McGill University

Graduate Student, Institute of Islamic Studies

About

My primary research interests are the comparative study of religious-nationalist (or nation-based) and transnational Islamist groups, Sunni Islamist militancy and jihadi movements, modern Twelver Shi'i socio-political movements, millenarian movements in Islamic history and the contemporary world, and Muslim visual culture.  Much of my work focuses on Islamist visual culture and use of new media technologies by both Islamist-nationalist and transnational jihadi groups.  More specifically, I am interested in the way in which the "martyr," martyrdom, and violence are portrayed in their visual culture.  Among my chief research interests are Somalia's Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen insurgent movement, Al-Qa'ida Central and its regional affiliates, Lebanon's Hizbullah, and Iraqi Shi'i movements.  I also have an interest in the role of 'ulama in contemporary Twelver Shi'i socio-political movements and the rise of millenarian Shi'i movements in post-Saddam Iraq.

I have contributed articles to several academic encyclopedias including Oxford University Press' Encyclopedia of the Modern World, Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and Encyclopedia of Islamic Law, and Princeton University Press' Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Several articles of mine have been published at Foreign Policy magazine's AFPAK Channel. I am a contributor to the academic-policy blog Al-Wasat (http://thewasat.wordpress.com/author/ibnsiqilli/) and have had a number of articles published in various publications and outlets including openDemocracy, Foreign Policy's AFPAK Channel, Religion Dispatches, Perspectives on Terrorism, the Royal African Society's African Arguments blog, West Point's CTC Sentinel, and Informed Comment.

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