Encyclopaedia of Jihad (In 5 Volumes)

Attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Indian Parliament have created serious misunderstanding about the concept of Jihad or holy war. Terrorists use the name of Islam for their political goals. Many Muslims and non-Muslims think that what these terrorists are doing is part of an Islamic Jihad against non-believers in Islam. Does the Qur’an use the word Jihad for war and does it urge Muslims to fight against all non-believers? The Qur’anic injunction is to live in peace with all those non-believers who extend the hand of friendship to Muslims and let them live with honour and dignity with their religious beliefs. The Qur’an not only does not require forcing others to believe but also preaches doctrine of "for you is your religion and for me is my religion". The Holy Qur’an emphasizes that a faithful should never transcend the limit set out by Allah and should never commit an act of aggression. Since purification of self is quite central to the transformation of the world self reliance becomes very essential at every step of life. The project of transformation of the world would be marred if one transcends the limits set by Allah and resorts to violence or aggression thus terrorist attack have no place in Islam. A real Jihad should have many layers of deeper understanding of objective conditions, proper insights into human psychology, patience and steadfastness. All this put together constitutes the real concept of Jihad in the Qur’an. An attempt has been made to collate some of important works on the subject and place them in proper perspective to enable the readers to form their own assessment about Jihad. Thus in preparing this work we have incurred indebtedness and gratitude of many scholars. The present work attempts to bring together the vital information on the concepts, issues and practices pertaining to Jihad. By analytical interpretation it is tried to distinguish between religious fundamentalism and Jihad. This most timely publication will prove a veritable mine of information on the theme.