The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book “On Nature and Nations: The Muslim-American Message for Humanity in the Day of Religion”
by Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed
Available soon here at eamspeaks.com and other book retailers. Check here for more information.
Jihad is principled and legitimate struggle intended to serve G’d by freeing the innocent from abuse and forced restraint of their natural rights to self-determination as human beings. Jihad is not nationalism. Jihad is not militarism. Jihad is not an indiscriminate arming of civilians, and it is not law and order for the rule of police-states to intimidate un-armed civilians. Jihad is not revolution in the style of the socialists. Jihad is not rebellion in the style of the anarchists. Jihad’s moral perfection cannot tolerate morally-ambiguous justifications for assaults on innocents, or state-sponsored murder, or extra-judicial pronouncements of guilt and executions, or any war-time excuse-making for collateral damage where innocent human beings are killed.
There is no legitimate jihad to oppose freedom, justice, and equality as an urge in the oppressed. The consciousness of those engaged in jihad is to govern their struggle by the rules of universal and ethical decency. Jihad is not the ends justify the means or the means justify the ends. If the means to a just end threaten to betray the integrity of the objective, then there is no jihad -there is only egregious sin. If the ends are worthy of G’d’s approval for human dignity then the means must submit to and obey the end’s moral authority.
Jihad is obedience to the highest moral and ethical principles approved by G’d for just service and struggle against evil and wrongdoing. Jihad is a struggle for justice that favors no worldly power or their systems -no matter if they claim it to be Islamic Shariah, above human entitlement to what G’d intended as a human spiritual, social, and material destiny for every human being on this earth by nature and birth. Jihad is not a Crusader-spirit seeking a national or imperial dominance or a method to impose the will of Muslims and their notion of faith on a population or an individual. The jihad is to inform, and then to appeal to an informed conscience, and then to protect the innocence and rights of choice. Jihad in the language and use of nationalists is false and illegitimate! Jihad cannot function as a nationalist tool, nor will it contort to satisfy the nationalist’s need for a weapon against the innocent.
What has happened to the conscience and determinations of our Muslim leaders who have not made the objectives of jihad clear and exposed the deviations that have been wrongly associated with jihad? They shy from the discussion as if the word ‘jihad’ is an abominable evil. What is wrong with Muslim leaders, that with the evident rise of new nationalist sentiments in Europe and America, that they have not publicly called on the international following of Jesus Christ, to see, identify, and condemn this clear and present nationalist-Crusader-mentality and its reckless language of an artificial patriotism. Who in this world is better equipped to inform the political establishment and leadership of the dangers of nationalism, and the present conditions in the world that are favoring its revival than the educated followers of G’d’s Messengers? This is why the following of Imam W. Deen Mohammed are a sign to the innocent and the G’d-fearing.
“When the responsibility for the trust, in care of the people, is turned over to those unqualified; then expect the Hour.”
“When the responsibility for the trust, in care of the people, is turned over to those unqualified; then expect the Hour. ”