War and religious rhetoric in Islam: Jihad as an ideology of internal opposition (632-750)

Jihād is, in the most general terms, the legitimate means of transforming the lands of dār al-harb into the lands of dār al-Islām. Tracing the chronology of jihad in Islamic history, it becomes clear that, in addition to this concrete expression, jihād is an abstract and open-ended concept that is put into circulation in different events. During the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the practical limits of jihād were defined by the relevant verses of Quran. While jihād involving physical violence was practised more as a defence mechanism, jihād not involving physical violence was more related to the believer's resistance to the desires of the ego. The first example where jihād met an enemy other than the usual enemy and the limits of the usual field of application were transformed to legitimise the current war were the Ridda Wars. Other examples can be found in the caliphates of Uthman and Ali, the Umayyad caliphate and the Abbāsid propaganda. The binding discourse of this transformation of jihād usually develops on the grounds that one of the two Muslim groups is declared infidel by the other. The infidelity of groups or individuals is justified on grounds such as apostasy, hypocrisy, cruelty, usurpation, sedition and rebellion. This thesis analyses the process of justifying all of these reasons through specific examples of how infidelity is put into practice as a second binding discourse under the discourse of jihād and how jihād constructs a new space for itself in the lands of dār al-Islām in order to preserve "the religion of Allah".