Can “jihad” survive Pam Geller?
It's an uphill fight, but Muslim activists are trying to reclaim a holy word that's become synonymous with terror
BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD
So you want to rebrand a word. Its hard to think of a more difficult rebranding project than jihad.
Since Sept. 11, the term has become synonymous with terrorism and villainy but now a group of Muslims is trying to reclaim the word from the extremists, and redefine jihad to mean something normal and peaceful and good. They realize this wont be easy.
The campaign hinges on the idea that jihad has two commonly accepted usages. One is the violent, physical struggle most of us are familiar with. The other, which many Muslims and Islamic scholars consider the more correct definition, refers to the inner struggle to do good and follow Gods teaching; Muslims strive to attain this every day. This is the proper meaning being promoted by My Jihad, a public education campaign recently launched on billboards and on buses in Chicago.
The campaign is about reclaiming Islam, and not just jihad, from both Muslim and non-Muslim extremists, said Ahmed Rehab, the leader of the effort, in an interview. Whether its the bin Ladens and the al-Qaidas of the Muslim world, or the Pam Gellers and Frank Gaffneys of the non-Muslim world, ironically even though they come from the two opposite ends of the spectrum they agree exactly on the same definition of jihad and on the same worldview of Islam versus the rest of the world.
-snip-
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/can_jihad_be_rebranded/