No Compulsion in Religion: Jawdat Saʿīd (d. 2022) and the Jihād of the Prophets

• Published in: Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence 2024-08, Vol.2 (2), p.186-212
• Main Author: Pizzi, Paola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2772-7874; 2772-7882
• DOI: 10.1163/27727882-bja00023

Abstract Freedom of belief and of conscience is well attested in the Qurʾan by the many verses that exhort to tolerance towards "others", among which Q. 2:256: 'There is no compulsion in religion'. In contemporary Islam, some intellectuals have endeavoured to reaffirm this principle as an essential goal: among them, the Sunni Syrian thinker Jawdat Saʿīd (d. 2022). In his works, Q. 2:256 is at the core of an anthropocentric and social hermeneutics which emphasises the centrality of non-compulsion, considered as the true jihad that Muslims should undertake. His position is in open polemic with a tendency within Islamic societies not to recognise the legitimacy of those opinions – religious or political – that deviate from the "official" discourse on the one hand, and to combat this discourse with violence on the other. This entails a renegotiation of other key doctrinal concepts, the case of nasḫ, "abrogation", being a key example.