Lesser and Greater Jihad: Difference between revisions

This article examines the concept of a lesser and greater Jihad.

The two forms of Jihad in Islam are sometimes explained as follows:

*Lesser outer jihad (al-jihad al-asghar);  a military struggle, i.e. a holy war

*Greater inner jihad (al-jihad al-akbar);  the struggle of personal self-improvement against the self's base desires

It is claimed that this "inner Jihad" essentially refers to all the struggles that a Muslim may go through, in adhering to the religion. For example, a scholarly study of Islam can be an intellectual struggle that some allegedly may refer to as "jihad."

During Prophet [[Muhammad|Muhammad's]] lifetime, and onward to the present, the word 'Jihad' was, and is, almost always used in a military sense.<ref>{{cite web|url= |title= The Crisis of Islam|publisher= |author= Bernard Lewis|series=chapter 2|date= 2001|archiveurl= |deadurl=no}}</ref> This idea of a greater and lesser jihad was a later development which originated from the 11^th century book, The History of Baghdad, by the Islamic scholar al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, by way of Yahya ibn al 'Ala', who said:  

All four schools of [[Sunni]] jurisprudence ([[Fiqh]]) as well as the [[Shiite|Shi'ite]] tradition, all formulated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries after Muhammad's death, make no reference at all to the "greater" jihad, only the lesser.

One of the most important factors in the classification of a genuine [[hadith]], is that it must conform with what is written in the [[Qur'an]]. This hadith appears to directly contradict the teachings of the Qur'an.

The [[List of Fabricated Hadith|fabricated hadith]] compiled by al-Baghdadi does not appear in any of the famous hadith collections and is inconsistent with the teachings found in corroborated (Mutawatir) sahih hadith. Some of these hadith state that fighting jihad is second only to the belief in Muhammad and [[Allah]], and that standing for an hour in the ranks of battle is better than standing in [[Salah|prayer]] for sixty years (this seems, again, to directly invert the idea that religious devotion is somehow greater than participation in the Muslims' military struggle).

Furthermore, Muhammad himself appears to directly refute the claim that the "greater" jihad is the inward spiritual struggle, when he states the best jihad is that of a man whose "blood is shed and his horse is wounded".

{{Quote||In reading Muslim literature -- both contemporary and classical -- one can see that the evidence for the primacy of spiritual jihad is negligible. Today it is certain that no Muslim, writing in a non-Western language (such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu), would ever make claims that jihad is primarily nonviolent or has been superseded by the spiritual jihad. Such claims are made solely by Western scholars, primarily those who study Sufism and/or work in interfaith dialogue, and by Muslim apologists who are trying to present Islam in the most innocuous manner possible. <ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppjtw|title= Understanding Jihad|publisher= University of California Press|author= David Cook|date= 2005|isbn=978-0-520-93187-9|pages=165-6|archiveurl= http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable%2F10.1525%2Fj.ctt1ppjtw&date=2013-12-21|deadurl=no}}</ref>}}

[[Category:Jihad]]

[[Category:Apologetics]]

[[Category:Society and human nature]]