jihad = warfare with spiritual significance

[Maranatha]

…
Muhammad’s conquests: During his years in power, the prophet engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year, or one every five to six weeks; thus did jihad help define Islam from its very dawn. Conquering non-Muslims was a main feature of the prophet’s jihad.

The Arab conquests and after: During the first several centuries of Islam, “the interpretation of jihad was unabashedly aggressive and expansive.” After the conquests subsided, non-Muslims hardly threatened and Sufi notions of jihad as self-improvement developed in complement to the martial meaning.
…
Cook’s erudite and timely study has many implications:

*The current understanding of jihad is more extreme than at any prior time in Islamic history.

*This extremism suggests that the Muslim world is going through a phase, one that must be endured and overcome, comparable to analogously horrid periods in Germany, Russia, and China.

*Jihad having evolved steadily until now, doubtless will continue to do so in the future.

*The excessive form of jihad currently practiced by al-Qaida and others could, Cook says, lead to its “decisive rejection” by a majority of Muslims. Jihad then could turn into a non-violent concept. The great challenge for moderate Muslims (and their non-Muslim allies) is to make that rejection come about, and with due haste.​

Full Article

 

[Munawar]

Maranatha:

…
Muhammad’s conquests: During his years in power, the prophet engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year, or one every five to six weeks; thus did jihad help define Islam from its very dawn. Conquering non-Muslims was a main feature of the prophet’s jihad.

Hello Maranatha,

How are you doing? We meet again on another forum

The article you listed has completly missed the mark.

Not ONE of the military campaigns of the Prophet, during his entire life was ever on the offensive. Quite the contrary - the Prophet only fought those people who were attempting to destroy the Muslims.

The greatest of these were the Pagans of Mecca, whose goal was the complete eradication of Islam in its early stages. They killed, tortured, sanctioned and hurt the Muslims at ever turn. It was they, that the Prophet fought in the beginning. Who attacked the Muslims first?

Munawar

 

[scylla]

So does Islam teach that it is ok to kill people, not to turn the other cheek so to speak? Does Islam condone war?

When the Christians were oppressed in pagan Rome did they die as martyrs or did they kill in retaliation until they were accepted?

My friend has the Quran and I will see if I can borrow it to look into this, if you can provide some quotes from the Quran regarding how we should treat each other.

God Bless
Scylla

 

[bengeorge]

Munawar:

Not ONE of the military campaigns of the Prophet, during his entire life was ever on the offensive. Quite the contrary - the Prophet only fought those people who were attempting to destroy the Muslims.

Sorry Munawar, that’s simply untrue.

The pagans of Mecca, yes. Sorta.

But what about all the other people of the Saudi Arabia penninsula?

And after Mohammed’s life, what about:

The Othodox of Syria.
The Orthodox and the Jews of Israel.
The Orthodox of Anatolia (Turkey)
The Orthodox of Greece (Crete)
The Orthodox of Cypress
The Hindus of India
The Zoroastrians of Persia
The Berbers of North Africa?
The Catholics of Spain?

And that’s just before the 8th century.

 

[Franze]

bengeorge:

Sorry Munawar, that’s simply untrue.

The pagans of Mecca, yes. Sorta.

But what about all the other people of the Saudi Arabia penninsula?

And after Mohammed’s life, what about:

The Othodox of Syria.
The Orthodox and the Jews of Israel.
The Orthodox of Anatolia (Turkey)
The Orthodox of Greece (Crete)
The Orthodox of Cypress
The Hindus of India
The Zoroastrians of Persia
The Berbers of North Africa?
The Catholics of Spain?

And that’s just before the 8th century.

Bengeorge, we´ll see how Munawar answers this.

 

[Shenango]

scylla:

So does Islam teach that it is ok to kill people, not to turn the other cheek so to speak? Does Islam condone war?

This is a post I made to someone on another site with a very similar inquiry. Please make sure you read it carefully. It should explain to you both Islam’s position on war, the Prophet’s battles, and Islam’s expansion into the world.

 

[Shenango]

bengeorge:

The pagans of Mecca, yes. Sorta.

Not “sorta”. It is true, period.

But what about all the other people of the Saudi Arabia penninsula?

What other people of the Arabian peninsula? The Peninsula in Muhammad’s time was occupied mostly by polytheist Arabs. There were a handful of Arab Christians around Medina, and a settlement of them near Yemen, in Najran. There were also some Jewish tribes clustered around Medina. That is it.

The Christians never attacked Muhammad (PBUH) and he never attacked them. He defended himself and his followers against the attacks of the Arab polytheists and the Jewish tribes who collaborated with them. That is all.

And after Mohammed’s life, what about:

The Othodox of Syria.
The Orthodox and the Jews of Israel.
The Orthodox of Anatolia (Turkey)
The Orthodox of Greece (Crete)
The Orthodox of Cypress
The Hindus of India
The Zoroastrians of Persia
The Berbers of North Africa?
The Catholics of Spain?

Please read this post about the political context into which Islam was expanding very carefully. You cannot compare Christianity, which was born inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, a natural political context to cradle its spread, with Islam, which was born outside that empire, and in a time of a enforced state religion (Christianity) which banned the peaceful proselytization of any other faith, and persecuted other faiths, such as Judaism. Muslims had to strip the Byzantines of political control of their territories in order to preach Islam there. The same goes for Persia, where the state-enforced religion was Zoroastrianism. This covers just about every non-Muslim group you mentioned, none of which, by the way, were ever forced to convert to Islam.