The Jihadist Discourse of the Islamic Community of Kosovo: the Case of Syria

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing the discourse used by the Islamic Community of Kosovo (ICK) to invoke involvement in "the sacred war" in Syria. As the Arab Spring was spreading, an armed conflict began in Syria; amongst the fighting participants were to be found jihadist groups that managed to convince many young Muslims to join their cause through a religious discourse. The discourse of summons for jihad was structured by references to the sacred Islamic texts, the Qur'an and the Hadith, while a special emphasis was put on the comparison of the sufferings of Kosovars and Syrians in order to make the discourse more convincing and emotional for the audience. This type of jihadist discourse became part of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, which managed to convince a considerable number of young people to join these jihadist groups in Syria. This article focuses on the analysis of the circular of July 2012 released by the Islamic Community of Kosova, which was read simultaneously in over eight-hundred mosques in the country. Through the methodology of discourse analysis, this paper aims at detecting the linguistic strategy used in the discourse of these clerics, which will be analyzed at three levels: coherence, cohesion, and speech acts. It aims at revealing specific forms of religious discourse within which are to be found linguistic nuances of audience persuasion for involvement in Syria's armed conflict.