Dear friends and visitors,

Here I want to share with you about a very famous word or term for those who always care about the Islamic world and the ‘Islamophobia’ phenomenon in the western world specifically which is ‘JIHAD’. A lot of people had been misunderstood or maybe has used (manipulate) the term ‘Jihad’ to spread the ‘propaganda’ or the bad image of Islam throughout this world…

Jihad is almost always wrongly translated as "Holy War." The Arabic word Jihad actually means "to struggle" or "to exert one's utmost."

In the context of the Quran, Jihad means the struggle for good against all evil. This struggle also includes the suppression of the lower self in order to reach a state of higher God-consciousness that leads to a pure soul.

Jihad can take place in many forms, including speaking out against injustice or spending your wealth in the cause of public good, such as alleviating poverty. Jihad does also include armed struggle, which at times becomes necessary in order to protect the weak and to establish freedom of religion. (Jihad in the context of armed struggle is known as Qital.)

Critics of the Quran love to quote passages such as (9:5) of the Quran, which calls for taking up arms against those who assign partners with God. Most often, these critics fail to recognize the context of such passages. Cutting and pasting verses out of their context to lend credence to an argument clouds the more important overall picture.

All verses in the Quran that deal with armed struggle advocate the use of force only for self-defense in the widest sense possible, such as freeing the oppressed and establishing the freedom of worship.

The Scripture clearly says that fighting in the path of God does not include converting people by the sword. The Quran emphatically declares, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

All legitimate scholars recognize this essential ethic as one that Muslims must abide by, even during times of war.

i hope this can give you some ideas about what Jihad really means in Islamic perspective...