By Richard Halloran

In the flickering images on the television tube, anti-American Muslim protesters in Cairo, their faces contorted in anger, promised they would rush to Iraq to take up arms against the American invaders in a "jihad" to defend Islam.

"Jihad," intoned the American correspondent covering the event, means "holy war."

"Not so," say mainstream Muslims. "Jihad does not mean holy war. Jihad means 'to strive' — to be a better Muslim, to improve as a parent, for social justice." They lament that Islamic extremists have taken command of the term to promote their causes, mostly terrorism.

Islamic publications and Web sites propound the same moderate, rational view. "Jihad is not a declaration of war against other religions, and certainly not against Christians and Jews, as some media and political circles want it to be perceived," says one. "Islam does not fight other religions."

Muslims explain that they consider Christians and Jews to be fellow inheritors of the tradition of Abraham, and that adherents of all three religions worship the same God.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporters chanted anti-Israeli slogans in Gaza City last year. Radical groups that use "jihad" in their names have helped color non-Muslim's understanding of the term. Advertiser library photo • Nov. 15, 2002

In turn, the translation of "jihad" as "holy war" appears to have been picked up by Americans and other Westerners who have used the term as intended by extremists, not as written in the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

Defining jihad is not semantic game-playing, but an effort to correct a mistake that can have serious consequences in a world that often runs on perceptions.

Non-Muslims may see Islam as a seething mass of terrorists while overlooking Muslims who would be friends. For Muslims themselves, the mistaken image of jihad may cause them to be shunned — or worse.

The fault appears to rest with both sides. Muslims contend that extremists such as bin Laden "drown out" moderates in promoting what they call jihad. "The problem," said a South Asian Muslim, "is that we have not had a prominent leader who could speak out on jihad."

In addition, terrorist organizations have adopted jihad as part of their names. Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemeni Islamic Jihad, Laskar Jihad in Indonesia, and Hamas Islamic

Jihad in and around Israel have mounted terrorist strikes because they lack legitimacy or a base of popular support.

For their part, few American and other Western journalists, politicians, diplomats and scholars have bothered to look into the real meaning.

So pervasive has the erroneous term become that a pile of dictionaries listed by The Peace Encyclopedia carries definitions such as "a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty."

In its true meaning, "jihad" has two aspects: the greater jihad, a person's struggle for spiritual cleansing against sin and the evils that violate the teachings of the Quran; and the lesser jihad, which can be using military force to defend Islam from its enemies.

Muslims often refer to four expressions of jihad: of the tongue, when speaking of the Islamic faith; of the hand, when doing good works; of the heart, when making Islam an instrument for good; and of the sword, when defending Islam from non-Muslims or heretics.

As in every religion, Islam has its raging debates over how the Quran should be interpreted, or what Mohammed meant by his teachings. In the days of revelation, jihad meant a peaceful effort to spread Islam.

In the eighth through the 11th centuries, jihad was a struggle in which Muslims sought to establish their rule over non-Muslims, by force if necessary.

In the 19th century, says the Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, Muslims sought to counter Western criticism of jihad as holy war by asserting that Islam permitted the use of force only in self-defense.

A more modern argument "emphasizes its broader ethical dimensions," the encyclopedia says.

In rebuttal, a revivalist school argues that the goal of jihad is the overthrow of what is considered to be un-Islamic regimes and "to replace hypocritical leaders with true Muslims." Thus, corrupt Muslim rulers could themselves be the targets of jihad.

Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia and Washington. Reach him at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.