Editorial Board
November 9, 2012
The basic meaning of jihād is “strenuous effort.” The believers are told in the Qur’ān: “And strive hard in God’s cause with all the striving He deserves.” (22:78).
When the term is used in the sense of “holy war,” its meaning is all too frequently misunderstood, especially but not only by non-Muslims. Sometimes, alas, it is willfully misrepresented–by polemicists hostile to Islam, as well as by misguided zealots within the Islamic community itself.
