Selection of Field Recordings, Sounds, Music and Propaganda from several and different raw material published by Islamic State through Ajnad Media Foundation during years (2015 – 2018).
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Excerpts from the article "Inside the World of ISIS Propaganda Music" by Bryan Schatz.
www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/isis-islamic-state-baghdadi-music-jihad-nasheeds/
If you close your eyes and ignore the sickening visuals—the man in the ditch pleading for his life, the soldiers face down in the dirt with blood pooling beneath them—and simply listen to the backing track, you will hear a metronome of Apocalyptic time: a medley of battles, executions, and assorted war crimes.
“They’re so intense that people immediately like the sound,” says Pieter Van Ostaeyen, an independent researcher who has studied jihadi music. If you listen very calmly, he adds, “it gives you some kind of spiritual experience…But most people have absolutely no idea what they’re listening to.”
Phillip Smyth, a researcher of Middle Eastern affairs at the University of Maryland who has an unabashed obsession with jihadi music, says that violent videos set to nasheed soundtracks are ideally suited to the young men ISIS wants to target. “If you are really trying to recruit and indoctrinate people, music is a fantastic way to do it,” he says. “It’s like Wagner being set to Apocalypse Now.”
ISIS and with most other Sunni jihadist organizations consider musical instruments haram (forbidden). Mainstream Islamic scholars have debated whether nasheeds are religiously acceptable, and most agree that they are—particularly in wartime, and when no instruments are used. Smyth says the Taliban, despite its tendency of “smashing boom boxes” and shutting down radio stations, now uses taranas (sung poems similar to nasheeds) to promote its organization. Even Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, who “used to be extremely anti-music in almost every way, later on he realized that there was a good propaganda use for it,” he says.
On the other end of the spectrum, Shiite militant groups delight in producing nasheeds that are far more flamboyant. Hezbollah has even had marching bands, Smyth says. Their nasheeds often pulse with drums, strings, and an abundance of Auto-Tuned vocals. The videos are “so packed with young men dancing they seem more boyband than militia,” the Guardian noted.
No one outside of ISIS knows exactly who does the musical arrangements. “This is something that is in obscurity,” Aymenn al-Tamimi says.
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“Make some noise and do some dawa” – Abū Sārah Imraan
The structure of most ISI videos is uniform, consisting of a slogan in an introductory graphic, an overdubbed war/jihad nasheed, and images of an IED attack. Musical instruments and Western-style music videos exist in this propaganda as well.
Not only does the structure allude to music videos, but the music is pop-influenced. The music includes a syncopated drum/percussion backbeat, bassline, and full range of synthesizer sounds. The style is clearly pop with a message about activism and Islam.
The musical instruments and westernized/popularized music appearing in the videos of anti-American and anti-Israel movements might be interpreted similarly. The incorporation of pop-in uenced music and MTV-style formats can be seen as an appeal to Islamic youth culture.
Even though these two groups are involved in day-to-day fighting against one another and their musics are dramatically different, there appear to be similarities in how music operates within the contexts of recruiting and as an inspiration for combat.”
While members of groups like the ISI would most likely object to my claim that their videos employ “music,” the soundtracks of traditional nasheeds play a significant role in their propaganda.
– Jonathan Pieslak on "Sound Targets. American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War" (2009)
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No effects. No overdubs. Just editing. No mastering.