Muslim Activists Aim To Reclaim The Word 'Jihad' With Ad Campaign

A Muslim activist group has launched a new ad campaign to reclaim a word they say has been abused and distorted by Muslim extremists and by anti-Muslim groups.

The MyJihad ad campaign is using print ads and social media to educate the public about what they say is the true meaning of the word "jihad."

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the term as "1: a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; also: a personal struggle in devotion to Islam especially involving spiritual discipline" and "2: a crusade for a principle or belief."

But some religious activists dispute the emphasis on "holy war." They say the word is often misunderstood and has been co-opted and "misapplied" by radical Muslims who use it to justify terrorist acts and by anti-Muslim groups who use the word to foment fear in non-Muslims.

"The word 'jihad' literally means struggle, struggle for a good cause," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"It is a concept, a noble concept, within Islam that emphasizes a personal struggle within yourself to be a better person, a better husband, better wife, better worker, better neighbor," he explained. "It is not aggression, and it does not mean to commit harm against other people. If people commit harm against innocent people, it will be in violation of the spirit of Islam and a violation of the concept of jihad."

The campaign is the brainchild of Ahmed Rehab, an activist who is also the executive director of CAIR in Chicago. He launched the effort in December with a small group of activists.

They began running ads on 25 city buses in Chicago and later expanded to buses in San Francisco. The ads began running at four metro stations in Washington in late January. They depict Muslims and non-Muslims sharing how they define their personal struggles. One shows a white Jewish man and a black Muslim man standing side by side, with the slogan "#MyJihad is to build bridges across the aisle." Another shows a young female photographer wearing a headscarf and holding a camera. The slogan reads "#MyJihad is to capture the truth even when it's unpopular."

Rehab said the donor-funded campaign is about making sure Muslim children can grow up in a world where they're judged on their own merits and not according to radical stereotypes.

"I don't wake up in the morning looking for my Kalashnikov or AK-47," he said, highlighting one such stereotype.

The group has also taken its campaign to social media, asking supporters to post on their Facebook pages and use #MyJihad on Twitter to share their personal struggles. Rehab said they have received tens of thousands of encouraging tweets, Facebook messages, letters and e-mails.

Source: CNN