Character Help: name for female powerd-armor Muslim heroine

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Character Help: name for female powerd-armor Muslim heroine

 

The Sufi's also believe that the most important Jihad is the inner Jihad (jihad means struggle, not holy war).

I found this entire post to be quite informative, except for this one line. I must assume that you are either muslim yourself or have studied a bit. But this statement that jihad does not mean holy war is just straight up false. While it is true that the Measure I, II, III, and IV verb forms (AWZAN Fa'ala, Fa''ala,FA'ala, and AF'ala ) do mean "he endeavored, strove, labored, took pains, etc...". Measure VIII (WaZN AFt'ala) means "He put out, worked hard, (Isl. Law) formulated an independent judgment in a legal or theological question". However, the noun JihaD means "fight, battle, holy war (against the infidels, as a religious duty)".

 

So while yes, jihad does mean struggle, it also quite clearly means holy war.

 

TB

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Character Help: name for female powerd-armor Muslim heroine

 

Anyways.

 

I spoke to one of my arabic professors (he is a native) and I asked him if he knew what, from an arab cultural context, a good name for an armored comic book hero of arab descent would be and he told me the first thing that came to his mind would be the pre-Islamic folk hero, Antarah bin Shidad and that his story was as follows:

 

Antarah was a slave, and as a slave he was not permitted to fight (if attacked his proper response would be to accept it and die). However, when he and his master were attacked, he fought so courageously and with so much valor to protect his master that he was granted his freedom by his master. He later fell in love with a girl and she with him. However, because he was a former slave he was not permitted to marry her. He then fought another great battle and again, do to his courage and heroism, he was granted freedoms that he didn't previously have and was permitted to marry her.

 

The other reason my Prof recomended him was because he also was famously known for his armored suit as well for his heroic exploits.

 

This story works quite well, depending on your characters motivation. You could have that do to her heroism as someone who isn't, culturally, supposed to fight but does, she could do to here actions gain women greater freedom, by showing that they are capable of great valor and courage.

 

Antarah (pronounced: An ta ra, all of the 'a's are pronounced as the 'a' in the sun god Ra)

 

Otherwise, he said arab children associate Sampson (Shimsham) and Heracles (I forgot the arab name, but it sounds very different than the greek. I can get it tomorrow if you want it) for any generic superhero type character, well, these and Superman (straight cognate, they say Superman, well, in arabic Suberman, just like they drink Bebsi Cola:D)

 

TB

[Dauntless]

Re: Character Help: name for female powerd-armor Muslim heroine

 

While I'm not muslim, my grandmother was. I'm actually Buddhist myself. My knowledge of Islam comes mostly from my own dabbling in the research of various religions. I firmly believe in the Japanese saying; "if you know only one religion, you know none". My mother who grew up in the Islamic region of the Phillipines (on the very island that unfortunately most of the Abu Sayyaf hide out on) has also told me about some Sunni muslim customs in the Phillipines.

 

As for the meaning of jihad, a word can have different meanings depending on how it is used. Look at the english word conflict. Correctly, America was involved in the Vietnam Conflict, not the Vietnam War (no war was ever declared). But was it a war? It sure was to all those poor guys that had to be in it. And conflict can also mean a battle on a personal level.

 

To see jihad simply as "war" is akin to seeing the word conflict only to mean war. So in the Koran, you have to look at the context of how it is being used to understand what the connotation is. It can indeed mean war, but as the quote pointed out, there is a greater and lesser Jihad. The lesser Jihad is war, the greater Jihad is personal struggle against naf(self).

 

Unfortunately in Islam, there are various levels of closeness to Allah. Those who wage the lesser Jihad (war) against oppressors are deemed to be close to God. But in Sufi thought (it was a Sufi who declared the hadith in the quote I gave), those closest to Allah are those who wage the greater Jihad, or the abandonment of naf in order to accept the love of Allah. As I read more about Sufism, it really reminds me a lot of the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of abandoning the self. It's because of this metaphysical and esoteric teachings that many muslims don't see Sufis as "real" muslims.

 

Here's another Hadith from another Sufi:

The Prophet came back from one of his campaigns saying: "You have come forth in the best way of coming forth: you have come from the smaller jihad to the geater jihad." They said: "And what is the greater jihad?" He replied: "The striving (mujahadat) of Allah's servants against their idle desires."

 

and also

Al-Junayd said: "Those who have striven against their desires and repented for our sake, we shall guide them to the ways of sincerity, and one cannot struggle against his enemy outwardly (i.e. with the sword) except he who struggles against these enemies inwardly. Then whoever is given victory over them will be victorious over his enemy. and whoever is defeated by them, his enemy defeats him

 

The assertation here is that one can not truly wage the lesser jihad (the external war) until one has waged the greater jihad (the internal struggle).

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Character Help: name for female powerd-armor Muslim heroine

 

I didn't disagree with you that jihad means struggle. I'm just tired of people who keep saying that it doesn't mean holy war, regardless of the context. Or always in the context that when it appears in the Quran that it does not mean holy war, only struggle. Which is not true.

 

I know that in the context in which you said it you were meaning a long drawn out struggle with oneself.

 

I, however, am cognisant that they're are many muslims in front of the media who are trying to whitewash the less savory aspects of there religion by saying that people "mistranslate" or "misunderstand" what things mean. I will not support this falsehood that they are spreading to the non-muslim world. When it is quite clear that a great many muslims, not just the lunatics like Osama bin Laden, who take the meaning of jihad when they use it to be a holy war waged directly against the infidel.

 

I would not have had a quibble with you if you had said

The Sufi's also believe that the most important Jihad is the inner Jihad (which in this case means struggle, not holy war).

TB