The translation of jihad verses after the emergence of ISIS: Distortion or reality

Abstract

The mistranslation, misinterpretation and misquotation of Quranic verses, particularly jihad verses by radicalists reflect an extreme misunderstanding of Islam for being an abusive and violent religion. Thus, this study examines three groups of books, reflecting the attitude towards Islam, jihad, Quran, and radicalist groups. Group one represents western authored books published in 2014 and after (the emergence of ISIS period); group two, presenting Arab and Muslim-authored books; and finally, group three includes books for Western authors which were published before 2014. Three groups scrutinize jihad and war related verses, the conception of jihad, some names of Islamist figures, and stereotypes of Islam. Jihad verses and their interpretations and translations were extracted from those books and compared to their true tafsir and reasons of revelations according to Ibn Katheer tafsir. The results revealed that interpreting and translating Quranic verses out of their context by radical groups especially ISIS to justify their awful deeds has participated largely in increasing the hostility of western authors and western media towards Islam and Muslims and raised Islamophobia internationally.