Jihad for Malaysians shall be finalised by National Fatwa Council - Zahid

He said this was because the main criteria of jihad was that if the country is a Muslim state, jihad should be declared by its highest Islamic leader.

"Based on Al-Quran and Hadis, it is clear that scholars among Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah decided that jihad can be done only with the declaration by the highest leader of a Muslim state," he said when opening the seminar on Jihad Vs Militant at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia here today.

As such, he said a personal war or a battle fought by a small group of people who did not receive the mandate or consent from the leader (khalifah) could not be deemed as jihad, but rather be called a civil war or just an ethnic fight.

"Based on muktabar scholars' opinion, Malaysians who are fighting in Syria cannot be defined as performing their jihad obligation as they do not meet the actual criteria of jihad according to the Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah," said Ahmad Zahid.

In addition, he said the crisis in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon involved only Muslims who were fighting each other and no Malaysians were ordered to join the fight by the highest Islamic leader in the country.

According to the ministry's statistics tabled at the Dewan Rakyat last Tuesday, a total of 167 Malaysians were involved in militant activities abroad from December 2001 until today.

Ahmad Zahid also expressed regret over the fact that a certain group of Muslims had misunderstood the actual concept of jihad to the extent of accepting militant activities as jihad.

"When defining jihad, they will quickly imagine the act of assaulting and killing which are tantamount to terrorism, when in fact, jihad in Islam simply means fighting the Kafir Harbi (hostile non-believers).