Selected resources on how Muslim scholars have reasoned about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The classical jurists never faced these technologies, but they argued at length about weapons that cannot discriminate — poison, fire, the mangonel — and that inheritance shapes the debate today, through principles such as the prohibition of corruption on the earth (fasād fī al-arḍ) and the preservation of life and progeny. Scholars have reached different conclusions on deterrence. Primarily in English, with French-language material.
Academic Works (Books, Monographs, Essays, Reports)
1. Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee, eds., Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ethics-and-weapons-of-mass-destruction/9E09F8BE3443F8F2D2D50E8A6B564242
The foundational collection on religious ethics and weapons of mass destruction, covering nuclear, chemical and biological arms across eleven ethical traditions. Two chapters are essential here: Sohail Hashmi’s argument for non-proliferation, which reasons from the Qur’an and Sunnah through the prohibition of indiscriminate destruction (itlāf), non-combatant immunity and environmental protection; and John Kelsay’s “‘Do Not Violate the Limit’”, which examines the constraints the tradition places on the means of warfare. Nearly every later contribution engages with these two essays. Readers wanting Kelsay’s fuller treatment should follow up with his Arguing the Just War in Islam (Harvard, 2007).
2. Ahmed Al-Dawoody, The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230118089
Companion ICRC report (English and French) : shop.icrc.org/ihl-and-islamic-law-in-contemporary-armed-conflicts-experts-workshop-geneva-29-30-october-2018-pdf-en.html
The standard scholarly account of when Islamic law permits war and how it must be fought, by the ICRC’s Legal Adviser for Islamic Law, who trained and taught at Al-Azhar before completing doctoral work at Birmingham. It sets out the classical jurists’ rulings on the means and methods of warfare – the prohibition of poison and of poisoning wells, the debates on flaming projectiles and siege engines, and the doctrines of tatarrus (human shields) and night raids – and reviews contemporary Muslim positions for and against these weapons. This is the jurisprudential groundwork on which any Islamic assessment rests. The companion ICRC report, available in both English and French, extends the discussion to contemporary conflicts.
3. Fajri Matahati Muhammadin, “Islam, Jihad, and the Fiqh of Weapons of Mass Destruction”, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 2026. (Open access) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2026.2687948
The most current survey of the intra-Muslim debate, and freely available. Muhammadin divides contemporary scholars into those who prohibit these weapons categorically and those who permit conditional use under extreme necessity, grounding both positions in Qur’anic verses, hadith and maxims such as the rule that necessity permits the prohibited. He also argues that Islamic law and international humanitarian law approach the question from structurally different standpoints: international law speaks as a third party seeking to humanise a war it is not fighting, while jurisprudence addresses a party within it. Good starting point for understanding where the debate now stands.
4. (Fr) Dār al-Iftā’ al-Miṣriyya (Grand Mufti ‘Alī Jum‘a), « Armes de destruction massive dirigées contre des pays non musulmans », fatwa no. 2533, 28 May 2009. https://www.dar-alifta.org/fr/fatwa/details/2533/armes-de-destruction-massive-dirigees-contre-des-pays-non-musulmans
Une source primaire de premier ordre, accessible en français. Émise par l’institution officielle égyptienne de la fatwa, sous l’autorité du Grand Mufti, elle répond directement aux groupes qui prétendent justifier l’usage de ces armes contre des pays non musulmans par analogie avec les cas classiques du bouclier humain (tatarrus), de la razzia nocturne (tabyīt) et de l’incendie (taḥrīq). Le texte distingue la possession à des fins de dissuasion de l’usage offensif et établit que le recours à des armes qui exterminent indistinctement les hommes, les animaux et les milieux constitue une agression contraire à la sharīʿa. Un exemple rare de raisonnement juridique institutionnel portant précisément sur les analogies invoquées par les extrémistes.
5. Sasan Aghlani, “From the Mangonel to Mustard Gas: Weapons Capable of Mass Destruction in Islam”, Theos Think Tank, 2018. https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2018/08/24/from-the-mangonel-to-mustard-gas-weapons-capable-of-mass-destruction-in-islam
A short, accessible and conceptually sharp essay by a specialist on Islam and Iranian nuclear policy. Aghlani shows that Muslim jurists debated indiscriminate weapons across the centuries, from ‘Greek fire’ and the mangonel to chemical and nuclear arms, and asks how and why rulings arise, endure or change under conditions of necessity. He also argues that “weapons capable of mass destruction” is a more coherent ethical category than the modern policy term, since what troubles the tradition is indiscriminate harm and lasting damage to land and life rather than the technology involved.
6. (Fr) Emmanuelle Maître, « Moralité de la dissuasion : perspectives religieuses », Recherches & Documents no. 04/2016, Paris: Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, 2016. https://www.frstrategie.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/recherches-et-documents/2016/201604.pdf
La principale étude francophone sur ce thème, qui comporte une section substantielle consacrée à l’islam. Maître distingue trois positions musulmanes : une légitimité conditionnelle de la dissuasion, assortie de règles strictes ; un rejet catégorique, fondé sur l’incapacité de ces armes à distinguer les combattants des non-combattants ; et la revendication djihadiste d’un devoir religieux de les acquérir. Elle montre également que plusieurs clercs iraniens occupant des fonctions officielles ont émis des avis autorisant ces armes au nom de la nécessité ou de l’intérêt public, et analyse un paradoxe central : la religion pèse davantage dans certains États à majorité musulmane que presque partout ailleurs, alors qu’aucune voix unique n’est habilitée à parler au nom de l’islam.
7. Ayatollah Al-Milani and Imam Hussain, in conversation with Chris Hewer, “Muslim Voices: What Scholars Say – Muslim Beliefs about Weapons of Mass Destruction”, NATRE, transcript. https://natre.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pp.-12-15-What-scholars-say-full-transcript_1.pdf
A transcript of interviews with a Shī‘ī and a Sunni scholar addressing this question directly, in plain language and at length. Al-Milani grounds prohibition in the classical ethics of warfare – the exclusion of poisons and chemical agents, the protection of the elderly, children and women, and the rule against pursuing those who flee. Imam Hussain reasons instead from maqāṣid, holding that preservation of life is the first objective of Islamic law and that weapons which cannot distinguish combatants from non-combatants fall outside the conditions attached to legitimate fighting. One of very few resources in which practising scholars rather than academic analysts speak to the subject.
8. Toby Ord, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, London: Bloomsbury, 2020. (General foundational work – not Islam-specific) https://theprecipice.com/
Included for essential background as the leading accessible treatment of existential risk as a category, and because it situates these weapons within that frame rather than treating them as a discrete security problem. Ord assesses nuclear war and engineered pandemics alongside artificial intelligence and climate change, assigning each an estimated probability, and judges engineered pandemics the greater risk.
Multimedia (Lectures, Conferences – Video/Podcast)
9. Ahmed Al-Dawoody, The Islamic Laws of War with Dr Ahmed Al-Dawoody, filmed conversation, 2024.
Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpaTvrAptqQ
A filmed conversation in which the ICRC’s adviser on Islamic law sets out the framework governing the conduct of hostilities – who and what may not be targeted, and the limits placed on the means and methods of warfare. The most accessible entry point available into the tradition from which Muslim assessments of mass-destructive weapons proceed. Suitable for general audiences or classroom use, and a useful companion to his book listed above for readers who would rather begin with a conversation than a monograph.
10. Ahmed Al-Dawoody, Islamic Laws of War, podcast, Research Unit on Military Law and Ethics (RUMLAE), Adelaide Law School.
An episode introducing the Islamic legal principles that protect civilian persons, property and the natural environment during armed conflict. Of particular interest for this project, Al-Dawoody argues that international humanitarian law is widely perceived as Eurocentric, that this perception directly undermines compliance, and that serious engagement with the Islamic tradition is therefore a practical necessity rather than a diplomatic courtesy.
