pls fellow muslims. even if i am not a muslim i find the q'uran to be interesting, but i am confused about the concept of jihad, and the dispirarity among muslim scholars wether or not it should be a pillar of islam

Jihad is not a pillar of Islam.

There are so many posts on this topic on Nairaland. Here is one of them https://www.nairaland.com/776347/come-see-jihad-what-it

@dr genius

I think it is better to hear from Islamic scholars.

Let us hear Sayyid Qutb, In the Shad of the Qur'an, vol. 4, pp. 404-405

" Fight against those who-despite having been given Scripture - do not truly believe in God and the Last Day, and do not treat as forbidden that which God and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, till they pay the submission tax with a willing hand, after they have been humbled. (Verse 29)

This verse and the ones that follow were meant to prepare the Muslims for their expedition to Tabuk and the confrontation with the Byzantines and their puppet regime of Christian Arabs, known as the Ghassanld. This suggests that the descriptions we have here were true of the people on the other side of the confrontation. They simply show the reality of those people. These descriptions are not mentioned here as conditions for fighting the people of earlier revelations, but as qualities inherent in their distorted beliefs and the actual reality of those people. Hence they provide the justification for fighting them. The ruling also applies to all those who share the same beliefs and characteristic"

Let us read an excerpt from Ruhollah Khomeini's speech delivered at Feyziyeh Theological School in August 24, 1979.

The great prophet of Islam in one hand carried the Koran and in the other a sword; the sword for crushing the traitors and the Koran for guidance. For those who could be guided, the Koran was their means of guidance, while as for those who could be guided and were plotters, the sword descended on their heads. ... Islam is a religion of blood for the infidels but a religion of guidance for other people.

We have sacrificed much blood and many martyrs. Islam has sacrificed blood and martyrs.

We do not fear giving martyrs. ... Whatever we give for Islam is not enough and is too little. Our lives are not worthy. Let those who wish us ill not imagine that our youths are afraid of death or of martyrdom. Martyrdom is a legacy which we have received from our prophets. Those should fear death who consider the aftermath of death to be obliteration. We, who consider the aftermath of death a life more sublime than this one, what fear have we? The traitors should be afraid. The servants of God have no fear. Our army, our gendarmerie, our police, our guards have no fear. Our guards who were [killed] ... have achieved eternal life. ...

These people who want freedom, who want our youths to be free, write effusively about the freedom of our youth. What freedom do they want? ... They want the gambling casinos to remain freely open, they want heroin addicts to be free, opium addicts to be free. They want the seas to be free everywhere for the youth [i.e. mixed bathing]


Time will not permit me to add more. You may decide for yourself whether Islam is the WAY.