This dissertation has a dual purpose: firstly, to challenge hegemonic narratives which ascribe ‗al Qaeda‘ a distinctly apolitical status—by engaging in a close reading of the primary statements of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri—and, second, to challenge the hegemonic parameters by which analyses of discourse are typically accredited as (il)legitimate—by deconstructing dominant readings of ‗reflexivity‘ and ‗rigour‘ and (re)orientating them using a ‗poststructuralist‘ (discourse) analytical framework. The footnote is centralised as an instrument of critical rigour herein to buttress and undermine all that is written in an author‘s attempt(s) to convince the reader of the ‗legitimacy‘ of her/his arguments. The ultimate aim of this dissertation, then, is not to ‗explain‘ or ‗understand‘ al Qaeda—the dominant logic behind most academic analyses—but to continuously challenge the bases by which its ‗apoliticalness‘ is secured, all the while provoking the reader to engage in their own interpretation of the sources presented to underwrite this argument. The analysis opens by situating ‗al Qaeda‘ and ‗Islamist terrorism‘ within three distinct literatures: Terrorism Studies, Middle East Studies, and Critical Terrorism Studies. The embedded politics of producing ‗expertise‘ within these (sub-)disciplinary domains is investigated to illustrate the necessity for a separate space for critique that must reside outside these literatures (Chapter 1). Subsequently, prominent treatments of ‗reflexivity‘ and ‗rigour‘ are deconstructed via the application of Discourse Theory towards the creation of an alternative conception of what it means to engage in ‗discourse analysis‘ (Chapter 2). It is in service of this alternative mode of critique that the footnote is centralised as that which may suitably synthesise ‗rigour‘ and ‗reflexivity‘, as applied under a broadly ‗poststructuralist/intertextual‘ ontology (Chapter 3). This composite theoretical framework is then applied to investigate—and ultimately deconstruct—the hegemonic contemporary discourse of ‗Islamic extremism‘, which erroneously equates al Qaeda with groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and then compresses these identities into the category of ‗irrational‘. Guided by the scholarship of Chantal Mouffe, the public discourses of these groups are interpreted within this text not as articulations of ‗irrationality‘, but as expressions of counter-hegemony by which said groups attempt to legitimise their political programmes in accordance with the key signifiers of the War on Terror: ‗freedom‘ and ‗democracy‘ (Chapter 4). Finally, Ernesto Laclau‘s theory of populism is applied to interpret al Qaeda‘s discourse of mobilisation (Chapter 5). Read thus, one finds bin Laden and al-Zawahiri‘s call(s) to arms to be distinctly populist, thereby situating al Qaeda within the pantheon of political movements that have articulated similarly counter-hegemonic discourses of resistance across time and space. Interpreting the discourse of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri pace Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe—and, indeed, vice-versa—I ultimately conclude that there is nothing ‗new‘ about the ‗terrorism‘ of al Qaeda: al Qaeda should not only be conceived as a political movement, but as a movement conceived of the political. Moreover, this conclusion is penetrated by a concomitant (reflexive) acceptance that one cannot write politics without being written by the political along the way—be one‘s focus on al Qaeda or beyond. Accentuating the primary sources on the basis of which particular arguments have been made, the ultimate identity of this dissertation, then, cannot be written by the author, but only determined by the reader.