jihad

Jihad designation evidence

Record the exact wording, speaker, date and referent without silently upgrading a label into an accepted classification.

1. Who calls this activity jihad, in what words and in which accessible source? provenance
2. Does the expression identify an enacted activity, a proposed duty, a quotation, a personal name or an organization? boundary

Source-specific sense

Retain source-defined distinctions between forms of striving. One contemporary Muslim scholarly treatment discusses inward struggle and armed combat; use it as an attributed interpretation rather than a universal taxonomy: [Yaqeen Institute paper](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/is-islam-a-conquest-ideology-on-jihad-war-peace).

1. What does jihad denote in the cited interpretation, and which form is claimed here? definition
2. Which interpreter, tradition and historical setting support that reading? provenance
3. Which alternative readings are relevant to this activity, and where do they disagree? boundary

Intention and religious reference

Record participants' accounts of striving in relation to God and any passages they invoke. Qur'an 22:78 provides a textual reference to striving for Allah, but its application to a particular activity requires separate evidence: [Qur'an 22:78](https://legacy.quran.com/22/78).

1. What religious aim do participants explicitly state for this activity? definition
2. Which testimony or text supports the recorded intention, and which motives are only attributed by observers? provenance

Sought transformation

Specify whether the claimed effort concerns personal conduct, communication, service, a collective condition or armed opposition, using the source's own distinctions.

1. What precisely is being resisted, cultivated, protected or changed according to participants? definition
2. What observable change would support the claimed practical outcome without purporting to measure divine acceptance? measurement
3. Where does this religiously framed activity begin and end relative to ordinary worship, service or political action? boundary

Obligation basis

Record any classification as individual duty, collective duty or another normative status only within its cited interpretive frame.

1. Is this activity presented as obligatory, encouraged or otherwise classified, and by whom? definition
2. What conditions, exemptions and participant qualifications does that source specify? boundary

Authorization and dispute

Distinguish personal commitment, scholarly interpretation and political or command authority where the cited framework makes those distinctions.

1. Does the cited framework require authorization for this form of jihad, and whose authorization is claimed? definition
2. What verifies the ruling's authorship, date and applicability to this activity? provenance
3. Which unresolved authority claims require qualified review before the agent relies on them? action

Observed practice

Separate private discipline, expression, service, material support and direct force, recording mixed or changing practices when evidenced.

1. What actions constitute this activity in practice, and which are only announced or alleged? measurement
2. Who performs each evidenced role, and what distinguishes participation from sympathy or external attribution? boundary

Force and claimed limits

Record evidence of force separately from claims about its justification; preserve the relevant interpreter's stated limits and link independent legal assessments.

1. What evidence establishes coercion, threats or armed force rather than metaphorical language? measurement
2. Which limits concerning affected people, agreements and cessation are asserted, and what evidence shows compliance or breach? provenance
3. Which related conflict or incident model must supply conduct and legal findings before assistance is considered? action

Activity continuity

Date the activity's commencement, changes and cessation while distinguishing a bounded episode from an ongoing personal commitment.

1. What dated evidence shows that this jihad-described activity is proposed, ongoing, paused or concluded? measurement
2. Does a change in means or purpose continue the same activity, create a new episode or invalidate the previous classification? boundary

Claimed and observed outcomes

Keep reported spiritual benefit, observable practical effects and consequences for others distinct.

1. Which outcomes are participants' spiritual assessments, and which have independently observable evidence? measurement
2. What benefits, harms or dissent do affected people report, and where does their account differ from participants' claims? provenance

Assistance boundary

Assess the requested action separately from the jihad label, preserving uncertainty and avoiding unsupported judgments about religious legitimacy.

1. Is the agent being asked to explain a term, document an activity, support a benign practice or facilitate coercion or violence? action
2. What evidence or qualified review is needed before the agent can responsibly perform the requested action? action
3. How should competing interpretations be presented without implying that a religious claim establishes factual truth or permission? action

Kinds and varieties

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Greater jihad (al-jihād al-akbar): inward struggle against the self (nafs) and toward piety, often distinguished in later Sufi and ethical literature from armed struggle
• Lesser / military jihad (al-jihād al-asghar or qitāl): authorised armed struggle, classically divided into defensive (dafʿ) and, in some schools, offensive (ṭalab) campaigns under a legitimate public authority
• Jihad of the tongue and pen (jihād al-lisān / al-qalam): public exhortation, preaching, and scholarly argument as forms of striving
• Jihad of the hand / civic striving: non-armed effort to command right and forbid wrong, including social and political action short of war
• Collective-duty jihad (farḍ kifāya): a communal obligation that lapses for individuals once a sufficient number discharge it, typical of classical offensive or expeditionary war
• Individual-duty jihad (farḍ ʿayn): an obligation on every capable person, typically when a Muslim polity or population is under direct attack
• Martyrdom operations / contemporary militant jihad: 20th-21st century armed campaigns and suicide attacks framed as jihad by non-state groups; contested in Islamic law and distinguished by most states as terrorism
• Spiritual / Sufi jihad: disciplined inner combat (mujāhada) against ego, desire, and heedlessness as the primary sense of jihad in many ṭarīqa traditions

1. Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Identifiers and schemes

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Wikidata - Q177551 - Item 'Jihad'; related items include Q1258553 (greater jihad) and various organisation-specific uses.
• Library of Congress Subject Headings - Jihad - Authorized heading; narrower and related headings cover Jihad in the Qurʼan, Jihad (The Arabic word), and Islamic holy war literature.
• Arabic lemma - جهاد (jihād), root j-h-d - Lexeme distinct from qitāl (fighting) and ḥarb (war); the verbal noun is the registry-relevant name.
• Encyclopaedia of Islam - Djihād (EI2); Jihād (EI3) - Standard Islamic-studies lemma; spelling varies by edition.

1. Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Standards and regulation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Classical fiqh of siyar / jihad: Mālikī, Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī, and Imāmī Jaʿfarī manuals (e.g. Shaybānī's Kitāb al-Siyar; later mukhtaṣar literature) specify who may declare jihad, treatment of non-combatants, spoils, and truce (hudna).
• Qurʾān and ḥadīth as higher-order sources of Islamic law (uṣūl al-fiqh), not a single issued 'code'.
• Ottoman and other historical state practice: imperial declarations of jihad (e.g. 1914 Ottoman fatwa) as acts of public law, now of historical rather than binding force.
• UN Charter (1945), Arts. 2(4) and 51: contemporary interstate use of force and self-defence; jihad as a religious category does not create a separate lawful ground for force in public international law.
• Geneva Conventions (1949) and Additional Protocols: IHL applies to armed conflicts regardless of whether a party names the fighting jihad.
• UN Security Council resolutions on terrorism (notably 1373 (2001) and the ISIL/Al-Qaida sanctions regime): criminalise certain organised violence that perpetrators describe as jihad.
• Domestic counter-terrorism and penal statutes in many states (e.g. UK Terrorism Act 2000; US material-support offences; analogous codes in Muslim-majority states) that regulate recruitment, financing, and incitement framed as jihad.
• National fatwa councils and ministries of awqāf/religious affairs (Al-Azhar, Saudi Dār al-Iftāʾ, Indonesia MUI, etc.) issue non-uniform rulings on the licit scope of jihad.

1. Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Real-world use

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• As a legal-theological term in mosque teaching, madrasa curricula, and fatwa literature, covering both personal piety and the ethics of war.
• As a name for historical state warfare: early Islamic futūḥ, Abbasid and Ottoman frontier campaigns, and anti-colonial jihads (e.g. ʿAbd al-Qādir in Algeria, the Mahdist state in Sudan, the Caucasian Imamate).
• As a mobilisation frame used by 20th-21st century non-state armed groups (Afghan mujahidin, al-Qaida, Islamic State, Boko Haram, and others) and, in some cases, by states (Iran-Iraq War rhetoric; 1990s Bosnian and Chechen conflicts).
• As a spiritual discipline in Sufi orders and popular devotion: mujāhada, night prayer, fasting, and moral self-accounting described as jihad.
• As a contested public word in journalism, security policy, and interfaith debate, often reduced to 'holy war' or conversely sanitised as 'only inner struggle'.
• As a cataloguing and research object in libraries, Wikidata, and conflict datasets that tag incidents, groups, or texts as 'jihadist'.

1. Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Typical measurements

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Not a physical object; no intrinsic SI quantity. Proxy measures used in research and policy include count of groups, fatalities, and legal opinions, not a 'size of jihad'.

1. Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Failure modes and hazards

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Category error: treating jihad as a synonym of terrorism, or conversely as only inner struggle, both of which erase the classical legal range and distort policy and scholarship.
• Unauthorised declaration: private persons or groups claiming the right of the imam/sultan/state to open jihad, producing fitna (internal strife) in classical terms and unlawful armed conflict in modern law.
• Civilian targeting and suicide operations justified as jihad contrary to classical restrictions on non-combatants and to IHL.
• Takfīr-driven escalation: declaring other Muslims apostates so that violence against them can be labelled jihad.
• State instrumentalisation: rulers issuing jihad rhetoric to legitimise ordinary wars, conscription, or repression.
• Security overreach: broad 'jihadist' labels used to criminalise dissent, daʿwa, or humanitarian aid.
• Semantic capture: the Arabic word becoming unusable in ordinary religious speech because of political and media load.

1. Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Regional variation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Arabic-speaking scholarship keeps jihād distinct from qitāl (fighting) and ḥarb (war); English, French, and German public usage often collapse them into 'holy war' or 'jihadism'.
• South Asian and West African usage historically included jihad as state-formation and reform (e.g. Sokoto, Futa Toro) as well as anti-colonial revolt.
• Shīʿī doctrine classically reserves offensive jihad for the presence of the infallible Imam; defensive jihad remains available to qualified jurists or the state (e.g. Khomeini-era Iran).
• Southeast Asian official Islam (Indonesia, Malaysia) strongly emphasises non-violent and civic senses in public education, while local militant minorities use the military sense.
• Sufi-majority regions often treat mujāhada as the unmarked meaning; Salafi-jihadi milieus treat armed jihad as the unmarked meaning.
• Western legal and media discourse uses 'jihadist' as a typology of terrorism, which does not map onto Islamic legal classifications.

1. Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• qitāl (fighting) / ḥarb (war) - Qitāl and ḥarb name the act or state of armed conflict; jihad names a religiously framed striving that may or may not include fighting and is defined by intention (fī sabīl Allāh) and legal conditions, not by the mere presence of combat.
• holy war / crusade - Crusade is a historically specific Latin-Christian institution (papal indulgence, vow, recovery of holy places). Jihad is not defined by pilgrimage to a shrine or by a pope-like office; using 'holy war' as a translation imports that structure.
• just war (bellum iustum) - Just-war theory is a Christian and later secular ius ad bellum / ius in bello framework. Classical jihad law overlaps on authority, cause, and non-combatant immunity but is an Islamic fiqh institution with its own categories (farḍ ʿayn/kifāya, dār al-islām/ḥarb, jizya, hudna).
• terrorism - Terrorism is a legal-political label for violence aimed at civilians or intimidation, defined by domestic and international criminal law. Many acts called jihad by perpetrators are terrorism under that law; most classical and state-legal jihad is not, and most Muslim religious practice of jihad is not violence at all.
• mujāhada (Sufi spiritual combat) - Mujāhada is the inner disciplinary sense, often called 'greater jihad'. It is a neighbour when the same word is used; the test is whether the practice is armed and public-legal or ascetic and ethical.
• amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-nahy ʿan al-munkar (commanding right and forbidding wrong) - A general duty of moral correction that can be verbal or coercive; it is a possible modality of non-military jihad, not identical with jihad as a law of war.
• ribāṭ / frontier garrisoning - Ribāṭ is dwelling on the frontier in readiness; it can be a form or complement of jihad but is a distinct institution (place, posting, endowment).
• jihadism (ideological current) - Jihadism is a modern political-science name for revolutionary Islamist armed doctrine (often Qutbist or Salafi-jihadi). It is one historically late use of jihad, not the classical or ordinary-language whole.

1. Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of jihad this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance