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Signs of the Merciful: ʿAbdullah ʿAzzam (d. 1989) and the Miraculous Chronicles of the Afghan Jihad, 1982-1992
Abstract
This paper explores how battlefield miracles were experienced, explained, and debated during the Afghan jihad between 1982–1992. Competing with the secular histories written by foreign journalists, diplomats, and communists, the study argues that the influential jihadist scholar ’Abdullah ‘Azzam (d. 1989) endeavored to write an alternate sacred history of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), the course of which was determined neither by military prowess nor luck, but by the miracles granted by God. Perusing more than three hundred miracle stories compiled by ‘Azzam, the article demonstrates that the wonderworking mujahidin were indebted to a longstanding and complex tradition that determined the varieties of miracles experienced in Afghanistan. Moreover, the mujahidin’s own miracle stories shed light on when and how miracles paralleled or diverged from past tradition while raising important questions about the threshold of the supernatural, the mujahidin’s spiritual rank, and their abilities to encounter miracles. However, both mujahidin and the general public occasionally doubted whether miracles had really occurred, and so the article attempts to replay the discussions that surrounded ‘Azzam’s miracle stories, paying attention to how they were published, circulated, and received in the Muslim world. Thus, by looking at how the religious validity of battlefield miracles were debated between a broad range of actors, this paper ultimately hopes to provide a better understanding of the interrelated social and intellectual trajectories of Islamism and Jihadism.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Afghanistan
Sub Area
Islamic Studies