Samenvatting

In the past few years, about three hundred Dutch Muslims travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the violent jihad. This article explores the phenomenon by looking into the individual characteristics and processes of these Dutch jihadis. It presents the findings of a study of the life stories of twelve of them, showing the diversity of the group. It also looks into types of jihadists and their roles in the jihadist scene using categories provided by Maher and Bjørgo. The article arrives at the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion that there is no standard Dutch jihadist and that we need to study more individual cases and better understand what is going on within the jihadist scene in order to be able to stop people from following the path towards the violent jihad.