Jihad is such a misunderstood word. There are two types of jihad, and both meanings come from the Arabic root word, jahada, which means to exert one's utmost efforts. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) told Muslims that the greater jihad is the daily struggle of each Muslim to be a good person.Contrary to what the TV would have us believe, it has nothing to do with blowing yourself up or blowing anyone else up. Muslims are called upon to struggle against their own faults and weaknesses.
It might be much easy to march down a street, throwing stones, and shouting against tyranny and oppression, but it is much more difficult to overcome our own weaknesses. This is the greater jihad.
The lesser jihad, according to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), is to fight in the cause of Allah. This, too, is grossly misunderstood and wrongly portrayed on our TV screens. Fighting in the cause of God has had a very bad press, where Muslims are concerned.
Richard the Lion heart, going on a crusade to the Holy Land to reconquer the holy places from the infidel, is portrayed as a brave, Christian knight.. Muslim warriors, though, are presented as merciless and cruel, spreading Islam by the sword.
The facts, however, are different. Unlike the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of men, women and children when the crusader knights took Jerusalem, or the murder and pillage they wreaked upon Orthodox Christians in Constantinople, the Muslim fight in the cause of God is conducted within strict limits.
The innocent are not to be killed, nor are women, children or old people. Prisoners of war are not to be harmed in any way, much less tortured. Property is not to be damaged, nor animals or even plants.
Khalid ibn Al-Waleed was overwhelmed by the way Islam was taking hold. One of the greatest heroes of Islam is Khalid ibn Al-Waleed. A great general, never defeated on the battlefield, he was given the accolade, "Sword of Allah," by the Prophet Muhammad for the courageous way he defended Islam in its earliest days, when hostile tribes and foreign armies tried in vain with all their might to snuff out the light of Islam which was spreading across the Arabian Peninsula.Born in Makkah in 592 C.E. and a member of the tribe of Quraysh, Khaled Ibn Al-Waleed seemed the most unlikely hero of Islam. In fact, he was one of its fiercest opponents and he commanded the army which defeated the Muslims at the battle of Uhud.
After the peace treaty, known as the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, which the Prophet Muhammad made with his enemies and which enabled the Muslims to go on pilgrimage to Makkah, Khalid ibn Al-Waleed was overwhelmed by the way Islam was taking hold.
It is reported that he said, "It has become absolutely clear to any person with the least intelligence that Muhammad is neither a poet possessed nor a magician inspired. His words are truly the words of God, of the Lord of the Universe. It follows then that every man with common sense ought to follow him."
Just what led his heart to Islam is known to Allah alone, as is the case with everyone who accepts Islam. Had he wrestled with the idea for a long time? Did he see that there was no further hope for the armies which opposed Islam, so it was better to be on the winning side? Was it something that he heard or saw that touched his heart? We can never know the answers.
His friends and associates certainly believed him to have gone mad. How could someone who had fought so fiercely against the Muslims now go over to their side? One of them, Ikrimah Ibn Abu Jahl, told him that he had been brainwashed. “Neither brainwashed, nor intoxicated, but simply Islamized,” he replied. Whatever led him to Islam, Khalid ibn Al-Waleed spent the rest of his life as its champion.
His destiny was to head the Muslim armies, but that destiny came about by what seemed like chance. In 629 C.E. the Muslims had sent an envoy to the Ghassanids, asking them to accept Islam. Contrary to all the rules of war, this diplomatic envoy was murdered, so the Prophet Muhammad sent an army against them.
The Prophet appointed three commanders who should lead the army one after another. He appointed Zayd Ibn Harithah as a commander. If Zayd was to die in battle, Jafar Ibn Abi Talib would replace him. If he, too, was slain in battle, Abdallah Ibn Rawahah would take command.
If all three were killed, then the soldiers would choose their own commander. This is what happened. One by one, the chosen commanders fell, and left without a leader the soldiers chose Khalid ibn Al-Waleed as their commander.
He went on to lead them to victory in what is known as the battle of Mu'tah, breaking nine of his swords during the battle. It was after this that the Prophet Muhammad named him "The Sword of Allah."
Undefeated in over one hundred battles, Khalid's greatest achievements was the swift conquest of the Persian Empire and the conquest of Roman Syria, all within three years. He also decisively defeated the Byzantine army at the battle of Yarmouk.
How strange, then, that when Umar ibn Al-Khattab acceded to the Caliphate in 634 C.E, one of his first actions was to dismiss Khaled as the commander of the army. He did so with these words, "You have done; And no man has done as you have done. But it is not people who do; It is Allah who does..."
In other words, Umar ibn Al-Khattab wanted everyone to know that all victory and all success comes from Allah. He very wisely saw that people might begin to think it was Khaled who was responsible for the victories.
It seems that, despite this, there remained no personal animosity between the two men. Khalid remained faithful and lived out his days as a Muslim, struggling to overcome his own faults and failings and striving to be worthy of paradise.
Having lived so much of his life on the battlefield, he died in his own bed saying
I fought in so many battles seeking martyrdom that there is no place in my body but have a stabbing mark by a spear, a sword or a dagger, and yet here I am, dying on my bed like an old camel dies. May the eyes of the cowards never sleep.
Khalid ibn Al-Waleed now lies buried in his mosque at Homs in Syria. He remains one of the greatest figures in the history of Islam. He shows us that Islam, too, has its heroes, and that Arabs and Muslims have not always been oppressed by foreign armies, as so many are today.
In living out his final days, quietly and in peace, and in dying not on the battlefield but in his bed, he teaches us that we all need to struggle in that greater jihad for the sake of Islam.
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