Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, who is also in the video, said, “We’re hoping that that loner out there who, because of internal turmoil, starts listening to the wrong people, that this message also filters into his ear.”
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of the video: “It can be a powerful outlet. It is the kind of thing that, formatwise, is matching what’s being done by the jihadist groups.”
He said that some of the scholars in the video were politically controversial but had credibility among many Muslims because they were not seen as “sell-outs.”
“Some would argue that they might be more effective than those perceived as more establishment figures,” said Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, the author of “My Year Inside Radical Islam.”
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