Thread by @kikas6652

🧵Jihad isn’t just an inner struggle. It's a religious mandate rooted in Islamic theology, historically used to justify centuries of violent conquest. Western academia has rebranded it—intentionally—stripping jihad of its supremacist and militaristic origins.
@DanBurmawy

https://twitter.com/DanBurmawy/status/1930644493197259139

The Quran commands warfare: 9:29 orders Muslims to fight non-believers until they submit & pay the jizya. 2:216 calls fighting obligatory. Hadiths echo this. Muhammad said, “Jihad is to be carried on till the Day of Resurrection” (Sahih Bukhari). This isn't metaphorical.

Islamic law codified jihad as both defensive and offensive warfare. Prominent scholars like Ibn Taymiyya & Al-Ghazali affirmed that conquest of non-Muslims was a duty. The four Sunni schools upheld this, with offensive jihad widely practiced across centuries.

From Muhammad’s 86 military campaigns to the Ottomans’ advance into Europe, jihad shaped Islamic history. These were not defensive wars. Badr, Khaybar, Yarmouk, Somnath—campaigns that razed temples, enslaved populations, imposed jizya, & erased cultures.

So why is jihad now presented as spiritual or peaceful? Cold War geopolitics played a role: the U.S. backed jihadists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. To justify this, jihad was rebranded as noble resistance—stripped of its religious violence.

Western academia joined in. Post-colonial guilt & multicultural ideology led scholars to reinterpret jihad as anti-imperialist, inner struggle, or even social justice. Influenced by thinkers like Edward Said, truth was sacrificed to fit progressive narratives.

After 9/11, the rebranding intensified. “Islamophobia” became a tool to silence scrutiny. Jihad was redefined to maintain social cohesion. Scholars downplayed its link to terror—even as attackers cited Quranic verses as justification.

Claims that jihad is only defensive, spiritual, or colonial myth ignore 1,400 years of bloody history. Muhammad’s offensives, caliphate conquests, and modern jihadist doctrine all point to a consistent religious imperative—not mere political reaction.

Modern scholars like Esposito and Ramadan pushed sanitized versions of jihad to align with Western ideals. But jihad as spiritual discipline or anti-oppression crusade is not what history—or foundational Islamic texts—tell us. It’s revisionist fiction.

Jihad’s violent legacy is deeply embedded in Islamic doctrine. Rebranding it may serve political, academic, or ideological ends—but it denies the suffering of its victims & obscures the theology that inspires global terrorism.

Read @DanBurmawy full post: dannyburmawi.substack.com/p/the-rebrandi…

@DanBurmawy Don't miss his space on X: Set a reminder

https://x.com/DanBurmawy/status/1930683407807222027