[librasoul22]

Originally posted by Shani26
The word Islam...literally means peace as well as submission and obedience. If you look at in terms of its religious connotations then yes it is pertaining to the submission of oneself to Allah...however PEACE is a apart of the definition of Islam...just to throw that in there. Yes the word Jihad does mean "to strive" or "struggle" however, this is not necessarily pertaining to violence...By me reading the Quran everyday I'm in the act of jihad...by me praying five times of day I'm performing jihad...etc..Basically the act of striving for a higher moral standard/level is Jihad...therefore to say that Jihad literally means holy war is taking it to a whole other level...sure it's possible and in the case of 9/11 the terrorists thought they were achieving this higher moral level...HOWEVER they were wrong...they were not perfoming jihad.
I'm lost ...where in the Quran, I'm assuming that's what you mean by promulgation, does it promote violence? Certainly not in the word Jihad. And when in Islam's "inception" did violence become promoted? What do you mean by the maintenance of Islam is promoting violence...These terrorists are not BY FAR representational of all Muslims...therefore do not represent the "maintenance" or upkeeping of Islam. I think if you dig a little deeper into the history of Islam you will find that it has rarely used violence in its maintenance. Finally, there is NO PROBLEM "problem with ISLAM"...it definately does not justify unjustifiable violence...Once again the PROBLEM does not lie within ISLAM but with the INDIVIDUALS...the terrorists.

GREAT POST!!