Outline of Informative speech on Jihad

1. Intro
a. Imagine its May 10th. Classes have just ended, Summer is just about to get
going, and the only between you and an entire break away from lectures,
coursework, and exams are finals. So you do what most students do, try to study
4 months of material within a week, sacrificing sleep, food, and whatever else
you usually do for a specific cause. You were just involved in Jihad.
b. Jihad, according to oxford dictionary, is a word derived from the arabic language
meaning effort
c. Today, I intend to inform you about Jihad. First, well examine the linguistically
meaning and secondly brief Contextually understanding within the religion of
Islam.
2. Body
a. Linguistics
i. This is the arabic alphabet, it consists of 28 letters. jihad comes from the
letters Jeem, Ha and Dal or more simply j h d
ii. Previously I mentioned jihad means effort, however it has a more specific
meaning. According to the muslim writer Abdel Haleem, in his contribution
to the Journal of Quranic studies of The University of London, it means
exerting effort in the face of an exertion by something or someone else
1. an example is finals week
a. you are exerting an effort to study in the face of
drowsiness, overloads of material, stress, and doing so by
the use of will power, books, technology and countless
cups of coffee.
iii. In Modern standard Arabic, the formal form of the present day language,
it refers to struggles or movements that are religious or secular, violent or
peaceful.
1. such as Mahatma Gandhis Satyagraha and his movements in
India and the fight for womens rights movements
iv. In the past few years, Many sources of media and individuals have
translated Jihad as holy war. this is a false notion
v. Holy war translated into arabic is Harb Al muqadissah
b. Contextually within islam
i. When the term Jihad is used in islam it is always in a reference or in
some link towards striving in the path of God.
ii. This understanding paves the way to a broad scope of understandings.
leading to numerous classifications by multiple scholars. one example is
Averroes, the polymath, philosopher, and muslim jurist of Spain during
the 12 century. Averroes, in his book Al-Muqaddimaah he distinguishes
jihad into 4 categories
1. Jihad of the heart (jihad bil qalb/nafs)
a. It refers to the personal spiritual struggle every muslim
faces against their desires, whims, false ideas, and
erroneous understandings.
2. Jihad by the tongue (jihad bil lisan)
a. is concerned with advocating the truth and spreading
knowledge and stopping falsehood with one's tongue.
3. Jihad by the hand (jihad bil yad)
a. Jihad of the hand deals with the struggle to build a
nation through material development and to advocate
progress within the spheres of society
4. Jihad by the sword (jihad bis saif)
a. refers to armed fighting in the way of God, which must
be justified by proving that an inevitable harm will befall
the state unless the only resort is to use weaponry.
3. Conclusion
a. To recap, Jihad does not mean Holy War rather it means to exert ones efforts.
when applied to Islam an entire scope of meanings arise, most of which dealing
with progression the scale of an individual, a society, or nation.
b. Lastly, There is a public education campaign, seeking to inform people of all
backgrounds about islam. It uses twitter, facebook, youtube, and advertisement
like this to shed light upon some concepts within islam. There motto is My jihad
is...
c. So What is your Jihad?