Like Douglas Farah, I roll my eyes when I hear apologist groups airbrushing the meaning of the word “jihad.” The historical sources I’ve seen indicate that the word has always refered primarily to a military campaign against infidels, not some touchy-feely Oprah-type journey of self-reflection.

But here’s another issue: In the context of terrorism, should we be refering to “jihad” at all? That’s the question I was asking myself after listening to this interesting Oct. 30 segment on NPR’s All things Considered. The segment profiles Islamic history expert Douglas Streusand, who last year wrote a paper for the Pentagon in which he argued that we should immediately stop refering to terrorists as either “jihadis” or “jihadists.”

Here’s his rationale: “The term ‘jihad’ usually means Jihad Fis abu Allah — ’striving in the path of God’ … Simply by its very definition, striving in the path of God is a good thing to do. If we are calling them ‘people who strive in the path of God,’ in other words — if we are calling them meritorious Muslims — then we are implying that we are fighting Islam, even if we’re not.”

By Streusand’s memorable analogy, calling terrorists ‘jihadis’ is like “calling Germans during the Second World War ‘National Socialist Aryan Heroes.’ ” Think of that the next time you hear the word “jihadis” being used as a term of abuse.

So what term should we be using? Streusand has an idea: “The term in Islamic law which best describes the activities of al Qaeda is hirabah, which originally meant brigandage, but has a more general meaning as sinful warfare … If our elected officials started saying ‘This is a war against hirabis,’ that would be more effective. It would certainly be better than using the term jihad or jihadis which is actively harmful.”

jkay@nationalpost.com

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