Linguistic definition: exerting one’s efforts in order to fulfill a certain goal.
Islamic definition: A Muslim exerting his/her efforts and abilities seeking the pleasure of Almighty God.
When mentioned in Islam, Jihad may offer a variety of meanings. For example, we are making Jihad right now to express the true meaning of Jihad in Islam and to refute the misconceptions spread by those who have an agenda against Islam. Jihad can mean several things like raising children, increasing one’s worship and sincerity to God, realizing one’s character defects and working to fix them, making better relations with those who you have been at odds with, stopping from committing a sin which you are attracted to commit, doing a good job at your work place, presenting Islam correctly by getting involved in the Media, defending your country and people from attack, fighting occupiers of your land, stopping oppression and bringing about justice.
I think if we look objectively, we will see that Jihad is a good thing and that all societies have their own concepts of Jihad. It is the media who blows out of proportion the actions of some misguided Muslims who are focusing on military Jihad incorrectly without backing by qualified Islamic Jurists. On the other hand, some oppressed Muslims who are doing whatever they can to reject oppression and/or occupation are being portrayed unjustly by the media as barbaric terrorists. This is because those who own the media support those oppressors who are oppressing the Muslims.
Out of the 1.4 billion Muslims less than 0.1% of Muslims are currently participating in Jihad in the military sense whether rightly or criminally and even a smaller percentage believe (in ignorance) that Muslims should kill non-Muslims or kill innocent people. Yet all 1.4 billion Muslims believe that praying five times a day, giving alms to the needy, fasting, not consuming alcohol or drugs, being good to your neighbor, being fair and just, telling the truth, being good to your parents, etc… are all obligations in Islam and more than 50% of the 1.4 billion Muslims practice most of these core aspects of Islam daily.
I think it is clear that Islam is not about killing innocents, non-Muslims, or violence in general. Every time God mentions fighting in the Qur’an it is in retaliation or defense. Yes Jihad is a major part of Islam and even considered by some the sixth pillar, but the word Jihad can mean a variety of things -all revolving around the meaning of struggling on our part for good to overcome evil- the last step of which is physical fighting in a military fashion which must be called for by either the leader of the Muslim land or by a large body of well-known scholars after thorough deliberation.
