Islam, unlike Christianity, is a book-based religion. Until the age of 40, the Prophet was loved in the province where he lived and known as al-amin (reliable person). However, the holy book was sent to the prophet because the Arabs of his time went to extremes in ugly behaviors such as drinking and prostitution. In other words, until these scriptures came, Muhammad did not claim to be a prophet. This shows that he was an ordinary and decent person with no enthusiasm for prophethood. Again, although it was claimed that he met and even held hands with another woman other than his wife in the pre-Islamic period, these allegations could not be proven. However, such a situation has not been reported after Islam.
Therefore, although it is claimed in the Qur'an that islam has existed since the earliest times, we can say that it started with the Qur'an in its current meaning. For this reason, in order to understand Islam correctly, it is necessary to understand the Qur'an correctly. At this point, people have made a clear mistake since history and followed all the behaves of the prophet. We often refer to these as "sunni beliefs". The handicap of this belief, which includes me, is to overlook the fact that the prophet was an ordinary person until the age of 40, he lived as a prophet for 23 years, so he was actually someone we can call an "infidel" for most of his life. Even if someone of this character is a prophet, he should not be seen as perfect because of his pre-prophetic habits. After all, he is not like Jesus, she is an ordinary person and has many mistakes. For these reasons, we can only take the Qur'an as sound religious sources.
Sources in Islam are of 4 types as follows: Quran, hadith, consensus, qiyas (comparing).
This is also the competency ranking of these resources. When different provisions are noticed from time to time among these sources, whichever is correct from the first is taken. For example, if the Qur'an and the hadith conflict, what the Qur'an says is considered correct. If the hadith and the qiyas conflict, the hadith is considered correct. Like this.
Speaking of Islam, I want to talk about the early periods of Islam and the prophet's understanding of jihad. Jihad is important because, in fact, jihad is not jihad as you know it, and is a much broader subject. Jihad is not war, I mean it is not war as you know it. Now I will tell you the origins of this.
First of all, I mentioned that the prophet was a person of good character. It was even said that he had a girlfriend when he was married. That's show he an ordinary person. After he started talking about the Qur'an, he was subjected to various tortures and oppressions in her city of Mecca. This went on for 13 years. He was a prophet for 13 years in Macca, there was a large audience who believed in him, yet he did not respond to these tortures and persecutions against him. Here, we see that he has proven that he is not an excited person, contrary to what is claimed, but that he is calm, cool and modest. It's even weirder if you calculate it in years. He lived as a non-Muslim until he became a prophet at the age of 40, was tortured for 13 years in Mecca, and was 53 years old. After that, we can say that he prophesied comfortably for only 10 years. Do we see that you live like a sultan here? Of course no.
Let's go back to the topic of Mecca, because it is important for you to understand the concept of jihad. He lived as a prophet in Mecca for 13 years, and they tortured her and wounded her several times, but she neither left the city nor fought against them. He just tried to persuade those people by speaking nicely. But in the end, when there was an assassination attempt on him, he had to leave the city.
After leaving the city, Islam spread to wider masses in Medina. And then they fought the Meccans. Now, if we think according to the misunderstood understanding of Islam, he must have gathered his army and went against the city of Mecca, right? But that was not the case. The Meccans and Medinans made a trade agreement. Despite this, the Meccans were plundering the caravans of Medina. They made an agreement against looting by sending envoys to them. However, the Meccans broke the agreement and continued to plunder the caravans and kill the people. Thereupon, he fought the Meccans.
I said that the concept of jihad is broad. Jihad means struggle and includes many things. Here, the concept of jihad in the sense of war is as follows:
1)
Be patient as long as you can when persecuted. This is what prophet first has done. If you meet a good, true, honest, sane Muslim, he will try this against you against the evil you want to do to her, he will be patient without doing anything.
2)
Solving the problem through persuasion This is the second thing the prophet tried. If the problem is not resolved even though you remain silent, try persuading. He has tried this for 13 years. How many people here can be so patient? Absolutely not me.
3)
If the problem is still not resolved, leave that area (city if necessary). I hope you see how Islam encourages avoidance of conflict as opposed to what is being promoted by perception operators. What was about the war so far? Nothing. And we spent 13 years under torture in this situation. Where is the idea of war? Nowhere!
4)
Make deal with your enemies. Look, they tortured you as a Muslim, what did you do? You have been patient. Problem not solved. Then? You tried to persuade, the problem was not solved. You tried to persuade for 13 years and the problem is still not solved. You left the city, the problem is still not solved. Shouldn't you fight? No. Now we have to make a deal, not war, as the Prophet did.
5)
If they break the deal you made, then you can fight.It is fixed as the life of the Prophet and certain according to the verses and hadiths, there are 5 stages on the way to war, and a war that takes place before they are completed cannot be Islamic. What was that?
1) Being Patient against torture
2) Persuasion (not in the sence of to accept islam, but sence of invite the enemies to give up the evil!).
3) Emigration.
4) Agreement.
5) Waiting for the other party to break the agreement.
Among these conditions, what does this issue, namely jihad ( a wrong definition actually it is war, not jihad) in the sense of war, have to do with someone else's acceptance of Islam or not? As you can see, it has nothing to do with it.
By the way, I want to tell you what Islam means. Islam actually comes from the root of the word salam as a word. This is the expression we use when greeting each other. Basically, it has meanings such as goodness, well-being, likewise hello. Because of the similarity of words, we sometimes invite bad people to goodness, and it is understood as an invitation to Islam. Because it's literally the same thing. In other words, when I wish you Islam, I only wish goodness, I do not invite you to Islam.
The concept of jihad in the Islamic sense essentially means the struggle against ignorance. The words "jihad" and "ignorance" in Arabic come from the same root. Jihad, Jehalet (ignorance). The word ignorance is like the plural form of the word jihad. Therefore, jihad is actually a struggle against ignorance somewhere.
In other words, it is theoretically impossible to declare jihad "against individuals or states", as is done by certain groups, and it has nothing to do with Islam. Because jihad is an abstract concept, the name given to the struggle against ignorance.
War in the Islamic sense mentioned here includes concepts such as patience in the face of persecution and then trying to come to an agreement. It is purely for self-defense and has nothing to do with the spread of Islam!
So, why do these Islamic terrorist organizations exist even though the concept of jihad is so clear? Or, where do ideas that have nothing to do with Islam, such as "spreading Islam by making jihad" come from? We'll see the supposedly reasons of those flows soon.
In this article, we learned the basic concepts. In the next article, we will see how and for what purpose these basic concepts are abused by jihadists (!), ISIS, al qaeda, and islamofobics like jackblack, croiser and croiser.
Have a nice jihad. I wish İslam you all.