HTML pages designed & maintained by Alifuru67 Copyright © 1999/2001 - 1364283024 & 1367286044		Ambon Island   Ambon City        Latupatti   Want to Help? ASIAWEEK, OCTOBER 12, 2001 The War Over Jihad The task before Muslims today is to reclaim jihad and to invest it with its true meanings, different from those imposed by mullahs and militants By FARISH NOOR ALSO The Price Of Anger: As Muslims demonstrate against U.S. retaliation and extremists issue threats, will foreign investors be scared away from Southeast Asia? Tigers' Prey: How an economy survives under the shadow of terror Zia's Victory: The Islamist vote helps Khaleda Zia sweep back into power The term jihad is now part of the language of international discourse. But instead of helping to heighten the understanding of Islam, its repeated mention is hurting the religion's image. The media need to shoulder some blame for that. But Muslims must also realize that the meaning of jihad has been hijacked by the very people who have resorted to violence in its name. Jihad today is taken by Muslims and non-Muslims alike to refer to an aggressive attitude rooted in a call for authenticity and purity in Islam. This interpretation, exercised by Muslims reacting against the modern world, gives the term a militant edge that it did not possess before. At its extreme, jihad has come to represent a so-called "holy war" against whatever its abusers consider to be anti-Islamic. Jihad should in fact be loosely translated as "to struggle" or "to expend effort" for a particular cause. The term originally referred to a personal existential struggle against one's own moral failings, like pride, fear, anxiety and prejudice. The Prophet Muhammad was reported to have described this internal battle as the Jihad Akbar (Greater Jihad). Alongside that was the concept of Jihad Asgar (Lesser Jihad), which refers to the struggle for self-preservation and self-defense against outside forces, and which has always been regulated by a host of ethical sanctions. Islam is a faith whose majority Sunni branch does not possess a clerical class or a supreme leader like the Pope. This lends the creed an egalitarian outlook that places all Muslims on a par with one another. But the absence of a centralized hierarchy also means that the Muslim world is full of self-proclaimed "leaders of the faith" like the Taliban and their now-unwanted guest, Osama bin Laden. Such self-appointed defenders of orthodoxy do with jihad as they will. An additional factor "radicalizing" jihad is the predicament of a Muslim world that feels itself increasingly threatened and marginalized by the forces of globalization — leading many Muslim leaders to adopt a defensive posture. The task that lies before the Muslim community today is to reclaim the concept of jihad and to invest it with its true meanings, different from those imposed by mullahs and militants. Muslim intellectuals must jump into the fray. For too long, Islamic discourse has been regarded as the exclusive purview of the dogmatic mullahs. We have to break down the rigid pedagogical structures that have kept Islamic discourse in such a static mode by bypassing traditional institutions of learning and indoctrination, like the madrassahs. Instead, everything — from universities to media — will have to be used as the new sites of Islamic thought and education. Rather than thinking of jihad in exclusionary and defensive terms, we must show that our struggle in the present day has also to do with striving for economic development, modernization and the creation of civil society. Jihad must now include the capacity to compete economically, and to bridge the enormous gulf of scientific knowledge between Muslims and the rest of the world. Jihad is useless unless it brings us closer to a more prosperous, liberal and tolerant society where Muslims are at ease with themselves and with non-Muslims. A jihad merely understood as a violent rejection of all that is different will only keep Muslims isolated and marginalized, rather than bring them within the mainstream of global developments. For moderate and progressive Muslims, this jihad has only just begun. Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com © 2001 Asiaweek. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 1999-2001  - Ambon Berdarah On-Line * http://www.go.to/ambon HTML pages designed and maintained by Alifuru67 * http://www.oocities.org/baguala67 Send your comments to alifuru67@egroups.com