A Terrorist is Not an “Islamist” or “Jihadist”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

We must be congnisant of the terms the media uses and not let them define our understanding of things.  A terrorist is not an “Islamist”.  Saying that they are “Islamist” would imply that their actions have some legitimacy in Islam.  It does not.  In the same vein, we do not call any of them “jihadist”, or even dignify them with the term, “mujahidin”.  A mujahid is someone striving in the Cause of Allah (s.w.t.); a mother struggling to feed her child, a person running a soup kitchen in winter, a man holding two jobs to feed his family - all that is jihad.  It is not glamorous but it is Rewarded in the Sight of Allah (s.w.t.). 

Those who wage harb, war, with no just cause, are known as “muharibin”.  There is nothing in Islam that declares one person has the right to kill another over doctrinal differences.  There is nothing in Islam that allows the murder of women, children, civilians, prisoners, the infirm or even to hurt the animals.  We must use our own terms and redefine the subtle implication it carries.