Jehad has become a household name today. Every time the word comes up, swords start dangling, bombsstart exploding, planes start crashing and trains start burning in our imagination. We hear the sounds of Allah-u-Akbarfollowed by cries of hapless, innocent people. Faces of Osama and Saddam immediately appear on our mentalscreens, as do those of hundreds of other faceless young men and women all over the world, who choose toexplode themselves as human bombs. And yet -- and yet, just a few decades ago, the word Jehad was quitebenign, its use mostly restricted to a few academic and Islamic circles.