User:Pseudo-Richard/Violent jihad

History of violent jihad

In the context of warfare, jihad has been used to describe either the fighting or the motives behind it.

The following are some examples of violence by Islam (it includes: Muhammad's followers in Islam's early days acting for his honor/sake, Muslims using Islamic themes, Quranic text or/and ideas, mobilized forced conversions, "religious cleansing" campaigns to cleanse the area of non-Muslims, attacks by Islamic religious authorities often explained with declaration of clear 'Islamic' goals, violence with a clear subjugation of Dhimmitude / infidels status, [regarding the massacres in early Islam in Spain, during frictions, Christians and Jews were dehumanized and referred to as apes and pigs, a Quranic inspired idea.] violence triggered by Islamic clerics preaching in mosques, battles described as Jihad or holy war and emerging of radical-Islamic movements- which take its roots from Muhammad/Quran - inspiring source for violence) from its early days till post WW2, 622-1946.

Early instances

The first forms of military Jihad occurred after the migration (hijra) of Muhammad and his small group of followers to Medina from Mecca and the conversion of several inhabitants of the city to Islam. The first revelation concerning the struggle against the Meccans was surah 22, verses 39-40:

To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid. (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, "our Lord is Allah". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).

— Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Three large Jewish tribes dwelled in Medina in Muhammad's time: the Banu Nadir, Banu Kainuka, and Banu Qurayza. When war broke out between Muhammad's new supporters and the Meccans, the Jewish clans of Medina remained neutral and were at first unharmed. Nevertheless after the 627 failed Meccan siege of Medina, Muhammad accused the Jews of siding with the Meccans and ordered an attack on them. The reference to this episode in Islamic text is in Sura 33 of the Qu'ran, known as “The Clans.” (The Quran tells of three Jewish tribes conquered by Mohammed near Medina, "Two were permitted to choose conversion or exile, but the third was allowed only conversion or death.").

Crusades

Main article: Crusades

The European crusaders conquered much of the territory held within the Islamic state, dividing it into four kingdoms, the most important being the state of Jerusalem. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land(former Christian territory) from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern OrthodoxByzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. There was little drive to retake the lands from the crusaders, save the few attacks made by the Egyptian Fatimids. This changed, however, with the coming of Zangi, ruler of what is today northern Iraq. He took Edessa, which triggered the Second Crusade, which was little more than a 47-year stalemate. The stalemate was ended with the victory of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (known in the west as Saladin) over the forces of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin in 1187. It was during the course of the stalemate that a great deal of literature regarding Jihad was written. While amassing his armies in Syria, Saladin had to create a doctrine which would unite his forces and make them fight until the bitter end, which would be the only way they could re-conquer the lands taken in the First Crusade. He did this through the creation of Jihad propaganda. It stated that any one who would abandon the Jihad would be committing a sin that could not be washed away by any means. It also put his amirs at the center of power, just under his rule. While this propaganda was successful in uniting his forces for a time, the fervor burned out quickly. Much of Saladin's teachings were rejected after his death.

Islamic Spain and Portugal

Medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back treasure and slaves. In raid against Lisbon, in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack uponSilves in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.

The Almohad Dynasty (From Arabic الموحدون al-Muwahhidun ("the monotheists") or "theUnitarians"), was a Berber, Muslim dynasty that was founded in the 12th century, and conquered allNorthern Africa as far as Libya, together with Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberian Peninsula). The Almohads, who declared an everlasting Jihad against the Christians, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated. Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands,while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.

Cordoba revolt - 818

A revolt in Muslim Spain by Christians,which was put down by massacres for three days. Many of the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in the Koran (5:33): "The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage."

Some 4000 Jews were massacred in the 1066 Granada pogrom, inspired in part by an anti-Jewish ode containing a line (based on aQuranic idea of referring to infidels as apes and pigs), "Many a pious Muslim is in awe of the vilest infidel ape," referring to the Jewish communal leader, the vizier Joseph b. Samuel Naghrela. (In Spain, during periods of friction between the various religious communities, the Muslims called the Jews "apes" and the Christians "pigs and dogs." Research revealed that "viewing Jews as the 'descendants of apes and pigs' is grounded in the most important Islamic religious sources." ) Andrew Bostom claims that "More Jews were killed in this one pogrom than in the Crusaders."

The Almohads of Spain and North Africa between the middle of the 12th century and the 14th century

The Almohads arose in the Atlas mountains and declared a Jihad on the moderate Almoravides in order to restore the original Islamic values, conquering most of Morocco, then invading (again) Spain in 1150 to combat Christians. The fanatical warriors alienated Muslims and Jews alike, causing the Arab-Jewish cooperation and the previous usual tolerance in Andalucia came to an end.

Historian writes that "The jihad depredations of the Almohads (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations in Spain and North Africa." The massacres and forced conversions effected the Jewish communities ofSpain:Seville, Cordova,Jaen,Almeria, and of North Africa: including Sijilmasa and Dar'a,Marrakesh,Fez, Tlemcen, Ceuta, and Meknes.

When the liberal Almoravids came to power in 1062, conditions for Jews improved, but when the Almohades took over in the middle of the 12th century Jews were forced to embrace Islam or emigrate. It was during that time that Jews were forced to wear a particular costume a precursor of the Jewish badge. After the ouster of the Almohades in the 14th century the situation of Jews stabilized.

It was during the reign of Abu Ya'Qub Yusuf (1165–84) when the upsurge in Almohad fanaticism in Fez came about, it brought a new wave of forced conversions. It was either convert or die. "Thousands of Jews in Morocco had been forced to convert at the height of the Almohade persecutions."

Iraq

The Rashid Ali coup in Iraq 1941

Rashid Ali al-Gaylani declared a jihad against Great Britain in his pro-Nazi Golden Square coup of 1941.

On February 28, 1941, Rashid Ali as well as the following Muslim personalities: Salah ed-Din es-Sabbagh, Fahmi Said and Mahmud Salman of the Golden Square, Rashid Ali el-Kilani, Yunis es-Sebawi, Shawkat and Hajj Amin, all swore on the Koran to be faithful to the [pro-Nazi] program.

Indian subcontinent

Sir Jadunath Sarkar contends that several Muslim invaders waged a systematic Jihad against Hindus in India to the effect that "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects." In particular the records kept by al-Utbi, Mahmud al-Ghazni's secretary, in the Tarikh-i-Yamini document several episodes of bloody military campaigns. In the late tenth century, a story spread that before Muhammad destroyed the idols at the Kaaba, that of Manāt was secretly sent to a Hindu temple in India; and the place was renamed as So-Manāt or Somnath. Acting on this, the Shiva idol at the Somnath temple was destroyed in a raid by Mahmud Ghazni in CE 1024; which is considered the first act of Jihad in India.

Timur

The Mongol conquerer Timur the Lame, sometimes called Tamerlane, known for his ruthlessness, and his 'Islamic bigotry,' carried out "blitzkrieg campaigns at the end of the fourteenth century." He earned a reputation of torturing the population which resisted his conquering wars (like using thousands alive as "bricks" in walls, outrageous torture of inhabitants like crushhing in presses, scorching in flames and revive the victims when near death, in order to repeat it). Timur declared a Jihad onNew Delhi in 1398.

As a "holy war" which he delared, he massacred many Hindus, not in context with battles.

Khanwa - 1527

In 1527, Babur ordered a Jihad against Rajputs at the battle of Khanwa. Publicly addressing his men, he declared the forthcoming battle a Jihad. His soldiers were facing a non-Muslim army for the first time ever. This, he said, was their chance to become either a Ghazi (soldier of Islam) or a Shaheed (Martyr of Islam). The Mughal emperor Aurangzebwaged a Jihad against those identified as heterodox within India's Islamic community, such as Shi'aMuslims.

More recently, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said a "jihad" was needed to combat extremism.

The Bahmani sultans and the genocide on Indians - 1347-1480

The Bahmani Sultans declared Jihad against the infidels.

Every new invader of India made (often literally) his hills of Hindu skulls. The Bahmani sultans (1347–1480) in central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 Hindus (kaffir - non-believers) every year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100,000 captives in a single day. Historian asserts that "These wars were fought in the true spirit of Jihad — the total annihilation or conversion of the non-Muslims."

Islamists' Massacre of 30,000 Indians - after battle for Chitod on 24 February 1568

It was part of Mogul Empire's atrocities on Indians, by the order of Islamic Akbar.Akbar -like all Mughal rulers- had the holy Muslim title of "Ghazi" (slayer of Kaffir - infidel).Described as a 'holy war.'

Moplah rebellion - 1921

The Moplah rebellion (also known as the Mopla riots) was a British-Muslim and Hindu-Muslim "conflict" in (Malabar) Kerala that occurred in 1921. It involved forced conversion to Islam.

There were clashes that provoked arsonists who took to the street, burning and destroying government property. At first, the focus was on the British, but then it turned into a jihad against Hindus. A wave of large number of killings, massive forced conversions to Islam swept the region. Some described it as: "Muslim violence is sheer religious bigotry, an unreasoning jihad."

From Encyclopædia Britannica:

In Aug. 1921 the most serious of many unpardonable deeds of violence broke out. The Malabar country in Madras is occupied by 2,000,000 Hindus and about 1,000,000 Moplahs, an ignorant Mahommedan peasantry of mixed Arab and Indian decsent with an evil reputation for outbreaks of fanaticism. Among the latter the Khilafat excitement spread like wildfire... and attempted wholesale the forcible conversion of the Hindus to Islam.

Moplah Fanatics Massacre is primarily understood the arose religious fanaticism and from the intense hatred of tic Moplahs, or Mohammedans of Arab descent, writes the New York Times.

The second declaration of jihad was made by the Khilafat Committee and several Muslim groups in 1920s when the OttomanCaliphate was abolished, consequent upon the defeat of Turkey. It resulted from the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. The Moplahs of Malabar were suddenly carried off their feet by this proclamation of jihad by the Khilafat Committee. They resorted to large scale violence which was supposed to be a rebellion against the British Government. As a rebellion against the British Government the jihad could be understandable but what shocked most people was the horrid treatment meted out by the Moplahs to the Hindus of Malabar, in this Jihad.

Pundits account that the "Moplah massacre was one of the most gruesome acts of murder by the Muslims rivaled only by the Razakars in Hyderabad in 47, and the ethnic cleansing in Pakistan and Bangladesh after partition."

West Africa

The Fula or Fulani jihads, were a series of independent but loosely connected events across West Africa between the late 17th century and European colonization, in which Muslim Fulas took control of various parts of the region. Between 1750 and 1900, between one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves.

Caucasus

In 1784, Imam Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen warrior and Muslim mystic, led a coalition of Muslim Caucasian tribes from throughout the Caucasus in a ghazavat, or holy war, against theRussian invaders. Sheikh Mansur was captured in 1791 and died in the Schlusselburg Fortress.Avarian Islamic scholar Ghazi Muhammad preached that Jihad would not occur until the Caucasians followedSharia completely rather than following a mixture of Islamic laws and adat (customary traditions). By 1829, Mullah began proselytizing and claiming that obeying Sharia, giving zakat, prayer, and hajj would not be accepted by Allah if theRussians were still present in the area. He even went on to claim that marriages would become void and children bastards if any Russians were still in the Caucasus. In 1829 he was proclaimed imam in Ghimry, where he formally made the call for a holy war. In 1834, Ghazi Muhammad died at the battle of Ghimri, and Imam Shamil took his place as the premier leader of the Caucasian resistance. Imam Shamil succeeded in accomplishing what Sheik Mansur had started: to unite North Caucasian highlanders in their struggle against the Russian Empire. He was a leader of anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian Warand was the third Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya(1834–1859).

Mahdists in Sudan

During the 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces. Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi was a religious leader, who proclaimed himself the Mahdi—the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will appear at end times—in 1881, and declared a Jihad against Ottoman rulers. He declared all "Turks" infidels and called for their execution. The Mahdi raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the Ottoman-Egyptian occupation of Sudan. Victory created an Islamic state, one that quickly reinstituted slavery. In the West he is most famous for defeating and later killing British general Charles George Gordon, in the fall of Khartoum.

Wahabbists

The Saudi Salafi sheiks were convinced that it was their religious mission to wage Jihad against all other forms of Islam. In 1801 and 1802, the Saudi Wahhabists under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the tombs of the Shiite Imam Husayn and Ali bin Abu Talib. In 1802 they overtook Taif. In 1803 and 1804 the Wahhabis overtook Mecca and Medina.

Ottoman Empire

Upon succeeding his father, Suleiman the Magnificent began a series of military conquests in Europe. On August 29, 1526, he defeated Louis II of Hungary (1516–26) at the battle of Mohács. In its wake, Hungarian resistance collapsed and the Ottoman Empire became the preeminent power in Central and Eastern Europe. In July 1683 Sultan Mehmet IV proclaimed a Jihad and the Turkish grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, laid siege to the Vienna with an army of 138,000 men.

On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declared Jihad on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging Muslims all over the world—including in the Alliedcountries—to take up arms against Britain, Russia, France, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I. On the other hand, Sheikh Hussein ibn Ali, the Emir of Mecca, refused to accommodate Ottoman requests that he endorse this jihad, a requirement that was necessary were a jihad to become popular, on the grounds that:

'the Holy War was doctrinally incompatible with an aggressive war, and absurd with a Christian ally: Germany'

The Bulgarian April Uprising - 1876-1912

In 1876 the Bulgarians staged a rebellion (April Uprising) against the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman forces responded with a brutal massacre in what quickly became known as "the Bulgarian horrors." By 1912, as new Balkan alliances were formed in opposition to Ottoman rule, the Turks again responded with massacre. The Islamic Turks massacre 25,000 Bulgarian Christians, some claim, 100,000. Sixty to seventy villages were burned.

Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro and some other European lands which had been under Ottoman rule declared their independence from Turkish rule, and tried to align themselves with Austra-Hungary. The Turks were outraged, and sent extra troops to the Balkans. Between 1909–12, Turks massacred (at least) 25,000 Bulgarian, Kosovar and Serbian citizens, in addition to the number of casualties inflicted during the actual fighting of the war.

Historian states that "During that span of about five hundred years, the Christians of the Balkans, the majority of whom wereSlavs, lived under Ottoman Muslim rule, and were accorded the traditional Ottoman treatment of those of infidel status. TheBalkan Christians, were subjected to heavy taxation (see: Dhimmitude), arbitrary violence, political disenfranchisement, and cultural oppression; some of whom converted to Islam."

Opposing view: The Ottoman reprisals to the so-called Bulgarian horrors, received great publicity in Europe where only the Bulgarian side of the story was known. Estimates of the actual number of Bulgarians killed in the suppression of this revolt vary: the Ottoman figure is 3,100; the British, 12,000: the American, 15,000: and the Bulgarian, from 30,000 to 100,000.

Hamidian massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman empire - 1894-1896

The Hamidian Massacres in 1894-1896 were the first near-genocidal series of atrocities committed against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. Estimates of those killed range widely, anywhere between 100,000 and 30,000, with thousands more maimed or rendered homeless.

Scholars cite an exemplary event in 1896 as part of Turks' overall jihad on Christians in that era: "The leader of the mob cried: 'Believe in Muhammad and deny your religion.' No one answered… The leader gave the order to massacre..." Concluding that "This 1894-1896 Jihad against Christians in Eastern Turkey claimed 250,000 lives. Many Armenian women were forced into harems, and many women and children were sold as slaves. Rape, considered one of the rights of "booty" in Muslim Jihad."

Greek Genocide - 1914-23

1,400,000 Victims by the Muslim Turks.

In 1913, sixteen thousand Greek inhabitants of Eastern Thrace were atrociously murdered by the Turks. The clear anti-Christian drive manifested itself in an example: "On 27 May 1914, the Muslims ordered that all Christians leave the town of Pergamum within two hours."

During the years 1914-1923, the indigenous Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey's predecessor, was subjected to a centrally-organized, premeditated and systematic policy of annihilation, perpetrated by two consecutive governments; the Committee for Union and Progress, later better known as the Young Turks, and the nationalist Kemalists led by Mustafa Kemal 'Atat'rk'. A lethal combination of labor brigades, internal deportations and massacres conducted throughout Anatolian Turkey resulted in the death of 1,400,000 Greeks.

At the Hellenic Genocide (as it is called by the Greeks) most of the victims were massacred between 1895 and 1955. Also Serbs, and Bulgariansin Europe, were systematically massacred.

In 2001, the "Greek genocide" decree angered Turks. Turkish officials have formally complained about a decree passed by the Greek parliament that accuses Turkey of genocide.

A movement is calling for regcognition of the "Christian genocide" - the targeting of Greeks and Assyrians.

Massacre, genocide of Assyrians by the Turks Ottoman empire and by local Muslims - 1914-1920

Assyrian scholar Frederick Aprim describing his book "Assyrians: from Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein. Driving into extinction the last Aramaic speakers":

As the Ottoman Empire entered WWI, it declared jihad (holy war) against its Christian subjects. Backed by Kurds, the Turkish army invaded northwestern Persia (Iran) and committed further atrocities against the Assyrian refugees who fled the Ottoman territories and against Assyrians of Persia as well. The jihad transformed into an ethnic genocide against the Assyrians that was perpetrated by the Turkish state and Kurdish warlords.

An anti-Assyrian ethnic cleansing of Hakkari mountains in July 1915 began on a small scale, it spiraled after a few months into a full scale operation. In referring to the ethnic cleansing of Hakkari, local Kurdish tribes spoke of if as the time of the "great jihad," the "great jihad" was also referred to the "massive campaign against the heartland of the Assyrian tribes in June 1915."

In the book "The rage of Islam: an account of the massacre of Christians by the Turks in Persia" the author gives examples of "Holy War" proclamations.

The massacre of Assyrians in Urmia Iran between September 1914 and August 1915, was perpertrated by Ottoman (Turkish) troops, and Kurdish tribal forces who began to "pillage, burn villages, destroy farmsteads, slaughter Christians, and fulfill any other obligations conceivably intrinsic to jihad." In October 1914, the Russian vice consul in Urmia commenting on the anti-Christian nature of the destruction, he wrote: "The consequences of jihad are everywhere." The retreat of the Russian army from Urmia in January 1915 had further tragic consequences for Assyrians living in Iran. Turkish troops along with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughters of the Assyrian population.

There are "lengthy first-hand descriptions of the barbarous jihad around Lake Urmia." From a description of events:

All Christians were now branded as traitors, and any caught behind the Turkish lines were liable to be savaged by Turkish troops and their Kurdish auxiliaries in a cruel jihad sweeping Asia minor... By January 1917, when Semenov and the Transbaikal Cossacks arrived in the area, the Ottoman jihad had disfigured the landscape with scorched villages, wells stuffed with decaying corpses, meadows littered with human bones and tufts of drifting hair, gorges lined with mummified cadavers of the menfolk, and river banks coughing up the swollen remains of children. The countless crime scenes of brutal, individual murders contrasted sharply in scale and emotion with the endless fields of mass slaughter wrought by machine guns and artillery on the Eastern Front. Gaunt survivors, Assyrian and Armenian men and boys for the most part, weakened by typhoid and hunger, stumbled out of the hills to hail the Cossacks as saviors and beg for food. Girls and women were few and far between; most had been gang-raped and carted off to slavery in neighboring Muslim villages.

Casualties figure of the genocide of Assyrians range in the hundreds of thousands.

On "The Fall of Atra and the Dispersion of the Clans," Elizabeth Yoel Campbell in her memoir of her childhood in early twentieth century, describes the calling for jihad before the Muslims attacked the Assyrian Christians in Iran: <blockqote>Turks, the overlords of the land, had never before seen eye to eye with the fractious Kurds, except in times of jihad (holy war). Now, armed to the teeth, they fraternized in mosque and maidan, heads together, listening to the dangerous sermonizing of mullahs. And among Assyrians, one thought, one fear was dominant over all others, that of jihad, holy war against the infidel Christians. The ring around the Assyrians kep tightening slowly, but inexorably, as thousands joined the well-armed, well-trained Turkish ranks... As they closed in, ululating voices could be heard from surrounding camps, enticing the mob ... "Jee-haad, jee-haad, jee-haad!" and thousands of fervent voices took up the chorus in return, "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!" As the Assyrian lines grew thinner and thinner, women and older children took guns and daggers from fallen hands to try and hold back the invaders. When it finally came down to hand-to-hand combat, women chose to jump the gap rather than surrender, taking their younger children with them. Those who were captured alive were thrown over after Kurd and Turk had no further use of them.

Massacres were also carried out in Helwa.

Within the First World War in the territory of Ottoman Turkey there were about 1 million Assyrians with common cultural, national traditions. Together with 1,5 million Armenians, from 500 to 750 thousand Assyrians have been brutally killed and tortured. It was 4 years after the Young Turk "Committee for Unity and Progress" declared its goal to "Turkify" all subjects in 1911. 'This implementation of the Pan-Turkic program and ideology can be described as the "dark Period" of ethnic and religious "cleansing" of the Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,' writes Assyrian historian. The Assyrians claim to have lost "two-thirds of their population and most of their homelands in northern Mesopotamia during WWI" period.

Some estimate that "Since 630 A.D., the coming of Islam, Assyrians have suffered 33 genocides at the hands of Muslims—an average of one every 40 years."

Ottomans' Jihad - 1914

The Ottoman Turks used 'Holy war' in their war against the British, FranceandRussiain World War I. Historians,
After the outbreak of war the Ottoman government had proclaimed a jihad, a holy war, against the allied and associated powers. It was feared that this appeal would have dangerous effects among Muslims under British rule,
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Yq5AUlWjZpsC&pg=PA165" target=blank>http://books.google.com/books?id=Yq5AUlWjZpsC&pg=PA165</a> as well as the BBC states that "The Ottoman Empire called for a military jihad against France, Russia and Great Britain in November 1914."

Armenian Genocide - 1915

1.5 Million Armenian Christians massacred.

"The Turkish government referred in 1915 to the Armenian genocide as a jihad."

An increasing number of countries are recognizing the Armenian genocide as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Scholar, on the events says:

To promote the idea of Jihad, the sheikh-ul-Islam, the most senior Sunni Muslim religious leader in Turkey, published a pamphlet with these words: "Oh Muslims, ye who are smitten with happiness are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your good for the cause of right…He who kills one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or in the open, shall be rewarded by God..."

Bat Ye'or asserts that "The genocide of the Armenians was a jihad."

The Islamic religious motifs were extensively researched. Six thousand four hundred Armenian children, young girls, and women from Yozgad, were decamped by their Turkish captors at a promontory some distance from the city. "of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques; of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were, after enduring unspeakable tortures, murdered on their refusal to accept Islam."

From the Islamic holy war themes in the massacres:

Attack them from every side. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Quicken the failing proclamation of the Unity by the fire of your rifles and cannon, and by the blows of your swords and knives. cause the minarets and mountains and wildernesses to resound once more with the cry. "Allah! Allah!" Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems, blow the trumpet everywhere, of people of the Unity. The great God is ordering you to fight with your foes everywhere.'

Or:

"Kill them: God will punish them in your hand and put them to shame; and ye will overcome them. He will rejoice the hearts of believers, and take away the wrath from the hearts unbelievers." (Text of the Koran.) ...Jihad! Jihad! Oh, Moslems...

Historian reminds that the British consul Henry Barnham, who oversaw Aintrab and Birecik in Aleppo Province, made it clear in his account how powerfully the killing of Armenians was motivated by Islamic fanaticism and a jihad mentality:

The Butchers and the tanners, with sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, armed with clubs and cleavers, cut down the Christians, with cries of "Allahu Akbar! ...Muslim clerucs played a perpetual role in the massacring of Armenians; imams and softas would often rally the mob by chanting prayers; and mosques were often used as places to mobilize crowds, especially during Friday prayers. Christians were murdered in the name of Allah...

In 2007, three were arrested in Turkey for murder of Journalist Hrant Dink, who was outspoken on Turks' genocide of Armenians. Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's Armenian community.

The fascist Arab-Islamic leader of Palestine Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti who was given sole religious and secular authority and vast unsupervised funds by the British in the early 1920s, was known for his ideological hatred of Jews and formenting mass violence against them from 1920, culminating in the Great Revolt of 1936-39, also leading deadly terror against his Arab-Palestinian opponents, and affirmation of Nazi genocide of Jews. It was suggested that "a key additional factor in the grand mufti's experience may well have been the Armenian genocide." Noting that "while training in the Ottoman Military Academy in Constantinople from late 1914 to mid-1915, Haj Amin must have been aware of the deportations and mass murders of Christian Armenians both in Constantinople and within the army itself." Some analyze that the Nazis were inspired by the Armenian genocide. The Turks used primitive gas chambers and developed other murderous templates that were later adopted by the Nazis.

Afghanistan

Ahmad Shah, founder of the Durrani Empire, declared a jihad against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes answered his call. The Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely Muslim and largely Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each, was waged along a twelve-kilometre front, and resulted in a decisive victory for Ahmad Shah.

In response to the Hazara uprising of 1892, the Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan declared a "Jihad" against theShiites. The large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was severely massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi, "thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir". Until the 20th century, some Hazaras were still kept as slaves by the Pashtuns; although Amanullah Khan banned slavery in Afghanistan during his reign, the tradition carried on unofficially for many more years.

The First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42) was one of Britain’s most ill-advised and disastrous wars. William Brydon was the sole survivor of the invading British army of 16,500 soldiers and civilians. As in the earlier wars against the British and Soviets, Afghan resistance to the American invaders took the traditional form of a Muslim holy war against the infidels.

During September 2002, the remnants of the Taliban forces began a recruitment drive in Pashtun areas in bothAfghanistan and Pakistan to launch a renewed "jihad" or holy war against the pro-Western Afghan government and the U.S-led coalition. Pamphlets distributed in secret during the night also began to appear in many villages in the former Taliban heartland in southeastern Afghanistan that called for jihad. Small mobile training camps were established along the border with Pakistan by al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives to train new recruits in guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics, according to Afghan sources and a United Nations report.

Most of the new recruits were drawn from the madrassas or religious schools of the tribal areas of Pakistan, from which the Taliban had originally arisen. As of 2008, the insurgency, in the form of a Taliban guerrilla war, continues.

Although there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency) provided arms to Afghan mujahideens resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets. Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."

Algeria

In 1830, Algeria was invaded by France; French colonial domination over Algeria supplanted what had been domination in name only by the Ottoman Empire. Within two years, `Abd al-Qādir was made an amir and with the loyalty of a number of tribes began a jihad against the French. He was effective at using guerrilla warfare and for a decade, up until 1842, scored many victories. He was noted for his chivalry. On December 21, 1847, Abd al-Qādir was forced to surrender.

Abd al-Qadir is recognized and venerated as the first hero of Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white standard was adopted by the Algerian liberation movement during the War of Independenceand became the national flag of independent Algeria.

The Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. By 1997, the organized jihad in Algeria had disintegrated into criminal thuggery and Algeria was wracked by massacres of intense brutality and unprecedented size.

China

Uyghur Muslim forces under Yaqub Beg declared a Jihad against Chinese Muslims under T'o Ming during the Dungan revolt. Yaqub Beg enlisted non muslim Han chinese militia under Hsu Hsuehkung in order to fight against the Chinese Muslims. T'o Ming's forces were defeated by Yaqub, who planned to conquer Dzungharia. Yaqub intended to seize all Dungan territory.

The Boxer Rebellion was considered a Jihad by the muslim Kansu Braves in the Chinese Imperial Army under Dong Fuxiang, fighting against the Eight-Nation Alliance.

Jihad was declared obligatory and a religious duty for all Chinese Muslims against Japan after 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Africa

Barbary pirates - July 1625 and the 1700s

The height of North African Arab Muslim pirates' violence against Christians, mainly British,Barbary pirates-called-Britain's 200-year jihad. There are tales of unspeakable barbarism including the Sultan, Moulay Ismail, who tortured and butchered the captives at whim. It involved also forced conversion of the BritishChristians into Islam. The "Sally Rovers" were called 'al-ghuzat'-- the term once used for the soldiers who fought with Muhammad—and were hailed as religious warriors engaged in a holy war against the infidel Christians who were pressurised to convert to Islam under threat of hideous punishment, writes historian Giles Milton.

In negotiating a peace treaty and protect the United States from the threat of Barbary piracy, the future United Statespresidents: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams questioned the Tripolitan ambassadorto Britain Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja as to "why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity." Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress,

"that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Jihad in Africa (Mali) - 1810-18

Jihad was a religious war fought from 1810 to 1818 in what is now the Mopti Region of Mali. In either 1810 or 1818 (the exact date is uncertain), an Islamic fighter led a jihad against the Muslim chiefs in Masina, later the jihad expanded to include the Bambara. Seku Ahmadu established an austere Muslim empire ruled from the newly built city. He led the "second major jihad of the 19th century" beginning in 1818. "His jihad brought about an Islam theocracy as a successor to the non-Islamic empire of Segou that had been established by the Bambara."

The ruler launched from 1853 a series of expeditions against pagans, in Bambara in particular. The 1818 "Fulani" Empire of Massina fell to a more militant movement.

Jihad in Africa - 1861

In the region that is today an area in Mali, Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall took Ségou from its Bambara rulers and launched afresh [second] jihad down river against the Massina.

The Islamic jihad of El Had L'mar, which defeated the Bambara Kingdom in 1861 was an attempt to establish (again) a theocratic Islamic state.

The Rafin Jaki battle - 1873

Jihadists waged war on Africa in the region of present day Nigeria. The combined ethnic communities from present day Jos area, which is: the Afizere, Anaguta, Birom, defeated the Jihadists at the battle of Rafin Jaki.

A Jihad in Sudan and in Egypt - 1880

What is called the (major) "First Jihad", in 1880, Muslim fighter raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked. "The Mahdi's army crushed forces dispatched from British (controlled) Egypt." History of Mahdist Sudan

Iran

Iran 1914

In Iran, on November 12, 1914Sultan Mehmed V issued a jihad, "in his capacity as Caliph, proclaimed holy war and appealed to the Muslim subjects of the Entente powers to join in a common struggle with the Ottoman Empire." Then, two days later, Shaykh-ul-Islam on November 14 issued a fatwa that "the holy war was directed against the enemies of Islam, particularly Britain, France and Russia."