Analysts have generally ignored these texts, as if poetry were a colorful but ultimately distracting by-product of jihad. But this is a mistake. It is impossible to understand jihadism—its objectives, its appeal for new recruits, and its durability—without examining its culture.
Over at the New Yorker, Robyn Creswell and Bernard Haykel examine jihadi culture through the lens of its poetry.
2 responses
I am a poet, and I teach poetry. I’m putting together a new course to include many middle eastern poets from different countries. I cannot find the al-Nasr texts in English referred to everywhere, but seemingly unavailable except in short quotations such as the recent New Yorker article. Can you help? Thanks.
Lewis Bosworth, Madison, WI
PS- I was on the faculty at Wesleyan a long time ago!
Hey Lewis–interesting inquiry! Always happy to help a fellow cardinal. I did some digging but unfortunately also to no avail. It’s possible that the excerpts in the New Yorker article are the only English translations. I imagine you’d have to search for the texts in the original Arabic to find them, and they may be harder to access through a U.S. VPN. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Good luck with the course!
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