Sometimes the news seems extravagantly self-satirical in a way that seems to outstrip the imagination of anyone writing under the constellation of Evelyn Waugh. As 2015 came to a close, the New York Times ran a piece under the headline “Militant Jihad’s Softer Side.” The author says he has spent the last four years “studying what jihadis do in their spare time.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry when I came to the phrase “in their spare time” or to the answer given, which “encompasses fashion, music, poetry, dream interpretation” and amounts to “a rich cultural universe.” According to the article, “Jihadi poets have developed a vast body of radical verse” in keeping with the militant ideology of the Islamic State. The best-known poet is apparently a young Syrian woman, Ahlam al-Nast (meaning “Dreams of Victory”). The one bloodthirsty example of her verse is from her book Blaze of Truth : “Shake the throne of the cross, and Extinguish the fire of Zoroastrians / Strike down every adversity, and go reap those heads.”[1]
[1] Thomas Hegghammer, “Militant Jihad’s Softer Side,” The New York Times, December 18, 2015.