and because of the heavy damage they inflict on the enemy, being the quickest of weapons to reach a man’s life, the Messenger ﷺ singled them out for explicit mention and emphasis.

12 – Muḥammad Rashīd said: Striking the enemy from a distance with something that kills him is safer than closing in on him with a sword, spear, or lance. The word “shooting” (ramy) embraces everything with which the enemy may be struck—an arrow, a catapult projectile, an aircraft bomb, a cannon shell, or anything else. Even if such weapons were unknown in his ﷺ time, the wording includes them and the intended meaning requires them. Who knows—perhaps Allah caused the Prophet to use the term in its absolute sense precisely to indicate this universality, for in every age it refers to whatever is used for shooting. One of the legal maxims states: “Consideration is given to the generality of the wording, not to the specificity of the occasion.”

Hence, by the very text of the Qur’an, it is obligatory for Muslims today to manufacture every kind of cannon, tank, airplane, airship, and to build modern vessels of every type, including submarines. They must also learn the sciences and crafts on which the production of these and other instruments of war depends, for “whatever a duty cannot be fulfilled without becomes itself obligatory.”

13 – Rashīd Riḍā further said: We know that Islam is a religion of mercy; it has forbidden torment by fire, unlike the tyrannical kings who burn their enemies as the People of the Trench once did.

Yet it is sheer ignorance and folly to class fighting the enemy with firearms under that prohibition and to say, “Our religion, being merciful to them, commands us to endure their cannon fire without responding in kind.” Is it not only just that we meet them with the same weapons with which they attack us, when they themselves show no regard for justice in time of war?