The Use of Bay'ah by the Main Salafi-Jihadist Groeps

The practice of bay’ah (the taking of an oath of allegiance) is one of the classic procedures for formalizing relations between individuals or organizations in the Muslim world. The concept has become fundamentally important within the global jihadi movement and is a key element for understanding the establishment and development of different allegiances between the various actors that currently form the movement. Through the use of bay’ah, the two main Salafi-jihadist organizations, al-Qaeda (AQ) and Islamic State (IS), have achieved a global expansion after establishing allegiance relationships with dozens of groups around the world. For this reason, it is important to analyze how this mechanism functions and how it is instrumentalized.