Wordplay- the weapon of the media!

Salaam(peace)

I am a recent female revert to Islam, who feels that Islam is being made out to be a backward and barbaric religion, full of fundamentalists and terrorrists who hate anyone who is not a Muslim.

For purposes of clarification I would like to provide explanations of some frequently missdunderstood words we hear often in the media.

The incorrect usage of these words and the lack of knowledge of where these words come from is begining to worry me.

Taliban

Everybody has heard of this word and it instills great fear into alot of people, what worries me is that most people do not know the origins of these people, or their name, so I will give you a little background.

It all began in 1979 when the United States were on the SAME SIDE as the Islamist Mujahideen resistance in Afghanistan(believe it or not) The U.S army was sent on a mission to recruit more soldiers to fight and they chose to recruit them from the Madrassas( Islamic schools attached to the Mosques traditionally used to teach children about Islam, but also used as a home for the orphaned children of that area) Hence the name Taliban.

This word comes from the Pashto word which is "taliban" dirived from "talib" meaning "student" In Arabic "talib" is a dirivative of "talaba" meaning "to seek"

It is plain to see why they were called Taliban as they were students and seekers of knowledge. The fact that the U.S amoung others used orphaned children in their fight you can draw your own conclusions as to why they did that.

Another word we hear all to frequantly is Jihad,

Jihad

This word in the western media is used to discribe Muslim terrorists who plant bombs, it is claimed they do this as part of some vendetta they have against non-muslims.

The actual meaning of the word comes from the Arabic word "Jihad" which is derived from the word "Jahada" which means "to strive"

The word "Jihad" has three meanings,

The first of the three being, The individual striving for spiritual self-perfection                                  

A crusade or a struggle

A holy war or a spiritual struggle

At this point I would like to highlight that their are many things which come under the heading of Jihad, for example, me talking to my father who is a non-muslim on areas of Islam is a form of Jihad, and to go even further, the Christians that come door to door in many countries and speak of the Gosple and Jesus christ(pbuh) that is their Jihad. 

And finally the word Mujahideen,

Mujahideen,

This word is used in the media to mean a member of a fundamentalist group, it has also be used to mean Muslim guerrillas engaged in a Jihad. Decide for yourselves,

"Mujahideen", a word derived from "Mujahid" which has been described as meaning "one who fights" but interestingly as the word "Mujahid" is an active participle of the word "Jahada" which as I mentioned earlier means "to strive" then the word "Mujahid" must mean "one who strives"

As a point I would urge everyone before they believe everything they hear in the media to actually conduct some research into all areas of the situation.

I hope this has ironed out any misconceptions that surround the usage of these words, feel free to leave comments or questions I am very happy to answer.

Asalaam al aykum (peace be unto you)