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O
n October 11, 2014, ac- spring of 2011, protests in Syria broke lance and hacking. On militant Web
cording to Islamic State- out against the rule of President Bashar sites, poetry-discussion forums feature
affiliated Twitter accounts, al-Assad, al-Nasr took the side of the couplets on current events, competitions
a woman going by the demonstrators. Several poems suggest among duelling poets, who try to outdo
name Ahlam al-Nasr was married in that she witnessed the regime’s crack- one another in virtuosic feats, and down-
the courthouse of Raqqa, Syria, to Abu down at first hand and may have been loadable collections with scholarly ac-
Usama al-Gharib, a Vienna-born jihadi radicalized by what she saw: coutrements. (“The Blaze of Truth” in-
close to the movement’s leadership. ISIS cludes footnotes that explain tricky
social media rarely make marriage an- Their bullets shattered our brains like an syntax and unusual rhyme schemes.)
nouncements, but al-Nasr and al-Gharib earthquake, Analysts have generally ignored
even strong bones cracked then broke.
are a jihadi power couple. Al-Gharib is They drilled our throats and scattered these texts, as if poetry were a colorful
a veteran propagandist, initially for Al our limbs— but ultimately distracting by-product
Qaeda and now for ISIS. His bride is a it was like an anatomy lesson! of jihad. But this is a mistake. It is im-
They hosed the streets as blood still
burgeoning literary celebrity, better ran possible to understand jihadism—its
known as “the Poetess of the Islamic like streams crashing down from the objectives, its appeal for new recruits,
State.” Her first book of verse, “The clouds. and its durability—without examining
Blaze of Truth,” was published online its culture. This culture finds expres-
last summer and quickly circulated Al-Nasr fled to one of the Gulf states sion in a number of forms, including
among militant networks. Sung recita- but returned to Syria last year, arriving anthems and documentary videos, but
tions of her work, performed a cappella, in Raqqa, the de-facto capital of ISIS, in poetry is its heart. And, unlike the vid-
in accordance with ISIS’s prohibition on early fall. She soon became a kind of eos of beheadings and burnings, which
instrumental music, are easy to find on court poet, and an official propagandist are made primarily for foreign con-
YouTube. “The Blaze of Truth” con- for the Islamic State. She has written sumption, poetry provides a window
sists of a hundred and seven poems in poems in praise of Abu Bakr al-Bagh- onto the movement talking to itself. It
Arabic—elegies to mujahideen, laments dadi, the self-styled Caliph of ISIS, and, is in verse that militants most clearly
for prisoners, victory odes, and short in February, she wrote a thirty-page articulate the fantasy life of jihad.
poems that were originally tweets. Al- essay defending the leadership’s deci-
most all the poems are written in mono-
rhyme—one rhyme for what is some-
times many dozens of lines of verse—and
sion to burn the Jordanian pilot Moaz
al-Kasasbeh alive. In a written account
of her emigration, al-Nasr describes the
A
“ l-shi‘r diwan al-‘arab,” runs an an-
cient maxim: “Poetry is the record
of the Arabs”—an archive of historical
classical Arabic metres. caliphate as an Islamist paradise, a state experience and the epitome of their lit-
Little is known about Ahlam al- whose rulers are uncorrupted and whose erature. The authority of verse has no
ABOVE: GUIDO SCARABOTTOLO
Nasr, but it seems that she comes from subjects behave according to pious rival in Arabic culture. The earliest poems
Damascus and is now in her early twen- norms. “In the caliphate, I saw women were composed by desert nomads in the
ties. Her mother, a former law profes- wearing the veil, everyone treating each centuries before the revelation of the
sor, has written that al-Nasr “was born other with virtue, and people closing up Koran. The poems are in monorhyme
with a dictionary in her mouth.” She their shops at prayer times,” she writes. and one of sixteen canonical metres, mak-
began writing poems in her teens, often The movement’s victories in Mosul and ing them easy to memorize. The poets
in support of Palestine. When, in the western Iraq were fresh in the militants’ were tribal spokesmen, celebrating the
102 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 8 & 15, 2015
Jihadi poetry circulates online and makes self-conscious use of the genres, metres, and language of classical Arabic verse.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHAD HAGEN THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 8 & 15, 2015 103
virtues of their kin, cursing their ene- many of them free verse and prose po- ments often zero in on contestants’
mies, recalling lost loves, and lamenting etry are the norm. But, though the old technique. The show has produced a
the dead, especially those killed in bat- models have lost some of their force, number of literary celebrities. In 2010,
tle. The Koran has harsh words for these there is still a remarkable continuity of a Saudi woman named Hissa Hilal be-
pre-Islamic troubadours. “Only those poetic expression. For educated Ara- came an audience favorite after recit-
who have strayed follow the poets,” the bic speakers, the language of the clas- ing a poem criticizing hard-line Saudi
Surah of the Poets reads. “Do you not sical period is relatively easy to enjoy. clerics. During the Arab Spring, an
see that they wander lost in every valley, The humblest bookseller in Cairo or Egyptian man, Hisham Algakh, ap-
and say what they do not do?” But the Damascus will stock editions of medi- peared on a spinoff show reciting sev-
poets could not be written off so easily, eval verse, and pre-Islamic poems are eral poems in support of the demon-
and Muhammad often found it useful assigned to high-school students. strators at Tahrir. He became a media
to coöpt them. A number of tribal poets Furthermore, the old poetry is alive star, and soon his poems were being
converted and became his companions, and well in the popular sphere. Among recited in the square itself.
praising him in life and elegizing him the most successful television programs The views expressed in jihadi poetry
after his death. in the Middle East is “Sha‘ir al-Mily- are, of course, more bloodthirsty than
Arabic culture of the classical pe- oon” (“Millionaire Poet,” but also “Poet anything on “Sha‘ir al-Milyoon”: Shi-
riod—roughly, the eighth to the thir- of the People”), which is modelled on ites, Jews, Western powers, and rival fac-
teenth century—was centered in the “American Idol.” Every season, ama- tions are relentlessly vilified and threat-
caliphal courts of Damascus, Baghdad, teurs from across the Arab world re- ened with destruction.Yet it is recognizably
and Córdoba. Although most poets now cite their own verse in front of a large a subset of this popular art form. It is
lived far from the pasture grounds of and appreciative studio audience in sentimental—even, at times, a little
the tribal bards, and written texts had Abu Dhabi. Winners of the competi- kitsch—and it is communal rather than
replaced oral compositions, the basic el- tion receive up to 1.3 million dollars— solitary. Videos of groups of jihadis re-
ements of the art lived on. Poetic me- more than the Nobel Prize in Litera- citing poems or tossing back and forth
tres were essentially unchanged. The ture, as the show’s boosters are fond of the refrain of a song are as easy to find
key genres—poems of praise and blame pointing out. Last year, the program as videos of them blowing up enemy
and elegies for the dead—were main- had seventy million viewers worldwide. tanks. Poetry is understood as a social
tained, and new modes grew out of the The poems recited on “Sha‘ir al- art rather than as a specialized profes-
old material. In the urbane atmospheres Milyoon” are highly conventional in sion, and practitioners take pleasure in
of the courts, the wine song, which form and content. They evoke the beau- showing off their technique.
had been a minor element in the old ties of the beloved and the homeland, It may seem curious that some of
poetry, became a full-fledged genre. praise the generosity of local leaders, the most wanted men in the world
Contemporary poets writing in Ar- or lament social ills. According to the should take the time to fashion poems
abic both read and translate a wide rules of the show, they must be me- in classical metres and monorhyme—
range of verse from abroad, and for tered and rhymed, and the judges’ com- far easier to do in Arabic than in En-
glish, but something that still requires
practice. And these are only the most
obvious signs of the jihadis’ dedication
to form. The poems are full of allu-
sions, recherché terms, and baroque
devices. Acrostics, in which the first
letters of successive lines spell out
names or phrases, are especially pop-
ular. One of al-Nasr’s poems, a decla-
ration of her commitment to ISIS, is
based on the group’s acronym, Daesh.
(“Daesh” is generally a derogatory label,
and al-Nasr’s embrace of it is a gesture
of defiance). The militants’ evident de-
light in their virtuosity turns their
poems into performances. The poets
are making sure that we know they are
poets—laying claim to the special au-
thority that comes with poetry’s sta-
tus in Arabic culture. Yet behind the
swagger there are powerful anxieties:
all jihadis have elected to set them-
“I see myself rising through the ranks of the organization until midlife, selves apart from the wider society, in-
when I will most likely hit a wall and go screaming through the door.” cluding their families and their reli-
gious communities. This is often a sey of bin Laden and his family: their
difficult choice, with lasting conse- exile from Saudi Arabia, their stay in
quences. By casting themselves as poets, Sudan and their subsequent expulsion,
as cultural actors with deep roots in and, finally, their arrival in Afghanistan,
the Arab Islamic tradition, the mili- “where men are the bravest of the brave.”
tants are attempting to assuage their Even here, though, the militants find
fears of not really belonging. no peace, for America “sends a storm
of missiles like rain” (a reference to the
FPO—A 19185
If Kosovo is wronged,
or Assam or Pattani is wronged,
My heart stretches out to them,
longing to help those in need.
There is no difference among them,
this is the teaching of Islam.
We are all one body,
this is our happy creed. . . .
We differ by language and color,
but we share the very same vein.
A
the rightly-guided path, the good
road?
fter Ahlam al-Nasr arrived in cally Muslim.
Is this the way of the Prophet?’ ” Raqqa last year, she was given a The radical newness of ISIS society
celebrity tour by ISIS. She wrote a long forms a strange counterpoint to the
Jihadi poetry often features scold- prose account of what she saw, ad- self-conscious archaism of the cul-
ers, who counsel caution and implic- dressed to her “sisters” and dissemi- ture—the obsession with purity, with
itly give their blessing to the status quo. nated through ISIS media outlets. Walk- the buried truths of religion, and with
They speak the language of quiescent ing through the streets of Raqqa, classical literary forms. The al-Khansa’
clerics and of parental authority. In an- al-Nasr notes that the stalls are full of Brigades are a notable example. Al-
other poem, a martyr addresses his fresh vegetables and that men encour- Khansa’ was a female poet of the pre-Is-
mother from beyond the grave, telling age one another to follow the exam- lamic era who converted to Islam and
her not to cry for him and not to ques- ple of the Prophet and to stop smok- became a companion of the Prophet,
tion his judgment. “I’ve left my blood ing. She is allowed to cook for the and her elegies for her male relations
behind me, Mother,” he writes, “a trail militants, which gives her great joy: are keystones of the genre. The name
that leads to paradise.” The scolders “Everything had to be clean and won- therefore suggests an institution with
serve several purposes. They allow the derful. I kept repeating to myself: ‘This deep roots in the past, and yet there
poet to display his knowledge of liter- food will be eaten by mujahideen, these has never been anything like the Bri-
ary tradition and to create the desired plates will be used by mujahideen.’ ” gades in Islamic history, nor do they
archaic mood. They also function as a She is also brought to a gun shop, where have an equivalent anywhere else in
choric background against which the she learns how to assemble and disas- the Arab world. The militants, of
poet can strike his lonely, heroic poses. semble Russian- and American-made course, see no contradiction. They view
And, by questioning the advisability of rifles. “All this happened in Syria, sis- their caliphate as a pure resurrection
jihad, the scolders permit the speaker ters, and in front of my eyes!” she writes. of the past. In her Raqqa diary, Ahlam
to make its virtues clear. Al-Nasr sees the caliphate as an Is- al-Nasr describes the ISIS capital as a
Publicly stating one’s creed like this lamist utopia, not only because it is a place of everyday miracles, a city where
is central to jihadi ethics. When the rest place where Muslims behave as Mus- believers can go to be born again into
of the world is against you, and your lims should but because it is a place of the old, authentic faith. In the caliph-
co-religionists are too timid to speak new beginnings. To most observers, ate, she writes, “there are many things
the truth, coming out as a jihadi—swear- Raqqa, under ISIS, is a rigidly totalitar- we’ve never experienced except in our
ing allegiance to the Emir of Al Qaeda, ian society, but for Al-Nasr and other history books.”
108 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 8 & 15, 2015