Yes, Jihad means striving for a holy cause. And what is the holy cause? To spread the message of Islam and ensure that all worship is for Allah alone. In other words, extunguishing other religions from the face of the earth, and converting Dar-ul-harb into Dar-ul-Islam by any means possible.
This is quite opposite to what Krishna was advising Arjuna about in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna was not telling him to fight the Kauravas because they belonged to a different religion and had to be converted or killed. Krishna was telling him to fight them for the sake of protecting Dharma - the rule of righteousness.
So in Hinduism, fighting is encouraged to protect and establish righteousness. In Islam, righteousness is defined as belief in Allah and Muhammad, and those refusing to submit are evil by default. That is the difference.
RE:Islam Means Peace..!!
by syed aslam on Jul 28, 2008 07:39 AM Permalink
Mr.Devavrata /braveIndian ,Islam & Muslims are not as you percive or understand, jihad is not to spread Islam in India as you claim ,if that is true we could have done that when we muslims were ruling India for centuries ,and for your information AL= THE,LAH=God it is the Arabic version of TheGod = Bhagavan in hindi .
The reason why Muslims could not convert all India is because of the resistance of the Hindus and Sikhs, and not due to Islam. Islamic doctrine is very clear - all Muslims have to strive for conversion of non-Muslims to Islam.
Allah is indeed the word for God in Arabic, but this god is very different from the Hindu conception of God. The Hindu concept of God does not demand his/her/its followers to worship himself/herself/itself or risk burning in hell forever. In Hinduism, God is an experience to be located and discovered in one's own consciousness. The Islamic God has nothing to do with consciouness - it is mere believing in the deranged claims of a so-called prophet who was a mental patient.
