Jihad: War Upon the non-Believers

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Feb 15

My hometown newspaper has for the last three days published reports from an Islamic conference held in Hamilton.  The title of the conference was “Who is Mohammed,” and a lecture of Friday’s session was called “Jihad: Myths and Facts.”

Imam Hosam Helal delivered the lecture.  According to the Spectator report, written by Daniel Nolan, Helal said that there were 14 different types of Jihad, none of which include offensive actions against others.  The list included hypocrisy, the devil, corrupt passions, the tongue and helping to develop a civil society.  To isolate one, and to ignore the others, is an act injustice in the faith, he said.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is the understanding of Jihad…Holy War is one common description from non-Muslims.”  Admitting that there are extremists in the Muslim world who do believe that Jihad means war he went on, “They will say Jihad means war.  They do exist in the community, but they are very small.  They are a minority.”

When he asked for a definition of Jihad from the crowd, a man yelled out, “eternal struggle.”  Helal said other descriptions involve ‘refinement of the soul’ or ‘energy to achieve a difficult, noble task.’  Another definition, given by Mohammed, was ‘to say the word of the truth in front of a tyrant, to stand up to a tyrant ruler through speech.’

A Mississauga imam said that Jihad had been misappropriated by radicals to mean waging a Holy War.

Daniel Nolan is not allowed to editorialize, but on the basis of what he reported, let’s take a stab at analysis of what was reported.

As Pope Benedict XVI noted in his famous lecture at Regensburg, the Muslim world abandoned Hellenic reasoning in the tenth century.  The bedrock principle of Hellenic reasoning is the Law of Non-contradiction, laid down and explained at length by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.  The law of non-contradiction holds that a thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect at the same time.  Since in matters of faith at least, Muslims reject the law of non-contradiction, they are free to contradict themselves and to hold contradictory and conflicting views, particularly on religious matters.  One example of this is the Special Pleading that concerns every matter of Islam with respect to the world and other religions.

Thus there is nothing unusual for an imam to say that there are 14 different meanings of Jihad, not one of which includes Holy War, while admitting that some Muslims, whom he described as extremist and a small minority, believe with non-Muslims that Jihad does mean war.  Another imam admitted that radicals had misappropriated the term Jihad so that it means Holy War to them.  The man in the audience who apparently yelled out “eternal struggle’ as the meaning of Jihad was on to something and hit the heart of the matter.  Reporter Nolan probably misheard the word used, and the expression yelled out was most likely internal struggle.

Internal struggle as the meaning of Jihad subsumes all the meanings described by imam Helal, in which the struggle is directed towards different aims.  What is common about all these aims is the improvement of oneself as a Muslim by means of advancing the cause of Islam.  Thus one is purified as a Muslim via Jihad, and the struggle for the advancement of the cause of Islam.  Of course, war for the addition of territory under Islamic rule aims at advancing the cause of Islam.  War upon the non-Believers is the very meaning of the word Jihad, if the word of Allah counts for anything to Muslims. (See Sura 47.   Reliance of the Traveller.)

An honest intellectual discussion, which is what we ought to expect from an imam, would have included Holy War as one of the meanings of Jihad held by Muslims.  Extremist Muslims may be extremists, but they are also Muslims, and by admission they hold the view that Jihad means Holy War.  The Muslims of ISIS as well as Saudi Arabia hold this view of Jihad, and if they are a minority, they are a crucial minority.

Jihad, the struggle for the advancement of Islam by an individual, favors the development of “extremism” both inside and outside Islamic territory.  If a Muslim conceives that his government is insufficiently Islamic, he is compelled by his religious beliefs to rebel against them, whether it be ostensibly Islamic or not.  That rebellion is his Jihad, his struggle for the advancement of Islam.

But we didn't get honest intellectual discussion from the imam; at least not honest as those raised in Hellenic reasoning would call honest.  The imam delivered his opinion or  his wishes, not facts; and he didn't say so, or at least that say so was not reported.


A review of the relevant passages of the Koran Sura 8 and Reliance of the Traveller makes it plain that, to Allah, Jihad means making war upon the non-Believers.  What the imam offered to the conference was a personal opinion at variance with the teaching of Allah.  (See article below on Saudi Savagery.)

One purpose of the conference on “Who is Mohammed?” was intended to quieten fears about the Muslim community in the midst of southern Ontario.  That community is numerically weak, and given Islam’s own pre-disposition towards minorities in its midst, local Muslims fear the western community in which they reside.  They understand western communities enough to know how to manipulate public opinion to their advantage, and how to do so while remaining faithful Muslims.  Recall the four terms of “No Word of a Lie,” and the fact that Muslim apologists condemn acts not fellow Muslims who commit the act.

A proper understanding of Jihad and of a Muslim’s requirement some time in his life to engage in Jihad is necessary for a westerner to evaluate the wisdom of allowing more Muslim immigrants to settle in Canada.  As the Muslim community gets numerically stronger, there will be calls to make the Canadian legal and political regime more sharia compliant.  As we have seen in France and Britain, Muslims will settle together in communities and run their own little sharia-compliant territory in the midst of a western country.  Members of these communities will engage in violence to enforce sharia-compliant behavior on the part of westerners, and will strike at those who offend Islam such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

The conference on “Who is Mohammed?” changed no minds.  The business of the real meaning of Jihad apparently made no references to the relevant passages in the Koran or the authority of Sharia law.  What was offered to the conference was intended to dull the wits of westerners who want to be comforted rather than confronted.

-30-