"Jihad" -- The Fight Over Meaning

Great Debates
21

I’m less interested in the historical usage of the word ‘Jihad’ than I am in how it is used by muslims today. And every time I’ve heard someone speaking of “Jihad”, they seem to be always talking about holy war.

Does anyone have an example of ‘Jihad’ being in regular usage today with a different meaning? If not, then we’re just playing deconstruction games with another culture.

Collounsbury: I don’t think I have a quarrel with you on this one. We both agree that it was probably just an error in judgement, and I would also agree that the usage of the word ‘crusade’ was probably unfortunate. The difference is that Bush used that word without thinking about the way someone else would take it (sloppiness), while the kid knew the word was inflammatory but chose to use it anyway (bad judgement). Neither of these issues are on my radar scope as things to be particularly worried about.

22

Come now, Eva, you don’t really mean to equate some jews throwing stones at a bus with some muslims throwing bombs into a bus, do you?

I see your point (I think!). I have said it once, I will say it again, of course not ALL arabs are bad people. Nor are all muslims bad, or all of virtually any group bad.

As for language usage, while the dictionary may not change by fiat, popular usage obviously does. (The word ‘gay’, for instance). Same with ‘Jihad’. Whatever the official definition may be, it doesn’t matter. The hordes of people we see on tv, burning American flags, hoisting pictures of Osama, and screaming ‘Jihad’, do not mean to say ‘Gee, lets take an inward-looking spiritual journey. Oh ya, lets torch that flag, too’. You know better then that!

23

I just explained why that would be so. The same response to our ever well-informed and rational Ottto. I might add that I rahter suspect Ottto understands not one word of the ‘screaming and burning flags’ thing, so I rather believe we shall have to return to the observation in re journalists reporting.

Do you read Arabic Sam? Otherwise do a search on Sufi thought and writings – I would suppose some translation might keep the term jihad, else it is likely to be translated as its base meaning, striving.

Well, a kid trying to give a speech explaining a sensitive area tripped up. If one examines the content it was positive.

As to the Holy Land issue, the accusation has been made but not yet proved. In that light, large numbers of Muslims here in the States are defending the organization, pointing to past US errors in this realm. Whether they are right or wrong, the community perception appears largely to be they are defending an institution innocent of the charges, not defending a guilty institution.

A last word, the holy war meaning is not a corruption any more than it is for Crusade. Both words have similar (not precisely the same) lexical spaces.

As for not Ottto of the triple t no knowing of a single nation with a large Muslim population not having the ‘obligatory’ terrorist group, well your ignorance is your business. Let me give you some knowledge, for free this time:

Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger are not known to have native terror organizations. All Muslim majority, 3 of them in the 99% range. There, perhaps you will feel comforted. I might add that I am unaware that Oman or Bangledesh have native problems with terror (Islamic in any event).

24

No, of course, not. But here, I maintain that the word “some” is the most important one in the phrase “some Muslims throwing bombs.”

Thanks for agreeing on something, althoughI can’t see how any reasonable person would disagree with that particular statement. The only Muslim that I, the Jewish agnostic, would like to kill at the moment is my landlord, who is currently in my kitchen driving me crazy drilling my cabinet and playing very loud Macedonian music on a very staticky radio, over the nice, quiet classical radio station that was already playing. But that’s a rant for another day.

From my Webster’s New World Dictionary (sorry, I don’t have the OED handy): fiat 1. an order issued by legal authority, usually beginning with fiat (let it be done); decree

So I think you have it backwards; otherwise, you’re saying that poplar language usage changes by official decree?

Do you really believe that the hordes of flag-burning fanatics you see on TV are representative of Muslim society at large? Do you really think we’re going to see pictures of people seeking spiritual enlightenment on the network TV news in the U.S.? Those people are on the news because they’re extreme, and therefore newsworthy!

BTW, I’d love to find some alternative news sources for finding different perspectives on Middle East events than American major media outlets, but unfortunately nobody responded to my thread of a few days ago. Can anyone recommend, say, a non-U.S. web site with balanced coverage? Unfortunately, I’m stuck with English, Spanish, Russia, or French…Arabic and Hebrew are on my to-list, but the list is mighty long.

25

http://memri.org seems to be a good source for Middle Eastern news, straight from the source. (Arab to English translations of Arabic news sources.)

Some real gems in there.

26

Sam - The “Greater Jihad” usage IS fairly common. Our poster Muslim Guy ( admittedly a fairly liberal Muslim ) so used it, just for one.

But I recall a NPR interview, might have been with John Esposito ( but possibly not ), where the scholar was asked that question specifically as regards Islamists and he said the ones he talked to pretty universally acknowledged a dual meaning. Indeed when he asked them which was more important, Islamists everywhere, except Pakistan/Afghanistan looked at him like he was a bit balmy and said the equivalent of “Duh. Obviously the Greater Jihad is more important than the Lesser Jihad.”

In Afghanistan however, the battle-hardened fanatics churned about by the madrassas had the opposite take - To them Jihad as a military struggle was central.

At any rate the word does have dual meanings and BOTH are used by varying people at varying times. And they are given different emphases by varying people at varying times. But for most Muslims in a day to day setting it is the internal struggle that is paramount

If you like I can try to see if I can track down a transcript of that interview ( might not be quick as I don’t have a date or name to start from :wink: ).

  • Tamerlane
27

MEMRI is a rather biased source in fact. Their selection of news runs 100% to the negative and hardly strikes me as reflective of the overall discourse. Further their translations which I have compared with my own strike me as … highly tilted, their translators evidently reaching for the most shocking and negative phraseology. While not to my brief and limited review actually inaccurate, their agenda is a negative one and their spin on translations is always to achieve the most negative phrasing possible.

That being said, yes they do allow a vision into the worst of Arabic langauge discourse, and if one understands the strong selection bias, it can be useful. Myself, I don’t need it.

I may add that I find something very odd about a supposedly volunteer non-profit that is able to maintain such large amounts of translation. Above all insofar as the organization’s translations have an odd conincidence with a certain government’s party line, so to speak. As such, I have developed suspicions as to the actual provenence.

Or to be very explicit, I rather suspect that the organization has intelligence ties.

28

Tamerlane: "But I recall a NPR interview… where the scholar was asked that question specifically as regards Islamists and he said the ones he talked to pretty universally acknowledged a dual meaning. Indeed when he asked them which was more important, Islamists everywhere, except Pakistan/Afghanistan looked at him like he was a bit balmy and said the equivalent of “Duh. Obviously the Greater Jihad is more important than the Lesser Jihad.” "

There was an article in the New York Times magazine last fall about a reporter’s visit to a Pakistani madrassah (sp?), which said something similar. It ain’t called the Greater Jihad for nothing.

29

Just out of curiousity, but how many of those occassions involved (a) actual Islam-devout Muslems who weren’t (b) talking about someone else’s radical Islamic fundamentalism?

I mean, it’s pointless to say “every time I’ve heard someone speaking of ‘Jihad’, they seem to be always talking about holy war” if all those instances involved some Christian demagogue trying to paint Muslems as crazed war-mongering idiots – or, worse, last weekend’s action-movie marathon on cable TV.

30

Actually, I have a number of muslim friends. I’ve never heard any complaint about the hijacking of the word Jihad. In fact, that’s what made me wonder if we’re looking in from outside the culture and trying to re-interpret their own words for them. It was a question, and not a statement. I have never spent time immersed in Muslim culture, so my understanding is limited. I would honestly defer to someone like Collounsbury on this issue, and accept his judgement. That’s why I told him that I had no quarrel with him on this topic early on.

31

Sam Stone said:

Again, I have to recommend the book, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Yes, you probably only hear it in that context – but then, what other discussions do you hear besides ones that talk about terrorism. It’s not like CNN is going to do a bunch of stories on people who aren’t planning a war. It’s not “news.”

Eva Luna said:

Yes, there are those who would do such things. However, in general the “radical” element in Judaism is less violent amongst themselves than others. In other words, while Palestinians kill each other with some unfortunate regularity (Heaven help any Palestinian accused of collaboration with Israel), even the most radical Jews tend to avoid killing one another (there are some notable exceptions, of course, such as the Rabin assassination – but that was more the work of a lone wacko than anything organized). For more on this, I recommend the book, Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (the link is to my full review of the book).

And for a bit of a hijack:
Eva Luna said:

Really, where? We might have been neighbors! (I grew up in Morton Grove after spending a few years in Skokie).

32

A quick note

I have tried to avoid the word hijack myself, as I don’t think that it’s fully accurate.

As a general sense --from an Arab sourcing-- I would say that it is not that there is a sense that Jihad per se has had its meaning hijacked, but that the extremists are abusing the concept.

Of note, historically Jihad was applied as a concept not just to fighting “infidel” in the sense of non-Muslims but “bad characters” also.

In that sense, the word --and this may be too technical so I don’t want to say that it necessarily has this meaning among the ‘common folks’ in all places-- has also the sense “a just struggle/war to undo evil doing.”

Portraying the world Jihad as being hijacked then in the meaning holy war / just war is inaccurate.

What I think is accurate to say (again on my Arab-African experience, I can’t speak to Asians) is that (a) lots of Muslims do feel the hard-core extremists have hijacked the application and (b) the sense of the Greater Struggle is indeed a current one, so Pipes was not being honest or accurate. At the same time, if you mention Jihad in the midst of a street demo, the contect pretty much means the ‘lesser’ one. And frankly there is also a generation divide : just like in our culture, the young guys think of any kind of “struggle” as outward and violent, function of age. As people age, well… you get the picture.

Now, recall the demographic profile of the region. Lots of young men. No jobs or shitty jobs. Guess which meaning may spring first to their minds? On average.

Again, let me stress, I think even in those cases, the Average Mohammed gives a more restricted meaning to the word than the al-Qaeda crowd.

I hope that gives a relatively sensible, accurate sense of the word. In many ways the analogy to crusade in the end seems most accurate.

33

Evanston Township High School, Class of '86. Now back to our regularly scheduled intellectual wrestling match…

34

Sam,

Is it possible that the sources that you would se the word used in english may be only reporting on the extremists use of the word?
I for one know that there are many meanings to the word “jihad”, but I never see any reporting of the “Higher Jihad”, only Jihad in its most base sense.

35

FWIW, my Baedeker’s guidebook to Turkey (from c.1999) does mention both definitions of the word jihad: holy war against the infidel, and a spiritual struggle within oneself. Baedeker’s does not distinguish the two concepts with the qualifiers “Lesser” and “Greater”, but it does indicate that the holy-war concept is considered more historical; the personal, spiritual struggle more modern/enlightened.

I agree with collounsbury’s repeated assertion that jihad and “crusade” are analogous for various reasons, not the least of which is that religious concepts are readily invoked by angry people – Christian or Muslim or Hindu or what have you – in an effort to justify the actions they wish to take, or the axes they wish to grind. In medieval Western Christendom, Muslims were not viewed as the “enemies of God” until some kind of rationale was sought to reconcile the functions of a once-pagan warrior with his Christian faith. And more to the point, even from my limited though not miniscule understanding of Islam, I think that al-Qaeda’s and other terrorists’ appeal to the word jihad has less to do with true religious faith and more with the attempt to justify aggression and hatred.

[slight hijack]

As a side note, I am currently reading Maria Rosa Menocal’s latest work, The Ornament of the World, which is a study of the tolerant, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that flourished in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) under the Umayyad dynasty from the mid-eighth century to at least the late eleventh. (I haven’t finished reading it, and my own prior knowledge of medieval Spain ends in the early twelfth century.) At least for the Umayyads, the word jihad did not mean “exterminate the infidels”. In fact, the Andalusian Muslims treated Jews and Christians with tolerance and respect, in acknowledgement of the Deity and priestly history (Abraham) that all three faiths shared. Together the Jews and Christians were called “the Peoples of the Book” or dhimmi, after the pact or dhimma which allowed them the free, though inconspicuous, practice of their separate religions. Osama bin Laden and his ilk might be surprised to learn that Jewish and Christian leaders often occupied high positions within the government of al-Andalus. This hardly sounds like a “Lesser Jihad” (war) to me, and the Umayyads were the original successors to the Prophet after his death in 632 CE.

Even the Spanish reconquista was not, in its earliest days, a “crusade” or religious war. It was a struggle by the Christians to take back territory they had once lost to invaders. Period.

It was only when less tolerant, more fundamentalist outside factions – from both the Christian north and Muslim south – intervened in Spanish/Andalusian affairs that this religious co-existence evaporated. Which is too bad, because I find it a much more inspiring vision of the world than the one we experience today.

[/slight hijack]

36

Just to continue the slight hijack for a moment…

Actually, I think we’re doing pretty well in the United States and other modern democracies. Everyone has freedom of religion, not just Abrahamic monotheists: Wiccans and pagans and secular humanists and Hindus and Buddhists and just about anybody else you can think of. Full freedom, too, not just “toleration” (granting that toleration is better than persecution and far better than extermination)–no need to be “inconspicuous”, you can build that church or synagogue or mosque or temple or gurdwara or atheist meeting hall right out in the open, and your rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech and freedom of full political participation in the community will be upheld by the state without favor or discrimination and without reference to your religious beliefs.

37

Jerevan Somerville: A fine post and I agree with your thoughts ( though like MEBuckner I think modern democracies are doing pretty good, though granted there is always room for improvement.

However forgive me, but I must make one niggling little trivial nitpick. My apologies but I am prone to such things :).

Not exactly. The immediate successors to Muhammed were the Rashidun, the four elected ‘Rightly Guided’ Caliphs. The third, Uthman, was an Umayyad. He was assasinated in a political dispute and his successor, the famous Ali ( only Caliph recognized by both the Sunni and Shi’a tradition ) took power on the back of his downfall. This triggered the first fitna, or Islamic Civil War, between Uthman closest living relative, Mu’awiya, the Umayyad governor of Syria and ali. After some twists and turns, Mu’awiya prevailed and established the first Caliphal dynasty, that of the Umayyads. And even in Sunni tradition, only one of those later Caliphs is accorded that specific honorific in retrospect. Most are referred to as Maliks, secular kings. Some of this is post-Abbasid propagandizing, but the Arabocentirc Umayyad Caliphs of Damascus had at times a troubled history with parts of the Muslim community that contributed to their downfall and has tainted their ( often impressive ) achievments.

If you’re interested, another good book on the Spanish Umayyads, specifically the milieu surrounding their re-claiming of the title of Caliph in 929, and their history afterwards, is The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in Al-Andalus by Janina M. Safron ( 2000, Harvard University Press ).

  • Tamerlane
38

Eh, that should be, “…post-Umayyad propagandizing by the Abbasids.”

  • Tamerlane
39

I think (like most of the other sensible posters here) that it’s all dependant upon the context in which the word is used - and the understanding of the audience.

An audience United Stateside probably associates the word (with good reason) to the more violent connotations that it evokes. This is to be expected - the media hasn’t really trumpeted the greater jihad - it’s far less newsworthy right now. But (like others have stated), it has recieved some mention.

I think he’s a little confused. Prez Bush was addressing a democratic, tolerant nation. The whole point was that he was supposed to dissosociate the acts of these terrorists from mainstream Islam. By using the word “crusade”, he was evoking the idea of a religious struggle between the US and these “muslim” terrorists (it’s not like the word doesn’t have a history). Agreed that he could have meant a “crusade” in general (against “evil” or whatever), but as mentioned above, context counts.

I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say that a lot of muslims around the world today consider the word “jihad” to mean holy war. The radical (or subtle - depending on whether you view Islam through “extremist” or “spiritual” eyes) differences between both states (greater/lesser) are not understood nor appreciated.

I think it is kind of difficult to understand the subtle differences between Sam Stone’s point about the Swastika and the word “jihad”. Both can be seen to have historically peaceful instances, and both have been (to use dangerous wording) “corrupted” for the benefits of its users. I thinks it’s just plain wierd that Sam Stone’s initials are SS.

I know. My uncle gave piss-shiver a whole new meaning. Boy does it evoke images.

Yeah, but the word was re-inserted for that specific purpose. There really wasn’t any type of double meaning or implication for the usage of the word in that sense. The word “jihad” has gone through a totally different historical evolution - remember, it didn’t just start off with the “holy war” connotation, but also as the meaning of “spiritual struggle” - so much so that it was this meaning that was given the preference of “greater jihad”.

40

Unfortunately I have to leave for funny places once more and so do not have time for the various threads on these MENA subjects, but let me clarify an item here:

I can speak to this in terms of the Arab-Muslim world: the idea of greater and less Jihad is quite well known. The verbal root, jahada (striving) is in use, and its derivations (e.g. rational theological inquiry is ijtehaad (the roots and patterns are very recognizable to Arabs, it’s the meat and blood of the language). Non-Arabic speaking Muslims, well, maybe not. The linguistic connection is not there and their knowledge depends the quality and character of religious education. However, the jihad concept as a spiritual one is widespread enough I would be very surprised if any but the least literate were not at least aware of the idea of the spiritual striving as the ‘greater Jihad’.

But, as I mentioned before, young men tend to like action and I would hazard the opinion universally as humans like physical action to prove themselves. Perhaps an item of analysis those of you who want a more complete understanding of the drivers in these situations may want to keep in mind is the demographic profile in the region and the weighting towards youth.