Jihad and Religious Tolerance

I have discovered a wonderful site, a website called Religious Tolerance, and I happed upon it by accident while looking for interpretations of and commentary on the book of Vayyiqra (Leviticus). It had an extremely thorough exposition of the section regarding homosexuality.

Then I saw its studies on Islam, and this remarkably open–minded explanation of Jihad. I have bookmarked the site now.

clipped from www.religioustolerance.org THE CONCEPT OF JIHAD ("STRUGGLE') IN ISLAM The conventional interpretation of "Jihad": Personal Jihad: Verbal Jihad: Physical Jihad: Other interpretations of "Jihad": It would be quite possible to assemble passages from the Bible which are profoundly immoral by today's religious and secular standards. If all one read of the Bible was a collection of such passages, one might conclude that the Bible is an evil document that promotes violence, unethical behavior. Similarly, it is possible to scan the Bible for passages which promote a loving, moral and ethical life. Which group of passages represent the real Bible? They both do! The Qur'an is similar. Some emphasize the earlier passages in the Qur'an which emphasize cooperation with the Jews and Christians -- the "People of the Book." They tend to interpret "Jihad" in terms of personal struggle towards purity. Others emphasize later passages of the Qur'an which were received during a time of conflict. They tend to interpret "Jihad" as holy war.