Concept of Jihad attacked-US muslims to reclaim Jihad?

[UPPERCUT]

There seems to be a new push by western Muslims, pushed to counter "extremists" and those that may have been contaminated by "moderate Islam" to reclaim "Jihad". They will be using tools such as social media -"facebook/twitter" - how influential are they in the battle of ideas for the west. Other methods will include advertisements and posters/billboards.
http://dawn.com/2012/12/15/us-muslim...h-ad-campaign/

US Muslims launched an advertising and social media campaign Friday in the hopes of reclaiming the word jihad from extremists who insist on equating the spiritual quest with terrorism.

The campaign features Muslims describing their personal struggles – the meaning of jihad – on bus ads, Twitter, Facebook and a dedicated website: myjihad.org.

This seems to be a push by the moderate camps backed by the west who will probably be behind the funding. The battle of Ideas being fuelled by the west, using Muslims - sound familiar?

“#MyJihad is to build friendships across the aisle,” says one ad showing an African American man leaning on the shoulder of a Jewish friend.

“#MyJihad is to march on despite losing my son,” says another ad, featuring a portrait of a mother with her three remaining children.

“#MyJihad is to not judge people by their cover,” says a third, framed by two women in headscarves.

It was sparked by a series of hateful ads calling Muslims “savages” and urging people to “defeat jihad” that were plastered on buses and trains in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

But it also speaks to a larger frustration among “mainstream” Muslims with how a basic tenant of their faith has been distorted and demonised, said Ahmed Rehab who helped launch the campaign.

What a load of .... If this is Jihad - what Jihad were the Muslims doing under Rasul'Allah (Saw) Abu Bakr (ra), Umar Ibn Al Khattab (RA), Uthman ibn Affan (RA), Ali ibn Abi Talib (RA) and others? It seems like the apologetics are being drawn into this battle and are pushing the west's campaign to weaken and attack the ideas of Islam - especially the noble and integral idea of Jihad.

“Jihad is a term that has unfortunately been widely misrepresented by the actions of Muslim extremists first and foremost, and by attempts at public indoctrination coming from Islamophobes who claim that the minority extremists are right and the majority of Muslims are wrong,” said Rehab, who is the executive director of the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

It is widely being misrepresented by the "my Jihad" campaign - its sad that the Muslims have been drawn into promoting such ideas, whether its reactionary or not.

“The MyJihad campaign is about reclaiming Jihad from the Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists who ironically, but not surprisingly, see eye to eye on Jihad.”

Jihad is Jihad and will remain Jihad, no matter if the apologetics portray it as "myJihad" or the west demonise it as attacking innocent people and blowing up buildings. Amazing how the west always push the Muslims under the defensive, reactionary angles. Its almost a reverse psychology effect - to counter the efforts of the west Islamaphobes and the extremists we must portray it as something else which in the end plays into the hands of the west and her plans - to push their version of Islam, an Islam that fits in with their idea. Clearly the battle of idea is taking place with attacks on jihad. Its sad that the Muslims are being dragged in and are pushing the west's line by choosing the wrong side. If we remember speeches where it was said this battled against the "ideology", the battle of ideas is ongoing and can only be won from within.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4689363.stm

It is not a clash of civilisations - all civilised people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it. But it is a global struggle and it is a battle of ideas, hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it.
This is the battle that must be won, a battle not just about the terrorist methods but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do but what they think and the thinking they would impose on others.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk...1466-17332353/

The Prime Minister told the MPs, "The Government has its role to play in this, but, honestly, the Government itself is not going to defeat this.

"If we want to defeat the extremism, we have got to defeat its ideas and we have got to address the completely false sense of grievance against the West."

Mr Blair, "In the end, Government itself cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities.

"I am not the person to go into the Muslim community and explain to them that this extreme view is not the true face of Islam."

Mr Blair added, "I profoundly disagree that the problem here is that the Government hasn't acted.

"We are not having a debate of a fundamental enough nature within the community, which is where the moderate majority go and stand up against the ideas of those people, not just their methods.

"You cannot defeat this extremism through what a Government does. You can only defeat it within a community."

There are many speeches of this nature, but it highlights that this battle of ideas can only be won from within - by first getting the muslims to adopt and promote, the getting them to tackle the other ideas that are contrary to that which the west wants. Further if we look back at the Rand report which categorised the Muslims into 4 categories 1, fundamental, 2. traditional, 3, moderate, 4 secular - and how they highlight that they need the others (234) to gang up and suppress the fundamentalists. Are we not seeing this taking place?

[Abdul-A]

The problem with these campaigns is that they do not address the root of what they want to eliminate. The verses of Jihad in the Quran are clear cut and have never been differed on its history. They will have to reject the Quran to achieve their goal and if they do that, then its all over for them since no-one is going to accept that.

[neelu]

The ads themselves are vomit inducing:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

Notice how you can't even tell if anyone in the photos are Muslim or not except the one in the headscarf. It's all about being 'American'.

[romia747]

That is true, the only one looking like a muslim is the woman wearing
the head scarf.
This Ads represent the ultimate in cowardice, and how some muslims have
deviated badly from islam. It reminds me when I was in the states and was
giving the Friday khutba, and I mentioned the khilafah, the majority of the
people in the mosque was telling me you should stop these khutbas that divide the community and speak instead of loving your neighbors, and praying and fasting.
They did not even want to understand that if khilafah is established,all these
things will take place automatically.

[UPPERCUT]

Its quite sad how the people can be swayed into defensive mode and then pushed to react and thus the moderates are ignorantly pushing this without much attention to what they are pushing, whether it comes from Islam or not. I think the west will be proud of what they are doing - but this is far from becoming mainstream and accepted by the masses.

I wonder if they will have a picture of a battle field depicting army vs army with the caption - My jihad is Jihad fi sabilillah (surely they cant miss out Jihad fi Sabilillah. Again the concept of Jihad is so integral to Islam that no matter how much they try to cover it, it will not be covered. Even if the likes of Tahir ul Qadri claims Jihad has nothing to do with fighting or whoever it is backing this campaign.

I agree with this campaign being about the "American" identitiy - and national unity,i.e. uniting against extremists. In America there has always been an emphasis on this "American" identity that the people are supposed to be united by. Where being American takes priority, I think its superficial, people just hold this "national unity" in public as going against it may be against public opinion and looked down on. Although from a young age in the education system this is pumped through the masses so it wont be surprising if this has taken root in many. This campaign is an American pushed campaign against Islam and these people are foolishly being used by being duped into fighting "extremists" and those that have hijacked Islam and give it a bad name. They are obviously oblivious to the ideological battle taking place between Islam and Kufr.

[romia747]

Salam
What you said is correct in my opinion, the starting battle is ideological and
although the muslims now are swayed in every directions by the corrupt scholars whom I see in front of me doing tremendous damage, because the muslims out of ignorance are believing them,this together with the corruptnews media and system are adding up to the confusion of the masses.
In Egypt the constitution is presented as an islamic constitution for the people to accept it, now let us assume for a second that the constitution is islamic and made of ahkam el shariah,how a muslim can vote on what Allah swt revealed when the Qur'an and sunna clearly state that we have to accept what Allah swt revealed without the slightest doubt in our hearts, therefore voting on a true islamic constitution is like judging what Allah swt revealed,and that is totally forbiden. Therefore when the scholars come and tell the people that not voting on this constitution will be kufr, while in fact the constitution itself is kufr,this fact will show you the magnitude of the confusion thrown on the public, that is further complicated by the fact that the opponents of the constitution are pure evil.In my opinion the situation will only start to improve when HT establishes itself in one of the mulims arabs world.
I was talking to one egyptian, and I explained to him the nature of the true
islamic system, he understood it, but he told me to implement this system you need a leader or a party which carries this message to the people.
I just hope that HT establishes itself in the muslims arabs world as soon as possible, in this case transforming the ummah will be a lot easier.