By Upali Bhattacharya
Jihad, an Islamic term is a religious duty of the Muslims. Jihad means struggle in Arabic. To the vast majority of practicing Muslims, jihad is an internal struggle for faith. It is a struggle within, a struggle against greed, vice, temptation and sin. It is also a struggle to try and live a life based on moral codes as mentioned in the holy book of Quran. In its original idea, jihad is important for Muslims just like grace is for Christians. The word jihad is very powerful and it almost has a mystical resonance to it. This is the very reason, that for years Muslims have named their children Jihad.
However, in Islam, there has always been a faction or minority, who believe that jihad has a larger meaning and does not only pertain to internal struggles but also external struggle against the forces which pose a threat to the Islamic faith. This notion is the major leading factor which makes the minority to resort to arms as they believe that they are protecting their community. Thousands of young Muslim men flocked to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet occupation of a Muslim country and they named themselves the Mujahidin. But back then, they were perceived to be holy warriors who were posing a threat to the ungodly communists. But even within this minority, there was another minority which was coming up with a more notorious and dangerous meaning for jihad. This group was lead by Osama Bin Laden whose idea of jihad was a global war of terror against the crusaders of the west.
The new definition of jihad, as put forward by Osama, began to gain acceptance in the Muslim world. However, with the demise of Osama Bin Laden, the extremist ideology is losing its importance. Though there are various groups across the world who claim to be the inheritors of this legacy, such as, the boko haram in Nigeria, al shahbaab in Somalia, Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively, these groups are not fighting a global jihad, rather they focus on narrower issues with regard to ethnicity, race, sectarianism or power struggle. This for instance is local jihad which only concentrates in a few countries, but if we ignore it, it may as well lead to global jihad.
The recent Arab Spring showed a way for the young Muslims to bring about a change in a manner Osama could have never conceived. The Arab Spring has also produced Islamic governments who are well aware of the fact that in order to thrive for growth, they first have to deal with the extremists in their midst. These countries can be provided with economic assistance, technology, expertise, medicine, education, technical support etc. Today there are millions of people in the Muslim world who are restoring the term jihad to its earlier serene meaning. With Bin Laden dead, the extremist ideology of global war of terror is receding fast.
The author is a first year college student, pursuing sociology honors in Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. She is a pass out from Mount Carmel School, Anand Niketan as the topper of humanities. She is an avid reader, mostly fiction. She also likes debating and has been part of various MUN sessions. Issues like politics, religion, culture, society etc are her areas of interest. Apart from reading, she also writes abstract verses, listens to music, and also likes watching Television series. Issues of terrorism, religion, feminism and gender also lie in her interests of reading and writing.