The Issue: Jihadists who blame America for Muslim deaths, while some Muslim regimes kill their own people.
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As an American Muslim, I take issue with extremists who link terrorism with Islam through violent “jihad” (“Murdering Muslims,” Editorial, April 28).
Islam only gives permission to fight in self-defense (Quran: 22:40). Killing innocent civilians, as Bashar al-Assad has done, is neither mentioned in the Quran nor practiced by Prophet Muhammad.
Jihad means “to struggle.” Prophet Muhammad has characterized self-reformation and personal struggle to become a good human being a greater jihad than fighting in the battlefield.
Taking innocent lives is not jihad. Whoever takes cover behind jihad to vent his anger and frustration is not a jihadist, he is a terrorist.
Haris Raja
Baltimore, Md.
I wish to express my gratitude to Qanta Ahmed for her incisive article on the role of “jihad” in Islam (“Forget About Motive,” PostOpinion, April 30).
Her article helped me see through the miasma of what is now called jihad so as to appreciate the valid need for the “lesser jihad” and the grandeur of the “greater jihad.”
Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have the same patrimony.
And all three religions, sadly, have a history of having their highest ideals hijacked by some of their own adherents.
John W. McGinley
Farmingdale, NJ
Ahmed attempts to whitewash jihad as something spiritual or defensive.
She chooses to ignore the ultimate jihad: Muhammad’s decapitation of the 600 to 900 unarmed Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe in 627.
They just wanted to be left alone to worship. They were not attacking Muhammad. They were unarmed. Muhammad’s slaughter of the defenseless Jews of Quarayza has inspired Muslims throughout the world for 1,400 years to kill Christians and Jews in the cause of jihad.
There is nothing spiritual or defensive about it.Richard Sherman
Brooklyn