“JIHAD”

Sanfelli Marius Michael C. Hortelano
http.//shortelano.blogspot.com


Holy War? Is their such thing as a holy war? Yes there is. That is jihad. Muslim extremists who have engaged in terrorism dwell the furtherance cause to Jihad which in turn made the killing justified under it. Does this make sense? Of course not.

There are two kinds of Jihad. The first one is defined as “war from within”. For this reason, man has to proclaim war against his wrong doings in an effort for redirection and change. Lay man’s term disclose that this type of jihad is more of a self rehabilitation for purposes of change.

To shed light on the matter, Here’s a concrete example. if you are a smoker, then your jihad is how to stop smoking. Thus, you have your own war to settle and that is to defeat the vice of smoking.

The second one is when a Muslim, without interposing any justifiable grounds, is prohibited the free exercise of Islam. In so doing, an offended Islam religious is justified to declare “jihad” to pursue the free exercise of his religion.

Jihad is in itself bloodless but with exceptions. However, Muslim extremists tend to divert its holy interpretation to make their acts of terrorism justified. They tend to make it appear that the acts of westerners manifests a direct blasphemy of Islam thus, justified for Jihad. And, to at the expense of the life of innocents, they say that they are fighting for the cause of God and religion. Henceforth, if they kill for Allah, their deeds are justified in his name.

Suicide bombers and terrorists suffer the wrong notion of Allah’s purest intention and purpose. Allah is the most merciful in the first place. However, it is sad to note that some subject Jihad to their own unlimited abuse to make themselves holy. Just by mere proclamation that I am fighting for the cause of Islam, freedom to kill will be automatically limitless and, the catch is, you are just to believe that you are fighting for Islam’s cause.

Jihad is “holy war” but its interpretation should not be interpreted in its literal sense. Putting in application the interpretation of jihad would negate the extremist’s claim of a valid “holy war”. First, the conflict involved is not from “within” but from “without” so as it is safe to say that their cause is not a war against one’s self. Second, assuming for the sake of argument that it is an external war, still it belies their reasoning for the reason that there has been no prohibition to their free exercise of Islam. Hence, all the bombings, suicide bombings, and all sorts of anti-social acts is not worthy to be associated nor attributed to the holy name of Islam.

“Jihad” therefore should be understood under Allah’s guiding grace and wisdom. Be it noted that all that God wants is to share the beauty of life through his peace and mercy negating “killing” of human life as the supreme prohibition. All raises believe in the same supernatural being. The only difference is we call him different names. But, the common thing is, religion is made as a guiding rod to steer ourselves to peace because Islam means “peace”. Asalamo alaikum…