“The traditional Western prejudice which portrays Islam as a belligerent religion gave rise to the derogatory and permanent definition of the ‘Muslim Holy war.’ The term leads us to believe that Muslims are supposedly encouraged to take up arms in order to impose the faith by force, annihilating those who reject it. The generic term jihad means ‘effort,’ perhaps a violent one, but in no way specifically a military one. Still, in the noninformed public opinion of the West, it seems to have retained only its meaning of war” In Jihad the Continuing Struggle, Boisard explains, in very precise terms, what Jihad really is. He discusses the fallacies and the falsities that surround the Western understanding and depiction of Jihad. The West continues to refuse to accept that principles based on religion can be brought into the “philosophy of our industrial age.” They ignore that fact that Islam is not hostility but dynamism, and that ‘adl, Ihsan, Musawat—justice, compassion, equality—are the three pillars of healthy human relations for the true believer.
