Signs of the Merciful

Abstract

This article explores how battlefield miracles were experienced, explained, and debated in jihadist literature in the period between 1982–2002. Competing with the secular histories written by foreign journalists, diplomats, and communists, the study argues that the influential jihadist scholar ’Abdullah ‘Azzam (d. 1989) endeavored to write an alternate sacred history of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), the course of which was determined neither by military prowess or luck, but by the miracles granted by God. Perusing more than three hundred miracle stories compiled by ’Azzam, the article demonstrates that the wonderworking mujahidin were indebted to a longstanding and complex tradition that determined the varieties of miracles experienced in Afghanistan. Moreover, the mujahidin’s own miracle stories shed light on when and how miracles paralleled or diverged from past tradition while raising important questions about the threshold of the supernatural, the mujahidin’s spiritual rank, and their abilities to encounter miracles. However, both mujahidin and the general public occasionally doubted whether miracles had really occurred, and so the article attempts to replay the discussions that surrounded ‘Azzam’s miracle stories, paying attention to how they were published, circulated, and received in the Muslim world. In conclusion, the article remarks on how ‘Azzam’s writings have influenced the development of miracle stories in later jihadist literature by looking specifically at al-Qa’ida’s portrayal of 9/11.