Jihad in Islam

Produced by The Holy Koran Publishing House P.O.Box 7492, Beirut, LEBANON

JIHAD IN ISLAM
ABUL A’LA MAUDUDI

I. I. F. S. O.
1400 A.H—1980 A.D

IN THE NAME OF ALLAH THE MERCIFUL THE COMPASSIONATE

JIHĀD IN ISLAM
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and the Most Beneficent

(This Address was delivered on Iqbal Day, April 13, 1939, at the Town Hall, Lahore) The word ‘Jihād’ is commonly translated into English as ‘the Holy War’ and for a long while now the word has been interpreted so that it has become synonymous with a ‘mania of religion’. The word ‘Jihād’ conjures up the vision of a marching band of religious fanatics with savage beards and fiery eyes brandishing drawn swords and attacking the infidels wherever they meet them and pressing them under the edge of the sword for the recital of Kalima. The Artists have drawn this picture with masterly strokes and have inscribed these words under it in bold letters: ‘The History of this Nation is a tale of Bloodshed’. The irony is that the painters are no other than those benefactors of ours who themselves have been engaged in an extremely unholy war for centuries on end. They themselves present the picture of robbers who armed to the teeth with all kinds of deadly weapons, have set upon the world pillaging it for the capture of new markets of trade, resources of raw material, open lands for colonisation and mines

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JIHAD IN ISLAM

yielding valuable metals, so that they may procure fuel for their everburning fire of avarice. They fight not for the cause of God but for the satisfaction of their lust and hunger. For them, it is a sufficient excuse for invading a nation because the territory of that nation contains mines, or their lands yield bumper crops, or oil has been struck there or they can be exploited as profitable markets for their manufactured goods or that their surplus population can be settled on the lands belonging to the intended victims. In the absence of all the other excuses, they...