I`ll just quote my statements in another topic here, because it fits well better here:
just a matter of taste maybe, but i think the term "jihad of krynn" is weird. Maybe you americans are using the term colloquially for any form of fanatism, but actually it is a definite term for a part of human muslim culture. Putting it into a futuristic game for a nonexistent alien species creates a similar sensation like giving the Yor the "Christian Crusade" technology...
Wikipedia states:
"Jihad (Arabic: جهاد IPA: [ ʤi'haːd]), an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, Jihad means "strive" or "struggle". Jihad appears frequently in the Qur'an and common usage as the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of Allah (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)".[1][2] A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.
A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this Islamic duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.[3] In Twelver Shi'a Islam, however, Jihad is one of the 10 Practices of the Religion.
According to scholar John Esposito, Jihad requires Muslims to "struggle in the way of God" or "to struggle to improve one's self and/or society."[3][4] Jihad is directed against the devil's inducements, aspects of one's own self, or against a visible enemy.[1][5] The four major categories of jihad that are recognized are Jihad against one's own self (Jihad al-Nafs), Jihad of the tongue (Jihad al-lisan), Jihad of the hand (Jihad al-yad), and Jihad of the sword (Jihad as-sayf).[5] Islamic jurisprudence focuses on regulating the conditions and practice of Jihad as-sayf, the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and thus the term Jihad is usually used in fiqh manuals in reference to military combat.[6][5]The term "Jihad" used without any qualifiers is generally understood to be referring to war on behalf of Islam.[5] In broader usage and interpretation, the term has accrued both violent and non-violent meanings. It can imply striving to live a moral and virtuous life, spreading and defending Islam as well as fighting injustice and oppression, among other things.[7] The relative importance of these two forms of jihad is a matter of controversy."
As you see the term Jihad has a definite role in muslim religion and nowwhere else. In my humblest opinion you cannot just rape the religious vocabulary of one world religion and use it as a commonly slang word for "holy war", which may be the literal meaning in its native language, but does not keep track of the whole deepness of its meaning. By the way - i am christian and i would as well not appreciate everyone calling taking a sh*t by the word "genesis".
Imho this is just plain disrespectful towards muslims. As said, i am no muslim, but as a supporter for freedom of belief i think it is these small things that go unnoticed, that add together with more serious things in terms of cultural disrespect towards the tension between the nations. If you live as a peaceful muslim and get treated as an terrorist everywhere and this even crawls into the use of the language - would you not develop a sense of hostility as well - because your environment does seem to perceive you hostile as well? I do not know how deep you are actually into muslim history, actual politics and structure of the muslim culture, but its just way more complex than jihadist wanting to destroy christians...
Call me nitpicking but to me the use of the word jihad for a fanatic religious war in general represents a negative tendency towards muslim religion. The terroristic activities of muslim fundamentalists are destructive to the whole perception of the islam and moderate muslims get serious pressure. Most people do not understand the term jihad and do not know, muslim culture has different ways of interpreting it. Actually understanding the Jihad as destroying all other religions is only the interpretation of a few fanatics. The problem is, it historically originated in times of religious war, so the formulation in the Quran is very drastic and can be of course interpreted this way. The difference between fanatic fundamentalists and moderate muslims is, if they are able to accept its historic context and put it in a modern way of living their religion. Its the same with the bible - who still believes it is gods word and was given to us by him in this form as kind of ultimate law does quite the same thing and proves, he does not know anything about the historical context in this time. Just go to a theologian and ask him if he believes the bible was written by humans and why he does believe so - you will be astounded how many political and social influences of the time it was written in are captured in it. BTW - ever asked, whats the case with number 666? There are some interesting theological theories around, just search for it. It is the same problem with creationism - if you are ignorant you would use the bible as argument against evolution theory.
Talked myself into offtopic a bit - what i wanted to state here is, that i believe, using a definite term of one existing religion in a fictional game is not only weird but also quite disrespectful to members of this religion. In this case specially because the usage of the word jihad in this context creates a negative association towards the religion itself. Although the word jihad is a important part of it, Muslim culture does not explicitly aim towards a holy war; at least one should accept, that it is only a small fraction of fanatics, that do, because they ignorantly dont deal with history.
If Christians already become offended by the term "the way" what might be with muslims, that see the term "jihad" used in a way that shows it was absolutely not understood in its meaning and used in a very negative context?
