Jihad literally means "struggle". What that means is basically any struggle for good against evil. This mainly means self-purification of the soul. For example, Muslims pray every day five times and sometimes when they are in work and school, it is harder for them to pray but they still "struggle" on. That is their personal "Jihad". Moreover, in Islam, struggle against evil can also mean defense. For example, if somebody is wrongfully attacking your country or nation, then it allowed to physically prevent that injustice from occuring and that includes as a type of Jihad. However, Jihad can never be done as an offense but only as defence against somebody. It is a lot like Karate when the teachers say that the Karate is not for hurting somebody but for self-defense. What the terrorists have done in September 11 does not count as Jihad at all because they were being aggressive against others for no reason. Furthermore, in Islam, there are certain rules under Jihad such as you CANNOT KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE, and it goes on even more by saying you can't kill old people, children, and women, and not even to destroy trees for no reason. What happened on September 11 was totally wrong because there was a lot of innocent people that died, there was no reason for it, it clearly was not defense. In conclusion, Jihad can be thought of a lot as the Islamic version of the pure meaning of Crusade. Crusade was first meant to mean struggle against bad and evil. That it why when President Bush once said, "Let's have a crusade against drugs", he actually meant a struggle against drugs. Both Jihad and Crusade have become perverted in meaning over time because of the history of the words and what has been done under the names. But in its pure form, it means struggle against evil. Peace...

As far as I know, it translates to 'struggle' 'pain' or 'holy war', depending on the context in which it is used.

Jihad (Arabic: جهاد‎ IPA: [ʤɪhæːd]), an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihad is a noun meaning "the struggle." Jihad appears frequently in the Qur'an and common usage as the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of Allah (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)".[1][2] A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.

There are two types of jihad: The big jihad: Struggle against one's own self, meaning the struggle to fight against temptation and sin. So muslims should try to be 'good' people, and good here being defined as doing whatever the Qu'ran sais is good. The small jihad: Struggle against other bad things outside of oneself, often used to 'spread Islam'. If other means fail, the small jihad should be done by sword. This is the concept that is used by terrorists, and I sadly have to say that if they really do believe in the Qu'ran, then their actions are therefore justified, they feel like they are righteous, decent people.

There is no such thing as "Jihad" in Islam - Islam is a religion, not a nationality, language or culture. Thus the Arabic word "jihad" means different things to different people in different contexts. But one thing jihad is not- is armed struggle.