The appalling Considine and jihad

Submitted by ECAW (United Kingdom), Sep 14, 2016 at 04:18

The funny thing is that Considine need only walk across the campus at Rice university to learn the truth about jihad from David Cook, professor of Religious Studies, who wrote:

"Jihad, like other words taken from a religious context, has a long history and a complex set of meanings. Conventionally it is translated as "holy war", but this definition, associated with the medieval Crusades, is usually rejected by Muslims as too narrowly Christian. In Arabic, the word's meaning is literally "striving" or "exerting oneself", with the implication, on the basis of its usage in the Qur'an, "with regard to one's religion". Many contemporary Muslim writers, recognizing the negative connotations that jihad has acquired in European languages, maintain that the word means nothing more than "striving". Yet this position, predominant among Muslim apologists writing in non-Muslim (predominantly Western) languages, is disingenuous...

Warfare with spiritual significance" is the primary and root meaning of the term as it has been defined by classical Muslim jurists and legal scholars and as it was practised by Muslims during the premodern era. This meaning is sustained in the standard definition given in the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam: "In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the jihad consists of military action with the object of the expansion of Islam and, if need be, of its defense." This terse summary of Muslim law and history is the standard, scholarly one."

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