{"id":3880,"date":"2011-04-09T20:35:31","date_gmt":"2011-04-09T20:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3880"},"modified":"2011-04-09T20:38:14","modified_gmt":"2011-04-09T20:38:14","slug":"martyrologies-and-the-undead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3880","title":{"rendered":"Martyrologies and the Undead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> ]<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>How things stay the same, and change!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/quo-martyrologies.jpg\" title=\"quo-martyrologies.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/quo-martyrologies.jpg\" alt=\"quo-martyrologies.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first book cover is that of <strong>Abdullah Azzam<\/strong>&#8216;s account of miraculous events associated with shahids \/ martyrs among the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the fight against the Soviets, while the second is a <strong>Dar al-Murabiteen Publications<\/strong> compilation of stories of jihadist martyrdom.  In effect, they are both <strong>devotional propaganda<\/strong> items, using the deaths of the fallen to inspire the actions of the living:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And call not those who are slain in the way of Allah &#8220;dead.&#8221; Nay, they are living, only ye perceive not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Qur&#8217;an<\/strong>, 2. 154.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Two shifts are worth noting between the two of them:<\/p>\n<p>First, the Dar al-Murabiteen cover design betrays an awareness of the pop-cultural ubiquity of the <strong>undead meme<\/strong> \u2013 whether it&#8217;s applied in <strong>books, games or films<\/strong>, to <strong>vampires or zombies<\/strong>\u2026 as exemplified here:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/undead-warrior-model.jpg\" title=\"undead-warrior-model.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/undead-warrior-model.jpg\" alt=\"undead-warrior-model.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Second, the shift from a classic Islamic to a pop cultural title is accompanied by a shift from a local to a lunar graphic background and from a contemporary armored vehicle silhouette to a silhouette of a mythic horseman-warrior\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The Dar al-Murabiteen effort is thus both more contemporary and more archaic &#8212; hip and contemporary to catch the attention of western youth, archaic and mythic to give resonance to the idea that the glorious past, the past of <strong>Saladdin<\/strong>, the past of <strong>Ali<\/strong>, is lived again in present reality.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.palgrave.com\/products\/title.aspx?pid=481914\"><strong>master narrative<\/strong><\/a> in the form of imagery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron ] * How things stay the same, and change! The first book cover is that of Abdullah Azzam&#8216;s account of miraculous events associated with shahids \/ martyrs among the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the fight against the Soviets, while the second is a Dar al-Murabiteen Publications compilation of stories of jihadist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[527,205,12,46,526,471,210,562,473,436,533,383,523,1,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-al-qaida","category-analogy","category-analytic","category-charles-cameron","category-cultural-intelligence","category-islamist","category-perception","category-propaganda","category-psychology","category-religion","category-symmetry","category-theology","category-uncategorized","category-visualization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}