attacking the unbelievers
aggressively to impose his own religion forcibly on them. How much is
Sir W. Muir in the wrong, who says, that fighting was prescribed on
religious grounds? "Hostilities," he says, "indeed, were justified by
the 'expulsion' of the believers from Mecca. But the main and true issue
of the warfare was not disguised to be the victory of Islam. They were
to fight '_until the religion became the Lord's alone_.'"[190]

[Sidenote: 36. The alleged verses of intolerance explained.]

The verses of the Koran referred to above are as follows:

186. "And fight for the cause of God against those who fight against
you: but commit not the injustice of _attacking them first_: verily God
loveth not the unjust."

187. "And kill them wherever ye shall find them, and eject them from
whatever place they have ejected you; for (_fitnah_) persecution or
civil discord is worse than slaughter but attack them not at the sacred
Mosque, until they attack you therein, but if they attack you, then slay
them--Such is the recompense of the infidel!"

188. "But if they desist, then verily God is Gracious, Merciful."

189. "And do battle against them until there be no more (_fitnah_)
persecution or civil discord and the only worship be that of God: but if
they desist, then let there be no hostility, save against
wrong-doers."--Sura, ii.

These verses generally, and the last one especially, show that the
warfare was prescribed on the ground of self-preservation, and to secure
peace, safety and religious liberty, to prevent (_fitnah_) persecution.

By preventing or removing the persecution (_fitnah_), the religion of
the Moslems was to be free and pure from intolerance and compulsion to
revert to idolatry, or in other words, to be the only or wholly of God.
That is, when you are free and unpersecuted in your religion, and not
forced to worship idols and renounce Islam, then your religion will be
pure and free. You shall have no fear of being forced to join other gods
with God.

The same verse is repeated in Chapter VIII.

39. "Say to the unbelievers: If they desist,[191] what is now past shall
be forgiven them, but if they return _to it_,[192] they have already
before them the doom of the former."[193]

40. "Fight then against them till _fitnah_ (civil strife or persecution)
be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's, and if they desist,
verily God beholdeth what they do."

This shows that the fighting prescribe