Doctrines

Jihad

Religious Law

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Jihad." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/jihad.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Jihad. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/jihad

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-jihad,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Jihad},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/jihad},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Arabic word means striving or exertion, and the classical jurists treated it as a legal category, in chapters called kitab al-jihad or, in al-Shaybani's formulation, the siyar, the law governing relations with those outside the Muslim polity. That literature is technical: it asks who may declare it, whether the obligation falls on the community as a whole or on individuals, what safe conduct and truces bind, how spoils and captives are handled, and it rules out the killing of women, children, the aged and others not fighting. The schools differ among themselves on nearly all of it. A widely repeated distinction between a greater jihad against the self and a lesser jihad of arms rests on a report whose chain classical hadith criticism found weak, and it appears in later devotional and Sufi writing rather than in the early juristic sources. This entry describes the classical juristic category and its history; it does not address any contemporary conflict, movement or claim, and the classical literature does not settle modern arguments conducted in its name.

Facts

The Claim

Jihad names striving in the path of God in Islamic teaching, encompassing both an inner moral and spiritual struggle and, in certain circumstances defined by Islamic law, armed struggle in defence of the community. 1

Disputed

Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

The distinction between a greater jihad against the self and a lesser jihad of arms is not Qur'anic and rests on a report classical hadith criticism found weak. It belongs to later devotional and Sufi literature. 1

Rudolph Peters's Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader (Markus Wiener, 1996) records that the distinction between a greater jihad against the self and a lesser jihad of arms is not Qur'anic and rests on a report classical hadith criticism found weak, placing it instead in later devotional and Sufi literature. Peters notes the distinction is nonetheless widely used in modern presentations of Islam and defended as sound in substance by writers who accept the weakness of the isnad; what is disputed is its attribution to the Prophet, not the value of inward struggle in Islamic ethics generally.

Origins

Held By

Islam broadly; affirmed doctrine in both Sunni and Twelver Shia Islam, though Twelver Shia jurisprudence has historically bound its military sense to the authority of a rightful Imam. 1

Origin of the Namethe subject's own account

The word derives from the Arabic root jahada, to exert strength and effort or to use all available means toward a task; the Quran's own idiom al-jihad fi sabil Allah, striving in the path of God, reflects that broader sense rather than naming warfare alone. 2

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Standard teaching, not formally defined 3

Tradition

Scriptural Basisthe subject's own account

Scholar Ahmed al-Dawoody counts jihad and its derived forms across forty-one Quranic instances in eleven Meccan and thirty Medinan verses; specific war-related uses appear at At-Tawbah 9:41, 44, 81 and 86, while other passages use the same word for the effort to live according to God's will. 2

Contested Use

Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

The classical juristic category and modern political uses of the word, by movements and by their opponents alike, are not continuous. Historians of Islamic law treat the modern usages as modern. 4

This atlas describes the classical fiqh category. It takes no position on any contemporary conflict or on any modern movement's claim to the term.

Scholarship and Forensics

Scholarly Verdictthe subject's own account

Ibn Hazm, writing in the tenth to eleventh century, set out four kinds of jihad fi sabilillah: of the heart against the devil, of the tongue in spreading the faith, of the hand in doing right and combating injustice, and of the sword. Historian Rudolph Peters found the classical fiqh literature centered on the last of these as war for God's religion, with an accent on defense only becoming prominent in the writing of nineteenth and twentieth century reformers such as Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida and Yusuf al-Qaradawi. 2

In Other Languages (59 names)

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The Two Meanings of Struggle

Jihad, from an Arabic root meaning to strive or to struggle, names in classical Islamic thought a range of effort undertaken for the sake of God, of which armed struggle is only one form and, in the tradition's own internal ranking, generally considered the lesser one. A hadith widely cited across classical sources, though its precise chain of transmission has been questioned by some hadith scholars, has the Prophet Muhammad returning from a military campaign and declaring that the community had returned from the lesser jihad, al-jihad al-asghar, to the greater jihad, al-jihad al-akbar, the struggle against one's own soul and its base inclinations.

Classical Islamic scholarship built an extensive juristic literature specifically around jihad in its martial sense, treating it as a distinct category of religious law, fiqh al-jihad, with its own conditions, forms and rules of conduct, rather than as a single simple concept, distinguishing at minimum defensive jihad, obligatory on the whole community when Muslim territory is attacked, from more restricted forms requiring authorization from a legitimate ruler. Classical legal manuals accordingly devote separate chapters to each category, treating fiqh al-jihad as a specialized field of religious law with its own recognized experts, comparable in status to other major divisions of Islamic jurisprudence.

The Classical Rules of Engagement

Classical Sunni jurisprudence generally held that offensive jihad required declaration by a legitimate caliph or recognized ruler, making it, in the standard juristic category, fard kifayah, a collective obligation satisfied if enough of the community undertakes it, while defensive jihad against an invading force became fard ayn, an individual obligation binding on every capable Muslim in the threatened territory regardless of any ruler's call. The four classical Sunni schools of law developed their own detailed and not always identical positions on questions including which non-Muslims could be fought, the status and treatment of prisoners, and the distribution of any resulting spoils, while agreeing on a core set of conduct rules drawn from hadith attributed to the Prophet and his companions: prohibitions on killing non-combatants including women, children and monks, on destroying crops and orchards without military necessity, and on mutilating the dead, rules classical jurists treated as binding limits on legitimate warfare rather than as optional counsel.

Twelver Shia classical jurisprudence developed a further distinctive position, holding that offensive jihad required the presence of the infallible Imam and was therefore suspended during his occultation, permitting only defensive jihad in his absence, a doctrinal difference with substantial historical consequences for Shia political theology.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Usman dan Fodio

The Sokoto movement of 1804 was declared as a jihad against rulers he judged to have mixed Islam with unbelief.

Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

Belongs to Tradition

Islam

Source Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and PracticeMichael Bonner

Shia (Twelver)

Jihad is affirmed doctrine in Twelver Shia Islam, historically bound to the authority of a rightful Imam.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen

Sunni

Jihad, striving in the way of God in both its spiritual and, where justly declared, military senses, is affirmed doctrine in Sunni Islam.

Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

Positions on This Question

Ahmadiyya

Ahmadiyya doctrine holds jihad and reads it as striving by argument and persuasion, teaching that the conditions under which armed jihad was permitted do not obtain. The position is stated by the community as doctrine, not as policy.

Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

Hanafi School

Jihad is a chapter of Hanafi law, and al-Shaybani's Siyar, the earliest systematic treatment of the law of war and of relations with non-Muslim states, is a Hanafi work.

Source The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's SiyarMuhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani; translated by Majid Khadduri

Hanbali School

Jihad is a chapter of Hanbali law, and Ibn Taymiyya's treatment of it, written in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions, is the text later movements have most often reached for.

Source Ibn Taymiyya (Makers of the Muslim World)Jon Hoover

Ibadism

Jihad is affirmed in Ibadi law, and the Ibadi tradition developed a graded doctrine of the community's conditions, from open rule to concealment, which governs when rising is permitted at all.

Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

Ismailism

Jihad is affirmed in Ismaili doctrine, and the Nizari record of the Alamut period is the source of the Assassin legend, which is a European construction about the community rather than a doctrine of it.

Source The Assassins: A Radical Sect in IslamBernard Lewis

Maliki School

Jihad is a chapter of Maliki law, and its treatment in the school shaped the legal argument over rising in the West African jihad movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Source Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A ReaderRudolph Peters

Salafism

Jihad is affirmed in Salafi doctrine as a chapter of law, and the movement is divided on it: the quietist current holds that it requires a competent authority, and the jihadi current does not.

Source Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious MovementRoel Meijer (ed.)

Shafii School

Jihad is a chapter of Shafii law, and the school's treatment of the division of the world into the abode of Islam and the abode of war is the one later theory most often works from.

Source Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A ReaderRudolph Peters

Wahhabism

Jihad is affirmed in Wahhabi doctrine as a chapter of law under a competent authority, which in the Saudi settlement means the ruler and not the individual scholar.

Source Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious MovementRoel Meijer (ed.)

Zaidiyyah

Jihad is affirmed in Zaydi doctrine, and khuruj, rising against an unjust ruler, is not an option within it but a duty constitutive of the imamate: the imam is recognised by rising.

Source God's Rule: Government and Islam. Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political ThoughtPatricia Crone

Held Differently

Jafari School

Jihad is a chapter of Jafari law, and the school holds that offensive jihad requires the Imam, which in the occultation means it is suspended and only the defensive form remains.

Source Sharai al-Islam fi Masail al-Halal wal-HaramNajm al-Din al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli