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BURYING JIHADIS
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES SERIES
Series editors, Christophe Jaffrelot and Alain Dieckhoff
Series managing editor, Miriam Perier
The series consists of original manuscripts and translations of notewor-

thy manuscripts and publications in the social sciences emanating from
the foremost French researchers.
The focus of the series is the transformation of politics and society by
transnational and domestic factors—globalization, migration and
religion. States are more permeable to external influence than ever
before and this phenomenon is accelerating processes of social and
political change the world over. In seeking to understand and interpret
these transformations, this series gives priority to social trends from
below as much as to the interventions of state and nonstate actors.
RIVA KASTORYANO
Burying Jihadis
Bodies Between State,Territory,
and Identity
Translated by
Cynthia Schoch
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Riva Kastoryano.
Title: Burying Jihadis: Bodies Between State, Territory, and Identity /
Riva Kastoryano.
Description: Oxford [UK]; New York: Oxford University Press, [2018]
ISBN 9780190889128 (print)

ISBN 9780190934644 (updf)
ISBN 9780190934866 (epub)
CONTENTS
List of Maps vii

Introduction 1
PART I
BODY, LAND AND TERRITORY
1. The Power of Discourse 17
2. The Question of Burial: A Name, a Place and What’s Left 33
3. The Territory at Stake: To Die for Palestine 57
PART II
9/11—NEW YORK
4. Trajectories and Burials 67
5. Local History and Its Global Representation 87
6. The Global Nation and Its Enemies 99
PART III
11M—MADRID
8. Between Spain and the Maghreb: The Transnational Issue 139
PART IV
7/7—LONDON
v
CONTENTS
10. The Homegrown Terrorist 177
11. The End of Multiculturalism? 193
Conclusion 201
Notes 211
Bibliography 249
Index 277
vi
LIST OF MAPS
1. Paris Attacks, 13 November 2015: Trajectories of the ten

terrorists 54
2. Paris Attacks, 13 November 2015: Burial of the ten
terrorists 55
3. New York Attacks, 11 September 2001: Trajectories of the
four hijacker-pilots 84
4. New York Attacks, 11 September 2001: Trajectory of the
organizer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 85
5. Madrid Attacks, 11 March 2004: Trajectories of the two
organizers and the seven terrorists who committed suicide
three weeks after the attacks 136
6. Madrid Attacks, 11 March 2004: Burial of the seven terror-
ists who committed suicide three weeks after the attacks 137
7. London Attacks, 7 July 2005: Trajectory of the four suicide
bombers and the recruiter 175
8. London Attacks, 7 July 2005: Burial of the four suicide
bombers 176
9. A typology of the use of space 210
vii
INTRODUCTION
This book addresses the question of space and territory in globaliza-

tion. It takes as a case study the jihadis who declared jihad, a global war,
on states. Through an analysis of the trajectories and burials of the
suicide bombers who carried out the attacks of 11 September 2001 in
New York (9/11), 11 March 2004 in Madrid (11-M) and 7 July 2005
in London (7/7) (and updated with the Paris attacks of January and
November 2015), this study highlights forms of spatiality in globaliza-
tion, underscoring the nature of the issues states are now obliged to
face: global, transnational and diasporic. The issue is global when
suicide bombers move freely from place to place, leaving no trace, as
was the case for 9/11. It is transnational when the jihadis are first-
generation immigrants and maintain permanent relations with their
country of origin, such as the perpetrators of the Madrid bombings.
And it is diasporic when young jihadis are recognize as “homegrown”,
born in the country of immigration, socialized and radicalized in the
country where they hold citizenship, coming and going between their
real “ancestral” land—or an imagined one, such as Pakistan or Syria—
and their country of citizenship, as was the case of the London bombers
and the attackers in Paris.
Their burial, taken as the state’s response to their use of global space,
completes the elaboration of these issues. The burial of suicide bombers
increases the tension between globalization and state sovereignty, in
which each case corresponds to a different reaction. States do not rec-
ognize suicide bombers as warriors; their burial is thus neither a legal,
nor a political nor a diplomatic issue. On the contrary, it is an unwel-
1
Burying Jihadis
come, embarrassing question, usually ill-received by public officials and
even more so by victims’ families and public opinion. What matters
more to the state is identifying the perpetrators of a suicide attack,
retracing their itinerary, situating their environment, and tracking their
connections with the organization they belonged to. As in classic war-
fare, the aim, to paraphrase Clausewitz, is to control the territory and
the people who live there, even if jihadi warfare is not territorial.
Jihadis do not request burial. They express no particular wishes in
this regard prior to committing suicide attacks. They are convinced that
their sacrifice will be rewarded after their death even if they are not
buried. Jihadis imagine they will find glory in death and play a game of
enacting their funeral.1 They are drawn into a single narrative of
belonging to the ummah—the reimagined worldwide Muslim com-
munity in which national, religious and worldly attachments are all
jumbled together. They have been convinced of their moral obligation
to wage jihad as long as the ummah is in danger, just as men feel it their
duty to go off to war when their nation and its army come under
attack.2 Only the websites that played a role in these individuals’ indoc-
trination display their portraits, Kalashnikov in hand. It is through such
websites that young people become familiar with the rhetoric of radical
Islamic leaders who have drawn them into a single narrative of belong-
ing to the ummah. These sites also post images of the martyr, his body
like a weapon ready to explode.
States’ reactions to these bodies have primarily a symbolic signifi-
cance. Dick Howard sees here the symbolic question as primarily one
of identity. According to him, “it could be that of the jihadis as individu-
als, or that of the networks without which they do not exist. It could
be that of the nations after they have been affected by the action. Or
perhaps it is that of the ummah, that imaginary territory without limits
that they have made into the root of their self-identity.”3 These various
levels of identification correspond to the jihadis’ subjectivity in their
use of space and the issues facing states.
NewYork, Madrid and London … and Paris

This book analyzes and compares the responses of the United States,
Spain and Great Britain in relation to the matter of burying the human
2
INTRODUCTION
remains of the suicide attacks in New York City and against the
Pentagon in 2001 (9/11), in Madrid (11-M), and in London (7/7).
These three attacks took place in the West and were claimed by
Al-Qaeda, which declared a non-territorial war against the United
States and its allies. But the itineraries of the perpetrators of the attacks
in these three countries were not identical. The handling of the bodies,
or their remains, which varied from one country to another, evinces a
link between, on the one hand, the jihadis’ trajectories, their move-
ments, their networks of relations at the local, regional and global level
as proof of their use of space; and on the other, the states’ reactions
with regard to their burial.
Each case raises different questions and brings different issues into
play. For the United States, the attacks targeted two of the most promi-
nent symbols of the country’s wealth and power and of its military
capabilities—the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon building, the Defense Department headquarters, respec-
tively. These spectacular attacks were carried out by nineteen young
jihadis of different nationalities, social backgrounds and educational
levels, who had travelled worldwide prior to blowing themselves up in
the south of Manhattan, in Washington and in Pennsylvania. Burial—a
non-issue for the United States—expresses the rejection of the jihadi
suicide bomber as enemy, who when alive belonged to the ummah and
whose body when dead does not (or should not) leave a trace in his-
tory. Their global movements, with no place and no trace of burial,
embodying the very issue of globalization, enabled the United States to
assert itself as a world power above any normative consideration. With
the “War on Terror” launched by President George W. Bush, the United
States expressed its determination to appear as a “global nation” out to
pursue its enemy wherever it was found.
In Madrid, on the other hand, the seven young men who perpetrated
the attacks on suburban trains heading into the Atocha railway station
on 11 March 2004, and who committed suicide a month later when the
Spanish police raided their hideout in the town of Leganés, were first-
generation migrants. They had come from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria
and maintained close ties with these countries and their families who
had remained behind. The Madrid attacks showed the ties of solidarity
that bind the country of origin and the country of immigration, and the
3
Burying Jihadis
establishment of cross-border networks in which new forms of interac-
tion prevail based on economic transfers, of course, but also on cultural,
social, political and even ideological transfers. Like most young first-
generation migrants, their supposed burial back home highlighted the
transnational dimension of the phenomenon in life and death. Through
such transnational relations, and with Spain as a port of entry into the
Schengen Area, these attacks represented a challenge to free movement
within the European Union, a de facto transnational space.
In London, the 7 July 2005 attacks on the underground system and
on a bus were perpetrated by four youths holding British citizenship:
three of whom were born in Great Britain, the fourth having arrived
from Jamaica at a very young age. The public authorities classified these
criminals as “homegrown terrorists,” which has become the most com-
mon jihadi profile. The term “home” referring to the land or country of
origin, for Great Britain means their country of citizenship and “natu-
ral” place of burial. Ties with Pakistan, their parents’ homeland for
three of them as well as the country where training took place, create
ambiguity in establishing a diasporic space marked by an attachment to
the ancestral land and integration in the host country. The burial of the
perpetrators of 7/7 placed the homegrown terrorist phenomenon
within the larger issue of territory and belonging that connects citizen-
ship and transnational networks, nationality and the extent of the dias-
pora. Citizenship and territorial attachment were the focus of public
reaction regarding the handling of the bodies of these youths, and
prompted a reconsideration of so-called multicultural policies as the
democratic basis for recognizing identities. They are now linked to the
problem of security on either side of the border.
A decade on from the London bombings and the 2005 riots in
France, the attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January
2015, and on the Bataclan concert hall, Stade de France stadium and
various sidewalk cafés in Paris in November, became a “French 9/11”,
claimed by so-called Islamic State (IS). The involvement of three young
French “homegrown” jihadis, in the case of Charlie Hebdo, and eight
others in the case of the Bataclan, raises the same questions of territo-
rial attachment—these were Belgian and French citizens, and some
held dual citizenship (Algerian/French or Moroccan/Belgian). They
belonged to a diaspora. But in the case of France, the diasporic space
4
INTRODUCTION
did not include their parents’ country of origin but instead referred to
Syria, defined as the land of an “imagined caliphate” and henceforth the
ancestral land of resistance, a land to be reconquered and for which
one must fight. The matter of their burial, extensively and recurrently
debated in the media after each attack in France, creates the same
ambiguity as in the UK, meaning the establishment of a diasporic space
marked by an attachment to the ancestral land and integration in
France. The difference arises in the representation of the “ancestral
land”, which is not the parents’ country of origin that enables them to
form diasporic ties, but an “imagined diaspora” in reference to the
caliphate. That being the case, the burial of the perpetrators of Charlie
Hebdo and 13 November in Paris places the homegrown terrorist phe-
nomenon, as in the British case, within the larger issue of territory and
belonging that connects citizenship (single or dual), transnational net-
works and the extent of an “imagined diaspora”.
The Body of the ummah

The act of burial, like the place of interment, connects individuals to
their community and to their ancestors. These bodies, instruments of
war and objects of sacrifice, are driven by ambiguous rhetoric as to
their attachment to the ummah, a global “imagined community” that
calls into question the link between body (blood and identity) and
nation, and, consequently, between citizenship, nationality and terri-
tory. Radical Islamist leaders counsel young jihadis to break off ties
with family authority and to reject nationality and citizenship as a basis
for their identity. All that remains is the ummah, the community of
believers. Burying their bodies, which as a representation of global
power escape state control, amounts to re-territorialising them.
For Kantorowicz, the body, a political object centred on the human
being, assumes a tangible aspect, that of the sovereign individual; and
a symbolical aspect, that of the body politic, the state, which has a
collective dimension.4 The body of the combatant forms part of the
nation. National war histories are full of examples of the “repatriation”
of soldiers who “died for their country” on enemy soil or tributes to
unknown soldiers. All of this fits in with a process that is at once social
and political, accompanied by a rhetoric that highlights the link
5
Burying Jihadis
between body and territory in its modern definition: that of the
nation. On the other hand, the body of a jihadi or, as President George
W. Bush put it, the “unlawful combatant”, does not belong to any
national community or any state, any more than it has any status in
international law. His burial is not an issue in itself, whether political,
social or legal. No state, no community, no individual explicitly claims
his body. It is not made into a “founding moment” of national con-
struction, as in the case of embarrassing bodies whose burial is an
issue for the historical reconstruction of the nation—as in the case of
the “body of il Duce.”5 The pain caused by suicide attacks is borne by
the public, but mourning in their case secretly associates the family
sphere with that of the local community.
Burial, according to Engseng Ho, “the act of combining a place, a
person, a text, and a name”, thus reflects a territorial attachment.6 In
his essay “Long Distance Nationalism”, Benedict Anderson refers to
Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux in the seventeenth century and known for
his sermons and funeral orations, who wrote: “Men feel connected to
something powerful when they consider that the same earth that bore
them and nourished them when they were living will receive them into
its bosom when they die.”7 Anderson contrasts this individual immobil-
ity characteristic of feudal societies with the remarks made by the
nineteenth-century British historian and political thinker Lord Acton,
who conversely believed that “exile is the nursery of nationality” or
national sentiment. For Bossuet, one’s land is one’s native soil, the
village of one’s birth, and for Lord Acton the nationality he describes
refers to a territorial attachment. This attachment, like any identity
reference, is not fixed in time or space. Given the scale of human
migration, place of birth or even native lands as territorial attachment
become abstract and distant references, whereas places of interment
mark the points of passage or the settlement of a generation.
In the case of jihadis, driven by an identity narrative related to their
belonging to the ummah, there is no question of territorial attachment.
What fate can be reserved for these bodies transformed into human
bombs? It should be noted that even though suicide attacks are hailed
on the internet as glorious, the act of suicide bombing erases all real or
virtual trace of their physical remains. It is not followed by any public
ceremony or glorification by their family or community.
6
INTRODUCTION
As for the countries targeted by attacks, in keeping with the respect
for human rights, they are often faced with dilemmas, as they must at
once take into account the families’ duties to their dead, and worry
about their own sovereignty. The question of sovereignty leads them to
use all possible means to “punish the dead” who murdered civilians and
who escaped their justice, as if to serve “the vengeance of the Prince
and contain the anger of the people.”8 This is reminiscent of Creon, the
king in the Sophocles tragedy who denied Antigone’s brother
Polyneices a burial, considering him a traitor.
The burial of jihadis who died on the soil of these constitutional
states raises different issues, however. Whereas in Antigone, King Creon
orders Polyneices to be “left unwept, unmourned, unburied and con-
demned to feed the birds of prey” and even wishes “deprivation of a
sepulcher his punishment,” jihadi burial is not part of any sort of sanc-
tioning strategy aimed at the family or local communities. Nor does it
enter into state strategies for fighting terrorism. State counter-radical-
ization policies often encourage mutual cooperation in border protec-
tion and the security of their citizens, while continuing to subject them
to the normative constraints imposed by human rights declarations and
supranational institutional regulations, particularly with respect to civil
liberties. Despite such cooperation at various levels, which tends to
align the policies of various states, major differences arise in the way
the burial of jihadis is envisaged.
“Dying to kill”:9 this imperative is not specific to jihad or to radical
Islam. All religions have known the phenomenon of martyrdom, even
if sacrifice or voluntary death in the name of a national or religious
cause were not explicitly referred to by this term.10 During the Second
World War, Japanese kamikazes downed their planes in enemy terri-
tory in the name of God and the nation.11 But the current interpreta-
tion of the jihadist narrative, which took root in the colonial period,12
refers to belonging to the ummah, a global nation imagined as the basis
for a new identity which, instead of relating to a territory, follows the
thread of networks beyond borders. In other words, the mobile body
delineates the territory of the ummah.Youths who have chosen the path
of jihad thus turn state territories into a cross-border space of move-
ment to affirm a transnational identity. They thereby mean to blur
boundaries and define a nation and a nationalism without territory.13
7
Burying Jihadis
The use of the body as a war tactic and a victim-targeting strategy
contrasts two opposing conceptions of power: territorial power and
non-territorial power. So-called transnational political acts, those that
reach beyond borders, today are helping to create a space of identifica-
tion beyond national societies; a space that, in its quest for power, seeks
to combine the local and the global. The mobile body thus outlines a
new, denationalized and deterritorialized geography that is transform-
ing states: national borders are still clearly drawn, but they are tra-
versed by a mesh of networks that criss-cross in space as if to define a
new form of territoriality, characterized nevertheless by the extension
of state sovereignty.
Redefining Territoriality
Al-Qaeda brought to the fore this new aspect of interconnected rela-
tions in a deterritorialized and denationalized space. “Mobile” or “shift-
ing” territories are presented by radical Islamist leaders as places where
jihad should be conducted. These are the lands of jihad. They follow the
contours of the Al-Qaeda nebula: its local cells in Africa, the Middle
East and Asia, and more precisely in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya,
and Bosnia in the 1990s, and since 2003 in Iraq and Syria. The process
reduces territory to the places where power is exercised through vio-
lence and where networks intersect, forming “hubs” that change loca-
tion depending on the density of encounters to shape “geographies of
threats or fear,” to use Stuart Elden’s expression,14 which he considers
to be a means to attain political objectives that involve influencing gov-
ernments by fear. According to Arjun Appadurai, these spaces represent
the “geography of anger”15 formed by those who identify according to
the ummah, and become globalized through their mobility. As for what
are known as transnational actors, such as “pirates, bandits, criminals,
smugglers, youth gangs, drug lords, warlords, Mafiosi, traitors, terror-
ists,” and jihadis too, they exercise a “de facto sovereignty” in these
geographies that is manifested by “the ability to kill, punish, and disci-
pline with impunity wherever it is found and practiced, rather than
sovereignty grounded in formal ideologies of rule and legality.” These
groups “persist and mutate despite state laws and powerful institutions
entrusted with the responsibility of eliminating them.”16 Through their
8
INTRODUCTION
actions they induce states to extend their sovereignty beyond their
territory when tracking their networks.
This new dynamic transforms territorial wars into extraterritorial
wars. But in a Westphalian world, territory remains the space where
power is concentrated. When a faction of Al-Qaeda took control of an
area the size of the UK on the border between Syria and Iraq, pro-
claimed itself “Islamic State,” named Al-Baghdadi its caliph in June 2014
(during Ramadan that year) and expanded its territory by conquering
neighbouring areas to cover a territory as large as Great Britain,17 it
had no legitimacy in the eyes of international law and the nations con-
cerned.Yet, it confirmed the essential role of territory within the tac-
tics of war and an expansionist strategy.
Several studies point out the similarities as well as changes and/or
continuity between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization. “They
are both the product of a history of Sunni Islamic revivalist movements
that have sought to empower Muslims against what they describe as
Islam’s enemies, both external and internal.”18 The ideological diver-
gence of views between Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
and their operational differences—namely territorial aspirations and no
longer simply a web of networks—converge when it comes to mobiliz-
ing young men for jihad, both having the same rhetorical force and
discourse about belonging to the ummah. Whereas Al-Qaeda had
embarked on a global, deterritorialized jihad, Islamic State propaganda
reminds youths of the “religious duty of hijra (migration to Iraq or Syria)
to join the caliphate,” and that “migration is the purpose of the Jihad.”19
The ummah’s army for jihad is made up of youths of all social and
national origins having a variety of educational and occupational back-
grounds. It is virtually impossible to determine a typical profile. They
meet in cybercafés, bookshops and neighbourhood mosques to view
videos about the wars in Chechnya or Bosnia, and of course the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict. They are affected by scenes of suffering and
speeches about “Islam humiliated,” harbouring a desire for revenge that
drives them to violence. Some have travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan
or Yemen to join training camps there.
Since 2011, many of them have been streaming into Syria. They are
“invited”, or say they are “drawn”, by videos and images that promise
them heaven on earth if they take part in jihad. Messages and photos
9
Burying Jihadis
circulate on social media: images of parties and great luxury, and selfies
showing smiling men out to prove their happiness and newfound
peace.20 Showing the happiness and harmony that reigns in Islamic State
territory is also important in attracting young women who are wanted
as brides, and to remind them that the Islamic State group subsidizes
youths who rally to its organization and its cause.21 Such mobilization
follows the rationale of any social movement that aspires to bring about
a new society,22 using the rhetoric of “justice to be restored” and
“revenge” for the domination its followers have been subjected to. It
convinces them to sacrifice themselves for the ummah by using their
body—a source of blood and identity—as their weapon of war. This war
is a non-territorial war propagated over the internet, which has opened
new spaces for communication, mobilization and power.
Patrick Cockburn asserts that the movement generated by the
Islamic State organization is “a hundred times bigger and much better
organized than the Al-Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden.”23 He proceeds,
“What makes their threat particularly alarming is that their base area,
the land where they are in control, is today larger by far than anything
an Al-Qaeda type of group held before.”24 Recruitment is also more
systematic. The leaders target disadvantaged neighbourhoods in
European cities with high concentrations of Muslims, such as Roubaix,
Brussels and the Seine-St-Denis banlieue of Paris: all places where
youth unemployment is far above the national average. These areas are
presented as conflict zones between civil society and the police,
between generations and cultures. From Mosul, the self-proclaimed
caliph, Al-Baghdadi, underlined the duty of jihadis to unify the ummah
and asked all “fighters to swear allegiance to the caliphate or give up
their weapons.” But despite the call to territorial jihad, all reports con-
cur that the organization’s threat lies mainly in these jihadis’ intention
to act anywhere in the world. This makes territorial jihad a global jihad.
Such territorial detachment under the influence of globalization rejects
“the existing territorial domain in favour of alternative identities. The
homeland in this case is not a reservoir of an emotional attachment, but
a persistent barrier to religious and economic aspirations.”25
As its name suggests, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, (or Al-Sham
in reference to Greater Syria in the ideological jargon) expresses its
intention to form a state, appoint a caliph, define its territory, “and
10
INTRODUCTION
following the Prophet’s example,” plant its flag “as a symbol to rally
people to its cause” in reference to black flags “flown by the prophet in
his war with the infidels.”26 Even more, to mint its own money, raise an
army, and procure weapons and land are focal to the strategy of the
self-proclaimed caliphate.
The areas seized serve to attract not only the young Muslim dias-
pora, but also others from Europe, from the Middle East and North
Africa, the Caucasus and Asia, coming together with local tribes to
form an “army”. According to James Clapper, Director of the US Office
of National Intelligence, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee on 9 February 2016, more than 38,200 foreign fighters,
including at least 6,900 from Western countries, have travelled to Syria
from more than 100 countries since 2012.27 In Europe, France and
Belgium are the largest sources of recruitment. In the Middle East, it
is Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia. From Asia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh
provide most of the recruits.
These young people, regardless of their national origin, see them-
selves as mobilizing for the caliphate. They have made it their “home-
land,” the homeland of an imagined diaspora of the ummah. Whether
organized in groups, or local or global networks, whether they act
individually or in a collective, organized fashion, their identification—
individual and/or collective—with the ummah seems to find fertile
ground in this “diasporic” aspect of dispersion. The discourse that
underlies the idea of transforming the ummah into a global nation relies
on its members finding unity based on overlapping identities (national,
regional, religious, linguistic). It also relies on shared experiences
(colonization, exile or emigration). Furthermore, it relies on constant
references to a denationalized and deterritorialized “we” that estab-
lishes itself within the conceptions of the diaspora and the nation.
If diasporas encourage a sort of “nationalism” that is abstract yet
anchored in a physical territory, the ummah generates new impulses
based on the transnational communities and networks that seek to
consolidate themselves through the strength of a single story fed by
symbols, images and objects. So-called Islamic State may have lost a
large amount of the territory they had amassed, but the soldiers of the
caliphate continue their work in a “deterritorialized” way. They attack
where they are, and thus recall the objectives of both territorial “state
11
Burying Jihadis
building” as well as a global expansion through the “imagined diaspora”
that motivates foreign fighters. Every attack—even the most isolated
and individual—is now claimed by Islamic State. It uses these claims to
further its global ambitions and appropriate a war wherever the self-
identified, self-recruited soldiers and/or combatants act.
The Book
For each attack, official reports specify the terrorists’ place of birth,
their travels and sojourns throughout the globe, as well as the complex
web that links individuals together. Once mapped, these trajectories
clearly mark out the size and scope of transnational networks, as well as
the cities that become hubs or places of intersection. Interviews with
experts and with public and intelligence officials in the three cities
struck by suicide bombers (New York, Madrid and London) help us to
grasp the logic of the official reaction to the burial of the enemy/crimi-
nal who died within these countries’ borders. They express how and to
what extent the burial of suicide bombers poses practical questions
above all, leading to a variety of interpretations as to the value of their
body. The symbolic importance of burial is political and moral. It
touches on the nature of war, the enemy’s legitimacy and recognition of
his cause, as well as his death. What plot of earth will, or will not, be
allotted to him, and where?28
Meetings with security authorities in New York confirm the view of
the suicide bomber as enemy. Meetings with representatives of local
communities in the country of origin—Morocco in the case of the per-
petrators of the Madrid attacks—or the country of residence—such as
Beeston Hill, a suburb of Leeds that was home to the youths who blew
themselves up in the London underground—provide additional and
contradictory elements to the matter of their burial, despite the silence,
secrecy and censorship surrounding these three situations.
The first chapter discusses various cases of embarrassing or incon-
venient bodies and situates them on the one hand with respect to the
discourse of radical Islamist leaders about national territorial and non-
territorial religious belongings, the importance of death for jihad, and
sacrifice for the ummah, and on the other with respect to states’ reac-
tions. These radical discourses on the body, identity, nationality, the
12
INTRODUCTION
army, jihad and the ummah, or again on the land of Islam, are evidence
of a “strategic ambiguity”, a way of expressing a powerful global vision
leaving the field open to local interpretations as to its meaning.29 The
following chapters examine the link between the jihadis’ itineraries and
their burial. Each case gives rise to a different perspective on globaliza-
tion with respect to territory.
The Palestinian cause at the heart of all discourse on jihad imposed
a detour via Israel, leading that state to experience an increase in the
number of suicide attacks in the wake of the second Intifada. This made
it possible to gauge the territorial and non-territorial issues of the
cause and of burial. Comparing public statements and testimonials of
families in refugee camps in Nablus, for instance, reveals two different
rationales of war—territorial and non-territorial—despite the “dis-
pute” over these territories, making burial a bargaining chip in peace as
well as war.
It has not been possible in my research to locate actual places of
burial, often kept secret or censored, or at the least shrouded in
silence, but I do hope at least to reveal the logic of states, which varies
according to their history, geography, experience with terrorism, and
their relationship to immigration and the integration of policies of
recognizing differences.
13
PART I
BODY, LAND AND TERRITORY
Radical Islamist rhetoric on martyrdom on one side and the reactions of

states on the other both reflect different representations of the body and
its relationship to land and territory. Through the body, different con-
ceptions of power in a globalized world are expressed. While the body
represents the power of mobility, it is also recognized by its ties to
nation and a national territory. However, the rejection of territory
preached by radical Islamist discourse is contradicted by the localized
exercise of power that is expressed through violence. In tracking the
enemy wherever he is found, states, conversely, act outside the bound-
aries of their territory, proving their sovereignty beyond their borders.
15
1
THE POWER OF DISCOURSE
Radical Islamist leaders use a whole repertoire of historical religious

concepts such as jihad, ummah, lands of Islam and the caliphate, to
mention only the most frequently used terms, and infuse territory with
a particular cultural content, conceived as denationalized.1 Their
approach expresses a mental and discursive geography of power that
fits in with globalization. Interpretations are multiple and contradic-
tory. Jihad, as a political cause that makes reference to holy war, pur-
sues various aims: to reconquer lost lands of Islam, to restore the
caliphate and to reestablish its territorial power, or again, to define the
boundaries of the community of believers—the ummah. Radical
Islamist thinkers and activists demand loyalty to the ummah, a reimag-
ined community that blends all kinds of attachments: to the nation, to
religion, and to the land. Jihad becomes a duty when the ummah is
attacked,2 just as war becomes a necessity when a nation and its army
are attacked. From this perspective, the ummah and the nation are one
and the same, and jihadis sacrifice themselves in its name as proof of
their loyalty to the nation.
Jihadist combatants are self-declared martyrs. Some have made their
body into a weapon of war. Their act is coupled with rhetoric about “a
warrior’s heroic self-sacrifice,” offering himself up “for his lord and
master (rather than for a territory or an idea of ‘state’).”3 Jihadis refer
to the homeland as “the invisible community of heaven and the celestial
17
Burying Jihadis
city” for which saints gave their lives: “a final return to that fatherland
in Heaven should be the normal desire of every Christian soul while
wandering in exile on earth.”4
The conjoined use of terms such as jihad, ummah, caliphate and “land
of Islam” calls up an historic definition of the nation and nationalist
sentiment. But in this case, instead of “unifying” a people on a territory,
it strives to bring together geographically dispersed people under the
same religious and transnational banner. The people of the ummah share
the same goals—resistance, struggle and emancipation—a sense of
belonging to one and the same history and projection into the same
future. It echoes the “imagined community” on which modern nations
are founded, but without territory, or with many territories at once.
Analysis of the discourse of radical Islamist thinkers sheds light on the
ambiguity of their position concerning territory and state, territory
and sovereignty, and territory and nation. It is a case of “strategic ambi-
guity,”5 which aims to express a strong global message and prompts
local interpretations.
“The Ummah is our body. If one part hurts, the whole body aches.”
This hadith on one of the deepest Islamic principles, that of the
ummah—the global community that unites all Muslims—was pro-
nounced by Osama Bin Laden in January 2004.
The statement likens the ummah to “a body politic” and “the mem-
bers thereof are his subjects.”6 “Fighting in the cause of God is … the
pinnacle of our religion,” Bin Laden stated on 4 January 2004. Jihad is
therefore “a pressing need for our nation’s life, glory, and survival.”7
Jessica Stern reports that in an interview, an operative told her, “I pray
for death every day. During my studies, reading the Koran, I decided to
sacrifice my life for jihad. If I die for jihad, I go to paradise. This is my
dream.”8 Sacrificing oneself for God is not specific to Islam, of course.
In Christianity, the best example is the crusades preached by the Pope
during the Middle Ages.
In Bin Laden’s speeches, to fight to protect the ummah is to fight for
Allah. “[…] Pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. All
these ideologies have failed … and the present governments in the
Muslim world have proved themselves incapable of defending Islam
18
and the ummah.”9 According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the word
“ummah” “occurs some sixty-two times in the Qur’an in the sense of a
religious community.”10 Ejaz Akram reports that, “in the later discourse
throughout Muslims history, the understanding of ummah has evolved
as a distinct Muslim ummah.”11 There it refers to a community with
political authority and autonomy, as well as possessing religious and
social characteristics.12 The idealized community in Mohammed’s time
extended beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the era of the caliphate, but
later came under domination first by the colonial powers and then
through the acceptance of secularism by post-colonial societies in the
lands of Islam. This new world order “is a humiliation to the Muslim,”
says Ayman al-Zawahiri, an influential figure in Al-Qaeda who became
the organization’s leader after Bin Laden’s death. He describes jihad as
a “community obligation.”13 Following the founders of the Muslim
Brotherhood, he calls on the community to unite against the allied
secular regimes of the West. “If it is not possible to push back the
enemy except by the collective of the Muslim people, then there is a
duty on the Muslims to ignore the minor differences among them-
selves; the ill effect of ignoring these differences […] is much less then
the ill effect of the occupation of the Muslim’s land by the main Kufr
[infidel],”14 said Bin Laden in his August 1996 declaration of war.15
Bin Laden asked for the liberation of Islam from the “imported”16
state system it is caught up in: “It is essential to fight the main enemy
who divided the Ummah into small and little countries,”17 he claimed.
Here he was drawing on the rhetoric of Muslim humiliation in various
geographic spaces in several instances in the past and present. In the
past are the loss of Andalusia and the end of Ottoman rule and the
caliphate; present humiliations involve discrimination against Muslim
post-colonial immigrant populations in Europe. Jihad is thus a liberat-
ing force for all Muslims, even those living in anti-Islamist Arab states
that have espoused the Western model. These are territorialized peo-
ples whose governments are allies of the United States. A political
decision therefore guided his rhetoric and lies behind attacks targeting
these states and their governments.
Bin Laden declared that the 11 September attacks were “a reaction
from the young men of our ummah against the violations of the British
Government”18 (meaning the British occupation of Palestine from 1920
19
Burying Jihadis
to 1948). In October 2001, in a televised interview on Al-Jazeera one
month after the attacks and after two weeks of American bombing of
Afghanistan, he explained: “The battle isn’t between the Al-Qaeda
organization and the global Crusaders. Rather, the battle is between
Muslims—the people of Islam—and the global Crusaders.”19 He was
addressing the youth of the Muslim diaspora as well as people in ter-
ritorialized states, hence “every part of the ummah body”: “O young
Muslims everywhere!” he thus exclaimed. His recommendations
focused on “the jihad”, on war, which he defined as a “new crusade”,
claiming “the islamists ultimate goal is to restore a single political
structure for all Muslims worldwide.”20 Zawahiri confirms: “If enemies
enter Muslim territory, it is absolutely necessary to push them farther
and farther back, because Muslim hands are like a single country.”21
And like one body. The parts that “hurt” are its members scattered
according to a “Muslim geography,” to use Faisal Devji’s expression—a
deterritorialized, denationalized geography, fundamentally indifferent
to specific state territories.22 But the ummah also establishes borders—
non-territorial ones—between Muslims and the others, between
believers and infidels. These borders include countries of birth, coun-
tries of residence, countries of citizenship and countries of action. The
ummah is the world. Its fluctuating borders in fact follow the movement
of peoples. Even urban concentrations, which have become “territories
of identity,”23 particularly in countries of immigration, are included in
the representation of lands of Islam, lands where Muslim populations
have settled. These multiple references have a dual objective: to make a
geographically scattered population aware that it constitutes one com-
munity, one people, and to unify this people against a common enemy.
Zawahiri moreover claims, “an attack on Muslims in any country is an
attack on Muslims everywhere.”24
This self-awareness among the ummah, developed during colonial-
ism, involves allegiance to Islam, denouncing governments that attack
Islam, and a sense of responsibility for its defence. According to the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, the ummah is related throughout Islamic history
to the concepts of dar-al-Islam (land of Islam) vs. dar-al-Harb (land of
war). These concepts understood as “any territory that under Muslim
rule and in which Islamic law is applied” vs “the territory of unbelief ”
are relevant “to the discussions about the doctrine of jihad.”25 For the
20
radicalized, the ummah is closely associated with jihad, following
Clausewitz’s notion that war builds peoplehood.”26 For Yusuf al-
Qaradawi—president of the International Union of Muslim scholars,
member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the European Council for
Fatwa and Research, and an advisor to Al-Jazeera on religious mat-
ters—this link is essential to the ummah’s survival: “without jihad, the
ummah’s boundaries will be violated, the blood of its people will be as
cheap as dust, its sanctuaries will be less worthy than a handful of des-
ert sand, and it will be insignificant in the eyes of its enemies.”27 To be
more convincing and incite people to action, this rhetoric links the
emotional weight of belonging to the logic of war.28 It requires com-
batants to show altruism by being prepared to sacrifice their bodies to
become the “martyrs of Allah.”29
“The martyr is special to Allah”

The body used as a weapon of war attests to the jihadis’ sacrifice and
shows a sense of altruism that encourages their suicide. It also shows
their attachment to a “community” and wins the trust of its members.
The call of the ummah to defend Muslim lands is justified, according to
Zawahiri, in the social and cultural changes he noted among young
Muslims: “We are witnessing a new phenomenon that continues to gain
ground: young Muslim fighters who have abandoned family and coun-
try, neglected wealth, left their studies and jobs to join the battlefields
of jihad.”30 He adds: “A new awareness is developing among the sons of
Islam, who are eager to ensure their victory, namely that no solution is
possible without jihad.”31 Far from imposing legal principles, this
requires certain physical and moral qualities, as Zawahiri states: “they
must be patient and firm, and prepared to accept sacrifice, particularly
of their bodies, in other words die for jihad.” Bin Laden made it clear
that “jihad will go on until the Day of Judgment.”32 The cult of martyr-
dom is thus developed in the discourse as the “ultimate form of devo-
tion to God,” placed at the pinnacle of jihad. “The martyr is special to
Allah. He is forgiven from the first drop of blood (that he sheds). He
sees his throne in paradise, where he will be adorned in ornaments of
faith. He will wed the Aynour [wide-eyed virgin] and will not know the
torments of the grave and safeguards against the greater horror [hell].”33
21
Burying Jihadis
The martyr represents global power. At a time when war is waged
without soldiers, without an army, but with drones, the explosive body
counters discreet and invisible weapons and asserts itself, in the minds
of radical Islamist thinkers, as a new form of militarization. No need
for a sophisticated army, an infantry, or colossal human and financial
investment. What matters is the determination to give one’s life to the
cause. These thinkers present martyr operations as the guarantee of a
victory for divine power. They assign them a “social bonus” and see
them as the proof of a single soldier’s superiority over the enemy.34
Young people who perpetrate suicide attacks are convinced that
sacrificing their bodies is a matter of honour, a proof of their commit-
ment to the cause of jihad and their solidarity with the network of
friends formed over the internet and cemented by the same ideology.35
By committing simultaneous attacks on different targets in different
cities, they sow global terror, mobilize fears and make a spectacle of
their cause. Even more, according to David Cook, in the minds of radi-
cals, a suicide operation is a criterion that divides the “true” and “false”
Muslims and creates a boundary between Islam and the rest of the
world.36 For sociologists who favour the “rational choice” approach,
suicide attacks are viewed as an initiation rite enabling the candidate to
join the group and the community.37 Several studies show that their act
demonstrates their determination, their altruism and their sense of
sacrifice, as well as, for some of them, the strength of their religious
beliefs. For the father of a jihadi who died in Pakistan at the age of
twenty-three, it was “the easiest way to get the blessings of god
almighty and enter paradise.”38 Martyrdom is part of jihad: it is a reli-
gious obligation. As Islam forbids suicide, a jihadi who commits a sui-
cide attack dies for the cause of jihad. He thus becomes shahid, a mar-
tyr. But actually, “in the telling of martyrdom, how a person dies
matters as much, and sometimes more, than what the person died for,”
says Lucia Volk.39
Jihadis believe, and are told by authority figures, that the martyr
goes directly to paradise upon his death, where he enjoys the favours
and company of black-eyed maidens, the houris. David Cook details the
miracle stories and martyrologies that surround the act: it is said that
from the martyr’s body “a sweet smell is frequently attested”, and so it
need not even be washed.40 Jessica Stern notes that martyrdom is a
22
moral obligation for the jihadi, a proof of love for his country. The
martyr is rewarded with posthumous glory: “Anyone who dies a mar-
tyr’s death gets a reward.” “Social contagion” may also explain the
spread of suicide-murders. The author in particular describes the “game
called shuhada, which includes a mock funeral for a suicide bomber”
and mothers are urged to celebrate their son’s death because they will
celebrate their marriage in paradise.41
Political scientist Mohammed Hafez relates his field experience in
Iraq. “Like Hamas and Hezbollah, jihadi Salafis in Iraq promote the idea
that martyrdom is a gateway to another life, not an end to life. Dying
in the path of God will achieve for the martyrs all the rewards of mar-
tyrdom, including: […] immediate admission into heaven, so martyrs
do not suffer the punishment of the tomb.” He goes on to say, “the
bombers are happy because they are abandoning this world of disgrace
and shame to one in which they are venerated along with the honour-
able and righteous believers, enjoying for eternity all the fruits of their
meager sacrifice. As proof, […] jihadists often post on the web photos
of dead jihadists who appear to be smiling or peacefully asleep.”42 The
French jihadi Jérémie Louis-Sydney, arrested in Cannes in October
2012, had left a will addressed to “Allah, keeper of paradise”.43
As Thomas Hegghammer explains, martyrdom took hold as an
essential concept in radical Islamist discourse with Abdallah Azzam, a
Palestinian cleric who studied in Syria and was close to Bin Laden
before he was killed in a bomb attack in 1989. Suicide attacks thus
grew in frequency as of the mid-1990s.44 David Cook, on the other
hand, notes that Mohammed Khair Haykal’s 1993 book on jihad does
not mention martyrdom operations. But in 2001 Yusuf al-Qaradawi
announced his approval of such operations. In April 2004, during a
televised interview on Al-Jazeera, he praised Allah for having given
Palestinians “the ability to turn their bodies into bombs”,45 thus con-
firming the fatwa he had issued in 2004: “Allah Almighty is just; through
his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not
have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as
Palestinians do.”46 Al-Qaradawi reiterates this idea in an interview
given to the BBC in London in 2010: “This is a necessary thing. […]
Give the Palestinians tanks, airplanes, and missiles, and they won’t
carry out martyrdom operations. They are forced to turn themselves
23
Burying Jihadis
into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honour, and
their homeland.”47 To be more convincing, the leaders cite examples of
martyrdom by referring to certain Shia holy places (Kerbala, for
instance) or specific situations.
A martyrdom operation is cheap. It is the poor man’s weapon, in
contrast to a technologically sophisticated army facing its enemy in a
given territory. In fact, from the perspective of asymmetrical warfare,
as in the case of a state combating a network, the body corresponds to
a heroic code: It represents the weapon of the hero. By turning himself
into a human bomb, an individual can blend into the enemy’s environ-
ment, make himself invisible (not in uniform) and vanish into the
crowd. It is moreover a tactic that guarantees a large number of casual-
ties in a single attack.48
Social media grants the suicide bomber a few minutes of fame. The
glorification of jihadis who commit suicide bombings is reserved for
websites, the same ones radicals use to urge Muslims to offer them-
selves in sacrifice for the ummah. They are considered martyrs by the
networked community and acquire status among other young Muslims
eager to follow in their path and die for the ummah. Suicide terrorism
has thus become a social norm.49
Islam is of course not the only religion to value martyrdom: every
religion has its martyr myths and divine favours associated with it.
Beliefs linking death and marriage were fairly common in ancient
Greece. The theological basis for this popular allegation is found in
practices associated with the holy virgin, eternally united with Christ.50
“Jihad begins when the enemy enters the land of the Muslims”
Consciousness-raising within the ummah occurs through denunciations
of governments that attack Islam, allegiance to Islam and assumption
of responsibility for its defence, as well as consolidation of the com-
munity and its territories. For radical Islamists, the ummah is related to
jihad. Al-Qaradawi quotes Abdallah Azzam, radical Islam’s main theo-
rist of territory: jihad begins “when the enemies enter Muslim terri-
tory.” In such cases, “the son may go out without the permission of his
father, the debtor without that of his creditor, the wife without that of
her husband, the slave without that of his master. The individual obliga-
24
tion to wage jihad remains in effect until the lands are purified from the
pollution of the unbelievers.”51
This disregard for authority, whether family or any other figure, is
in keeping with the same rationale as rejection of nationality or citizen-
ship as a source of belonging that would divide the ummah. Although he
encourages exile to stake out the spatial reach of the ummah without
territorial limits, Ayman al-Zawahiri requests that young Muslims “in
exile” not acquire citizenship in the country of residence: “acquisition
of citizenship in any state by naturalization requires agreement to obey
its laws. Some countries, such as America and Britain, even require the
person being naturalized to swear loyalty to the constitution […]. This
is an obvious act of non-belief. […] Furthermore, after acquiring citi-
zenship, he or his sons will be obligated to serve in the army of the
non-believers and to go out to fight in their wars. This renders one an
[sic] non-believer, because it is fighting for idols. God has said: ‘And the
non-believers fight in the idols’ way [Koranic verse; Al-Nisa 4: 76].”52
Zawahiri moreover recognizes the importance of nationality as “a
sign of belong [sic] to a state, to a group that defends itself by force,
having land, a government, a constitution and laws that regulate the
holding and acquisition of nationality.” Nationality “divides or unites
based on the principle of belonging.” The similarity with belonging to
Islam is obvious to him: “as patriots consider that patriotic nationality
gives the right to differentiate between people based on their citizen-
ship, Muslims consider it their right to differentiate between people
based on their affiliation to Islam.” Elsewhere he adds, “To use this era’s
terminology, Islam consists of one nationality only. It abolishes ethnic
and national boundaries. God said: “Verily, this community of yours is
a single community” [Koranic verse Al-Anbiya 21:92). There are
numerous proofs of this fact; it is a definite fact of religion.”53
On the basis of such considerations, Abdallah Azzam invites Muslims
to wage “jihad at home” or “where they stand.” Al-Qaeda representatives
in Western countries advise activists to strike targets close to them, to
surprise the enemy in places familiar to him. Thus, Adam Gadahn, a
young American Muslim convert born to a Jewish father and a Christian
mother who became spokesman, interpreter and media adviser for
Al-Qaeda—nicknamed “Azzam the American”—counselled jihadis to
strike targets having three characteristics: “with which they are well
25
Burying Jihadis
acquainted, a target that is feasible to hit and a target that, when struck,
will have a major impact.” He encouraged them especially to strike
mass-transportation systems, because even when unsuccessful, such
attacks “can bring major cities to a halt, cost billions of dollars and send
corporations into bankruptcy.”54 Not only do symbols matter, but they
also take on considerable importance in the eyes of homegrown jihad-
ists, connected through the “jihad at hand”. Such connections, even if
they are virtual and purely illusory as regards establishing solidarities,
are effective in recruiting jihadis and inciting them to action.
Indeed, since the 11 September attacks, homegrown terrorists have
been seen to act on random targets in their countries of residence—
which are also often countries of citizenship and nationality—or else
in countries defined as the “mobile lands” or “shifting territories” of
jihad, such as Iraq since 2003 and Syria since 2011, to which they can
travel without a visa due to their European passport or dual nationality.
Using the “Al-Qaeda label”, which has become a means of legitimizing
local organizations and groups, they often act in “cliques”, to use Marc
Sageman’s term,55 or gangs formed spontaneously in the neighbour-
hoods, mosques or organizations where they gather. Sometimes
described as “lone wolves” because they act individually, they are often
actually part of a network that has enabled them to travel to lands of
jihad and prepare their action in their country of residence and/or citi-
zenship. They are “homegrown” in that they have grown up, radicalized
and act “at home.” For the most part they are young people from immi-
grant backgrounds; “Europe’s angry Muslims”, to cite the title of
Robert Leiken’s book.56 Converts to Islam have joined the ranks.
Leiken reports cases of homegrown terrorists in France, Britain and
Germany. Despite the different contexts, these youngsters express
their malaise in a similar way, through violence, transforming old
grievances, such as their colonial past, into new aspirations, such us a
desire for local and transnational autonomy.
“A solid base for jihad.”

The worldwide network of groups associated with Al-Qaeda is mani-
fest in the spatial extent of suicide attacks from Pakistan and
Afghanistan to Turkey, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and on to Africa (the
26
Maghreb, Morocco, and Somalia). Attacks or local wars bring to light
an extension of fields of action and the designation of locally-estab-
lished enemies. Each locality is thus a “base” for jihad, according to
Abdullah Azzam. For him, a solid base is formed by a “piece of terri-
tory”: The ummah should have a solid base from which to reconquer
other Muslim territories.57
In fact, “Al-Qaeda” means “the base” in Arabic. Stuart Elden wonders
whether this notion refers to a database, a territory or yet again a space
for jihad.58 Jean-Pierre Filiu gives the word “base” several interpreta-
tions: it could be “a point of departure for worldwide jihad,” a country,
and thus “a territorial base from which to work toward jihad and from
which to spread it,” “a computerized database,” or “a vanguard of jihad.”59
In Zawahiri’s eyes, the base is indeed a military base, and it is at the
heart of jihad. According to him, “Just as armies achieve victory only
when infantry occupies territory, the Islamic movement of jihad will
not triumph against the world coalition unless it possesses an Islamic
base in the heart of the Muslim world.”60 As an Egyptian national
opposed to the regime and exiled in Afghanistan since 1984, he states
his goal as “waging an Egyptian jihad” with Sudan as its rear base.
Abdallah Azzam is perceived as having been the real theoretician of
territory within the radical Islamist movement. In 1984, he published
a book called Defense of Muslim Lands, in which he develops what can be
seen as a territorial Islamism. The book refers to a fatwa announcing,
“jihad in Afghanistan was an individual duty, incumbent upon every
Muslim.”61 Referring to Bosnia, Chechnya and of course Palestine, he
underscores the importance of territory in “Islamizing many separatist
struggles.”62 He made contacts in local Islamist circles from Damascus
to prepare Islamist mobilization in Afghanistan, because for him the
crux of jihad was in Afghanistan. Thomas Hegghammer notes: “The
main aim […] was to facilitate the arrival of Arab volunteers and to
coordinate the distribution of recruits to the various battlefields, train-
ing camps, or support activities for the jihad in Afghanistan.”63
Jean-Pierre Filiu calls Afghanistan “jihadistan: a land devoted to
global jihad.”64 According to many experts, since 2013 the new base
seems to be Africa, with the intensification of attacks in Mali.65 In June
2014, a caliphate was instituted over parts of Syria and Iraq and pro-
claimed itself “the Islamic State”, a new base for jihad. All these “bases”
27
Burying Jihadis
demonstrate the flexibility of the concept of territory, which changes
with the enemy’s occupation of lands defined as “lands of Islam.”
According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the aim of jihad is the expan-
sion of Muslim territory—dâr al-Islam, the “lands of Islam”—and the
conquest of lands that are dominated by non-Muslims—dâr al-harb,
defined as “lands of war.” Again according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam,
dâr al-Islam, “lands of Islam,” is “often understood as any territory that
is under Muslim rule and where Islamic law is applied.”66 This com-
prises all lands ever governed by Islam, in other words where Muslims
live and sharia (Islamic law) should apply, whereas dâr al-harb (“lands of
war”) is commonly used synonymously with dâr al-kufr, “the territory
of unbelief.”67 The Encyclopaedia of Islam underlines that “against the
backdrop of the early Muslim community’s experience with persecu-
tions, emigration, expansion and the assumption of political power,
Muslim scholars developed this binary notion of territories so as to
distinguish between Islamic territory understood as an abode where
Muslims were able to live in safety and in accordance with Islamic legal
norms, and enemy territory, which represented those lands in which
they were potentially subject to persecution and aggression.”68 The
caliph’s responsibility is then to defend the lands of Islam and the
ummah by engaging in a defensive jihad, offensive jihad being reserved
for dâr al-harb. For example, at the decline of the Ottoman Empire,
particularly the Treaty of Küçük-Kaynarca (1774) and Russian inter-
vention in Ottoman territories to protect Orthodox Christians in
Muslim lands, the sultan, who was at the same time caliph, to compen-
sate for this defeat and his loss of sovereignty in his own realms,
asserted his religious ascendency over Muslims in Crimea, “as is pre-
scribed in the rules of their religion, without, however, compromising
their political and civil independence.”69
Beginning in the seventh and eighth centuries, jihad had been suc-
cessful in Sicily, Crete, Byzantium, Cordoba and Grenada. To each era
its jihad. For David Cook, jihad in the nineteenth century was
expressed by the Ottoman resistance. Contemporary jihad dates from
the end of the empire and the caliphate in 1924 and is defined as defen-
sive in nature. Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian intellectual, militant Muslim
and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, viewed jihad as a means to
regulate relations between Muslims and non-Muslims by giving
28
Muslims “the right to interfere anywhere in the world in which
Muslims are not allowed to proclaim Islam freely.”70
For Azzam, the territorial base of jihad is the base of the organized
global Islamic movement and, according to Faisal Devji, the vanguard
of this global movement in Afghanistan. Thomas Hegghammer gives
several reasons for the choice of Afghanistan as a “solid base”: these
range from its geopolitical situation (open borders) to the nature of its
regime (with the importance of mujahideen) and the chaotic internal
situation since the Taliban took control.71 The base then becomes a real
territory, a place where the army is physically present, where young
men gather for training, an obligatory point of passage for any jihadi
soldier in the course of his training. The base, a “piece of territory,”
becomes The Territory and represents the “power” of the Muslim
world. It is the place where the various networks are coordinated and
where their action begins. The base is also the point of departure for
dispatching the transnational army: it is from there that combatants are
sent into lands perceived as occupied by the enemy or to locations
targeted for suicide attacks, as is the case with Syria since 2011.
The localization of the jihad and its attendant rhetoric thus serve to
bring together Muslims of various national identities to achieve “a uni-
fied identity on which collective action can occur.”72 “Establishing a
Muslim society on an area of land is as necessary for Muslims as water
and air, and this territory will exist only through an organized Islamic
movement that wages jihad, in actions and words, and makes of combat
its goal and its defence,” wrote Azzam. He continues: “a religion that
does not have jihad cannot establish itself anywhere, and its trunk can-
not hold up its topmost branches.”
Without jihad, there is no land, and thus no power. But at the same
time, Islam is supposed to be above states and territory. For Zawahiri,
the plan to recreate a Muslim society and place Islam above state terri-
tory—a paradoxical one with regard to the actual geopolitical division
of the world—amounts to reviving the caliphate on a territory imag-
ined as source of power, as seen in the territorial occupations of
“Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria. A faction of Al-Qaeda took control of
an area the size of the UK on the border between Syria and Iraq, “pro-
claimed the caliphate” at the beginning of Ramadan of 2014 from the
Grand Mosque of Mosul, defined itself as the “Islamic State” (IS) and
29
Burying Jihadis
named al-Baghdadi as the caliph. Bin Laden “operated from multiple
places,” but the territory of the caliphate designates, in all its ambigu-
ity, “the entire sacred dimension, at once a form of political administra-
tion and a state.”73 Pierre-Jean Luizard also points out that “Unlike
Al-Qaeda, the Islamic state is indeed characterized by a concern for
territorializing power that now purports to be a state under construc-
tion, with a sovereign (the caliph), an army and even a currency.”74
According to Yasir Qadhi, who has written several books on contem-
porary Islam condemning violence, “offensive jihad—the spread of the
Islamic state by force—is permissible only when ordered by a legiti-
mate caliph.”75 Though Zawahiri dreams of the return of the caliphate
to govern the ummah on lands of Islam, Jean-Pierre Filiu points out that
“neither the contours nor the centre” of these lands are specified.76 The
caliphate imagined by Zawahiri, or more generally by Al-Qaeda, fits
into the view of a non-territorial state that seeks to impose the trans-
national jurisdiction of the sharia and the constitutional essence of the
caliphate.77 It seems that “Al-Baghdadi’s challenge to Zawahiri is the
re-establishment of Caliphate as the rejection of the artificial border
between Syria and Iraq created by the infidel Sykes—Picot.”78 For Bin
Laden, the revival of the caliphate would bring an end to eighty years
of humiliation for the ummah; for Zawahiri, it was supposedly “the only
hope.” Of course the Islamic State has no legitimacy in the eyes of
international law and the nations concerned.Yet its existence has con-
firmed the essential role of territory within the tactics of war and an
expansionist strategy.
The areas seized serve to attract the young Muslim diaspora from
Europe, the Caucasus and Asia, coming together with local tribes to
form an “army.”79 Thus, contrary to diaspora nationalism, the most
classic example of which is Zionism and which involves reterritorial-
izing a scattered people, restoration of the caliphate depends on con-
solidating the ummah—in other words the bonds of solidarity and
identification shared by members of the community of believers—
imagined by its militants as a non-territorial nation. Their engagement
is based on ideological motivations of a non-territorial national iden-
tity, and migration is for the purpose of Jihad. In fact, Zawahiri consid-
ers that jihad requires exile, and he advises Muslims not to settle in any
particular land. “Islamic State recruitment and propaganda material
30
insists on the religious duty of hijra (migration) to join the caliphate,
and many young people are taking this call seriously,” writes Abdel Bari
Atwan.80 He continues, “anyone seeking to migrate to Iraq or Syria can
get advice from someone who is already living in Dawla easily con-
tactable via Twitter.”81
New technologies thus make it easier to appeal to the ummah and
attract young men to jihad. Many studies show that their engagement
takes place on websites more than at jihadi “bases”. Even if Jean-Pierre
Filiu maintains that “the virtual ummah would perish without geograph-
ical grounding” and that “even jihadist websites are organized into ter-
ritories of struggle,”82 a large body of research indicates that such
websites have a similar effect on young jihadis as socialization does at
the “base” in constructing an “imagined community.” “Half of jihad is
media” is one slogan posted on a jihadist website.83 Patrick Cockburn
points out that “the ideas, actions and aims of fundamentalist Sunni
jihadists are broadcast daily through satellite television stations,
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.84 Young jihadists assert their commit-
ment on the web. They share their experiences of discrimination in
Europe and of injustice and suffering in Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya
over social media. They develop communication skills online, they
design new programs, and they quote the writings and speeches of Bin
Laden, Azzam, and Zawahiri. The digital space is where they are indoc-
trinated and where they express their belonging and loyalty to
Al-Qaeda. They invent new heroes for themselves and integrate social
networks. Thus, the boundaries of the ummah that are a focal aspect of
Zawahiri’s discourse lie between the “solid base” inspired by Azzam and
a new virtual space.
The references to jihad, the ummah, and martyrdom form a coherent
set of notions that encourage activists to resist, revolt and attempt to
restore the power of the caliphate, which justifies the jihadis’ actions.
However, none of these strategic terms refer explicitly to a given ter-
ritory. Radical rhetoric, by combining history and tradition, primarily
consolidates the link between image and ideology. Here the discourse
on jihad aims to recover a place, there it refers to a geographic base of
action—a mobile territory—and its expansion. Then again it refers to
the very operation of defining itself as a social movement. The lands of
Islam are sometimes lands that the Muslims have lost and sometimes
territories of identity where Muslim migrants reside.
31
Burying Jihadis
Due to this uncertainty, the ummah refers to a global imagined com-
munity in which geographic borders and symbolic and/or real identity
boundaries are superposed at times and in places. Unlike the territorial
nation, a product of political modernity, the ummah as an “imagined
community” embarks on the globalization process by situating itself
above and beyond territoriality and sovereignty. Just as in the Middle
Ages, Christian mapmakers drew up maps of the world—mappae-
mundi—locating heaven and hell to indicate what was near and what
was far, and what was important and what was not,85 radical discourse,
by combining ideology, history and tradition, serves to generate iden-
tification among young Muslim populations with a reconstructed his-
tory and through a contemporary experience. These terms form the
single narrative of identification and find “legitimacy” in the eyes of
activists due to their emotional content—an emotional appeal shared
by the ummah, characterizing mobility and covering a transnational
space including states, nations, and diasporas through which mobile
individuals circulate.
A suicide attack in the name of the ummah does not imply any sort
of loyalty to a state on the part of the actor. Even if dying for jihad
draws on the same rhetoric as dying for one’s country, jihad does not
recognize citizenship or nationality, but instead an interpretation of a
reimagined nation that knows no state borders or territorial limits. The
discourse of radical Islamist leaders makes mention of this spatial
extent to strengthen solidarity in dispersion, reinforce the identifica-
tion of individual members of the ummah and ensure their engagement
in jihad. Through their forms of expression, they enable militants to
reach the places mentioned, however subjective and symbolic they may
be. The territory remains abstract, but the places become concrete.
32
2
THE QUESTION OF BURIAL

A NAME, A PLACE AND WHAT’S LEFT
The discourse refers to a representation of war—with its martyrs and/

or heroes—that resonates with young people, having chosen the path
of jihad and sacrifice for the ummah. These jihadi combatants, who iden-
tify with no country or territory, come up against the reality of sover-
eign states, which not only have the monopoly on the legitimate use of
violence, but are also responsible for protecting their citizens at home
and abroad. At the root of this opposition lie a different conception and
a different definition of the community. The national and/or local ter-
ritorial bounded community contrasts with the jihadist non-territorial
unbounded “imagined community” of believers.
These different conceptions of community and belonging are mani-
fest when it comes to burying the dead body of the “jihadi solder”. For
states, a jihadi’s body does not represent any state or nation, in that the
individual did not act in the name of a national community. His body
or its remains are not a matter of diplomacy between states. Which
state indeed would be in question? The country where the suicide
attack was carried out, the perpetrator’s country of origin, nationality,
citizenship, or residence? Geographic territories have been replaced by
social networks developed over the internet which once again attest to
the global scope of the jihadi’s action and its status by broadcasting his
33
Burying Jihadis
image and images of his body as a weapon about to explode for a cause
and ideology inspired by the global jihad.
If burial implies associating a name and a place, the burial of jihadis
raises practical questions—about land and what’s left of the perpetra-
tors.1 For states, it often amounts to reterritorializing the body. Faced
with jihadis’ dead bodies, each state reacts according to its political
representation of the war, its recognition (or non-recognition) of the
combatant as enemy, the acknowledgement of the jihadi’s death, and
the state’s desire, or not, to exhibit a real and/or symbolic political
strategy. In democratic countries respect for the families, and for reli-
gious and traditional duties toward the dead, come up against the need
to maintain sovereignty over state territory and beyond. Some refer to
the sacred character of cemeteries and to the dignity of the dead buried
there. They all want to keep it secret. It is a matter of management of
national and international public opinion, along with the protection of
citizens using all means available to “punish the dead” who have killed
civilians and escaped capture.
Faced with a discourse drawing on a religious repertoire calling for
a non-territorial war, the challenge for states is to preserve their
sacredness and develop a narrative to counteract the rhetoric denying
their power in the name of a superior divine force that drives the mar-
tyr to his death.
Bin Laden at Sea: Globalization has no Land or Limit

Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda’s leader, was killed by US troops on 2 May
2011 during a forty-minute raid on a compound on the outskirts of
Abbottabad in Pakistan. The decision to bury Bin Laden at sea was some-
how to deny his global terrorist aspirations: globalization represented
by the sea, a space that stretches out infinitely, without borders, and
which remains “outside any specific state spatial order,” in the words of
Carl Schmitt.2 Depositing the lifeless body in water as opposed to on
terra firma indicates a determination to make it disappear, not only by
making the body physically invisible but also by wresting it from tradi-
tion and community—from ancestry, land and nation.
The “immersion” of Bin Laden gave rise to widespread controversy
across all spheres—private and public, religious and profane, national
34
THE QUESTION OF BURIAL
and international. The White House announced it even before the pub-
lic had a chance to wonder what should be done with the body. US
officials affirmed that Islamic funeral rites were observed: the body was
washed and wrapped in a shroud, a prayer was said in Arabic, and then
his body was dropped into the sea.
“We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic prac-
tice and tradition. This is something that we take very seriously. And so
therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner,” a US official
told news agencies. “After the words [of the religious rites] were com-
plete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, where-
upon the deceased’s body eased into the sea,” a senior defence official
said, “in accordance with Islamic tradition that burial takes place within
24 hours of death.”3 The procedure left just enough time to compare
the dead man’s DNA with that of his sister, who had died of a brain
tumour a few years earlier, and to determine a 99.9 per cent match.4
The event was much commented upon. Some doubted that Bin
Laden was actually dead, as there was no body to serve as proof.
Others questioned the details of his death, and still others objected to
President Obama’s statement that “Justice has been done,” lamenting
that he was not caught and made to stand trial. But most of the com-
mentary challenged whether burial at sea conformed to Islamic cus-
tom, pointing out in particular that Islam requires burial “in the
ground.” The chairman of the Ulema Council in Indonesia said: “A
Muslim, whatever his profession, even a criminal—their rites must be
respected. There must be a prayer and the body should be wrapped in
a white cloth before being buried in the earth, not at sea.”5 The Grand
Mufti of Dubai said: “If the family does not want him, it’s really simple
in Islam: you dig a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say
the prayers and that’s it. … Sea burials are permissible for Muslims
only in extraordinary circumstances.”6 Clerics also indicated that such
burials were allowed for sailors who died at sea, or if there was a risk
of enemies digging up a grave in the earth and exhuming or mutilating
the body.7 Other commentators questioned the United States’ ratio-
nale in its fight against Al-Qaeda: “If the struggle against Al Qaeda
involves winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim masses, ignoring
their sensitivities is imprudent.”8 In other words, religious rites must
be respected.
35
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Burying Jihadis: Bodies Between State,

Territory, and Identity Riva Kastoryano

The Beaten Territory Randi Samuelson-Brown

Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building

Hong Kong Media. Interaction Between Media, State and

School Leadership between Community and the State: The

Employment Relations in Outsourced Public Services:

The Political Economy of Russian Aluminium: Between the

The Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders and

Bodies, Noise and Power in Industrial Music Jason

The series consists of original manuscripts and translations of notewor-

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 9780190889128 (print)

List of Maps vii

1. Paris Attacks, 13 November 2015: Trajectories of the ten

This book addresses the question of space and territory in globaliza-

NewYork, Madrid and London … and Paris

The Body of the ummah

BODY, LAND AND TERRITORY

Radical Islamist rhetoric on martyrdom on one side and the reactions of

THE POWER OF DISCOURSE

Radical Islamist leaders use a whole repertoire of historical religious

“The martyr is special to Allah”

“A solid base for jihad.”

THE QUESTION OF BURIAL

The discourse refers to a representation of war—with its martyrs and/

Bin Laden at Sea: Globalization has no Land or Limit

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

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