The significance of the discursive strategies in al-Baghdadi’s and al-Zawahiri’s hortatory speeches

Abstract

Abstract Recently, jihadi rhetoric has been employed extensively to ordain a justified violence and to incorporate radical groups’ identifications. In this article, the researchers take Reisigl’s and Wodak’s discourse – historical approach (2001; 2009), van Dijk’s ideological square (1998: 267) and Chilton’s binary concepts in political discourse (2004: 197–205) to show the significance of the discursive strategies in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s jihadi rhetoric used to establish their so-called Islamic State. We present two exemplary calls for jihad by al-Zawahiri (2006) and al-Baghdadi (2015) to exemplify their jihadist ideology giving much focus to in-group and out-group representations in their speeches and to their social impacts on Muslim societies over the last ten years. We argue further that such calls are abusive to Islamic religion and are designed in historical, pragmatic and communicative contexts (as mental models) to gain political legitimacy.