Dar al-Harb, the House of war

The Islamic doctrine divides the world in two areas:

One is the House of Islam (Dar Al-Islam) or House of Peace, the area where the Islamic law is implemented or where Islam is the state religion.

The rest of the world is the House of war (Dar al-Harb), where Shaaria is not enforced or present.

This is one of the key differences between Christianity and Islam. From a biblical perspective, the kingdom of God originates in the hearts of the individuals to spread within a community of believers. What matters is what happens in the life of everyone, instead of the possession of some territories or the related jurisdiction.
In Islam instead, the juridical system of a territory is quite important. So it is crucial for those states with a relevant non-Muslim population to be in the House of Islam.

JIhad

The islamisation of the world is carried out through “Jihad”, an Arabic word that stands for “Holy war”. Jihad is everything that turns out useful to spread Islam and therefore expand the borders of the “House of Islam”. It doesn’t necessarily involve traditional war methods or radical Islamic terrorism because first of all, it recommends that all misbelievers submit spontaneously to Allah (Sura 2:256; 3:20). It is jihad when an Islamic centre gives men specific instructions to marry German women. It’s jihad when Muslims leave copies of the Quran in hotel rooms, or when they build mosques in the west. Everything that helps spread Islam is “Holy war”, even those methods known as “mission” or “evangelisation” in Christianity.

Sharia

According to Sharia, the people of the book – that’s how Christians and Jews are defined in the Quran – are eligible to exist (provisionally) as second class citizens, the so called Dhimmis. What people think, believe or think doesn’t matter in the house of Islam. What does matter is the juridical system their lives revolve around. Therefore it was possible for Muslims, Jews and Christians to live together for centuries under the Islamic rule. Under this circumstance however, Jews held a status of inferiority with respect to Christians. According to the teachings of the Quran, the Jews, unlike Christians, are on the lowest social scale step, which they share with pagans. They also show the worst hostility towards the believers (sura 5:82). This is Allah’s intention when dealing with the Jews: “for them in this world is disgrace, and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment” (Sura 5:41). The Jews receive “disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment” (Sura 2:85).

The islamic doctrine demands that “the house of islam” keep expanding . It’s not up to the people, but it’s Allah fighting through his believers (Sura 8:10,12,17).
More and more lands become subjected to “Sharia”, so that the essence and the mighty power of Allah can be acknowledged. It is written: Allah is the mighty and only God. Mohammed claims that “Islam is always superior, there is nothing higher than Islam”. This claim shows up in the call to prayer by the muezzin, whose voice must be louder than church bells; the same concept allies to architecture, where a mosque must have the taller minaret, when lying next to a church like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Quran says that those who are on the side of God will win (Sura 5:56). One day, the Islamic doctrine says, the whole world will be “Dar al-Islam”, the “house of Islam”. The life of all mankind will be dominated by sharia law, even though not everyone is Muslim. The kingdom of Allah identifies in the political expansion of Islam and the implementation of Sharia. Once a territory becomes Islamic it can’t be de-islamified. Based on this principle, places like Spain, the Balkans or Israel are still Islamic, or Waqf. The duty of the Islamic armies is to retake control of the lost areas.

So, is there any hope for peace (even temporarily) in the Holy Land? Any possible friendship between Muslims and pagans should be excluded (Sura 3:118; 4:89-90; 4:144-145). Mohammed addresses his followers with these words: “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people”. (Sura 5:51). In other words, a Muslim who is friends or makes any friendship deals with the pagans is automatically left out of the Muslim community.

However, there is a chance of getting out of this, according to the Islamic theology: if the non-Muslim enemy is too strong to defeat or if Muslims are outnumbered, then a truce is possible (Sura 3:28; 8:15-16). In the biography of Mohammed we can find a similar case. In 628 AD he wanted to go back as a pilgrim to his hometown Mecca. The Quraysh tribes were the dominant force in the city and he could not have any chance to win against them. So Mohammed signed an armistice with them, which led the Quraysh tribe to let their guard down. In 630 AD entered in Mecca with 10000 soldiers and carried out a bloodshed*. Both the massacres and the violation of any previous deal are justifiable in the Islamic jurisprudence when it comes to defending the honour of Allah. Yasser Arafat repeatedly justified the Oslo agreements in front of his Muslim supporters by defining them as worth of respect as “the treaty of Hudaybiyya” signed by Mohammed in 628  and maliciously broken two years later against the Quraish.

For Muslim believers the idea of a Jewish State on a Muslim territory is just like bringing up the issue of defending the “honor” of Allah, the tree God according to Islam. This, as long as in the “House of Islam” the smallest piece of land is taken by a Jewish state, the acknowledgment of its existence will always stand for the failure of Allah.