There are a couple of things that we have to understand at the very outset. The world for Muslims is divided into two parts. First, the land of the people of Islam. Islam means being submitted. So, the land where people are submitted to God. Second, the people or the land or war. If a country has not submitted to Sharia, the law of God as revealed in the Quran and Muhammad’s oral tradition, then that land is not in submission and is a land of war.
This is a designation that goes back to the time of the early kalifs (a title for any of the religious and civil rulers of the Islamic world, claiming succession from Muhammad). This is something we are dealing with in the modern world. There are different types of jihad (a religious duty of Muslims). The word jihad in Arabic means struggle not Holy War. We have the interior struggle to submit to God. We also have the struggle with those who are opposed to our religion. Finally, we have the struggle to get others to convert to submit to God. Muslims have traditionally dealt with… Read More>>