to go on campaign has died while bearing a branch of hypocrisy.

Jihad is the verbal noun of jāhada, which linguistically means to expend one’s utmost effort in fighting an enemy. In the legal sense it denotes fighting the unbelievers, though the term is also used more broadly than armed combat alone.

The scholar Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH) said: “The overall category of jihad is an individual obligation: it may be with the heart, the tongue, one’s wealth, or one’s hand. Therefore every Muslim must take part in jihad by means of at least one of these forms.”

The word jihad is likewise applied to striving against the lower self, against Satan, and against the openly sinful:
• Striving against the lower self is by learning the matters of religion, then acting upon them, and thereafter teaching them to others.
• Striving against Satan is by repelling the doubts he casts and the desires he beautifies.
• Striving against the disbelievers is carried out with the hand, wealth, tongue, and heart.
• Striving against the defiantly sinful is with the hand, then the tongue, and then the heart, in line with one’s ability and the graded levels of forbidding wrong.

Jihad is a collective duty; once a sufficient number undertake it, the obligation is lifted from the rest, for whom it becomes a recommended act. It is the noblest of voluntary deeds, and its merit is immense. The Qur’an and the Sunnah abound with texts that command it and encourage it, such as His words, Exalted is He: