Jihad and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: Nonviolent Efforts to Promote Islam in the Contemporary World
2007; University of California Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1525/nr.2007.11.2.77
ISSN1541-8480
Autores Tópico(s)Education and Islamic Studies
ResumoThe Ahmadiyya Muslim community emphasizes the nonviolent aspects of jihad or religious "effort." Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), the South Asian Muslim scholar who founded the movement, argued that the Quran only authorized jihad as defensive military action in certain contexts and otherwise encouraged peaceful initiatives in support of Islam. Ghulam Ahmad also claimed, as the spiritual manifestation of the Messiah and Mahdi, to usher in a new era in which nonviolent activities alone defined jihad. These arguments have not persuaded most Muslims, but the Ahmadiyya Muslim community continues to stress jihad of the pen, that is, efforts to promote and defend Islam in various media. Many take up the pen, but few are granted the spirit to conduct the jihad in the most acceptable manner . . . It is the Jamaat Ahmadiyya only which has not stopped this great struggle . . . It has become the only vehicle to usher in the revival of Islam through its peaceful, yet determined intellectual process which was initiated a century ago by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi in Islam.¹
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