Universities have spent decades developing sophisticated tools for understanding hatred.
Researchers study antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism. They examine how people come to view another group as inferior or threatening, how prejudice spreads through institutions and communities, how propaganda turns stereotypes into dehumanization, and when hatred crosses into violence.
Other scholars have spent decades studying terrorism. START at the University of Maryland, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, RAND, CSIS and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism have examined jihadist organizations, recruitment, radicalization, propaganda and violence in extraordinary detail.
Put the two disciplines in the same room.
Give them ISIS propaganda and ask the questions hate scholars routinely ask about neo-Nazis: Who is inferior? Who is dangerous? Who belongs? Who must submit or leave? Who may be killed? What ideology makes those conclusions seem morally permissible?
“under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.” – Hamas foundational charter, Article 6
“Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam.” – Hamas foundational charter, Article 31
The resulting field would not study Islam. It would study jihadi hate.
The Missing Research Question
Consider what researchers already know.
ISIS classified Yazidis as polytheists, Shiites as apostates and Christians as a subordinate religious population. Al-Qaeda invoked “Jews and Crusaders.” ISIS murdered Coptic Christians while explicitly identifying them by religion. Boko Haram has attacked churches and Christian communities while also slaughtering Muslims who reject its ideology.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded that ISIS committed atrocities “in accordance with its extremist religious ideology,” deliberately targeting groups according to identity.
That is terrorism. But it is also something else.
When neo-Nazis create a hierarchy of human beings, researchers study supremacism. When Jews are characterized collectively as dangerous, researchers study antisemitism. When Muslims are demonized because they are Muslim, researchers study Islamophobia.
So study the jihadist hierarchy with the same intellectual tools.
What Would Jihadi Hate Studies Examine?
The field should begin with primary sources rather than assumptions about Islam.

Researchers could build a database of jihadist sermons, manifestos, videos, school materials, recruitment literature and governing documents from ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and other organizations. CTC has begun to compile jihadi materials against “the Jewish-Crusaders alliance” regarding “Palestine.” Each could be coded for how it describes Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Hindus, Shiites, secular Muslims, atheists and alleged apostates.
Then ask measurable questions.
How frequently are particular populations portrayed as enemies? When does theological disagreement become dehumanization? How is takfir used to turn another Muslim into a legitimate target? Which doctrines justify unequal treatment rather than violence? Which arguments make the leap from discrimination to expulsion, enslavement or murder?
Most importantly: Which ideas actually predict violence?
Compare Supremacisms Without Equating Them
Researchers should also compare jihadist propaganda with other supremacist ideologies—not because neo-Nazism and jihadism are identical, but because comparison is how scholarship discovers recurring mechanisms.
Take a neo-Nazi manifesto and an ISIS publication and ask identical questions.
Who supposedly corrupted society? Who caused the community’s humiliation? Who is portrayed as secretly powerful? Who contaminates the ideal society? What glorious past must be restored? What future order is promised? When does collective blame become permission for violence?
The answers will differ enormously. The mechanisms may not. That could tell us something important about hatred itself.
What This Field Must Not Become
This study should not be about Islam but a particular strain of Islamic extremism. It should study an identifiable phenomenon: the process by which particular extremist interpretations construct religious hierarchies, turn out-groups into enemies and authorize violence against them.
And Muslims should be central to the research because jihadist hatred is frequently directed at Muslims themselves. Fondapol found that almost 89 percent of Islamist-terrorism deaths occurred in Muslim-majority countries. Shiites, alleged apostates, insufficiently observant Muslims and Muslims who resist jihadist organizations have all been targets.

Studying jihadi hate would therefore not be a project against Muslims. Much of it would be a project about understanding the ideologies killing them.
Where Should This Research Live?
The logical home is a university, jointly situated between existing terrorism and hate-studies programs.
START already possesses terrorism data and expertise. George Washington studies global jihadism and antisemitism. UCLA has built an Initiative to Study Hate. Other universities maintain centers studying genocide, religious persecution and radicalization.
“86 events (12.3%) in the school-based violence T2V data were also categorized as terrorism or premeditated hate crime, indicating they were
ideologically motivated.” – START Plots Targeting Schools
The expertise already exists. What is missing is the bridge.
Bring together terrorism researchers, historians, psychologists, quantitative social scientists, genocide scholars and specialists in Islamic theology and languages. Muslim scholars could be indispensable – not as political cover, but because distinguishing mainstream Islamic traditions from jihadist interpretations requires serious theological and linguistic expertise.
Funding should likewise be diversified and transparent, avoiding dependence upon any government, religious community or advocacy constituency with an obvious stake in the findings.
Then publish data rather than slogans.
The Test for Hate Studies
If scholars have developed tools that explain how white supremacists turn racial hierarchy into violence, those tools should at least be tested against a movement that turns religious hierarchy into violence.
Perhaps they will reveal profound differences. Perhaps they will uncover common mechanisms: humiliation, collective guilt, conspiracy, purity, dehumanization and dreams of restoring a lost social order.
Either result would advance knowledge, and with it, possible remedies.
We do not need another institution to tell us that jihadists kill people. We need scholarship explaining how an evil ideology teaches people whom they are obligated to hate – and when that hatred becomes permission to kill.




















