As the growing frustrations over international terrorism continue, particularly where it is known that Palestinians and other Arabs are involved, it is tempting for the extemporaneous analyst to attribute this kind of terrorism's genesis to the Moslem concept of jihad, or what is too facilely termed a "holy war."
This is a dangerous mistake that could lead to trouble in trying to combat terrorism.
At an Islamic conference last year in Teheran, some Iranian scholars advanced a concept of jihad, based, wisely, on broad Moslem teachings rather than the Shi'ite teachings generally adhered to in Iran, to justify Iran's war against fellow Moslems in Iraq.
Dr. Majid Khadduri of Washington, D.C., a much-respected Islamic scholar connected with the Johns Hopkins University Washington Center, said that when Moslems are involved in terrorist acts, particularly those against unarmed, innocent civilians, such individuals are operating outside the sanctions of the Moslem faith.
Jihad, he said, neither historically nor contemporarily, condones actions such as those which killed innocent people at the Vienna and Rome airports.
They are the acts of individuals acting contrary to the precepts of their religion, he said.
Khadduri, in his book The Islamic Conception of Justice, published by the John Hopkins University Press, says that the jihad, to which many antagonists of the Moslem nations appeal, is indeed "the just war of Islam" which every Moslem is obliged to "fight."
Although it is described in this manner, very few teachers of Islam, even in the days of its rapid expansion out of Arabia and into Northern Africa and parts of Europe and Asia, have really ever seen it as pretense for armed coercion against people who did not embrace the beliefs of Islam.
In the Koran (IX, 5), God commanded the believers to spread His Word and establish His law and justice over the world. Kadduri said that in dealing with peoples other than the People of the Book (Jews, Christians and others who live by holy scriptures), the world was divided into two classes: the dar al-Islam and the dar al-Harb.
The dar al-Islam is the house of believers where God's law and justice are given practical expression in all aspects of life. The dar al-Harb, on the other hand, are people believed by Moslems to be "in a state of nature," that is, unbelievers. These people were the objects of jihad.
Insofar as Moslems believe they are under mandate to extend God's law and justice to all the earth, every individual Moslem is under this obligation. It differs very little in principle or in practice from the mandate put upon Christians by Jesus, when, after the Resurrection, He commanded the remaining eleven apostles (Matt. 28: 18-20): "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost--teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
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