> Broadly speaking, all of our interviewees preferred their time as fighters in what they considered a jihad.
The way they all speak glowingly about being in a wartime environment and their "thirst for martyrdom" is eery, but "every minute of our life was counted as worship" makes it clear it was like getting extra credit every day.
Their assimilation into modern life in the capital sounds fairly smooth. They don't like that people smoke and women are less covered up, but they just avoid situations that they don't like. And one even listens to music!
It sounds like they want to bring the world back to the olden days of the best of Islam, but are accepting and participating in this new world with computers, desk jobs, and women in their classrooms. It might not be as enjoyable as dodging drone strikes and sniping people, but it sounds like they're adapting just fine.
Yeah it sounds a lot like early Muslim stories when they've captured Ctesiphon, Damascus, and Alexandria. Hope the Taliban higher-ups are rotating these guys for down time. Maybe 3/4 of the year as bureaucrats and 3 months spent as counter-guerilla and counter-terrorism operators?
When the local department chief of waterworks returned from his tour of the borderlands...
The way they all speak glowingly about being in a wartime environment and their "thirst for martyrdom" is eery, but "every minute of our life was counted as worship" makes it clear it was like getting extra credit every day.
Their assimilation into modern life in the capital sounds fairly smooth. They don't like that people smoke and women are less covered up, but they just avoid situations that they don't like. And one even listens to music!
It sounds like they want to bring the world back to the olden days of the best of Islam, but are accepting and participating in this new world with computers, desk jobs, and women in their classrooms. It might not be as enjoyable as dodging drone strikes and sniping people, but it sounds like they're adapting just fine.