This is an academic blog covering jihadi culture – the artistic products and social practices of militant Islamist groups. It is run by Thomas Hegghammer, Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo.
The purpose of the blog is to document and analyze various aspects of jihadi culture, such as music, poetry, iconography, rituals, etiquette, dress, grooming, food, sports, and other jihadi pastimes. I post primary sources, my own analyses, publications by other academics, or indeed anything else that catches my interest. As such, the Bored Jihadi is something of a scratchbook for my ongoing research into the non-military practices of jihadi groups.
The blog was previously hosted on Tumblr, but was relaunched on WordPress in May 2019 after a hiatus.
For more background on the study of jihadi culture, see the book Jihadi Culture: The Arts and Social Practices of Militant Islamist Groups (Cambridge, 2017).