From conquest to co-existence: Burhān al-Dīn al-Marghīnānī’s (d. 593/1197) re-interpretation of jihād

Abstract

Abstract Current scholarship on the legal doctrine of jihād presents classical Sunni jurists after the second/eighth century as uniformly championing continual imperial conquest. In this article, I suggest that this sweeping claim for a uniform doctrine neglects what is distinctive in the argumentation of individual juristic thinkers. I trace the genealogy of of Burhān al-Dīn al-Marghīnānī’s (d. 593/1197) theory of jihād in order to show how he radically reinterpreted the doctrine of Ḥanafī school. He introduced the novel approach that jihād need not to be equated with its outward, formal meaning (al-jihād ṣūratan) of military combat. Rather, beyond that outward sense, jihād also had a deeper meaning (al-jihād maʿnan) based on its purpose or function within international relations. For Marghīnānī, part of this function was the preservation of life, freedom, and property. He was thus able to argue that, so long as they secured these ends, peace treaties fulfilled the deeper meaning of jihad. Marghīnānī’s ideas enabled a shift in Ḥanafī thought whereby jurists after him associated jihād with the realization of benefit (maṣlaḥa) for Muslim society. Rather than advocate the obligation of continual conquest, these jurists accepted that decision-making about war and peace should be determined by pragmatic considerations of social interest.