Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions Quotes

“In the quranic usage, jihad does not appear to mean warfare, let alone “holy war” (El Fadl 2006). The word for a necessary (not “holy”) war is harb (or qitāl). In the entire Arabic literature for all the centuries of Islam’s presence, not a single credible reference to the term “holy war” can be found, which in Arabic would be “harb al-muqaddasah.” Such an expression is absent from the Qur’an as well as Muslim writings on the subject of war. In “Islamic theology war is never holy; it is either justified or not…” (El Fadl 2002, 19). Perhaps the first usage of this term “holy war” in any language may have been the one adopted by the crusaders in the middle ages.”
― Irfan A Omar, Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions

“Communities/individuals often compare the “best” in their own faith tradition with the “worst” in other’s religion.”
― Irfan A Omar, Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions