The public
presentation of information seeks to capitalize on images of western
brutality while simultaneously pushing home the need to act for Allah.
Beneath, however, leaders who have successfully indoctrinated their people
thusly, are free to vie for all of their wills and desires with the
staunchest buttresses of human tenacity. A growing interest in the
correlation between Islam and hatred for America is evidence that two
concepts have been inextricably linked by a heavily integrated, and by now
ingrained, canon of ideas.
Still, in no small way, this is directly concordant with the
historical impetus of the jihad, which was emergent in its current form as
much as a result of the behavior of infidels as by the spiritual ideals of
Islam. To the point, the Sachedina essay makes the case that "the
exegetical and juristic though of Islamic scholars were inspired by the
socio-political circumstances of the Muslim community. Consequently, these
scholars had to formulate terminological stratagems that could reconcile
the apparently tolerant tone of the Qur'an with the use of jihad as a means
of 'calling' people to the divine path." (Sachedina, 35) In other words,
the core demand imposed upon Muslim leaders by the incursion of foreign
invaders and imperialist forces required the justification of violence as
existing within the context of doctrine and scripture. Therefore,
explanations for jihad which rendered it to mean something explicitly
related to the waging of holy war, as opposed to its purer meaning relating
to a less exactly defined...
Here, the author notes the policy of belief that
"if the infidels conquered Muslim land, all the Muslim inhabitants had to
make a hijira to a place under Muslim government, and to engage in holy war
for the recovery of their lost land from there. . . which was to figure
prominently in the Muslim response to European colonialism." (Crone, 361)
This idea that there was a direct relationship between the spiritual
calling of Islam and the political impositions designed by the West to
reduce Islam to modernity and secularism seems consistent with the same
argument used not just to promote, but in fact to continually redefine,
jihad. As point of fact, though the core of this discussion denotes a
misuse of the term according to Islamic theology, the recreation of its
means as referring to holy war, though false or at least extrapolated at
one point, is today the dominant meaning for all intents and purposes.
Perhaps only a period of political and geopolitical relaxation of tensions
will allow a return to its purer meaning.
Works Cited:
Crone, P. (2004). Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Sachedina, A.A. (1990). The Development of Jihad in Islamic Revelation
and History. Cross, Crescent, and Sword: The Justification of War in
Western and Islamic Tradition: New York: Greenwood Press.
