Jihad and its real meaning

[qwerk]

How often have we heard that Jihad means an inner struggle? Well, it does mean that but what we don’t hear is it also means to war against the non-Muslims. I followed some other posts and one person even quoted directly from the Reliance of the Traveller the definition of JIhad. I will reprint it here, but would like to bring out some things about Jihad in the Quran and hadith.

Many of us, me included, think that it is mostly about violence and that the inner struggle is conveniently told to us to dissuade us from thinking that it is all about violence. 3% of the time that Jihad is mentioned does it talk about some sort of inner struggle. The rest of the time it is talked about as violence.

Jihad was Muhammad’s greatest invention. It made him successful. Jihad is a misunderstood word. Most Jihad is done with money and persuasion, not violence. It is Jihad that fills Washington DC with money.

Mostly Jihad is as we are experiencing it now in our Western lands which is a form of prostilytizing in Islam. It is all about deceit and propaganda. The form of Jihad that we are seeing is a masterful display of propaganda. I have never in my life seen such misinformation flow so smoothly about the Israeli situation and how well educated peoples would fall for it rather than the facts of the situation. Our country thinks we are in a military battle and while they are in foreign lands fighting those mujahadeen, the Jihadists are also in our own shores. Every Muslim is obliged to wage Jihad in dar al harb (our lands not under Sharia laws).

Islam is a complete civilization–a religion, a culture, a political system, a philosophy and a legal system. It is called a deen.

The Quran divides us up into two categories, those who believe in Allah and Muhammad and those who do not (unbelievers or kafir).

61% of the Quran talks about the kafir, and all of it is negative.
75% of the Sira (Mohammed’s biography) is about the kafirs.
Only the Hadith is primarily about Muslims with only 20% of Bukhari (the most authoritative) being about jihad (jihad is only practiced against kafirs).

According to their texts, Jihad is 3% inner struggle, the greater jihad, and 97% violence against the kafir, the lesser jihad.

And because of the duality of Islam due to abrogation, is why so many are confused about it and see in it what they want to see most of the time.

The next post is the definition of Jihad from the Reliance of the Traveller.

 

[qwerk]

From Umdat al-Salik, Englished as Reliance of the Traveller, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University in Cairo as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community”:

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad.
``We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.’’

The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as:

-1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you’’ (Koran 2:216);

-2- ``Slay them wherever you find them’’ (Koran 4:89);

-3- ``Fight the idolators utterly’’ (Koran 9:36);

and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

``I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah’’;

and the hadith reported by Muslim,

``To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.’'Details concerning jihad are found in the accounts of the military expeditions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including his own martial forays and those on which he dispatched others. The former consist of the ones he personally attended, some twenty-seven (others say twenty-nine) of them. He fought in eight of them, and killed only one person with his noble hand, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, at the battle of Uhud. On the latter expeditions he sent others to fight, himself remaining at Medina, and these were forty-seven in number.) …]

The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) -which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled” (Koran 9.29)

 

[dzheremi]

I would say that both meanings are correct, the violent one and the peaceful “struggle” one. I know that Jihad is actually a fairly popular personal name among Arab Christians, particularly in the Levant. Here is an article about it by a man named Jihad. He makes a good point about Jihad Saliba (Jihad “Cross”). It’s definitely NOT a Muslim name, and was until very recently used mostly by Christians.

It is a shame what Islamic terrorism has made of this word and concept in the minds of some people.

 

[qwerk]

I would say that both meanings are correct, the violent one and the peaceful “struggle” one. I know that Jihad is actually a fairly popular personal name among Arab Christians, particularly in the Levant. Here is an article about it by a man named Jihad. He makes a good point about Jihad Saliba (Jihad “Cross”). It’s definitely NOT a Muslim name, and was until very recently used mostly by Christians.

It is a shame what Islamic terrorism has made of this word and concept in the minds of some people.

That was a really interesting article. thanks.

The term Jihad is in their Sharia laws so even though it might not have been used as a name, it has been around for awhile. Those laws weren’t dreamed up yesterday.

I am also not talking about a person’s name, or any people when I bring this up. I am refering to Jihad in respects to Islam - the ideology.

And your article is good in that it makes us aware of names that we associate with an ideology might be used differently by different people.

Again, thanks for the article.

 

[dzheremi]

I know you’re not talking about personal names, but my point is that the peaceful meaning must also be there because obviously Christians would not name themselves after the Islamic religious war ideas that so decimated their communities.

 

[qwerk]

I know you’re not talking about personal names, but my point is that the peaceful meaning must also be there because obviously Christians would not name themselves after the Islamic religious war ideas that so decimated their communities.

Or else Muhammad might not have thought of it and included the peaceful part, I think you are absolutely correct. I say that there was a peaceful time, but it was abrogated.

Muhammad expanded the meaning of Jihad, or with so many thing in Islam he twisted its meaning. ‘To strive in the way of Allah’ - Muhammed twisted into a war. A war that they blame on those who reject Allah and him. It is our faults that they are caused to wage war. Muhammad twisted good and bad, he twisted the definition of sin, and he twisted a lot of things.

But I also included the part where it is with money and persuasion. Either way, whether it is with war or money and persuasion, the end game is the same for non-Muslims.

 

[qwerk]

Jihad from Islamic scholars themselves:

Majid Khadduri, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:

The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world…The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)

Don’t believe Khadduri? Very well. How about Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.

Don’t believe Nyazee, either? How about Iran’s Thug-In-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Of course, he is no Islamic scholar, but he is a devout Muslim, and he learned Islam not from greasy Islamophobes but from…Islamic scholars. And he has said: “Have no doubt… Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”

Don’t believe Ahmadinejad? How about a Shafi’i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo? It says that the leader of the Muslims **“makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax,” **and cites Koran 9:29 in support of this idea: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled.” ('Umdat al-Salik o9.8)

And do you really need a scholar to read it for yourself in the Reliance of the Traveller? No you don’t, I have it posted in post #2 on this thread. non-Muslims are not bound by the laws of Sharia, the Quran, or Muhammad’s idea that we should not question him.

We should question and we should criticize.

 

[elwill]

you made great effort to pick up quotes from some islamic books , but still all your sources are anti_islamic

its second hand writing

why you need anti_islamic site to quote for you what islamic sources teaches while we have in the internet allready the islamic sites itself to explore the teaching of islam from it

why these complex ways !!!

 

[qwerk]

you made great effort to pick up quotes from some islamic books , but still all your sources are anti_islamic

its second hand writing

why you need anti_islamic site to quote for you what islamic sources teaches while we have in the internet allready the islamic sites itself to explore the teaching of islam from it

why these complex ways !!!

Taqiyya is why I don’t go to what you consider an Islamic site.

complex? I guess reading it for oneself vs letting some Islamic scholar read it for us is complex? Maybe for you, but not for ones who know how to read and think and question.

Anti-Islamic? Is that because it doesn’t suit you right now? It is all very Islamic considering Sharia laws are based on the Quran and Sunnah.

Ironic that Muslims discount their own scholars but then tell us to go to another scholar or to a website that fits your agenda. I prefer to read it myself and I would hope that everyone would.

Maybe you should ask yourself why the need for deception? Why did Muhammad say it was ok to deceive others? Why did Muhammad say that his Allah dissolved oaths? Sort of makes all of the stuff that he told you guys on rather shakey ground since Allah can just dissolve what he told to you too.

Considering the teachings of Muhammad and Allah changed as their moods changed. And those Islamic scholars quoting Sharia laws are backed up by the Quran with these quotes embedded in the definition of Jihad:

(From Umdat al-Salik, Englished as Reliance of the Traveller, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University in Cairo as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community”)

-1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you’’ (Koran 2:216);

-2- ``Slay them wherever you find them’’ (Koran 4:89);

-3- ``Fight the idolators utterly’’ (Koran 9:36);

 

[elwill]

Taqiyya is why I don’t go to what you consider an Islamic site.

offcourse , good luck then with your sources

 

[sedonaman]

Taqiyya is why I don’t go to what you consider an Islamic site.

complex? I guess reading it for oneself vs letting some Islamic scholar read it for us is complex? Maybe for you, but not for ones who know how to read and think and question.

Anti-Islamic? Is that because it doesn’t suit you right now? It is all very Islamic considering Sharia laws are based on the Quran and Sunnah.

Ironic that Muslims discount their own scholars but then tell us to go to another scholar or to a website that fits your agenda. I prefer to read it myself and I would hope that everyone would.

Maybe you should ask yourself why the need for deception? Why did Muhammad say it was ok to deceive others? Why did Muhammad say that his Allah dissolved oaths? Sort of makes all of the stuff that he told you guys on rather shakey ground since Allah can just dissolve what he told to you too.

Considering the teachings of Muhammad and Allah changed as their moods changed. And those Islamic scholars quoting Sharia laws are backed up by the Quran with these quotes embedded in the definition of Jihad:

(From Umdat al-Salik, Englished as Reliance of the Traveller, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University in Cairo as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community”)

-1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you’’ (Koran 2:216);

-2- ``Slay them wherever you find them’’ (Koran 4:89);

-3- ``Fight the idolators utterly’’ (Koran 9:36);

Makes me ask why it is anti-Islamic to quote Islamic foundational texts.

 

[qwerk]

Makes me ask why it is anti-Islamic to quote Islamic foundational texts.

Who said that? A Muslim not wanting to defend it? Are they ashamed of what it says or just unable to practice taqiyya when faced with it?

 

[seraphime2008]

Perhaps the definition of bashing the religion according to muslim is to talk about some facts of their religion that they are not prepared to defend or they would rather put behind…sort of “just shut up” (in fact we’re ashamed of it)…

 

[elwill]

so your only conclusion is that i can’t defend ?

i think that my problem here is that you accusing teaching of islam which exist in sources where muslims never learning islam from it

i think that’s why their is a big gap in our discussions which make most of our discussions with you are about correcting the misunderstanding and the misconceptions rather than direct defence for our beliefs

 

[seraphime2008]

seems that dualism in Islam really makes muslim can have it both way…
it’s islamic dilemma that muslim cannot defend!

 

[qwerk]

so your only conclusion is that i can’t defend ?

i think that my problem here is that you accusing teaching of islam which exist in sources where muslims never learning islam from it

i think that’s why their is a big gap in our discussions which make most of our discussions with you are about correcting the misunderstanding and the misconceptions rather than direct defence for our beliefs

So we go by what your texts say, what your prophet was and what the laws say and then turn around and just expect to discuss with whatever is in the Muslim’s brain at the time? And that could be very little except a blind, fear-based, devotion to something not even you understand?

It sounds like you guys have some problems! That is the problem with not being able to question your own ideology or being told by Imams what you are supposed to believe in. That Imam could be good, bad, mediocre, or just plain stupid.