With the start of Ramadan, millions of Muslims around the world begin a month of introspection, worship, service and renewed commitment to community. But we should not overlook another aspect of Ramadan that has been a tradition through the ages — the holy month as a time for war.
This has special relevance this year, when so many well-meaning observers will call on Israel to suspend its military operations against the Islamist extremists of Hamas, who — of all segments of Palestinian society — will appreciate the history of Muslim armies waging war during Ramadan and the irony of asking non-Muslim combatants to respect some sort of “Ramadan truce.”
The 1973 Arab-Israeli war may be known to Jews as the Yom Kippur War, but it is widely known in the Arab world as “Harb Ramadan” — the Ramadan War — given that Anwar Sadat dispatched Egyptian forces to cross the Suez Canal during the holy month. But it is only a relatively recent example of Arab or Muslim armies waging war during this month.
The Saudi newspaper Arab News provided a helpful primer on the topic in 2014: “While much literature has been written on Islamic conquests focusing on strategy, many victories occurred during Ramadan due to the focus of the Ummah on Allah Almighty and this removed fear from the hearts of the Muslims. This is why some of the greatest victories in Islam occurred during Ramadan …”
Starting with the seminal battle of Badr in Year 2 on the Islamic hijri calendar, corresponding to the year 624 A.D., the list of historic victories in Ramadan cited in this article includes “the conquest of Makkah (8 Hijri), the conquest of Rhodes (53 Hijri), the successful landing of Muslims on the coast of Spain (91 Hijri), the victory by Tarik Ibn Zayed against the King of Spain (92 Hijri), the victory of Salahuddin against invading crusaders (584 Hijri), and Mamluk’s victory versus invading Tatars in the battle of Ain Jiloot (650 Hijri).”
More recently, take a look at the bloodthirsty Ramadan record of the Islamic State. As a Washington Post reporter noted, a spokesman for the terrorist group exhorted followers in 2016 “to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers” — and indeed they did, with gruesome Ramadan attacks against civilians from Kuwait to Syria to France to a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
And, as my Washington Institute colleague Patrick Clawson pointed out in 2004, naive non-Muslim governments have been disappointed when they appealed to their Muslim foes for ceasefires during Ramadan: “Modern proposals for Ramadan ceasefires by secular governments — the Soviets in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein when fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran — were uniformly rejected by the Islamist side, which usually intensified fighting during Ramadan.”
Again, none of this is to diminish the reverence that millions of Muslims have for the holiness of this month, their commitment to solemn prayer and, when the evening break-fast comes, family and communal festivity. But Hamas is far more in the ISIS mold than those millions of peaceful worshippers.
For Hamas and their fellow travelers, waging war during Ramadan — including sacrificing fellow Muslims as pawns in the fight against Israel, inciting tensions at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque to trigger violence at that holy site and launching terrorist attacks against civilians — are all acceptable military tactics, as valid during Ramadan as they are the other months of the year.
If the U.S. negotiates a “temporary ceasefire” in which Hamas commits to release hostages and stop shielding its gunmen behind innocent women and children, that would be a worthy achievement. But the American government should not fall for well-meaning calls to urge Israel to display one-sided military restraint — or, even worse, suspend military operations against Hamas — out of deference to Ramadan.
Of one thing we can be sure — Hamas (or what’s left of it) won’t be devoting the next month to introspection, service and worship. Quite the contrary.
Robert Satloff is Segal executive director of the Washington Institute.