This 22-year old half Bangalee-half-Irish American college graduate erred a big time when he addressed the graduating class of 2002 at Harvard Yard. I don't fault Mr. Yasin 100% for his naiveté. He probably had received a healthy dose of Islamic teachings at an impressionable age as he was growing up. Many Bangladesh origin people would take their offspring to Islamic centers for indoctrination. I have a son just 2 years senior to Zayed Yasin who never received any such indoctrination from a Mullah. I doubt it very much that my son would not have delivered any commencement address glorifying and soft-selling Jihad the way Zayed did at Harvard Yard. I think it is all in the upbringing. Perhaps Zayed never received secular teaching as he grew up. It becomes a difficult task, if not impossible, to deprogram a person who has gone through such rigorous training in a Sunday school. I wrote the following piece after I heard that Zayed Yasin glorified the term Jihad. But once I read that he is a devout Muslim, it made sense. Since 9-11 incident the Islamists are trying their best to change the semantics of this dreadful word Jihad. Please read my article to familiarize with the nuances of this much talked about Arabic term.

Sincerely, A.H. Jaffor Ullah

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Buried beneath the semantics Jihad has many demeanors 

 By A.H. Jaffor Ullah

“This world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.”

¾  Shakespeare in ‘Richard III’

Let us all agree that Jihad or Jihadism is not an innocuous term.  Lately since post-9-11 days, many Islamists are trying in vain to define the word Jihad in a politically correct manner to the Westerners some of who are scrutinizing Islam with a proverbial magnifying glass.

On Thursday, June 6, 2002, a half Bangalee-half Irish-American college graduate gave a short speech at Harvard Yard that became an eye of a storm in America.  In his speech Zayed Yasin, 22, gave a speech entitled “Of Faith and Citizenship.”  Mr. Zayed Yasin tried to convey a message to the audience at Harvard Yard regarding semantics of the word Jihad.  However, his speech engendered a controversy for a good reason.  The original title of his speech “American Jihad” was too radical for Harvard’s commencement address.  Therefore, it was changed to a more kinder and gentler title.  The news report had stated that the content of his lecture remained the same.  On the face value of Yasin’s lecture, many thought it was an appropriate lecture because he urged his fellow graduates to shape “a more just, peaceful and honorable global society.”  Nevertheless, his speech had irked many graduates and audiences because he mentioned repeatedly the Islamic word Jihad throughout his lecture.  According to Mr. Yasin, Jihad is an innocuous term, which according to his interpretation meant a constant exertion or effort for spiritual upliftment.

Early Arabic language had given birth to the word Jihad, which came from the root word J-H-D.  The root word J-H-D means strive.  From the root word many more words such as “effort,” “labor,” “fatigue” had evolved (Source: http://islam.about.com/library/weekly/aa022201a.htm).  From the same web site, I culled the following:

“Essentially Jihad is an effort to practice religion in the face of oppression and persecution.  The effort may come in fighting the evil in your own heart, or in standing up to a dictator.  Military effort is included as an option, but as a last resort and not "to spread Islam by the sword" as the stereotype would have you believe.”

Many Islamic web sites sprang up after 9-11 terrorist attacks in America.  The sole reason for describing in detail the meaning of the word Jihad is to explain to the western word from an apologetic standpoint.  It is widely believed in the West that 19 Arab hijackers who have participated in Jihad had demolished the Twin Tower Building and a portion of Pentagon Building on that fateful day of September 11, 2001.  Material evidence was also found that was left behind by the terrorists that could justify such assertion.  The Arab terrorists had the impression that it was their Jihad or holy war against America, which was dubbed by Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 as The Great Satan.  It took almost two decades for Arab extremists to be indoctrinated into Khomeini’s popular belief.  Arab fugitive Osama bin Laden had given his famous fatwa in February 1998 against America.  Here is an excerpt from that fatwa:

“For more than seven years, the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people, using the peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

...These crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries.

On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling is to kill the Americans and their allies is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it, in order to liberate the Al Aqsa mosque [Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [Mecca]... This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God...

We call on every Muslim who believes in God and wished to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.”

Clearly from the above excerpt of Osama’s fatwa, it looks as if Jihad is anything but a peaceful thing.  Nonetheless, a young Islamist such as Mr. Zayed Yasin decided to give new twist to the term Jihad to change its demeanor from a violent one to a peaceful and serene one. 

To find out what other Muslim scholars think about the term Jihad, I did some research in the web (this is the easiest way to get information in this information age).  As I have alluded to before, many apologists amongst Islamists are giving a kinder and gentler definition of Jihad in this post 9-11 days.  In the popular web site Islam or Submission, (http://www.submission.org/muhammed/jihad.html) I found the following sentences to describe one of the few meanings of Jihad:

“Jihad may also reflect the war aspects in Islam (Submission).  The fighting of a war in the name of justice or Islam, to deter an aggressor, for self defense, and/or to establish justice and freedom to practice religion, would also be considered a Jihad.”

Yet in another Islamic web site (http://www.java-man.com/Pages/Khutab/khutba980213.html) I found the following straight meaning of the word Jihad:

“Jihad (Struggle)

The meaning of jihad in Arabic is the exertion of ones effort and capability.  In Islam, the meaning of jihad is the exerting of one's total effort and strength in repelling the enemies of Islam and fighting them directly or by aiding those who fight them directly with wealth or other means.  This is the meaning of jihad and fiy sabeel Allah when used in the Qur'an and the hadith.  This is the direct meaning although there are a few instances where it is used allegorically to apply to other things.”

Some Muslim scholars further classify Jihad into following categories: 1. Jihad-an-nafs or Jihad against one’s self;  2. Jihad ash-shaitaan or Jihad against Satan;  3. Jihad al-kuffar or Jihad against disbeliever;  4. Jihad al-munafiqeen or Jihad against hypocrites;  5. Jihad al-faasiqeen or Jihad against corrupt Muslims.

As one can see from the above sub-classification of Jihad the word truly means fight or struggle.  However, to de-emphasize the violence associated with any kinds of Jihads the apologists such as a fresh college graduate from Harvard is trying his best to give a new spin to the term.  Islamic web sites are happy to say that of all Jihads, Jihad al kuffar is the greatest Jihad.  Please read the following excerpt that I found in the previously described web site where a thorough definition of Jihad was done from the perspective of Struggle:

“This is be physically fighting them under a righteous Muslim Khalifa either by direct participation in combat or by donations of wealth or other methods of supporting the struggle - including ideological struggle.  This is the greatest jihad.  The Prophet (sas) said: "Fight the polytheists with your property, your lives and your tongues.”  Allah mentions the greatness of fighting in the path of Allah in very many places in the Qur'an.  Generally, these are all references to this type of Jihad.”

There is a whole slue of apologists from Muslim background who are western educated are now doing the fence mending.  They wittingly took the onus on them to redefine the word Jihad to be politically correct.  Instead of targeting America, they now found the new bogeyman, which is globalization.  Similar to any new economic concept, globalization has brighter and dimmer sides.  Globalization when practiced in a fair manner could bring unprecedented economic prosperity to this world.  On the other hand, if the powerful West exploits cheap labor of the Third World, then I see a great danger for the downtrodden folks of Asia and Latin America.  On that score, Mr. Zayed Yasin scores a high mark for urging his fellow classmates to built a more just and peaceful society.  However, he erred a big time when he tried to give a new uplifting meaning to the word Jihad based on the root Arabic word J-H-D to confuse all of us.  Any linguistics worth his salt will tell you that semantics is very important for word meaning.  When one utters a word, it signifies something or it should give a mental image of something.  When one says Jihad, exertion or spiritual upliftment through effort is not the image one gets.  Therefore, the likes of Zayed Yasin should stick to the prevalent meaning of the word Jihad, which is well known to most of us. 

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A.H. Jaffor Ullah writes from New Orleans, USA.  His e-mail address is Jaffor@...