Principles of Islam
19. Greater Jihad
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According to the Hadith, a believer is one who
wages
jihad
with himself in the path of obedience to
God. That is, at moments when the self
(nafs),
lured
by some temptation, desires to deviate from the
path of
God
,
he keeps control over it and remains
unswervingly on the divine path. This is his
jihad –
a permanent feature of the life of a believer,
continuing day and night, and ending only with
death.
The other form of
jihad
is that which is engaged in
to propagate the constructive message of Islam. All
those who embark upon such a course must first of
all study the Qur’an and Sunnah in a dispassionate
and objective manner. No kind of conditioning
should be allowed to come in the way of such
study. Only after passing through this intellectual
jihad
will the would be proponent of Islam be in a
position to make a true representation of his
religion.
Two conditions have been laid down in the Qur’an
for the communication of the teachings of Islam to
others –
naasih,
well wishing and
amin,
