A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 12/129
[Sidenote: 129. The Rev. Mr. Malcolm MacColl quoted.]
The Rev. Malcolm MacColl writes:—
"The Koran divides the earth into parts: Dar-ul-Islam, or the House of Islam; and Dar-ul-Harb, or the House of the enemy. All who are not of Islam are thus against it, and it is accordingly the duty of the True Believers to fight against the infidels till they accept Islam, or are destroyed. This is called the Djihad or Holy War, which can only end with the conversion or death of the last infidel on earth. It is thus the sacred duty of the Commander of the Faithful to make war on the non-Mussulman world as occasion may offer. But Dar-ul-Harb or the non-Mussulman world, is subdivided into Idolaters and Ketabi, or 'People of the Book,'—i.e., people who possess divinely inspired Scriptures, namely, Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. All the inhabitants of Dar-ul-Harb are infidels, and consequently outside the pale of Salvation. But the Ketabi are entitled to certain privileges in this world, if they submit to the conditions which Islam imposes. Other infidels must make their choice between one of two alternatives—Islam or the sword. The Ketabi are allowed a third alternative, namely, submission and the payment of tribute. But if they refuse to submit, and presume to fight against the True Believers, they lapse at once into the condition of the rest of Dar-ul-Harb and may be summarily put to death or sold as slaves."[1]
I am very sorry the Rev. gentleman is altogether wrong in his assertions against the Koran. There is neither such a division of the world in the Koran, nor such words as "Dar-ul-Islam" and "Dar-ul-Harb" are to be found anywhere in it. There is no injunction in the Koran to the True Believers to fight against the infidels till they accept Islam, failing which they are to be put to death. The words "Dar-ul-Islam" and "Dar-ul-Harb" are only to be found in the Mohammadan Common Law, and are only used in the question of jurisdiction. No Moslem magistrate will pass a sentence in a criminal case against a criminal who had committed an offence in a foreign country. The same is the case in civil courts[2]. All the inhabitants of Dar-ul-Harb are not necessarily infidels. Mohammadans, either permanently or temporarily by obtaining permission from the sovereign of the foreign land, can be the inhabitants of a Dar-ul-Harb, a country out of the Moslem jurisdiction, or at war with it.