Ready, Set, Discuss: "Jihad"

‎"Everybody's at war with different things...I'm at war with my own heart sometimes." -Tupac Shakur

 

As a world religions teacher, I have lately been very interested in examining the concept of jihad from a comparative religions perspective. Jihad is a great subject for discussion, because it is a topic with many layers of meaning that is treated one-dimensionally in the news. 

 

While we examine the world of Arabia in which the Prophet lived, and the concept of jihad related to the struggle for the survival of the Muslim community against Meccan adversaries, we also examine the Prophet's teaching about the jihad within one's self, or personal jihad. I am especially interested in the Sufi Islamic understanding of jihad as a war against the "nafs," or ego, and one's own desires. 

 

 

Reading Jihad in Sufi Islam: Jihad Al-Nafs

 

"...the chatter of vain passions, ambition, envy, love of praise and compliments--all of them worldly bonds blinding the heart." - Hakeem Tirmidhi, Jihad al-Nafs

 

The film New Muslim Cool is the story of Hamza Perez, a Puerto-Rican Muslim rapper who lives in Pittsburgh, PA and strives to make a difference in his community through music, family and social work. In this film, Hamza discusses the concept of jihad as "struggle," making it universal to the human condition. Hamza's own struggles of trying to live a religious life (as a former gangster) according to the example of the Prophet Muhammad while dealing with setbacks such as FBI surveillance and obstacles to his prison ministry are especially poignant. This film is excellent for presenting the Sufi concept of jihad al-nafs and great for class discussion.

 

 

Reading "Jihad" in Buddhism

 

Sufiism's jihad al-nafs, the struggle against the ego, can be explored alongside the teaching of the Buddha that the essence of life is dukkha, or suffering/dissatisfaction. Buddha's major teaching, the Four Noble Truths, is that this suffering is caused by tanha, or desire for personal gratification. The Buddha's Eightfold Path teaches followers how to overcome this desire. The message is simple: the implementation, not so easy -- it requires diligent, daily practice.

 

Buddhism's notion of "emptiness" or anatta (no-soul) -- the idea that we have no ego or essence that sets us apart from the rest of the universe -- also has a counterpart in Sufi Islam -- the concept of "non-existence"; there is no way to separate oneself from Allah, the all-encompassing Love. The poet Rumi writes,

"Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.

These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:

Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof."

Reading "Jihad" in Hinduism

 

Lord Krishna's conversation with Arjuna on the battlefield is the setting for one of the most beloved Hindu texts, the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna the warrior is in crisis about whether to go into battle against his own family members. The message that Krishna, Lord of all worlds, gives to Arjuna, is to fight the battle, because it is his duty. The story is a metaphor for the struggle within the self to fulfill the laws of the universe, or dharma. Arjuna must rid himself of all desire in order to faithfully accomplish his duty, which means detaching himself from expecting any particular outcome.

 

"The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: The giving up of activities that are based on material desire is what great learned men call the renounced order of life. And giving up the results of all activities is what the wise call renunciation." -- Bhagavad Gita 18:2

 

Kirshna's counsel to Arjuna to relinquish attachment to outcomes in serving the Lord is echoed in the words of female Sufi mystic and poet Rabi'a al Basri (8th century CE): 

 

"O my Lord,

if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.

If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.

But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face."

 

Reading "Jihad" in Christianity 

Like the Buddha, who struggles with the demon Mara while seeking enlightenment under the bodhi tree, Jesus struggles with being tempted by the Evil force in the wilderness, Satan, while preparing for his ministry. Also like the Buddha, Jesus emerges victorious: 

^1"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, ²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

 ³The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."

 ⁴Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'

 ⁵The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷So if you worship me, it will all be yours."

 ⁸Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" 

Jesus's temptation is very similar to Buddha's time under the bodhi tree in that it demonstrates an almost supernatural power on Jesus's part to resist desire for self-fulfillment -- comfort, food, wealth, and fame. In this way, the story's message is similar to Lord Krishna's message to Arjuna and the Prophet Muhammad's teachings to his followers: serve the Lord, and do not attach yourself to outcomes.

Summary

I hope that you will take away from this post that "jihad," while a polarizing term used to "other" Muslims in the media, is a multi-faceted term. One dimension rarely discussed is the esoteric dimension -- the inner daily struggle to free oneself from the entrapment of the ego, suffering, and desire. This inner struggle is a near universal concept in major religious traditions, and depicted in the sacred histories of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. There are still more examples from these and other religious traditions that I didn't include in this blog post. Enjoy the search. Peace! 

 

Being Nobody

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us--you know!"
-Emily Dickinson

If you want all kids to feel comfortable expressing their views, it's important to check your ego at the classroom door. I haven't always been able to do this -- but when I start a course, I try to set a tone early that I can laugh at myself and that I enjoy genuine humor as part of learning. I usually try to break the ice by telling some stories that allow them to laugh along with me. From then on, if a day goes by where we don't laugh together, then I feel as though it didn't go as well as it could have.

I'll never forget my first year of teaching at my current school when a student known for her quietness in class wrote in her evaluation of me, "Thanks for not being scary." Kids are deeply involved in the project of figuring out identity, which as we all know, can be very stressful at times -- it is good to model the ability to not take yourself so seriously to relieve some of the pressure they feel all the time. They need us to be the adults -- and part of being an adult is not feeling like you have to prove something.

Resources for How to Start Discussions

University of Michigan's Center for Research on Teaching and Learning: "Teaching Strategies: Discussion-based Teaching and Handling Controversial Discussions in the Classroom"

Why Discussion

I have benefitted from both participating and substitute-teaching in Jewish religious settings where lively discussion is the central focus of instruction. Students are encouraged to vigorously ask questions of texts and teachers, and not feel afraid to voice disagreement, skepticism, confusion, or hearty agreement. In such an active learning environment, God Himself is not immune to tough questioning. Taking great inspiration from these experiences, as well as Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, I bring a discussion-based approach to my secular teaching.

I believe that a discussion focus has created measurable positive results in my world religions course at a public secondary high school. Teaching about religion requires teaching a number of concepts usually unknown to students and these must be discussed, often extensively, in order for students to fully comprehend them.

Lectures, while important at times, do not allow us to see into the minds of students as discussion does. Listening to the sound of our voices, as teachers, may be comforting to us -- but we should consider how by doing this, we rob ourselves of opportunities to view learning from the students' perspectives. How do I truly know if a student understands a concept if we have not had a discussion? How do I know if I am looking at a concept in all of its complexity if I have only been listening to myself talk?

With this blog, I aim to share how I go about establishing a discussion-based classroom, in my World Religions, Latin American and African studies courses.

In rabbinic lore, God loses a debate with His children who are hard at study. Rather than getting angry or feeling useless, he laughs -- and as I picture it -- until the tears well up in His eyes. Sometimes the best teaching means knowing when to get out of the way. If God can do it, so can we. :-)