CHICAGO, Aug 30: Speakers at the North America’s largest annual Muslim gathering emphasised here on Saturday that popular interpretation of concepts like jihad is not necessarily correct.

Jihad, said Dr Jamal Badawi, a member of the Fiqh Council of North America, is not holy war. The holy Quran, he said, uses this term in wider meanings that also include a person’s struggle to earn an honest living.

Similarly, he said, the Quranic term kafir does not mean infidel. “The closest English translation will be a person who denies something. At some places the Quran also uses the same term for depicting a Muslim’s denial of non-Islamic faiths,” he added.

“The Quran has never used this term for Jews and Christians who are considered ahl-i-kitab or people of the book.”

Islam, Dr Badawi said, does not ask Muslims to fight against those who do not share their faith. “Such an instruction would contradict the basic principle of Islam which enjoins Muslims to live peacefully with all.”

Dr Badawi, who is also associated with the Islamic Society of North America which has organized the four-day conference, said the Quran does not forbid Muslims from having friendly relations with Jews or Christian. The term used in the Quran, he said, prohibits matrimonial ties with them but does not oppose social contacts.

Dr Badawi was not the only speaker who attempted to go beyond the popular meanings of, what they described as, commonly misunderstood concepts of Islam nor was this the only conference where Islamic scholars raised this issue.

The events of 9-11, and America’s strong military reaction to those attacks, have forced Muslims in North America to bring forth what they say is the real meaning of Islam, which does not always conform to what the people “both Muslims and non-Muslims” generally believe.

The theme of the conference “Islam: enduring values for daily life” reflects the fears that haunt the North American Muslims. Many in America fear that the attacks on Islam that followed 9-11 could cause doubts about their faith in the minds of young Muslims born or brought up in this country.