Answer by A Quora admin:
Muhammad, a charismatic trader from a prominent local clan, began reciting his revelations and preaching while he still lived in his hometown of Mecca. He didn’t gather many followers but he did gather a lot of detractors. He pretty much wore out his welcome.
As fortune would have it, there was a smaller town, known as Medina, that had fallen on misfortune and sought a strong leader to guide them. Muhammad took the opportunity to go where he was wanted. A small group of followers went with him.
In Media, Muhammad and his men found themselves impoverished and barely scraped by at subsistence level. To make matters worse, the property they left in Mecca were stolen by the local folk.
Muhammad’s remedy for the miserable conditions of Medina was pretty straight-forward: raid caravans for camels, booty and hostages to take for ransom or for sale or for sex. After finding success with his radical economic recovery strategy, he and his growing number of followers turned their attention to towns and villages. It took a lot of planning and coordination to intercept caravans in the desert and Muhammad’s men sometimes failed to find them. Towns and villages, on the other hand, were stationary targets and often less well-guarded than caravans. They were sitting ducks.
Now, instead of enduring rejection of his revelations from Allah, Muhammad found it easy to convert new adherents to Islam. Many men wanted to share in the adventure and booty of Muhammad’s marauders and, more significantly, entire towns converted rather than face the alternatives: fight or die.
There’s a distinct difference in tone between revelations revealed in Muhammad’s Meccan phase and his Medinan phase. When Muhammad was unwelcome, in Mecca, his revelations were tame compared to when he held power and authority in Medina. His revelations took a definite, militant, turn: more strident and vengeful. Either Allah decided to increase militant rhetoric . . . or . . . Muhammad did. You decide. Here’s a hint for you: Allah wrote the Quran when the world was new and the archangel, Gabriel, thousands of years later, parsed it out to Muhammad, piecemeal.
So, Mr. Anonymous, guess which phase – Meccan or Medinan –ALL of the ayat you cited in your OP question comes from? That’s right, the Medinan phase. Many of the ayat were preceded by admonishments to use violence only if provoked . . . but provocation is warranted by ‘making mischief in the land’: disrespecting Allah, Islam, the Quran or Muhammad. In other words, all the provocation needed was being an infidel, ignorant of the ways of Islam.
In plain-spoken English, the ayat you cited instruct Muslims to:
- [8:12] ‘strike them upon the necks’ (in other words, behead them)
- [48:29] use force against infidels but be kind to Muslims (and receive ‘forgiveness and a great reward’)
- [2:191] in the battle for Mecca (a holy city) don’t kill unless attacked: but, if attacked, kill them or chase them away
- [2:216] if Allah wants you to fight, it doesn’t matter if you want to fight or not because Allah knows everything
- [3:56] ‘And as for those who disbelieved, I will punish them with a severe punishment in this world and the Hereafter, and they will have no helpers.’
- [4:74] true believers ‘fight in the cause of Allah’ and, if they die, Allah rewards them in Paradise
- [4:95] unless you’re disable, Allah takes a dim view of those who sit a home on their couch instead of out fighting for the cause of jihad
- [8:65] ‘O Prophet, urge the believers to battle. If there are among you twenty who are steadfast, they will overcome two hundred. And if there are among you one hundred who are steadfast, they will overcome a thousand of those who have disbelieved because they are a people who do not understand.’
- [9:20] ‘The ones who have believed, emigrated and striven in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives are greater in rank in the sight of Allah . And it is those who are the attainers of success.’
- [9:73] ‘O Prophet, fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the destination.’
- [9:123] Be harsh with the infidels among you. Allah is with the righteous (i.e. obedient Muslims).
- [2:85] A little context first: {Jews are People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb or dhimmi) and allowed to live in their own communities, unharassed, as long as they follow dhimmi rules and pay jizya protection tax.} Yet you band together and evict them from their homes and kill them. Even if they surrender peacefully, you hold them for ransom. These malicious acts are prohibited yet you do them anyway. Is the Quran the truth . . . or only the parts you like? Allah knows all and you will suffer retribution for violating the Quran.
- [2:257] Allah is the ally of the believers and enemy of infidels. Infidels will burn in hell.
- [61:4] Allah loves his mujihadeen (jihadi armies).
- [66:9] This refrain is repeated (in so many words) the Quran: ‘O Prophet, strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the destination.’
- [3:85] ‘And whoever desires other than Islam as religion – never will it be accepted from him, and he, in the Hereafter, will be among the losers.’
The point here is not that license for jihad and violence can be taken from the Quran: the point is that license for jihad and violence always has been and continues to be taken from the Quran.
AtheistExile 