In the classical Islamic jurisprudence the Jihad is defined as ‘to expend one's life, wealth, and words in the war or the defence against infidels’. But after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate, the political situations of the Islamic world drastically changed, which called various responses among Muslim intellectuals. Faraj, the ideologue of the Egyptian ‘Jihad’ group demonstrates that contemporary rulers apostatize from Islam because they do not rule according to the shari'a. So it turns to be individual obligation for Muslims to go jihad against the apostate rulers, for the jihad against apostates is to precede that against native infidels and the near enemy is more dangerous than the distant. But the jihad against the rulers has now no hope to succeed, so Shaikh 'Abdulgadir, a member of the ‘Jihad’, argues that the military training for the jihad is incumbent on every sane adult Muslim who has the necessary equipments and that Muslims should elect a qualified commander by lack of the caliph.
Dr. 'Umar 'Abdurrahman, the mentor of the ‘Jama'a Isldmiya’, who classifies the rulers of the Muslim states into six categories, distinguishes the contemporary ruler from the traditional types of rulers and coins the word mustabdil for that. He concludes that the mustabdil is infidel and consequently has no legitimacy to rule and that Muslims must rise against him. Abu Ithar, Dr. 'Umar's disciple refines the conception of mustabdil and proves that the war against a mustabdil is not the rebellion which is one of the hudud crimes, but Muslim's duty.
Thus the fight against evil rulers is justified both in the framework of the jihad theory by Faraj and 'Abdulgadir, and in the discussion about the legitimacy of the caliph by Dr.' Umar and Abu Ithar.
The ‘revolutionary jihad theories’ radically differ from the classical theory of the jihad and the caliphate. In the classical Islamic jurisprudence the jihad is defined as the war against infidels and strictly separated from the notion of apostasy which is one of the hudud crimes. The caliphate theory is inserted in the chapter of the rebellion in the Islamic jurisprudence, so that it serves mainly for the justification of the temporal ruler and excludes the possibility of discussing the caliph's apostasy.
