first understand the literal meaning of jihad!

Submitted by unaizah syed(a proud muslim!) (Pakistan), Aug 19, 2005 at 06:28

Hhonorable people,
The point raised is whether jihad is a sin or a virtue. I, being only 13 ,am proud to say that jihad is a virtue, it has been said by many members on this site that jihad is for the `week-hearted'.well, for all those may i ask how?

Tell me, is it easy to go into the spans of the enemy and literally sacrifice ones life for the cause of the betterment of his religion?
as for all those who criticise islam, let them hear that i am speechless! I' m shocked at the level of their unawareness.and of the fact that islam is "the religion of peace". But people, sometimes we have to consider the fact that protecting our religion is the greatest responsibility placed upon our shoulders. And to protect islam against calamity and destruction we are forced to make this"jihadic act!". Even though we, muslims, do not promote devastation.

I would like to inform all the ppl (who speak in the opposition of jihad) that even though their point of views might be be correct in their perspective (more specifically after the 9/11 attack), jihad means a great deal of courage and steadfastiness to the moslems. And yes! jihad's literal meaning is "struggle in the way of the God". And not only is jihad-bin-saif (jihad widely discussed in this site), the only form of jihad.but there are also ;
* jihad bin kalam(fighting the enemies through the pen)
* jihad bin nafs(fighting our ill will-power)

in the first form of jihad i.e jihad from the pen, we,muslimsare requested to write against evil and devilry acts and to promote guidance to others through written text.

secondly, jihad from the devil within us, is a commmon practice of all the people whether muslims, christians, hindus, jews, buddhists,etc..(even though they do not regard it as 'jihad bin nafs'), it is our conscience which keeps on reminding us about the original message of GOD to be righteous.

in the end i d like to warn all people in this community (even myself) that we should try and prevent from following the wrong path FIRST before we go on and criticise the religious matters of others for all people are possessive about their religion and nobody wants his religion to become the target of critisism.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".