Jihad originally obliged peaceful mission, with war only as last resort

Evidence

Beyond the frontiers of Muslim power lies the House of War, lands not only inhabited but also—more important—ruled by non-Muslims. It is the moral and religious duty of Muslims to share their good fortune with the rest of the world, not selfishly to keep God’s final revelation for themselves, but to strive unceasingly to bring it to all humankind, if possible in peace, if necessary by war. This is one of the basic obligations of the Muslim faith. It is called jiha¯d, a word which literally means “striving,” and is usually translated “holy war.” — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 651

Categorization

• XREF: Central corrective to Western conflations of jihad with aggressive holy war; connects to Said-adjacent claims about how Islamic concepts were translated and distorted for Western audiences.
• DEFINE: Defines jihad’s literal meaning as striving and its primary peaceful framing.