Modern humanitarian law considers starvation sieges targeting civilians a war crime. Yet many historical narratives treat famous sieges of entire settlements and cities as heroic events to be celebrated. How can the same act occupy two opposite moral categories?
I grew up studying in an Islamic school system in Lebanon. Like many students in such religious schools, we learned the sīra, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, including the early interreligious conflicts of the first Muslim community. Raids, battles, and sieges were part of those stories.
These events were taught not only as history but as morally justified actions carried out by a prophetic figure who represents the highest moral example in Islam. Hence, what I encountered was not simply a historical lesson. It was a particular governance of knowledge: some frameworks were taught as moral precedent, while others, such as modern humanitarian law, were almost entirely absent.
A War Crime I Didn’t Recognize
During the Syrian civil war, the siege of Madaya shocked many. Civilians were trapped in a town surrounded by armed forces, food was cut off, and images of starvation circulated globally.
Under modern law, starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited. The Geneva Conventions of 1949, and especially the Additional Protocols adopted in 1977, explicitly forbid using starvation against civilian populations and prohibit attacking objects indispensable to their survival (e.g., food supplies, crops, water systems). To be clear, modern international humanitarian law does not prohibit sieges themselves, but it does prohibit the deliberate starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
Yet after I had encountered the news about Madaya, I eventually noticed something uncomfortable: my mind did not immediately register siege warfare targeting civilians itself as inherently illegitimate. Why? Because the moral framework I had been given came from 7th-century warfare narratives, not from 20th-century humanitarian law. After all, the Prophet himself is thought to have led a siege and permitted similar attacks.
The Questions That Followed
That realization led me to a question I still struggle with. Regardless of historic validity, in early Islamic historical narrative there is an episode where Prophet Muhammad ordered the cutting and burning of date palms belonging to the Banu Nadir tribe. There is also another episode where the Prophet himself led the 20 to 30-day siege of Khaybar. In the context of religious education, these two acts are presented as justified within the struggle to establish and expand early Muslim community. And it goes without question that I am not suggesting these two acts were war crimes as there is “no crime without law.”
Further, by entertaining these two examples, I am not nitpicking on Islam. Starvation sieges were basically standard doctrine until very recently. Most, if not all, expantionist civilizations applied them. This spans the Roman siege of Carthage, Mongol and Crusader sieges, and in modern times, for example, the siege of Leningrad. What I am examining is how societies selectively update their moral frameworks while leaving their historical narratives untouched.
Now imagine something else. Imagine that in a hypothetical war in 2026, the United States bombs water desalination plants in Iran, all 75 currently operational units, destroying infrastructure essential for civilian survival.
Under modern humanitarian law, that would almost certainly be treated as a grave violation. The 1977 Additional Protocol I (Article 54) specifically prohibits attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, including water installations and food supplies.
So the question becomes unavoidable:
What exactly is the difference between those two sets of acts, especially when the 7th century ones are presented as exemplary for all times that follow? Is something wrong because of its consequences, or because of who did it?
The Problem of a Closed Moral Curriculum
The deeper issue is not simply the historical events themselves. Every society teaches its foundational history, perhaps a bit too much. The problem appears when the curriculum becomes closed. Students, like myself some 25 years ago, are taught historical conflicts as moral precedents, while only minimally introduced to later ethical frameworks that might evaluate those same actions differently. And when both frameworks coexist, they don’t occupy the same subject or the same school year. In my case, the brief mentions of human rights happened in civics class, while the episodes of the sīra and later Muslim conquests and expansionism occupied both history class and religion. Hence, the two frameworks, even if taught, they were taught asymmetrically, while being spatially and temporally separated. They both exist in the curriculum but never interact cognitively. And thus, the comparison between the historical narrative and the modern ethical framework is itself semiotically deactivated.
When that happens:
- the moral reference point remains anchored in the past
- the centuries between then and now become irrelevant
- the narrative stays polished and unquestioned because it is never compared to anything else
- the acts some of us now may deem unethical or illegal could, for multiple causes that include this one, be encouraged by others and celebrated (e.g., BBC Arabic, 2016).
Why This Matters
The Geneva Conventions were not written in the 7th century. They emerged in the aftermath of industrial warfare in the 20th century, when the international community tried, irrespective of how imperfectly, to impose limits on practices that had been common for centuries: starvation sieges, collective punishment, attacks on civilian infrastructure.
These recent norms, however, only shape moral intuition if people actually learn them; otherwise, the only moral framework available remains the one inherited from earlier narratives, regardless of their historicity. And when modern conflicts occur, and when atrocities are inflicted, the judgment people make may depend less on the consequences of the act and more, or only, on the identity of the actor.
References
- BBC Arabic. (2016, January 9). نشطاء يطلقون حملة “مضايا تموت جوعاً” على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي [Activists launch “Madaya is starving” campaign on social media]. https://www.bbc.com/arabic/blogs/2016/01/160109_social_media_9_1_15
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