Jihad – The Misperceptions

A PICTURE IS WORTH 1000 WORDS

Tavard:

You are missing the point. I was not referring to genocide but the root causes that lead to genocide. On the other hand what you are saying is that Muslims should not complain about genocides, because they have themselves engaged in such acts. Allow me to elaborate my point with pictures.

It all starts with the following. Currently, as a matter of fact, Muslim children living in West are already being subjected to what is shown in this picture, just replace star with the crescent:

http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/classrm.html

and pretty soon it turns into following. And it has already happened in various European countries, US and Australia


http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/poljew2.html



It doesn`t then take long to pack trains and get here:

http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema3.html



Then the children who are just taunted and humiliated are subject to this:

http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/krema3.html



And men and women end up here:

http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/Holocaust/belsen01.html

=======================

Now you will say that how could this be possible in this day and age. I regret to inform you my friend that it is already happening in this day and age as we speak. And BTW it is not happening to Muslims because they engaged in atrocities themselves:

For example in India, the secular and biggest democracy in the world, the government of India did the following just six months ago, and it is still happening right now as we speak:

http://www.ummah.com/inewsletter/massacres/india/index.htm



And in another ``integral`` part of India, Government of India is doing this to Muslims/ Human beings:

http://www.ummah.com/inewsletter/massacres/kashmir/index.htm



CHECHNEYA: just as we speak

http://members.lycos.co.uk/islamonrise/chechenya/chechenya1.html



BOSNIA: Just 5 years ago. In Europe, the cradle of civilization and enlightenment:


http://www.ummah.com/inewsletter/massacres/bosnia/index.html



KOSOVO: Only 3 years ago

http://members.lycos.co.uk/islamonrise/kosovo/kosova2.htm



PALESTINE: Just as we speak

http://members.lycos.co.uk/islamonrise/genocide/page1.htm



And here is what is happening in ``Muslim`` Uzbekistan and Indonesia to Muslims but by whom:

http://www.ummah.com/inewsletter/massacres/indonesia/index.html



Oh, BTW the Ramadan is here. Here is a Ramadan gift for SameerJB

http://www.robert-fisk.com/with_love_from_america.htm



And here is Eid Milan Party

http://www.robert-fisk.com/pictures_murder_arabs.htm

Urstruly (#6),
More Muslims have been slaughtered at the hands of fellow-Muslims than by non-Muslims. The slaughter has taken genocidal proportions, examples of which are:

1) a whole village of 30,000 being slaughtered by Syrian strongman Assad because some of the villagers opposed his rule.
2) Jordan massacring thousands of Palestinians.
3) Pakistan slaughtering millions of Bangladeshis in 1971
4) Iraqis and Iranians slaughtering each other by the 10s of thousands in their war
5) A whole country, Afghanistan laid waste after 1989 by Muslims, including opportunistic Pakistanis.

I could go on but it seems to me that if Muslims should worry about genocidal tendencies, it should be from their own compatriots than from outsiders. Remember that these are all Muslim countries with control of their own destinies. And comparing this to a killing of a Muslim taxi driver here or bombing of a Mosque in the West (which are all despicable crimes) is specious at best.

The fact is that there are no Muslim leaders brave enough to come forward and say that there is something fundamentally wrong with Muslim societies which has very little to do with non-Muslims.

Happy Ramzan to all.
It is well written article from grammer and vocabulary point of view but hypcritically apologetic on contents.

If 1400 years have failed to define jihad properly, it ain`t gonna work through reinterpretation. There are several good and understandable reason for it. When swords wielding Muslim hordes and invaders were hoisting flags over territory after territory in Asia and Africa using jihad, nobody bothered to challenge or reinterpret the meaning of jihad and other so-called peaceful aspects of Islam. Now that tables are turned against them, losing wars, battles, lives and livelihood left and right, the apologists, hypocrites and folks obsessed with the inherent goodness of Islam are trying to salvage what is left standing. This is nothing but expediency for the sake of Islam. This is an effort to save it from going down the drain. Instead of being honest and accepting the fact that jihad is dead concept because historically it resulted in nothing but misery, plunder, devastation and deprivation for the people who ended up on the losing end. Now that the losing end is reversed, instead of saving themselves, saving Islam still runs supreme in their veins.

If jihad was a concept different than what the history tells us, please denounce in harshest words the jihads of history. Without doing this, hypocrisy and expediency label would remain stuck with such articles, ideologies and philosophies. Please start yout article by clearing identifying jihads from non-jihads, from the last 1400 years history, from Al-Badar war to today. Which of the wars, if any, from MB Qasim attack on Sindh to today were true jihads and which were not? Who are the most honored and cherished heroes of Islamic world for the last 1400 years? If you fail to clearly distinguish between X number of fake jihads and 0 number of real jihads, the sweet sugar coated pill of same ingredients might pass through some mouths but in stomach it would have same effects.

I would really like to know which of the Khalid Bin Walis, Otaiba Bin Muslim, Tariq Bin Zayad, Musa Bin Nasir, Mahmud Ghaznavi, Shahab Uddin Ghauri, Babar, Aurangzeb, Ahmed Shah Abdalis` attacks were jihads before buying this argument for Muslim Ummah to create Oxford, Sorbonne and produce Nobel Laureates. The way to do these things is to disregard and leave Islam and Ummah behind and focus on achieving targets. What is the importance of Islam or Ummah if Nobel prize is to the target?

Come out of the closet of suffocating atmosphere and state clearly that: yes, we are losers but we are infatualted with the model that has been leading us on downhill path for a very long time. And that we are now sugarcoating the thorns we laid out behind us to avoid attack from behind and retreating now on the thorn-laiden path back to oblivion. Change the path is the solution and not clearing and sugarcoating old path. If you like to carry a heap of baggage while retraeting fast, well, it is your choice.

Get rid of the baggage, change coarse and make peace with the world, otherwise losses will keep piling up. Do not interpret the meaning of jihad; delete it from your dictionary, vocabulary and language.

Let me again congratulate you for writing a good article but it ain`t gonna work. It is a recipe that will keep dynamism distancing from the mother of all ailments.

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Excellent! - And also excellent responses. Exactly Ferozk. At stake is Islam, the ideologies used to further or diminsh it, will do neither, as long as the mission of the Quran is to fashion and mould the Muslim.

AND

on the other hand the Muslims living in West should start worrying that the history does not repeat itself by replacing star with a crescent:

http://www.fmv.ulg.ac.be/schmitz/holocaust.html

Mr. Akbar

Although there are some good advices in it, your article lacks balance. At least Muslims are delivering at their end:

http://www.jang.net/editorial/index1.cfm?
ed_fullpath=http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/nov2002-daily/
05-11-0002/editorial/index.html&top_fullpath=http://www.jang.com.pk/
jang/nov2002-daily/05-11-2002/top.htm&cont_fullpath=http://www.jang.com.pk/
jang/nov2002-daily/05-11-2002/cont.htm

Islam is experincing a conterdiction. It is not understood clearly, as a religion, by its followers and those, who preach Islam as its appointed priests, itself an oxymoron, have no knowledge of it as religion. Islam, in the present context, is often mixed with the intentions of nationalism and politics to the degree that Islam`s message comes across as that of a political philosophy advocating violence.

If the term ``Islam`` means peace, then why is a religion based on peace seen as an intolerant, bigoted and a violence prone religion?

Do the Muslims really realize, what Islam means or do they simply call themselves Muslims and identity with Islam due to an accident of birth? Why are the Muslism practicing those very same sins, which they decry in the decadent west?

Building universities on the pattern of Oxford and Sorbonne will not do anything good, because the ideals of those universities was borrowed from the Muslims themselves in the first place. The problem with Islam is that its followers are not sure as to what their religion preaches and those that do preach the religion, do so for reasons, which have nothing to do with religion. The problem of Islam lies in the cowardice of its followers, who do not question the ill deeds committed in its name and those who remain silent, while oppression and injustice, cloaked within the robes of a religious virtue, are sanctified as the cardinal truths. The problem in Islam and the reason why the scope of evil is increasing in Islam is not that bad people are committing wrongful acts in the name of the religion, but the good people, the honest Muslims, who trully love and respect their religion, are doing nothing to stop the injustices being sanctioned in their names and in the name of their religion - Islam.

The salvation of Islam lies in the person and once that person begins to understand the message of Islam, which is peace, and starts to change for the better, the religion of Islam will emerge out of its dark ages. As this transformation happens and the one becomes many, the revivial of Islam, in its true sense, will occur and for that to happen, the one will have to become many and the many will have to become one in questioning and demanding an accountibility of all that is being perpetuated in the name of their faith.

Like that line from Shakespear, the fault is not with Islam; the fault is with us, who call ourselves Muslims.

Ciao

well writen akbar.

i would stress even further the need to excel in `creative` skills. it is sad to see third world societies suffer from lack of human resources. an example: a elegant and expansive campus was recenlty opened in Lahore for purposes of teaching management in technical skills near Raiwing. the government gave lots of grants to it, and offered tuition waivers as a means to help students be able to afford it. but the whole exercise may end up failing due to unavailability of knowledgeable faculty. maybe the orgranizers and government put the cart before the horse.
whatever, but it also shows that lack of emphasis on human development cannot be substitued for anything else.


there is simply no excuse to message the destructive potentials in people.

These are indeed trying times for the Muslims in the west. While their brethren in faith shout Jihad in their shrill and high-pitched voices in the streets of Muslim countries, the faithful in the west are left with a very difficult task to explain the militant aspect of Islam.

There is no reason to be apologetic about it. Jihad is a derivative of ‘Jahud’ or “to struggle” and it is a broad term including many ways one can struggle in the way of Allah(swt). Quran enjoins its followers to do Jihad with both life and property and strive in other manners, not necessarily with arms only. For the specific act of fighting or killing in self-defense or in liberating those who are being oppressed, Quran very clearly uses the word ‘Qital’, meaning slaying or killing. Muslims should explain the meanings of Jihad as being a general term to include struggle of various kinds but then do not shy away from mentioning the reasons why Qital may be necessary in some circumstances.

At many places Quran asked Muslims to defend themselves against those who are attacking the Messenger(saw). For that defense, Jihad and Qital was mandatory. As history tells us, the Messenger(saw) fought many wars against the disbelievers who would not leave him alone and tried every which way to stop him from spreading the message of Allah as elucidated and enshrined in Quran.

Similarly, the claim that Jihad or Qital is done only in self-defense is also inaccurate and apologetic explanation of the concept. Muslims must go on offensive when a community is being oppressed, whether Muslim or non- Muslim. In Al-Quran 4:75 Allah(swt) asks Muslims: “And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who being weak are ill treated (and oppressed)? Men women and children whose cry is: ``Our Lord! rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from Thee one who will protect; and raise for us from Thee one who will help!``

Non-Muslims sometimes imply that Islam is violent quoting this concept of Jihad, suggesting that Christianity and Judaism are non-violent. Nothing can be farther than truth. Old Testament is full of battles describing Prophets David and Solomon engaging in Jihad in the way of Allah. Christians themselves launched Crusades against Muslims which was nothing but invocation of religion for political and military purposes.

But to further assure them that Jihad was also enjoined upon Jews and the Christians, following verse from Quran will suffice: Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their good; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth through the Torah the Injeel and the Qur`an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.”

In other words, Allah(swt) says very clearly that this Jihad, or Qital was ordered to all believers, including those reading Torah or Injeel. But instead of referring to Injeel, Christians present the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to justify a passive response to oppression. This, however, is only one self-serving perspective. It was Allah(swt) who had ordained for Jesus to die on the cross and has nothing to do with institutionalize cowardice or apathy through any kind ‘non-violence.’

Referring to Christians’ skewed view of Islam through the glass of crucifixion is best summed up by Edward Gibbon in his book: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He writes: “The greatest crime, the greatest “sin” of Mohammed in the eyes of the Christian West is that he did not allow himself to be slaughtered, to be “crucified” by his enemies. He only defended himself, his family and his followers, and finally vanquished his enemies. Mohammad’s success is the Christians’ gall of disappointment…He did not believe in any vicarious sacrifices for the sins of others.”