Visual media produced by Islamist groups remains a largely untapped area of study within the field of the study of modern Muslim socio-political movements. Yet, it is an area that can yield a great deal of information, particularly with regard to the ideological differences between transnational militant (jihadi) and religious-nationalist movements. It is often said that visual media reflects the politics and worldview of its producers, and this is certainly the case with the visual media produced by Islamist movements. This paper will examine some of the key ideological differences between transnational jihadi and Islamist-nationalist movements through the lens of the portrayal of the performative act of martyrdom and "the martyr" in their respective visual discourses. Although both groups have developed a poetics of martyrdom that is similar in some ways, significant differences between them can be seen here as well. Islamist-nationalist movements such as the Palestinian HAMAS and Lebanese Hizbullah frame "the martyr" as a national figure who dies in the cause of a defined, geographically-limited nation-state. Religious elements contained within the visual discourse of martyrdom of these groups are subsumed within a larger national narrative. In contrast, transnational jihadi movements such as Al-Qa'ida "Central" frame "the martyr" as a "traveling" figure who dies in the cause of an imagined, geographically-expansive identity, one which envisions the creation of a transnational imagined state, "the" caliphate. Martyrdom is seen not only in terms of "death," the closing of an individual's existence in this world, but also as ritualistic, redemptive opening to their new eternal life in the world to come, the "gardens of Paradise" (Janah al-Firdaws). Martyrs exist in virtual shrines in cyberspace, places where commemorative and celebratory rituals are performed by users on web forums produced or affiliated with these movements. For some users of these forums, particularly among transnational jihadis, aesthetics of martyrdom have evolved into a kind of pornography of violence, a celebration of death and killing in "defense" of the occupied and humiliated. In this pornography of violence, other ideological messages, such as anti-imperialism and anti-occupation, are subjugated to images of death and destruction as well as the attempt to recover lost pride and honor through performative acts of violence coded as martyrdom. The paper will be based on careful analysis of artwork, photography, and videos produced by transnational and Islamist-nationalist movements and their supporters, most of which are drawn from official and affiliated web sites.