Resumen de “Why would anyone sell paradise?”: The Islamic State in Iraq and the making of a martyr

Samuel P. Perry, Jerry Mark Long

• This article examines the battlefield associated with the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI; now the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]) suicide attack “Operation Rabi bin Amir.” In examining the ISI-produced recruitment video, many features of extremist rhetoric become apparent including the constitutive, instrumental, and mythic functions of battlefield videos. By focusing on the account of one attack, this rhetorical analysis shows the transformation of actual events into a mythic account of martyrdom that can be circulated on the Internet ad infinitum in order to recruit members to ISIS.