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is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim.[1][2][3][4] In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as an internal struggle against evil in oneself, efforts to build a good Muslim community (ummah), and struggle to defend Islam.[1][2][5][6] Literally meaning 'struggle', the term is most frequently associated with warfare.[4]

Jihad is a much more complex concept than crusades

According to Al-Baqara 256 "there is no compulsion in religion".[84] The primary aim of jihad as warfare is not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by force, but rather the expansion and defense of the Islamic state.

This is fundamentally different to the crusades, where forced conversion and genocidial massacres against Muslims, Jews but also Orthodox Christians were common.

Muslims jurists of the eighth century divided the world into three divisions, dar al-Islam/dar al-‛adl/dar al-salam (house of Islam/house of justice/house of peace), dar al-harb/dar al-jawr (house of war/house of injustice, oppression), and dar al-sulh/dar al-‛ahd/dār al-muwada‛ah (house of peace/house of covenant/house of reconciliation).[88][89] The eighth century jurist Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 778) headed what Khadduri called a pacifist school, which maintained that jihad was only a defensive war.[90]: 36ff [10]: 90  He stated that the jurists who held this position, among whom he refers to Hanafi jurists al-Awza‛i (d. 774) and Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), and other early jurists, "stressed that tolerance should be shown unbelievers, especially scripturaries and advised the Imam to prosecute war only when the inhabitants of the dar al-harb came into conflict with Islam

Largely understood to be solely permissive for defensive war.

Within classical Islamic jurisprudence, during the first few centuries after the prophet's death,[92] jihad consisted of wars against unbelievers, apostated, and was the only form of permissible warfare.[57]: 74–80  Bernard Lewis stated that fighting rebels and bandits was legitimate, though not a form of jihad,[93] and that while the classical perception and presentation of jihad was warfare in the field against a foreign enemy, internal jihad "against an infidel renegade, or otherwise illegitimate regime was not unknown."

The first documentation of the law of jihad was written by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Awza'i and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani. (It grew out of debates that surfaced following Muhammad's death.[31]) Although some Islamic scholars have differed on the implementation of Jihad, the consensus amongst them is that jihad always includes armed struggle against persecution and oppression.

Both Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim asserted that Muhammad never initiated hostilities and that all the wars he engaged in were primarily defensive. He never forced non-Muslims to Islam and upheld the truces with non-Muslims so long as they did not violate them. Ibn Taymiyya's views on Jihad are explained in his treatise titled Qāʿidah mukhtaṣarah fī qitāl al-kuffār wa muhādanatuhum wa taḥrīm qatlahum li mujarrad kufrihim. (An abridged rule on fighting the unbelievers and making truces with them, and the prohibition of killing them merely because of their unbelief). According to Ibn Taymiyya, human blood is inviolable by default, except "by right of justice". Although Ibn Taymiyya authorised offensive Jihad ( Jihad al-Talab) against enemies who threaten Muslims or obstruct their citizens from freely accepting Islam, unbelief (Kufr) by itself is not a justification for violence, whether against individuals or stated.

According to some authors,[who?] the more spiritual definitions of jihad developed sometime after the 150 years of jihad wars and Muslim territorial expansion, and particularly after the Mongol invaders sacked Baghdad and overthrew the Abbasid Caliphate.[103] Historian Hamilton Gibb stated, "in the historic [Muslim] Community the concept of jihad had gradually weakened and at length it had been largely reinterpreted in terms of Sufi ethics."[104]: 117  notes that "despite the theoretical importance of the idea of jihad in classical Islamic juristic thought", by the time of the Abbasids, the concept was no longer central to statecraft.[81

When Europeans began to colonize the Muslim world, jihad was one of the first responses.[7]: 157–158  Emir Abdelkader organized a jihad in Algeria against French domination, tapping into existing Sufi networks.[7]: 157–158  Other wars were often declared to be jihad: the Senussi religious order declared jihad against Italian control of Libya in 1912, and the "Mahdi" in Sudan declared jihad against British and Egyptians in 1881.[76]

Rashid Rida and Muhammad Abduh argued that peaceful coexistence should be the normal state between Muslim and non-Muslim stated, citing verses in the Qur'an that allowed war only in self-defense.[2] However, this view left open jihad against colonialism, which was seen as an attack on Muslims.[2]

In colonial times Jihad was the legitimate defense against the colonial invaders. The concept of Jihad as a right to defensive war has largely been adopted into modern international war.

Modern Muslim thought had been focused on when to go to war (jus ad bellum), not paying much attention on conduct during war (jus in bello). This was because most Muslim theorists viewed international humanitarian law as consistent with Islamic requirements. However, Muslims later discussed conduct during war in response to terrorist groups who targeted civilians.

For Iran, which is largely Shia it becomes even less offensive:

In Shia Islam, jihad is one of the ten Practices of the Religion[136] (though not one of the five pillars). Traditionally, Twelver Shi'a doctrine differed from that of Sunni Islam on the concept of jihad, with jihad seen as a "lesser priority" in Shia theology and "armed activism" by Shias "limited to a person's immediate geography".

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