Constructing Religious Martyrdom: A Cross-Cultural Study 1 Constructing Religious Martyrdom: A Cross-Cultural Study John Soboslai, PhD Forthcoming 2024, Cambridge University Press Table of Contents: Introduction: Concerning Martyrdom Chapter 1: Executed Martyrs in Second-Century Christianity Chapter 2: The Human Bombs of Twentieth-Century Shi'i Islam Chapter 3: Sikh Martyr Imaginaries During World War I Chapter 4: Twenty-First Century Tibetan Self-Immolators Chapter 5: Performances of Suffering Chapter 6: Witnesses to a Sovereign Imaginary Overview This book explores the concept and practice of martyrdom through case studies in four distinct times and traditions from the ancient world to modern times. After analyzing how the term "martyr" took on its popular meaning in second-century Christianity, it proceeds to explore the term's deployment in modern contexts: the advent of 'suicide bombing' as a tactic in 1980s Shi’a Islam, global Sikhism during WWI where martyrs stood for and against the British Raj, and 21 st century Tibetan Buddhist self-immolators burning alive to oppose the People’s Republic of China. At first glance, the differences in tradition and circumstances obfuscate how that one word—martyr—can have a single meaning in all cases. However, by historically contextualizing the martyr’s act and refracting it through the lenses of sociology, anthropology, religious studies, and legal theory, a fundamental consistency emerges: the martyr’s ruined flesh bears witness to a truth about identity, community, and sovereign power. In each case, a cultural group faced an encroaching power’s demands understood to be at odds with traditional imperatives. Aligning their situation with sacred narratives and emboldened by religio-political leaders, martyrs embrace self-sacrifice as a means of preserving their culture and identity from annihilation. Correlating the performative elements of martyrdom in these cases reveals common constructions of martyrs as truth-tellers willing to use their bodies in witness to a sovereign imaginary: a vision of cosmic order and authority that legitimate acts of killing and being killed. By embracing deaths as martyrdoms, collectives promote an ideological