Among the few major research projects to address the appearance of the jihadi-salafi creed ('aqida) and method (manhaj) over the last few decades, this dissertation argues that underlying jihadi-salafi thought is an ascetical turn revealing a previously unexamined relationship created by jihadi-salafi jurisprudents between classical and contemporary theories of jihad. This new conceptualization links the contemporary participants in the imagined jihadi-salafi global jihad with the earliest warrior-ascetics, as Thomas Sizgorich has called them, who fought on the frontiers of the nascent Islamic empire. By focusing on the 'aqida and manhaj of the jihadi-salafi movement and the formation of an ideal subjectivity within texts legitimating militant autocidal martyrdom operations (al-'amaliyyat al-istishhadiyya) penned by jurisconsults (muftis) on the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, the dissertation uncovers how the jihadi-salafi interpretation of the law rearranges the basic objectives (maqasid) of the Shari'a around the principles of maximizing general welfare (maslaha). The emphasis placed upon cultivating an intentional renunciation of the world and a relationship with the divine opens the possibility for theoretical conversations with theories of secularization and modernization as well as the writings of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Peter Berger, Talal Asad, and Gavin Flood, among others. The dissertation concludes by presenting a unique possibility for working toward a phenomenological critique of religious violence.