jihad is as relevant today as it ever was in history. the conditions as to when it is mandated have been clearly defined, but the methods of pursuing it are open to interpretation according to context. jihad need not be violent. it can be achieved through application of economic principles, it can be as simple a matter as living as an example of what one believes in or refusal to compromise principles of ethics...sometimes the most courageous course is speaking the truth. consider the possibilities...


oh, my brother…

while we murder and maim, running roughshod over the earth,
how can we claim to love God? it’s easy to blame someone else
and cry over all his transgressions. but if we try to examine
our own actions, how this grief will multiply, crushing every false belief.

the tiny tears flowing today would be lost in an ocean of anguish.
our paths have crossed before… don’t you know me? oh, my brother…
what have we done? why do we kill each other? what ignorant vandals!
destroying the art of creation we tear ourselves apart,

forgetting we share one Father. He must feel every wound we inflict.
from the dust of our destruction, His eyes would be burning. how many
more eons before we learn? religions are lamps lit by one sacred flame,
yet we haggle over them in God’s name.

we need a jihad for peace; amnesty without surrender, total ceasefire.
holy war is an oxymoron. fear propagates evil. we are all victims now.
love creates and heals, light dispels darkness and hate. what good
is humanity without brotherhood?

__________________
"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu

Who wrote this?...............

How is jihad any different than the crusades? I see them as the same thing. Instead of swords they have ak47s.

Jihad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Crusades would be considered jihad. But so would asceticism. Jihad's popular meaning in the West is only one interpretation -- it is not by definition holy war.

I guess those pictures of ten year olds with the green headbands holding guns is also just one interpretation as well? Or the proud mother who shows a video of her son that is preparing for a suicide raid. While she watches the video she is saying praise allah knowing that her son killed a bunch of innocent civilian jews who were peacefully eating their lunch in an open market cafe.

Yes, that is one use of the word jihad. But doctrinally and theologically jihad does not specifically mean holy war -- it never has. It's just a word, and like many religious words (like sin and like salvation in Christianity, like dukkha and nirvana in Buddhism), the word can be appropriately used in varied ways. Are you aware that the word jihad can and has been used in peaceful contexts as well? Do you care?

i dont know the exact conditions prevailing at the time of the crusades as compared to when the prophet was alive. but it doesnt make sense to analyze that, what is in the world today is far more meaningful. war may even have been justified in that world, but to my way of thinking it is obsolete and needs to be put behind us. but krumple, it is a good point and noteworthy that there are more than the followers of any one religion that have set out making the same error.

today's world is in need of as much correction as that of the past, but i personally dont believe at this stage of our evolution that violence is ever the only answer nor is it ever the best answer. there are so many other options that may bear fruit, and some take every bit as much courage to attempt. jihad is not meant to conquer, but to unite-it was never proposed as a means of converting others to one's point of view.

that's all i was trying to say. the poem i wrote isnt any great literary accomplishment, it is only a means of expression. actually i wrote it some time ago specifically to express my sorrow and numbness over the shia and sunni conflict. mosques are being bombed during friday prayers by people who claim to be muslim. this is a travesty and a tragedy as well.

but religion per se as an institution is taking the brunt of the anger and become the scapegoat for all the world's ills for some people. it is in actuality the ignorance, lack of understanding and misappropriation of religion that has caused the deaths of uncountable numbers of mankind. if religion were to be obliterated from the face of the earth, human beings would continue to discriminate, exclude and slaughter each other over any little difference they can find.

---------- Post added 09-15-2009 at 10:51 AM ----------

yes krumple, it is exactly that, more correctly called a misinterpretation. it is not attributable to religion per se, but to misunderstanding, ignorance, any number of other attributes possessed by the human spirit.

__________________
"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu

What a pity it is that your self-expression here in a creative writing thread has been co-opted by someone trying to drag arguments in here from the philosophy threads. Your writing has engendered discussion - but if you don't want the same old threads to pop up here I'd be happy to delete the ensuing conversation if you wish.

no problem, aedes, let it run. in fact, literature can be a means of jihad, dont you think? i think it has even been a means to revolution in the past...

__________________
"The idea is to die young as late as possible."....Ashley Montagu

Why? Deleting these responses would do a disservice to the whole poem. There are about a dozen threads all on the same topic, so why start with this one?

On a side note I want to mention the swastika. I know this might sound off topic but I am making a parallel here. Anyways, early Buddhist temples bear the swastika but as we more widely know that the German Nazis also used it. While I was heavily studying Buddhism, I befriended a monk that was on quite a bit of a jihad himself if you will. I know it sounds funny because Buddhist generally do not feel any need to convert or preach to other non-buddhists. But he had a very particular method to get people talking. One day he invited me to a Bon celebration and I got to see him in action. There were of course quite a few christian Japanese at this event even though Bon is traditionally not christian. One guy happened to notice the swastika on a bag he was carrying and abruptly had to interrogate him about it. The thing is the man asked since the germans had such an influence of "negativity" why would anyone want to bear a swastika? So he simply responded by saying it was used by Buddhists long before the Germans used it. But that wasn't good enough response and he had to add that it is distasteful to have anything to do with the swastika.

So what is my point? Perhaps it is ignorant to misinterpret the meaning of something. But you must also realize that those who utilize it in their own way the new meaning will absorb that. If the meaning was a good one it can just as easily be polluted. How can you tell (after that when someone uses the word jihad) their meaning?