Roses for Jihadis

How do we keep orality alive in the digital archive for primarily aniconic traditions? Roses for Jihadis, published in BurntRoti magazine, was created as a multimedia project to provide meaningful context to the misrepresentation of Islamic identities, particularly young men who are disproportionately incarcerated and persecuted. Through new media there has been a rise in Islamophobic rhetoric and identity-making which has succeeded in villainising a protected practice. 'Digital Jihad' is used as an e-marker through which orientalist shapeshifting occurs, and policies like PREVENT, of which I have been a target multiple times, are enacted as a virtuous indictment of cyberterrorism, whilst ironically perpetrating institutional religious discrimination. I used to walk past police vans operating unconsensual live facial recognition AI in Stratford, London. 93% of those stopped during all 10 public Met trials were wrongly identified, and among them it was primarily people of colour. Such public space violence creates a cycle of expectational criminology and persecution, where facial prints and biometrics profiles mean targeted muslims are condemned in droves.

United totalitarian states with mass surveillance create a culture of ceremonial violence against muslim populations globally. Digital identity and profiling by monitoring systems that target demographics from the global south envision a techno-fascist future in which every marginalised body is persecuted by thought policing, where techonological genocide against a villainised, and dehumanised people becomes an open trade secret. Therefore we must act against orientalist dominant fictions about persecuted characteristics that are fed to us in the zeitgeist and proceed with authenticity, so that digital and AI systems limit replication of societal bias with rigorous safeguarding and transparency, to ensure a just digital future.

Out of all 164 mentions of Jihad in its various forms in the Quran, only one is about punishment and it has it's specific context, and that being one of the most grossly abused passages in recent quranic theology (Surah Tawbah). Proving that Islam is a peaceful religion is not my job or any muslims. Yet it's interesting that one of the earliest form of non-violent protests is the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, through which muslims are taught the concept of the major jihad that is concerned with community, family and self.