On Informed Comment, University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole outlines what he believes to be the “top ten” ways in which Islamic law forbids terrorism, from murder being “strictly forbidden in the Qur’an” to slightly less obvious reasons such as a ban against “sneak attacks.” He cites islawmix expert Sherman Jackson:
6. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an (Surah al-Ma’ida 5:33–34). Prominent [pdf] Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/ 1070)) defines the agent of hiraba as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah . . .”
Truthdig also posts it here.
