Extremist propaganda and Qur'anic scripture: A "radical' corpus-based study of the Dabiq

Since the establishment of the Islamic State, Da'esh has been extremely successful in producing English-language propaganda for the purposes of recruiting extremists and radicalizing the disenfranchised. This study utilizes Spier's 500,000+ word corpus of Da'esh extremist periodicals and specifically examines the extent to which particular verses from Qur'anic scripture are utilized in the first 14 issues of Dabiq, which were published during a period of 22months (July 2014 to April 2016). Almost three-quarters of the 624 quoted or referenced verses are cited only once or twice, and approximately 70% of these are unique. The six most frequently attested verses come from five books of the Qur'an (Al-Ma'idah, Al-Anfal, Al-Hashr, At-Tawbah and Al-Imran) and account for 8.17% of all the cited scripture. This study considers the translations and content of each verse and the manner in which they are included in the periodicals as reflective of their significance.