Sir, Jihad does not mean this

Submitted by Adil Siddiqui (Pakistan), Apr 19, 2003 at 02:55

I have read this article - "What is Jihad" by Mr. Daniel Pipes on this website. I am sure his intentions were to spread good knowledge, at least as per his believes, to the general public. I respect his point of view and thankful for his time and efforts.

I have some comments on this article. Mr. Pipes has mixed two different things. What Saddam, or any other person, say about any thing looks like islamic, does not necessarily means that this also is the preaching of Islam. Just like if Bush call Iraq war a "cruisade" it does not mean that christhanity become a mad-about-war religion. It was bush's personal point of view, not the point of view of the christianity. Same is the case with the 'ground' on which mr. Pipes build his arguments. Saddam never was the spokesman of Islam. Infact he remained puppet of other religion's rulers during his entire regime.
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Just like terrorist and un-human activities of Masolini or Hitler or Chowshisko (and many others) does not reflect the teaching of Christanity, same activities of any ruler who happened to be a muslim, does not reflect the teaching of Islam.

In Islam Jihad does not necessarily means a war. Jihad is the effort to make society a peaceful place to live in, as per the preachings of all three divine religions. To spread trust, comfort, happiness, friendship, humanity and brotherhood in the society. All three divine religions i.e. Islam, Christanity and Judaism tell same things in their origional preachings. Every muslim has the responsibility to do Jihad in these meanings. As per preachings of Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon him) under the light of Quran, there may be three stages for Jihad; If one has the power to stop evil of the sociEty by hand, he ought to stop that evil by hand, If he do not have the power to stop this by hand, than he should tell others about that evil's bad intentions and teach others to tackle it, and finally if he does not have the power to even teach others, he should atleast consider it as an evil in his heart.

I have wrote these lines just to clear misunderstandings arise in mind. My intentions are not to hurt feelings of any body.

May Almighty bring peace in our lives.

Adil Siddiqui

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