Jihad
I was thinking about what Rehanna said about Morgan Spurlock's documentary/programme...she said, " Spurlock went up to random people in nyc and asked them what the first thing that comes to mind for them was when he'd say "islam" and they were like.. "terrorists". and then he'd go further down the street and try someone else and be like "terrorist".. and the person was like "hmm.. i think of islam, muslims.. jihad." i was like oh No". That's right!!! unfortunately the term jihad has become associated (if not synonymous) with Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism which it is so notttt...so I thought I would write a blog about what Jihad actually is/supposed to be in Islam.With regard to jihad, Asma Hassan says, “I should point out that by no means does jihad imply terrorism, death, or holy war. In America, Muslims understand jihad for what it really means: struggle. That’s right, jihad merely means struggle, not a holy war or a war against all Americans. Consistent with the Quran and Prophet Muhammad’s life, it often applies to an inner struggle to strengthen one’s beliefs against corrupting and anti-Islamic forces.” Ahmed Rashid states, “Western thought, heavily influenced by the medieval Christian Crusades has always portrayed jihad as an Islamic war against unbelievers. But essentially jihad is the inner struggle of a Muslim to become a better human being, improve himself and help his community.”
Bassiouni says, “The word jihad means “struggle” in Arabic, and its application is as varied as that of its English counterpart. It applies to individuals and to collectivities, and ranges from spiritual to armed struggle. Emphasizing the spiritual aspects of jihad, Prophet Muhammad referred to war as the smaller jihad, in contrast to the struggle against oneself (for goodness and piety) as the greater jihad…detractors of Islam, as well as orientalists, have almost exclusively focused on the warlike aspect of jihad.” Islamic fundamentalists have also tended to focus on the warlike aspects of jihad and according to Esposito both mainstream and extremist movements and “holy warriors” like Osama bin Laden have SELECTIVELY used the warlike aspect of jihad for their own purposes.
According to Rashid, “Islam also sanctions rebellion against an unjust ruler, whether Muslim or not and jihad is the mobilizing mechanism to achieve change. Thus the life of Prophet Muhammad has become the jihadi model of impeccable Muslim behavior and political change as the Prophet himself rebelled, with deep religious and moral anger, against the corrupt Arab society he was living in…Yet jihad does NOT sanction the killing of fellow Muslims on the basis of ethnicity or sect…” Nor does it sanction the killing of innocent non-Muslims.
Al-Qaeda is led by bin Laden and Zawahiri, however its infrastructure is decentralized as each cell operates independently with its members not knowing the identity of other cells. Therefore the problem is that its set up in such a way that the organization cannot fall apart even if the top leadership is eliminated...
9-11 happened because Al- Qaeda wanted to get the attention of the ‘sleeping giant’, who in their opinion had been bullying the Muslims for years (by occupying their holy lands, taking their resources, exporting western ideas, blindly supporting Israel and countless dictatorships, and funding the genocide of Muslims around the world for years) so they bombed the twin towers in NYC and killed hundreds of Muslims?!?! does that make sense?!? can terrorism be justified?!!? now they have attacked London....in the last televised al-qaeda video zawahiri included Pakistan on the list of "evil" nations...are we next?!?! where will this stop??! can it stop?!? these fundos are making a mockery of our religion and we are standing here confused, frustrated, petrified and absolutely helpless...
bin laden
posted by Meher at 8:07 PM
13 Comments:
ok.first of all i think a creeping realisation is setting in in the muslim world that something needs to be done.that we can no longer ignore our own extremism.we cant buy em off.so hopefully but extremely gradually and painfully the struggle has begun.this will be the true jihad.
as for america i agree with how uve described their foreign policies.theyre disastrous.but at the same time i strongly feel that at no time in history has a great power/empire done so much good stuff for other nations as well.tsunami relief,food droughts in africa etc.but for muslims we must never forget that it was the americans who finally put a stop to serbian genocide against bosnian and kosovar muslims only a decade ago.in fact america is talking about placing sanctions on sudan for the genocide its govt is carrying out on its own MUSLIM PEOPLE IN darfur.has any muslim country spoken up for whats going on in darfur.this is a case in point of our hypocrisy.a million or so muslims have died in darfur because the government doesnt like their ethnicity.what the afghans did to each other,iraq/kuwait iraq/iran are all examples of our double standards.having said all of that no amount of good deeds will win the US any brownie points until and unless they solve the palestinian dispute in a just manner.why they blindly support the israelis beats the heck out of me.i guess we need to become organised like the israeli lobby.muslims in america need to organise themselves and become a potent voting and lobbying group in the states.before 9/11 islam was the fastest growing religion now i dont know.As for al qaeda waking the sleeping giant well it sure has done that but the giant still hasnt gottent sleep out of his eyes cos he's stomping blindly all over us at the moment.al qaeda has given all the ammunition the extrremists in America wanted.its our responsibility to defuse that ammunition by trying to sort out our problems on our own.dont xpect america to give you what we want.its the superpower after all.
3:46 PM
"America is responsible for the worst war crimes in the history of mankind.'State-terrorism' has been practisied by the U.S of A since god knows when...The US has sacrisifed democracy at the altar of oppurtunism several times and will always do it as long as it's self-interests are met. The United Nations draws like 25% of it's budget from the U.S and if the UN pisses off the U.S too much, the U.S might just withhold funding to the UN. Talk about finicial black mail!" absolutely
so my point is lets call a spade a spade...america is a big fat bully trying to sugar coat all its policies in the name of democracy,equality,freedom...even though america has used its superpower status/standing to help some countries it has def caused way more damage..and the token/ahsaan type "good deeds" done are usually for their own self interest anyway...clearly im not their biggest fan right now hahaha
as i said on j's blog "America is the only country that has been condemned for international terrorism by the World Court and the only country that rejected a Security Council resolution calling on states to observe international law. In fact America has committed massive acts of international terrorism and brutal genocide throughout the 20th century...and there is no word to describe its foreign policy except colonization"
so we've established that they are selfish/hypocrites and since they happen to be the superpower they do as they please and the world must deal with it.....
that said we= muslims have to STOP blaming other countries for our own actions...we need to get our act together and immediately and stop practising terrorism in the name of Islam..because they is NOT Islam...we are bringing about our own demise...now that is ironic!!
the world is becoming a seriously scary and unsafe place: the passing of the hasba bill in nwfp,the bombings in london, killing in the name of Islam,the intense backlash faced by british muslims...i dont solely hold america responsible but its clear that there is a causal relationship here,i feel this extremism is def a consequence of absurd policies and action by the U.S after all they created the taliban....kher whatever the reasons may be the fact is that fundamentalism seems to be making a definite come back...perhaps its not a come back...maybe its been growing slowly/steadily for years...but the real question is what now?!?!
9:51 PM
'The Logic of Suicide Terrorism:It's the occupation, not the fundamentalism'
By Scott McConnell
The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
The American Conservative: - - : Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?
Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources—Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil and others—so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.
This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank,every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the
incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic
state to withdraw.
TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush's policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.
TAC: If we were to back up a little bit before the invasion of Iraq to what happened before 9/11, what was the nature of the agitprop that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were putting out to attract people?
RP: Osama bin Laden's speeches and sermons run 40 and 50 pages long.
They begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.
In 1996, he went on to say that there was a grand plan by the United States—that the Americans were going to use combat forces to conquer Iraq, break it into three pieces, give a piece of it to Israel so that Israel could enlarge its country, and then do the same thing to Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we are fulfilling his prediction, which is of tremendous help in his mobilization appeals.
10:16 PM
interesting but just one thing osama laid out his vision a few yrs ago which was his way of islam dominating the world.he goal has not just been the removal of us troops from the middle east. he has had ans dtill does a much broader agenda which includes toppling regimes in islamic countries.he specifically targeted three countries.Saudi Arabia,Indonesia and Pakistan.but i agree american foreign policy is proving to be al qaeda's best recruiting tool.maybe thts been americas intention all along so tht war on terror becomes never ending and they continue to camp out here.unlikely though given the plummeting public support stateside.
11:06 AM
oh and haroon i understand ure point about uniting and how for the past 3 centuries or so the west has created and exploited these divisions.but seriously there needs to be soul searching amongst us muslims.there can be no unity between fundamentalism and progressive islam.we ourselves need to stamp this out or at best make it ineffectively marginalised.then we can talk bt unity,OIC etc.We have shia sunni divide.we have cultural divides.these cant be swept under the rug.all the differences need to be sorted out first before one talks bt unity.
11:10 AM
well according to Noam Chomsky there can be no "war on terror"...its a contradiction in itself cos this kinda war is terror and leads to more terrorism..you know that slogan (that was really popular in america sp michigan when we were there and you were desperately trying to convince me to support the war on iraq) bombing for peace is like beeping for virginity!!! yup!!!thats how i see it...
haroon im loving ur ideas also i will read ur blog asap!!
11:37 PM
What you guys need to do is go all the way back in time to the start of the liberation fight led by Yasser Arafat -some time in the 70s. It is from here that our main problem starts with suicide bombers. On the one hand, suicide is one of the worst sins in Islam and then you've got people beleiving suicide might just earn them a place in heaven if they can take out a few people that disagree with their side-lined minority views. The problem is that Muslims failed to condemn the Palestinians for using strategies like suicide bombings for a long time. now what has happened is that other so-called Muslims have decided that they may as well take up this 'war-strategy' as it is, as far as they are concerned (from the experience of their Palestinian brothers), acceptable. There can be no exceptions. Either the Muslim world must coherently and conclusively say that suicide bombing is forbidden, or if they feel there should be an exception (like with Palestinian freedom-fighters) then they should not be surprised that other hard-line elements look upon such strategies as effective with a view to using them. Its taken the Muslims far too long to realize what is right and what is wrong - worst of all, noone paid enough attention to terrorism until it came to their front door.
7:30 PM
"The problem is that Muslims failed to condemn the Palestinians for using strategies like suicide bombings for a long time. now what has happened is that other so-called Muslims have decided that they may as well take up this 'war-strategy' as it is, as far as they are concerned (from the experience of their Palestinian brothers), acceptable. There can be no exceptions." true…of course we cant even begin to fathom the level of frustration and disillusionment the Palestinians experience day in and day out…but you are right terrorism is not the answer and suicide bombing MUST be denounced severely by all Muslims.
I’m reading this book about terrorism by Harun Yahya, he says, “ Some people who are ill-informed on Islam have made utterly erroneous statements to the effect that this religion of peace allows suicide attacks, whereas in Islam killing oneself and killing other people are both prohibited. In the words, “Do not kill yourself.”(Quran 4:29) God has declared suicide to be a sin. In Islam it is forbidden for anyone to kill himself or herself, for no matter what reason. The Prophet reveals suicide to be a sin in a parable, when he says that those who commit suicide will be punished: “Indeed, whoever (intentionally) kills himself, then certainly he will be punished in the Fire of Hell, wherein he shall dwell forever.” As this makes clear, committing suicide, and thus carrying out suicide attacks, and causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people while doing so, is a total violation of Islamic morality.”
8:54 PM
Recently I met this really enlightened and highly cool hakeem sahib, we were talking about the government, terrorism, America bla blee bloo and I was very surprised that he had such a liberal/open minded perspective on each issue(perhaps because of my own stereotypes about religious Muslim men with long beards) But something he said really took me by surprise and stuck with me, he told me that he visits the USA often, to give religious talks etc and he said that it was ironic that Americans(not Muslims) were living the perfect Muslim/Islamic way of life: human rights, animal rights, women’s rights, freedom of speech, non judgmental, helpful, free education/health care, welfare, are united etc...In his opinion Americans are Muslims in spirit(living the Islamic way of life)but of course not in the letter cos technically most of them are not Muslims...come to think of it they are better Muslims than us...hilarious ironic and so true!!!
p.s when i say americans i am talking about them as a people in general..of course there are not a homogeneous group but im referring to them as one group for the sake of convenience
9:22 PM
Well Meher, it is good to hear your stereotype of religious men with beards is eroding away. In a way, we can argue that the American way of life does coincide with the teachings of Islam. But the point we must remember here is that there is no nation where Islamic principles are applied in their right and proper spirits anyway -i.e., there is no true Islamic state anywhere in the world. Yes America does have a concept of human rights (apart from when it comes to guantanamo, afghanistan, or iraq,etc), yes it does have a concept of womens rights (there is alot of respect from women apart from the fact that the pornography industry in the US is worth over $10B -same as what it sends in foriegn aid- which shows what they enjoy their women doing). The point i am trying to make here is that you mustn't be mistaken in thinking America has a more Islamic way of life ...the idea that the hakeem was merely trying to convey to you was that there are useful lessons to be learnt from the West also.
6:24 AM
Haroon I have absolutely no idea...i was supposed to go to london this sept but after the bombings etc my parents are not exactly thrilled about my leaving...but I will let you know as soon as i know...the event sounds excellent and extremelyyyy interesting and i wish you all the best...
p.s you are tooo damn cool..at the risk of sounding oh so geeky- keep it up!!!!
1:05 PM
"Yes America does have a concept of human rights (apart from when it comes to guantanamo, afghanistan,or iraq,etc), yes it does have a concept of womens rights (there is alot of respect from women apart from the fact that the pornography industry in the US is worth over $10B -same as what it sends in foriegn aid- which shows what they enjoy their women doing)." YES..of course there are exceptions...the only point I was trying to make was that we sit here and criticize the americans(I know i do it all the time)their foreign policies/their hypocricy/misuse of power/racism/sexism etc but it is ironic that the american way of life def coincides with the teachings of Islam...we are supposed to have all these qualities/characteristics in our society (human rights/womens rights/animal rights)but we do not...its also ironic because the fundo's and many other groups are trying to convince the world of a clash of civilizations "ohhhh our values are sooo diff.." bla blee bloo...but when you look at the american way of life(besides having pork n drinking which most muslims nowadays do anyway)its pretty damn similar to the islamic way of life...SIMILAR not identical...and yea ur right the hakeem sahib prob wanted me to think that we can learn a lesson or two from the west as well...but i dont think that was his only point...
1:19 PM
well said meher.
4:42 PM
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