Jehadist Musings II: Shooting

Jehad runs an archery club in the UK. Many well-meaning Muslims trumpet that archery and horseback-riding are acts from the sunna. Most traditional and liberal Muslims criticize extremist Muslims as being literalists who try to apply the letter of the law without considering the spirit of the law. Reading classical Islamic texts leaves no doubt at all what the intent of horseback-riding and shooting is: it is that able-bodied men be prepared for war. However, one doesn't find anyone criticizing those who practice archery and horseback riding as literalists. Rather, the spirit of the law is largely ignored in this case. The true sunna in these matters is to be prepared for war. War is a part of human history and is not going to disappear any time soon. One can either prepare for it or wait to be killed or imprisoned when it occurs.

To state the obvious: I do not support terrorism. The classical books of Islamic Law all indicate the importance of obeying one's leader, even if he is not a practicing Muslim. Rather, I am suggesting that all able-bodied men should be ready for war so that they can serve under the army of a Muslim leader, even if impious. This can be accomplished in the following ways:

1. All Muslim countries should have mandatory military service.
2. All Muslim countries should support the right of citizens to bear arms.

The first of these strategies ensures that Muslims can mobilize their citizens in the case of an emergency. Sometimes, when I see the fashionable young men of Amman, I wonder if they'd rather be taken as concubines in the case of a war rather than fight. Like many others, I was thoroughly disgusted with Fouad Siniora's tearful pleading with the deaf and dumb international community while Israel raped his country in 2006. As the mother of the last Moorish ruler of Spain told her son, "Now cry like a woman over that which you didn't defend like a man." Egypt and Syria have mandatory military service, as does our peaceful neighbour and friend: Israel. While I would hate for Jordan to become as brutal and oppressive as Egypt or Syria, mandatory military service does not necessarily spell out brutality: Israel is not brutal with its citizens, and neither was Jordan in the days when mandatory military service was the law. (Jordan is still one of the best Arab countries in terms of treatment of its citizens.)

The second strategy has as its prerequisite just governance. It's no surprise that Syria and Egypt don't make it easy for their citizens to own firearms: they are afraid. How else are they supposed to violently crush any opposition to their authoritarian regimes? Jordan, on the other hand, does not make it very difficult for the average citizen to own firearms, and neither does Israel, Switzerland, the USA, or Canada. The reason they can do this is because the leaders of these countries all know that they don't overly oppress their citizens, so they're not insecure about them bearing arms. Having discussed the prerequisite of this strategy, what is the point of it? As we have seen in many recent examples, war against superpowers generally involves a quick victory of the superpower's army against that of the lesser country followed by a long, drawn-out guerilla war. If many citizens are armed, it proves much more difficult to secure a quick victory over the land. And, for all the anti-gun apologists: Canada has more guns per capita than the USA yet it doesn't have the crime rate.

Two archery advocates have justified archery in the same way: there is a belief (and I'm not sure how authentic it is) that the wars near the end of time will be fought using ancient technology -- horses, spears, and arrows. (I am not denying this belief. I simply don't know of it's authenticity, and given that I'm not a scholar, my ignorance on the matter is irrelevant.) Thus, according to these advocates, archery and horseback-riding are good skills to know so that we can be a part of the Army of the Mahdi when he arrives. The first counter-argument to this is that it might be another thousand (and possibly even 10,000) years before the Mahdi arrives. Are we going to forfeit the Islamic duty to be prepared for war in the meantime because we were waiting for the Mahdi? Secondly, assuming that there will, in fact, be a return to ancient technology at the time of the Mahdi, there will be time to prepare, as the events will not unfold overnight. While archery and horseback-riding are not trivial skills, they do not require a decade of preparation.

In closing, I am not criticizing archery or horseback-riding. They are noble pursuits, and teach one skills that are very useful to modern warfare. Archery is much more difficult than shooting a rifle or handgun. Thus, a skilled archer will probably become a good shooter in short order. However, a sudden war that requires firearms expertise is more likely than a sudden war that requires archery. Many hadiths on the matter don't mention archery explicitly, but rather reference ramy, which means, "shooting." Part of academic honesty is maintaining one's methodology consistently. If we are too busy criticizing extremists for being literalists and ignoring the spirit of the law to notice our own inconsistencies, maybe it's time to hold our tongues (and pens and keyboards) and reflect.