The demystification of jihad and islamic capitalism

Abstract

This paper focuses on the value of ‘jihad’, which has constantly been misappropriated, misunderstood and lopsidedly defined as ‘holy war’ by the Western scholarship, as an impulse to the economic advancement of Muslims in South Asia and Southeast Asia where they are economically backward in comparison with other communities. Unlike Christianity, Islam is traditionally viewed as a religion which does not propagate progress and restricts capitalistic development. As such, Islam is characterized as a religion which propagates fatalism and thus has constantly been used as a tool by the West to reaffirm the backwardness of Muslim nations. In this paper, I debunk such a view and assert that Islam not only does it contain a value which propagates capitalism, but at the same time a value that, if understood and internalized, would create a change within Muslims in not only a better understanding of their religion but at the same time truly be a blessing (rahmah) to all mankind. This paper has also dealt with ‘jihad’ not only as an economic value that Islam inherits in parallel to Weber’s thesis about Protestantism, but also as the value of advancement in different levels of intellect, religious practice, politics and leadership.