Analysis of David Cook’s Viewpoint Concerning the Concept of Jihad in the Qur’an

Presently, the political issues and the tensions created in the world such as the terrorist movements of Al-Qaeda and Taliban and terrorist groups and Daesh (ISIS) have caused Islamophobia and the formation of the doctrine of Jihad to be perceived as being violent. This has in turn prepared the ground for and necessitated studying Jihad and has added to the volume of the research, writings and discourses in this field. The American and European researchers, whose academic approach has in recent decades become dominantly academic, have carried out serious investigations that are strongly required to be analyzed and reviewed. David Cook, an American Islamic researcher whose major works are on Jihad, martyrdom, and the end-of-time discourses, is known to be one the authorities in this regard. In the present paper, it is attempted with a descriptive-analytical method and by means of a critical approach to explore David Cook’s viewpoint. Cook conceives the success and expansion of Islam as indebted to “jihad” and maintains that the Qur’an by expressing the overall principles of war on one hand and the traditions by spiritualizing the concept of jihad and mentioning the details on the other, create the violent doctrine of jihad. The pivotal point of his perspective is that despite the various and complicated development of jihad in interpretation and practice, the concept violence and war are inseparable from the concept of jihad. The present research indicates that Cook’s invocation to the abrogation of the verses of peace and forgiveness is not acceptable. Similarly, his cognition about the nature of jihad is more mingled with a historical outlook and from his point of view; jihad has an aggressive nature and means a war possessing a spiritual value.