Talk:Defensive jihad

POV problems

This article seems to imply a unified Islamic tradition, but later says that global opinion is mixed. Few details are given about which scriptures, leadership authorities, or schools of thought command significant followings. If these details (including sources, which are somewhat lacking for the existing claims about "traditional" teachings) are added to later sections, the intro can be repaired to avoid favoring a specific interpretation. The section "Who can authorize defensive jihad?" is decidedly unitary. The parallel section in offensive jihad also needs to be fixed; see Talk:Offensive jihad. -- Beland 04:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As I know there is only one enterpretation about Defensive jihad among all Muslims.--Sa.vakilian 18:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

POV problems

• Although the basis of any decisions, made by Muslims regarding war, should be derived from the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad

It's clearly POV to advise readers on how they should make their decisions...

• However, without direct evidence from the Quran and Sunnah these opinions are merely the words of man

This seems to imply that the Quran is not the word of man, which is a non-neutral statement. It seems the paragraph containing this and the above statement will have to be re-worked.

• "Only the supreme leader of the Muslims, the Caliph, can declare an offensive jihad against a non-Muslim territory."

Well, this is clearly not a NPOV statement, but mostly only because the article makes the claim directly, rather than citing an authority. It also seems likely that this claim is not universally believed by Muslims. I'm not sure whether the quote above from Abdullah Yusuf Azzam is authorizing both defensive and offensive jihad, or just defensive, since it is a bit choppy. It seems likely that some religious or secular leader has authorized an offensive jihad in the last few hundred years. It would be nice to have some examples, or in the alternative to note that no notable figures have done so.

A good fix for this section would involve adding context about which sects of Islam believe what, and what scriptures or leaders they cite as the basis for their beliefs. For example, a more complete quote from the Encyclopedia of the Orient show differences between sects which are ignored or denied by the current article:

While offensive jihad, i.e. attacking, is fully permissible in Sunni Islam, it is prohibited for some of the larger groups of Shi'i Islam, which consider only the Imam, now in occultation, as carrying the right to decide to go to war or not.

Unfortunately, the Imam article there gives five different interpretations of the word "imam", only one of which (and not for the same sect) is "Caliph". Also, for reasons of accuracy, it's preferable to read and cite primary and secondary sources directly, rather than relying on other encyclopedias. This is a long-term goal, but in this case the encyclopedia cited is not sufficient for our needs.

-- Beland 03:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

All of these quotations were removed.--Sa.vakilian 18:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Name

This article seems to be an older version of "offensive jihad" with a less appropriate name and a lot more spelling errors. I'm not clear what this article's raison d'être is supposed to be. AnonMoos 23:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually the raison d'être od this article was to merge defencive jihad & offencive jihad into one article . Both are different aspects of the same concepts (qital) , so merging them seems to be a good idea . About the name , well I agree . May be it should be changed to something more apropriate . Farhansher 20:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

It may be an interesting idea, but unfortunately, the article "combative jihad" is currently a chaotic ungrammatical misspelled disorganized mess (with a stupid name) which does not provide an adequate substitute for the "Offensive jihad" article at this time. Therefore, stop blanking the Offensive jihad" article. My suggestion for a comprehensive title would be "Military jihad", but the article will need a lot more work before it can effectively supersede other articles. AnonMoos 02:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Well that chaotic ungrammatical misspelled disorganized mess is what I have copied from here . If the name is stupid , we can always change it . It doesnt need to supercede anything , its just two uncomprehendable articles in one comprehendable piece . F.a.y.^{تبادله خيال /c} 20:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This page isn't an encyclopedia entry, it's more like a creative writing effort. Whoever authored it thus far made it with the intent of pushing a point rather than conveying information. This entire article should either be rewritten from scratch, or deleted altogether. Amibidhrohi 18:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Beland's comment on the top of the page is spot on. The article's biggest problem is that it's all unsourced, which makes it hard to verify. If someone had the knowledge to go through and say "According to some|many|most Muslim scholars|historical sources . . ." and add some citations, we would have something. As far as I can tell, the overall point of the article seems to be that there is a fairly unitary framework under which Muslims (scholars, leaders, warriors? I don't know) have analyzed militant jihad. If that's true, it's certainly worth recording, but this article doesn't show you it's true, it just asserts it.TheronJ 19:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Crusades?

So does that mean we should have a similar article for Christian crusades? I've heard some leaders and/or political figures call for crusades occasionally.  ;)

(Antelope In Search Of Truth 05:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC))

I think like someone got there before you... Crusades - sorry. Good luck in your Crusade for truth. I'm declaring a Jihad on ignorance, and a Fatwa on falsehood. :) --Dilaudid 11:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions& Suggestions

This article would greatly be enhanced if we could reduce all opinion of Islamic scholars to references to Quran and Hadith, or at least detail their paradigm of reasoning. I'm a bit tired of confusing snippets from so-and-so scholar from 10th century or whatever, without any supporting rational. For example, apparently it is mandatory for the Muslim leader to send out an army every year on Jihad. Seemingly not mandated by the Quran or the Hadith, is this simply mimicking hisotrical events as occured in the war between Medina and Mecca, or is this an undisputable aspect of Islamic revelation that's hidden away somewhere? The doctorine of Jihad in Shariah as we know it was coined around the same time the Islamic state moved from one centered on Arabia to one with Imperalists ambitions abroad. Prior to this, Jihad was discussed in the context of the war against the Arabian pagans, and later Byzantium and Persia. All had conflicts with the early Muslims, and so it is hard to abstract theological teachings of Islam with interpretations of Islam that support an Imperalist agenda.

In short, more evidence and less spin please. Some of us actually want an informative article.

Islam is a very tricky religion to study, as it is so intertwined with the history of Muhammad and his followers. However, literalists refuse to reocgnize this, and polemicists don't want to recognize this fact as it interferes with their spin.

Absolutely, how would a chrsitians feel if i were to quote an exalted cyclops of the KKK ? (Truth 06 15:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC))

Tone

the tone of this article is weird. i cant put my finger on it, but it needs to be changed. Someone who has time do it. (Truth 06 15:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC))

the article is pretty good according to me and should not mean any offense to anyone as it is only for knowdledge purpose

Merge

I disagree with merging this article with Jihad. Because that article is long and also we should expand this article too.

The Combative jihad or Defensive Jihad is completely another article. I think we shouldn't merge this article with another articles--Sa.vakilian 18:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I propose the merger because the notability of this concept is unestablished, nor is article well sourced.Bless sins 21:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

POV

I've attempted to add sources, cleanup the article and remove any POV. --BoogaLouie (talk) 15:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)