The concept jihad could be rendered to mean effort from the original Arabic jahhada (to struggle or to resist), or ijtahada (to work one's mind, or to reason), or still the expression ajhada nafssahu (to exhaust one's self). Jihad then could mean mental effort or reasoning (ijtahada), or military efforts in the sense of struggle (jahhada). Both the mental and the military renderings of the term correspond to the bifurcation of the "greater jihad", and the "lesser jihad". The former is preserved for the mental efforts; the inward-seeking, or the mandatory efforts of each Muslim to become a better human being. The latter, or the military struggle, is the lesser jihad. In the military sense, there is another bifurcation; i.e., "offensive jihad" which is an obligation on the Muslim community as a whole (in Arabic fardu kifayah), and "defensive jihad" which is an obligation on every capable male adult (fardu eiyn). Why is this difference?

In his attempt to define jihad Bernard Lewis chose to give it an abstract, over-general and inclusive meaning. He was at pain to stress the all and encompassing military and aggressive connotation of the term. (Lewis, The Political language of Islam; 1988, pp.26-7) This is disputed by the differentiation between the two types of military jihad, let alone that there is a non-military jihad. The offensive jihad is fardu kifayah because it is basically a political option for the state to make depending on its political interests and political calculations. The defensive jihad, on the other hand, is a moral issue as much as it is a political one, and for that reason it is mandatory on every capable male adult, or fardu eiyn. The defensive jihad is to defend the identity, the interests and the faith of the community in the face of aggression, whereas the offensive jihad is merely a mechanism in the service of the interest of the state per se. The latter fits quite well with the period of early Islam. At that the time the world system, or the ancient world, was dominated by the concept of empires and not by that of a nation-state as is the case in the modern world. The ambition of a state or an empire's to expand its geographical boundaries was not subject to the checks and balances of international institutions and international law as we know them today. Practically, the whole globe was there for grab by the most powerful. Hence, the ability of a state to satisfy its geographical ambition was mainly a function of a state's economic and military capabilities.

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