Jihad
Jihad is one of the few Muslim concepts well-known to non-Muslim
Westerners, and it is very largely misunderstood to the detriment of Islamic
societies. Jihad did originally have a core meaning of religious war against non-
believers, part of a general conception thatIslamshould be expansionist and
aim at the complete suppression of non-Islamic societies. This was entirely
parallel, and approximately chronologically simultaneous, to similar views
about the necessity for Christianity to expand to cover the world, frequently
by unashamed use of war and aggression. Under conditions where Muslims
live in non-Muslim societies which persecute them and prevent their fulfilling
religious duties, Jihad still probably requires, or at least justifies, violent
resistance, but even then only if declared as a duty by a legitimate Muslim
leader. Certainly Jihad has been declared from time to time, against British and
Italian rule during their colonial periods, for example, and by Afghan rebels
against Soviet authority in the last quarter of the 20th century. Increasingly,
though, Jihad is seen as a sense of personal moral duty to conquer sin in one’s
own life, or, because it is primarily a collective concept, to overcome evil in
society.
The attraction to political rebels of the idea of Jihad has come from the
teaching that a person who dies in the course of prosecuting Jihad is absolved of
all sin and immediately enters heaven. It was for this reason that Islamic radicals
from the Iranian revolution, and even more those in the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict, have stressed the original violent and expansionist conception of
Jihad. One restrictive aspect of the doctrine is that it is supposed to be
impermissible for Jihad to be declared against another Muslim society—
though in fact Iran’s leaders did claim their war against Iraq was blessed by
the idea of Jihad. Likewise, Christianity always attempted to distinguish
between the lesser legitimacy of war against another Christian nation than
that against a non-believing nation. Taken literally as a duty on all Islamic
societies to prosecute aggressive war against all infidel societies, Jihad could
never be central to the foreign policy of any modern Islamic state and will
always be, at best, a rallying point for ideological extremists. It must be said that
there is considerable debate within Islamic society about the true meaning of
the term, and one which is deeply dependent on the particular sect of Islam the
believer adheres. Beyond doubt there is no general aggressive meaning held by
modern Islamic political leaders as an inescapable duty.
Judicial Review
Judicial review is a method whereby a superior judicial body may decide
whether anexecutiveor legislative action is constitutional or in any way
illegal. It is most frequently used when a court decides that an act of the
Judicial Review