Martyrdom and the Struggle for Power. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Martyrdom in the Modern Middle East

Abstract

This special issue on Martyrdom and the Struggle for Power in the Middle East was made possible by the collaborative research centre SFB 948 “Heroes – Heroizations – Heroisms” at the Albert-LudwigsUniversität Freiburg, Germany, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The issue builds on a workshop on the topic of martyrdom in the modern Middle East. The workshop was facilitated by the staunch support of Prof Dr Johanna Pink, who is the head of the SFB’s Islamic studies project on Heroization Strategies in Conflicts of the Middle East Since the 1970s and to whom I express my sincerest gratitude for all the chances and opportunities she has given me in the course of the last few years. I would also like to thank the two student workers in our project, Elena Fellner and Jamal Herdzik, who helped to organise the workshop, read and corrected many of the written works and did some serious research contributions to the project’s success. Last but not least, I thank Alp Yenen for his comments on the editorial, and Wibke Liebhart for the tremendous effort she put into setting up this issue. Introduction