By Omar Sacirbey
c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) The end to Ani Zonneveld’s “jihad” on “jihad” came during an episode of “Desperate Housewives,” when Lynette (Felicity Huffman) discovers she has cancer and throws a stone at a possum.
“Look at yourself,” replies her husband, Tom. “You’ve declared jihad on a possum.”
“At that point,” said Zonneveld, the co-director of the advocacy group Muslims for Progressive Values, “I think it is too late to redefine the true meaning of jihad.”
Strictly speaking, “jihad” is supposed to mean an inner struggle toward holiness. But for many Americans, the term connotes holy war, especially when militant groups like al-Qaida vow to wage jihad against the United States.
Zonneveld’s frustration with how “jihad” has come to be associated with violence reflects a broader concern among many Muslim Americans who believe various Islamic terms are being misused by the media and politicians, and co-opted by Muslim extremists and anti-Muslim critics.
Not only does such misuse disparage the faith and undercut moderate followers, they say, it also unwittingly gives legitimacy to Muslim extremists.
“The real key is not to afford (terrorists) the name of Islam and not legitimize them that way,” said Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stressing that terrorists represented only a tiny fraction of the Muslim world.
“By calling terrorists Islamic, we’re saying that this tiny contingency is the one whose interpretation of Islam is Islam, and everyone else doesn’t matter.”
While Muslim Americans have made this argument for years, U.S. government officials have only recently adopted it. In March, the National Counterterrorism Center drafted a memo for the State Department urging diplomats to drop words like “jihadists” or “mujahedeen” (those engaged in jihad) when describing terrorists because it “unintentionally legitimizes their actions.” The Department of Homeland Security issued similar recommendations in January.
“We should not concede the terrorists’ claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam,” said the report, which has not been made public but was obtained by the Associated Press.
Rehab suggested an alternative: “neo-Kharajite,” an Arabic term that means “outlaw.” It was used to describe an uprising against (and ultimate assasination of) the Fourth Caliph Ali in the seventh century.
Like al-Qaida and other modern terrorist groups, Rehab said, the Kharajites held rigid, literalist interpretations of Islam and reserved the right of “takfir” — judging someone as having abandoned the faith and deserving of death.
Many Muslim Americans worry that critics of Islam have purposefully misused Islamic terms in a way that incites suspicion and hostility. The word “madrassa,” for example, simply means school. But to many Americans, madrassa denotes a religious school, and one that produces extremists bent on martyrdom. Critics have used madrassa to attack the school that Sen. Barack Obama attended as a child in Indonesia.
Other terms that Muslim Americans feel have been misused include:
– Taqqiya: The word means “dissimulation,” and refers to a dispensation allowing Muslims to conceal their faith when threatened.
Critics say the taqqiya concept encourages Muslims to lie for the cause of Islam, and is cited as an example of alleged Muslim deceitfulness.
– Dhimmi: The word means protected subject and refers to non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. Critics say the word means subjugated subject, and warn that Muslims intend to turn all non-Muslims into second-class citizens.
– Taliban: The plural form of talib, or student, the word to most Americans evokes the militant political-religious Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
While few Americans know the meaning of such words, even well-known expressions can be used to evoke hostility or make Muslims seem less American. The Arabic word Allah, for example, simply translates into God, but is used by critics of Islam instead of “God” to refer to the deity worshipped by Muslims.
“People think that somehow giving God a different name makes it a different God, other than a Jewish or a Christian God,” said Becky Schulthies, a linguistics expert at Brigham Young University who has lived in Morocco and Lebanon. “Instead of praying to God, people see Muslims praying to Allah. It’s an othering process.”
It’s unclear whether the government’s lexicon changes will be actually be adopted by government officials. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, for one, has defended his campaign’s use of the term “Islamic terrorist.” His campaign did not reply to a calls from a reporter.
The recommended lexicon changes have been derided by their critics as bowing to political correctness. Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum argued in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently that using “terrorist” without “Islamic” was “misleading.”
“We are at war only with terrorists motivated by Islam who view themselves as true followers, as self-described holy warriors,” said Santorum, now a senior fellow at a Washington think tank.
Muslim Americans have generally welcomed the proposed language changes, but many are also taking matters into their own hands.
Shabir Mansuri, a longtime Muslim activist in southern California, started the Council on Islamic Education nearly 20 years ago to help schools more accurately teach about Islam. Among other lessons on its Web site, Mansuri’s group says a better alternative to jihad is “harabah,” which means unlawful violence. Because Muslims view jihad as something that can only be good, calling terrorists “jihadists” is akin to calling them heroes.
Other Muslims have taken their lexicon battle onto YouTube. In one eight-minute video, two Muslims address misunderstandings of the words madrassa, talib, and kaffir, which refers to “unbelievers.”
Still other Muslims, citing what they say is increasing anti-Muslim sentiment in America, have come to view such efforts as useless.
“The fight over the word `jihad’ was over a long time ago,” wrote Manan Ahmed of Chicago in an e-mail. “The fight is now over the word Muslim.”
Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted May 14, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I fully understand and appreciate the concept and frustration of those Moslems who feel, perhaphs rightfully so, that their world, their true faith, their culture has been co-opted by extremists. It’s a very common occurrence to be misunderstand by those who do not live your life or whom have not been educated in your ways.
That said – to say the terrorists are not Moslem is disingenuous. Of course they’re Moslem, and you can’t disavow them just by saying they’re not because you don’t like what they say or do. It’s embarrassing; it’s sad; it’s frustrating, but they’re still Moslem.
posted May 14, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I think they should add to this list the misuse of the word, or name actually, “Mecca”. It has been applied to theme parks, shopping malls, and a host of secular sites that have nothing to do with any religion, especially Islam. Our communal ignorance is no excuse. Otherwise we would be flocking to Shopping Vaticans or heading to Roller Coaster Tabernacles.
posted May 14, 2008 at 8:16 pm
In Ireland the terrorists were Catholics and Protestants. In Oklahoma City they were Christians. So terrorists are not by any means all Muslims. The ones on 9/11 were, and Islam was pretty clearly important in their willingness to do what they did. But of course many of the people we call terrorists might reasonably call themselves homeland defenders. If we’d get out of Iraq they’d have a lot less motivation and opportunity to use terrorism, or whatever it is, against us.
I, too, sympathize with the vast majority of Muslims, who are moderates, about how demagogues and frightened Americans, in particular, have misused Islamic religious terms and tried to make the public think Muslims are generally dangerous.
I think the Bush administration is right about the terminology, though they are very late to realize what they’ve been doing. It could be awfully tough to get Republican candidates to give up anything that could make the voters afraid; they are rightly afraid fear is their only hope this year.
posted May 15, 2008 at 9:52 am
I agree that it is a healthy step for the Bush Administration to drop at least some of the terminology.
However, there is one term I think can legitimately be applied to some terrorist and that term is “Islamist” (in the Tariq Ramadan and Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Brotherhood sense of the term.) I am curious as to how many Muslims consider themselves Islamists?
My understanding of the term is that it refers to those people who believe the solution for the world’s ills is “more Islam” and that Islamists don’t believe in separation of church and state, and believe the state ought to be Islamic.
posted May 15, 2008 at 10:06 am
Alicia,
My hope is we are sliding out of a period of “Christian-ist” influence in our country. However, their voices are still being heard and their influence felt. So to have the same in Moslem countries is no surprise. I suppose thre is the same to be said in China and elsewhere as well.
posted May 15, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Labels, compartments, boxes, his, her’s God.
What this article indicates to me and hopefully others, is as a species we have much evolving to do.
Fighting wars over the distribution of natural resources, understandable.
Although I do not condone or advocate this type of behavior.
Fighting wars over a freaking label difference? Completely insane and ignorant.
Let’s all face this fact:
Allah is the literal translation of the English word God. Just a variance on terminology, not belief. Christianity and Islam stem from the very same “Abrahamic” roots. Islam recognizes Mary and Christ. I’m not sure at what point in history people lost this knowledge and turned a translation into a serious point of contention. My suspicion is when the media as a tool of politicians came into existence.
People just need to loosen their belts a little.
posted May 15, 2008 at 4:04 pm
If Abe worships a god that demands one thing and Bill worships a god that demands another thing they are worshiping different gods. It’s that simple.
But of course that means lots of Christians worship different gods and lots of Jews and lots of Muslims and no doubt on and on.
It might be considered unifying to pretend large groups in the world worship the same god but it’s just not true.
posted May 15, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Islam does not recognize Mary and Jesus as anything other than people – certainly not as deities to be worshipped. Perhaps Islam sees Jesus as a prophet, but again, not as a deity.
posted May 15, 2008 at 6:49 pm
There is one God. There is one nnmns. There is one every person posting on this net. I don’t think any of us would agree on what each of us represents, because we look at each other differently and react differently to each other. This is the same with God….people know Him in different ways. Only one God for everyone. It’s up to humans to try and understand each other; that’s why we’re here on earth.
posted May 15, 2008 at 6:56 pm
“There is one God. There is one nnmns.”
In my mind, of course, I was being compared to a figment of your imagination. It’s an interesting life.
Henrietta, I know in your mind I was in high company in that paragraph so thanks.
posted May 15, 2008 at 11:32 pm
ecl,
The Quran affords Jesus a significant amount of attention and space, including a third Nativity story. Jesus is also given some exalted status as a significant prophet, though prophet only. Mary also gets extra attention, but again,as a person, not as a demi-deity. Christians seem far too ignorant of the role Jesus, Mary, Moses and other Biblical figures play in the Quran. It is worth making the time to read – and to discover the profound overlaps between the two.
posted May 16, 2008 at 9:17 am
So, Jest,
Are there different versions of the Quran same as there are different versions of the Christian Bible?
posted May 16, 2008 at 12:28 pm
ecl,
No there are no alternatives allowed. In fact, it should only be read in its “original” Arabic. However, there are some differing translations. However, they do not vary much. So just as there are parts of the Bible that folks ignore, there are parts of the Quran that people ignore. We are all the same, one way or another.
posted May 23, 2008 at 10:34 am
As for calling the various Muslim terrorists Islamist, it would seem to be fitting in that they seek to establish their vision of an Islamic state. It would behoove us to remember though, that the vast majority of Islamists disavow and abhor the tactics of terrorism which people like OBL and militants around the world have embraced. Calling OBL a Muslism terrorist, a Jihadist, or an Islamist all give him a spiritual/religious legitimacy which he should be denied as his understanding of Islamic teachings is clearly very flawed. While we may not be able to deny that he is inspired by those flawed understandings, we can challenge the legitimacy of his interpretations, and take him and his ilk to task for being, simply, wrong.
posted May 25, 2008 at 12:31 pm
It took the world several years to recognize, understand the true meaning of the world Jihad. Thanks to desperate housewives series for explaining it!
All the different Arabic meanings were twisted and taken out of their text to give a different meaning BY Purpose. The world Allah in Arabic simply means God. I once read a comment that insult the world ‘Allah’ as being just an Arabic word; and he even referred to ‘Allah’ as the Moon God. This is absolutely absurd and is evidence enough to show how ignorant is this person is and it is clear enough that he had learned his information from a bad and not a trustworthy source. He hated what he did not understand because the ‘Moon God’ he referred to is an Ancient Egyptian God worshipped centuries before
The three Holy religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
All you people sitting on your computers HAVE NOT seen how different are the countries that embrace Islam as a major religion.
The different cultures in these countries varies from non-practicing Moslems to extremists. And, each country embraces such a variation.
The point is that the Western media has planted the seeds of hate against Islam and its followers since the war on Afghanistan, by using such words erroneously until it drove the western world into a mounting rage. They created out of Osama Bin Laden, who is outcast now, a hero for the ignorant Moslems and an a personal enemy of GW Bush. FYI this Osama Bin Laden was helped by the Americans to train the Afghani people to fight the Russian invasion. Ask yourselves a question: Why he had turned against the Americans? Why he is not caught yet?
If Americans were brainwashed by the media like this, there will be no end of the war and destruction which would eventually lead the world to
chaos and destruction.
The so called war against terror in Iraq has caused the destruction of
a great nation with a history that taught the whole world thousand of years ago. Is this worth it!!??
posted May 25, 2008 at 12:56 pm
You have to read the Quran Holy Book to see for yourselves how Jesus and His mother Mary are portrayed. There is a whole Chapter in Quran named after Mary (Mariam in Arabic). You should read the translation.
Also, according to Moslems view that Jesus is just a prophet, a human.
He is declared in the Quranic verses as the Word of God. This is very high position Jesus has achieved among other Prophets!
FYI in the Quran, God had ordered every Moslems to believe in all the Prophets the three Holy religions share, because on the Day of Judgment, every prophet will be present with his followers, all gather before God and every follower will receive and witness the ultimate truth.
God created us as his children and did not favor any race as the chosen one. If you believe this, you will be in peace with yourself and the rest of this wretched world.
posted May 25, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Islam / Muslim – These two have a definition each. The first refers to a religion and the second refers to those who profess and declare their following and practice of the first. Islam has laid down certain criteria for those want to believe and practice this religion. Those who fulfill the conditions are permitted to call themselves Muslims. Now, among all those who declare themselves to be Muslims, only Allah knows who really are Muslims.
Certain people who claim to be Muslims commit or act against the very basics of the religion, can in no way be tagged as Muslims. These people break all rules laid out by Islam and still claim to Muslims. How can that be true. If one declares to be an American but acts against the constitution and brings a bad name to it….how can you can you call him an American.
The names we Muslims keep are basically Arabic names. So if a certain person with an Arabic name commits a terrorist act he can in no way be a true believer of Islam and hence cannot be called an Islamic Terrorist. Terrorists have no religion. They take religion as an excuse to justify their actions. Has anyone ever called a person with a Christian sounding name and having commited a terrorist act a “Christian Terrorist” ?? Never… So why this bias with the Muslims ????
posted May 30, 2008 at 12:15 pm
For many years it was my privilege to work for a government agency that helped immigrants and refugees resettle in this, their chosen country. I met people from every continent(well, maybe not Antarctica)and many were Muslims. On 9-11 we were uniformly horrified. When the term “Islamic Terrorists” was first heard, however, most of my Muslim friends were genuinely confused. “Are we asked to fight them because they are Islamic or because they are terrorists?” they asked. One young man said,”I am not very religious myself, but my mother is a Muslim and a patriotic American. She is very dear to me. But like me, she hates terrorism and believes we must do all we can to stop it. No one who follows the Quran can approve of terrorism.”
When President Bush declared war, he said, “We are on a Crusade.” A very unfortunate choice of words. The original Crusades were, in fact, religious wars, waged despite Jesus’s frequent insistance that we should love one another. He praised the good Samaritan (although many Samaritan beliefs differed from Jewish beliefs), cured the daughter of a Syrio-Phonecian woman (way different beliefs), and healed the servant of a Roman centurian (totally different and pagan beliefs).
posted May 30, 2008 at 12:49 pm
As long as we continue to think in terms of “them” and “us” there will be no peace, no understanding. The Bush regime and American mainstream media have intentionally created a situation which promotes unwarranted fear — not only of terrorists, but of Arabs and Muslims as a group. This undeserved fear, sterotypes founded in ignorance, and justified prejudice must be absolutely and entirely rejected and repudiated as it only serves the hate-filled, self-serving agenda of the Bush regime. There is no religion or philosophy which could or would justify the irreprable harm done in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world to Muslims and Arabs, while tainting other religious and ethnic groups with fear, hatred and prejudice. We have the power to overturn this ugly creation; we have the wisdom, the goodness and a responsibility to do so.
Namaste to all; peace.
posted June 2, 2008 at 2:14 pm
So many wonderful comments by peace-loving, caring individuals both Muslim and Christian. It is encouraging to see dialogue shaped at reconciliation. However, the problem isn’t between the folks here. It’s between the terrorists and the peace loving peoples everywhere. Islamist, Jihadists, Fundamentalists…it doesn’t matter what we call them or they call themselves. The true measure is when we look into our own hearts and determine just where we stand. Do we stand with those who foment discord, destruction and death or do we stand with those with uphold justice, freedom and liberty? Make no mistake though we must CHOSE. There is no doubt that this is a war! There are “those” who would take our liberty, who would subjugate us. Freedom isn’t free. It is paid for dearly.
We must chose and we must act. We must ascertain who is with us and who is against us. How do we judge? When I see people (men, women and children) cheering after the Twin Towers were destroyed and Americans were murdered, I know who the enemies of freedom and justice are. (Sorry, no mealy-mouth excuses on this point ). They have revealed themselves. When they give aid and comfort to the attackers…I know who the enemy is. When they hide and feed the terrorist… I know who the enemy is.
Forget the “word” games…”a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” penned Shakespeare.
Who then supports Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida cohorts? These are the enemies of freedom. Unfortunately, the Muslim world has been unable or unwilling to police itself. In large measure, it has taken positions against non-Muslim governments in favor of terrorists for the simple reason that they will not favor infidels against ANY Muslim (that IS written in Quran).
So how do we resolve this problem? We, non-Muslims, don’t! We can offer support and prayers, that the Muslim world throws off the terrorists and decides to join the community of the world in the 21st century. The alternatives are not appealing. Forget the words, the names…what you chose and how you act are the keys to the debate.
posted June 5, 2008 at 9:17 am
As a recent revert to Islam.. I have learned a great deal about terminology..and Jesus(Peace Be Upon Him) is considered a prophet..and his mother, Mary(Peace and Blessings Be Upon Her) is considered a very holy woman and held in high esteem in Islam. The absolute best source on Islam and how a Muslim should be is the Qur’an. Read it.. it’s clear, concise.. and puts things in a very clear way.
Noor.
posted June 9, 2008 at 10:22 pm
“to say the terrorists are not Moslem is disingenuous. Of course they’re Moslem, and you can’t disavow them just by saying they’re not because you don’t like what they say or do. It’s embarrassing; it’s sad; it’s frustrating, but they’re still Moslem.”
Agree, and often it has been told us that crusaders were Christians. Indeed, in the context of the Middle Ages, I find more agreeable Moslems than Christians. But I am a Christian and those people, with many others that have been good or bad in history have been Christians. Christianity is not only a moral qualification, but more of a cultural one, in this sense.
“I think they should add to this list the misuse of the word, or name actually, “Mecca”. It has been applied to theme parks, shopping malls, and a host of secular sites that have nothing to do with any religion, especially Islam. Our communal ignorance is no excuse. Otherwise we would be flocking to Shopping Vaticans or heading to Roller Coaster Tabernacles.”
In relation to this, I say that I find nothing offensive with a shopping mall termed as a Mecca of commerce, but that’s because I have seen in my life more than once some shopping or tourism places called “The Vatican of the tropics”. I for one, find it more humoristic than offensive. If some people lack sense of humour, it is to be regretted, be them what religion they be.