“Jihad means killing non-Muslims.”
Short answer
Jihad primarily means 'struggle' or 'effort' — most centrally the personal struggle to live righteously. It has a narrower, legally bounded military meaning too, but that is not its primary or most common sense in Islamic teaching.
The Arabic root of “jihad” means effort or striving. In traditional Islamic teaching, the most emphasized form — sometimes called the “greater jihad” — is the internal struggle against one’s own bad habits, temptation, and anger, not warfare.
Jihad does have a specific military meaning in Islamic law too: real, but bounded by extensive rules (protection of civilians, formal authority requirements, rules of engagement) that groups like ISIS deliberately violate rather than follow — which is a major reason this narrow meaning has become so closely, and inaccurately, associated with the word as a whole in Western media.
Full explanation: What Is Jihad?
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