What JIHAD means

Misconception Regarding Jihad

• Now we talk about a very important topic which is jihad. As the jihad word comes up normally the image comes to mind is like a very thunderous war, with big sword in hand of brutal people and their religion is Islam. 
• These kind of information is spread around the world because of the media. As they have twisted the meanings to create a bad image of the religion of Islam.
• Yes, in Islam their is permission for a war but not in every condition, there are some circumstances, situation, conditions which the Islam to start the war which we will talk about later.
• Now the whole Islam is based on The glorious Quran and the authentic hadith of prophet muhammed (pbuh).
• Nowhere in the Quran Allah(swt) speaks about Jihad as holy war.
• For the word "Holy war"there is a different word in Arabic which is (harb-muqadasa) which is different from Jihad.
• Now Jihad does not mean a holy war. But some of the people took it in wrong direction and said-"Jihad means Terror"
• Any muslim is fighting for any cause that is Jihad these are the wrong perceptions which is created by the normal people

What JIHAD really means

• Jihad is a Arabic word which comes from the root word (JAHADA) which means to strive and to struggle.
• So if you are striving and struggling for something that is called JIHAD.
• So by this definition everyone is doing jihad by some means.
• For example, A man is working the whole day so that he could feed himself and his family that is also jihad. Because  he is striving and struggling to feed his his family.
• So jihad has no connection with the war,terror,terrorism etc, As we can understand from the above definition.
• Jihad is also called to strive and to struggle peacefully or to strive and to struggle to maintain peace in the society.
• For example, In India normally peace is maintained in the country.The humans are living peacefully. Now if someone comes and tries to destroy the peace in the country or in a society and then someone tries to stop him then that is also a "jihad".
• The person that is trying to disturb and destroy the peace that is called [Fasad].
• Now in qur'an when the jihad word comes up first time to muhammed(pbuh) in surah Furqan chapter 25 verse 52.

               "So do not obey the disbelievers, and strive against them while the qur'an a great striving"

• Now let's understand the meaning of what it says 
• In this verse it doesn't mean to go with a qur'an against them and kill them. It means spread the knowledge of the qur'an among the disbelievers among the humankind.
• So as we can see terror and war has nothing to do with the word (Jihad)
• If you have any questions, suggestions, feedback please comment below. I will try my best to reply.