Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Peaceful Coexistence: Difference between revisions

According to the Islamic historical narrative, the prophet's career had two distinct phases. In Mecca his preaching was characterized by a strong impulse to pacifism, forbearance and peaceful coexistence with the disbelievers, combined with preaching on the nature of their sin, (principally, [[shirk]]), together with warnings of hell fire. It includes such famous verses as "For you is your religion, and for me is my religion." (Qur'an 109:6). This contrasts markedly with the second phase which took place after the forced migration to Medina, where Muhammad became as much of a political-military figure leading a campaign against the Meccans as a religious preacher. As such, the scholars have classified the verses of the [[Qur'an]] into "Meccan" and "Medinian" verses, as have modern academic scholars (though with further refinement). At certain times the doctrine of [[naskh (Abrogation)]] was employed by medieval Islamic scholars particularly widely to argue that since the more peaceful Meccan verses came to Muhammad first, they are abrogated or cancelled by the later Medinian verses. This was necessary because their interpretation of the later verses was that they sanctioned aggressive, expansionary warfare. A more extreme subset of scholars considered the verse of the sword ({{Quran|9|5}}) to have abrogated ''all'' peaceful verses. Islamic modernist and some modern academic scholars reject such interpretations, arguing that read carefully, the Medinan fighting verses are defensive or pre-emptive in nature in response to the aggression and treaty breaking of the Quraysh. For more information on these interpretations see [[Jihad in Islamic Law]].