RLG204H5 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Sayyid Qutb, Scimitar, Sharia
Document Summary
The jihad in islam has no relationship with modern warfare. Islam is a declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men. Thus, it strive from the beginning to abolish all those systems and governments which are based on the rule of man over men and the servitude (slavery) of one human being to another. When islam releases people from this political pressure and presents to them its spiritual message, appealing to their reason, it gives them complete freedom to accept its belief or not to accept it. The meaning of jihad bis saif (striving through fighting) is meant to clear the warfare striving through preaching in the application of the islamic movement. Jihad is not a defensive war , orientalists distort the concept of islamic jihad. Jihad was a movement to wipe out tyranny and to introduce true freedom to mankind using recourses according to the actual human situation and it had definite stages and methods.
