Who let Tut out of the Oubliette??
The way I have come to understand it is that, yes, Jihad is a requirement for Muslims,
when called for by some sort of "authentic" leader. The different Muslim sects don't agree on who would be this "authentic" persona, but some Muslims, the most extremists among them, call for Jihad at the behest of their own egotistic quest for domination over all people. It's kind of the difference between a military draft being issued as mandatory (like in the U.S. during the Vietnam war) versus small, armed militias that exist in various parts of the U.S. Since Muslims as a whole do not have an "authentic" leader they can agree on, a worldwide Jihad is only a possibility if such a leader was to show up and ALL muslims were undoubtedly convinced of this leader's authenticity. That would be hard considering the racial, ethnic, cultural and sectarian divisions that run DEEP within all Muslim communities.
In essence, as BerberElla so eloquently said: "unless all muslim nations are attacked by non muslims in what is an unmistakable attack on muslims, which would give every muslim, no matter what school of thought, justification for finally accepting that warfare is ordained for them, a global jihad just isn't likely to happen."
Nothing unites Muslims more than being ostracised, invaded, occupied, unjustly imprisoned, discriminated against, harassed, tortured, bombed-on and killed. If anything, the policies of Bush/Cheney and Co. have done more to unify Muslim ideology than to break it up.
Yes the Quran and the Hadiths have awful, ridiculous portions. Just like the Bible, and most of the rest of the world's spiritual books written more than a couple of decades ago. That's because the world changes and these texts don't. It is up to the people, Muslims and otherwise, of TODAY to RE-INTERPRET and RE-FORM their institutions of faith. If we really want peace, then we should be working towards inspiring Muslims (and everyone else) to become better, not just whacking them over and over and expecting them to just change. It takes time... it takes generations. But it has to start somewhere. Change happens... whether you and I get used to it or not.
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