Masood N. Khan M.D.
…It is so much, so many tombs, so much martyrdom, so much galloping of beasts in the star!
Nothing, not even victory will erase the terrible hollow of blood: nothing, neither the sea,
Nor the passage of sand and time, nor the geranium faming upon the grave
Pablo Neruda (1937)
I say UNO should adopt Jihad as its motto. A working philosophy based upon the concept of Jihad will never go wrong; instead will solve many problems of the world.
The most misunderstood term of our age per-haps, and very unfairly so, is JIHAD. It is sad that Muslims as its pioneers not only failed to let the world benefit from its magnificent concept but abused it themselves. The negative stigma that it carries today has deprived humanity of an effective tool to overcome otherwise testing challenges.
Today, unfortunately Jihad has come to mean anything but what it truly represents. An unfair sequel of this stigma is that it is considered synonymous with “Holy War” a term actually introduced to the world by Pope Urban II who also promised heaven to the crusaders killed fighting against Muslims.
By perverted ingenuity Christianity has managed to exonerate itself and blame Islam for these ideas. Dishonest media also had to play its role. It made the majority of people believe that Jihad is an act of Muslims taking arms against unbelievers in order to convert them to Islam or worse even, to kill them just because they are infidels. After 9/11 when Jihad and Jihadists were hammered into public perception with misleading interpretations by media, anxious Muslims have tried rather persuasively to undo the damage but to their dis-appointment, could only prettify the issue – a rewarding success perhaps for those who maliciously promoted such misunderstanding.
The word Jihad is Arabic and is derived from the root word “Jahdun” translated as “a striving”. Put in right perspective, it is an active struggle against evil. There is not one iota of violence in its mean-ing. It is neither a holy war nor killing of infidels to force them to accept Islam. On the contrary, as opposed to war which stands for injustice, de-struction, bloodshed and violent lack of peace, the concept of Jihad is very constructive, engaging, solution-seeking and primarily antiviolence, a formula if applied to its fill, will have the potential to save the world from the bloody perils of war and its ravages.
It is true that in the lifetime of the Prophet of Islam and in the immediate period following his departure, Muslims as befitted their time, made armed struggle a part of their Jihad, mostly defensive yet at times proactive against oppression and injustice with Islam as their message of emancipation for mankind. As much as Muslim historians have tried to glorify the armed struggle of early Muslims, the Prophet had emphatically made it clear that the glory of Jihad lied more importantly in the striving of a human being to overcome the temptations to sin. Quran has allowed those fighting injustice and oppression, to take up arms if dictated by desperate circumstances. The question is whether modern times would ever replicate the puritanical battle lines drawn between falsehood and truth as happened in the early history of Islam or for that matter at the advent of any divine faith?In the present condition of the world this seems quite impossible because in any violent confrontation among nations today there are many unholy variables contaminating the motives of both the culprint and the defender. Compromised values such as selfish political strategies, economical subjugation and exploitation and ruthless violation of human rights have made the line between falsehood and truth blurred and fuzzy. There is no battle today between the right and the wrong. It is either between two wrongs or at the most between the wrong and the wronger. And this is regardless of the faith of the parties involved. So referring to such verses in Quran to indicate a sanction for Muslims to go and kill non-Muslims is an irresponsible interpretation of divine words and a false application of the message they contain. With the same token to equate early Muslims’ sense of mission and their desire to establish justice, eliminate man-made Gods and give human beings their divinely ordained freedom, with present day warmongering and terrorism, is an unfair analysis. Especially so, when centuries later, an evolved and civilized world ironically has quietly accepted as normal behavior, the aggression by western countries, of Iraq and Afghanistan on the pretext of seemingly similar reasons only this time replacing Islam with the slogan of democracy.
After the Prophet, Muslims established a system of governance in tune with their time called Khilafah (or Caliphate) in which, in spite of its primitiveness, a democratically elected leader ruled the people with piety and humility under the guidelines of the divine message. The institution of Khilafah gradually degenerated into kingship with all its vices. Muslim kings indulged in wars, power politics, territorial gains, and display of their riches and glamour like any other king of their time. Their conquests had nothing to do with Jihad that Islam has ordained. If we can imagine nations in their existing balance of power, rewound centuries back in the history, Israel would have already occupied the whole of Middle East, America would have taken most of the world, a decisive war would have long given its verdict between Russia and China and many powerful countries would have colonized weaker countries for that was the recognized conduct of the powerful nations in the past. In fact, as late as the period of colonialism, in recent history, we have seen events that essentially took place because of adventures of invasion, occupation and subjugation by one nation over the other. Taken as accepted facts of life, invasions were expected and leaders would either invade or defend to avoid getting perished otherwise. In the peaceful times they were kings and in times of ruthless adventurism, they became warriors and heroes. History revolved around their so called deeds of heroism drenched with human blood. The occupied nations, over a period of time, for lack of choices, merged into the ethos of the occupiers, lost their identities and became loyal part of powerful empires.
In the modern world such behavior is obsolete and deserves to take its place among the extinct traditions and customs of antiquity. In the political, economical, social and geographical milieu of the world today, war is out of place. if not more, it is as costly for the occupier as for the occupied While the nation that is invaded does suffer losses, the invader does not get away without paying a terrible price either. Today the subjugated nations do not merge into the ethos of the dominant but respond with heinous acts of terrorism and suicide bombs. Such state of affairs does not make the world safe, but rather violently unsafe. It only gives rise to perpetual bloodshed from which there seems to be no escape. The invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by America, has illustrated it very clearly. Notwithstanding all its might, America has failed to make those countries safer much less the world. In olden days similar attacks would have easily achieved their intended purpose. But today even a mighty super power is forced to seek a face-saving exit with billions of dollars wasted and thousands of its own soldiers killed, leaving behind a trail of destruction and a vicious cycle of terrorism. This should certainly given rise to a soul-searching debate as to the very futility of wars in the modern world. Sooner or later, the world is bound to realize that in contrast to ancient times, a country will become powerful today not by physical occupation or military superiority but only by constructive means in which violence has no place much less a full-fledged war. The future will have to find a better way to deal with rogues, oppressors and criminals against humanity. That better system has to be Jihad because by its very definition, it will energize the world to struggle for positive results.
The measures of power in the modern world are definitely not ‘shock and awe’ but something else, the foremost being knowledge and awareness. Education, research and technological advancement without losing sight of the betterment of humanity will be the key. if human race would like to avoid gradual extinction, scientific knowledge with lethal potentialities will have to be used responsibly for constructive and positive results with protection of environmental and ecological wellbeing.
The world will be forced to acknowledge that extreme sensitivity to social justice is indispensable for peace. Future world will have to negate all ugly means of exuberant profit-making, political oppression and violation of human rights while realizing clearly, that God-given freedom is not absolute but quality-controlled with checks and balances in place to prevent its abuse. A powerful nation in the modern world will have the ability to outsmart the enemy, not physically subjugate it to an imposed surrender. Today the more a superpower tries to dominate with physical might the weaker it will become politically and economically not to mention its vulnerability to terrorism.
Endowed with ability to handle a crisis wisely, a powerful nation of the future will possess the resilience to withstand challenges. Wisdom, recognized as a great blessing would be the weapon of empowerment for nations, the lack of which will bring them nothing but suffering. A good example is of Pakistan which was faced a decade ago with a crisis situation when US bullied it to cooperate with it in its invasion of Afghanistan. Bleeding and tormented even to this date several years later, Pakistan has suffered unimaginably because of agreeing to cooperate with America in exchange of financial aid, a decision that terribly lacked wisdom.
The world will also be forced to learn that wisdom is a natural consequence of moral wellbeing. So a powerful nation of the future will be morally healthy so as to avoid destruction from within. It will be free of crime not because it will have a strong corrective and preventive system in place but because of collective moral character of people. Buddha was divinely enlightened with this message more than two thousand years ago when he said that the path to end human suffering comprised of eight noble truths; right view, resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood right devotion, right struggle and right medita-tion. Jihad is nothing but a continuous effort to achieve these qualities expounded so eloquently by Buddha.
In summary the modern world has no other choice except to discard violent solutions to its problems for the simple reason that the damage will be more than the repair and the self-inflicted wound would be too septic to heal. The measures and criteria of power will be based on the extent of positive influence a nation will have over others not on domination and exploitation.
In a world community of nations with realization of these changed ingredients of power, the chances of causing a crisis are minimized and if at all a rogue country tries to misbehave, the world collectively and cohesively will have the ability to address it in a way that is extremely effective without having to resort to violence. This is exactly what Jihad’ means. What nobler purpose the United Nations stands for except to provide a platform for such an effort? Islam calls this effort JIHAD
– a sincere and committed striving for quality improvement and good results.