Buying Options
| Digital List Price: | $29.95 |
| Kindle Price: | $20.99 Save $8.96 (30%) |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan Kindle Edition
Before the war in Afghanistan began, the sacrificial killing of a sheep demonstrated a tribe’s desire for peace. After the Soviet invasion of 1979, as thousands of people were killed, sacrifice took on new meanings. The dead were venerated as martyrs, but this informal conferral of status on the casualties of war soon became the foundation for a cult of martyrs exploited by political leaders for their own advantage. This first repurposing of the machinery of sacrifice set in motion a process of mutation that would lead nineteen Arabs who had received their training in Afghanistan to hijack airplanes on September 11 and that would in time transform what began as a cult of martyrs created by a small group of Afghan jihadis into the transnational scattering of suicide bombers that haunts our world today.
Drawing on years of research in the region, Edwards traces the transformation of sacrifice using a wide range of sources, including the early poetry of jihad, illustrated martyr magazines, school primers and legal handbooks, martyr hagiographies, videos produced by suicide bombers, the manual of ritual instructions used by the 9/11 hijackers, and Facebook posts through which contemporary “Talifans” promote the virtues of self-destruction.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity of California Press
- Publication dateMay 9, 2017
- File size7675 KB
Customers who read this book also read
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
"In this new book, David Edwards builds on his many years of studying Afghanistan to examine the diverse patterns of violent death, and the meaning imputed to them, during the tragic period from the 1970s to the present day. Edwards's use of a wide range of materials and his astute analyses substantially enrich our understanding of this tragic story of carnage and turmoil."—Barbara Metcalf, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of California, Davis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Edwards exposes masterfully what evolving conceptions and practices of sacrifice have done to Afghan culture and society. . . . It remains that Edwards’ manuscript is a must-read not only for people interested in Afghanistan, sacrifice or suicide bombing, but for anyone sensible to what it means to conduct global ethnography while staying grounded into a local context, to propose an analysis where personal memories and reference to the academic literature are brilliantly feeding each other." ― Politics, Religion & Ideology --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
From the Inside Flap
"In this new book, David Edwards builds on his many years of studying Afghanistan to examine the diverse patterns of violent death, and the meaning imputed to them, during the tragic period from the 1970s to the present day. Edwards's use of a wide range of materials and his astute analyses substantially enrich our understanding of this tragic story of carnage and turmoil."&;Barbara Metcalf, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of California, Davis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product details
- ASIN : B06XP4YVCJ
- Publisher : University of California Press; 1st edition (May 9, 2017)
- Publication date : May 9, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 7675 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 291 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,240,044 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #682 in Terrorism (Kindle Store)
- #1,263 in Coping with Suicide Grief
- #1,358 in Islam (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon





