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Outputs (10)

The Dreams of Islamic State (2015)
Journal Article
Edgar, I. (2015). The Dreams of Islamic State. Perspectives on terrorism (Lowell), 9(4), 72-84

Previous research has shown that jihadis attach great importance to dreams, to the point of taking them into account in personal and strategic decision-making. This article asks whether the same is true of Islamic State (IS). Using evidence from soci... Read More about The Dreams of Islamic State.

The Dream in Islam: From Qur'anic Tradition to Jihadist Inspiration' (2011)
Book
Edgar, I. (2011). The Dream in Islam: From Qur'anic Tradition to Jihadist Inspiration'. Berghahn Books

The war in the Middle East is marked by a lack of cultural knowledge on the part of the western forces, and this book deals with another, widely ignored element of Islam—the role of dreams in everyday life. The practice of using night dreams to make... Read More about The Dream in Islam: From Qur'anic Tradition to Jihadist Inspiration'.

The Cosmopolitan and the Noumenal: A Case Study of Islamic Jihadist Night Dreams as Reported Sources of Spiritual and Political Inspiration (2010)
Book Chapter
Edgar, I., & Henig, D. (2010). The Cosmopolitan and the Noumenal: A Case Study of Islamic Jihadist Night Dreams as Reported Sources of Spiritual and Political Inspiration. In D. Theodossopoulos, & E. Kirtsoglou (Eds.), United in Discontent: Local Responses to Cosmopolitanism and Globalization (64-82). Berghahn Books

The convergence of peoples and markets in ‘real-world’ cosmopolitanism is significantly challenged and indeed fractured in emerging apparent differences as to the ontological status of inner worlds. On the one hand, the Western secular, liberal, post... Read More about The Cosmopolitan and the Noumenal: A Case Study of Islamic Jihadist Night Dreams as Reported Sources of Spiritual and Political Inspiration.

Istikhara: The Guidance and practice of Islamic dream incubation through ethnographic comparison (2010)
Journal Article
Edgar, I., & Henig, D. (2010). Istikhara: The Guidance and practice of Islamic dream incubation through ethnographic comparison. History and Anthropology, 21(3), 251-262. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2010.496781

This paper introduces and contextualizes Istikhara, Islamic dream incubation practice, as a way to approach the dynamics of Muslims’ inner and outer worlds as an interrelated process of embodied well-being. We introduce an anthropologically informed... Read More about Istikhara: The Guidance and practice of Islamic dream incubation through ethnographic comparison.

The Inspirational Night Dream in the Motivation and Justification of Jihad (2007)
Journal Article
Edgar, I. (2007). The Inspirational Night Dream in the Motivation and Justification of Jihad. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 11(2), 59-76. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2007.11.2.59

This paper uses a wide variety of examples to argue that the experience of the true dream (ru’yâ) is a fundamental, inspirational, and even strategic, part of the contemporary militant Jihadist movement in the Middle East and elsewhere. Dream narrati... Read More about The Inspirational Night Dream in the Motivation and Justification of Jihad.

The ‘true dream’ in contemporary Islamic/Jihadist dreamwork: a case study of the dreams of Taliban leader Mullah Omar (2006)
Journal Article
Edgar, I. (2006). The ‘true dream’ in contemporary Islamic/Jihadist dreamwork: a case study of the dreams of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Contemporary South Asia, 15(3), 263-272. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584930601098000

The intention of this paper is to consider and evaluate the hypothesis that Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, was inspired and guided by true night dreams, al-Ruya, to found and lead the Taliban revolution in the 1990s in Afghanistan. The paper contai... Read More about The ‘true dream’ in contemporary Islamic/Jihadist dreamwork: a case study of the dreams of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.