concept of Jihad

Submitted by Imam Ahmed Syeed Ali Muhammed (United States), Mar 31, 2008 at 15:43

Very few people have a full understanding what 'Jihad' means. Most are ready to accept that it means war, or 'Holy war'. There are those also who know that it means 'to strive', or 'struggle', yet for some reason feel more comfortable with it meaning only war, or fighting. When Allah says 'Jaheedu, Fis sabiallah' "strive in the way of Allah, with your persons, and property". ( for those of you who wish to argue with me over transliteration, please note there is no correct form of transliteration in Arabic, it's simply a tool to help non arabic speaking people correctly pronounce arabic words) He didn't soley mean physical fighting.

What is meant by Surah 9:111 is that those who have the utmost faith in Allah place Allah's will above thier own desires, and the worth of thier property, even thier own lives. It doesn't mean go out and blow yourself up, but it simply means living for God. If Allah in the Qur'an tells me to give up drinking, eating pork, and sleeping around with women, then for me to do that would be submitting to Allah's will. And it would be a struggle, because I was raised in Louisiana, and I grew up eating pork. So it was a struggle for me to give up a food I grew up enjoying for my faith. I was never much of a drinker, so that wasn't all to difficult.

Every day is a struggle (Jihad) We struggle to do good at our jobs, struggle to maintain our faith, and we strive to over come all sorts of barriers that attempt to block our paths to our final goals.

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