Historic view of jihad

The current war against terrorism is neither a crusade or a jihad. The crusades were wars undertaken by Christians in the late Middle Ages to secure the rights of Christian Pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre and to recover the Holy Land from its Mohammedan conquerors. The name was derived from the cross which the Crusaders used as their Christian symbol.

In the case of jihad, the word has several layers of meaning. It means to control one’s passions, to convert unbelievers and to upgrade public morals in one’s community. Then the Kharajis used jihad, or holy militancy, as a solution to the nepotism and misrule of the third Caliph (deputy or successor of Mohammed). Thus, they justified the Caliph’s assassination. If you killed an enemy, you become a ghazi, a soldier surviving a jihad. If, on the other hand, you got killed by the enemy, you become a shahid, or martyr who goes straight to heaven. The Kharajis repeatedly resorted to open rebellion and were virtually wiped out during the first two hundred years of Islamic history. "All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

During the Spanish period, Muslims who had taken an oath to die while engaged in killing Christians were called juramentados. In English, they were referred to as amoks. Terrorism, then, was an individual act. Bombs were not employed and property was not senselessly destroyed.

The word islam means "surrender to the will of Allah." All Muslims believe in these five articles of faith: belief in God, in angels, in the revealed books, in the prophecy and the Day of Judgment. And all are commanded to practice the Five Pillars of Islam, which are, first, to recite the profession of faith in one’s lifetime; second, to observe the daily public and collective prayers; third, to pay the purification tax for the support of the poor; fourth, to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire month of the Ramadan; and fifth, to perform, if physically and financially capable, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Nowhere does it endorse senseless terrorism.