Jihad - A Holy War Essay -- essays research papers

JihadIt was once a word unacquainted with(predicate) to the Statesn ears. But in recent years it has become solely too familiar. The actions of Islamic martials and terrorists take in seared the word into Ameri ignore consciousness. nonwithstanding even with thousands of innocent civilians killed on American soil by Islamic terrorists, the full significance of the Moslem concept of jihad has not been grasped by the American public.In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to impersonate Islam as a peaceful devotion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tacticalthat goose egg was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American reprisals were not directed at their religion as a whole. If the world Muslim community perceived America as attacking Islam in cosmopolitan then the duty of every Muslim to fight for his religionthe du ty of jihadwould have been invoked on a broad scale. The war against terrorist act, kinda of simmering with occasional flare-ups, like the Cold War, would have boiled all over into a global conflagration, with the Muslim countries of the world1.2 billion strongmobilizing against America and the West.Muslim apologists also rushed forward to assure the public that Islam was a peaceful religion. They disingenuously declared that the word Islam means "peace." And they tried to portray the terrorists as a fringe group outside the mainstream of Islam.These were lies.The usual importee of Islam in Arabic is not "peace" but "submission." And if the terrorists were so furthest outside the mainstream, why did Muslims all over the world burst into joyful, unrehearsed celebrations when the hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Why are Islamic governments shocked to show "too much" public support for the war against terrori sm? Further, why are all the governments that covertly support terrorism touch on in the Muslim world?The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace. This is not to say that every Muslim is violent at heart. some are not. Muslims have the same aspirations for living peaceful lives that people have the world over. But they also have the same potential for military force as others, and Islam as a religion and an ideology seeks to exploit that potential. Thoug... ...volutionary movements. The struggle with militant Islam may last a long timecenturies, potentiallysince even if curing Muslim society of its violent tendencies is possible, it would involve rive out or otherwise neutralizing a tendency that has dominated Muslim culture since the days of its founder.This is not an easy task, for Muslims willing to make the flip-flop would be portrayed as traitors to their religion, amid renewed calls to practice Islam in its original, pure, and much violent form in order to regain the favor of God. The signs of the propagation suggest that we are, indeed, in for a "clash of civilizations" that will be neither brief nor bloodless.But what also is known is that God has a project for history and that his grace can work miracles. It is yet possible that by one means or anotherGod will solve about a more peaceful world in which militant Islam either is not a threat or nowhere progress the threat that it is today.If this is to happen, our cooperation with Gods grace will require prayer, courage, resourcefulness, and a realistic understanding of the threat we are facing. Until then there can be no illusions about Islam and its endless jihad.