[kj] re: jihad

iPat pmdavies at gmail.com
Fri May 13 17:11:44 EDT 2005


The Meaning of the Concept of "Jihad" 

Another concept that deserves clarification due to the content of this
article is the concept of "jihad".

The exact meaning of "Jihad" is "effort". That is, in Islam, "to carry
out jihad" is "to show efforts, to struggle". Prophet Muhammad
explained that "the greatest jihad is the one a person carries out
against his lower soul". What is meant by "lower soul" here is the
selfish desires and ambitions. A struggle given on intellectual
grounds against anti-religious, atheist views is also a form of jihad
in its complete sense.

Apart from these ideological and spiritual meanings, struggle in the
physical sense is also considered as "jihad". However, as explained
above, this has to be a struggle carried out solely for defensive
purposes. The use of the concept of "jihad" for acts of aggression
against innocent people, that is for terror, would be unjust and a
great distortion.


On 5/13/05, first fossil <firstfossil at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>  
> Yeah, Jihad is a learning exercise. It's better when the "Arabic" music is
> more subtly woven into the Killing Joke sound. Like the magnificent
> Pandemonium song and maybe Pilgrimage. Communion's a bit of a misfire
> though. 
>   
> But why in the name of Mohammed did he call it "Jihad"? Ministry too, they
> called their Arabic song "Hizbollah". It's like someone dabbling in Irish
> folk and calling their song "IRA".      
> 


-- 
iPat
live for today, live for tomorrow
"Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any
organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual,
nor through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He
has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the
understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and
not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection..."


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