The criticisms that the Qur’an promotes violence is wrong.
In the following excerpt from Life of Muhammad, the biography by Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmood Ahmadra, we see that a detailed examination of the verses in the Holy Qur’an regarding warfare, show the lengths to which Muslims are exhorted to pursue peace when at all possible.
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Islam does not teach aggression as did Mosesas. Nor does it, like present-day (and presumably corrupt) Christianity, preach a contradiction. It does not ask us to turn the other cheek and at the same time to sell our clothes to buy a sword. The teaching of Islam fits into the natural instincts of man, and promotes peace in the only possible way.
Islam forbids aggression, but it urges us to fight if failure to fight jeopardizes peace and promotes war. If failure to fight means the extirpation of free belief and of the search of truth, it is our duty to fight. This is the teaching on which peace can ultimately be built, and this is the teaching on which the Prophetsa based his own policies and his practice. The Prophetsa suffered continuously and consistently at Makkah but did not fight the aggression of which he was an innocent victim. When he escaped to Madinah, the enemy was out to extirpate Islam; it was, therefore, necessary to fight the enemy in defence of truth and freedom of belief. We quote below the passages in the Qur’an which bear on the subject of war.
(1) In 22:40–42 we have:
Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made, because they have been wronged—and Allah indeed has power to help them—Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly only because they said, “Our Lord is Allah”—And if Allah did not repel some men by means of others, there would surely have been pulled down cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques, wherein the name of Allah is oft commemorated. And Allah will surely help one who helps Him. Allah is indeed Powerful, Mighty—Those who, if We establish them in the earth, will observe Prayer and pay the Zakat and enjoin good and forbid evil. And with Allah rests the final issue of all affairs.
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Some people also claim the Jizya is extortion, but that is false because it is actually identical to the tithing all Moslems also pay in at the Mosque. It is no more or less.
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