A study of 1,500 Al Qaeda audio recordings, including sermons, readings, and poetry recitations by Osama bin Laden, will be published in the October issue of the interdisciplinary journal Language & Communication, the BBC reported.

The tape recordings were discovered in Al Qaeda’s compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which the terrorist group evacuated after the U.S.-led invasion in the fall of 2001.

Flagg Miller, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California at Davis, has spent years analyzing the tapes. He believes they provide “unprecedented insight” into Mr. bin Laden’s development, not to mention the debates that went on within Al Qaeda in the years leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 2001.

Mr. Miller’s analysis of the tapes reveals Mr. bin Laden as a skilled poet who combines 1,400-year-old Islamic poetry with current mujahideen-era work.

The readings “were sometimes given to large audiences when he was recruiting for jihad in Afghanistan … and other times they were delivered at weddings, or to smaller audiences, possibly in private homes,” Mr. Miller told the BBC. “They also show his evolution from a relatively unpolished Muslim reformer, orator, and jihad recruiter to his current persona, in which he attempts to position himself as an important intellectual and political voice on international affairs.” —Andrew Mills