Pakistan's Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad endorses jihad, but not terrorism. From HiPakistan, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Rashid said that the Wana operation would continue until all terrorists were eliminated. He said: "As Muslims, we believe in Jihad. But we should differentiate between Jihad and terrorism. It is the moral duty of our religious and political leaders to differentiate between Jihad and terrorism."
I'd like to see that too. Some Muslim theorists have postulated that the difference lies between state action and freelancing: they say that jihad can only be waged by governing authorities -- i.e., the caliph -- and not by vigilante terrorist groups with no official connection to the government of any nation-state. However, some Islamic legal authorities (cf. Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil Durubi) specifically stipulate that jihad must continue even in the absence of a caliph: an invitation to establish the kinds of groups we see today worldwide. Also, Rashid must know that many jihadist groups deny that what they are doing is terrorism at all. Yes, the distinction needs to be made, but it needs to be made with a realistic and forthright acknowledgment of just how both words are being used today by radical Muslims.
Jihad doesnt equal terrorism?
That is a bizarre concept since terror has been a primary componant of jihad from the very beginning through to today.
"Some Muslim theorists have postulated that the difference lies between state action and freelancing: they say that jihad can only be waged by governing authorities -- i.e., the caliph -- and not by vigilante terrorist groups with no official connection to the government of any nation-state."
Would that not then be state-sponsored terrorism?
How do the governments of Iran and Sudan - and their proxies (Hezbollah, the Janjaweed, etc.)- fit into these postulates?
I wonder if the difference in Mr. Rashid's mind between Jihad and terrorism is where it is directed? I agree that there is a difference between terrorism and the "greater", spiritual Jihad, however the lines are wandering into a debate over semantics when we discuss the "lesser" Jihad (warfare).
"Allah said, 'No Prophet before Mohammed took booty from his enemy nor prisoners for ransom.' Mohammed said, 'I was made victorious with terror. The earth was made a place for me to clean. I was given the most powerful words. Booty was made lawful for me. I was given the power to intercede. These five privileges were awarded to no prophet before me." (Ishaq:326)"
Seems Mo himself had no problem with being a terrorist.
The very use of the term 'terrorism', in any context, is a victory for the perpetrators of indiscriminate mass murder 'for a certain end'.
What is that 'end'? If one describes the end as 'terror', then the murderers have achieved 'one' goal, fear, which is believed to produce 'compliance'. But, 'fear' is never the primary goal of indiscriminate mass murder 'for a certain end'.
Why can't we just name acts of indiscriminate murder with a word that captures the context of what murderers are trying to achieve? 'Jihad' and 'Jihadist', noun and adjective, works almost perfectly with Islamic indiscriminate mass murder for the purpose of defending and spreading the faith of Islam, which is just about the only indiscriminate mass murder really worth talking about these days because there is so much of.
'We don't give into terrorists'.
Well, you just did.
This is like parsing the word "is" in the time of Bill Clinton.
Is jihad a state operation that involves violence to impose state sanctions for the caliphate, or a freelance group thing that extends the reach of Islam, or the duty of the individual to eliminate the influence of the non-believer as part of the Dawa, using violence as it is kinder to force people into Islam as a kind of tough love because non-believers simply won't make it any other way? All use terror violence. Regrettably all have the same outcome -- people die.
Remember that to Muslims, "peace" isn't the lack of conflict or war, but the absence of enemies. Tolerant means putting up with under proscribed conditions instead of allowing coexistence. Liberty - separation from state tyranny or control is an anathema to Islam (under Sharia), and freedom, making choices based on responsible decision making is a way of enslaving the soul, as Allah makes those decisions for mankind.
A closer look would probably bring more shades of meaning to these and other terms. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that there is a variety of meaning of the word jihad that will always have an ill effect on the target, usually the non-believer.
Actually, the meaning of the word 'Is' was argued several centuries ago, in relation to the Bible. I will have to find that again... because if it was correct it makes some of what God says in the Bible pretty neat.
As soon as I wake up I will search for it. You know I can type in my sleep, right? =/
A Muslim wife is allowed to wage jihad without first asking permission from her husband. This is an important point. Remember that a woman in Islam has virtually no human rights and cannot even travel without her husband's permission. If a woman is permitted to wage jihad without her husband's permission, how much more is a man permitted to wage jihad without the sanction of the state (Khalipha)? It is inconceivable that a man would be more restricted than a woman under any circumstance. Again, their own ideology defeats their efforts to propagate yet one more lie (taqiyyah) in the non-Muslim world (dar al-harb).
From the viewpoint of the Infidel, what matters is not only the instrument chosen to spread Islam and weaken the non-Muslims, but that even twithout terrorism, the spread of Islam is a threat to everything that Western civilisation --and all the non-Muslim civilisations of the East, can claim as their achievements, in art, science, in the continuing ability to engage in free and skeptical inquiry, in the autonomy (in the West) of the individual as opposed to the crushing collecive of Islam.
So when someone says he wishes to distinguish between "terrorism" and "Jihad," and that the former is undesirable but the latter all to the good, the proper reaction should not be one of unalloyed pleasure, but suspicion and hostility. "Jihad" to spread Islma is, for all those who do not believe in Islam, a menace. If you do not regard it as a menace, either you are ignorant of its tenants, or insufficiently grateful to what the Western world has slowly managed -- with setbacks and detours -- to achieve. If Spinoza, Locke, Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln mean nothing to you -- by all means, welcome Islam, as long as it uses "peaceful" means. If Newton, Leibniz, Lavoisier, Faraday, and a hundred thousand other scientists do not impress, yes -- wave the flag of welcome for Islam. If Leonardo and Michelangelo and Piero, and all those people, whose pictures and sculptures who make great efforts to view, or to take your children to view, to study, to understand, are nothing special, and the odd mosque, or Quran'ic calligraphy, represents the height of arstistic achievement -- yes, don't worry as long as "terror" is not employed to promote the belief-system of Islam -- which, if you need to seek its monument, just look at wherever it has prevailed, and recall what it has replaced, in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Anatolia, in the Greco-Buddhist civilization of Central Asia, in what was Zoroastrian Persia, in what was once, before Muslim invaders came, the undamaged, unwounded, civilisation of India.
Go ahead -- pretend that there is nothing to worry about.