| a. | Jihad of the nafs (desire) |
| The desire more inclines towards influencing us to do evils (mungkar and ma'siah). Thus, the desire |
| must be controlled. How to control it? The Prophet SAW said, through jihad. In fact, according to the |
| Prophet SAW, jihad to fight the desire is considered as the biggest jihad compared to jihad by using |
| arms in a war against the enemy of Islam. In a hadith, after coming back from the Battle of Badr, |
| Rasulullah SAW was reported to say: "We come back from a small jihad and will face a bigger jihad. |
| His companions (friends) asked: "Is there a bigger jihad than this (the Battle of Badr), |
| Ya Rasulullah?". Rasulullah SAW said: "Yes, it is the jihad against the nafs". |
| b. | Jihad of the Heart |
| Can you explain jihad through the heart? How can you do jihad through your heart? Sometimes, our |
| heart desires for something bad but with strong iman, we can still prevent ourselves from doing it. For |
| example, when we switch on television, there two programs running; one a religious program and |
| another one is program on music on different channels. Which one will you choose? Here, the... |
| ...jihad of the heart is needed. Without jihad, we will choose the program on music. Another example is |
| to advise a group of men gambling. In our heart, we want to stop them from gambling buy we are afraid |
| that the men might bit us. Thus, we are not able to tell them by tongue but depth in our heart, we hate |
| the behavior of the men as it is forbidden by Islam. In this case, we have done jihad of the heart but it |
| shows the lowest level (weakest) of iman. This based on a hadith narrated by Abu said al-Khudri: |
"Whosoever amongst you who have seen evil deeds, should change it using your own hands, if you |
are unable to do so, correct it using the tongue (verbally), and if you still cannot do that, then change |
it with your heart. That indeed is the weakest of faith" |
| c. | Jihad of the Tongue |
| Jihad of the tongue is higher than of the heart based on the hadith above. If you try to explain |
| something that is good or calling people to do ma'ruf things or verbally forbids other people from doing |
| mungkar or ma'siah to Allah SWT or you preach Islam to non-Muslims, all those actions are jihad of |
| the tongue. Doing those actions is not an easy tasks and many obstacles because the people might |
| not like or hate what you are saying. To do such actions, we need strong iman as our strength. Is it |
| right? |
| d. | Jihad of Knowledge |
| There is also jihad of knowledge in terms of seeking knowledge, practicing the knowledge and |
| delivering the knowledge. Without jihad, no one will be having a steadfast heart to seek knowledge, |
| then to practice it and to deliver it to others. The effort of Imam al-Syafei' to travel from his place to Iraq |
| that takes more than one month by riding a camel just to look for authentic hadith was due to the spirit |
| of jihad that he had without which he would not do that. How many ulama' out there who have |
| knowledge about the authentic hadith and know that there are some practices of Muslim society |
| contradicting the authentic hadith are able to tell the people that those practices are not in line with |
| Islam? Thus, the spirit of jihad is highly needed to enable us performing those three elements of jihad |
| of knowledge. |
| e. | Jihad of the Wealth |
| This type of jihad refers to our willingness or voluntary action to spend our wealth for religion, either for |
| our benefits or others. How many people out there are very stingy to give financial sadaqah? The |
| worse of Muslims are those who refuse to pay obligatory almsgiving (zakah) imposed by Islam. Have |
| you spent half of your wealth for Islam? For example, you spend of your wealth to support Muslims |
| missionaries to preach Islam to non-Muslims. Can you do that? Can you do the same as... |
| ...Sayyidina Umar al-Khattab who contributed half of his wealth for the Battle of Tabuk? Or can you do |
| as Sayyidina Abu Bakr who spent all his wealth for the battle? It is not an easy task right? To take |
| some of our wealth or fortune to defend Islam or to help others is not easy. It can be done through jihad. |
| Thus, once again, our ability to do this type of jihad also depends on our level of iman. |
| f. | Jihad of the Body (energy) |
| This jihad refers to the use of our body or energy to perform Allah's Wills or Islamic teachings. There |
| are many examples of this jihad. Performing the five daily prayers, fasting, zakah al-fitrah, pilgrimage |
| (hajj), use our hands to stop ma'siah and so on are among the examples of this type of jihad. |
| Performing the hajj for example, is not easy because one has to leave his family and need to spend |
| might be half of his wealth to go Makkah. Try look back to the past how difficult Muslims to go Makkah |
| at the time there was airplane yet invented. When ship was invented, Muslims from Malaysia had to |
| spend almost four months sailing on the sea just to perform the hajj. There was a Muslim Russian in |
| 2008, age more than 60 years old, rode his bicycle from Russia to Makkah which took him more than |
| five months just to perform hajj. Do you think all these can be done without jihad? Off course, it needs |
| jihad. Another example of this jihad is fighting in war using weapons to defend Islam. This fighting, off |
| course, requires energy and the use of our body. |
| g. | Jihad of the Life |
| This jihad is applicable in certain circumstances. For example, at the time there is threat from enemies |
| of Islam to destroy a holy place of Islam such as Ka'bah, scarifying our life is needed because the |
| Ka'bah is the symbol of sanctity of Islam. Another example, there is threat by the enemies to destroy an |
| Islamic country, all citizens must sacrifice themselves to defend the country. This type of jihad had been |
| demonstrated by the first generation of Muslims in the past, in the history of Prophet Muhammad SAW. |