Yes, got it. Jihad is organic to the religion, and is a key element being used against us. Roger that. That cat is flat. And there's the whole debate as to whether it is jihad, irhab, or hirabah, the potential impacts of which are well articulated here.

BTW, sorry if my analogy seemed like I was prying into your personal finances -- the concept there wasn't to do that, but akin to "what is the engine that drives you?"

Very interesting to me that 9/11 drove your intellectual curiosity, hell of a day I'm sure. Clearly you've done some reading, cited a good chunk of it here, useful to some I'm sure and they can follow up through those links. But I presume your stuides swayed your mind, and it is no longer "these lunatics have hijacked an obviously peaceful religion." So what is it now? Just that the religion isn't inherently as peaceful as you used to think? Or something more? And now what? What's the next step of the analysis and how should it inform our actions?

We've got several other Islam scholars who take exception to each other, your position, and the price of tea in China. No problemo, every one has their right to their own spin. (Good thing all the Christians agree on everything ).

More busy folks might take interest in a filtered set of refs if there was a more clear and useful reason behind it -- somewhere betweem intellectual curiosity which we've all got, and [help Israel] kill 'em all, the violent bastards. What's your take on the so what?