What is Jihad, Seriously, Again??

"Please point me in the direction of a copy of quran and sharia that you believe is right. And I will see if it differs from those I have allready. No compulsion in religion Holy war is the duty of all moslems."

Someone wrote, the above and wants to know, What is Jihad?

The reply I wrote, follows below. If anyone has a better definition or explanation, please feel free to send me
an email or comment below, thankx. The comments are 'screened', like Muslims at an international airport, before posting, so it may take a while before you see your comment.

Reply:

No, there is no "Holy War". That's a Christian evangelical idea. Their words. Jihad simply means striving in the path of God. If someone builds schools, mosques, roads, wells, that's all charity that earns rewards for the person who donates to such projects. It is the best kind of charity, something that benefits for a long time.There are types of jihad, too. Fighting one's own desires, is also jihad. When many people talk about Islam or jihad, all they talk about is "unjust war". War in Islam is for defense.

The Battle of Badr and Battle of Uhud, the two most remembered battles didn't have many deaths or casualties compared to many other wars. The pagans or the Muslims had to go. God favored the Muslims in the end, and Medina was established as a Muslim capital. It took Muhammad, over twenty years of preaching but most of the Arab pagans converted after that. Mekkah was a bloodless victory, in that everyone surrendered, and only the criminals were not released (there was actually one man who went into the Kaabah to escape and he was killed).

The head leader, Abu Jahal had died, and some of the others had already converted before the Fateh al Mekkah, that day, so the rest of their tribe soon followed, like Khalid Ibn Walid, who later converted, but Abu Sufyan another famous person had converted before that, and his wife was HInd, a woman who had hired an assassin to kill the Prophet's uncle Hamza. Despite this, they converted of their own free will when God willed. And became good Muslims.

Another case in point is the Jews and hypocrites in Medina who sided with them, after declaring their Islam, which people always bring up. Why were Jews killed in Medina or evicted? Because they were traitors. Do you want traitors who attack you to be given a free pass?? Do you only HATE Muslims but LOVE traitors?? No. War is just at certain times. Americans will "never forget" 911 but they forgot Iraq's innocent children very quickly. (SOMETIMES SOME) Americans and (SOMETIMES SOME)Christians are some of the worst hypocrites alive today. Muslims don't say that war isn't justified, but they believe that killing innocents is forbidden.

If some Muslims do that, they are the worst criminals. STOP saying (not you personally) that Muslims never say anything when terrorist attacks occur. We are against terrorism and killing of innocents, but when we say that, who is listening?? Oh. No one.. Obviously you still believe the lies about Islam or you wouldn't be asking about "No compulsion in religion". Don't be lazy and do some of your own reading. One book which is pretty good is "The Sealed Nectar". It won't cost you an arm and a leg. It is a biography of the Prophet Muhammad, and tells a lot about the battles, including Badr and Uhud, and why the Jews (traitors) were killed. It won a prize for the best biography in a contest, and was written by an Indian Muslim scholar and translated into English. There are many hadiths showing how kind and generous the Prophet Muhammad was. His character is pure and good, but non-Muslims want to make his character vile and evil. God forbid we should not defend him.

There is no translation that will do justice to the Quran, not just because it's Arabic, but because translators are human beings, and other languages also aren't as great as the Quranic Arabic. English, especially, is a young language, and you can see how it is being destroyed today. But there are some translations that are better than others. The Yusuf Ali one was edited because it had bigger problems than some others.

The Bible has many verses that must be embarrassing for Christians, some people say the same thing about Hadiths. Well, the hadiths aren't the word of God. (There are Hadiths Qudsi, which are God's words revealed to Muhammad, but not part of the Quran). But the majority of hadiths/sayings or traditions are not God's words, and also they were written and compiled after a long time. So they are more like what the Bible is in terms of how long after the events they were collected into books. The bible is also not God's word, so that explains why there are a lot of wrong things in it. No offence to people who read it to study it and get some good out of it. Cherry picking verses is the past-time of the non-Muslims. They do it with their own book and with the Quran (translation of the meaning of the Quran). But many people still say it is one of the best today (if you get the edited version). Learning Arabic is impossible for most people. But it is different when you know some Arabic and can read the original. That being said, the problem isn't even which translation but that people read with a closed mind, and there's no 'medicine' for that, except to ask God to open your heart and mind. Shariah is Islamic law, there is only one "islamic law". There are colleges that teach Usul Fiqh, jurisprudence. They will teach about the way to understand and apply laws. You know, stuff I haven't studied indepth.

There are many non-Muslims in Muslim majority states and they are not all fighting each other. Muslims work with non-Muslims here. We have a fairly peaceful country. The government is fair, and people are free to live and work. There is also one of the oldest Catholic Churches in the ME in our country (I am a citizen now too, as are many people who got their citizenship in the past couple of decades).

Just like any other person studies law, it is studied in Muslim countries, and also some other countries today. There is ijtihad, which is consensus of opinion, where a question is something the scholars today may not know about, such as things that never happened in the past, or for which there is no ruling. In law this is like looking for precedents, and if there aren't any then you derive an opinion from looking at the whole body of works on that subject and using their brains. Judges can be wrong, also when making judgments, and this is not denied. But Islamic law lays a lot of emphasis on proofs, and circumstantial evidence isn't emphasized. Even if a man is found with a knife in his hand at the scene of a stabbing death, doesn't prove his guilt, for example. There was such a case and the judge makes sure that he gets to the truth, if possible, or else the person can't be convicted of murder. In a very old case which happened, a man was actually found not guilty, because it turned out he confessed because he thought none would believe him anyway if he told the truth. He had come upon a murder scene, grabbed the weapon and then been found by people. Later, a man actually confessed, because he was afraid that he would be responsible for the murder of the victim plus the unjust killing of the person who confessed to the killing. I guess stranger things have happened. There *is* no compulsion in religion, so just go about your life like you always have if you have no interest in learning about Islam. Men are responsible for the expenses even when women work. That doesn't mean women marry men for their money, like many people say. Many non-Muslim women also are converting to Islam here, and also men are converting to Islam. There is no forced conversion. People are free to live and work, and they are free to worship wherever they are able to do that. In Canada, Muslims often pray at work, on their break, and it's not against the law. Why do people think freedom of religion is such a difficult concept??

Good day.

I THINK THIS IS ADDED LATER? :

I live in Bahrain, and it's fine, people have recreation and all the many things that they have back home, even many of the same foods, restaurants and fast food places, they may have a church (it varies in the ME from country to country). Not every Christian denomination has a church obviously. But it isn't the responsibility of a government to give land away for every church that some people want. I think the same goes of the masjids (mosques) in non-Muslim countries.I don't object to laws that are meant to protect people, and countries have a right to make such laws. But there are also laws against wrongful oppression of immigrants, etc. It is not only fair, but required that governments treat all their citizens equally and punish the wrongdoers, but not wrongfully convict innocent people or treat people who are not criminals like criminals. All governments, if they abide by the humanitarian laws, will treat citizens and also immigrants, or visa workers with kindness, justice and secure their peaceful existence and human dignity. Unfortunately,that's not always the case, is it? Islam has human rights, and even animal rights. These are binding in the Islamic texts, and are obvious.

[Jane Dughatir] Thanks for reading! Have a nice day/evening :)

(EDITS are in round brackets: when I probably insulted many ppl already I was informed by a friend about the error/mistake and corrected my wrong sentence. I have already apologized on social media. #clickbait #racism)