Conventional significations of Jihád.
8. I fully admit that in the post-classical language of the Arabs,—i.e., that in use subsequent to the time of Mohammad, when the language was rapidly corrupted, the word "Jihád" was used to signify "warfare" or fighting, but this was in a military sense. Since that period the word has come to be used as meaning the waging of a war or a crusade only in military tactics, and more recently it found its way in the same sense into the Mohammadan law-books and lexicons of later dates. But the subsequent corrupt or post-classical language cannot be accepted as a final or even a satisfactory authority upon the point.
"It was decided by common consent," says Mr. Edward William Lane, in his Arabic-English Lexicon (Preface, pp. viii and ix), "that no poet, nor any other person, should be taken as an absolute and unquestionable authority with respect to the words or their significations, the grammar, or the prosody of the classical language, unless he were one who had died before the promulgation of El-Islám, or who had lived partly before and partly after that event; or, as they term it, unless he were a 'Jáhilee' or a 'Mukhadram,' or (as some pronounce it) 'Mukhadrim,' or 'Muhadram' or 'Muhadrim.' A poet of the class next after the Mukhadrams is termed an 'Islámee:' and as the corruption of the language had become considerable in his time, even among those who aimed at chasteness of speech, he is not cited as an authority absolutely and unquestionably like the two preceding classes. A poet of the next class, which is the last, is termed 'Muwelled;' he is absolutely post-classical; and is cited as an unquestionable authority with respect only to the rhetorical sciences. The commencement of the period of the Muwelleds is not distinctly stated: but it must have preceded the middle of the second century of the Flight; for the classical age may be correctly defined as having nearly ended with the first century, when very few persons born before the establishment of El-Islám through Arabia were living. Thus the best of the Islámi poets may be regarded, and are generally regarded, as holding classical rank, though not as being absolute authorities with respect to the words and the significations, the grammar, and the prosody of the classical language."
Mr. Thomas Chenry, M.A., writes:[327]—
"Within a century of Mohammad's flight from Mecca, the Moslem empire stretched from Kashgar and Mooltan to Morocco and the Pyrenees, and the Arab man of letters was exposed to the corrupting propinquity of men of very different races. Only a poet of Ignorance, that is, one who died before the preaching of Islam, or a Mokhadram, that is, who was contemporary with it, was looked upon as of paramount and unquestionable authority. An Islámi, that is, one who was born after the rise of Islam, was of least consideration, and after the first century, the poets are called Muwalladún and are only quoted for their literary beauties, and not as authorities for the Arab tongue."
Mohammadan commentators, &c., quoted.
9. All commentators, paraphrasts, and jurisconsults admit that the primary and original signification of the words "Jahad" and "Jihád" is power, ability, and toil, and that its use, as making wars or crusades, is conventional and figurative. Ibn Attiah says regarding verse 69, Chapter XXIX, that it is Meccan, and was revealed before the enjoining of the Orfee or conventional Jihád (vide Fat-hul bayan fi maquasidil Koran, Vol. II, page 517, by Siddik Hussan). Khateeb Koostlane, in his Irshadussari, a paraphrase of Bokhari, says that "Jihád is derived from Jahd, which means toil and labour, or from Johd, which means power. And in technical language it means fighting with infidels to assist Islam" (Vol. V, page 26). Mohammad Allauddin Al Haskafi (died 1088 A.H.), the author of Dur-ral-Mukhtár, a commentary on Tanviral Absár, by Sheikh Mohammad Al Tamartáshi (died 1004), says in the chapter on Jihád, that "in the classical language it is the infinitive noun of Jáhada fi Sabil-Allah, and in the language of the law it means inviting the infidels to the true faith and fighting with him who does not accept it." And Ibn Ábidin Shámi, in his annotation on the above work, says:
"The infinitive noun of Jáhada means to do one's utmost, and that it is general, and includes any person who supports all that is reasonable and forbids what is wrong."
When the word Jihád was diverted from its original signification to its figurative meaning of waging religious war?