Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 the response from Muslim majority countries was swift. Telethons were organized, wealthy statesmen and business magnates were encouraged to make donations and the Saudi state openly covered the travel costs for anyone bound for Pakistan in hopes of joining the jihad against the Soviets. Within this setting, Abdullah Azzam (1941-1989), the Palestinian freedom fighter and Islamic scholar, attained his PhD in usool-ul-Fiqh from Al-Azhar University while studying in the trenches on the Jordanian border. For Azzam, the Soviet invasion was a catalyst that required an individual response on the part of all Muslims to expel the Communist invader. To facilitate this, Azzam created the Maktab Khadamāt al-Mujāhidīn al-'Arab (Afghan Services Bureau) with the help of Osama Bin Laden, his largest financial donor. The goal of Services Bureau on the surface was to attract, train and lead Arab fighters in attacks against the Soviets. In reality, the Services Bureau spent little time fighting and instead, its manpower resources were channeled toward providing humanitarian relief to Afghans, and its donor money on creating a magizene targeted at an Arabic speaking audience (al-Jihad, founded in 1985) focused on attracting donor support, Arab recruits, recounting miraculous events the battlefield, and commemorating martyrs. Within the context of these martyrdom biographies all manner of miraculous events are depicted – Soviet planes fell from the sky by invoking the name of God; Qur’anic recitation was used as a tool to avoid being shot while under fire; seeing dead comrades in your dreams as a way to know they have reached Jannah, and so much more. The goal of my work is to provide a survey of these martyrdom biographies, the miracles they record and situate them within a wider jihadist cultural cosmology.