A Different Jihad

A DIFFERENT JIHAD

The word jihad’s literal meaning is to strive, for any thing good including striving for peace, for welfare humanity. If the Qur’anic verses in Qur’an are read with its oft repeated command that the believers should enforce what is good and forbid what is evil (ya’murun b’il ma’ruf wa ynahauna ‘anil munkar) the whole meaning of jihad assumes a new significance.

All those who are serving humanity in different ways by promoting a morally clean and non-corrupt society, are real mujahids.  It is for this reason that the word jihad was interpreted differently by different sections of society. For rulers and political class it meant war and conquests to expand Islamic rule, for Sufis it meant to conquer ones own desires and greed and for theological class it meant efforts to enforce shari’ah law and to mould ones behaviour within shar’i limits (hudud).

And for Usama bin laden it meant again very different thing and he used it for retaliation against USA and gave rise to what is totally unacceptable phenomenon of terrorism. However, when the political class in medieval ages used jihad for territorial conquests, it was how the rulers expanded their regimes in those days. Even Ibn Taymiyyah had some justification for issuing fatwa for jihad after Mongol hordes sacked Baghdad.

But what Usama did was very different. It is neither an acceptable way in the contemporary world nor does he belong to a political or ruling class. No head of the Islamic state has approved of what Usama did nor has any army of a Muslim country invaded any other non-Muslim country. Usama is neither head of any country nor has he backing of any regular Muslim army. Thus his jihad has neither scriptural backing, nor political nor of Ulama. It is nothing more than personal and hence totally unacceptable.

Coming back to root meaning of jihad i.e. to strive for good of the society and for enhancing welfare of humanity as a whole, today one of the best ways of waging jihad would be to struggle and strive for saving our earth and its environment. This form of jihad has multiple levels of meaning of jihad: Firstly it is most ma’ruf (desirable and most acceptable) activity; secondly, it also has the sense in which the Sufis used it i.e. controlling ones desire and greed and exercising self control on ones inner self and fourthly it is also in keeping with the Prophet’s sunna as there are repeated commands of the Prophet to protect trees and crops and respect Allah’s creation.

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