are two kinds of booty. ghaneemah (booty from enemy after he is defeated) and fay(booty the enemy leaves behind withut fighting, or propery enemy givess up without military engagement).according to the shariah law, the ghaneemah is to be divided into 5 parts. four fifths are distributed to mujahedeen ho fought, and the one fifth to be used in the way :

1. A share for Allaah and His Messenger, which is to be used to serve the common interest of the Muslims, not for any specific person(s). Allaah has stated that this is for Him and for His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Allaah and His Messenger have no need of it, therefore we know that it is for the slaves of Allaah. The fact that Allaah did not state that it was for anyone in particular indicates that it should be spent to serve the common interests of all. (Tafseer Ibn Sa'di, 3/169)

2. A share for the relatives of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) from Bani Haashim and Bani al-Muttalib. They are all equally entitled to it, rich and poor, male and female.

3. Orphans – those who have lost their fathers whilst they are still young i.e., before the age of puberty.

4. The poor and needy.

5. The wayfarer, i.e. travellers who are cut off and need money in order to get back home.

islam did not invent slavery. it was always there in all parts of the world. including india. with islam, the slaves were obligated to be freed. to be treated well. and islam made it compulsory to free the slave and once freed, this slave will no longer be slve but will have an equal status.and if slaves are taken from the enemy party, it is obligatory upon muslim to treat the slave well. and in due time, to free the slave. there can be no maltreatment of the slave.

after victory , the defeated partys women could be taken by muslims as captives. and each mujahideen can have relations with his own captive, and not another's captive. just like one can have relations with ones own wife, and not anothers. as stated above, the mujahid is required to treat his captive well and in due time release her.he could not orce himself on captive. such are the obligations upon him. this gurantees a place for the captive woman in question. she does not fall prey to the lsuts and whims of other men, because her place is secured by the one who captured her. she has shelter and is in her captors protection.

>> Remember what happened to the Banu Quraiza? The adult males who were all beheaded must have included some priests, rabbis. Do you have even a single ruins of any synagogue or church in the Hejaz? How did they disappear?"

oh well how could i forget? knowing that you would acvtually remind me of this some time. lol. yes i knw about them. and heres the whole truth abt banu quraiza. they were the aggressors. not the muslims. after they provoked muslims in ways of war, the muslims took up arms to fight them. it led to the famous battle of the ditch. et me also remind you that the banu quraiza had a treaty with the medinite muslims. they were not to attack the muslims. but banu quraiza broke the treaty.

after the well suplied and well fortified banu quraiza were defeated, Muhammad peace be upon him asked the banu quraiza who should be the judge for thir misconduct, the prophet or one of their own men. the defeated party said one of our own men. this man was sad ibn muadh a jewish revert to islam. sad decided their fate according to their own jewish law. and so killed every man that passed puberty and every man that could fight.

there was nothing unfair here at all. the banu quraiza knew abt prophet and islam, they couldve chosen him to be judge. instead they chose someone else, and they chose an ex jew who was well versed in jewish laws. so yeah, muslims do want to treat the enemy well, but its the enemy of islm that chooses to have the bad end.

>>bayezid, your Hindu ancestors had better rules of war than what Allah thought up in the Koran: The world famous historian, Will Durant has written in his Story of Civilisation that "the Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history". India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a zone of peace. There were plenty of wars fought by Hindu princes. But in all their wars, the Hindus had observed some time-honoured conventions sanctioned by the Sastras. The Brahmins and the Bhikshus were never molested. The cows were never killed. The temples were never touched. The chastity of women was never violated. The non-combatants were never killed or captured. A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort."

did they? did they not use fire to harm enemy? the indians were proficient in the use of fire as weapon and they had very sophisticated weaponry that had an incendiary effect to them. they relied on these kinds of weaponry.and in islam the use of fire is forbiden.

did the hindus not torture the enemy captives and treat them badly? the wars of the kalingas and the battles that ashoka fought in another account had such bloody accounts of torture and random killing that it tured ashoka into a buddhist convert !! so what are you taking about really ?? there had been many local wars between domestic kingdoms like the Cholas, Pallavas and Pandyas competing with the Satvahanas and the Guptas or the Rashrakutas, Gurjara Pratiharas and Palas in later times. these were never recorded in brahminic texts. countless people were slaughtered and injustice to the vanquished group was a common place activity. and most importantly, thre were no religious excuses found for these wars. buddhists had it the worst in india. i am bangladeshi and i know this for a fact. this region used to be a place of refuge for buddhists in anceint times. the indian clns forced these buddhists into hinduism and oetn took their women as sport. so who are you kidding ?

many people do not know this but india used to be one of the bloodiest places on earth. dont forget the human sacrifice that took plce in temples after the enemies of hinduism were captured. in islam, ALLAH does not require us to slaughter captives or human beings as a ritual. but in anceint india before islam arrived, hindu kings would order their soldiers to force march the enemy soldiers into the local temples for beheadings.

A. R. Mujumdar in The Hindu History (1979) observes ... "From 650 AD, perhaps to suit the needs of the age, Hindus rather suppressed history and invented nice legends instead". is this the glorious history of my ancestors?? your ancestors?? so its a good thing islam came to this land, isnt it?

Brahmin ministers and priests ruthlessly exterminated the previously dominant Buddhist and Jain faiths. and this was a very commonplace activity of anceint hindus. muslims are forbidden by ALLAH to carry out injusices to religious minorities in islamic countries. very often we would see muslims guilty of attacking non muslims being beheaded in islamic history. how much more proof should i give you? you had better investigate into it. and i mean no harm to you, but i cannot allow you to say things untrue about islam. we are both indians so no need to lie to each other. hindus had their way of life an i admire the good things about them, but they were bloody people. fact !!

Several Nepalese accounts state that the followers of Buddha were ruthlessly persecuted, slain, exiled and forcibly converted. Though many converted rather than face death, humiliation or exile. The attackers tested their faith by making them perform ‘Hinsa', or the sacrifice of live animals, that was abhorrent to Buddhists and Jains. Many bhikshunis, or nuns, were forcibly married and the learned Grihasthas were forced to cut off the distinguishing knot of hair on top of their heads. 84,000 Buddhist works were searched for and destroyed.

these are a few examples of what anceint india was guilty of. i can provide more if you so wish. but please do not say untrue things about islam. in islamic hiostory, 98 percent of the wars that took place was becasue of provocation from enemy side. ither they killed muslim minority or they broke treaty or something like that. then muslims attackd. in hindu history, most wars that took place were of the second category of wars in hindu warfare :adharma yuddha. not dharma yuddha (righteous war)

>> That was written in remembrance of Alauddin Khalji's invasion of Gujarat in the year l298 AD. But the gruesome game had started three centuries earlier when Mahmud Ghaznavi had vowed to invade India every year in order to destroy idolatry, kill the kafirs, capture prisoners of war, and plunder vast wealth for which India was well-known. "

anothr lie. the muslims entity in india ensured for the better part ofits time that the hindus and buddhists and others were never to be wrnged. never to be attacked unjustly. but like all human beings, muslims can also err. four or five times in history all in all did muslim soldiers torment and kill hindus. but do not forget how the muslim commanders and rulers punished them and humiliated them. from the century spanning rule of babar to shahjahan, the hindus buddhists and jains and muslims lived like brothers. this is history. that is why you have stories like akbar and birbal. in fact it was the hindus that unjustly slaughtered musims preachers in southern india. they did it in such ways that islam had to send military force to stop the hindu army.

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