The Jihad of the Muslim Coffee Fanatic

This year, the commencement activities at Harvard University have created quite a stir. Zayed Yasin, one of those slated to deliver a commencement address, intended to give a speech entitled, "My American Jihad." The stir was so intense that University officials decided to change the title to "Of Faith and Citizenship: My American Jihad."

Critics of the speaker claimed that such a speech should not be given, since the Sept. 11 terrorists justified their act of mass murder as a "jihad." Thankfully, although the title was changed, the speech was delivered unchanged. This incident painfully illustrated how little fellow Americans know about the emotionally-charged word "jihad."

Most commonly translated as "holy war," jihad has traditionally connoted a particularly negative image of wild-eyed fanatics wanting to kill all "infidels." This notion of jihad is a false distortion of the true, broader meaning of jihad and has come about partly because of the disproportionate media coverage of fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, who calls on all Muslims to wage a "jihad" against all "infidels."

Some "terrorism experts" want us to believe that this is the only definition of jihad, and that all the Muslims in the world who insist otherwise are fooling you. Hogwash. Literally, jihad means "struggle," not "holy war." In fact, there is no such term in the Islamic lexicon, and it perplexes me why it continues to be translated as "holy war." It is not, as some would have you believe, the "sixth pillar" of Islam.

In the Quran, the Muslim scripture, jihad is almost always distinguished from armed conflict, which is termed "qital." Jihad, a very broad concept in Islam, is the struggle to obey God's commandments. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), upon returning from a battle, remarked to his companions that they were returning from the "lesser jihad" of fighting to the "greater jihad" of struggling against the evil temptations of the soul. As a last resort, jihad may encompass armed conflict. However, there are strict rules that govern fighting in Islam, and if the enemy even slightly hints toward peace, Muslims are commanded to make peace.

Every day in America, Muslims undergo jihad, but this is a good thing that should not be feared.

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