Jihad Goes Beyond Defending Oneself

Submitted by Wayne (United States), Aug 29, 2006 at 17:22

In response to Eshan's comment

Perhaps you need to read some modern history and if you have, then you might have heard of one of the founding fathers of modern jihad. His name was Sayyid Qutb, who authored more than seven books. However the book that earned him a death sentence from the Egyptian government at the age of 59 can only be found on the black market. The name of that book is "Signs Along The Road" (Ma'alim fi el-Tareek). The Egyptian government arrested & sentenced him to death in 1965 during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Both him and his book have become the heartbeat of the radical Islamic movements of today.

It seems there is a pattern among the philosophers of jihad. An author will write a book outlining his ideas of jihad & how it should be carried out; that will earn him a following. Then when that author is put to death by the government of his own country, the dead author becomes a hero and his books gain more power. Then the next author comes along and builds on the same ideas, only making them more radical. After three or four of these cycles, we have the philosophy of jihad today that resulted in Al-Qaeda and the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.

You might be interested in a leader of a new radical movement after Sayyid Qutb's time, a man named Dr. Salah Sera. He led a group named the Islamic Liberation Movement (Hezb al-Tarir) and based his movement on the mind-set of Qutb's teaching. What was his goal? It was to overturn the Egyptian government and declare a new Islamic nation. Here are some of the things Dr. Sera had to say:

• Muslims are nothing but talk. They make commitments but do not follow through. Throughout the last few centuries, Islam changed from a religion of action to a religion of just talk.
• The priority of the Islamic nations should be to carry on the message of Islam and apply it internally and externally in all ways.
• Jihad should be enforced. It is the way of paying a price for what you stand for and keeping the message alive. It should be practiced inside the nation and carried out to the world.
• Our goal is to find out the most effective way to overturn and destroy any governments that do not completely comply with Islamic law, including existing Muslim countries.
• We will establish a great Islamic nation that will stretch across the world. The only political system will be Islamic law.

So Mr. Eshan, I think you have a misunderstanding of what real Jihad truly means. It isn't Western countries attacking Islam, but in fact it is the other way around, Islam attacking any country that is not truly governed by Islamic law. The Quran makes this point very clear, perhaps you should study it a bit closer because your definition doesn't match with it.

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