ABU DHABI // Scholars united under the umbrella of a peace forum to discuss the concept of jihad – something that has caused chaos in the Muslim world.
In a workshop as part of the Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies forum in the capital on Wednesday, scholars agreed jihad has many categories and the word itself has various meanings.
They stressed that most jihadists do not understand the context behind the revelation of verses related to jihad.
“One of the meanings of jihad is the daily life struggle. The main jihad is ‘lust or desire’, if one is able to overcome temptation, this is how jihad starts. This kind of jihad implies learning the Islamic religion and working by it,” said Dr Mounir Tlili, former minister of religious affairs of Tunisia.
The mention of jihad in the Quran was referring to the spread of the religion, he said.
“True jihad is developing one’s country through education, culture and infrastructure. A nation’s obligation is to spread knowledge, to raise the youth, create factories, and raise the level of production,” he added.
Dr Abdalnasir Abu Al Basal, chairman of the World Islamic Science and Education University in Jordan, said Islam is a powerful preacher of peace, not of creating meaningless and aimless wars.
He said Islam calls its followers to choose peace over fighting enemies and only fight if an attack comes first.
The case of jihad in the modern world, he said, is not having enough knowledge about Islam or the beliefs of jihad.
“We cannot take any verse from the Quran without knowing the reasons of revelation, nor can we take the historic facts on jihad without knowing what they translate to,” he said.
The contexts of jihad in the past had a humanitarian cause of defending the religion and the nation, and was urging fighters to stick to the purpose of Islam, he said.
“Jihad does not stand for desires, or personal greed, or materialistic aims, as what it is being used for today,” he said.
Dr Amhand Idir Mechnane, adviser to the minister of religious affairs in Algeria, said the number of jihadists is increasing due to “creativity in ways of spreading the beliefs”.
He said jihadists use social media platforms, with Facebook being the most popular, to target youth while using historic Islamic names for their websites. He said such platforms have the “ability to destroy a whole nation”.
He said governments need to focus on education and awareness, starting from school.
“What we need is for government systems to summarise the biography of Prophet Mohammed and rephrase and simplify them when taught in schools. This is to prevent our children from falling into the traps and arms of terrorism,” he said.
“A lot of youth have developed hatred for their countries, leaders, and religions due to the jihadis movement. To save the youth, the educational institution should integrate Islamic teachings and patriotism. Educational institutions need to reform their teaching methods of Islamic classes.”
He said many young men and women have entered the religion of Islam for the sole purpose of jihad, when in reality they are “manipulating and distorting the image of Islam”.
He also said that there has been an increase in numbers of misleading Islamic books and writers, which had a hand in the increase of false beliefs of jihad and Islam as a whole.
aalkhoori@thenational.ae