A war cannot be categorized as jihad just because it is waged by a Muslim group or government against another Muslim or non-Muslim group or government for political, economic or terrestrial reasons.
Source/Credit: Duluth News Tribune
By M. Imran Hayee | May 12, 2013
While the investigation continues, political analysts and U.S. officials portray Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, as “aspiring jihadists.” Vice President Joe Biden described them as “two twisted, perverted, cowardly knock-off jihadists.” The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed with the evocative headline, “Make no mistake, it was jihad.”
No doubt, the Boston bombing was a despicable attempt to mass-murder innocent civilians. Three were killed and hundreds more were wounded. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in custody, told investigators he and his older brother, now dead, were motivated to commit the alleged evil act by America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A mass murder of innocent civilians, if politically motivated, is called an act of terrorism. The Boston bombing perfectly fits this definition. So why do the media and others label it as jihad?
History reveals that whenever someone from a Muslim background commits an act of terrorism, it is confused with jihad. The misperception is strengthened when perpetrators themselves take pride in being called jihadists.
Ironically, the notorious Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, who likened himself to Jesus Christ in his own recorded videos, was declared mentally incapacitated rather than driven by any religious misunderstanding.
Does jihad really equate with terrorism?
Both fundamental elements of terrorism — mass murder of innocent civilians and political motivation — are far removed from the concept of jihad.
A war of jihad is bound by much stricter rules than the stipulations of even the Geneva Convention. Prophet Muhammad commanded Muslims preparing for jihad, “Oh, people! I charge you with 10 rules; learn them well … for your guidance in the battlefield! Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. …”
The Tsarnaev brothers, if found guilty, did not follow any of the above rules. Instead, they brutally killed two innocent women and one child while leaving many without limbs.
Some argue it is the intention that defines an act, not the act itself, suggesting that the Tsarnaev brothers had a perfect motivation for jihad.
The Quran gives permission to wage a war of jihad to those “who have been driven out from their homes unjustly, only because they said, ‘Our Lord is God.’ And if God did not repel some men by means of others, there would surely have been pulled down temples and churches and synagogues and mosques.”
The true motivation for jihad is to uphold universal religious freedom when oppression exceeds so much that anyone of any faith is barred from freely practicing their faith.
A war cannot be categorized as jihad just because it is waged by a Muslim group or government against another Muslim or non-Muslim group or government for political, economic or terrestrial reasons. Likewise, perpetrators of jihad need not be Muslims, provided their sole purpose is to defend freedom of conscience, relieving the religiously oppressed from their tyrants.
Without a doubt, America champions among the highest standards of religious freedom in the world today. While some European countries have banned building minarets on mosques and the wearing of veils by Muslim women, American courts have struck down any such attempts as unconstitutional. The fact is that the Tsarnaev brothers, with millions of other American Muslim men and women, enjoy equal rights and can freely practice their faith without any fear or hindrance. This leaves no excuse for the Tsarnaev brothers and any other Muslim entity to wage a war of jihad against America.
Let us call a spade a spade. The Boston Marathon bombing was nothing more than an atrocious terrorist attack. Labeling it as jihad is as untrue as it is unfair. In fact, jihad is the complete opposite of terrorism. While terrorism seeks to oppress by instilling hate and fear, jihad seeks to promote freedom of conscience, giving precedence to reason over violence.
Moreover, a war to uphold religious freedom using conventional firearms is called a minor jihad in Islamic terminology. The greater jihad is to love and serve one’s fellow human beings.
Today, we must all work together to remove the confusion of mixing-up terrorism with jihad. Together, we can correctly define jihad as a struggle for love, peace and freedom of conscience.
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M. Imran Hayee of Duluth is a professor and the director of graduate studies in the electrical engineering department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Contact him at ihayee@d.umn.edu.
Read original post here: Local View: Boston bombing was terrorism, not jihad
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