Download PDF | Margo Kitts - The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War-Cambridge University Press (2023).
499 Pages
the cambridge companion to RELIGION AND WAR
This Companion offers a global, comparative history of the interplay between religion and war from ancient times to the present. Moving beyond sensationalist theories that seek to explain why “religion causes war,” the volume takes a thoughtful look at the connection between religion and war through a variety of lenses – historical, literary, and sociological – as well as the particular features of religious war. The twenty-three carefully nuanced and historically grounded chapters comprehensively examine the religious foundations for war, classical just war doctrines, sociological accounts of religious nationalism, and featured conflicts that illustrate interdisciplinary expressions of the intertwining of religion and war. Written by a distinguished, international team of scholars, whose essays were specially commissioned for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of the history and sociology of religion and war, as well as other disciplines.
Margo Kitts is Professor and Coordinator of Religious Studies and East– West Classical Studies at Hawai’i Pacific University. She is the author and editor of ten books, most recently Sacrifice: Themes, Theories, and Controversies and Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice and Self-Immolation: Religious Perspectives on Suicide.
Preface
It would be an understatement to call the completion of this volume a struggle. It was a struggle not only because its chapters were planned and written during the COVID pandemic but also because two of the prospective contributors died, although of nonpandemic causes. Aside from forcing us all to contemplate our own frailty, these deaths threw a wrench into scheduling, both temporally and with regard to the topics covered. While the volume could be vastly expanded were we to take into consideration religion and war in less traditional contexts, nonetheless this remains an outstanding compilation, although somewhat traditional in scope. The twenty-three chapters included herein should offer scholars and students valuable insights into the union of religion and war under four rubrics: classical foundations, just war, religious nationalism, and featured conflicts.
Introduction:
Exploring Religion and War margo kitts The association of religion with war is as old as our earliest writings from China (Yates 2003) and the Near East (Ballentine 2015) and continues to find expression in contemporary discourse. Despite myriad laments about this association, it is indisputable that religious rhetoric has supported military aims across geographies and historical eras. While there is arguably a propagandistic dimension to some of this rhetoric, there is no good reason to suppose that warriors on the ground have been indifferent to it.
For instance, it is well-known that some Christian crusaders were inspired by portents, dreams, prophecies (Housely 2008; Gaposchkin 2017) and by devotional songs (Riley-Smith 1997), and that the same have inspired passionate millennial groups in the USA and abroad (Graziano 1999; Filiu 2011; Barkun 2013; Hegghammer 2017). Even for seemingly secular wars, just war principles rooted at least in part in religious thinking (e.g., Gratian, Aquinas) seep into war’s justifications, as do inspirational fighting models based on religious legends (e.g., David, Huseyn, Arjuna). However secular the aims of military leaders today, no astute historian can deny that religion has played a role in shaping the way war has been imagined for centuries. It still does so, as we see in today’s strident religious nationalisms.
In short, the subject matters. This volume explores the link of religion with war under four rubrics: classical foundations; just war; religious nationalism; and featured conflicts. Part I on classical foundations, consisting of eight chapters, investigates war as conceived at the origins of eight major religious traditions. Part II addresses just war theories as lodged in religious thinking, and Part III treats various expressions of religious nationalism, a subject with special relevance to contemporary times. Part IV features conflicts that illustrate interdisciplinary approaches to religion and war, touching on rituals, poems, piety, fierce goddesses, messianic rebellions and autonomous fighting groups thriving outside the margins of the Mughal state. This essay introduces the four parts and then summarizes each chapter.
classical foundations While definitions of religion will be endlessly debated, that religion does bear on classical wars and literature about wars may be ascertained in part by art and in part by the attribution of extraordinary passions to warriors. Beyond vivid renderings of military triumph overseen by gods (Bahrani 2008) and poetic visions of gods leading battles (Kitts 2013, 2017), we have ancient reports ascribing a conspicuous religious enthusiasm to the fight, as if to elevate the fighting register. We see this, for instance, in zeal for the holy land, in righteous indignation about perceived wrongs and in devotional performances on the battlefield, all of which conceivably endow battles with the transcendent mantle of “cosmic war,” as Mark Juergensmeyer has applied the term to certain terroristic impulses (2016). Rituals, both individual and communal, might confer some of this religious enthusiasm (Kitts 2010, 2018, 2022 and Chapters 19 and 20).
On an individual level, bodily purifying, swearing oaths, praying and anointing weapons historically have sanctified warriors before battle, whereas communal rituals, such as marching in formation, singing, waving standards and cursing enemies have been thought to strengthen solidarity (Von Rad 1991 [1958]; Riley-Smith 1997; Hassner 2016; Gaposchkin 2017; Chapter 17). Postwar commemorations, such as passion plays, poetry, dance, art and pilgrimages, can add to the religious fervor, particularly when these celebrate victors or lionize the fallen (Sells 2003; Chapters 6 and 20). A further influence might be legends of betrayal and of the ethical dilemmas of heroes, which surely too disturb and engage audiences (Chapters 4 and 12). It would seem impossible to grasp war in religious imagination without studying these very human experiences.
At the same time, war as conceived in religious imagination can enjoy an obvious freedom from human experiences, or at least be not entirely tethered to them. Some of our earliest Near Eastern narratives, for instance, herald heavenly wars culminating in the imposition of order over chaos: Sky gods subduing riotous waters is a popular theme (Collins 2003, 2007; Fishbane 2004; Wyatt 2005; Schwemer 2007, 2008; Kitts 2013, 2017). While these violent encounters set in illo tempore may have signaled a feeling of relief for some audiences, others arguably were thrilled by them, as we can ascertain from reportedly regular oral performances of the Babylonian Enuma Elish and as we see on Mesopotamian cylinder seals depicting fantastic deicides, raging monsters and god-on-monster combat.1
A certain glee in myths that violently impose order might be inferred too by the astonishing number of eschatological expectations in world religions, although such expectations are not only triumphal but can be mired in cataclysmic predictions and/or messianic hopes (see Chapters 1, 2 and 15). A diversity of aims for such narratives thus must be acknowledged, including aims to entertain as well as to comfort. Narratives of religious war can be fantastic but also sentimental. Many religious war tales are set within cosmic schemes that emphasize mysterious forces at work in history and worldly conditions that have gone somehow awry.
It is not uncommon for scriptures and classical epics to bemoan a pattern of fallen ages and to express a certain tristesse (e.g., the Heike Monogatari, the Mahabharata), qualities that make them universally appreciable and poetic. On the fantastic side, and especially within the epic genre, an effort to remediate chaos and suppress sinister foes may occasion the harnessing of supernatural weapons and godlike powers (Arjuna and his Gandiva bow come to mind). Despite the glamor to such tales, there is also a restorative theme. For instance, one Buddhist just war doctrine is rooted in the need to redeem an a-dhammic world through samsaric militarism until worldly dhamma is restored and people begin to behave morally (Frydenlund 2017). This example highlights the intersection of cosmic and human themes.
just war As already implied, if there is a religious urge to correct worldly instabilities, it is not only poetic. We see real-time implications in just war theories that strive to clarify the conditions and modes of justified military conduct. Just war theory has roots in the earliest centuries of virtually all the religious traditions treated herein. European just war theory stems actually from pre-Christian times (e.g., Cicero) and is still compelling in principle. However ancient, concerns for jus in bello, or the regulation of how warriors actually fight, are integrated into the Geneva Conventions, and violation of those rules today provokes feelings of outrage based on a presumed fairness whose religious roots are rarely contemplated (but see Chapters 9 and 10). In fact, there are evolutions and historical contingencies to all just war theories. For instance, in the eleventh century Maimonides reinforced the prescriptions for biblically commanded war (Deuteronomy 20:16–18) and at the same time softened those for optional war (Deuteronomy 20:10–12), at a time when a war led by Jews had become virtually inconceivable. He famously engaged with Greek and Islamic notions as well as biblical ones (see Chapter 9).
In Islamic traditions, although ideals of right conduct on the battlefield are laid out in the Qur’an, Islamic thinking on fighting evolved and adapted first when Islam expanded out from the Arabian Peninsula in contact with the multicultural empires surrounding it, and then later when it brushed up against European ideals (see Cook 2012; Chapter 11). Some contemporary dichotomies that we see in extremist thinking, such as the tension between Dar al Harb (abode of war) and Dar al Islam (abode of peace), appear to be adapted notions (Hashmi and Johnson 2012), and they diverge from the ideals of defensive war advocated in the earliest Quranic verses (Afsaruddin 2012; Chapter 3). As for Asian traditions, some just war notions are embedded in literary classics. Indian ideals are exceedingly old and vary from text to text, but the epic poem the Mahabharata famously crystallizes religious rationalizations for war and right conduct on the battlefield (see Chapters 4 and 12).
Karmayoga and rajadharma are some of the rubrics under which the ethics of fighting are explored, but there are also deeper themes, such as the imagined conflation of killing in war with killing in ritual sacrifice (Heesterman 1993; Johnson 1998; Brekke 2005; Chapter 4). As for Buddhism, the world’s many Buddhist traditions do not universally reject the doctrine of just war, although they have come to terms with war in their own disparate ways (see Chapters 5, 7, 8, 13 and 18). Some just war doctrines, as represented above, are driven by a restorative theme, but others are symbolically ferocious, as we see in Buddhist tantric texts and spectacular rites designed to invoke protective deities and to shield warriors by defensive magic (Sinclair 2014). Even the most pacifistic of Buddhist doctrines is compelled to address the bloody aftermath of war, and consequently theories jus post bellum have resonated with some Buddhists (Chapter 13).
religious nationalism It may seem strange that as all of us become more globally connected in our economies and social interactions there has emerged a number of fervent religious nationalisms that seem to differ in sensibility from the old allegiances to nation-states. Whereas nation-states were once seen as guaranteeing individual liberties and freedom from constraint (per Hobbes, Hume and others; Gorski 2010), at least in the West, now in many parts of the world religious identities seem to be overwhelming national identities (Lahr 2007; Eisen 2011; Gorski and Perry 2022; Chapters 14–18). Arguably, religious fervor is not a new feature of politics, and nor, for that matter, are reports of theophanic battles led by marching gods and goddesses who rally warriors (Kitts 2013) and cradle their favorites in death (Chapter 21). Yet the merging of national and religious identities has become conspicuous today, in some cases built on foundational religious legends whose contemporary reconstructions are historically dubious. In many cases, religious nationalism is forged by conflict, such as by the flaring of antagonisms over contested religious sites (Sells 2003; Jaffrelot 2007; Hassner 2012). Collective rituals, such as pilgrimages, songs, dramatizations and also riots, tend to anchor these sites in public imagination (Van der Veer 1996; Chapter 17). Of course, many factors – economic, political, situational – can inflame religious nationalism (Juergensmeyer 2008).
featured conflicts The point of Part IV is to offer a sampling of analyses of historical conflicts that cannot be understood well without consideration of religious imagination. Part IV therefore supports the aim of the entire volume through illustrations. Hence, Chapter 19 addresses the significance of liturgy and ritual for creating the mentality of earliest Christian crusaders. Chapter 20 explores how the pursuit of piety was understood to sanctify warriors before battle, as reconstructed from Islamic military history. Chapter 21 investigates the multilayered worship of Durga and Kali, Indian goddesses associated with destruction and protection, in various guises (also see Chapters 4 and 12). Chapter 22 highlights the messianic hopes of the astonishingly destructive Taiping Rebellion. Chapter 23 focuses on autonomous martial communities, violence and the state in early modern South Asia. All five chapters are authored by stellar scholars who can validate the premise of the volume, which is that religious imagination has infused and shaped the mentalities of warriors in diverse historical settings. Following are brief summaries of each chapter.
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