and our scholars, both from our own school and beyond, have explicitly affirmed this. One must distinguish between repelling a tyrannical, unbelieving aggressor and pursuing him inside his own land. Jihad may be waged with the hand, with the heart, through daʿwah (inviting others to Islam), by proof and argument, with the tongue, by counsel, by planning, or by industry; each person is required to contribute to the utmost of his ability).

Ibn al-Qayyim (1) said: “The jihad of repelling aggression is broader and more universally obligatory than the jihad of initiating combat; for that reason it becomes incumbent upon every individual … This is like the Muslims’ jihad on the Day of Uhud and at the Battle of the Trench. In this category of jihad it is not a condition that the enemy be no more than twice the number of the Muslims, for on those occasions the enemy outnumbered them many times over, yet jihad was still obligatory, because at that moment it was a jihad of necessity and defense, not one of choice.”

I say: The statements of both scholars—and the context in which they apply—concern a situation where the leader of the Muslims judges that the preponderant benefit lies in undertaking jihad. However, if the leader of the Muslims deems that the harm