The Evolution of the Concept
of Jihad
Dore Gold writes,
“According to Islamic tradition,
a warrior who gives his life in a true jihad,
a holy war, becomes a shahid,
or martyr (literally, “witness), and
is guaranteed entry into Paradise. But beginning
in the ninth century, as two centuries of
Muslim holy wars and territorial expansion
ended, Muslim theologians broadened the meaning
of jihad, emphasizing armed struggle and,
under the influence of Sufism (Islamic mysticism),
adopting more spiritual definitions. True,
some sectarians who broke off from Islam
continued to stress the older, militant meaning
of jihad....But the Islamic mainstream
had shifted away from this focus on the religious
requirement of a universal campaign of jihad.
Consequently, the meaning of shahid changed
as well. Whereas the term had originally
applied to one who gave his life in battle,
a scholar or someone who led Muslim prayers
could now be compared to a shahid when his
day of judgment arrived. The Wahhabi,
however, restored the idea of jihad as
armed struggle, and they spread their new
doctrine across the Arabian peninsula and
beyond in the latter part of the eighteenth
century. Even today the revival of jihad,
and its prioritization as a religious value,
is found in the works of high-level Saudi
officials....”
According to Bernard Lewis,
“Conventionally translated ‘holy
war,’ [jihad] has the literal
meaning of striving, more specifically, in
the Qur’anic phrase ‘striving
in the path of God’ (fi sabil Allah).
Some Muslim theologians, particularly in
modern times, have interpreted the duty
of ‘striving in the path of God’ in
a spiritual and moral sense. The overwhelming
majority of early authorities, however, citing
relevant passages in the Qur’an and
in the tradition, discuss jihad in
military terms.”
In premodern times,
Daniel Pipes explains, jihad meant
“the legal, compulsory, communal effort
to expand the territories ruled by Muslims
(known in Arabic as dar al-Islam)
at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims
(dar al-harb). In this prevailing
conception, the purpose of jihad is
political, not religious. It aims not so
much to spread the Islamic faith as to extend
sovereign Muslim power...its ultmate intent
is nothing less than to achieve Muslim dominion
over the entire world. By winning territory
and diminishing the size of areas
ruled by non-Muslims, jihad accomplishes
two goals: it manifests Islam's claim to replace
other faiths, and it brings about the benefit
of a just world order.”
Pipes also notes that jihad has been interpreted
as justifiable against impious Muslims. Thus,
“Islamists thinkers like Hasan al-Banna
(1906-49), Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), Abu al-A‘la
Mawdudi (1903-79), and Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini (1903-89) promoted jihad against
putatively Muslim rulers who failed to live
up to or apply the laws of Islam.”
Sources: Dore Gold, Hatred’s
Kingdom, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003,
pp. 7-8; Bernard Lewis, The
Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000
Years. NY: Scribner, 1995, p. 233;
Daniel Pipes, “Jihad and the Professors,” Commentary,
(November 2002).
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