Qur'an promote war?
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Topic: Qur'an promote war?
Posted By: wwood
Subject: Qur'an promote war?
Date Posted: 02 November 2010 at 6:58am
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Some people say yes, some other people say no. But ins't the Jihad a war? There can be right wars to be fighted where people die? If Allah is the only God, why the people can't have different ideas? If Allah is the right God, the unfaithful will be punished when they die... What do you think? |
Replies:
Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 02 November 2010 at 11:34pm
In this situation of yes and no answers a better way would be, read Quran yourself particularly with a commentary indicating the prevailing conditions of ignorance, incessant wars whether internecine tribal or inter national nature...
The literal meaning of Jihad happens to be effort or struggle...Anywhere you have to exert extra effort becomes jihad and biggest effort or jihad is to control the selfish, gluttonous, corrupt leanings of any ones personality! Getting enlisted to go to war is way low on the totem pole! As an individual you have no authority per Quraan to start a effort that will be called a war...It will be too whimsical to assume as such!
Of course just compare the death data of all wars and see how many times Quraan's injunctions had any role where people died...I mean civilians! unheard of!
They sure do! Just look at all the cults and Isms( Communism /Capitalism/ Marxism/ Mormonism/Hinduism/the list is endless) of the east and the west, Allah says you have all the free will, have all the ideas but you know then all these isms do end up fighting for the control and then the wars take place and people get killed and hurt and makes them guilty in Allah's court!
By universal principle the guilty face the music in this world too and there will be no room to think when the evidence of crime or being guilty is self evident in hereafter! If anyone will escape from disgrace of being guilty that would only be by Allah's grace granted through his beloved Prophet Mhmd(p) cuz He was the only one and also the last who completed God's given task on this earth! Finally if you have a nation and you need to protect it, wouldn't you have department of Defense? ------------- Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction. |
wwood wrote:Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 03 November 2010 at 11:22pm
A summary of Qur'an/Islam's attitue towards War would be: - As a blanket rule, In Islam it is forbidden/Haraam to kill innocent human beings (of any religion). (Whatever action is termed Haram in Islam means that doing that would be a BIG sin and a Muslim will have to spend time in Hell to compensate for that Sin.) - It is even forbidden to kill animals for pleasure/sport/needlessly. And discouraged to cut down, uproot or destroy vegetation such as trees etc, unless circumstances demand it. (trying to illustrate the value Islam gives to "Life" in general.. not just humans) - Islam allows us to fight Jihad & wars when circumstances demand it. We are not forced to 'turn the other cheek'. Muslims CANNOT use Jihad/War as a justification to impose tyranny on other states/nations or fight for material reasons. If Muslims do not have a valid justification for war - they can be held responsible in the hereafter (and courts of earthly law. - EVEN during war, Muslims have to abide by the Islamic injunctions of preventing casualties to innocent human beings. This protection extends to the flora/fauna of the area, such as destroying trees/burning crops etc. As well as places of worship. Women, children, Old, Priests etc cannot be harmed. By default this eliminates 'suicide bombings on civlilans' as a valid means of warfare and this cannot/should not be used. - Muslims cannot use 'forcible conversions' as a justification for War, since Islam does not allow us to compel people into Islam. I'm assuming this is what you meant. Yes people can have different ideas, even under Islamic rule or otherwise. Even if by our islamic standards they are considered to be incorrect. ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 04 November 2010 at 5:36pm
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Chrysalis, you state "Islam allows us to fight Jihad & wars when circumstances demand it". This a pretty generic statement and could mean almost anything. WWood, you should know that for the 13 centuries after the the death of the Prophet, Jihad has almost exclusively meant actual war, either with what have been perceived as infidels or apostates. It is only recently, for whatever reason, that the definition of Jihad has been softened somewhat to be "effort or struggle". |
Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 05 November 2010 at 11:40am
Yes it is a generic statement. But it pretty much sums it up. If anybody wants to go into depth of circumstances, they are welcome to. �
The definition of 'jihad' has not been softened Bob. This is what Jihad's definition has always been since day 1. Just because people have never been aware of that definition does not mean it was recently conjured up or softened. Whenever muslims want to be specific they use words such as "Jihad fee sabilillah" or "Jihad un nafs" (in arabic, used respectively for Jihad in Allah's cause, or Jihad against Nafs i.e. personal struggle). Ofcourse people have a tendency to shorten words.It literally means 'struggle'. e.g. people will say: Its a jihad just to wake up early in the morning. ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 05 November 2010 at 12:10pm
| I understand what you are saying Chrysalis. My point does not concern the literal meaning of the word. My point was that Muslim leaders of the first 1300 years after the revealing of the Quran have further defined it to be literal war or armed conflict. That has changed in the last 100 years probably because it is not a sound long term strategy to go around calling for armed conflict against anyone that is a non-believer. It tends to unite the unbelievers against you. |
Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 07 November 2010 at 1:57am
Actually I think the media has defined Jihad to be literal war or armed conflict... not us Muslims. Before 2001 I bet majority of non-muslims hadn't even heard of the word, let alone know its meaning. So the brunt lies on modern-day media. Yes even muslims will sometimes use 'jihad' to mean the 'war'. But almost all muslims are pefrectly aware of different jihads. When I attended a Islamic Summer school (Pakistan), we were reading about Jihad... and the teacher quoted a hadith saying that Jihad-un-nafs (personal struggle) is the better jihad. So even on an educational level we are clearly taught the difference. Even in conservative nations such as Pakistan. ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: Usmani
Date Posted: 07 November 2010 at 9:59am
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Quote: But isn�t the Jihad a war? There can be right wars to be fighted where people die? If Allah is the only God, why the people can't have different ideas? Jihad has various meanings as other friends have explained already. I will try to limit myself Jihad which you wanted to know.Allah has given freewill to all human to choose Islam or follow any other religion or even one can be live without any religion. We believe that there is only one God/Allah and this earth belongs to Him. As we all knows that human are not the creator of this earth. So in very simple words creator/the owner rules/system have be implemented and followed by every human here. The straggle for doing that is called jihad. Jihad which is going on for last few decades is not the one i have just explained.
To have this Jihad(one I expained), majorty of Muslim have to be the real good Muslim.Today's Jihad is the result of injustice upon Muslims which is going on agaisnt Muslims in varius places of the earth.
Quote: If Allah is the right God, the unfaithful will be punished when they die... ------------- Engage your self in good deeds,otherswise yours nafs will engage you in bad deeds |
Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 07 November 2010 at 8:43pm
Can you support your assertions with some darn evidence? You sound like you been reading too much of the Bob Spencer gutter sniping @Jihad Watch! If the Muslims leaders of first 1300 as you assert were into Jihad there would be no European colonialism or Hinduism left...The latter day Jihad was fashioned and funded and pushed by the Americanos after the communist take over of Afghanistan and that is well documented history... And btw what has the united unbelieving NATO forces have achieved in that place lately...LOL ------------- Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction. |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 07 November 2010 at 8:52pm
| Chrysalis, I am curious if you actually believe this "Actually I think the media has defined Jihad to be literal war or armed conflict... not us Muslims". I think that if you do a little research you will find that, regardless of what you learned in a summer school in Pakistan, most if not all of the wars undertaken by Muslims nations against their neighbors were done under the auspices of a call to "Jihad". |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 07 November 2010 at 9:10pm
| Sign Reader, you need to read a little closer. I did not say the Muslim leaders of 1300, I said the Muslim leaders of the last 1300 years following the revealing of the Quran. Also, with reference to European colonialism and Hinduism, just because the Muslim Jihads were halted and pushed back doesn't mean that they didn't occur. I wonder if you understand what the Christian Crusades were a response to?? Lastly, what was pushed by President Reagan in the 1980's was the rolling back of cummunism and the Soviet Union which succeeded. It had nothing to do with religion. How that was done was deplorable only because you and I have perfect 20/20 hindsight. I'm not sure what "the combined unbelieving NATO forces" have to do with this thread but I've come to accept your throwing around all manner of irrelavent opinions in your relentless attempt to blame all the worlds ills on the United States. |
Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 08 November 2010 at 7:47am
Perhaps I should rephrase: Yes I believe it is the media that has put Jihad under a microscope and put it in a box to mean only an armed struggle.
Ofcourse we have examples of armed Jihad from history. Personal Jihads don't really make it to history pages. We have examples of authentic islamic "Jihads" as well as pretexts to war that were termed "Jihad". Just because one person labels something wrongly does not actually make it that. There were false prophets who emerged such as "Mahdi"... if they termed their wars Jihad did not really make it so... ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: Thom01
Date Posted: 08 November 2010 at 1:46pm
Thank you (and others) for clarifying the term "jihad" for us, and what it means within the context of Islam. If only this message could be spread a little wider, perhaps there would be less fear and mistrust from non-Muslims toward Muslims in general. I'm sure that most reasonable Westerners (especially those in the U.S.) will agree that the domestic media here tends to shape public opinion around what the domestic "government" wants to spread as propaganda to its own people. Being able to see this phenomenon as it actually is helps those of us who are not swayed by such blatant lies to appreciate the truth about other religions such as Islam. It also helps to point a finger at the real culprit in such hateful fomentation: the government itself. Which then poses an interesting question: why would the government (or those in government) wish to do such a thing? Attempting to answer that question may be a bit more complicated than most people are willing to pursue. Certainly, the implications of such are not very pleasant to contemplate. |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 08 November 2010 at 5:19pm
| Interesting Chrysalis, what then does actually make one armed conflict a "Jihad" and another not??? |
Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 08 November 2010 at 9:40pm
I may unscrew your head and screw it back on the right way... And I am going to make it bit clearer for a dense agnostic's edification... There were only three dynasties, that held the realm... Ummayads, Abbasids and then Ottomans and I wouldn't count others like the Mugals etc. The first one got established after a settling a conflict amongst Muslims, the second one after an insurrection led by a non Arab group against the last Ummayad ruler and the third one was a Turkish interest that began by consolidation of the Muslim ruled states in present day Turkey and remnants of the Abbasid empire that was knocked over by Halago Khan...that makes a span of 1300 years! So pray tell, where was the Jihad in these 1300 years? It is the branding of crusades in the western psyche that has kept flames of colonialism alive for ever and force other to do the same by default! Wasn't the Bush war against Iraq and Afghans a crusade! So by default what choice do you let the victims have? And here is perfect article about the Crusades: I bet it will blow you away even if you intro as ignostic: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175317/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_crusade_2.0/ - Tomgram: John Feffer, Crusade 2.0 &The lies of Islamophobia There was no certainty of rolling back of Communism! It was a covert scheme that kindled the effort, the result was a serendipity that even blew past Bush Sr. when USSR gone broke decided to withdraw from fighting Afghan guerrillas... Don't tell me about your ignorance, if Americans had done all that overtly it would have been a WWIII. That was a war on the cheap but the current one the shoe is on the other foot the most expensive now, that driven zionist occupied government has gone broke being told by the world to quit printing money to fight crusades...lol If the genesis of the Afghan Jihad was American doing, hindsight 20/20!LOL Every criminal pleads the same thing! Just don't deny the evidence and continue to obfuscate and blame the victims! You need to listen to Dr. Petit's press talk... in America there are no victims rights and same mentality pervades every where they go crusading! The NATO thing was in response to your comment about "It tends to unite the unbelievers against you" Duh... ------------- Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction. |
Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 08 November 2010 at 11:31pm
I assume your question is: When is an armed struggle a legitimate Islamic Jihad. - Islamic Jihad is applicable when Muslim lands are attacked by foreign forces. - Individuals (such as Usama Bin Laden etc) cannot give a call for Jihad. Jihad can only be initiated by the Muslim leader of an Islamic State. (i.e. a valid/authorized leader - not Average Abdullah) - Jihad cannot be initiated for personal/material gains of a leader/govt - It is forbidden to kill innocent women/children in a Jihad. Hence it can only be waged against a military or an army. Civilian targets would be forbidden, and would be considered murder - not part of Jihad. - If a Muslim community (country A) is attacked by a foreign force and has its land occupied, and they call for help from other muslim communities (country B)... that is also a valid Jihad, even though country B wasn't attacked. Since the Muslim Ummah is one nation. These are some criteria for when a war is actually an Islamic Jihad. There may be more... however at the moment I can recall these. ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 09 November 2010 at 8:20am
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Sign Reader, your rants are becoming more and more disjoint with code word jargon thrown about so randomly that it is no longer even worth my time to decipher your attempts at using the English language. |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 09 November 2010 at 8:35am
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Chrysalis, lets take these one at a time then 1. "Individuals (such as Usama Bin Laden etc) cannot give a call for Jihad. Jihad can only be initiated by the Muslim leader of an Islamic State. (i.e. a valid/authorized leader - not Average Abdullah)". In fact Usama Bin Laden has given a call to Jihad as have numerous others non heads of state. Not only that but innummerable muslims have answered this call. You are saying that all of them are outside the bounds of Islamic Law. 2."It is forbidden to kill innocent women/children in a Jihad. Hence it can only be waged against a military or an army. Civilian targets would be forbidden, and would be considered murder - not part of Jihad." In fact immeasurable targeting of civilians has taken place. You are saying that all the members of Islam doing this "Jihad" are also outside the bounds of Islamic Law. 3. "If a Muslim community (country A) is attacked by a foreign force and has its land occupied, and they call for help from other muslim communities (country B)... that is also a valid Jihad, even though country B wasn't attacked. Since the Muslim Ummah is one nation" One recent example of a nation being attacked and it's land occupied is the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Oh wait, there was no call for Jihad there and only the US and it's allies chose to intervene.
Do I have that right?
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Posted By: Sign*Reader
Date Posted: 09 November 2010 at 5:12pm
Who sent you an invitation to gutter snipe here? BTW the Tomdispatch article was written expressly for knuckleheads like you! I am telling you! Read the article or you don't, couldn't care less cuz the truth is bitter medicine but also a healer for the sick! ------------- Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction. |
Posted By: schmikbob
Date Posted: 09 November 2010 at 6:20pm
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Sign Reader, I realize that this article fits right in with your anti everyone mentality. I also realize that you think your grasp of English is excellent what with the whole "gutter sniping" and "knuckleheads" labels. I realize this because the military school I went to occationally had undereducated cretins with gigantic egos like yours right before they were ejected for various inabilities to perform. You should take your ugly finger pointing screeds elsewhere. Anyone can point a finger. Maybe you should propose a solution occasionally. |
Posted By: Chrysalis
Date Posted: 09 November 2010 at 9:42pm
Your post was quite confusing! Anyhow...
So? I thought I already explained how only head of state can give a call for Jihad, and not ordinary individuals. So what are you trying to explain with your Usama e.g.? I think my point was pretty self explanatory. Usama's call is not a valid call for Jihad, more so because it doesn't even meet the other requirements.
Which call are you talking about? Are you talking about Al-Qaeda? and the WTC bombings? Yes they are all outside the realms of Islam and cannot be termed Islamically valid/legal/allowed. Rather it would be a sin.
I'll repeat myself. Any muslim who claims "jihad" all the while killing civilians such as innocent women, children, people of religion (monks/priests) is performing outside the realms of Islam (/ic law). E.g. WTC, plane bombings, etc.
Pls explain what you're trying to say. If there was no call for Jihad, why are you using this e.g. then?
Right to what? ------------- "O Lord, forgive me, my parents and Muslims in the Hereafter. O Lord, show mercy on them as they showed mercy to me when I was young." |
Posted By: Matt Browne
Date Posted: 21 November 2010 at 4:55am
I'm actually very glad that the majority of Muslims today see jihad as a personal struggle, despite the fact that this was different in the past. There seem to be significant differences between meccan and medinan suras. And the same can be said for the the Old and New Testament. The majority of Christians today don't interpret Deuteronomy 7 as a command to start genocide: "And when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them." Non-militant Islamists are a minority and militant Islamists are a tiny minority. Ultra-conservative Christians are a minority and militant ultra-conservative Christians (killing abortion doctors) are a very tiny minority. But because both non-militant groups seem to be growing we have to remain watchful. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. I think tolerant Christians, tolerant Muslims, tolerant Agnostics and tolerant Atheists share a common goal here. ------------- A religion that's intolerant of other religions can't be the world's best religion --Abdel Samad Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people--Eleanor Roosevelt |