Islam and Jihad
Jihad- struggle
Struggle. The word itself does not sound pleasant and then reading the definition it makes it sound worse than it looks. When you are struggling it is usually at a time in your life when you are having a hard time and obstacles are in your way with other things that are giving you trouble. A lot of times I use the word struggle to explain how I got something done. I would probably say something like, “ I struggled through my history paper.” When I looked up the definition of struggle on dictionary.com there were multiple definitions. One was: “to contend with an adversary or opposing force,” another one said: ”to contend resolutely with a task, problem, etc.; strive,” and the last one: “to advance with violent effort.” I think those definitions explain the word struggle very well. In the arabic language, struggle translates into jihad. Jihad is defined as “holy war, a divine institution of warfare to extend islam into the abode of struggle, or to defend islam from danger,” according to the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Ian Netton defines it as “holy war” in his book A Popular Dictionary of Islam and he also writes: “The word derives from an arabic root meaning basically to strive...all muslims are obliged to wage a spiritual jihad in the sense of striving against sin and sinful inclinations within themselves; this is the other major sense of Jihad.”
Both of those definitions are similar to the American definitions. Jihad is broken down into two parts; a greater and a lesser. The greater jihad is seemed to be spiritual. Jihad of the heart. It finds a rough parallel in the christian command to put to death the sin nature. Jihad of the mouth aims to undermine opposition to islam through speech. A war of words is prefered over a war of violence. Jihad of the pen applies the written word to Islam’s defense. Jihad of the hand seeks to promote the cause of Allah through through praiseworthy deeds. The lesser Jihad would be that of the
Struggle. The word itself does not sound pleasant and then reading the definition it makes it sound worse than it looks. When you are struggling it is usually at a time in your life when you are having a hard time and obstacles are in your way with other things that are giving you trouble. A lot of times I use the word struggle to explain how I got something done. I would probably say something like, “ I struggled through my history paper.” When I looked up the definition of struggle on dictionary.com there were multiple definitions. One was: “to contend with an adversary or opposing force,” another one said: ”to contend resolutely with a task, problem, etc.; strive,” and the last one: “to advance with violent effort.” I think those definitions explain the word struggle very well. In the arabic language, struggle translates into jihad. Jihad is defined as “holy war, a divine institution of warfare to extend islam into the abode of struggle, or to defend islam from danger,” according to the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Ian Netton defines it as “holy war” in his book A Popular Dictionary of Islam and he also writes: “The word derives from an arabic root meaning basically to strive...all muslims are obliged to wage a spiritual jihad in the sense of striving against sin and sinful inclinations within themselves; this is the other major sense of Jihad.”
Both of those definitions are similar to the American definitions. Jihad is broken down into two parts; a greater and a lesser. The greater jihad is seemed to be spiritual. Jihad of the heart. It finds a rough parallel in the christian command to put to death the sin nature. Jihad of the mouth aims to undermine opposition to islam through speech. A war of words is prefered over a war of violence. Jihad of the pen applies the written word to Islam’s defense. Jihad of the hand seeks to promote the cause of Allah through through praiseworthy deeds. The lesser Jihad would be that of the