Early instances The earliest forms of warfare by Muslims occurred after the migration (
hijra) of Muhammad and his small group of followers to
Medina from
Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam. At this time, Muslims had been persecuted and oppressed by the Meccans. There were still Muslims who could not flee from Mecca and were still oppressed because of their faith. The Meccans also refused to let the Muslims enter Mecca and by that denied them access to the
Ka'aba. Major battles in the history of Islam arose between the Meccans and the Muslims; one of the most important to the latter was the
Battle of Badr in 624 AD. Other early battles included battles in
Uhud (625),
Khandaq (627),
Mecca (630),
Khaybar (628) and
Hunayn (630). These battles, especially
Uhud was unsuccessful in comparison to the
Battle of Badr.
Warfare by Islamic forces before 1918 Islam in the Iberian Peninsula The
Umayyad conquest of
Hispania was the initial expansion of the
Umayyad Caliphate over
Hispania (in the
Iberian Peninsula) from 711 to 718. The conquest resulted in the destruction of the
Visigothic Kingdom and the establishment of the Umayyad
Wilayah of
Al-Andalus. The conquest marks the westernmost expansion of both the
Umayyad Caliphate and
Muslim rule into Europe. The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as
Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers. Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the faraway mountainous north of the peninsula. The
medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare between the Muslim al-Andalus (and later
Taifas) and Christian kingdoms. The
Almohad Dynasty was a
Berber, Muslim dynasty that was founded in the 12th century, and conquered all Northern Africa as far as
Libya, together with
Al-Andalus (
Moorish Iberian Peninsula). The Almohads, who declared an everlasting Jihad against the Christians, far surpassed the
Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the
dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated. The Almohads soon embarked in a campaign to destroy the Catholic kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. Outnumbered, the defending army led by King
Alfonso VIII of Castile, defeated
Muhammad al-Nasir near
Las Navas de Tolosa in
1212. Las Navas de Tolosa is sought as the turning point of the
Reconquista and the end of the Muslim dominance in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, the
Granada War marked the end of the
Reconquista, resulting in the defeat of the
Emirate of Granada, ending all of Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula.
Crusades European
crusaders re-conquered much of the territory seized by the Islamic state, dividing it into four kingdoms, the most important being the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the
Holy Land (former
Christian territory) from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the
Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim
Seljuk Turks into
Anatolia. There was little drive to retake the lands from the crusaders, save the few attacks made by the
Egyptian
Fatimids. This changed, however, with the first recorded use of jihad during the
Battle of Sarmada in 1119, where a united Muslim army under the Turkish warlord
Ilghazi were victorious over Outremer's force, destabilising the
Principality of Antioch by killing their leader,
Roger. Though, the first instance where jihad was effectively used against the Crusaders to regain land was with the coming of
Zangi, ruler of what is today northern
Iraq. He took
Edessa, which triggered the
Second Crusade, which was little more than a 47-year stalemate. The stalemate was ended with the victory of
Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (known in the west as Saladin) over the forces of Jerusalem at the
Horns of Hattin in 1187. It was during the course of the stalemate that a great deal of literature regarding Jihad was written.
South Asia Sir
Jadunath Sarkar contends that several Muslim invaders were waging a systematic Jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of
massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects." In particular the records kept by al-Utbi,
Mahmud al-Ghazni's secretary, in the
Tarikh-i-Yamini document several episodes of bloody military campaigns. In the late tenth century, a story spread that before Muhammad destroyed the idols at the
Kaaba, that of
Manāt was secretly sent to a Hindu temple in India; and the place was renamed as
So-Manāt or
Somnath. Acting on this, the
Shiva idol at the
Somnath temple was destroyed in a raid by Mahmud Ghazni in CE 1024; which is considered the first act of Jihad in India. In 1527,
Babur ordered a Jihad against
Rajputs and
Meenas at the
battle of Khanwa. Publicly addressing his men, he declared the forthcoming battle a Jihad. His soldiers were facing a non-Muslim army for the first time ever. This, he said, was their chance to become either a
Ghazi (soldier of Islam) or a
Shaheed (Martyr of Islam). In 1567,
Babur's grandson
Akbar declared
Jihad against the
Sisodiya ruler
Uday Singh and
beiseged his capital in October 1567. The garrison of Chittor was slaughtered to the last men and the city was taken after a gallant resistance by the defenders. After the fort was captured, the inhabitants of Chittor numbered around 30,000 were massacred and the rest
were enslaved. Akbar, proclaimed the conquest of Chittor as victory of
Islam over the
idolaters and issued a victory letter expressing about his victory in sentiments of
Islamic inconoclasm. Akbar's grandson emperor
Aurangzeb waged a Jihad against those identified as heterodox within India's Islamic community, such as
Shi'a Muslims.
Barbary Pirates After the Spanish reconquered
Granada from the Moors in 1492, many Moors exiled from the
Spanish Inquisition fled to North Africa. After attacks against Spanish shipping took place from North Africa, the Spanish retaliated by seizing
Oran,
Algiers, and
Tunis. By 1518, the pirates were serving in the navies of North African Sultans, conducting activities that included attacks on enemy (especially Christian) trade and raiding European coastlines for potential slaves. However, by 1587, their activity became much more decentralized, and more like traditional piracy. Much of the Barbary activity was funded through the enslavement of European Christians. In the beginning of the 17th Century, there were more than 20,000 captives to be sold into
slavery in Algiers alone. Although people from all over Christendom suffered Barbary attacks, the people who were the most likely victims were from
Sicily. However, any Christian nation that refused to pay tribute to Islam and either the
Sultanate of Morocco,
Eyalet of Tripolitania, or the
Regency of Algiers could have been subject to attack.
Ottoman Empire Upon succeeding his father,
Suleiman the Magnificent began a series of
military conquests in Europe. On August 29, 1526, he defeated
Louis II of Hungary (1516–26) at the
battle of Mohács. In its wake, Hungarian resistance collapsed and the
Ottoman Empire became the preeminent power in South-Eastern Europe. In July 1683 Sultan
Mehmet IV proclaimed a Jihad and the Turkish grand vizier,
Kara Mustafa Pasha,
laid siege to Vienna with an army of 138,000 men. On November 14, 1914, in
Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader
Sheikh-ul-Islam declares Jihad on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging Muslims all over the world—including in the
Allied countries—to take up arms against Britain,
Russia,
France,
Serbia and
Montenegro in World War I. On the other hand,
Sheikh Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, refused to accommodate Ottoman requests that he endorse this jihad, a requirement that was necessary were a jihad to become popular, due to British pressure and on the grounds that: the Holy War was doctrinally incompatible with an aggressive war, and absurd with a Christian ally: Germany
Central Asia and Afghanistan Ahmad Shah, founder of the
Durrani Empire, declared a jihad against the
Marathas, and warriors from various
Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes answered his call. The
Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely
Muslim and largely
Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each, was waged along a twelve-kilometre front, and resulted in a victory for Ahmad Shah. In response to the
Hazara uprising of 1892, the Afghan Emir
Abdur Rahman Khan declared a "Jihad" against the
Shiites. The large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in
Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was severely massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi, "thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were
sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir". Until the 20th century, some Hazaras were still kept as slaves by the
Pashtuns; although
Amanullah Khan banned
slavery in Afghanistan during his reign, the tradition carried on unofficially for many more years.
Wahabbists The
Saudi Salafi sheiks were convinced that it was their religious mission to wage Jihad against all other forms of Islam. In 1801 or 1802, the Saudi Wahhabists under
Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy
Shia cities of
Karbala and
Najaf in
Iraq, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the tombs of the Shiite
Imam Husayn and
Ali bin Abu Talib. In 1802 they overtook
Taif. In 1803 and 1804 the Wahhabis overtook Mecca and Medina.
Fulani jihads (West Africa) The Fula or
Fulani jihads, were a series of independent but loosely connected events across
West Africa between the late 17th century and
European colonization, in which Muslim
Fulas took control of various parts of the region. Between 1750 and 1900, one-third to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves.
Anti-colonial warfare in Muslim areas Caucasus In 1784, Imam
Sheikh Mansur, a
Chechen warrior and
Muslim mystic, led a coalition of Muslim
Caucasian tribes from throughout the
Caucasus in a ghazavat, or holy war, against the Russian invaders. Sheikh Mansur was captured in 1791 and died in the
Schlüsselburg Fortress.
Avarian Islamic scholar
Ghazi Muhammad preached that Jihad would not occur until the Caucasians followed
Sharia completely rather than following a mixture of Islamic laws and
adat (customary traditions). By 1829, Mullah began proselytizing and claiming that obeying Sharia, giving
zakat, prayer, and
hajj would not be accepted by Allah if the Russians were still present in the area. He even went on to claim that marriages would become void and children bastards if any Russians were still in the Caucasus. In 1829 he was proclaimed
imam in
Ghimry, where he formally made the call for a holy war. In 1834, Ghazi Muhammad died at the battle of Ghimri, and
Imam Shamil took his place as the premier leader of the Caucasian resistance. Imam Shamil succeeded in accomplishing what Sheik Mansur had started: to unite North Caucasian highlanders in their struggle against the
Russian Empire. He was a leader of anti-Russian resistance in the
Caucasian War and was the third
Imam of
Dagestan and
Chechnya (1834–1859).
Mahdists in Sudan During the 1870s, European initiatives against the
slave trade caused an economic crisis in northern
Sudan, precipitating the rise of
Mahdist forces.
Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi was a religious leader, who proclaimed himself the
Mahdi—the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will appear at
end times—in 1881, and declared a Jihad against
Ottoman rulers. He declared all "
Turks" infidels and called for their
execution. The Mahdi raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the
Ottoman-
Egyptian occupation of Sudan. Victory created an Islamic state, one that quickly reinstituted
slavery in Sudan. In the West he is most famous for defeating and later killing
British general
Charles George Gordon, in the
fall of Khartoum.
Afghanistan The
First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42) was one of Britain's most ill-advised and disastrous wars.
William Brydon was the sole survivor of the invading British army of 16,500 soldiers and civilians. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was also a disaster and considered to be their "Vietnam". The invasion and atrocities compelled the west into providing aid to the mujaheddin. The Russian invasion was also the historical event that provoked
Osama bin Laden into migrating to Afghanistan in 1979, the same year he graduated from University. As in the earlier
wars against the British and
Soviets, Afghan Resistance to the
American invaders took the traditional form of a Muslim holy war against the infidels. During September 2002, the remnants of the
Taliban forces began a recruitment drive in
Pashtun areas in both
Afghanistan and
Pakistan to launch a renewed "jihad" or holy war against the pro-Western Afghan government and the US-led coalition.
Pamphlets distributed in secret during the night also began to appear in many villages in the former Taliban heartland in southeastern Afghanistan that called for jihad. Small mobile training camps were established along the border with Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives to train new recruits in
guerrilla warfare and
terrorist tactics, according to Afghan sources and a United Nations report. Most of the new recruits were drawn from the
madrassas or religious schools of the tribal areas of Pakistan, from which the Taliban had originally arisen. The
insurgency continued in the form of the
Taliban guerrilla war, up until its conclusion in 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S forces. Although there is no evidence that the
CIA directly supported the Taliban or
Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency) provided arms to
Afghan mujahideens resisting the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets.
Osama bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The Soviets completely withdrew from Afghanistan by 1989, ending a war which had become an embarrassment for politicians in Moscow.
Algeria In 1830,
Algeria was
invaded by France; French
colonial domination over Algeria supplanted what had been domination in name by the
Ottoman Empire. Within two years,
Abd al-Qādir was made an
amir and with the loyalty of a number of
tribes began a jihad against the French. He was effective at using
guerrilla warfare and for a decade, up until 1842, scored many victories. He was noted for his
chivalry. On December 21, 1847, Abd al-Qādir was forced to surrender. Abd al-Qādir is recognized and venerated as the first hero of Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white standard was adopted by the
Algerian Liberation Front during the
War of Independence and became the national flag of independent Algeria. The
Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various
Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. By 1997, the organized jihad in Algeria had disintegrated into criminal thuggery and Algeria was wracked by
massacres of intense brutality and unprecedented size.
Southeast Asia In 1527, an invasion from the Demak Sultanate caused the destruction of the Hindu and Buddhist Majapahit empire. The
Cham Muslims under Katip Suma declared a Jihad against the Vietnamese invasion of Champa in 1832 under Emperor
Minh Mang.
China Turkic Kokandi Uzbek Muslim forces under
Yaqub Beg declared a Jihad against
Chinese Muslims under T'o Ming during the
Dungan revolt. Yaqub Beg enlisted non Muslim Han Chinese militia under Hsu Hsuehkung in order to fight against the Chinese Muslims. T'o Ming's forces were defeated by Yaqub, who planned to conquer Dzungharia. Yaqub intended to seize all Dungan territory. The
Boxer Rebellion was considered a Jihad by the Muslim
Kansu Braves in the Chinese Imperial Army under
Dong Fuxiang, fighting against the
Eight-Nation Alliance. Jihad was declared obligatory and a religious duty for all Chinese Muslims against Japan after 1937 during the
Second Sino-Japanese War.
Axis Europe Among the Nazi leadership, the greatest interest in the idea of creating Muslim units under German command was shown by Heinrich Himmler, who viewed the Islamic world as a potential ally against the British Empire. Himmler had a romantic vision of Islam as a faith ‘fostering fearless soldiers’, and this probably played a significant role in his decision to raise three Muslim divisions under German leadership in the
Balkans from
Bosnian Muslims and
Albanians: the Waffen SS 13th
Handschar ("Knife"), the 23rd
Kama ("Dagger") and the 21st
Skenderbeg, although only Handschar reached full
division strength. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men, and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers. Recruitment was aided by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Haj Amin al-Husseini, who fled from British-controlled Palestine in 1941 to Baghdad and then to Berlin. He participated in the German war effort "by broadcasting anti-British, jihadist propaganda to the Middle East and by recruiting
Bosnian Muslims" for the German Armed Forces or
Wehrmacht. The
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states "These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in
Bor on their way back to Hungary. "The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies." Husseini asked that Muslim divisional operations to be restricted to the defense of the Moslem heartland of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Handschar earned a repute for brutality in ridding north-eastern Bosnia of Serbs and partisans: many local Muslims, observing the violence, were driven to go over to the communist partisans. Once redeployed outside Bosnia, and as the fortunes of war turned, mass defections and desertions took place, and
Volksdeutsche were drafted to replace the losses. There were at least 70,000 Bosnian Muslims captured by the British. Some of these Muslim ex-soldiers participated in aiding Arabs in the
1948 Arab-Israeli war. ==See also==