Religion is an institution that has existed in various societies since ancient times. For a long period, in one way or another, it influenced secular power, and sometimes it was directly its source. It is not surprising that religion has always influenced politics, including such aspects as wars. At some stage, almost any of the modern world religions used armed conflicts to convert new believers. As a rule, the urge to aggressively impose one’s ideas is not an intrinsic characteristic of any of the most widespread religions. However, it is difficult to deny that any religious teaching claims to be accurate and seeks to convince people of its correctness. After all, spiritual life not only shapes but also directly depends on the social norms prevailing in one or another society. Thus, the emergence of the “holy war” concept in the Middle Ages was a natural event.
Looking at early Christianity, it is not difficult to find the beginnings of the idea of “holy war” already there. At the initial stages of its development, Christianity was a typical apocalyptic cult, which claimed that the end of the world would soon come and that God would severely punish all the unrighteous. At this stage, this religion does not yet call on believers to go and destroy all infidels with weapons in their hands, but the idea of armed punishment for all those who practice other religions has already been traced. During the active spread of Christianity to pagan peoples, forceful methods were also not uncommon. Depriving the soldier of sin for killing in the service and a more tolerant attitude towards killing non-believers also somewhat characterizes Christianity as a warrior religion.
The idea of a Christian struggle with Islam will not be surprising if one looks at the spread of Muhammad’s teachings in the first centuries after his inception. Islam spread quickly and aggressively in the lands of the Middle East, which were traditionally Christian before that. It is not surprising that the church considered Islam a threat to its existence: the desire to protect itself from this new religion, which resulted in the crusades, seems quite understandable.
Islam is indeed often perceived as a highly militarized religion. Muslims have the concept of a “shahid”, a warrior who dies for his faith. This is not very different from Christianity’s justification of murders committed in military service. Death for the faith is also not strange for Christians if looking at the number of various martyrs. Another concept often mentioned in the context of the militarization of Islam is jihad. In its primary meaning, jihad is a war for the protection and spread of Islam. In Christianity, at the beginning of its existence, there was no analog of the concept of jihad, which, as already mentioned, did not prevent it from spreading by force. However, in reality, jihad is interpreted much more broadly: it is a struggle against one’s spiritual or public social vices and passions.
Despite stereotypes, the clash between Islam and Christianity was not always aggressive. Believers of these two religions treated each other with more respect than, for example, pagans: both glorified the one God and were also “people of the book.” In the lands captured by Muslims, sometimes the population was allowed to practice Christianity, and in the kingdoms of the Crusaders, people were allowed to practice Islam.
Even though today several terrorist formations use Islam to justify their actions, such behavior is not directly prescribed in the postulates of Muslims. There are indeed many things in the Koran that may seem wild from the point of view of modern humanism. The problem is not Islam per se but religious fanaticism as a phenomenon. A less prejudiced and more critical attitude to what people believe worldwide will reduce the number of “holy wars.”