Jihad distortion

Submitted by Demosthenes (United States), Dec 5, 2002 at 20:19

I'm definitely not well versed in Islam, and i have no idea who either Daniel Pipes or Dr. Hathout are, but I'm pretty sure the LITERAL defintion of Jihad is "struggle". I don't know if it was recently or historically, but the current media definition is "holy war": Of course, since everything the "news" stations and papers report is sensationalized propaganda, this should be discarded without extensive study. I've never read the Quran/Qu'ran/Koran (is there a correct way to spell this?), but I'm pretty sure that Allah would not advocate terrorism, or the "savagely killing of the 'infidels'"-especially since the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic gods are all the same God. Islam tends to accept other religons, even Judaism until the U.S. created Israel as a foothold in the Middle East-and they are peaceful by scripture (Islam="surrender, submission, peace, 'salam-peace be upon you'",right?). "Jihad" in the American media is taken from bin Laden's belief of it, and has been used to say that Muslims/Moslems (again, correct way to spell this?) all believe in the holy war, and thus the furious bombings of Afaghani weddings and piles of rubble that would be cities if they were not in a constant state of unrest, are justified to the apathetic American public. Jihad to the Moslems who live by the original idea behind it would say jihad can be used as war, but its true meaning in struggle within oneself.
I suppose Muslims should be taken as the authority on the matter, since it is their religion, and please forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, but that's what I've learned.

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