Lesser and Greater Jihad: Difference between revisions

{{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=3|Content=4|Language=3|References=4}}Within the Islamic tradition, the word "jihad" or "struggle" has two specialized meanings: either a personal struggle of self-improvement and following the law of Allah, or as a military struggle or holy war to expand the domain of Islamic political control or to defend Islamic territories and believers from infidel aggressors. The former definition, though designated as the "greater jihad", in fact stems from the latter definition, which is the earlier, more primordial meaning of the word in Islamic religious literature. In fact, this "lesser jihad" seems to have been a fundamental aspect of religious devotion from the earliest times of the [[Believers' movement|believers' movement]], and the earliest material in the Islamic canon refers solely to this aspect of jihad. The former definition was highly influenced by Christian polemic against Islam, which cast it as a "religion of the sword" against the foible of Christianity as preached by Jesus as a religion of "turning the other cheek" to aggressors.