Excerpt: A. Historical meaning of Jihad: Historically, Jihad means Holly War (Dharma Juddha in Bangla). For 1400 years, Muslims always understood the meaning of Jihad as Islamic Holy War. Every Islamic scholar, Mullah, maulana, Imam, etc., of the whole world will agree with this meaning of Jihad. Technically, Jihad is war against non-Muslims (Jihad al-kuffar or Jihad against disbeliever; and Jihad al-munafiqeen or Jihad against hypocrites) only, since Muslims are forbidden to fight the Muslims. Hundreds of books were written by the Islamic scholars (Islamic Chintabid) on Jihad and everybody unanimously used the word Jihad as the religious war called holy war (Dharma Juddha). In the Islamic history, more than 80% of the texts are filled with Holy War (Jihad). Early Islam was spread in the Arabian Peninsula solely by holy wars (Jihad). Islam was propagated as a religion by series of wars/battles –both defensive as well as Offensive. As many as 78 historic battles were fought by the Prophet Muhammad himself. And out of 78, only one (battle of ditch) was defensive war, and the rest were simply offensive wars. Did Muslim soldiers go to Syria, Iran, and Egypt to fight defensive war? What about those great historical BATTLES – Battle of Oho’d, Battle of Bad’r, Battle of Khayber, signing of peace-pacts such as “Hudaibya Peace Pact,” etc.? Were those wars fought with the so-called struggle only? Alternatively, were those wars fought with the heart-piercing sharpened swords? Prophet Mohammed and his successors initiated series of offensive wars against pagan Arabs, Jews, Christians, etc., to spread or to impose Islam by force as well as to seize the abundance (booty) of these lands. However, it was quite possible that there had been some small numbers of conversions by sheer greatness of Prophet himself or due to some other miracles. Nevertheless, a great majority was converted by force, and people of Arabia did not have freedom to choose. After Prophet Muhammad gained enough might in his force while in Medina, the tradition was to send an invitation of Islam to various Arab Tribes or countries. First, an invitation to pagans to accept Islam, then war against those who refuse to accept Islam. A typical invitation to the people of the book (Christians and Jews) was: “Embrace Islam, or pay the poll-tax (Ziziya), or fight to death.” Undoubtedly, the concept of an offensive war to spread the faith of Islam is a genuine Islamic concept: Holy War (Jihad) for the sake of God. I can write hundreds of pages of authentic Islamic history of wars in which tens of thousands of life was lost; tons of human bloods were shed. Prophet Muhammad was injured seriously (lost some teeth) in one of those wars he fought relentlessly. Prophet’s uncle Amir Hamzah was killed and dismembered and his liver and heart were eaten by the wife of a pagan tribe leader Abu Sufian. Now may I ask what kind of so-called “struggle” might have caused these above misery? It was obviously by Jihad (Holy War) and not by any peaceful struggle, indeed.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 06:15:00 +0000
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