Quora Answer: Do Muslims Believe Since All Humans are Children of Allah (s.w.t.), There is No Need for Jihad?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Do Muslims believe that all humans are children of Allah (s.w.t.), so there is no need for jihad?” 

This question does not make sense.  “Jihad”, striving, refers to the struggle and perseverance in the path of Islam.  There are several categories of jihad, but the primary struggle is against the lower self, the base desires.  Since it is an internal striving, it is irrelevant what other people are. 

Since God is the Creator, then every person was Created by God.  There is no such thing as a person or anything in Creation that is created by other than God.  It implies a distinct divine, and precludes God from Being Unique, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. 

These two concepts are not related since belief one does not preclude belief in the other.  If you are referring to jihad as-sayf, colloquially translated as “striving by the sword”, it means to take direct action to address oppression.  There is no distinction regarding the identity of the oppressor, whether a person, or a concept, Muslim, or non-Muslim.  A wrong is a wrong.  It does not necessarily mean war, since “war” is “harb”, in Arabic, a distinct concept.  The fight for civil rights, for social justice, for universal suffrage, and even climate change; these may all be argued as examples of jihad as-sayf.