While Jihadis all over the world terrorize and decimate innocent people, Muslim organizations in the West have engaged in an unrelenting media campaign in explaining how beautiful the Islamic idea of Jihad is. Recently the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) under its Truth about the Quran project started a subway and bus ads campaign to make Americans aware about the Quranic commandments that inspire Muslims into undertaking Jihadis violence and terrorism.
In response, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the leading Islamic organization in America, initially tried to block the AFDI ads campaign through legal means. When that failed, CAIR started its own ads campaign, entitled MyJihad, for explaining to Americans the beauty of the sacred Islamic doctrine of Jihad. One such ad shows Muslims in friendly poseur with non-Muslim Americans, and reads: “MyJihad is to build friendship across the aisle.”
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of Propaganda and Enlightenment for CAIR-Chicago, and creator of the campaign, said, the goal is to explain the very misunderstood and sometimes seemingly controversial concept of Jihad.
“Jihad in Islam simply means the struggle to a better place,” says Rehab. “Whatever barrier or burdens that you have in your life, you are asked, you are tasked to muster in the inner courage, the inner resolve, the inner determination to overcome those personal barriers, personal issues.”
He said the word has been misconstrued by Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists and it’s time to re-educate the public about Islam and its concepts. Often the term “Jihad” is associated with violence and those waging “unholy war.”
“The only two things that God judges you by in the tradition of Islam are the two things that you control, your intentions and your effort,” Rehab said. “Your intention being sincere and your effort being for the best. That effort is Jihad.”
Deception of CAIR’s MyJihad ads campaign
CAIR launched its MyJihad ad campaign as a counter to AFDI’s subway and bus ads, inscribed with Jihad-inspiring Quranic verses, such as “Soon shall We cast terror into the heart of unbelievers” (3:151). But CAIR’s ads come with no references from the Quran, Hadith or Sirah—the sacred Islamic texts—that may justify what they are claiming to be real Jihad is actually true. When deceiving and misleading the unaware non-Muslim Americans is the sole purpose of this campaign, that’s the best CAIR could do, especially when Allah, the Muslim God, clearly and unequivocally, exhorts Muslims to do exactly opposite of the messages of those ads. In many verses of the Quran, Allah commands Muslims not to make friendship with non-Muslims, never to come to their support, and to cut all social ties with them (see verses 25/28, 6/68, 28/86, 11/113, 4/89, 4/144, 60/1, 60/13, 9/16, 9:23 and many more). A few such verses are cited below:
Quran 60:13: “O you who have believed, do not make allies of a people with whom Allah has become angry (i.e. non-Muslims). They have despaired of [reward in] the Hereafter just as the disbelievers have despaired of [meeting] the inhabitants of the graves.”
Quran 9:23: “O you who have believed, do not take your fathers or your brothers as allies if they have preferred disbelief over belief. And whoever does so among you – then it is those who are the wrongdoers.”
Quran 28:86: “…Therefore lend not thou support in any way to those who reject (Allah's Message).”
When Muslims are commanded by their God to cut all ties even with their own parents and siblings, if they follow another religion than Islam (see 9:23), how can CAIR talk about Jihad as means of building friendship with non-Muslims?
The Real Jihad
A statistical analysis by politicalislam.com shows that a significant part of the sacred Islamic texts (Quran, Sirah and Hadiths) are devoted to Jihad:
1) The Quran: a) Meccan verses - 0%, b) Medinan verses - 24%
2) Sirah (Prophet’s biography) - 67%
3) Hadith - 21%
In all, 31% of trilogy of sacred Islamic texts are devoted to Jihad.
Statistics also gives us a measure of the claim that the real jihad is the so-called “Greater Jihad”, an inner struggle with the self, whereas the jihad of the sword is the minor “Lesser Jihad”. But the so-called “Greater jihad” covers only 2% of the Jihad-related texts of the Bukhari hadiths, the remaining 98% is devoted to jihad of the sword, the Lesser Jihad. Therefore, what CAIR’s “MyJihad” ads campaign is highlighting could, at best, be talking about the so-called Greater Jihad, which constitutes only 2% of the Jihad component of Islam. And even then, making friendship with non-Muslims does not fall within the scope of the Lesser Jihad, because it is simply a struggle with the inner self of Muslims. When Lesser Jihad means an inner struggle of Muslims, external elements such as non-Muslims don’t come into the picture at all. And we have also seen that Islamic God clearly and repeatedly forbids Muslims against making friendship or alliance with non-Muslims or coming to their aid, even if they are the parents and sibling. In sum, CAIR’s “MyJihad” ads campaign is out-and-out an attempt to lie and deceive American non-Muslims.
The real Jihad that may concern non-Muslims is therefore the Lesser Jihad, Jihad of the sword, inspired by many violence-inciting Quranic verses, such as:
- Quran 3:56: "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."
- Quran 9:111: “Lo! Allah hath bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain. It is a promise which is binding on Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur'an. Who fulfilleth His covenant better than Allah? Rejoice then in your bargain that ye have made, for that is the supreme triumph
- Quran 9:123: "O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness."
- Quran 66:9: "O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end."
- Quran 9:29: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
- Quran 9:5: "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them."
- Quran 25:52: "Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness..."
There are many such verses in the Quran. Let us once again take CAIR’s “MyJihad” ad in the context of the last verse (25:52) quoted. The only relationship that this verse allows a Muslim to have with a non-Muslim is “strenuous fighting”. So, can there be a scope for a Muslim to build friendship with non-Muslim?
Ahmed Rehab, the mastermind of the CAIR “MyJihad” ads campaign, wanted to remove misunderstandings about the noble Islamic concept of Jihad via those ads. But readers would be convinced that those ads were intended solely for throwing dust into the eyes of the unaware American citizens. “Building friendship with non-Muslims” cannot be a part of a Muslim’s Jihad. Instead, it has been clearly prohibited by their God via numerous divine commandments.
It is clear how nakedly Islamic organizations in the West, such as CAIR, lie to fool and deceive well-meaning Westerners. In sum, the only Jihad exists in the Muslim-non-Muslim interface is the Jihad of the Sword, a relentless fighting that must be initiated by Muslims as a commandment of their God. So, when one talks about Jihad, the 9/11 attacks, the Ft Hood and Mumbai attacks, the London and Madrid massacres, are the kind of Jihad that may exist between Muslims and non-Muslims. In executing Allah’s divine command of Jihad, Prophet Muhammad himself had ordered 62 Lesser Jihad massacres against the kafirs of Arabia in his lifetime, and he personally had led 27 of them. Prominent amongst Prophet Muhammad’s own Jihad attacks are against the tribes of Banu Quraiza (627), Banu Mustaliq and Banu Nadir of Khaybar (628), and in each instance, he slayed the men and captured the women, children and their wealth as booty. The continued legacy of Muhammad’s Jihad has claimed some 270 million mostly-non-Muslim lives over the past 1400 years, and continues claiming more. In addition to that tens of million of non-Muslim women and children captured and used slaves. The captured women always suffered rape alongside slavery.
If CAIR and other Muslim organizations in the West have any sense of honesty, they must own up the truth of the concept of Jihad, instead of lying and deceiving. It is time that they start talking about discarding those barbaric Islamic doctrines that has no place in civilized societies today. They should know well that putting a happy face on evil doesn’t lead to any good. It only perpetuates the evil for what it is. Only those, who entertain evil intentions, will wholeheartedly dedicate themselves into disguising evil in the clothes of goodness.
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Jake Neuman is the author of “Islam and Sharia Law Are Treason: Jihad Is Treason” and “Prophet Muhammad (AKA ALLAH): Monster of History.” (free download)