جهاد

The Arabic word jihad (جهاد) comes from the root j-h-d, meaning 'to strive' or 'to exert effort.' In the Quran, the word appears in multiple contexts, but classical Islamic scholars consistently distinguished between the 'greater jihad' -- the internal struggle against one's own failings -- and the 'lesser jihad' -- armed defense of the community. A hadith attributed to Muhammad, spoken after returning from battle, declares: 'We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.' The inner fight was the harder one.

Medieval Islamic jurisprudence treated the military sense of jihad with careful restrictions. The jurist al-Shaybani (d. 805 CE) in his Kitab al-Siyar laid out rules of engagement that prefigured the Geneva Conventions by a millennium: no killing of noncombatants, no destruction of crops, no forced conversion. Jihad in this legal tradition was closer to 'just war theory' than to anything resembling terrorism.

The word's meaning shifted in the twentieth century through political movements rather than theological ones. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (founded 1928), the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, and al-Qaeda in the 1990s all used jihad to mean armed struggle against perceived enemies. Western media adopted this narrow definition wholesale, and by September 12, 2001, the English word 'jihad' meant one thing only.

The theological majority still uses jihad in its broader sense. A student preparing for exams is engaged in jihad. A person resisting addiction is engaged in jihad. But English has frozen the word in its most violent interpretation, and thirteen centuries of scholarship have been overwritten by three decades of headlines.