Jihad : A Victim of Policy and Misinterpretation

This paper aims at investigating the meaning and the use of the word jihad in the Holy Quran and how this word is deteriorated semantically. Recently, the word jihad has been associated with terrorism and killing. This negative shift in meaning expands to include Muslims all over the world. The authors hope this effort would help to sort out some of the fears and distortions swirling around the meaning of jihad. The usage of the word jihad in the Holy Quran has been detected and investigated to find out the actual meaning and the situations in which this expression is used. The rationale behind this paper is purely linguistic one and the authors don’t intend to find any excuse for any action carried out under the name of jihad. So, this paper is limited by its specific purpose. It turns out that this word has been misused by both Muslims and non-Muslims.


Introduction
Linguistically, the word jihad means effort or having effort.It is derived from [juhd] which means having an effort which is connected with suffering.That is, somebody is suffering from an external or internal power then he makes an effort to get rid of it or free himself from that misfortune.For instance, if somebody is suffering from a lack of money and he works hard or doing an effort to have money, this effort is called jihad.It is a common human trait to work very hard in order to achieve some goal.There are words in every language including Arabic, to express this human quality.The word jihad conveys this same sense of striving, that is, a great striving.There is a difference, however between the word, struggle and jihad.The word 'struggle' does not connote the sense of reward or worship in the religious sense of the word.But when the word jihad became a part of Islamic terminology, the sense of reward or worship came to be associated with it, that is to say, if struggle is struggle in the simple sense of word, jihad means a struggle which is an act of worship, the engagement of which earns reward to the person concerned.As the Quran says: "Strive for the cause of Allah as you ought to strive."(Q 22:78).There is a big difference between jihad and [qitāl] (fighting).Although [qitāl] means fighting, it is used in many places in the Holly Quran as defensive and Allah prevents Muslim to be offensive for instance, "Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors" (Q 2:190) (Note 1) In this verse, Allah asks Muslims to fight those who fight them and they should stop fighting when they (non-Muslims) stop; that means Muslims should not be transgressors.In contrast with [qitāl], jihad is primarily defensive.The negative meaning of jihad has become a universal phenomenon and has been used intensively to describe Muslims after September, 11 th 2001.A century ago, this word had no political implication and it was not as terrifying as it is recently.However, we should not ignore that the concept jihad has been used since the beginning of Islamic empire history in various forms, and with various implications for Muslims and non-Muslims alike by different people.Many names became famous such as Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azaam, etc. Suddenly, the war in Afghanistan ended.At that time, the spirit of jihad was up.
All the supporters of those fighters (i.e.USA and Muslim and Arab Countries) stopped supporting them.Their countries have not been able to accommodate them for many reasons.One of these reasons is that they have felt that these regimes torture their nations in different ways.They have rejected the behavior of these regimes.At the same time their religious ideas scared these regimes.The supporters of the past became the new enemies.Those fighters felt that they had the responsibility of protecting Muslims all over the world.What is going on in Palestine and in many Arab states pushed those people to consider USA as the first enemy.According to them, USA supports these evil regimes, torturing Muslims all over the world; it puts pressures on the police, agencies, and the regimes in their countries to chase them (fighters).McCabe (2009: 101) states that: Clearly, U.S. policies in the region are a major factor; American support for Israel and the U.S. occupation of Iraq are massively unpopular.However, this is only part of the problem.The United States is widely, if not generally, viewed as a predatory power out for oil at best and a predatory power at war with Islam at worst.
As soon as cold war between Russia and western states ended, Islam has been treated as the first enemy and according to many western politicians and writers it forms a serious threat to the West."The security agenda of world politics in the post-cold war era has been shaped largely along a new 'Islamic threat'".(Almogy and Rivkind, 2007: 551) They started carrying out actions against USA under the name of revenge.The situation has been changed dramatically since September, 11 th 2001.The war that was declared immediately after 9/11, easily conceptualized the terrifying meaning of Islam in general and jihad in particular.September, 11 th is considered as a juncture in the history of Islam.The meaning of the words Islam, Muslim and jihad have been deteriorated.Islam which means peace, Muslim which means a peaceful person and jihad which means doing an effort to get rid of being tortured have been associated with evilness.Ali (1985: 3) states that: Its (Islam) primary significance is the 'making of peace', and the idea of 'peace' is the dominant idea in Islam.A Muslim, according to the Holy Quran, is he who has made peace with God and man, with the Creator as well as His creatures.Peace with God implies complete submission to His will Who is the source of all purity and goodness, and peace with man implies the doing of good to fellow-man.
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the killing and torturing of Muslims in these states complicated the situation and helped the fighters to spread their ideas and thoughts.However, such situations were accompanied by the appearance of an Islamic State in Iran which raised the slogan of the evilness of USA and Western states.This idea is in consistence with the feeling of Muslims.The rising of this state as a super power has frightened USA and western countries.
Media play a vital role in the semantic shift of the meaning of these expressions.The words Islam and jihad have been connected with terrorism.Recently terms like Al-Jihad, Islamic Jihad, Gamaa Islamiyya, Hizb-ut Tahrir, Army of God, Islamic Liberation Front, Armed Islamic Group, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda, make the headlines almost daily in connection with terrorism, which makes a direct link between a religion (in this case Islam) and international terrorism.
Media play a vital role also in attributing terrorism to Islam and jihad intentionally or unintentionally.Headings of news papers, TV news, and political interviews appear with titles like: "terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad" (Internet 1).
Not only do some writers and politicians associate jihad with terrorism, but they also translate it into 'holy war'.Let us take the following examples: "Violent radical Muslims -[jihādis] (holy warriors)" (McCabe, 2009: 99).
"The religious government and society of contemporary Northern Nigeria have their historical roots in a jihad (Muslim holy war" (Waldman, 1966: 286) "the idea of undertaking a holy war (jihad) directed at" (Milton-Edwards, 1992: 49).Although Milton-Edwards states in his article that jihad is originally defensive rather than offensive."this call to jihad to liberate the land from Israeli control meets the most basic rules of justification -it is a defensive act against aggressive oppressors occupying the land" (Milton-Edwards, 1992: 51).Almogy and Rivkind (2007) give a very strange definition of jihad.They claims that jihad means "fighting anybody who stands in the way of spreading Islam . . .or refuses to enter Islam" (Almogy and Rivkind, 2007: 502).They add that the only way to guarantee entrance to paradise is to die in jihad.They refer to (Q 4:89).If we investigate the verse which they use as a reference, we realize that the word jihad has not been mentioned at all in that verse.The verse says: "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden).But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks" (Q 4:89).
As can be noted, the above verse (Q 4:89) has nothing to do with what is mentioned by Almogy and Rivkind, (2007: 502).The context of this verse is the exile of Muslims from Mecca and the atrocities which they faced.
Others go far beyond the above descriptions to compare Islam to Nazis or as the most dangerous enemy for the West.Koontz (2003) makes it clear that for those with a substantial knowledge of both the Nazis then and the Middle East and Islam in general and radical Islam today, the parallels are terrifying.Kuznechevsky (2000) states that the West did not immediately understand that a new powerful force had appeared in the world; it was too busy fighting communism in the person of the socialist camp to notice the appearance of a new dangerous enemy under its very nose.The other way of attacking Islam and humiliating Muslims is by describing the struggle as a struggle of civilization, a struggle between civilized society (western society) and primitive society (Islamic society).Ethnic, religious and cultural differences and their potential to create conflicts between different groups have been extensively studied from different perspectives (Appleby, 1994;Ashmore, et.al, 2001).
According to Huntington (1993), civilizations mean large groups with common denominators in culture, religion and identity.He adds that clashes between civilizational identities would be inevitable in the post-cold war era or post-ideological world, forming the next dominant pattern of conflict at the global level.Huntington argued that the differences between civilizations were "far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes" (Huntington 1993: 25) and that they inevitably would lead to clashes.He points at a potential conflict between democratic, liberal civilizations and Islamic 'totalitarian' civilizations.In this light, the 'other' for Western civilization after the cold war was identified as Islamic totalitarianism.Many scholars who agreed with this view argued that Islamic civilization should be expected to clash with Western values because of its 'conflictual' nature (Torres, Jordan, and Horsburgh, 2006).
On the other hand, Wright (1992) underlines the challenge of Islamic resurgence against the West arguing that Islam is the only major monotheistic religion that offers not only a set of spiritual beliefs but a set of rules by which to govern society.Aydin and Ozen (2010: 547) say that "…the role of globalization in transforming the current ethnic and religious awakening to threat should not be exaggerated.In other words, globalization has not directly led to the resurgence of identity-based threats; rather it has acted as a contributing factor."So the word jihad is misleadingly translated as 'holy war'.sense.It is defensive usage is limited to the protection of Muslims, their religion, lands and properties.The appearance of Islam is accompanied by atrocities and torturing carried out against Muslims.Accordingly, jihad appeared with its different forms to protect Muslims.It could be by heart, by words, by hands or it could be by sword which is the last resort.It could be by pen, tongue, media or, if inevitable, with arms.The deterioration of the meaning of this word by both Muslims and non-Muslims could be attributed to unstable political and military situations in most of Islamic countries and the invasion of many Islamic countries for political, economical and strategic reasons.Jihad in Islam is striving in the way of Allah for resisting pressure of parents, peers and society (Q 25:52), for staying on the straight path steadfastly (Q 2:18 and 3:142), or against unbelievers and hypocrites when they try to be against Muslims (Q 9:73, 66:9 and 25:52).However, jihad in Islam does not include striving for individual or national power, dominance, glory, wealth, prestige or pride.Finally, it is so strange and not fair to associate jihad with atrocities and killing or paraphrase it by 'Holy War'.This new interpretation of jihad is strikingly misleading.It has been taken as a fact by those who are not aware of the true spirit of Islam, those who are torturing Muslims, those who are occupying Islamic areas, and those who are killing the children and women of Muslims in different areas.
During the history of Islam, jihad is used whenever Muslims are being tortured.Recently, the invasion of Afghanistan by Russian troops and the occupation of Palestine by Jewish could be considered as the point of the break out of jihad.This situation is accompanied by undemocratic regimes in most if not in all Arab and Muslim states.These regimes controlled these states as a post colonist stage.These two factors are accompanied by what was going on in Chechnya and Bosnia.The picture is like this, many young Muslims were encouraged by America and their states to fight in Afghanistan.They were supported by weapons and money.Accordingly, we have a group of Muslim fighters so proud of what they gained, proud of their action.They were rich and well-trained fighters.At the same time, those fighters were moving between Bosnia and Chechnya.The progress of the fighters who has become well-known as (those who perform jihad) in Afghanistan and other areas rose the spirit of the fighters and Muslims all over the word.They started thinking of the glorious Islamic civilization in the past.McCabe (2009: 108)  points to this idea and states that "Islam, a superior faith and civilization, is under assault and profoundly humiliated by its enemies.Once the leading civilization in the world, Islam has been far surpassed by its inferiors."