Muslim scholar offers insight about holy war

Taieb Belghazi, a professor at the University of Rabat in Morocco, spoke Monday about Jihad, just war and Western misconceptions in the first talk in the Gorter Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series sponsored by the Duke Islamic Studies Center.

In his talk, Belghazi compared Islam and Jihad, saying that the two "share no common denominator and cannot be translated from one into another."

Though Islam is religious, Jihad has become political in modern times, he said.

Belghazi criticized extremists' use of Jihad as a means of furthering their political goals.

He added that Jihad can be compared to American imperialism, saying that both acts are justified by moral arguments either of the fight against oppression or of freedom and democracy, respectively.

Belghazi compared the claim that Jihad is a holy, justified war to the way the United States deals with some conflicts in the Middle East.

"[The United States] baptized a number of its endeavors in the Middle East starting with enduring freedom... freedom operating as some kind of form of license, as a series of capabilities and powers which enable one to act without constraints."

He also touched on the continual antagonism between Western democracy and Eastern Islam, saying that the West sometimes misperceives Islam as irrational and undemocratic."Speculation on peace in the Middle East centers on an embarrassingly racist question-are Islam and democracy compatible?" Belghazi said.

"When a Westerner asks such a question he automatically assigns rationality to democracy and irrationality to Islam," he added.

Audience members said they attended the talk because they were interested in Islam and the Middle East.

"I would argue however, with some of the ways [Belghazi] equated Jihad to just war on the basis of taking the moral high ground, because of the way we see Jihad is actually manifested," sophomore Joel Ribnick said.