Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you (to victory) over them, heal the breasts of the believers. … Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of paradise): They fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: And who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: That is the achievement supreme.

DEFINE: Explains the theological concept of martyrdom as a transaction where believers trade their lives for paradise.

Jihad has also been used in the context of conversion. This supports a common conception of Islam: that it is a religion of the sword. In fact, some scholars have expressed that jihad is legitimate in converting a non-Muslim to Islam. Ibn Khaldun, for example, believed that holy war is a religious duty of the Muslims “because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” 13 However, most scholars of Islam (Egyptian scholars Mahmud Shaltut and Sayyid Qutb, for example) agree that jihad is never justified simply based on the goal of converting a non- Muslim. 14 This opinion stems from a verse in the Qur'an that states that there is no compulsion in religion. 15 They also point to other verses that seem to suggest Islam's acceptance of a diversity of religious beliefs.

XREF: Contrasts the 'religion of the sword' stereotype with scholarly consensus; connects to broader debates about Islam's stance on religious coercion.

The creator of the meme did this for every verse in the meme. Despite these textual fallacies, this meme was shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook alone.

An example of a verse about jihad that was misrepresented by the meme is: "The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" 36 The writer of the Islam Watch post interpreted this verse to mean: "The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them." The creator of the meme took this interpretation and represented it as a translation. In fact, the verse does not say anything about fighting, but the post writer's interpretation makes it sound as if that is what is being expressed here.

QUESTION: How does this pattern of interpretive distortion in religious texts relate to broader misinformation dynamics?

Representations of jihad in American film and television are also very relevant to how Americans view jihad and Islam. In fact, this is not a new phenomenon. American film and television have a history of misrepresenting jihad. A very good example of this is the primetime drama, 24 (2001–2010, 2014). The show followed Jack Bauer, an agent with the U.S. government's Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU), who impedes domestic and international terrorist plots. In the show, Muslims were often featured as terrorists. In the second season, Jack Bauer tracked down a Muslim terrorist and tortured him into confessing the location of a nuclear bomb. When the terrorist refused to disclose the location of the bomb, Bauer threatened to inflict more pain, to which the terrorist responded, "Then I will have much more pleasure in paradise."

SEED: Could be developed into an essay on how entertainment media shapes public perception of religious concepts, using 24 as a case study.

Jack Shaheen, an expert on the portrayal of Muslims and Arabs in Hollywood films, claimed that American movies in recent decades “regularly link the Islamic faith with male supremacy, holy war, and acts of terror, depicting Arabs and Muslims as hostile alien intruders, and as lecherous, oily sheikhs intent on using nuclear weapons.” 39 He also estimated that, as of 2008, there were more than 1,150 films that defame Muslims and Arabs.

A popular defense for portraying Muslims in such a way is that “it’s just a movie,” but this is underestimating the impact that movies have on Americans’ perception of Islam and Muslims. Rules of Engagement—among other films—may be “just” movies, but like other media outlets, they form the realities of our lives. 43 According to film historian Annette Insdorf, of all forms of art, “film is the one that gives the greatest illusion of authenticity, of truth.” 44 This is because, for many, it can be difficult to distinguish between a constructed reality and a pure, untainted reality.

Pamela Geller, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is part of the American counter-jihad movement. Her most well-known engagement with countering jihad is her New York City bus and subway ads that spread to Washington, DC as well as other U.S. cities. One ad read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” Another read: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah. That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?” Next to this line was a picture of a man with a scarf covering his face.

Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum, has defined jihad as “holy war.” He believes that it refers to Muslims’ collective effort to expand Muslim-ruled territories at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims and that it is inherently offensive. … However, to depict holy wars as something quintessentially Islamic is a historical fallacy because the tradition of holy wars is a Western one. Holy wars were the method of shaping church–state relationships in medieval Europe until about the 12th century.

For the most part, modern-day literature on jihad focuses on the greater jihad: the struggle to be a loyal servant of God, the struggle for the good of Muslim society and against corruption and decadence, etc. At the same time, almost all of these writings emphasize that there is a wider argument. They point out the linguistic derivation of the term “jihad” from jahada, which means “to exert oneself” or “to strive” and that this has a much friendlier connotation than the word qital, which means “to fight.” The latter necessarily implies killing or bloodshed, whereas jihad does not. 60 For this reason, “holy war” is not considered to be an accurate definition by modern-day scholars.

DEFINE: Clarifies the linguistic distinction between jihad (from jahada, to strive/exert) and qital (to fight, implying bloodshed), and why 'holy war' is rejected by modern scholars.

Many contemporary fundamentalists were influenced by Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb's perspectives on jihad. This is evident in the Wahhabi movement, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century, who was greatly influenced by Ibn Taymiyya. The Wahhabi movement accepted Ibn Taymiyya's doctrines regarding jihad, such as labeling anyone not adhering to one's (i.e., the Wahhabis') particular interpretation of Islam an unbeliever. Ibn Taymiyya's doctrines about jihad are also accepted by ISIS, who strongly believe in the armed struggle aspect of jihad against non-Muslims and even Muslims who do not adhere to their interpretation of Islam.

XREF: Connects the theological lineage of Wahhabism and ISIS back to Ibn Taymiyya and Qutb's writings, showing a historical chain of influence worth exploring.

Because jihad is a non-English word, it is understandable that many Americans do not understand the word and its connotations. However, this gives rise to Islamophobia because people are afraid of what they do not know. If presented with two words, jihad and struggle, many Americans would not react to the latter, but ears would go up in response to the former. This is ironic because the two words are nearly synonymous, just in two different languages.

What Americans know—or think they know—about Islam is largely influenced by the media, especially for Americans who are not acquainted with a Muslim or who have little to no formal education about Islam. 66 This is because the media is right at our fingertips. However, when the media determines who is telling the story, what is included or excluded, and how the story is packaged and presented, there is an obvious bias in the information being presented. 67 Many Americans (politicians, Islamophobes, etc.) are afraid of the “Islamization of America,” in which shari’a would take precedence over the U.S. Constitution. They are afraid that armed jihad (violent extremism) is just one step of this elaborate plan to Islamize America, in which all Muslims will participate because that is what the Qur’an and Muhammad supposedly call for. For this reason, they oppose jihad, Islam, and Muslims as a whole.

XREF: Relates to broader media framing and agenda-setting literature on how biased storytelling distorts public perception of minority groups. Builds on: "American media has long misrepresented jihad in popular television."

When we consider the etymology of jihad, the argument becomes very complex because the word “jihad” is incorporative of many different things including warfare, struggling with one’s ego, defending the oppressed, and even serving one’s parents. Therefore, to cherry-pick verses of the Qur’an and ahādīth to create a single, normative definition of jihad is irresponsible and inaccurate. Then, to use that definition to define Islam as a religion and spread Islamophobia based on that oversimplified/inaccurate definition, as Islamophobes (and to some extent, the American media and politicians) do, is to misunderstand the religion and to do injustice to the 1.8 billion adherents to this faith worldwide.

XREF: Connects to discourse on how religious terms are selectively defined by media and political actors to construct narratives. Builds on: "Jihad linguistically means striving, not holy war or fighting"