Another call for reform of Islam that seems to rest on false principles. I do not believe that genuine reform is possible without a forthright acknowledgement of what needs to be reformed. From Singapore’s TodayOnline:
The word “jihad” used to have a noble connotation of an effort made towards self-improvement through enlightenment and education. But, of late, it has become synonymous with armed struggle and terrorism.
Speaking at a seminar on the uses and abuses of jihad at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies yesterday, prominent Islamic thinker Prof Mohammad Hashim Kamali said the word and deed has become one of the most distorted and politicised aspects in Islam.
The Afghan-born Prof Kamali said Islamic juristic writings on jihad were a key influence in “virtually equating jihad with war”.
He said: “In the course, juristic writings on jihad became so preoccupied with its military aspect “¦ it was eventually restricted only to this meaning to the near total exclusion of its wider connotations. This has lent support to the common misconception about jihad that has persisted ever since.”
So Islamic jurists are responsible for the misconception? In other words, if you read books of Islamic law, which I do at some length in Onward Muslim Soldiers, they’ll tell you that jihad means warfare, but they’re wrong? The body of men who spent their lives studying the Qur’an and Hadith in order to conform every aspect of Muslims’ lives to the will of Allah and his prophet, and they misunderstood this key concept?
Referring to Koranic evidence, Prof Kamali emphasised that jihad was the “inner struggle for self- discipline and a sincere striving for the acquisition of knowledge”.
I wish the article had been more explicit. I’d like to know how “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them (Sura 9:5) and the scores of other Qur’anic verses commanding warfare against non-Muslims refers to an “inner struggle for self-discipline.”
However, he admitted that jihad in the military sense could be interpreted as a defence against aggression.
“In countless places, the Koran ordains fighting tyranny and suppression of liberties until persecution stops and people are free to believe and act in accordance with their own conscience,” said the professor of Islamic law and jurisprudence at the International Islamic University in Malaysia.
Also, I wonder what Kamali would say to Mufti Ebrahim Desai and others who say that jihad warfare is not always defensive, but must also be waged offensively to spread Islamic hegemony. The fact that he takes no notice of this is just one indication of the severe limitations of his supposedly reformist vision.