Why Military Jihad in Modern Times Is Illegal

Family Security Matters: "Jihad, like a number of other historical developments throughout the world, was a religiously-based geopolitical and military campaign that affected large parts of the world for many centuries. It involved initial theological teachings and injunctions, followed by 14 centuries of interpretations by adherents, caliphs, sultans and their armies, courts, and thinkers. The historical reality of jihad has been intertwined with the evolution of the Islamic state since the seventh century. It is emphatically not a modern, recent, and narrow creation by a small militant faction. It has to be seen in its historical context.

But on the other hand, this giant doctrine, which motivated armies and feelings for centuries, also inspired contemporary movements that shaped their ideology based on their interpretation of the historical jihad. In other words, today's jihadists are an ideological movement with several organizations and regimes who claim that they define the sole interpretation of what jihad was in history and that they are the ones to resume it and apply it in the present and future. It is equivalent to the possibility that some Christians today might claim that they were reviving the Crusades in the present. This would be only a 'claim' of course, because the majority of Christians, either convinced believers or those with a sociological Christian bent, have gone beyond the"