Understanding Jihad

In the past few years, especially after 9/11, we have all been more aware of the word 'jihad' and the various meanings it has. The most innocuous, as defined by my teacher when we were studying the Koran, is "struggle" which can mean an inner struggle to find Allah. The most dangerous is the jihad being waged by Al-Qaeda. Between these two extremes, what is the reality?

Last night I read portions of 'The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of non-Muslims' edited by Andrew Bostom. It was an eye-opener to see that the Koran, the Hadith and the interpretations of Islamic scholars through the centuries were much closer to the Al-Qaeda vision of jihad than the gentler, softer inner search for peace. I use this word as it is also very common to hear that Islam is a search for peace.

This is not just what the Muslim religious leaders think, but it has influenced how the religion has spread, how the political and military leaders have acted from the time of Mohammed, and explains why Islam was able to in a mere 70 years after Mohammed's death rule from Spain to the border of India. It was the duty of Muslims to participate in razzia (raids) at least once a year and kill the able bodied infidels who would not convert and enslave their women and children. Others, especially the people of the Book (Jews, Christians) were sometimes allowed to keep their religious practices, but had to pay a poll-tax (jizaya) in order to do so. Even then, they were second class citizens: for example, a Muslim could kill one of them and it would not be a capital offence.

The only bulwark in the East against this Islamic expansion was India. Muhammad bin Qasim (715 CE) was the first to achieve success, but was recalled after 3 years. It took almost 300 years before Mahmud of Ghazni attacked in 1000 CE. In between there were raids as well as some expansion of Islam from those left behind by Qasim, but India largely held out for 300 years after Spain and the nearby regions of France succumbed. But the enormous wealth that India possessed at the time was a magnet for adventurers for the next 600 years. Eventually some of them settled and ruled, but for the majority it was the loot, the killing of infidels and the expansion of Islam that were the goals.

It can be argued that this was the way of the world in the medieval period, and not just Muslims, but Christians and others behaved in the same way. That is true, but in the modern period they have all at least changed their philosophy to that of peace. Again, it might be argued that this is hypocritical, taking just the history of the 20th century as an example: states and peoples have looted, killed, invaded, enslaved and destroyed more effectively than at any other time in the past. Tamurlane is charged with killing 100,000 people in Delhi alone. The fire-bombing of Dresden killed as many in one night during World War II, not to mention the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, to understand Jihad, we need to understand civilization too, and understand the violence inside Man. Maybe my teacher was right after all: it is this inner struggle to find God that all of mankind has to succeed at, that we all have to change from external aggression to an internal search for truth, to change our pattern of behavior so that we find Peace and Love. It is this jihad that we all have to undertake, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, if we are to change the world.