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by softg 947 days ago
What matters is what the word jihad means in Persian, not Arabic. Both of your links point out that jihad was added during/after the Islamic Revolution, when the country was swept by a wave of religious fervor. Unless a Persian speaker contradicts me, I think my point stands.
2 comments

It means the same in Farsi. Meaning depends on context and it is not a religious context.
Your point being that the 'Ministry of Agricultural Jihad' has declared a holy war on crickets or something. Not a hill I would recommend to die on tbh.
Meh. I'm Turkish, I was raised as a muslim. My entire family are muslims. I am not going to let random people on an English language forum accuse me of being insensitive towards muslims. That's the hill I can die on I guess.

In Turkish, jihad (cihat) is only used for holy war. Nobody but the most demented religious zealot would suggest a ministry of agricultural jihad. Now, discussions on the subtleties of the meaning of the word jihad in Arabic are interesting, but they do not mean much because Iran isn't an Arab country. I do not speak Persian and I can't tell if jihad is used for 'struggle/effort' in that way in that language. We use other Arabic words like 'mücadele' for 'struggle' for example, but not jihad.