Kerbela - Cilt - Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi

ASHURA AS A DEFENSE OF ISLAM AGAINST THE
DICTATORSHIP AND CORRUPTION OF UMAYYAD REGIME
Abbas Yazdani
1. Introduction
All major religions have imperatives to love others and avoid the taking
of human life. In Buddhism the rejection of killing is the first of the Five
Precepts. Hinduism declares “the killing of living beings is not conducive to
heaven.” 1 Jainism rejects the taking of any form of life: “if someone kills
living things ... his sin increases.” 2 The term shalom is mentioned more than
2,500 times in classical Jewish sources. 3 The Qur’an states “slay not the life
that God has made sacred.” 4 There are many principles in Islamic teachings
that provide a foundation for creative peacemaking. In Arabic, salaam is
translated as peace and is considered as one of the holy names of God. 5 Islam
is a religion of universalism, tolerance, peace, and reconciliation. Islam
teaches that life is sacred and that the believer has a duty to uphold truth and
justice. But Islam is often misunderstood as a religion of the sword that
justifies the use of violence to spread the faith; while the principles of
nonviolence are not well developed within Islam. Concepts of peace are at
the core of the Islamic teachings.
2. The meaning of holy war and Jihad
"The term "holy war" is a European invention and derives from the
study of war in its European context. In its most broad definition, the term
defines a form of justification for engaging in war by providing religious
legitimization." 6
Some expressions of holy war share the ideological nature of
justification for resorting to war. While some expressions of holy war exist in
1
Manusmrti 5.48.
2
Sutrakritanga 1.1.
3
Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon, 77.
4
Qur’an 6:151. All Qur’an translations from Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins,
Evolution, and Future of Islam (New York: Random House, 2005).
5
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity (San Francisco,
CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 217.
6
James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War ( Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1975), pp. 9-11.