Jihad according to the People of Shariah, Tariqah and Haqiqah

i) According to the people of shari`ah
According to the people of this group, the jihad (striving in the way of Allah or holy war) is one of the obligations of Islam, that is, it is an obligation of communal responsibility, so that if it is only performed by some, the obligation ceases to be binding on the rest.
There are seven conditions to this obligation: being male, having reached the age of puberty, being of perfectly sound mind and health, being a free man, and not being an elderly person on whom sustenance of all the family depends, and that there be a just Imam or someone who represents him. If one of these conditions is not fulfilled, then there is no longer any obliآ­gation. The disbelievers against whom the jihad is obligatory are of two kinds. The first are those whom one must fight until they surrender or are killed or until. they accept the jizyah tax.
As for the second kind, the jizyah is not accepted of them and they are fought until they surrender or are killed. If the jizyah is accepted then there is no fixed amount to be exacted according to the soundest opinion; rather the amount is to be determined by those of the Shiah fuqaha' (men of law) skilled in this science ‑ and collected in accordance with the judgment of the Imam. The jizyah is either exacted per head or in accorآ­dance with the amount of land held by them; but it cannot be demanded of these two things together. Moreover it may be increased or reduced according to the judgment of the Imam. If the jizyah is exacted on land and they submit and become Muslims, then the obligation is no longer biding. jizyah may not be taken from four groups of persons: children, mad persons, the foolish and women. Fighting should not be begun until they (the enemy) are invited to Islam, by way of the science of tawhid, justice and the establishment of the pillars. If they refuse to accept all or any of these things, then it is permitted to fight them. The person entrusted with inviting them to Islam should be the Imam or whoever is delegated by him; and Allah is more Knowing and more Wise.

ii) According to the people of tariqah
The jihad of this group refers to the jihad or the struggle against the self in accordance with the saying of the Prophet, `We have returned from the lesser jihad to the gre0er jihad.' What is meant by the lesser jihad is fighting of unbelievers and the greater jihad the struggle against the self (nafs). When asked about this, he replied: `It is the struggle against the soul (or self) which comآ­mands to evil.' It has also been related from the Prophet: `Your greatest enemy is the self contained between the two sides of your body.' Any person of sound intellect would consider that the struggle against the greater of enemies is more important that the struggle against just the enemy, in particular when it exists between the sides of his own body. The jihad of the self is to oppose it in anything which contradicts the intellect and the shari'ah, in accordance with Allah's words, `As for him who fears to stand in the presence of his Lord and forbids the soul from low desires, then surely the Garden is his abode.'
This is because the self is always calling to evil in accordance with its inherent nature, described by Allah in His words: `Most surely (man's) self is wont to command (him to do) evil.' Therefore opposing this kind of self is the source of goodness and perfect justice. This is reflected in the hadith of the Prophet with respect to women who are considered similar to the self. `Take counsel of them and oppose them therein.' The people of Allah have estabآ­lished, in their study of correspondences, that the self of man is analogous to women in the cosmic realm: thus just as it is obligatory to oppose women in most states, it is also obligatory to oppose the self in most states. If it were not so, then opposing the self would not be the cause of immediate entry into the Garden.
This same meaning is reflected in the hadith, `The Fire is surrounded by desires and the Garden is surrounded by hated things' since the desires literally issue from the self and the Fire of necessity accompanies these desires; moreover, the hated things and opposition to them are dependent upon a sound intelآ­lect and the divine code of law and it must be that the fruit of this opposition is the Garden. Allah refers to this when He says, `And (as for) those who strive hard for Us, We will most certainly guide them in Our ways; and Allah is most surely with the doers of good', and His saying that it is `for Us' indicates that if the struggle against the self is not for Allah and in His way, then it is of no use and will not cause the person to enter the Garden and will not be a cause of guidance to Allah and to His straight path.
The Shaykhs are agreed that the spiritual wayfarer should be prevented from traveling the path on his own without a shaykh of perfection. These shaykhs, by their perception of the realities of gnosis, by their knowledge of the stations and the manner in which each may be crossed and how transfer may be effected from a lower to a higher one, are able to instruct the spiritual wayfarer and cause him to stand in the places of standing so that he may arrive at the desired goals without great hardship and difficulty.
Undoubtedly a shaykh is well‑equipped to do this because he himself has traveled along this path and therefore knows by experience which path is the easiest and quickest. The seeker cannot do this on his own: he needs help since there are numerous routes to travel and he must find out which of them will bring him to the goal. He may begin to travel one path when he encounters another, with the result that he leaves the former and is at pains to arrive at his destination; if he does arrive, then it is only after great trouble and after spending far more time in a particular station than the Imam or the Prophet had spent therein.
The reason for this is that when the person begins the path on his own, he is not able to free himself of the tendency to yield the demands of the self. Since travel on the path of Allah is based on constant opposition to the self, how then, one may ask, will this person travelling the path of Allah arrive at the goal by himself? Allah alludes to this in His words, `And could you but see when the guilty shall hang down their heads before their Lord.'
The movement of the one obedient to his self is always downwards; the person who hangs his head down and the person who stands in an upright position are as two distinct persons, the one moving upwards and the other downwards. Movement on the part of either of them only increases the disآ­tance between them. This downward movement is like the moveآ­ment particular to the plants, as we have already mentioned; this is self‑evident and there is no need for any other rational proof': We therefore ask Allah by His grace for protection from this downward movement towards the lowest level of the natural world, that is the level of Gehenna, known as `the lowest of the low' in the Qur'an. The following versed ?'scribes this kind of self If the self is neglected, then it keeps company with meanآ­ness, And if it is urged on then, it longs for nobler qualities.
We have already discussed the manner in which the self asآ­cends from its level of `commanding to evil' to the `reproachful' and from there to the `inspired' and finally to the station where it is tranquil or `at rest'; it then goes on from this station to the Divine Presence by the law of return in accordance with Allah's words, `O soul that art at rest! Return to your Lord, well‑pleased (with him), well‑pleasing (Him) so enter among My servants and enter into My garden.' This entering means that they should accept the jurisdiction, authority, instruction and guidance of the Prophet, the Imam or the shaykh without any further arguآ­ment. There are other secrets connected with the manner of arrival, although it would not be appropriate to include them here; we shall mention them, if Allah wills, at the end of the work in the final instructions.
The jihad of the people of tariqah is the struggle against the self and nothing else. Such people are always in a state of struggle and they never forget their vigilance even for a moment. Just as jihad is a communal obligation for the people of the shari`ah, so for the people of this group it is an individual obligation, such that no one can perform it on one's behalf, and with them it is the first of obligations. This because it is impossible to set out on this path without it ‑ and thus we arrive at the desired conclusion of our argument.

iii) According to the people of haqiqah
The jihad of the people of this group refers to their struggle against the theorising of the intellect: their struggle is overcoming its doubts and misgivings. This speculative intellect is always restricted to contingencies. What is desired, indeed, the constant goal, is freedom from such restrictions: this is a state which is in accordance with the demands of passion and spiritual tasting. What a difference there is between the intellect and passion or yearning. It has been narrated from the Prophet that Allah has created the intellect to fulfil the claims of slavery, not for the perception of the reality or Lordship.
Thus it is an obligation to use the intellect to carry out what is demanded by the state of slavery and not to speculate on the reality of Lordship. It is for this reason that the gnostic has said the following, which is not understood by the speculative intellect and its theorizing because it is a science based on divine unveiling: `It is a science whereby one may know the source of the world of forms which receives the souls.' Thus Fakr al‑Din al‑Razi has said: The ultimate perception of the intellect is limited And most men's striving is misguided.
We will never benefit from our investigations throughout our life, Whether we fill it with argument or speculation.
On investigation we realize that intellect is to divine yearning as the faculty of conjecture is to the intellect: conjecture is never able to arrive at the level of perception of divine yearning and its gnoses; rather it usually seeks to deny it and obstruct its influence, just as the spirit of conjecture usually tries to deny the intellect and prevent it from functioning. It is for this reason that differences have arisen between the science of rhetoric and intellectual proof and the science of spiritual tasting. Indeed most of the laws of the shari'ah issue from the realm of spiritual tasting and yearning, that is, from a prophet or messenger, and they do not accord with the workings of the intellect and intellecآ­tual judgments. The doubts and misgivings of the philosophers and brahmins all arise from this source.
Thus the philosophers deny the return and resurrection after death of the body in a physical way and they deny knowledge of the partial or individual entities existing in time; moreover, they ascribe certain attributes to Allah which have not been recorded in the law of the shari`ah and whose existence is not even possible in terms of the intellect, such as their assertion of divine simplicity and that God's exisآ­tence is necessary by virtue of mere logical proof. They also believe that the world has existed since eternity and that the Real ‑ may He be exalted ‑ is the cabs f of this. All these matآ­ters are a result of the judgment of their shallow intellects which are incapable of grasping the secrets of the divine code of law and its subtleties. The same is true of the brahmins who deny the return and resurrection of man; they also oppose the prophets and their miracles and contradict the revealed texts and the divine codes of law, believing in the power of action and whatever issues from action.
They persist in denying the prophets and following the dictates of their shallow intellects, claiming that if the prophets came with a message in harmony with the intellect, then there was no need for the prophets in the first place; if, however, they brought a message which was in opposition to the intellect, then they are not prepared to accept this message, arguing that their intellects are sufficient to find the best and most beneficial manner of living.
However, all these claims are incorrect. If the intellect were sufficient we would have no need of the revealed Books and the messengers; indeed the revelation of such Books and the sending of these messengers would be an act of jest and we have already shown that Allah is not capable of such a jest. Thus we realize that the intellect is in need of another kind of faculty of perception, known as logic by the philosophers and as divine light and justice by those who affirm and act according to the science of divine unity.
Accordingly, just as jihad with the literal sword must be made against those who believe in a god other than Allah, so jihad with the symbolic sword must also be made against those who affirm an existence other than the existence of Allah. The former arises when a person follows the desires of his self and the latter when he follows the intellect, the resulting judgment being pure speculative thought. Indeed the first is an expression of manifest idolatry (shirk) and the second of hidden idolatry; the rejection of each is obligatory upon every man.
Thus there is never a time or period when these two kinds of jihad are absent, whatever the circumstances, for just as the Muslims are always fighting the unbelievers in the different regions of the earth with the literal sword, so those who affirm the oneness of Allah are also constantly striving against the philosophers and brahmins in the different regions of the world with the symbolic sword.
The jihad of the people of the haqiqah is thus the struggle against the scholars of the intellect to destroy their dubious arguments and reject their misgivings; they strive to make them abandon intellectual speculation that they may follow the true way of tasting and divine passion, namely the way of revelation and inspiration. Similarly, the jihad of the people of tariqah is never anything other than the struggle against the self by removal of its doubts and misgivings and by overcoming its desires. The result of the first jihad is firm establishment on the path of the unity of gatheredness and arrival at the world of oneness after freeing oneself of the hidden idolatry; the result of the second is the journeying towards Allah by means of a sound intellect and the following of His command both outwardly and inwardly, after freeing oneself from manifest idolatry. It is exactly this which Allah intends by the term jihad since the goal of the literal jihad is also the figurative jihad.
Allah mentions those who struggle to establish the proof of Allah, saying they are above those of His slaves who are guilty of associating others with Him (shirk): `Allah has made the strivآ­ers with their property and their persons to excel the holders back a (high) degree and to each (class) Allah has promised good; and Allah shall grant to the strivers above the holders back a mighty reward: high degrees from Him and protection and mercy, and Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.' What is meant by `the holders back' are those who abandon these two kinds of jihad. What is meant by `the strivers' are those who establish the jihad by way of those two things. Allah also refers to them in His words, `And whoever does this seeking Allah's pleasure, We will give him a mighty reward.' We ask Allah to make us of those strivers by His grace and generosity.
As for our promise to describe the rest of the secrets of spiritual travel, secrets which are instrumental in bringing the traveler to the Real, His Sacred Presence and the worlds of light, then we would say the following: to accustom the self to beneficial things and to acquire the qualities of perfection such that they become inherent in your being is the first of your stations and your first contact with perfection. This then disappears with the rapidity of the station and what enters the self is the consciousness of thought; if this is from conjecture, then the thought occurring to the mind is Satanic or negative and its source are the passions and anger of the self which impede right action, whereas if this consciousness is consciousness of the Real then awareness of what has passed and regret for its passing leads one to turn to Him for forgiveness.
The movement of the self when seeking is the will; the seeker of true purification is a murid or aspirant, a person who possesses will the excitement of the self with what it finds pleasant is hope; the pain it suffers for what is disliked is fear; its abstention from becoming engrossed in sensuality is doing without; its remaining unshaken by contingent events is patience; its perception of the blessings of Allah is gratitude; its perception of the judgment and the degree beyond the natural realm is trust; its acceptance of the judgment and decree is contentment; its vision of the realities in the mirror of this decree is gnosis; its pleasure in what it feels is love; its inhaling of the passing pleasure contained therein is a breath of freshness and the pleasure which lasts for some time is tranquility; the presence of secrecy by way of His presence and seizing His word from the senses of the self is ecstasy; the secret manifestations which annul movement is intoxication; the perception of the origin and source is awe; the extinction of the word with respect to the beginnings is intimacy; its isolation from the physical world, such that the perception of the beginning of creation is contained in the vastness of His self‑reliant existence, is divine unity; that which is dependent upon partial manifestations from the unseen is unveiling; and the bodily forms of the spheres, which cause a form to be given to the rational self and which manifests with its sudden appearance and vanishes with its disappearance, is time ‑ it is for this reason that on many occasions a form gives rise to a state without great exertion or involvement; if it occurs frequently then it should be opposed.
It is for this reason that the Prophet has said, `Truly your Lord blows breaths of fragrance on certain days of your earthly time ‑ during other than these days oppose such (manifestations).' The world is concealed in the perception of its essence by way of its Beloved and it is so utterly submerged in Him that all other sensations vanish. This station, that is, the station of annihilation, is the last of the levels and the highest of the stations of the path. In this concise description of the station of the spiritual wayfarers we have fulfilled the promise made earlier in the book. It should be remembered, however, that these paths to Allah, as the Messenger has said, are `as many as the souls of creation' and they multiply or diminish in relation to one's intimacy or distance from the Beloved.
1. It has also been said that this means that the life of all things is (by means of water); this however is not permissible with regard to the Arabic of the ayah for, if this were the case, then the word `living' would be in the genitive case, yet it is in the accusative and describes `thing'; thus the meaning of the ayah is that He created the creation from water. This is also affirmed by His words: `And Allah has created from water every living creature.'
2. These seven knowledges are: knowledge of tawhid, divestment, annihilation, abiding; knowledge of the essence, the attributes and the divine actions; knowledge of prophetآ­hood, the message, wilayah and refined manners; knowledge of revelation, inspiration and unveiling; knowledge of the beginnings, the return, the gathering and the division of men accordingly; the knowledge of behaviour, politics, courtesy and instruction therein; knowledge of the cosmos, the individual souls and the correspondence between the two; these are the greatest and noblest of the sciences. It has been said that what is meant by the seven celestial spheres is other than we have maintained at the beginning; what we have said is nevertheless true and in accordance with the subject of our book.