Ashcroft on MSNBC....indicting for supporting violent jihad...

Announcing indictments on a couple of guys for "supporting violent Jihad".. He repeated the term "Jihad" as though it has been legally defined as a crime. I don't think it is, although "Violent" jihad might be. IS there a legal definition of "Jihad"?

But Aidoneus would know better than me.

I hate the use of the word "jihad" by almost all English speakers.

The layers of meaning for the root "jhd" are so stratified and differentiated that the common interpretation of "holy war" or even just "struggle" is simply inadequate.

jahada--"he struggled"
Greater and Lesser Jihad
etc.

For example, a mujtahid is a scholar who "struggles" with the texts etc. to come up with a better understand of legal issues (fiqh)

A mujahid is a someone who fights in the name of God for the cause.

The meanings are numerous, and the interpretation of the concept of jihad has changed over the centuries (and in different areas of the "Muslim world.")

Numerous scholarly works abound concerning the history and manifestation of this concept

Peter's work as well as a Festschrift called "The Jihad and Its Times" are good places to start.

about 10 minutes ago.

"Supporting violent jihad" means having dark skin and call the JD on their bullshit.

several times......(made my skin crawl, but then he always does)

...to the true one God, Aliyah.

<snip>

The Meaning of Jihad
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 26, 2002


During the months following the 9-11 attacks – while the smoldering rubble left behind by the jihad warriors was still being sifted for human remains – the American public was reminded daily, by a multitude of purported experts, not only about Islam’s status as a “religion of peace,” but more particularly about the supposedly amiable nature of true jihad as well.

<more> http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=4758

Once again, Ashcroft and the right-wingers will misrepresent language to distort the truth, create enemies and control ideas to further their particular agenda and assure their position of power. They delcar a "war on terrorism", when in fact it is terrorists that we must find, demobilze and if necessary destroy. We can never destroy an idea which is all that jihad is, an idea.

That's why it struck me as especially egregious to characterize the indictments in that way... stoking the fires of bigotry.

but how many convictions you get out of them (and if they withstand attempts to overturn them)

On that basis, Assclown has been a total f**king failure. He can't kick a duck in the ass unless he stands on a brick, and even, then, the odds are better than 50/50 he'll miss.

Yawn. Move on along, nothing to see here.

:evilfrown:

I don't mean to say Jihad and crusade mean the same thing, just that you probably have to know the context and the speaker to get the meaning at any given time. Just as there can be anything from a "crusade for lost souls" to a "Crusade to regain Jerusalem", the meaning of Jihad can vary, or at least that's what I have read and heard. I think it normally refers to an inner spiritual struggle, but it certainly seems to get used in the context of external struggle at times. Of course, we usually get these references through the filter of the western media.

A phrase like "a crusade against litter" would sound overblown, but not unusual in the west, whereas a "jihad against litter" would probably be much more blasphemous in the Islamic world.

Ashcroft is taking some of them hostage in the U.S. in response.

It is all really very simple.

Will any of the news chuckleheads notice that Mr. Ashcroft often breaks on the scene with a dramatic announcement only to have to let the perps go some months later? Brandon Mayfield comes to mind.

Mayfield? Who dat?

Or is remembering stuff still a crime against the August Presence?