James Fallows, writing in the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly, makes a point about the language we, in the West, use to desribe Arabic phenomenon:
“Jim Guirard, a writer and former [U.S.] Senate staffer … has assembled, with the advice of Islamic scholars and think-tank officials, an alternative lexicon he thinks U.s. officials should use in both English and Arabic. These include hirabah (“unholy war”) instead of jihad; irhabists (“terrorists”) instead of jihadists; mufsidoon (“evildoers”) instead of mujahideen; and so on.”
Why?
“The Arabic terms often brought into English to describe Islamic extremists … are, according to Guirard, exactly the terms al-Qaeda would to see used [because] they confer legitimacy … in all Muslims’ eyes.”