Te signifcance of the discursive strategies in al-Baghdadi’s and al-Zawahiri’s hortatory speeches A multidisciplinary approach Ali Badeen Mohammed Al-Rikaby and Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya University / School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia Recently, jihadi rhetoric has been employed extensively to ordain a justifed violence and to incorporate radical groups’ identifcations. In this article, the researchers take Reisigl’s and Wodak’s discourse – historical approach (2001; 2009), van Dijk’s ideological square (1998: 267) and Chilton’s binary concepts in political discourse (2004: 197–205) to show the signifcance of the discursive strategies in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s jihadi rhetoric used to establish their so-called Islamic State. We present two exemplary calls for jihad by al-Zawahiri (2006) and al-Baghdadi (2015) to exemplify their jihadist ideology giving much focus to in-group and out-group representations in their speeches and to their social impacts on Muslim societies over the last ten years. We argue further that such calls are abusive to Islamic religion and are designed in historical, pragmatic and communicative contexts (as mental models) to gain political legitimacy. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, hortatory discourse, jihadist ideology, jihad, allusions 1. Introduction Te concept of jihad is seen as a call to the truth by heart, tongue or hand, un- der the direct supervision of a prophet or an Imam, or else, it would be a sort of abuse to religion. However, such a concept has become an enduring means by which non-state leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Journal of Language and Politics (Published online: 11 Jun 2018), 1–20. doi 10.1075/jlp.17048.moh issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company ucl/5 IP: 144.82.238.225 On: Fri, 15 Jun 2018 15:49:00