# صوت الجهاد



## Logos1

What does that mean? I think it can also be translated as Sawt Al-Jihad. 

Thanks


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## Abu Rashid

I think you mean transliterated. Although it should be sawt ul-jihaad I think.

The meaning is something along the lines of "the voice of the struggle". Although jihaad has been mistranslated into English as "holy war" this is really not the case at all. However, because many Muslims do consider their religion the primary motivator in their lives, then yes their struggles will often be linked closely with their religion.


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## Logos1

There is a middle eastern magazine that is titled "Voice Of Jihad" and I though that was what Sawt al-jihad meant. So how do you write the first one?


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## Abu Rashid

Which is the first one? I'm not sure I follow..


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## cherine

Logos1 said:


> There is a middle eastern magazine that is titled "Voice Of Jihad" and I though that was what Sawt al-jihad meant. So how do you write the first one?


Yes, sawt al-jihad means the voice of jihad. (regardless of what is meant by jihad here).
The word sawt is voice and is written like this صوت and al-jihad is الجهاد.


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## Logos1

cherine said:


> Yes, sawt al-jihad means the voice of jihad. (regardless of what is meant by jihad here).
> The word sawt is voice and is written like this صوت and al-jihad is الجهاد.


 

What is "Jihad" (الجهاد) in arabic?


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## Ustaath

this can be take a long time to explain, the simplest meaning is 'the act of exerting energy/effort ( to strive) to accomplish something ' from the root that means 'to exert'
in a religious context, it refers to the struggle and strive  - to keep the faith - or protect it .
In Lebanon, is a very common boy's name among both Muslims and Christians .
The Western media interprets it normally with militant connotations, but that's not always necessarily the case.


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## Logos1

Ustaath said:


> in a religious context, it refers to the struggle and strive - to keep the faith - or protect it .


 
So the word in arabic "Jihad" (الجهاد) by itself can mean to say a religious struggle? (as is the case in western context)?


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## إسكندراني

Logos1 said:


> So the word in arabic "Jihad" (الجهاد) by itself can mean to say a religious struggle? (as is the case in western context)?


Yes but this is not the only possible meaning. And it doesn't have the same connotations since 'holy war' is considered separate (and a western concept for that matter).


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## Logos1

إسكندراني said:


> Yes but this is not the only possible meaning. And it doesn't have the same connotations since 'holy war' is considered separate (and a western concept for that matter).


 
What would be a more accurate term for jihad as in "Holy War" then? Would Jihad bil Saif be more accurate?  How do you write that in arabic? or is there a more accurate word?


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## Ustaath

allow me to elaborate; when i said 'keep the faith' I meant it as a personal discipline/ endeavor rather than a communal one


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## إسكندراني

Logos1 said:


> What would be a more accurate term for jihad as in "Holy War" then? Would Jihad bil Saif be more accurate?  How do you write that in arabic? or is there a more accurate word?


Holy War is translated from European languages as حرب دينية 'war of religions'.


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## suma

Sometimes we Muslims are a bit overly sensitive, possibly due to past wrongs & biases committed against Islam or its people. I say this to say that yes in the West "jihad" is often hastily translated to mean holy war, and we are quick to point out that "war" is only one of its possible meanings. Others include "struggle" "internal strife against one's own bad inclinations", and so on.

However when the word jihad is used in the sense of religiously sanctioned or inspired war/conflict against non-Muslim forces to defend and protect Muslim rights & interests, then I see nothing so wrong with the translation "holy war". "Holy" here meaning religiously sanctioned, not _*muqaddas*_.


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## إسكندراني

suma said:


> Sometimes we Muslims are a bit overly sensitive, possibly due to past wrongs & biases committed against Islam or its people. I say this to say that yes in the West "jihad" is often hastily translated to mean holy war, and we are quick to point out that "war" is only one of its possible meanings. Others include "struggle" "internal strife against one's own bad inclinations", and so on.
> 
> However when the word jihad is used in the sense of religiously sanctioned or inspired war/conflict against non-Muslim forces to defend and protect Muslim rights & interests, then I see nothing so wrong with the translation "holy war". "Holy" here meaning religiously sanctioned, not _*muqaddas*_.


Holy war has Christian connotations in English, this is the problem with translating it like that. Even an armed جهاد has different motives and methods compared to the crusades or the reconquista ('holy wars'), all through history. 
In addition, the most common usage of جاهد يجاهد جهاداً is nothing to do with war at all.


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## suma

إسكندراني said:


> ...In addition, the most common usage of جاهد يجاهد جهاداً is nothing to do with war at all.


 
I did cover that point in my post above.

As for the larger issue, historically speaking the only reason the term "holy war" was used is bacause the writers and speakers were Christians, so naturally they were using the language from their religious base. It's only recently that we have native English speakers who are Muslims.

That's like saying "God" for a translation of  الله  has Christians connotations. (Albeit some do make that assertion, wrongly though in my opinion).


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## إسكندراني

suma said:


> I did cover that point in my post above.
> 
> As for the larger issue, historically speaking the only reason the term "holy war" was used is bacause the writers and speakers were Christians, so naturally they were using the language from their religious base. It's only recently that we have native English speakers who are Muslims.
> 
> That's like saying "God" for a translation of  الله  has Christians connotations. (Albeit some do make that assertion, wrongly though in my opinion).


'Holy War' is not an accurate rendition of جهاد, because 'Holy' - despite not meaning 'Holy' here - has an additional meaning of 'Holy'. It also has a definition of striving to spread the faith, while even military جهاد is striving motivated by faith, for the sake of justice and putting things right, not to impose faith. The theory is totally different.
To translate وما لكم لا تجاهدون في سبيل الله as 'why do you not wage holy war' is ludicrous.


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## suma

إسكندراني said:


> ...To translate وما لكم لا تجاهدون في سبيل الله as 'why do you not wage holy war' is ludicrous.


 
Agreed that is not the best translation, in that case. But I was not asserting that  jihad be translated as holy war in all cases. Did I give that impression?

Take for example,  قام الشعب الأفغان بالجهاد ضد القوات السوفيتية المحتلة في الثمانيات 
 "In the 1980s the Afghan people engaged in holy war against the Soviet occupying forces."

In this sentence, "holy war" is perfectly fine. Besides I think of no other suitable and concise phrase.


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## إسكندراني

suma said:


> Agreed that is not the best translation, in that case. But I was not asserting that  jihad be translated as holy war in all cases. Did I give that impression?
> 
> Take for example,  قام الشعب الأفغان بالجهاد ضد القوات السوفيتية المحتلة في الثمانيات
> "In the 1980s the Afghan people engaged in holy war against the Soviet occupying forces."
> 
> In this sentence, "holy war" is perfectly fine. Besides I think of no other suitable and concise phrase.


In that situation, it's perfectly acceptable to use 'Jihad', since it has become an English word. Also the قام بـ construction (rather than خاضوا) implies that this wasn't written in natural Arabic anyway; maybe it's translated? In any case, it sounds silly to me to say 'holy war' even there, because the term is archaic and has connotations of an organised religious centre sending out a military campaign, while this was a an guerilla-style armed  resistance.


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## Logos1

How about "Jihad bil Saif"? How do you write it in arabic?


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## suma

Iskandrani, it's debateable whether or not "jihad" has fully entered the English lexicon; besides even if that were true, the misinterpretations and baggage traditionally associated with the word would still hold true.

The Afghan "jihad", holy war or resistance movement against the Soviets indeed was an organized and religiously sanctioned operation. There were many well respected imams who ruled that it met the criterion for jihad, so in that regard it did meet the requirements that you laid out as well above.
In the end why should the word "jihad" go untranslated?
In the Afghan example above, you cannot translate it as resistance guerrilla campaign, etc. because we have Arabic equivalents for that. So what's left?


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## إسكندراني

suma said:


> Iskandrani, it's debateable whether or not "jihad" has fully entered the English lexicon; besides even if that were true, the misinterpretations and baggage traditionally associated with the word would still hold true.
> 
> The Afghan "jihad", holy war or resistance movement against the Soviets indeed was an organized and religiously sanctioned operation. There were many well respected imams who ruled that it met the criterion for jihad, so in that regard it did meet the requirements that you laid out as well above.
> In the end why should the word "jihad" go untranslated?
> In the Afghan example above, you cannot translate it as resistance guerrilla campaign, etc. because we have Arabic equivalents for that. So what's left?


At any rate it's not 'holy war' because that is حرب مقدّسة which wasn't the original text.


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## clevermizo

إسكندراني said:


> In that situation, it's perfectly acceptable to use 'Jihad', since it has become an English word. Also the قام بـ construction (rather than خاضوا) implies that this wasn't written in natural Arabic anyway; maybe it's translated? In any case, it sounds silly to me to say 'holy war' even there, because the term is archaic and has connotations of an organised religious centre sending out a military campaign, while this was a an guerilla-style armed  resistance.



Actually, I would prefer some context-dependent translation. Maybe "struggle" is sufficient in many cases.

The reason I don't think that leaving it Jihad untranslated is any good is because unless you are well-informed, a Muslim or you speak Arabic, nearly any English speaker who has heard the word "Jihad" equates it to "Holy War" because of the initial translations in the media. Basically the association has been made for English speaker with Holy War so it's actually the same thing in English. If you are trying to find a way to strip it of the negative connotations in a translation, you can't do that with "Jihad" alone and of course not with "holy war."

"Struggle" however is much more benign and often appropriate, I think.




Logos1 said:


> How about "Jihad bil Saif"? How do you write it in arabic?



جهاد بالسيف


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## uas60

It is actually quite interesting to discuss this from the linguistic point of view!

If we were to start with a clean slate with regards to modern history, then I don't think Jihad could really be translated as 'holy war', for the reasons mentioned above (primarily that it gives the idea of *muqaddas* IMO). No, even 'religious war' is better than holy war, although again, that may imply a war defending the religion or specifically sanctioned by the religion.

I think really, the translation must be with the context. But as a general word-to-word, I think the fairest translation would be 'struggle', since it encompasses the different meanings including a military campaign if used in that circumstance (as in the Afghan example above).


_Edit: Lolll! I would allege the guy above copied my post, but you got there first  Great minds think alike huh!_


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## إسكندراني

So:
قام الشعب الأفغان بالجهاد ضد القوات السوفيتية المحتلة في الثمانيات
The Afghan people began a struggle against the occupying soviet forces in the eighties.
This sounds a lot more like the Arabic for me. Even if one was going to start discussing this 'struggle' and its relation to Islam, it does indeed seem more sensible to use a meaningful English word!


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## Abu Rashid

uas60 said:
			
		

> But as a general word-to-word, I think the fairest translation would be  'struggle', since it encompasses the different meanings including a  military campaign if used in that circumstance (as in the Afghan example  above).



Yes struggle is the most precise English word, and one could even add something to struggle to indicate if it was specific to a cause, and generally perhaps even the word "noble", as jihaad (in the Islamic context anyway) refers to a noble struggle, not just any old struggle.

If one searches google for instance for phrases like الجهاد القومي (al-jihaad al-qawmi) there seem to be plenty of results, and this would obviously mean "national struggle".



			
				إسكندراني said:
			
		

> The Afghan people began a struggle against the occupying soviet forces in the eighties.
> This sounds a lot more like the Arabic for me. Even if one was going to  start discussing this 'struggle' and its relation to Islam, it does  indeed seem more sensible to use a meaningful English word!



I think it's inevitable that such a term would undergo some semantic drift when crossing over to English because of the circumstances in which it became so famous. With the backdrop of the cold war and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the semantics of this word were manipulated by the U.S government and intelligence services to promote the idea of a noble warrior people resisting the unwanted incursion of an evil empire. And so the word first began its transition into English with a rather positive slant. And the derivative word "mujahadeen" (mistransliteration is deliberate) is still used in English to basically refer to "Afghan friendlies", but after the conflict in Afghanistan turned Westward the word had to be demonised in order to justify the U.S's new-found hostility with its former ally, and so the slant turned sour and the word today has come to be synonymous in the minds of many Westerners with terrorism, extremism and religious fanaticism.

Very interesting from a linguistic point of view how much our governments shape our understanding of words, and how easily they can turn them from being very positive to very negative in such a short time.


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## uas60

Abu Rashid said:


> I think it's inevitable that such a term would undergo some semantic drift when crossing over to English because of the circumstances in which it became so famous. With the backdrop of the cold war and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the semantics of this word were manipulated by the U.S government and intelligence services to promote the idea of a noble warrior people resisting the unwanted incursion of an evil empire. And so the word first began its transition into English with a rather positive slant. And the derivative word "mujahadeen" (mistransliteration is deliberate) is still used in English to basically refer to "Afghan friendlies", but after the conflict in Afghanistan turned Westward the word had to be demonised in order to justify the U.S's new-found hostility with its former ally, and so the slant turned sour and the word today has come to be synonymous in the minds of many Westerners with terrorism, extremism and religious fanaticism.
> 
> Very interesting from a linguistic point of view how much our governments shape our understanding of words, and how easily they can turn them from being very positive to very negative in such a short time.



I must say, you've connected many dots that were already in my head to make an interesting and - more importantly - valid point!


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## suma

WOW glad to see so many new voices jumped in this discussion.

قام الشعب الأفغان بالجهاد ضد القوات السوفيتية المحتلة في الثمانيات
The Afghan people began a struggle against the occupying soviet forces in the eighties.
I can't imagine that I'm alone on this one? In this context "struggle" is too benign and in no way comes close to conveying the events between the Afghan forces against the Soviets of the time.

One struggles with homework, to get along with co-workers, to understand rebellious children, etc.
What was going between the Afghans and the Soviets was out right warfare, involving missiles, bombs, heavy machinery and the like. It simply was not a struggle, that word is not forceful enough to capture the meaning of that particular event.


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## suma

إسكندراني said:


> At any rate it's not 'holy war' because that is حرب مقدّسة which wasn't the original text.



No fair Iskandrani, you can't just say that!


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## Abu Rashid

suma,

The word struggle is used fairly regularly in English to portray armed conflicts. So I don't think it's too benign at all. The phrases "armed struggle", "independance struggle", "national liberation struggle" etc. are all fairly common.


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## suma

Abu Rashid said:


> suma,
> 
> The word struggle is used fairly regularly in English to portray armed conflicts. So I don't think it's too benign at all. The phrases "*armed* struggle", "independance struggle", "national liberation struggle" etc. are all fairly common.


 
Touché,  once you add the word "armed", bingo! less benign


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## uas60

suma said:


> Touché, once you add the word "armed", bingo! less benign


 
I agree, not only for the literal meaning of the word, but for the connotations as well.

Somebody has mentioned previously that Jihad has feelings of... _nobility_ somewhat. That's why 'armed struggle', seems more befitting, as opposed to the destructive, Crusader-like connotations of waging a 'holy war' (and other modern connotations such as terrorism & mass killings).

And this is all still within one dimension of the meaning of Jihad!


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## إسكندراني

suma said:


> Touché,  once you add the word "armed", bingo! less benign


Armed Struggle = جهاد مسلّح
Struggle = جهاد
As for جهاد بالسيف this sounds quite archaic to me; referring to the situation in Libya, one would say جهاد مسلّح not جهاد بالسيف.


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## Logos1

suma said:


> In the Afghan example above, you cannot translate it as resistance guerrilla campaign, etc. because we have Arabic equivalents for that. So what's left?


 
What are those equivalents and how do you write it?


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## إسكندراني

Logos1 said:


> What are those equivalents and how do you write it?


resistance مقاومة
guerilla warfare حرب عصابات
street warfare حرب شوارع


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