ABSTRACT
“The men from Salt go to Syria to fight because they’re real men”, the woman said as we sat together in Salt, an ancient hilltop city in the fertile valleys of west-central Jordan. The woman, a mother wrapped in black, sat on the floor in her house, pouring sweetened tea into small glass cups. The noise of the street filtered through the window. “The men from Salt are real men”, she said again. “They hear about the rape of women in Syria and they have to go”. By comparison, she said, the men of Amman “only care about their hair”. She mimicked a foppish urbanite stroking his locks. She laughed. Her three sons had all left, pledging themselves to the black flag of the Islamic State in Syria. Two were now dead. “I’m glad they went”, she said. “Jihad was their duty as Muslim men, to protect their sisters”. “And where did they learn about this duty, and about jihad?” I asked her. “From me, of course”, she said, passing the tea. “They learned it at home”. 1
