Signs of the Merciful: ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam (d. 1989) 1982– Mathias 1 University of Copenhagen Abstract : This article explores how battlefield miracles were experienced, ex-plained, and debated between 1982– . Competing with the secular histories written by foreign journalists, diplomats, and communists, the study argues that the influential jihadist scholar ’Abdullah ‘Azzam (d. 1989) endeavored to write an alternate sacred history of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), the course of which was determined neither by military prowess nor luck, but by the miracles granted by God. Perusing more than three hundred miracle stories compiled by ‘Azzam, the article demonstrates that the wonderworking mujahidin were indebted to a longstanding and complex tradition that determined the varieties of miracles experienced in Afghanistan. Moreover, the mujahidin’s own miracle stories shed light on when and how miracles paralleled or diverged from past tradition while raising important questions about the threshold of the supernatural, the mujahidin’s spiritual rank, and their abilities to encounter miracles. However, both mujahidin and the gen-eral public occasionally doubted whether miracles had really occurred, and so the article attempts to replay the discussions that surrounded ‘Azzam’s miracle stories, paying attention to how they were published, circulated, and received in the Muslim world. In conclusion, the article remarks on how ‘Azzam’s writings have influenced the development of miracle stories in later jihadist literature by looking specifically at al-Qa’ida’s portrayal of 9/11. Keywords: miracles, mujahidin, jihad, Afghanistan, ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam 1 I am grateful for the help of David Cook, omas Hegghammer, a nd D avid B. Edwards who all read and commented on a previous draſt. Many thanks are also due to Harvard College Library, Yarmouk University Library, the University of Arizona Main Library, al-Bireh Public Library, the Leiden University Libraries, the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, and the King Fahd National Library for their help in making available to me ‘Azzam’s literary production. © Journal of Religion and Violence 7:2. ISSN 0738-098X. pp. 91–127 doi: 10.5840/jrv2019112668