Holy War is a kind of conflict fought mainly for religious purposes and beliefs. This kind of war is mainly motivated by religious doctrines, precepts, and texts. The holy war also includes fighting against religious persons, institutions, or even objects especially when the war’s main motive is religious aspects. Examples of wars fought over religious purposes and beliefs in the past include The Crusades where Jews, Muslims, and Christians battled over Holy Land (Jerusalem).
Other examples include conflicts between Israeli and Palestinian, Catholic sex abuse humiliation, 9-11 attacks, and Heaven’s Gate (Selengut 128). Today, there are still extreme groups of people who cause violence with a perspective of fighting a religious/ holy war. Many people have been left wondering how much religion this war is because it entails the destruction and loss of innocent lives.
Those people who cause these attacks normally consider themselves as holy and faithful to Allah making it to comprehend what drives them in a war that results in loss of lives. This paper addresses reasons why some religions engage in war and violence and how they do justify this action by presenting specific data from the book Sacred Fury by Charles Selengut. The study of different religions about the Holy War is also discussed in the paper.
Muslims insist that the reason why they conduct the Holy War is mainly for defense not for offensive reasons. They believe that ranging war against non-Muslims is like a raging war against evil in all forms and ways. Muslims do not see this form of action as brutality instead they believe that it is fighting according to the ways of Allah. Some religions cause war or violence to promote their religious ambitions. Muslims also launch a holy war to defend their religion and also to build their society. Jihad or Holy War is a way of earning temporal and spiritual victory which is more valuable than life itself. Holy Wars are always supported and endorsed by religious leaders.
It is not only Muslims who fight Holy Wars but also Christians, Hindus, and Jewish among other religious groups in the world. This means that these religions commit crimes in the name of fulfilling religious demands. Christians are unlike Muslims because they find it hard to use force as a way of justifying religion. Muslims will easily use any form of violence without thinking twice to promote and protect their religion. According to the Christian faith, they should love their neighbors and enemies as they love themselves and they should strive as hard as they can to have peace with everyone (Selengut 27).
This is why Christians still struggle with when to use force to justify religion. However, there are cases in the bible whereby adulterous people and thieves were stoned to death for sin. The case for Muslims is exceptional because to them they believe in Jihad and this is evident in the number of violence that they had carried out in the past and even today. Muslims will launch a war against those whom they perceive enemies of their Religion-Islam.
In the past, they had launched was against women which were supported by tenets. Islam religion also justifies and motivates terrorism making the situation even worse especially because of the huge number of believers. Judaism is also a violent religion just like Islam (Selengut 108). Judaism believes that their God is violent and thus they try to justify their violent action through this quote.
In conclusion, the Holy War is a kind of conflict fought mainly for religious purposes and beliefs. Every religion has got their reasons for conduction Holy Wars even though it entails destruction and loss of lives. In Muslim society, Jihad is promoted by Islam leaders themselves. Today, there are still extreme groups of people who cause violence with a perspective of fighting a religious/ holy war.
Work Cited
Selengut, Charles. Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence 2nd Edition. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008. Print.