The True Jihad
Preface
~ 8 ~
caravan of writers and historians continued to
follow the same well-worn path as had been
trodden prior to Ibn Khaldun. When people have
come to regard war heroes as the greatest of men, it
is but natural that it is the events of the battlefield
which will be given the greatest prominence in
works of history. All other events will either be
relegated to the background or omitted altogether.
In the past when the sword was the only weapon of
war, militancy did not lead to the mass-scale loss of
life and property such as modern warfare brings in
its wake. In former times, fighting was confined to
the battlefield; the only sufferers were those
engaged in the battle. But today, the spear and
sword have been replaced by megabombs and
devastating long-range missiles, so that killing and
destruction take place on a horrendous scale. It is
the entire human settlement which has now become
the global arena of war. Even the air we breathe and
the water we drink are left polluted in war’s
aftermath.
Hence people in the West find Islam outdated and
irrelevant precisely because of its militant
