Beyond "Holy War"
Examining the Meaning of Jihād in the Islamic Scriptures—and Its Mistranslation
Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.
— Al-Ghazālī
Few Arabic words in Western discourse evoke more confusion and controversy than jihād. It’s usually rendered as “holy war,” deemed inimical to the principles of peace and tolerance, and employed as a talking point in criticism of Islam, particularly in its framing as a violent, expansionist religion.
On the other end, some insist that jihād is primarily a struggle against the evil within oneself. The result is a bewildering dichotomy: jihād as armed struggle, or as peaceful, inner-directed striving, with seemingly little connecting these poles.
In reality, the story of jihād—its etymology, its scriptural roots, and its historical meanings—is less dualistic, and more complex, than this.
Let’s start with the word itself.
The Root of the Word
For the sake of those unfamiliar with the Arabic language, let’s begin with a brief foray into linguistics. In Arabic, words are built from “roots,” typically three-consonant combinations, that carry a semantic essence. By applying different morphological patterns, known as “forms,” these roots generate a range of related words while mostly retaining the core meaning.
Jihād comes from the root j-h-d, which means “to exert effort” or “to strive.” Its form is reciprocal (fi‘āl), and so jihād implies mutual effort: an exertion in response to an exertion by someone or something else.
More concretely, the Arabic-English Lexicon of Edward Lane describes jihād as “the using, or exerting, one’s utmost power, efforts, endeavours, or ability, in contending with an object of disapprobation.”1 It further specifies that what one strives against can be a visible enemy, the devil, or the self.
So in essence, jihād denotes a struggle against evil. But that evil does not have to be outside oneself.
Not Quite “Holy War”
As I said earlier, both Western scholars and laypeople often translate jihād as “holy war.” For many Muslim scholars, such as the authors of the Amman Message, this is problematic.
One reason for this is that it is not a lexically accurate rendering of the word. The term for “holy war” in Arabic would be al-harb al-muqaddas, which doesn’t appear in Islamic scripture at all.2
It is also conceptually inaccurate. And not just because, as I will show, the semantic field of jihād includes activities unrelated to warfare. It’s also because what counts as jihād is partly determined by legal criteria similar to those in Western just-war thinking,3 such as proportionality, legitimate authority, and just cause. So if our aim is to understand jihād in a way that does justice to its complexity and breadth of meaning, “holy war” is far from ideal.
You might be asking now: if jihād isn’t about holy war, where did this notion come from? Surely there must be some truth in it?
To be sure, some forms of jihād do involve armed struggle. There is a striving with one’s wealth and life (e.g. Q. 9:20, 9:40 and 9:41—meaning verses 20, 40 and 41 of Sūrah (Chapter) 9), which sometimes alludes to involvement in warfare. Verse 41, for example, states the following:
So go out, no matter whether you are lightly or heavily armed, and struggle in God’s way with your possessions and your lives: this is better for you, if only you knew.
Similarly, Q. 4:95 declares:
Not equal are those among the believers who sit [at home] - except for those who are disabled - and those who strive (al-mujāhidūna) in the cause of God with their wealth and their lives.
In these verses, armed struggle is referred to with the word jihād and its lexical cognates (words deriving from the same root).
However, the Qur’ān makes distinctions that limit what can be considered jihād. It usually refers to combat using words like qitāl (fighting, e.g. Q. 2:190) or harb (secular war, which is not sanctioned by any religious authority).4 So while jihād can mean war, not all war can be called jihād.
And when the words qitāl and jihād are used in connection with battle, they’re often accompanied by the phrase fī sabīli’Llāh (as in Q. 4:95): literally, in the path of God, which means for His sake or in His cause. This phrase matters. It signals that what makes combat into jihād is, above all, the intent. Religiously legitimate combat is thus distinguished from violence driven by worldly motives.5
This is captured in a well-known hadīth (a reported saying of the Prophet Muhammad). Asked who truly fights in God’s cause—the one who fights for spoils, the one who fights for remembrance, or the one who fights for fame—the Prophet replied:
He who fights so that God’s Word is supreme, fights in God’s cause.6
In other words: jihād isn’t jihād if it is about material gain, fame or glory. It is only jihād if waged for the sake of God.
The Greater and Lesser Jihād
A distinction is often made between the “lesser (martial) jihād” and the “greater (spiritual) jihād.” However, these terms do not exist in the Qur’ān, deriving instead from the Hadīth.
It’s said that, when the Prophet Muhammad returned from a military campaign, a group of warriors came to him. He said to them: “You have returned in the best way from the lesser jihād to the greater jihād.” They said: “What is the greater jihād?”
His response: “The servant’s struggle against his whims and desires.”7
This teaching, taken to mean that the internal struggle is superior to the armed one, became central to Sufi thought and practice. For some Muslim thinkers, it is only in the context of this struggle against the evil within, that the struggle against external evil can be understood.8
But not everyone accepts the authenticity of this hadīth. It doesn’t appear in the six major Sunni hadīth collections.9 And while it does appear in the collection of the scholar al-Husayn al-Bayhaqī (d. c.1066), he called its chain of transmission—the line of individuals said to have passed it down—weak.10 Many later thinkers even rejected it as fabricated, such as the proto-Salafi scholar Taqī al-Dīn ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who asserts that it is baseless and that no-one who knew the Prophet or his actions related it.11
This has led some modern scholars, such as David Cook, to argue that the idea of a “greater jihād” is a later invention, promoted by disingenuous apologists or idealistic Westerners trying to rehabilitate Islam’s image. According to him, the evidence for the primacy of spiritual jihād in Muslim literature is “negligible.”12 But this claim, I think, goes too far.
For one, certain verses in the Qur’ān do speak of a non-violent moral or spiritual struggle, as Gavin Picken notes.13 Take Q. 29:69: “We shall guide to Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause: God is with those who do good.” Or Q. 79:40-41: “For anyone who feared the meeting with his Lord and restrained himself from base desires, Paradise will be home.” These verses suggest a struggle against something internal.
Moreover, there are other hadīth reports, more strongly authenticated than the greater jihād hadīth, that elaborate on the meaning of jihād in various ways. One of them states: “The mujāhid [a person who carries out jihād] is the one who struggles against his soul for the sake of God, the mighty and exalted.”14 This is a clear expression of support for the inner jihād.
In another, the Prophet says that the best jihād for women is the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).15 Speaking a word of justice to an unjust ruler is also jihād.16 Even avoiding conflict altogether, like in the story of a man who admits to being too timid for war, is accepted. The Prophet simply tells him: “Shall I point you to a jihād in which there is no fighting? The hajj and the ‘umra [the lesser pilgrimage] are incumbent upon you.”17
These examples show that jihād is a capacious term. It can be about warfare, but it can also be about ethical action and various kinds of personal sacrifice.
And Yet…
Despite the support for the non-violent jihād, not all sayings of the Prophet have the same spirit. Alongside those that emphasise inner struggle or non-violent action, there are also some that exalt the virtues of armed combat.
In one, the Prophet is asked to describe the true believer, and he replies: “The one who strives in God’s cause with his life and wealth.”18 Another, found in the canonical collection Sunan Ibn Mājah, paints an even starker picture. A man asks: “O Messenger of God, what is the best form of jihād?” The Prophet answers: “(That of one) whose blood is spilled and whose horse is wounded.”19 Here, the battlefield is sanctified, the warrior revered.
The hadīth after it, moreover, states that it is honourable for someone to be wounded in God’s cause: when such a person is resurrected, his wounds will have the fragrance of musk. This, too, seems to be a reference to the martial jihād, and specifically to martyrdom on the battleground.20
So while there is ample scriptural evidence for the non-martial view of jihād, the texts also do not shy away from celebrating combat. The irenic sayings do not stand alone, but alongside unambiguous praise of war.
Context Is Everything
Needless to say, this combination of breadth and ambiguity makes translating jihād a challenge. In some contexts, “struggle” captures it well, especially in the context of social or personal struggle for a higher purpose.
In some contexts, jihād can certainly be a form of holy war (insofar as holy war is “divinely justified engagement in war”), and may thus be translated as such—for example, in the context of the Ottoman Empire.21
What I take issue with, therefore, is not the use of the term holy war, but the defining of jihād as such (or, similarly, as “God-sanctioned warfare,” as Cook does).22 This definition stamps out the term’s inherent multivalence and disregards the range of meanings found in the Islamic scriptures.
A better approach might be to leave jihād untranslated, or to translate it based on context. After all, jihād can mean many things, from armed resistance to pilgrimage, inner purification, or speaking up against injustice. The polysemy and contextual specificity of the word jihād must not be ignored for the sake of the strong, clear statement: “Jihād means this.”
So, What Is Jihād?
The truth is, there is no single, universal definition. Jihād has had different meanings to different individuals, across countries and centuries. To some, it’s primarily military. To others, it’s mostly, or even exclusively spiritual. And for many it is, emphatically, both.
What unites these meanings, however, is the sense of striving: effort directed towards something greater than oneself. At its heart, the idea of jihād involves a struggle for the sake of God, which can be lived out in various ways.
Some things to think about:
Have you encountered religiously significant terms that you thought were oversimplified or distorted in translation?
What terms and beliefs in your own tradition might be misunderstood when stripped of their proper context?
When a word holds multiple meanings in its original language, what principles should guide which meaning is prioritised in translation?
If you have thoughts on any of this, I would love to hear your perspective. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Our next instalment will focus on some of the so-called Meccan verses, exploring not just verses on jihād, but also themes like tolerance, steadfastness in religion, patient forbearance, and freedom in religion.
Notes for curious or informed readers
To ensure readability in this series, most transliteration marks are omitted from Arabic terms, except where necessary for clarity (ū, ā and ī are retained; ḥ, ṣ and others are not).
Edward W. Lane, The Arabic-English Lexicon, Book 1, Part 2 (Williams and Norgate, 1863), 473.
See Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War (Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, 2007), 1.
Reuven Firestone, Jihād: The Origin of Holy War in Islam (Oxford University Press, 1999), 18. Firestone also states that the concept of holy war is a European invention derived from the study of war in the European context (Firestone, Jihād, 15). This is, I would argue, a further reason to seek alternatives, as the term “holy war” may harbour connotations that obscure the specificity of what it means in Islam.
Muhammad A. S. Haleem, “Qur’anic ‘Jihād’: A Linguistic and Contextual Analysis,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 12 (2010): 148.
Muhammad A. S. Haleem, Understanding the Qur’an: Themes and Style, 2nd ed. (I. B. Tauris, 1999), 62.
Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, Sahīh al-Bukhārī [The Authentic al-Bukhārī] (Dār al-Ta’sīl, 2012), hadīth no. 2827, 55.
Ahmad ibn Husayn al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-Zuhd al-Kabīr [The Book of Great Asceticism], edited by ʿĀmer A. Haydar (Dār al-Jenān, 1987), 165.
According to Reza Shah-Kazemi, for example, it is from the greater jihād that the lesser jihād derives its meaning. See Reza Shah-Kazemi, “Recollecting the Spirit of Jihad,” The Journal of Sapiential Wisdom and Philosophy (Sophia Perennis) 6 (2009): 23–51. Retrieved from https://sid.ir/paper/152790/en.
Christopher J. van der Krogt, “Jihād without apologetics,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21 (2010): 129.
Al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb, 165.
Ahmad b. ʿAbd al-Halīm Ibn Taymiyya, al-Furqān bayna awliyāʾ al-Rahmān wa-awliyāʾ al-Shaytān [The Criterion Between the Friends of Allāh and the Friends of Satan]. Dār al-Bayān, n.d., 56.
David Cook (2020), Understanding Jihad, 2nd ed. Oakland: University of California Press, 165-6.
See Gavin N. Picken, “The ‘greater’ jihad in classical Islam: the Sufi concept of combating the soul,” in Twenty-First Century Jihad: Law, Society and Military Action, edited by Elisabeth Kendall and Ewan Stein (I. B. Tauris, 2015): 128.
ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-Mahjūb (The Revelation of the Hidden), translated by Reynold A. Nicholson (Taj Company, 1911), 200 / Abū Bakr al-Dunyā, Muhāsabat al-nafs wa’l-izrā ‘alayhā, edited by Majdī al-Sayyid Ibrāhīm (Maktabat al-Qur’ān, n.d.), 62–63.
Al-Bukhārī, Sahīh, hadīth no. 2801, 40.
Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dawūd [The Sunan of Abū Dawūd], edited by Abū Tāhir Za’ī. Arabic-English, vol. 4 (Dārussalam, 2008), hadīth no. 4344, 542.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī, Al-Musannaf, part 5, hadīth no. 9273 (Al-Majlis al-‘Ilmī, 1972), 171–72. This indicates that the Prophet regarded pilgrimage as a legitimate form of jihād, and that he considered it acceptable for those who did not want to fight, even out of fear, to choose not to do so.
Al-Bukhārī, Sahīh, hadīth no. 2803, 41. In the subsequent hadīth (no. 2804, 42), it is made clear that “striving in the path of God” does refer to armed combat: “[…] God assures that He will let the mujāhid in His Cause enter into Paradise when he dies, otherwise He will return him safely with rewards or spoils.”
Muhammad ibn Yazīd ibn Mājah, Sunan Ibn Mājah, vol. 4 (Dārussalam, 2007), hadīth no. 2794, 65.
Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 65.
See Javier A. Iruela, “The Discourses of Holy War and the Memory of the First Battles of Islam: Al-Andalus, 10th–13th Centuries,” Medievalista 28 (2020): 435–458.
Cook, Understanding Jihad, 315.