Hamas Does Not Speak for Islam

What Classical Islamic Law Actually Says About Their Tactics

The October 7 attack violated foundational principles of Islamic jurisprudence—and mainstream Muslim scholars have said so

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In the aftermath of October 7, 2023, Hamas justified its attack by invoking jihād and claiming Islamic legitimacy for its military operations. This claim deserves serious scrutiny—not from a Western legal framework, but from within the Islamic tradition itself.

What does classical Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) actually say about the rules of warfare? And do Hamas’s tactics meet those standards?

The short answer is no. And this isn’t a modern, “liberal” interpretation of Islam—it’s what the classical sources have said for over a millennium.

The Classical Islamic Rules of War

Let’s start with what might surprise many readers: Islamic law developed sophisticated protections for civilians in warfare more than a thousand years before the Geneva Conventions.

The Prophet Muhammad’s instructions to military commanders explicitly prohibited targeting “women, children, the elderly, clergy, and those not participating in combat.” The first Caliph Abū Bakr’s famous ten commands to his Syrian expedition included:

“Do not commit treachery... do not mutilate... neither kill a child or aged man or woman... do not cut down fruit-bearing trees... do not slaughter a sheep or a camel except for food.”

These weren’t suggestions. As scholar Ahmed Al-Dawoody documents in his authoritative study The Islamic Law of War, these rules formed what classical jurists considered “foundational principles”—inviolable norms grounded in divine command.

The classical jurists identified specific protected categories: women, children, the elderly, clergy, and hired workers who don’t participate in fighting. Later scholars extended this protection to the sick, blind, incapacitated, farmers, traders, and craftsmen. The common thread? Anyone not actively engaged in combat.

As the classical jurist al-Rāzī explained: they must actually be “taking part in the fighting; anyone who is willing or prepared to fight cannot be described as a combatant, except in metaphor, until they enter into combat.”

This reasoning anticipates the modern legal concept of “direct participation in hostilities”—developed independently in Islamic law centuries earlier.

The Critical Point About Reciprocity

Here’s something crucial that gets lost in contemporary debates: Islamic humanitarian obligations are not based on reciprocity.

Al-Dawoody states it plainly: “The Islamic rules of war are binding regardless of whether or not the enemy respects them.”

This isn’t a tactical choice—it’s theological. Compliance with these rules is described in classical sources as “an act of worship which brings a Muslim soldier closer to God.” Enemy violations do not suspend Islamic obligations. Period.

This directly contradicts arguments that Israeli policies toward Palestinians justify retaliation against civilians. Whatever legitimate grievances exist about Israeli conduct, they cannot—according to classical Islamic jurisprudence—authorize attacks on non-combatants.

The Problem of Authority

Classical Islamic law also raises a fundamental question about who has the authority to declare jihād in the first place.

The classical jurists treated jihād as a state function—requiring authorization from a legitimate Muslim political authority such as a caliph, sultan, or established government. The Ḥanafī jurist al-Sarakhsī required that jihād be conducted under the authority of the Imām (political leader). Mālikī and Shāfi’ī authorities similarly emphasized governmental sanction.

Hamas, as a non-state armed group, lacks such authority. It governs Gaza through de facto control rather than recognized Islamic sovereignty. Without proper authorization, classical jurists would categorize armed action not as legitimate jihād, but as ḥirāba (brigandage) or fasād fī al-arḍ (corruption in the land).

This isn’t a technicality—it strikes at the heart of Hamas’s claim to religious legitimacy.

Evaluating October 7

Apply these classical standards to the October 7 attack, and the conclusions are unavoidable.

The attack killed approximately 1,200 people, the majority civilians. It resulted in the taking of over 240 hostages. The victims included women, children, the elderly, and foreign nationals at a music festival—persons falling squarely within classical protected categories.

Scholar Karima Bennoune’s analysis of classical sources establishes the consequence clearly: “if humanitarian precepts were violated during the alleged jihad, the conflict no longer qualified as permissible warfare because it was no longer Islamic.”

By this standard, the October 7 attack cannot qualify as legitimate jihād—regardless of Hamas’s stated justifications.

The mass hostage-taking compounds the problem. While classical jurists addressed prisoners captured in combat and required their humane treatment (per the Prophetic command to “observe good treatment towards the prisoners”), the deliberate seizure of civilians—including children and the elderly—for political leverage has no classical warrant.

What Muslim Scholars Have Actually Said

Hamas’s lack of endorsement from major Sunni institutions is telling.

Al-Azhar, the preeminent Sunni scholarly institution, issued statements following October 7 that, while expressing solidarity with Palestinian aspirations, did not endorse attacks on civilians. The Amman Message (2005), signed by over 500 prominent Muslim scholars worldwide, affirmed that “non-combatants are not legitimate targets” and that “the religion of a person in no way constitutes a cause for war.”

These aren’t marginal voices. They represent the mainstream of contemporary Islamic scholarship.

Al-Dawoody notes the significance: “The overwhelming consensus in current Islamic scholarship... is that jihad today must be bounded by law, not used as a blanket rationale for mass slaughter.”

The Manipulation of Religion

Karima Bennoune, a scholar of Muslim fundamentalism, offers a useful framework for understanding what’s happening. She defines Muslim fundamentalism as “an extreme-right movement that achieves political aims by manipulating religion, embracing absolutism, limiting women’s rights and other human rights, denouncing secularism and advocating the imposition of narrowly defined Sharia.”

Crucially, she documents that fundamentalist groups “actually perpetuate much more violence against Muslims than against Westerners”—challenging narratives that frame such violence primarily as civilizational conflict between Islam and the West.

Hamas fits this pattern. It invokes Islamic authority selectively—accepting texts that seem to support violence while ignoring the texts and traditions that constrain it. This selective approach, according to Bennoune, represents “political manipulation of religion rather than authentic Islamic practice.”

Her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here documents nearly 300 interviews with Muslims from 30 countries resisting fundamentalism. This widespread Muslim rejection of violence committed in Islam’s name represents, in her analysis, the authentic Islamic tradition that fundamentalist groups betray.

Why This Matters for Interfaith Understanding

For those of us engaged in Jewish-Muslim dialogue and interfaith work, this analysis matters deeply.

First, it matters for accuracy. We cannot build genuine understanding on the basis of a caricature—either of Islam as inherently violent or of Muslim criticism of Hamas as mere political positioning. The classical sources say what they say, and they’ve said it for over a millennium.

Second, it matters for solidarity. Muslims who condemn Hamas’s tactics aren’t selling out their tradition or their Palestinian brothers and sisters. They’re applying their tradition’s actual standards—standards that deserve respect precisely because they’re demanding.

Third, it matters for the future. Promoting peace and humanitarian norms in Muslim-majority contexts need not involve imposing “Western” values. It can mean reviving neglected aspects of Islamic tradition—a task that Muslims themselves are already engaged in.

The overwhelming consensus in contemporary Islamic scholarship is that jihād must be bounded by law and humanitarian constraint. Hamas’s actions represent not the fulfillment of Islamic justice but its violation.

Understanding this isn’t a favor to Muslims—it’s basic intellectual honesty. And it’s essential for the interfaith work that lies ahead.

Download the article to read more.

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This post draws on a scholarly article analyzing Hamas through classical Islamic jurisprudence, which engages extensively with the work of Ahmed Al-Dawoody, Karima Bennoune, and Nesrine Badawi.