This extremist doctrine of jihad found scriptural footing in a raw, unmediated reading of the Qur’an and Hadiths. God permitted Muhammad’s followers to fight those who ‘drove them from their homes’ or attacked them. Was it then not legitimate to raise arms against the Israeli expulsion of Muslims from their homes in Palestine, or following the Soviet and then American invasions of Muslim lands? On the basis of strong Hadith evidence, classical jihad doctrine had uniformly prohibited the intentional killing of civilians (some scholars like Malik and Awza‘i even disallowed ‘collateral damage’),
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