Hi. We're continuing our discussions about the fundamentals of Islam. In our prior tapes, we talked a lot about what do Muslims believe? What is Muslim theology? We're going to continue with a little bit of that, but also talk a little bit more about modern Islam and post-9/11 experience for Muslims in America with our esteemed guest and my friend Abdullah Tapley. This session is taking place at the very beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, and I want to wish my friend Ramadan Mubarak. Thank you very much, Ramadan Kareem. And may your fast be easy and fruitful. Easy is the good one, yes. Fasting in the summer for about 18 hours is not always fun. Yes, yes. Well, we understand why if you get a scratchy voice and you don't take a drink of water, we'll understand why. And my dry mouth. Well, we're going to start with a difficult topic, and that is the one of jihad. Jihad is a concept that you find in the holy Quran that's mentioned numerous times. And in fact there's different conceptions or ideas behind jihad about the personal and also more about geopolitical concept. Why don't you explain those choices? Jihad is one of the most contentious and unfortunately most corrupted Muslim terms or Islamic terms in the post-9/11 United States. It's an essential part of Islam. Muslims cannot afford to lose or wipe out the concept of jihad from Islamic theology. It is embedded in the day to day living of any living practicing Muslim. As you said, it's mentioned in the Quran, exemplified in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. Jihad literally means striving. Jihad literally means working against all evil, all negative forces in your life, and striving to be a better person. Striving to excel, to be a more ethical, moral human being. In the words of Prophet Muhammad, there are two different types of jihad. In one of the most critical battles, like which was a survival battle, Uhud, the second battle that he was involved. In the self-defense, he engaged with the Meccans, who attacked them to kill them all. He came across victorious, he survived. And then people who are feeling good about it, at the entrance of his city, imagine this picture. He basically said, "What you feel good about, about the battle that we survived, that was the smaller jihad." That was the message of jihad. That was the less important secondary jihad. Now that we are victorious, we came back. Now we have the responsibility to form an ethical moral society, individually and collectively. That's the bigger jihad. It's a very famous saying of the Prophet Muhammad. And it came from smaller jihad. For many people it was the jihad because if they were to lose completely, there is no Islam today. Islam could have been wiped out completely. But for him that was the physical jihad. It was the smaller one. But coming back and forming and building and establishing ethical moral society was the bigger jihad. And that's exactly the way in which the jihad played out and built as a theology in the Muslim world. So I wouldn't deny that there's a physical aspect of jihad. Yes in the form of self-defense, if you've been attacked individually or as a nation, unjustly and unfairly, you are allowed to use lesser jihad to basically fight against the people who are invading you or chasing you out of your country, or killing you or your loved ones, etc. But for many people, that doesn't happen. For many people, jihad is basically the internal struggle on a day to day basis for every decision that you make. That's when you engage in the real jihad. Am I being ethical? Am I being authentic? Am I being truthful? Am I being righteous? etc. When I went to Las Vegas, I have to tell this, you've heard this story before. For the first time, at the Las Vegas airport, I don't know if it's still there, you get out of the plane you walk towards the baggage claim. There's a huge sign. There's a huge sign. First of all they say, "Welcome to the sin city." And then there's a huge sign saying, "Submit yourself to your temptations." You know, as someone who is engaged in this big jihad, on a day to day basis, every day, when I saw the sign, I was speechless for a couple of seconds. Jihad is exactly, I mean in the mathematical, yeah, just don't do that. Don't submit yourself to your temptations. Don't submit yourself to your carnal desires. Always strive to be a better person, a better human being. So this notion of the lesser jihad, the physical jihad, is that in some ways a Quranic principle, a duty upon Muslims to rise up to strike against injustice? Is it just injustice against Muslim people in Muslim territory? That's an excellent question. Actually it's not a duty, it's a permission. And these are two very different, and for the first 13 years of the life of the Prophet Mohammad, the lesser jihad was not permitted. They were not allowed to engage in the war that while they were in Mecca. Only after, in Medina, when they were able to form the city. The verse says, "You are permitted to fight against the people who took you out of your cities, who confiscated your land." Etc. It's a permission. It's not an obligation, per se. Of course justice is an obligation. Of course as serving justice is an obligation, but lesser jihad, or fighting a physical fight, is not the only way to do that. We are permitted, and Muslims are permitted. Islam is by all means not a pacifist or a nonviolent religion. In the early Christian sense, there is no such concept. But it's a Quranic term which we're permitted in certain conditions. But again that lesser jihad can only be declared or initiated by the legitimate Muslim governments. It cannot be initiated by individuals. I cannot declare a jihad. Osama bin Laden cannot declare a jihad. The organizations on their own cannot declare a jihad. It has to be a political, a legitimate political government, who can declare this lesser jihad.
