Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets. It is any use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an, which makes such acts capital crimes.

The Qur’an orders believers to exercise justice toward people even where they have reason to be angry with them: “Do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.”

Prominent Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/1070)) defines the agent of hirabah as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah….”

Armed jihad against an enemy must follow strict rules. There is no place for vigilante justice. Declaring and making war against an entire people is a serious matter that is not in hands of individuals or militant groups. Only a properly appointed public official can declare war.

Jihad is essentially defensive and protective. It does not allow pre-emptive attacks.

Even during a properly declared jihad, the innocent must not be direct targets. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph (political successor to the Prophet Muhammad), instructed his armies that they must not kill non-combatants, women, children, old people, the sick and infirm. He further ordered that devastation of buildings and lands was to be limited and not general.   »»» QALAM