Note 321 — ALL THE WARS OF MOHAMMAD WERE DEFENSIVE. (continued 3)

Sir W. Muir, with other European translators of the Koran, translates the word "they shall profess Islam" (The Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 39, footnote). It ought to be translated "they shall submit." There is a difference of opinion among the commentators and canonical legists in this word. Some translate the word Yoslemoon "shall profess Islam," and others "shall submit." This difference in the interpretation of the same word is merely of a sectarian nature, each party wishing to serve their own purpose. Those legists who held that the polytheists and idolaters may either be fought against or be submitted to the authority of Islam by being tributaries, took the word in its proper sense of submission. Those who held that "the people of the Book" ought only to be made tributaries, while all other idolaters and polytheists should be compelled either to perish or to embrace Islam, interpret the word technically to mean the religion of Islam. But as the verse is not a legal command, we condemn at once the casuistic sophistry of the legists.