The Spirit of Mecca

Early Qur’ānic Revelations on Jihād, Unbelief, and Patient Forbearance

Apr 27, 2025

First, a confession: as a teenager, I was not only ignorant about Islam, but also thoroughly opposed to it. At the same time, it wasn’t really about Islam per se. My opposition extended to all religion, both organised and otherwise, not out of any real antipathy, but rather, out of unexamined, passionless principle.

I hadn’t read the Qur’ān. I hadn’t read the Bible, or any other holy book for that matter. Still, this did not keep me from having an opinion on them, and so I dismissed them with casual disdain.

The result? Some embarrassingly pontifical essays in which I condemned the Islamic understanding of God (although, looking back, most of what I took to be the "Islamic" understanding was, in fact, my equally ill-informed impression of the Christian one). If memory serves, martyrdom and women’s rights made an appearance too—treated, I fear, with equal sophistication.

Thankfully, none of these essays are public, so my dignity remains intact.

Still, I remember my behaviour well. I remember how I’d watch interviews or read articles by popular critics—Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens were my intellectual idols—and take their word as gospel. I remember how I thought of myself as an open-minded, critical thinker, despite my failure to look more deeply into the worldviews I criticised. And even more so, I remember how I’d skim over extracts from the Qur’ān, in unidentified English translations I found online, and believe them to contain all I needed to know.

Hence, when I see other people doing the same, I am reminded, above all, of myself. And since lifting verses out of their context—or rather, never bothering to find out what it was in the first place—was exactly how I got to my uninformed, over-confident opinions, this is what I hope to begin in this instalment: restoring Qur’ānic verses, so often quoted in isolation, to their proper setting.

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Before we continue, a note for any disoriented newcomers (or for the forgetful):

This is the third post in a series on jihād in the Qur’ān and the Sufi tradition. In the last instalment, “Beyond Holy War,” we explored the multifaceted nature of the term jihād, challenging its oversimplification. With its Arabic root being jahada, meaning to exert oneself, I argue that jihād’s core meaning is morally purposeful struggle, but that it can take different forms in different contexts.

I show how the Qur’ān associates jihād not only with armed conflict but also with nonviolent striving “in the path of God,” where noble intention plays a decisive role in distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate warfare. As for the idea of an inner, “greater jihād,” held as paramount in the Sufi tradition, I show that while it is usually traced to one weak hadīth, there exist other, more strongly authenticated hadīth reports affirming it—but also some that celebrate divinely sanctioned warfare as the best jihād.

In short: jihād is many things, and trying narrow it to one of them, especially by defining it as “holy war,” eclipses a large part of its semantic field.

Not Just Words on a Page

In my New Atheist phase, one crucial thing I did not understand was the way the Qur’ān should be approached.

To be clear, I don’t mean this in a prescriptive way. I’m not here to tell you how to read or think. What I mean is that, historically, Muslims have interpreted the Qur’ān not as a stand-alone text, but through the lens of an extensive scholarly tradition.

Unaware of this, I used to read the verses that bothered me as if they were isolated declarations, not knowing that the verses surrounding them often held essential contextual information. And I did not know that, to grasp their meaning, I had to do more than just read them—I also had to step into the historical circumstances in which the Qur’ān was revealed.

Scholars call these circumstances asbāb al-nuzūl, the “occasions of revelation.” Without this context, interpreting the verses accurately, in both sense and scope, becomes nearly impossible.1 It’s a lot like joining a conversation midway without knowing what it’s about.

The Qur’ān cannot be understood by reading its words from cover to cover. It is not arranged chronologically, meaning that a verse or chapter earlier in the book may have been revealed later in time—Sūrat al-‘Alaq (Chapter 96), for instance, contains what many Muslims believe to be the first revelation. The Qur’ān’s language is elliptical, allusive, and layered, with many words having multiple meanings and multiple translations. Even in its most emphatic moments, moreover, it is not always clear to whom its rulings are addressed or how broadly they apply.

And because the verses were revealed with the Prophet’s coeval followers in mind, who already knew which issues their community was facing, the historical circumstances that occasioned the verses are left implicit.

Where do we get this historical context from, then, if not from the Qur’ān? Traditionally, Muslims have relied on the biographies of the Prophet Muhammad (a genre called sīrah), and scholarly commentaries on the Qur’ān (known as exegesis, or tafsīr in Arabic).2 By consulting these sources, we can begin to map out how the Qur’ān's revelations unfolded.

The Two Periods of Qur'ānic Revelation

In biographies like the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (The Life of the Messenger of God) of Ibn Ishāq (d. c. 768), and also in a lot of modern scholarship, the Qur’ānic revelations are typically divided into two periods: the Meccan period and the Medinan one.

During the Meccan period, from roughly 610 to 622 CE, the Prophet Muhammad received his first revelations in a cave on Mount Hirā’, and began his prophetic mission by preaching in Mecca. The Medinan period began in 622 CE, with the migration of the Prophet and his followers to Medina, and lasted until his death in 632 CE.3

The difference between the two periods is striking. While only four Meccan sūrahs touch on jihād and its related themes, the topic is discussed in eleven sūrahs from Medina.4 As I’ll show in this instalment and the next, this had to do with the changing circumstances of the community, as it developed from a weak, despised minority in Mecca, to a larger, more powerful community in Medina.5

Mecca’s Religious Scene

In the early seventh century, the predominant religious tradition in the Arabian Peninsula was an indigenous polytheism. Monotheistic religions like Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Christianity, were also represented.6

At the time, up to 360 idols were housed in the Ka‘ba, a shrine that constituted the nexus of Meccan life. The annual pilgrimage to the Ka‘ba brought in considerable revenues, which were controlled by the Quraysh tribe, the custodians of the Ka‘ba and oligarchic masters of the city. While the Prophet Muhammad had been born into the Banū Hāshim, a clan of the Quraysh tribe, his preaching roused the Quraysh’s hostility.7

This was partly because of his message of monotheism,8 which threatened their livelihood and regional hegemony. However, the traditional biographies also mention that it was only when he began to speak disparagingly of their gods that they took offence. In outrage they began to oppose him.9

Nonviolence, Forbearance and Free Choice in the Meccan Verses

Under the wrath of the Quraysh, the Prophet’s followers were subjected to progressively vicious persecution: murder, torture, imprisonment, forced starvation, eviction from their homes.10 The situation became increasingly unbearable. Some of the Prophet’s followers even fled to the Christian Kingdom of Aksum in Abyssinia to seek asylum under the king’s aegis.11

And yet, despite these circumstances, the Prophet’s followers could only engage in non-violent resistance. They had yet to be granted divine permission to fight, which only came about in Medina.12 Instead, the Qur’ānic verses of the Meccan period emphasise patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and respect for religious choice.13

Of these virtues, the ideal of sabr—which encompasses patience, endurance, steadfastness, and forbearance—had particular importance. While nonviolent resistance to persecution was permitted, sabr was considered nobler. This can be seen in Sūrat ash-Shūrā:

There is no cause to act against anyone who defends himself after being wronged, but there is cause to act against those who oppress people and transgress in the land against all justice – they will have an agonising torment – though if a person is patient and forgives, this is one of the greatest things (Q. 42:41-43).

And also in Sūrat al-Baqarah:

You who believe, seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast (sābirīn) (Q. 2:153).

These verses affirm the right to self-defence, but still elevate endurance, steadfastness and forgiveness of the persecutors, considering it the truest reflection of God’s will.

Beyond the call for sabr, the Meccan verses also affirm another core principle: that non-Muslims must be free to choose or reject Islam. One example can be found in the following verse:

Say, ‘Now the truth has come from your Lord: let those who wish to believe in it do so, and let those who wish to reject it do so.’ (Q. 18:29)

Here, the Qur’ān seems to be implicitly rejecting forced conversion to Islam, a prohibition later reinforced by the well-known Medinan sūrah stating that there is no compulsion in religion (Q. 2:256). The verse continues as follows:

We have prepared a Fire for the wrongdoers that will envelop them from all sides. If they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like molten metal, scalding their faces. What a terrible drink! What a painful resting place! (Q. 18:29)

To modern readers, this image of divine punishment may be unsettling, with its uncompromising tone and vivid portrayal of torment. In classical commentaries, there is no such unease. In the Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, an early fifteenth-century commentary, one finds a blunt, literal explanation of what terms like murtafaqan (resting-place) mean, as well as a matter-of-fact description of hellfire. The verse’s very goal, in their view, is to drive home the terrible consequences of disbelief. It is a divine threat.14

However, a commentary known as the Tanwīr al-Miqbās offers an additional insight: while the choice to believe or disbelieve should be left to individuals, ultimately, it is God's will that determines who will believe.15 For the author of the Tanwīr, it seems, it is precisely because of the inevitability of divine punishment for non-believers that Islam should not be imposed on them.

Jihād in the Meccan Verses

In the Meccan verses, jihād plays only a minor role. Since the Prophet’s followers were not permitted to fight, we can infer that when it is mentioned, “jihād” denotes a non-martial striving. One example is Sūrat al-ʿAnkabūt, verse 6:

Those who exert themselves do so for their own benefit–God does not need His creatures (Q. 29:6).

A few verses later, a cognate of jihād is used in reference to wrongful religious coercion by one’s own parents, giving an example of striving that is not “in the path of God”:

We have commanded people to be good to their parents, but do not obey them if they strive (jāhadāka) to make you serve, beside Me, anything of which you have no knowledge: you will all return to Me, and I shall inform you of what you have done (Q. 29:8).

The commandment is not to respond with violence, but to resist, internally, the corrosive external forces threatening one’s faith.

Another important verse of this period is found in Sūrat al-Fur’qān:

So do not give in to the disbelievers: strive hard against them (jāhiduhum) with this (bihi).

It is generally thought that “bihi” refers to the Qur’ān. The response to disbelievers is not aggression, but simple, peaceful preaching to spread the word of God.

In these verses one can see that, even in Mecca’s harsh environment, the spirit was one of restraint, inner endurance and acceptance of God’s will. At its heart was the fundamental Islamic virtue of sabr: a quiet, persistent, dignified strength in the face of relentless hardship.

Looking back, I now see how much I missed when I treated the Qur’ān as mere words on a page, words that can be read cursorily and swiftly judged: good or bad, right or wrong, rational or irrational. I had made its verses into something severed from the human world to which they spoke, and from the centuries of scholarly thought that had emerged to make sense of them.

Learning about the circumstances of these verses’ revelation—even in these minute amounts—showed me that what I’d been seeing from the outside had little reality.

Even more importantly, it showed me that, however convinced I may be of my beliefs, this conviction says nothing about their truthfulness. For our own sake, we might instead be wary of certainty as a feeling, rather than seeking or defending it.

Some things to think about:

Does knowing these verses’ context affect how you see them? If so, how?
What do you think is the effect of decontextualising them?
How can one better relate to traditions in which one is not well-versed?
Have you experienced a similar shift in your attitude to a tradition? If so, how did it happen?

If you have thoughts on any of these, I would love to hear your perspective. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Notes for curious or informed readers

To ensure readability in this series, most transliteration marks are omitted from Arabic terms, except where necessary for clarity (ū, ā and ī are retained; ḥ, ṣ and others are not).

Muhammad A. S. Haleem, “Qur’anic ‘Jihād’: A Linguistic and Contextual Analysis,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 12 (2010): 147.

I am aware that there is debate about the historical reliability of these sources, e.g. because they were compiled at least a century or more after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. However, since my concern is not with reconstructing pure historical “facts,” but with how jihād has been understood historically, I will follow the traditional approach.

Asma Afsaruddin, “Jihad in Islamic Thought,” in The Cambridge World History of Violence, edited by Matthew S. Gordon, Richard W. Kaeuper, and Harriet Zurndorfer, vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2020): 449.

Haleem, “Qur’anic ‘Jihād’,” 147.

Reuven Firestone, Jihād: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (Oxford University Press, 1999), 50.

See Uri Rubin, “Jews and Judaism,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, vol. 3, edited by Jane D. McAuliffe et al. (Brill, 2003): 21–34.

Afsaruddin, “Jihad,” 449.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Ishāq (1955): Sīrat Rasūlillāh [Life of the messenger of God], Translated by Alfred Guillaume (Oxford University Press, 1955), 118.

Afsaruddin, “Jihad,” 450.

Ibn Ishāq, Sīrat, 146.