Lesser And Lesser Jihad: The Five Pillars Of Islam

In Islam, there is a major practice called a Jihad. This practice stands for struggle or striving, but in today’s society, people think it means holy war because of the media that is covering the stories in the Middle East. Jihad actually has two meanings in Islam because there is a Greater Jihad and a Lesser Jihad. The Greater Jihad is the struggle against one’s lower self, whereas the Lesser Jihad is an external effort to protect the Way of God against the forces of evil. Both of the Jihad’s relate to the five pillars of Islam, but they still have their differences between Greater and Lesser Jihads. Jihad has two meanings, which both relate to the five pillars, but Jihad has an awful portrayal in today’s media.
All Muslims are supposed to carry on a Jihad, but there are two types of Jihad. There is a Lesser and
The way to work on your Greater Jihad, which is the struggle within oneself, is to pray and fast. Praying and fasting is exactly what Muhammad did because they are two of the five pillars. When you practice these two pillars of Islam you are allowing your bad thoughts to get out of your head and body. Also by helping charity, the third pillar, allows you to be selfless by giving your hard work and time in the name of God. Then when it comes to the Lesser Jihad, it goes with the first pillar, Shahadah, because the Qur’an allows Muslims to “defend their own faith as well as to remind unbelievers of the truth of God and the necessity of moral behavior (Fischer, 424). The greatest example of a Muslim carrying on Jihad was Muhammad. Muhammad was able to “defend the Medina community of the faithful against the attacking Meccans, he was acting within Lesser Jihad from the purest of motives. Also, it is believed that a true Mujahid who dies in defense of the faith goes straight to paradise, for he has already fought the Greater Jihad, killing his ego” (Fischer,