What is jihad?

Apropos of Ananya Vajpeyi’s article, ‘Journey of Jihad’ (IE, October 20), the argument that jihad stands for in...

Apropos of Ananya Vajpeyi’s article, ‘Journey of Jihad’ (IE, October 20), the argument that jihad stands for inner struggle and has nothing to do with the Muslim invasions of the past differs from standard definitions of the phenomenon. Jihad has been defined as follows: “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Quran and the Traditions (sayings and actions of Muhammad) as a divine institution, and enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims” (A dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes, London, 1885). “The overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists and hadith specialist understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense” (The Political Language of Islam by Bernard Lewis, Chicago, 1988). “The most important function of the doctrine of Jihad is that it mobilises and motivates Muslims to take part in war against unbelievers (Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, Princeton, 1995). It is as a result of waging jihad that Muslims captured India. The battle of Manzikert led to the capture of Anatolia in 1071 and the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the triumphs of Uthman led to the control of West Africa during 1804-17. In short, the history of Islam will have to be turned upside down if the doctrine of jihad were to be eliminated.

— K.R. Phanda New Delhi

Unequal squabble

• You have on your pages been covering the on-going spat between N.R. Narayana Murthy and H.D. Devegowda. In this matter, the former seems to have taken on more than he can chew. Politicians are a completely different cup of tea and a man like Narayana Murthy is surely well aware of that. People like Deve Gowda have nothingto loose and will stoop to any level to reach their objectives. Infosys will only end up getting hurt.

— S. Kamat Goa

Justice for victims
• We must all honour the views of our honourable president. Yet there can be no getting away from the fact that our justice delivery system, almost always, forgets the victim of the offence. In how many cases has sufficient compensation been awarded under Section 357(3) CrPC (which puts no limit for the awarding of reasonable compensation to the victim by the courts)?

— Sahu Shailendra K. Jain New Delhi

Mau pointer

• The recent communal riots in Mau were very distressing. Instead of containing the crime and providing relief to people, a political battle has begun. No doubt the local administration has lamentably failed to check the riot. This is the position when Mau has a full fledged district administration at its door, the IG Zone is at Varanasi, and the DIG police and commissioner at Azamgarh, are stationed so closed by. I recall in 1984, when Mau was only a tehsil headquarter of Azamgarh and one deputy SP was looking after the police arrangements, a riot erupted all of a sudden but was controlled within a day or two.

— Shariq Alavi Lucknow