When was jihad made obligatory

If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyyahh, and all the marvellous material comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this ignorance. This Jahiliyyahh is based on rebellion against Allah's sovereignty on earth. It transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of Allah, namely sovereignty, and makes some men lords over others.

This mid-century argument represents a radical departure from the longstanding traditional view of leadership. Qutb denounced the extant leadership of the Arab world and rejected their claims to either Islam or political power.

Qutb then professed that under current circumstances, jihad was legitimate and justified against said leadership. It is this expansive definition of jihad that has influenced most subsequent radical Sunni groups and sparked a number of modern religiously-driven efforts for political change.

He called on Muslims to exert every conceivable effort to establish the Islamic government, restore the caliphate, and expand the abode of Islam. According to the line of thought established by Mawdudi, Qutb, and Faraj, Sunni Islamists transformed the context and regulations against which jihad was to be carried out, mandating jihad—previously a concept bound to communal obligations—into an individual obligation for all Muslims.

Bin Laden addressed his message to Muslims throughout the world, expanding the interpretations that had developed in the Arabian peninsula into a numerically small yet global movement. Thus, certain Salafists developed a doctrine emphasizing the primacy of jihad. In contrast, quietist Salafism seeks to create the Islamic state through education and indoctrination of individuals, as seen in the Wahabi model of Saudi Arabia.

While each strain seeks the broader implementation of an Islam based on their own views, only Salafi-jihadis use a violent version of jihad in an attempt to actualize these ends. Asanas and Mudras are various types of physical postures of yoga to catalyze the psychic energies. Pranayam implies pause in breathing. It is a breathing act controlling the breath and vital forces of the body of which there are several kinds e.

It is a kind of sublimation through the psychic behavior for which high level of command over the previous stages is essential. Dharna is steadiness of mind which needs discipline and preparation for practicing properly. It is seen when mind concentrates on a stable object. It aims at making the period of steadiness longer by ongoing practice and decreasing distraction of mind.

However, the entire domain of yogic sciences and its practices are only concerned with quality of life to be achieved through healthy, contented and spiritual lifestyles, and not at all related to any sect or religion.

Thus, it does not involve any essence of partiality with Hinduism or superiority over Islam or any other religion of the existing world. Indeed, the aim of the authors is not to explore superiority of one religious practice over the other, rather, to prompt and suggest to the concerned clinicians as well as the clients to perceive these viewpoints as supplementary combinations toward the best possible benefits in mental healthcare.

Moreover, a direct one on one comparison between Islamic salah and the yoga will not be in order as the basic religious tenets are at variance and may result in sending inflammatory signals.

Therefore, setting aside the core religious sentiments and basic tenets, and having a closer look at these two forms of worship reveal a number of similarities in their physical execution and the accrued medical and psychological improvements in the life quality of the practitioner.

Central to achieving the desired outcome in either of the practices is the fact that they are rendered in the correct form and for the minimum effective duration. Physical similarities between Salah and yoga are in the body movements that are repeated in a set pattern.

When performed involving just the physical movement-hatha yoga and salah have been found to evoke comparable medical benefits in all major organ systems.

As mentioned earlier, Islam is a prescription for a complete and balanced way of life, hence, Salah besides being an act of worship doubles as a holistic health tonic. The concept of specifically activating these nerve centers through Salah or yoga is like the chiropractic therapy.

The major steps in salah have been associated with the nerve pathways or chakras in a broad sense. The standing position or Qiyaam is said to be similar to the mountain pose in yoga, which has a bearing on self-awareness. The folding of hands above the navel in this position are said to activate the solar plexus. The position of bowing or Ruku is equated with the forward bend position in yoga. The crowning glory of salah is the prostration or sujood. During this movement, the crown chakra related to the person's spirituality is stimulated.

Bending movements during sujood also activate the base chakra and the sacral chakra toning up the lymphatic, skeletal and reproductive systems at large. Completion of the salah is done by salutation and turning of the head to the right and then to the left side of the body. This is said to activate the throat chakra.

Unification of mind and body is brought about by the intention of Salah and focus on the recitation whereby mental distractions and stress are relieved and the physical body yields itself to the positive entrainment through the movements. In yoga, activation of all the seven energy levels at least once in a day is advocated to realize the true potential of the practice.

Since salah is procedurally less complex than yoga and is practiced ritually five times in a day without requiring any formal training it is a boon to the Muslims that they get to tune the energy chakras effortlessly integrating the practice with their daily routine.

Nonetheless, combining several aspects of Yoga with salah could be able to catalyze the many more folds of advantages of activating energy chakras. Present day psychotherapists in the predominantly urban setup find themselves confounded with issues arising from clients with intense religious sentiments and intervention in such cases is nothing short of a challenge.

The technique used in therapy, therefore, should be based on accepting and acknowledging that many religious, spiritual, and ethnic clients believe that God is the central part of understanding themselves, their core values, and being part of the solution for their worldly problems.

If professional counselors, operating in predominantly Muslim areas, are equipped with a reasonable proficiency in the religious prescriptions, their chances of success in building a better rapport with their clients and thereby rendering effective services will considerably improve.

Recently, countries like Malaysia[ 20 ] and Indonesia[ 21 ] have looked at yoga suspiciously as infringing into Islamic monotheistic principles since yoga is mainly a practice of the polytheistic Hindu religion.

Issuance of Fatwa — the Islamic religious Rulings against the practice of yoga by members of the Muslim community in South-East Asia at large has reemphasized the need for carefully approaching the matter of employing heterogeneous cross cultural techniques in therapy.

Such confrontations and lack of basic understanding of the finer sensibilities of these religions compounded with the under preparedness of a therapist would only aid in escalating the conflict in patient's mind. The way forward for the psychotherapists operating in multi religious and multicultural setups, therefore, is to integrate the positive and possible aspects of the Yoga, mainstream western counseling with the spiritual aspects of Islam to develop a combined psycho-spiritual methodology.

Multiple methods of intervention drawn from diverse sources may well be incorporated in such practice, such as the use of hatha yoga or power yoga with adequate patient education on the neutrality of these techniques to enhance its efficacy. Source of Support: Nil. Conflict of Interest: None declared. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U.

Journal List Indian J Psychiatry v. Indian J Psychiatry. Shabbir Ahmed Sayeed and Anand Prakash 1. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Address for correspondence: Dr. Box , Jeddah , Saudi Arabia. E-mail: moc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Religion and its practices have been duly implicated in treating not only problems related to medical health, rather, intervening and preventing such problems as well.

Keywords: Islam, mental health, salah, yoga. Ablution — The purification and preparation Any act of worship in Islam requires the devotee to make an intention and perform physical cleansing and ready himself spiritually. Niyyah — The intention Expression of intention called Niyyah in Arabic to perform the salat is an essential precondition and is usually done within one's heart appropriately for the Salah of the time.

Salah — The formal prayer The five mandatory salat are spread over various parts of the day in such a way that the devotee is not only in contact with the Creator frequently and receives peace and blessings as his reward but also experiences physical well-being that has now been scientifically confirmed. Congregational prayers Although prayers like the noon prayer of Friday, Eid festival prayers of Ramadan and Day of Sacrifice and funeral prayers must only be offered in congregation, all Muslim men are strongly encouraged to perform the five obligatory prayers in congregation in a mosque in the vicinity.

Salah in practice It is important to inspect the act of salat in close detail as each of the positions and moves hold significance to the worshiper musalli both from physiological and psychological points of view. Soon people of conquered countries began to embrace Islam for variety of reasons and they joined Muslims with their martial traditions. Now Muslim ruling classes acquired all the traits of martial races with hierarchical feudal values and Islamic values began to be sidelined.

Islam had laid great emphasis on equality and new martial cum feudal society replaced original Islamic society with its own weltanschauung. The new society was hierarchical with emphasis on superiority of ruling class rather than of pious. Compassion, mercy, benevolence wisdom were less important that war like virtues and ruthlessness of rulers. Exploitation and oppression are characteristics of those with lust for power and wealth.

Centrality of compassion and mercy which are divine virtues was lost and centrality of war in the garb of jihad occupied its place. It was not something unique with Islam. Other religions like Christianity had met the same fate earlier.

Christianity too was religion of love, compassion and peace during the time of the Christ and it again it was the poor and the oppressed who had adopted Christianity. The Christians remained most oppressed for about two to three centuries. However, when Roman emperor embraced Christianity its character was transformed and from religion of the oppressed it became religion of oppressors and subsequent history of Christianity is history of bloodshed and warfare.

Its central values were also sidelined. Those who were sincerely religious among Christians began to live life of renunciation and retreats and isolation. Likewise among Muslims there emerged a group of Sufis who equally resented warfare and bloodshed for political power among Muslims, especially among Umayyads and Abbasids initially and among other non-Arab Muslims subsequently and they too adopted simpler and what they considered as Islamic way of life.

For Sufis therefore, real jihad was fighting against ones own desire and lust for power and they termed this jihad as jihad-e-akbar the greatest jihad. They battled their own desire so that they could imbibe Islamic values and create a society based on compassion, justice and equality. Their religion, unlike religion of rulers, was not religion of mere rituals but of values. For a ruling class religion is mere bundle of rituals but for those who resist lust for power and battle their own desire, religion is religion of values.

For them all human beings are worthy of respect irrespective of their station in life and irrespective of their ethnic origin or religious persuasion. It is for this reason that people of different faiths and social status visit their hospices or graves. Today in our own times jihad is being grossly misused by power seekers and modern highly destructive weapons like bombs are used to kill innocent people for their political struggle.

Thousands of innocent people are being killed and many youth are made to lay down their lives in the hope of getting paradise in the life hereafter. In fact these brainwashed youth, falsely enticed by powerful vested interests, waste their life and kill innocent people and cause so much mischief and destruction of life and properties fasad.

In fact compassion in this sense is as central to Islam as in Buddhism or Christianity. Now it is for those youth who are properly educated in Islamic values to dedicate themselves to promote compassion and respect for human life and stop monstrosities being committed in the name of Islam.

Working for social justice. Forgiving someone who has hurt them. However the quotation has been very influential among some Muslims, particularly Sufis.

Holy war Holy war When Muslims, or their faith or territory are under attack, Islam permits some say directs the believer to wage military war to protect them.

However Islamic shariah law sets very strict rules for the conduct of such a war. In recent years the most common meaning of Jihad has been Holy War. And there is a long tradition of Jihad being used to mean a military struggle to benefit Islam.

What can justify Jihad? Permissable reasons for military Jihad : Self-defence Strengthening Islam Protecting the freedom of Muslims to practise their faith Protecting Muslims against oppression, which could include overthrowing a tyrannical ruler Punishing an enemy who breaks an oath Putting right a wrong What a Jihad is not A war is not a Jihad if the intention is to: Force people to convert to Islam Conquer other nations to colonise them Take territory for economic gain Settle disputes Demonstrate a leader's power Although the Prophet engaged in military action on a number of occasions, these were battles to survive, rather than conquest, and took place at a time when fighting between tribes was common.

The opponent must always have started the fighting. It must not be fought to gain territory. It must be launched by a religious leader. It must be fought to bring about good - something that Allah will approve of. Every other way of solving the problem must be tried before resorting to war. Innocent people should not be killed. Women, children, or old people should not be killed or hurt.

Women must not be raped. Enemies must be treated with justice.