In this chapter we identify some aspects of Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing) and ontologies (ways of being) and apply them to the re-imagining of social work, grounded in contributions, experiences and knowledges shared by Indigenous scholars in the field. Social work has too often been part of the colonial project rather than the decolonising project, though in the twenty-first century the decolonisation of social work has emerged as a more important agenda. This chapter is concerned with Indigenous ways of knowing and being as representing important alternatives to Western modernity. We argue that to achieve re-imagining of social work requires social workers to adopt an epistemological shift that centres and values Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies as core, consciously and intentionally removing them from the margins that they have occupied in social work education and practice. We start the chapter with some notes on its authorship. We then briefly describe colonialism’s stifling of Indigenous epistemologies, after which we explore Indigenous ways of knowing and being and how they inform the re-imagining of social work.

The chapter highlights the place of spiritual purification in the Islamic ethos and its relation to physical jihād. Tracing such ideas from early Islam, the chapter considers the jihād in the era of the Crusades and the ways in which pietistic motifs were essential components of jihād preaching and practice.