Texas textbook review in process. The Board of Education reviews textbooks whenever the current textbooks require refreshing or replacement and asks for public comments on content. Regarding Islam specifically, Prentice Hall publishers digital courseware Contemporary World Cultures Digital Courseware for grade 6 social studies contains the following: A small number of Muslims in the region see European and American influence as a threat. They have adopted a form of Islamism that draws on the tradition of jihad. The work jihad in Arabic simply means struggle. For many Muslims it can refer to the struggle to be a better person. However, some extremist groups use the word to mean violent struggle. Some of the regions Islamists believe in violent jihad ... Prentice Hall was challenged by earlier public comments and responded with, This is not a factual error. The term has more than one meaning. It can be interpreted as the struggle to be a better person and as violent struggle in the form of holy war with the intent to spread Islam. My response is as follows: Although jihad can be an internal struggle to be a good person, this is a minority view and a late development in Islamic history. This view comes from a tradition (hadith) attributed to Muhammad which very few Muslim scholars view as authoritative because it is a “weak” hadith, meaning it has an unreliable chain of oral transmitters. The hadith purportedly has Muhammad returning from a recent battle and stating, “I have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad,” implying armed warfare is the lesser form of jihad, and struggling for a better society is the greater jihad. But again, this narration is not authoritative, nor is it accepted as such by the vast majority of scholars. It is a minority opinion. The textbook publishers are incorrect to publish a minority opinion as it were the majority and generally accepted definition. Here are some sources which define the majority understanding of the word “jihad.” “Warfare authorized by a legitimate representative of the Muslim community for the sake of an issue that is universally, or nearly universally, acknowledged to be of critical importance for the entire community against an admitted enemy of Islam.” - David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), page 3. “In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the jihad consists of military action with the object of the expansion of Islam and, if need be, its defense.” - Encyclopedia of Islam, quoted in David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 2. “means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.” - Ahmed ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller (‘Umdat al-Salik): A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, Revised Ed., trans. Nuh Ha Mim Kelller (Beltsville, MD: Amana, 1994), section o9.0. For Sunni Muslims, which represent ninety percent of the worldwide Muslim population, the hadith collection of Al-Bukhari is second source of authority superseded only by the Quran, for the faith and practice of Muslims. In Bukhari’s collection, volume 4 contains all the traditions attributed to Muhammad regarding jihad. The word jihad is attributed to Muhammad literally dozens of times, and every time without exception it is used in the context of armed conflict to spread Islam. Nowhere in the most authoritative traditions of Muhammad is jihad ever used in the context of a peaceful struggle to right social wrongs or fight against the inner self. Moreover, Professor David Cook of Rice University makes the following observation: “Few Muslim scholars or even apologists writing in non-European languages have ever made the exaggerated claims [re: spiritual struggle]…those who write in Arabic or other Muslim languages realize that it is pointless to present Jihad as anything other than militant warfare.” - David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), page 43. In the interest of intellectual and academic integrity, the textbook publishers must either abandon altogether the incorrect definition of jihad, or present it as a minority opinion and include also the majority understanding of the term.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:47:23 +0000
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