For the second installment of our Jihadi Twitter Activism series Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha explore data collected from Twitter related to the Syrian AQ branch Jabhat al-Nusra. This post identifies key ‘influence multipliers’ for Jabhat al-Nusra’s strategic communication and an overview of the content that these multipliers disseminate via Twitter.
Archive for the ‘Ideological trends’ Category
The Jihad of Images – al-Qaeda’s Prophecy of Martyrdom
Posted: 2nd May 2013 by Nico Prucha in Ideological trends, Western booksAsiem El Difraoui, a senior political scientist and an award winning documentary filmmaker, has recently published a new book on the subject of Jihad videos as the most important propaganda phenomenon. He currently is a senior fellow at Institute for Media- and Communication Policies in Germany. In his book, The Jihad of Images – al-Qaeda’s [...]
Al-Qaradawi and the Help of the Unbelievers
Posted: 1st May 2013 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Syria, USAYusuf al-Qaradawi, the famous Egyptian Muslim scholar who’s often described as the most influential Sunni scholar alive, is well known for his comments on politics, society and other practical issues that believers have to deal with. Yesterday, I read in an article that he has added a new comment of that type to an [...]
What’s in a Name? A Jihadi Labels Himself
Posted: 11th September 2012 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trendsAs all academics know, defining the subject you study is very important and often complicated. This is obviously no different in the study of jihadis, where terms such as “radical Muslims”, “Muslim extremists”, “Jihadi-Salafis”, “takfiris” and even “Islamo-fascists” are often used to describe Muslims engaging in violence against others. Such terms are based on criteria [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 4)
Posted: 14th February 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesAs we saw in the previous parts of this series, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza wrote a book that can be described as a “crash course” in jihadi theory. In part 1, I described how the council used the term taghut (idol, pl. tawaghit) to accuse the rulers of the [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 3)
Posted: 24th November 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesIn the first part of this series on a book written by the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, we saw that its authors were highly critical of the rulers of the Muslim world and employed their Islamist terminology to accuse these rulers of kufr (unbelief), the details of which are dealt [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 2)
Posted: 26th October 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesIn the first part of this series on a book describing what every jihadi ought to know, we saw that the authors of the book, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, initially seemed to give a purely religious description of things but quickly moved on to the political relevance of what [...]
Quilliam Report
Posted: 27th September 2010 by Thomas Hegghammer in Better Know a Forum, Ideological trends, Jihadi media, propaganda, Recruitment, technologyThe Quilliam Foundation, a London based think tank, has released a very interesting new report by Muhammad Ali Musawi titled Cheering for Osama: How Jihadis Use Discussion Forums. It is one of the best introductions to the world of online jihadism that I have seen. It also points out some recent forum trends that should [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 1)
Posted: 21st September 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesThroughout the years, the number of jihadi writings has grown enormously. Nowadays, books and fatwas on any given subject related to jihadi thought can easily be found and downloaded from the internet. As a service to those who can’t see the forest for the trees anymore or to those people who simply want a brief [...]