"Jihad" means "struggle", a religious duty of Muslims. It can mean either an "inner struggle"; a peaceful struggle for individual purity and dedication to Allah, similar to Christian piety and striving for holiness. Jihad can also mean an "outer stuggle", a physical struggle involving direct confilct, violence and terrorism. This "violent jihad" is the primary struggle of Islam that makes the news. Here is a listing of this form of Jihad as inflicted on Muslims and non-Muslims around the world just within the past two months! Violent jihad is a resurgent practice, part of Islam's "reformation" - the reestablishment of Islam's origninal basic teachings.
Often there are attempts of moral equivalency of by defenders of Muslims by saying that Christians have committed acts of violence in the name of Christianity. In truth, especially over the last several decades, for every one act of violence in the name of Christianity there are 10,000 acts of violence by Muslims. And most of the alleged Christian acts were either years ago, decades ago or centuries ago, not yesterday, last week, or last month.
Islamic defenders like Karen Armstrong and CAIR will try to make us believe that violent Jihad is a perversion of the teaching of Islam. That is a lie. In fact, beginning over the past decades, violent Jihad has been a growing and major part of Islam's reformation - reform toward the teachings of pure Islam as taught and practiced by Mohammad. Violent Jihad has always been the teaching. It has not always been a widespread practice until recently.
"Stealth Jihad" is another form of jihad that is not overtly violent. It is an organized effort by and on behalf of Muslims to infiltrate and influence our government,civic organizations and general population for the purposes of...
1) Discrediting the work of those of us who are attempting to inform people of the threat of Islam to our culture, country, and freedom.
2) Furthering the cause of Islam in this nation, and
3) Especially to work toward the implementation of Sharia Law in this nation.
Check out Robert Spencer's book "Stealh Jihad" on Amazon.
Taqiyya (deceit condoned in Islam doctrine to further their aims) is a prominent technique used in "stealth jihad".
Isn't violent Jihad just an abberant off-shoot by a few misinformed or crazy radicals? From Robert Spencers "Islam 101" page.
"Islamic apologists often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools of thought. That is true, but, while there are differences, there are also common elements. Just as Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christians differ on many aspects of Christianity, still they accept important common elements. So it is with Islam.
"One of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is jihad, understood as the obligation of the Ummah to conquer and subdue the world in the name of Allah and rule it under Sharia law.
"The four Sunni Madhhabs (schools of fiqh [Islamic religious jurisprudence]) -- Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali -- all agree that there is a collective obligation on Muslims to make war on the rest of the world. Furthermore, even the schools of thought outside Sunni orthodoxy, including Sufism and the Jafari (Shia) school, agree on the necessity of jihad. When it comes to matters of jihad, the different schools disagree on such questions as whether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin (Osama bin Laden asked America to convert before Al-Qaeda's attacks); how plunder should be distributed among victorious jihadists; whether a long-term Fabian strategy against dar al-harb is preferable to an all-out frontal attack; etc."