IzzyR,
From what I gather, it seems to be both. It can be interpreted as a fight against non-believers or traitors AND as a fight against the devil (still a religious connotation) AND as a fight against one’s own self for spiritual purity. It looks to be entirely contextual. Furthermore, it seems to possess a non-religious ordinary-conversational usage to just mean struggle. A jihad/crusade against Wal-Mart, for example 
So, I can only deduce that all these connotations have resonance amongst the Muslims, and as someone pointed out, amongst a sample collection of angry jobless youth, the violent connotation can very well be most appealing.
But the point is that if it both, then this would imply that all Muslims subscribe to the notion of a “holy war” against the infidels (or enemies of Islam or whatnot). And if so, what difference is it if there is also some other meaning to the term jihad?
As I understood it, there are two positions as to the meaning of a single Islamic concept. And that those who believe in the “inner struggle” do not believe in the “holy war” concept at all. (Which is why those trying to promote the Islam=peace perspective tend to emphasize this interpretation). But if everyone agrees that both concepts are a part of Islam, then everyone believes in holy wars, and it is misleading to point to the meaning of jihad as being struggle.
Hence my earlier question.
Well, first we must discover whether there is any blind spot or dissembling beyond that of Pipes. So far, we have the testimony of one extremist who claims to have asked the question (but we don’t know what question: was the question “Does jihad mean to suppress all the Christians in Holy War?” or was it something more realistic?) and we do not have a record of who was asked (were they, for example, all adherents of Sufism?). We also do not know whether the respondents were aware of Pipes’s prejudices and so tailored their responses to provide him as little ammunition for his tirades as possible.
So, now we have “progressed” from jihad must either mean one thing or another (and we must condemn various people for prefering one or the other point on the continuum as if they were all at the extremes) to initiating a witch hunt against a small group of hand-selected (and unidentified) scholastics.
Wonderful.
Take a look at gobear’s cites mentioned in the OP. These cites were right in line with what Pipes said most professors were saying.
You have offered no evidence that Pipes is an extremist. Why did you call him that?
You have demonstrated no prejudices. In effect you seem to be saying that Pipes may be acting in bad faith. Given his impressive biography, I think you ought to offer some proof, instead of just calling him a “prejudiced” and “extremist.”
tomndebb, I’m uncertain whether you’re taking a position or not. Is it your position that “jihad” does generally mean holy war, but that Pipes is lying when he says that many Islamic scholars teach that it doesn’t mean holy war? If so, then gobear’s cites showed that Harvard professors do indeed expound that view.
Or, do you think “jihad” doesn’t mean holy war. In that case there would be nothing embarassing about professors teaching that it doesn’t mean holy war. They’d be right.
Can you please clarify where you’re coming from?
JIminy, people, Daniel Pipes’ opinions are neither here nor there when it comes to parsing the meaning of the word jihad. As I pointed out, and as Collousbury and Tamerlane explain, jihad can encompass struggle by the sword against unbelievers, but that is not what the word means, any more than “crusade” means to wage war on Muslims. *Jihad * derives from the Arabic root jhd, which means struggle. It can mean one’s personal struggle, it can mean the effoirt of a nation to fight social evils, and yes, it can mean holy war, but to limit the word to only one meaning is to ignore the liquid and protean nature of language. From the USC Islamic Studies Web site:
You know, I am no Arabist; I’m just an ignorant schmoe who knows fuck all about the Middle East and Arabic studies, But in the wake of 9/11, I have done something few others seem to have bothered themselves with: I’ve read books. Lots of them. I’ve bought books and borrowed other from the library in order to learn what Islam really teaches and the diplomatic and political history of the Middle East, to see behind the illusions of what I thought I knew. I would urge certain parties at the SDMB to get off their duffs and get autodidactic, so they will attain an earnest desire to learn and stop posting hidden agendas disguised as debates.
CyberPundit, why would you accept C’s credentials, of which there are naught, while questioning Dr. Pipe’s, which appear solid, with the added advantage of being public and verifiable?
Actually, I’m fuming right now because December[ has twisted my words in order to support his opinion that jihad has no other meaning than “holy war”.
Let me put this in a simpler fashion. The term “The Crusades” refers to wars of conquest waged by Christians against Muslims in the High Middle Ages. Does that now mean that “crusade” only means “war against Muslims.” When Billy Graham sweeps into a town, he called his camp meetings “crusades”. Was he wagiong war on Muslims? The short-lived science fiction series that tok place inthe Babylon 5 universe was called “Crusade”–is it a show about attacking Muslims? Worldliteracy.org is organizing an effort they call a World Literacy Crusade–would this be literacy against Muslims?
Same with jhd. It means struggle, pure and simple. Yes, it can mean the struggle of Muslims against the aggresssion of infidels, but that is NOT its only meaning.
December. get thee to a library and borrow a beginner’s book on Arabic, and learn about the language as it is, not as you imagine it to be.
From C:
Now, what are the odds that C’s accusation of “pimpery” is just somehow, peripherally related, to his feelings about Jerusalem Post columnists in general?
2-1?
Even?
Hmm.
Well, you can stop fuming, gobear, because I didn’t do either of those things. First of all, I think I quoted your words accurately. I credited you for thoroughly supporting your POV.
Secondly, I never said that “jihad” has only one meaning. I think it’s evident from what you and others have posted that “jihad” has two meanings. The OP asks which meaning predominates.
The area where I did quote you regarded a separate question: Why do many academics teach that the word “jihad” has only one meaning? tomndebb asked whether it’s really true that some professors teach that “jihad” has only one meaning. I quoted your post and your cites to demonstrate that some professors do indeed do that.
I did make a mistake in attributing your source to Harvard instead of USC. I apologize to you and to Harvard.
From C:
Now, what are the odds that C’s accusation of “pimpery” is just somehow, peripherally related, to his feelings about Jerusalem Post columnists in general?
2-1?
Even?
Hmm.
Again, you have the wrong end of the kebab. “Jihad” does not have two meanings; it has a multiplicity of meanings, depending on context.
And again you don’t understand. The scholars cited are not teaching that “jihad” has only one meaning. They are teaching, correctly, that “jihad” is not a synonym for war. It is a religious term that has many, many shades of meaning, deriving from the concept of struggle and the plethora of forms a struggle can take. Creating false dichotomies is not the path to knowledge.
I gathered from the posts that the meanings are not mutually exclusive, and I see no reason it should be. A Muslim can believe that the word means a “holy war” AND an inner struggle AND a struggle period, as used, loosely in the English language. The issue then is on how much emphasis do the different meanings get (though theoretically that is not a zero-sum game). From what I have understood, the concept of a “holy war” is anachronistic to many people, and hence they emphasize more the concept of jihad as an inner struggle. Again, I also gathered that a section of the burgeoning youth can buy into the rage that the holy war connotation provides, which is probably why there is a notion that the word is been “abused”. As for the professors, gobear seems to have provided the right idea by saying that the scholars are trying to drive home the point that jihad does not only mean holy war, and hence, is not offensive per se (I remember the controversy over some student’s speech on campus)
Certainly. I reject your simplistic (and inherently dishonest) attempt to portray the use of the word jihad to be an either-or construct. My rejection of Pipes is based on the fact that a reading of his material puts him well into a specific ideological camp that makes any unsubtantiated claim by him suspect.
However, nothing you quoted actually supports your odd reading of “one meaning.” In fact, the sections you quoted explicitly provide multiple meanings, rejecting only the single Western misunderstanding of “war of conquest.” You have taken their rejection of one meaning and explication of multiple meanings and have dishonestly reversed their positions to set up a false dichotomy. In fact, the very link you provided discusses military (or, at least, armed) conflict as one of the meanings.
I’m unclear about where you stand on one specific point, gobear. Pipes said that most of the scholars whose work he reviewed teach that “jihad” doesn’t mean war at all. You seem to be disputing him. Are you asserting that these scholars teach that the word “jihad” does include “war” as one of several meanings? If so, can you demonstrate that?
On that point, I am not disputing Pipes–the teachers are correctly teaching the meaning of the word as “struggle”. Jihad can be used in the context of war, but it is not synonymous with war any more than “crusade” is.
So again, you are saying that all Muslims believe that Islam does indeed call for a “holy war”, though some emphasize this aspect of Jihad less than other aspects of Jihad.
But the bottom line remains that these “burgeoning youth” cannot be accused of distorting the “true” Islam, if they are indeed applying a concept that is very real to all branches of Islam. The fact that some people find one aspect of Islam to be “anachronistic” does not mean that those who don’t find it anachronistic are distorting the religion. And you cannot claim that the “true” religion is represented only by those who have discarded part of it as anachronistic.
Well, I am personally not much concerned about any professors. What I do say is that anyone who tries to drive home the point that jihad does not only mean holy war in an attempt to present Islam as a religion that does not call for a holy war is being dishonest if this not actually the case. And someone claims that they are only trying to point that the word jihad is not offensive per se is probably being disingenuous. What is significant is whether the holy war concept exists in Islam - not whether this is the sole definition of the word jihad. It would make no difference to me if jihad never meant holy war, if it should turn out that Islam also embraced the concept under a completely different name.
Of course, this is only after accepting these assumptions are actually true. I don’t know for sure that they are, and frankly, I would hope that those who do know would stop obsessing over whether december is indeed guilty of setting up a false dichotomy long enough to address this more significant issue.
If you’re referring to me, I wasn’t obsessing. I brought it up in my opening post, then responded to a disagreement. Period.
Holy War definition #1: A war of aggression against non-Muslims with the goal to further the politcal spread of Islam by force of arms.
Holy War definition #2: A religiously sanctioned defensive struggle against those who in some way transgress against Muslims individually or Islam generally ( note, such transgrssion not being defined as any thing as low-threshhold as merely being non-Muslim and existing ).
a) Has definition #1 ever been evoked in Islam and expressed in terms of the word jihad? Yes. Quite frequently so in the medieval period, relatively infrequently in the modern period.
b) Is defintion#1 unambiguously supported by Muslim religious texts? Hotly disputed by Muslim jurists. For one ( long ) discussion of this from an activist Imami Shi’a point of view ( Ayatollah Mutahhari in this case, a staunch Khomeini supporter, but an independant-minded scholar and very much a moderate on the jihad issue ), see here: http://www.al-islam.org/short/jihad/ I’ll note in reference to this cite, that this individual has one particular point of view, but lays out opposing cases in parallel and then discusses them. It’s a little bit of a slog, but a revealing look at this kind of debate.
c) So is Holy War in terms of definition #1 sanctioned by Islam? Unanswerable in any definitive sense. Mutahhari and seemingly most modern jurists would say no, but others, including many classical jurists, argue/d yes. Most applicable answer today - Some extremists today would support this definition, but most Muslims would not.
So if someone says that jihad does not mean Holy War, is he/she being dishonest? Not if that is what they believe. And as most people cast the phrase Holy War in terms of definition#1 and as most Muslims today do not seem to accept the concept of Holy War as per definition #1, then most Muslims would not be dishonest in that answer. It is, if you like, a matter of faith - Like saying God is triune. I do think one can get too politically correct about this sometimes - I don’t necessarily disagree with Pipes there. People should acknowledge that for the lunatic fringe, jihad does mean smiting the unbelievers whenever and whereever possible, no holds barred. But that doesn’t mean one can say that this is what Islam teaches, because for the most part, it doesn’t.
Analogy - A person says Christianity does not teach racial superiority. Is he being dishonest? Certainly some fringe groups do claim that Christianity teaches that the races are unequal and historically this was a much more common belief than it is today. Well, I would not call them dishonest. But in discussions of white supremacy, I would acknowledge that it is useful to bring up and examine these current minority and historical views.
Now - Is definition #2 accepted by most Muslims in this day and age? Yes, I’d say so. However that is probably not the sort of “Holy War” most people think of when they hear the phrase.
Does that help clarify anything Izzy?
- Tamerlane
In this day and age, that is.
- Tamerlane
Actually, I wasn’t referring to any specific person. Just that in general there has been more focus on the december/dichotemy issue as compared to more substantive matters than would be warranted, IMHO. Sorry.
Actually it does, and I thank you.
Bottom line is that you do agree that all Muslims agree with a (as opposed to the) definition of Jihad as being holy war, but you are saying that there are two types of holy war, and most Muslims embrace the second, less aggressive version.
I would still quibble with you, though. This because even someone who accepts only the second type of holy war may have a lot of latitude in defining “in some way transgress against Muslims individually or Islam generally”. US forces in Saudi Arabia? Jewish sovereignty in Israel? Publication of the Satanic Verses? Any of these could be reasonably construed as a transgression against Muslims individually or Islam generally, and any doctrine which calls all Muslims to battle in such cases might justifiably be viewed with some concern.
I don’t know what most people think the holy war jihad concept means - you may well be right that they think of Definition #1. But still, you will surely agree that to argue against Definition #1 while conveniently leaving out any mention of Definition #2 is misleading at best. And certainly, to try to quiet discussion of the “holy war” concept by pointing out that jihad (also) means inner struggle would be an egregious misrepresentation.
Can’t we simply get a representative sampling of recent usages by Muslims of “jihad” and glean the meaning from the context?