An Analysis of the Theme of Jihad in Ayatollah Khamenei’s View

Many people believe that jihad is a fight on the path of God to defend the religion and combat injustice. A closer look, however, provides us with a range of interpretations of this major religious doctrine, which as individual and social dimensions. Jihad seems to have more serious social and non-military capacities. The present research aims to explicate the notion of jihad in Ayatollah Khamenei’s view. Data from his speeches from 1989 to 2021 have been selected and then analyzed with a qualitative approach, using the method of network of themes. The analysis of the network theme consists of three stages: extraction of basic themes, organizing themes, and global themes, and it finally analyzes the global themes as final results. Five global themes have been identified for jihad in Ayatollah Khamenei’s view, which shows that jihad is a fundamental doctrine and a divine obligation that plays a key role in all dimensions of the human life. Jihad is closely tied to notions such as construction of oneself and construction of others, social responsibility, enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong, fighting against all obstacles and enemies, and attempt to achieve a thriving, justice-based society. In Ayatollah Khamenei’ view, a society without jihad is an idle indifferent society that always lags behind and remains defeated. In his view, the secret to victory against the unjust rulers of the world is to give pride of place to jihad in all aspects of life.