ABSTRACT
As a tradition, Islam (as Christianity) is characterized by the acceptance of certain practices conceived as legitimate ways of ordering human existence in the light of a central insight—a piety. With respect to Reformed Christianity, the predominant mood is one of gratitude, developed in terms of an apprehension of the gift God has given to the elect in Christ the Redeemer. The religious cast of the jihad tradition is part and parcel of the classical Islamic vision of political order. This chapter describes a few reflections on the implications of Islamic practice on these matters for contemporary Christian thought and for comparative ethics. It provides some comparisons of Christian and Islamic political thought. The great difference between just war thinking and the rules of jihad is in the role of religion. And this difference signifies an ongoing difference between important strands of the more general tradition of Islamic social-political thought and its Christian counterpart.
