Some Observations Concerning the Early Development of Jihad on the Arab-Byzantine Frontier

Abstract

Jihad, like other Islamic institutions, doctrines and practices, must have gone through stages of development in the early period. Jihad consists of warfare conducted by a constituted authority against duly defined enemies. This highly charged notion of volunteering for the jihad, which find on every page of Ibn al-Mubarak's Kilab al-jihad, stands out also in biographical accounts of the man himself. This chapter presents an two trends, which had been in a process of formation for some time, but which first cohered in Abu Ishaq al-Fazari and 'Abdallah b. al-Mubarak, especially in their activity on the Arab-Byzantine frontier. Both of these have been related to notions of authority in the conduct of war. The attitudes and teachings of Fazari and Ibn al- Mubarak, while not universally imitated and accepted, thus had some effect on at least one caliph, and certainly remained dominant among scholar-ascetics in the Byzantine frontier region for as long as it lasted.