Tag: jihad

This exploding of how jihadi rhetoric hijacks the Quran is so beautiful and on point that I'm linking to it again.

The first and most important thing that this suggests to me is that militants do not represent, do not claim to represent and do not wish to represent ordinary Muslims. They call on the elite, not the common man, to fight in their 'holy' war. They're not interested in your Uncle Ahmad, who plays backgammon and watches football all weekend.  They want the people who are sure of their own superiority--so sure that they would respond to the words of a prophesy in the Qur'an itself. If this is not the picture of arrogance, I don't know what is.

Willow, it is an honor to know you. 

I really hope this article makes the rounds. This is a wonderful insistence by a regular believer standing up for the beauty of the Quran.

A couple of years ago I was watching one of the American news stations channeled into the Middle East via satellite out of Dubai--either ABC or CBS--when the silver-haired anchor read out a recently-broadcast message from an Islamic militant group. It was the usual shtick. What made my jaw drop, however, was the dedication: the message was addressed "to the men on the mountaintops." Though the message had been translated into English before it was aired, I immediately recognized the reference: Verse 46 of Surit Al 'Araf, variously translated as The Mountaintops, The Ramparts, and The Elevated Places.

Wa baynahoma hijabon wa ala al arafi rejalun yarefoun kollan b'iseemahom; Wa nadau as'hab al janati an salamon alaykum lam yadkholouha wa hom yatma'oun.

"And between them [heaven and earth] there shall be a Veil, and on the mountaintops shall stand men who know all by their names/marks, and they shall call out to the dwellers of the Garden: Peace be upon you! They shall not have entered it yet, though they hope."  

I recognized it because it is my favorite Aya, and I felt slightly sick: I thought it was incredible that this particular reference--the men on the mountaintops--should be used by people promoting violence, especially considering the first words out of the mouths of the men on the mountaintops are 'Peace be upon you'. It got me thinking: who are the men on the mountaintops, and what does it mean when they are invoked by militants?

I do not have time to do this topic justice, but in short, I adamantly disagree with the argument of Brother Haroon, one of my favorite bloggers, that there are no civilians in Israel.

It is likely Umar Lee didn't actually closely read my argument, or else he read the post and decided that what I really meant was the exact opposite of what I actually wrote. (A case of unliteralism, I suppose.) Let me clarify before all hell breaks loose.

The word jihad has been misapplied, misappropriated and mishandled by non-Muslims and even misguided Muslims in mainstream media for over a decade. Published in newsprint, spoken on the airwaves and visualized on television in a way that deliberately inspires resistance. The utterance of jihad has become, for the non-Muslim, tantamount to  the  Western locution of crusade for Muslims. But this is where the equivelency stops as the only similarity between jihad and crusade are in terms of an emotive exchange. Etymologically, the words are as dissimlilar as "strive" and "campaign", which initially may not seem that great a difference.

However, if one looks closely etymologically, we notice that one can be applied inwardly and the other is only comprehensible in context with an external objective. Though the difference seemingly slight, one can begin to understand the nature of the Arabic language. Ideally, one could only hope that Western media takes a stronger interest in linguistic accuracy and cultural pluralism as it does pecuniary profits. Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr has written that,

"To explain the authentic meaning of jihad requires clearing the slate completely of all the prevalent misunderstandings that unfortunately continue to be perpetuated in the Western media and much of Western literature concerned with Islam." (S.H. Nasr, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity)

But this would take a sincere effort against a formidable opponent worthy of the aformentioned term, jihad. This leaves me and many Muslims with one lingering question.

One of the most common justifications of suicide bombings advances in this manner: In Israel,there are no civilians. Because, unlike many other industrialized Western societies, Israeldoes not have an all-volunteer army; in the event of an emergency, all of Israelis Israelsarmy the citizens are the soldiers, and the soldiers are the citizens. Perhaps it is inaccurate to say that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian; rather, such arguments want us to conclude that there is no Israeli civilian who is not also an Israelisoldier. Never mind, of course, that there are many civilians who are exemptfrom service, who refuse to serve, who are too young to serve or who are tooold to serve. 

Islams law of warfare, or at least the norms Muslims aresupposed to uphold, took shape during the Prophet Muhammads lifetime. Thisincludes the overriding Islamic limits of warfare, that hostilities should be limitedto the hostile, and that women, children, the elderly and the clerisy, and ontop of that crops, irrigation and nature more generally, should be absolutelyexcluded from warfare. Too bad such boundaries are often invoked, in much thesame way Muslims have not stopped praising Islams liberation of women somefourteen centuries ago. When push confronts shove, too many Muslims too quicklysacrifice noble ideals to the apparent necessities of modern warfare, as it hasevolved. So what if Hezbollah fires missiles into settled areas? Israeldoes the same.  

Whence this shrunken, shriveled moral imagination? It waspre-Islamic Makkah that preceded the Israeli ideal: Theoretically, all whocould bear arms would bear arms the notion of a disciplined, volunteerfighting force didnt exist in the Arabian world of interlocking tribes andsomewhat city-states. Minus the specific changes created by bureaucracies, newtechnologies, new concepts of age and equality, theres not much thatdistinguishes the basic model of the Makkan army and the ideal of the Israelimilitary: Every person who belongs to the city/state, and can fight, mustfight. (Dont we remember Abu Sufyans wife, taking the podium like amodern-day Mrs. Rumsfeld?) Yet it was in that context, and not in the context ofvolunteer armies, that the Prophet absolutely forbade fighting against anyone but him whowas on the field, with weapons drawn; the Prophet even condemned those whoshowed no mercy to combatants on the battlefield during the course of battle.