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“Battle of Karbala” (‘Abbas al-Musavi); Oil on canvas, Qajar period (late 19th-early 20th century) at the Brooklyn Museum

Professional website and academic blog of Christopher Anzalone, Ph.D.

I am Research Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies covering the Middle East and East Africa at the Krulak Center, Marine Corps University and an affiliate scholar at George Mason University’s Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. Formerly I was both a postdoctoral and predoctoral research fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 2016-2019. My research areas include political Islam, political violence and terrorism, Shi’i Islam, and Islamic visual cultures and narratives of martyrdom and self-sacrifice. I completed a Ph.D. in Islamic, Middle Eastern, and African studies at McGill University, an M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a B.A. double major in history and religious studies from George Mason University. Methodologically my research is grounded in history and political sociology.

My first book project, Islamizing Rebel Governance: Jihadi Insurgencies and Symbolic Power, examines the symbolic, framing, and narrative dimensions of territorial proto-state governing projects of Islamist rebel groups including Al-Shabab in Somalia, Islamic State and its branches, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Afghan Taliban. This multidisciplinary project, drawing from history and political sociology, examines the strategies and experiences of Islamist insurgent organizations that have actively attempted to set up civil governing systems through which to interact with local civilian populations. It situates the study of Islamist insurgent groups with governance ambitions within the growing literature on rebel governance.

My research draws upon scores of thousands of primary sources – print texts, videos, radio broadcasts and audio recordings, posters and billboards, and photography – produced and released by non-state Islamist groups.

On this site I will post about my research on Islamic social movements and organizations, Shi’i Islam, political Islam (Islamism), and Islamic visual cultures with a specific focus on militant Islamist (jihadi) visual culture. One of the main goals of the site is to serve as a digital platform for the sharing and discussion of textual (print, visual, and aural) primary sources as key digital historical artifacts.

What’s in a Name?

The site’s name, which translates to “son of the Sicilian” (ابن الصقلي), is taken from my first blog (a Blogger project unfortunately now defunct due to Google) that I started as an undergraduate many years ago when I wrote anonymously under a pen name. My father’s family is of central Italian and Sicilian background, which is why I chose “Siqilli” as a pen name at the time.

Disclaimer: This should be clear but needs to be explicitly said: This is an academic website and blog for analysis and scholarly discussion. I do not endorse or in any way support violence or terrorism. In order to understand political violence and its use by a variety of states and non-state organizations, academics, government and other professional career practitioners, and the public must be able to analyze and publicly discuss it and related topics and issues. The analysis and other views expressed here are mine alone.

Faces of Fazlullah

Screenshots from an elegiac film about the previous amir of the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mawlana Fazlullah, who was killed by a U.S. drone in June 2018. Fazlullah is shown speaking to TTP members and locals, firing weapons, leading congregational prayers, offering supplicatory prayer (du’a), meeting with other TTP leaders, and preparing for ‘Eid al-Adha.

Fazlullah with Khalid “Sajna” Mehsud, amir of the TTP’s Mehsud faction in South Waziristan until he was killed in a February 2018 U.S. drone strike.
Fazlullah during ‘Eid al-Adha.
Fazlullah with the current amir of the TTP, Noor Wali Mehsud.
Congregational prayer with Fazlullah and the current TTP amir, Noor Wali Mehsud.

Fazlullah pledges allegiance (bay’a) to the leadership of the Afghan Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan).

Fazlullah with Khalid “Sajna” Mehsud
Fazlullah with the late deputy amir of the TTP (right), Khalid Haqqani.

Faces of Islamic State-West Africa

Islamic State-West Africa insurgents engaged in a variety of activities including military attacks, leisure, da’wa propagation, the distribution of zakat, the implementation of their interpretations of “God’s law,” preaching, and media operations. The images highlight IS-WA’s recruitment of children and other youth from across northern Nigeria including in Borno and Yobe.

The Continuing Symbol of Aafia Siddiqui and the “Muslim Women Prisoners” in Sunni Jihadi Narratives

On January 15, a UK citizen, Malik Faisal Akram, took four people hostage in the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. The gunman, who was ultimately shot and killed in a standoff with police, had previously been investigated in 2020 by British domestic intelligence, MI5, which reportedly concluded he was not a threat. Staff at the Islamic Center of Irving in Texas reported that Akram became angry when his request to spend the night at the center was refused. The center’s staff say they escorted him out and he left after this. U.S. law enforcement agencies are still investigating Akram’s activities and timeline for unaccounted days in the U.S. as well as possible connections in the UK. This includes how he was able to obtain the handgun used in his attack.

Akram’s motivations remain unclear and still being investigated. His reported linking of his attack to the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently imprisoned serving an 86-year federal term in Texas after being convicted for trying to kill members of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, has drawn public attention. Federal prosecutors allege that she was a member of Al-Qaeda, charges her supporters deny. Her case has become an international cause célèbre among some, with groups formed to petition for her release, claiming her to be “innocent” and Pakistani government officials, including Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, claiming occasionally that they will try to get her released from prison.

Siddiqui’s case and her status at the top of the list of “Muslim female prisoners” held in the jails of “the Crusaders” has remained since her arrest, trial, and imprisonment a regular feature of Sunni jihadi rhetoric and narrative construction. Both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) and affiliated and allied organizations have demanded her release and attempted to rally the support of Muslims by invoking her name and the names of other “Muslim prisoners.” This is particularly true of Muslim women prisoners, the “honor” of whom Sunni jihadis claim to be avenging when they carry out, or try to carry out, attacks. Siddiqui and other women prisoners (as a general rhetorical group) have and continue to be regularly named as motivations by a host of jihadi ideologues, leaders, and organizations including Al-Qaeda Central’s amir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Al-Shabab (Al-Shabaab) and its foreign fighters, and the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Jihadi commanders have also proven adept at using the issue of real and reported/perceived abuses of Muslim women, including prisoners, as a tool to re-socialize their followers to accept higher and more egregious types and levels of violence.

This post highlights just a handful of jihadi media and rhetorical narratives about Siddiqui specifically.

In February 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad tried and failed to set off an VBIED in New York’s Times Square and was convicted and is currently serving to a life term without the possibility of parole. Shahzad admitted that he traveled to Waziristan, Pakistan in 2009 where he received a short bomb-making course to prepare him to carry out the VBIED attack, meeting also with TTP amir Hakimullah Mehsud and recording for TTP media a rather unenergetic “martyrdom” video and last will and testament. Among the causes he named were U.S. drone strikes and the imprisonment of Aafia Siddiqui.

Jihadis frequently have tried to shame Muslim men for not “heeding the call” of “our sister(s)” imprisoned by the “Crusaders.”
Ayman al-Zawahiri in a 2010 message about Siddiqui’s conviction.
The now late AQAP leader Nasr al-Ansi on Siddiqui.
In 2014, Islamic State claimed it would release American hostage James Foley, who it subsequently murdered, in exchange for Siddiqui’s release.
AQAP on Siddiqui’s case.
Siddiqui’s case highlighted in an Al-Qaeda e-magazine, Resurgence, in 2015.
The now defunct Jamiah Hafsa Internet discussion forum, once a hub for South Asian jihadis named after the women’s school in the Lal Masjid, invoking the famous story of the teenage Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim, who is said to have led a military expedition into Sindh in response to calls for rescue from Muslim women imprisoned by a regional ruler there. Muhammad ibn Qasim is invoked as an example for Muslim men today to emulate by fighting to free imprisoned “chaste, pure” Muslim women from the prisons of the kuffar.
Mention of Aafia Siddiqui in the e-magazine of a shadowy East African jihadi group, Al-Muhajiroun, in 2015.

(Above): Lyrics from a particularly bad “rap” by the late Omar Hammami concerning Aafia Siddiqui and other Muslim women prisoners.

Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan e-magazine listing Siddiqui’s case as “proof” of the collusion of Pakistani officials with the “Crusaders.”

Islamic State’s Iconoclasm

Islamic State blows up a Syrian Sufi shrine.
Islamic State destroys religious shrines, including unearthing graves, in Raqqa governorate, Syria.
In March 2014, Islamic State blew up the double shrine complex of ‘Ammar ibn Yasir and Uways al-Qarani, two supporters of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib who were killed at the Battle of Siffin against the Umayyad ruler Mu’awiyya I in 657.
Islamic State shrine and grave destruction in Nineveh governorate, Iraq.
In July 2014 Islamic State blew up the Shrine of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in Mosul, Iraq.

Jihadi Culture in Somalia: ‘Eid al-Adha 1441

The IS-Somalia khatib (deliverer of the congregational prayer sermon) for ‘Eid al-Adha prayers with the staff signalling his role and the authority of Islam. The act of holding a staff (sometimes a spear or other instrument depending on local practices) is considered by some Muslim jurists to be mustahabb (recommended but not required).
Congregational ‘Eid al-Adha prayers.