Violence in Islamic thought from the Qur'ān to the Mongols

R. Gleave

From its earliest times, Islam has had an ambivalent relationship with violence. For many early Muslim authors, violence was a simple fact of life. In the Qur'an and in the later Muslim tradition, some forms of violence are condemned, while some, including the waging of holy warfare, are extolled. What is clear from the early Islamic period is that there is no single Muslim attitude towards violence. Instead, there were many different portrayals and evaluations of violence in theology, law, poetry and prose. In this collection, you will find out how Muslims processed violence as a social fact and how they interpreted its role in the early Muslim community. This background is essential to understanding current Muslim thinking about when violence is, and is not, justified.