Fiqh al-Jihād in Modern Warfare: Analyzing Prospects and Challenges with Reference to International Humanitarian Law

Abstract

In discussing the compatibility of the Islamic concept of jihād and international law, most researches focus on the jus ad bellum (justifications of war) of fiqh al jihād and less on the jus in bello (lawful conducts of war). This article observes the relation between fiqh al-jihād and modern international humanitarian law, and sets out both the prospects and challenges of such a concept in modern times. It is argued that some challenges are due to the lack of emphasis on the principles of fiqh al-jihād that are shared with modern International Humanitarian Law, or the existence of differing opinions between Islamic scholars. Using a literature research, this article finds that the way to address this is to make a unified code of fiqh al-jihād, involving scholars from all schools of thoughts, to agree on a common set of rules.