What is a Jihad?

What is a Jihad?

Jason Burke (Author) gives expert video advice on: What is Al-Qaeda?; What does Al-Qaeda want?; When was Al-Qaeda formed? and more...

Jihad is a very commonly used word in Arabic, which has a wide variety of meanings. It could mean an effort, it could mean a campaign to war to a given goal, so you could have a Jihad for literacy if you'd like. You can have a Jihad against deforestation, you could have Jihad for all sorts of goals that are not necessarily militant, or in another context, wouldn't necessarily be religious. The Jihad that we hear most about is taken from Islamic religious history, taken from Islamic texts, and it means a military struggle. There are huge numbers of debates over the exact definition of that Jihad: militants have one definition saying that it can be against - should be the duty of every individual Muslim - defensive war against an attack from the enemies of Islam. Others have a different definition saying it's a far more personal effort or indeed it should be the responsibility of the government or the leaders of the Islamic community to declare any such war or Jihad. So it's an incredibly complex, rich area of theology and of politics among those often simplified representations, certainly in the West.