Why One Muslim’s ‘Jihad’ Is Not Seen by All as ‘Holy War’ : Islam: U.S. followers and religious scholars criticize misuse of the Arabic word, a practice they say evokes Western stereotypes while serving political purposes.

Many American Muslims cringe at reports from the Middle East of calls for a jihad , an Arabic word translated simply as “holy war.”

They dislike the English translation. In Islam, the word holy applies only to Allah. And the word jihad (literally, “striving”) primarily describes spiritual and intellectual efforts to become better Muslims and to spread the faith through peaceful means, Muslim scholars say.

In addition, U.S. Muslims fear that recent calls for a jihad in the Persian Gulf standoff have evoked historical stereotypes in Western countries of Muslim fanatics imposing Islam by the sword.

Worse yet, some Muslim leaders say, jihad and other legitimate religious imagery are being misappropriated for political purposes.

Islam’s sacred book, the Koran, condones jihad as an armed struggle against oppression or a defense of faith and land, said Fathi Osman, resident scholar at the Islamic Center of Southern California, a Los Angeles facility serving about 10,000 Muslims.

But the religious principle of jihad “was abused in the past and is abused in the present,” Osman said during a recent symposium on jihad at the Islamic Center.

“Human rights cannot be split. You cannot oppress your own people and say you are fighting for the oppressed,” Osman said.

John L. Esposito, a Western scholar on Islamic studies, told the symposium that he had no problem with referring to jihad as holy war when that is what’s meant.

“The problem is who’s doing it and why, and not seeing it as peculiar to Islam,” said Esposito, director of the international studies department at Holy Cross College and president of the American Council for Study of Islamic Societies.

“Being a good Muslim--like being a good Christian or a good Jew--requires sacrifice and maybe the ultimate sacrifice of dying for what you believe,” he said.

Jihads have repeatedly been proclaimed in major conflicts in Islamic countries, but recent summons to “sacred struggles” have drawn more attention because of the world’s focus on the Persian Gulf.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, despite his past suppression of Muslims and his leadership of a deliberatively secular political party, early this month called for a jihad against the United States and its allies as their economic blockade and military presence grew in response to the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared on Sept. 12 that “the struggle against American aggression, greed, plans and policies in the Persian Gulf will be counted as jihad, and anybody who is killed on that path is a martyr.” Years earlier, the same revolutionary Iranian movement had pronounced jihads against the shah of Iran, who was deposed in 1979, and against Iraq, which warred with Iran for eight years until their 1988 truce.

On Sept. 13, a meeting of the World Muslim League in the Islamic sacred city of Mecca endorsed the temporary presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. And the estimated 400 Islamic scholars there said Kuwaitis are authorized under religious law to undertake jihad to recover their country.

“The tragedy in this situation is that everyone is using Islam to justify his point of view,” said Dr. Maher Hathout, the principal spokesman for the Islamic Center and moderator of the symposium.

At the close of the symposium, Hathout sharply criticized the scholars at Mecca who took Saudi Arabia’s side. It was “immoral” to legitimize, or bless, the decision of King Fahd, who invited American troops into his country after spending billions of dollars on arms and little on the poor, Hathout said.

“I think the Mecca Declaration is a document of shame that will haunt those people until the day of judgment when they meet their Maker,” contended Hathout, who said he was voicing his personal opinion. His viewpoint reflects, however, a common American Muslim belief that religion is less subject to manipulation in democracies.

In a statement endorsed by the Islamic Society of Orange County and four other mosques in the area, the Islamic Center said: “The rulers of the region without exception are tyrants who did not allow the masses to express their opinions or participate in the decision-making process.” The statement also condemned the invasion of Kuwait, called for Iraq’s withdrawal and urged that U.S. troops be replaced by a peacekeeping force.