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Jihad
Renegotiated
Jihad
has created, and is still creating, a problem between Muslims and
non-Muslims. Islam is a religion that calls for monotheism. Besides,
Islam does not resort to compulsion in calling people to it; rather
it resorts to convincing them. This becomes evident from the
Glorious Qur’an and from the means the Prophet’s Companions
followed in calling people to Islam. The Caliphs who came after the
Companions applied the same method. Nevertheless, during the Islamic
history, Jihad, in some occasions, was misunderstood and so wrongly
applied.
Jihad
does not only mean to fight against the enemy. According to the
Qur’an, Jihad is to be implemented in many life aspects and on
many levels. However, from among what Jihad urges to, fighting is
the only action Muslims apply. Therefore, fighting has been
correlated with Jihad, an issue that disturbed and alarmed
non-Muslims, to the extent that they themselves made use of this
misconception in the war they waged to distort the image of Islam.
Moreover, they accused Islam of being a religion that incites people
to kill. But the Qur’an and the Prophetic Tradition prove how
unfair such false accusations are.
While
discussing the term “Jihad” in our present time, many problems
emerge, most important of them is the kind of relationship between
Muslims and non-Muslims. In addition, the wrong understanding of
Jihad by some Muslims caused them to wrongly apply it, the matter
which further helps distort Islam. Hence, Islam which is subjected
to several attacks is claimed to be the religion that represses
people’s freedom and spreads corruption in earth. What led to this
current problem is the wrong understanding of the Qur’anic verses.
A good example related to this is the (mis-)use of verse about the
sword which is taken away from the context is cited as evidence
against Islam (also, without considering the reasons of revelation
or the incident the verse was commenting on). Thus the meaning of
that Qur’anic verse is generalized though it is revealed for
certain cases (2:191).
Some
of those who attack Islam took the Prophet’s expeditions as
evidence to prove that Islam urges terrorizing civilians. Besides,
they claimed that Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) resorted to violence
with whoever opposed him, specially the Persians and Romans. But
those who falsely accuse Islam disregard the fact that the Romans
and the Persians came to the Arab peninsula aiming at occupying it
and fighting Islam. So the battles the Prophet waged against them
were merely to fight back the occupiers and to propagate the
teachings of Islam, not to force people to embrace it.
His
Eminence, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, was one of the most prominent
Muslim scholars and jurists who studied and renegotiated Jihad, its
reality and implications and gave profound understanding of it,
which makes him an authority concerning the matter at hand. The
following are some of the points he triggered in addressing Islamic
Jihad. Here are some excerpts (rather chapters) from his forthcoming
book in Arabic Mafaheem Jihadia (Concepts of Jihad). We
translated them for the benefit of our readers.
Dr.
Youssif Al-Qaradawi A
prominent Muslim scholar and the head of the European Council
for Fatwa and Research
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