al-Injad fi Abwab al-Jihad
- Author died
- 620 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Imām Mālik
al-Injad fi Abwab al-Jihad (The Aid Regarding the Chapters of Jihad) is a legal treatise on warfare and frontier defense by the Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn al-Munasif (563–620 AH / 1168–1223 CE) .
Background and Purpose
Ibn al-Munasif composed the work in response to the encouragement of the Almohad prince Abu Abd Allah, the son of Abu Hafs and grandson of the caliph . The prince, who was engaged in military campaigns and garrisoning frontier posts, sought a comprehensive reference outlining the obligatory duties, traditions, manners, and subsidiary legal rulings governing jihad .
Structure and Contents
The author divided the treatise into ten distinct chapters (abwab):
- Definition and Obligation of Jihad: Explores the legal boundaries of jihad, its classification as an individual (fard 'ayn) or communal (fard kifaya) obligation or a voluntary act, the qualifications of those obligated to fight, and the necessity of emigration (hijra) .
- Virtues of Jihad and Frontier Guarding: Details the merits of participating in combat, garrisoning frontier outposts (ribat), spending financial resources in God's path, seeking martyrdom, and the rewards promised to martyrs .
- Validity and Etiquette of Warfare: Discusses the conditions for the validity of jihad, obedience to the leader (imam), camaraderie among fighters, military conduct, and summoning the enemy to Islam before initiating combat .
- Steadfastness and Single Combat: Covers the obligation of patience and resolve when encountering the enemy, the rulings of single combat (mubaraza), the prohibition of fleeing, and the circumstances under which retreat is permitted if enemy numbers are overwhelming .
- Inflicting Damage and Captives: Analyzes permissible, obligatory, and prohibited methods of inflicting damage (nikaya) on the enemy, alongside the legal disposal and treatment of prisoners of war .
- Safe-Conduct and Treaties: Examines the grant of safe-conduct (aman) and the obligation to honor it, the distinction between safe-conduct and tactical deception in warfare, and the validity of armistices (muhadana) and peace agreements (sulh) .
- Spoils of War: Outlines the division of war booty (ghana'im), eligible recipients, the allocation of shares for cavalry horses, and the stern prohibition of misappropriating spoils before distribution (ghulul) .
- Special Allocations and Conquered Property: Details extra spoils (nafal), the personal gear taken from slain enemy combatants (salab), the rules governing the state's fifth (khumus) and unearned spoils (fai'), and the distribution of seized property .
- The Poll-Tax: Deals with levying the poll-tax (jizya), the criteria for its acceptance, the non-Muslim categories from whom it is received, its per-capita rates, and the reciprocal rights and duties of protected subjects (dhimmis) .
- Apostates, Bandits, and Rebels: Covers the legal rulings, crimes, and prescribed penalties concerning apostates (murtaddun), highway robbers (muharibun), and rebels (ahl al-baghy) .
Method and Sources
In his introductory remarks, Ibn al-Munasif states that his legal reasoning relies either on transmitted proofs or on deductions extracted directly from foundational legal principles . For prophetic traditions, he prioritized narrations recorded in the canonical collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim, alongside sound hadiths from compilations such as those of Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, and al-Nasa'i, explicitly attributing each report to its source collection . He also highlighted the multi-dimensional nature of jihad, noting that in addition to physical combat, it encompasses striving of the heart against passions and striving of the tongue through commanding right and forbidding wrong .
Reception
Biographers praised the book for its thoroughness and structural organization. Ibn al-Abbar (d. 658 AH) noted that the author's extensive erudition and legal preeminence were made manifest through this work . The Maliki biographer Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti (d. 1036 AH) described it as an exceptionally useful compendium that exhausted the jurisprudence of jihad with refined selection and precise composition, adding that no comparable work had been authored on the subject .
The text was edited and verified in modern print by Mashhur ibn Hasan Al Salman and Muhammad ibn Zakariyya Abu Ghazi .
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