Ahlam al-Nasr () is a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

Arabic poet, and is known as "the Poetess of the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

". Her first book of poetry, ''The Blaze of Truth'', was published in 2014 and consists of 107 poems written in

monorhyme Monorhyme is a passage, stanza, or entire poem in which all lines have the same end rhyme. The term "monorhyme" describes the use of one (mono) type of repetitious sound (rhyme). This is common in Arabic, Persian, Latin and Welsh work, such as '' Th ...

. She is considered one of the Islamic State's most famous propagandists and gives detailed defenses of terrorist acts.

History

She comes from

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

and is in her early 20s. She was raised in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

where she attended a private school in

al-Khobar Khobar () is a city and List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province of the Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, situated on the coast of the Persian Gulf. With a population of 409,549 ...

. Her mother has written that al-Nasr “was born with a dictionary in her mouth.” After the Syrian civil war began, she left Syria to one of the Gulf states but returned in 2014, arriving in Raqqa. On October 11, 2014, she was married in the courthouse of

Raqqa Raqqa (, also , Kurdish language, Kurdish: ''Reqa'') is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and b ...

, Syria to Mohamed Mahmoud, known as Abu Usama al-Gharib, an Austrian Vienna-born preacher. According to Cole Bunzel, a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, many of her poems are published weekly by the al-Sumud Media Foundation.

Family

Her grandfather is Mustafa al-Bugha, the Syrian imam renowned for his public support of

Bashar al-Assad Bashar al-Assad (born 11September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator Sources characterising Assad as a dictator: who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until fall of the Assad regime, his government ...

. Her mother is Dr. Iman Mustafa al-Bugha, a university professor of

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

at the

University of Dammam Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), formerly known as the University of Dammam, is a public university in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the oldest and leading universities in medicine in the country's Eastern Province. It is name ...

. She was the one who encouraged her daughter to learn poetry from an early age. Her brother is also believed to be with her in Syria.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nasr, Ahlam Arabic-language women poets Arabic-language poets Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant propagandists Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members from Syria Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Writers from Damascus Syrian Islamists Syrian propagandists 21st-century poets Syrian women poets 21st-century Syrian women writers 21st-century Syrian writers