Jihad
It was once a word unfamiliar to American ears. But in recent years it has become all too familiar. The actions of Muslim militants and terrorists have seared the word into American consciousness.
Yet even with thousands of innocent civilians killed on American soil by Islamic terrorists, the full significance of the Muslim concept of jihad has not been grasped by the American public.
In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tactical—that nobody was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American reprisals were not directed at their religion as a whole.
If the world Muslim community perceived America as attacking Islam in general then the duty of every Muslim to fight for his religion—the duty of jihad—would have been invoked on a broad scale. The war against terrorism, instead of simmering with occasional flare-ups, like the Cold War, would have boiled over into a global conflagration, with the Muslim countries of the world—1.2 billion strong—mobilizing against America and the West.
Muslim apologists also rushed forward to assure the public that Islam was a peaceful religion. They disingenuously declared that the word Islam means "peace." And they tried to portray the terrorists as a fringe group outside the mainstream of Islam.
These were lies.
The usual meaning of Islam in Arabic is not "peace" but "submission." And if the terrorists were so far outside the mainstream, why did Muslims all over the world burst into joyful, spontaneous celebrations when the hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Why are Islamic governments afraid to show "too much" public support for the war against terrorism? Further, why are all the governments that covertly support terrorism centered in the Muslim world?
The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace. This is not to say that every Muslim is violent at heart. Many are not. Muslims have the same aspirations for living peaceful lives that people have the world over. But they also have the same potential for violence as others, and Islam as a religion and an ideology seeks to exploit that potential.
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...volutionary movements.
The conflict with militant Islam may last a long time—centuries, potentially—since even if curing Muslim society of its violent tendencies is possible, it would involve ripping out or otherwise neutralizing a tendency that has dominated Muslim culture since the days of its founder.
This is not an easy task, for Muslims willing to make the change would be portrayed as traitors to their religion, amid renewed calls to practice Islam in its original, pure, and more violent form in order to regain the favor of God. The signs of the times suggest that we are, indeed, in for a "clash of civilizations" that will be neither brief nor bloodless.
But what also is known is that God has a plan for history and that his grace can work miracles. It is yet possible that—through one means or another—God will bring about a more peaceful world in which militant Islam either is not a threat or nowhere near the threat that it is today.
If this is to happen, our cooperation with God’s grace will require prayer, courage, resourcefulness, and a realistic understanding of the threat we are facing. Until then there can be no illusions about Islam and its endless jihad.
The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror is a book written by Bernard Lewis that ‘in particular charts the key events of the twentieth century leading up to the violent confrontations of today.’(Lewis) Lewis clearly and entirely pointed out key events explaining the choices to be made by the people of the Islamic faith. They must determine whether their religion takes its place alongside other religions in a global community, or whether it will revert back into conflict with non-Muslim nations.
Violent Jihad as a struggle against one’s enemies has its root in [these] situations. When the Islamic religion spread over the region, Jihad became a religious tenet and assumed the form of a peaceful, internal struggle to strive for the good and reject the evil in one’s action. Violent, external conflict was never r...
The tragedy of strained relations between Islamic and Judeo-Christian countries is a part of everyday life. One need only pick up a newspaper or check the news story of the day via television, radio, or internet to learn of the latest violent attack by a suicide bomber or military retaliation on such an attack. The terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by countries that are predominantly Islamic with the counter attacks coming from a well-armed Israel, supported by US arms sales as well as US silence. Arecent CNN talk show byline queried, “Are we at war with Islam?” One does sometimes wonder.
Many terrorists believe that their religion is the only true religion, and they use it to justify violence (“Islamic Terrorism”). Most Muslim terrorists follow Jihad. Jihad is an Islamic perception that the way to integrate their religion is by massive force (“Of True Muslims and Terrorists”). Jihad is considered the “sixth pillar” of faith in Islam because it is the constant fight towards good. It is the idea of focusing on God and turning away from those that oppose God (David E. Long, 91). The terrorists believe that their religion is what everyone should follow, so they would naturally require personnel in power in Muslim states to either convert to their religion or resign from their terms. They will first threaten a leader that if they do not change, the terrorists will use violence. Sometimes, violent acts come about without any warning or previous threats (“Of True Muslims and Terrorists”). Islam is a proselytizing religion, which means it uses violence to convert people to its faith. This is because, in the ...
Events that capture the entire world’s attention are few and far between. Fighting wars normally occurs between acknowledged enemies. In the war against terrorism, most notably, the war against Al-Qaeda, the enemy is unknown. One is not the enemy of the United States of America by virtue of one’s ethnic heritage. A Muslim is not a hidden enemy simply because he is Muslim. A Muslim does however become the enemy when he targets the world as a member of Al-Qaeda, the vision of one man. He was an intelligent and educated man who came from wealth and high esteem, who, guided by his faith, through radicalization, exile from homeland, and anti-western sentiments, built the terrorist organization known as Al- Qaeda. His name was Osama bin Laden.
Winter, T. (2011), America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American Theopolitics. The Muslim World, pp. 101: 394–411.
...mbers have used the same words before they committed their suicidal actions. The connections between terrorism and Islam are pointed out clearly when the extremists say that they are waging a “holy war” against their enemies. Extremists have used Islam as a justification to attack churches, Hindu and Buddhist temples. Due to the fact that the terrorist who carried out such criminal and inhumane acts associate himself or herself with Muslim religion, the public comes to view Islam as a severe risk. In reality, only 15% of the 1 billion Muslims are extremists and out of that 15%, only a few engage in terrorist activities. However, most news stories do not focus on the places where things are going right, but on the places where things are going wrong. Due to all this, it is clear that the extremists play a large role in pinning the scarlet letter on Muslims in the US.
Christianity has been in America since the Colonial Era (1600’s - 1700’s), and for over three centuries has dominated and deeply engrained itself into American Society . Islam, however, has only been introduced recently, and this has caused Islamic Believers (or Muslims) residing in America to be misinterpreted. After the September 11 bombings in 2001, there was a huge hatred for Muslims as they were interpreted as a religion that promotes destruction in the name of ‘Jihad’, or as it is often mistranslated as ‘Holy war’ . Although, the meaning of ‘Jihad’ is much wider than just ‘Holy war’, it is an internal struggle, within each Muslim, “…to be a good Muslim as well as advance the cause of Islam.” The Western understanding of ‘jihad’ however has been twisted to become related to terrorism. Whereas, Christians claim to promote the qualities of hard-work, honesty and moderation, and are therefore highly thought of in American Society, not only because of their supposed all encompassing teachings, but also because of their dominance as a religion in the Western World.
September 11, 2001 America was hit by terrorist attacks. American citizens were shocked, outraged at the attack on our own soil. After initial hours of shock, grief, and anger it became apparent that the suspects in the attacks were Arab Muslims—American Muslims and Arab Americans. For American Muslims and Arab Americans the tragedy was doubly painful. The whole World watched in the horror that the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked. There were a lot of calls, questions if any friends or loved ones were in these planes or inside these buildings. Muslim Imams gave a lot of speeches, articles, lectures that to prove that Islam is not evil religion, they say that “terrorists were Muslims, but these people do not belong to our community here; they used Islamic names and did evil”. In their lectures they cited in Qur’an to support their statements “Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace. In our sacred book, the Noble Qur’an, we are taught the value of innocent life in these words: ...
The term jihadi was not always commonly recognized in the United States. It was not until the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that the word jihad became widely known. Since the terrorist attacks, the media and the U.S. government have used the word jihad to invoke frightening images of non-Americans coming to destroy American freedoms and to define Islam. Today, scholars have begun to try to define this complex word and its multitude of meanings. When viewers tune into the news, it is sometimes difficult to unravel the layers of information that is being fed to them by the media and the U.S. government. In its most literal form, the term “jihad is an Arabic term meaning, as a noun, ‘struggle’ or, as a verb, ‘to exert effort’ toward a goal” (International Ency 1). However, in Mary Pat Fisher’s book Living Religions the chapter on Islam discusses how the definition of the term jihad is “commonly mistranslated as ‘holy war’ (Fisher 148). While the media frequently portrays jihad consistent with the idea of “struggle,” the media almost always flips the definition on its head by suggesting that this struggle is a malicious struggle between two groups of peoples, each of whom believes that righteousness, and in many cases God, is on their side and evil is on the other side. Suggesting that jihad and violence are in connection with each other has been the case since pre-modern times. In fact, Fisher suggests that the primary associations of the word jihad are religious, specifically with reference the Prophet Mohammad and to the religion of Islam, but also invoke a sense of violence or resistance against an opposing force. While violence and jihad have typically been spoken about together, as of late, the...
Higher rates of obesity is leading to a major inflation in health spending. The United States spends almost 10% on obesity related diseases such as cardiovascular disease. Annually, about one in every six healthcare dollars spent in the United States is on cardiovascular disease. In 2010, we spent $444 billion in health care costs for cardiovascular disease. By 2030, cardiovascular disease is to rise to as much as $818
“We have fifty million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. Europe is in a predicament, and so is America. They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time, or else declare war on the Muslims.”
Robinson, B.A. (2002, October 14). Islam: Is it a religion of violence or of peace.
...ce. The same effect could have been given without the flickering going on for minutes at a time. I know that my friends also had to look away at this point in the movie because of the flickering lights. I also do not think that the captions explaining certain points in time, and the status of the rig were on the screen long enough for the audience to really comprehend what it meant. Other than these few things, I really enjoyed the movie and the overall experience. It was nice to get out of Magnolia for a couple hours and go watch a film.
Islam, the religion of peace and harmony has unfortunately been corrupted by the deadly terrorist acts which have taken place around the world during these past couple of years. Today the people in this world view Islam as a threatening and terrorist religion. Often, the killing of innocent people, suicidal bombings and terrorist attacks are carried out people who tend to claim themselves as Muslims, though in reality, the dissident actions of these so called named Muslims have nothing to do with Islam. Among all the attributes of God, the Holy Book (Quran) mentions that: he is the source of peace and bestower of security (59:23) people must establish peace in their life. Terrorism what a complete disgrace, however people forget one thing that terrorism is not only found in Islam yet also continued in other religions and countries. But then why Islam? Is it because terrorism has been related to Islam just like peace is to war. The terrorist that claim they are Muslim with pride are oblivious, ignorant and it shows their lack of knowledge. The Holy Quran clearly states that: