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Nonviolent Civil Resistance in Islamic Countries before the Arab Spring

Despite Western stereotypes to the contrary, there has been a long and distinguished history of civil resistance and other forms of nonviolent action in Islamic societies. While the term “nonviolent action” is rarely used by Muslims engaged in unarmed popular resistance movements, in part because the Arabic translation of the term connotes passivity, the frequency and levels of participation in such movements are at least as high as in countries dominated by those of other religious traditions. The dramatic spread of Islam out of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century was not as much through Arab militarism as it was through the absence of formidable opposition. More often than not, there was little resistance. Indeed, the Arabs of that period had little military professionalism, techniques, or organization. Their generals tended to be merchants, poets, or tribal chieftains. Their culture did not have the militaristic caste tradition of the Spartans, Prussians, Janissaries, or Karalis, nor did they build up a military organization comparable to such other empires as those of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, or Persians. Part of this perception in the West of Islamic militarism is based on confusion over the concept of jihad. Rather than a holy war in the Western sense, jihad refers primarily to one’s internal struggle for righteousness against the temptation to sin. It may also refer to any external struggle of moral significance, including nonviolent action. Thus, jihad is distinct from qital, which refers to fighting. When a jihad must take the form of a qital is debatable, but belief in jihad does not presuppose the use of violence in the quest of a just society.