When is it OK to wage “Jihad”?
Halfway through an innocuous article about an unusual Saudi programme to “rehabilitate“ jihadis, the Director of the Care Rehabilitation Center, Sheik Ahmed Hamid Jelan lets his guard slip.
The excerpt (from the TIME magazine article) needs no further commentary (emphasis in bold is mine).
“…Although the perimeter is guarded by police, the facility feels like a country club or college campus. Detainees (Young Saudis caught fighting American forces in Iraq) have lots of downtime and soda pop.
They spend their days in vocational training, psychological counseling and classroom lectures, most of which are given by religious scholars from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, including the center’s director, Sheik Ahmed Hamid Jelan.
He walks the detainees through religious texts on jihad–a theological minefield, considering that while the Saudi government forbids fighting in Iraq, it once recruited young Saudis like bin Laden to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
The basic difference, Jelan explains to his charges, is that fighting the Soviets served the interests of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world, while struggling against the U.S. in Iraq does not…”
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Does this mean that it is acceptable to wage “jihad” if it serves the interests of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world?
See also: SRK: “Jihad…a small little word”
Adjacent Posts:
Jihad in Islamabad and The Counterjihad Calendar for 2008
