Jihad: A Misunderstood Concept from Islam – Between Muslims

By: Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani (Chairman, Islamic Supreme Council of America), Shaykh Seraj Hendricks

Source: http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/

Jihad Between Muslims

Properly speaking Jihad, in the case of internal dissension, only occurs when these two conditions—a just Imam fighting unjustifiable insurrection—are met and the Muslims fight in support of the Imam against the offending parties. In Islam allegiance and obedience to a just authority is obligatory. It must be noted also that rebellions against authority and especially political authority simply for the sake of rebellion have no place in the concept of Jihad. In this age of relativism, the spirit of rebellion seems to have penetrated every layer of society. However, Islam and its principles cannot be made subservient to these cultural trends.

In some of the contemporary “Islamic” groups, Jihad has been adapted to a virtually Marxist or Socialist concept of class revolt aimed at overthrowing the authority of the state. In the often fervently materialistic milieu of contemporary political and revolutionary ideologies, Islam is inevitably reduced to nothing more than a social philosophy. This reductionism simply amounts to an abysmal misunderstanding of the essential function of Islam, which is to turn the “face” of the human receptacle away from the world of disharmony and illusion to the tranquillity and silence of Divine awareness and vision. Inward Jihad, as we alluded to at the beginning of this essay, has a key role to play in this respect.