ISIS and Theocracy
BBC News, 11th July 2014, A Point of View: Isis and what it means to be modern
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28246732
Although it claims to be reviving a traditional Islamic system of government, the jihadist group Isis is
a very modern proposition, writes John Gray.
When you see the leader of Isis, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in Mosul announcing the creation of a caliphate
- an Islamic state ruled by a religious leader - it's easy to think that what you're watching is a march
back into the past. The horrifying savagery with which the jihadist organisation treats anyone that
stands in its way seems to come from a bygone era. The fact that Isis - the Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant, which has now changed its name to the Islamic State - claims that it wants to restore an early
type of Islam, leads many of us to see it as trying to bring about a reversion to mediaeval values.
To my mind, this gives too much credence to the way Isis views itself. There's actually little in common
between the horribly repressive regime it has established in parts of Iraq and Syria and the subtle
Islamic states of mediaeval times, which in Spain, for example, exercised a degree of tolerance at a
time when the rest of Europe was wracked by persecution. Destroying ancient shrines and mosques,
Isis is trying to eradicate every trace of Islamic tradition. It's probably even more oppressive than the
Taliban were in Afghanistan. In power, Isis resembles a 20th Century totalitarian state more than any
type of traditional rule.
Surprising as it may sound, Isis is in many respects thoroughly modern. Like al-Qaeda before them,
these jihadists have organised themselves as a highly efficient company. Initially funded by donations
from wealthy supporters, they've rapidly expanded into a self-financing business. Through kidnapping
and extortion, looting and selling antiquities, siphoning off oil in territories they conquer, seizing gold
bullion and other assets from banks and acquiring large quantities of American military hardware in
the course of their advance, Isis has become the wealthiest jihadist organisation in the world.
According to some estimates, it's worth well over $2bn.
Isis uses this wealth to expand its popular base, providing public services and repairing damaged
infrastructure in the areas it controls. Its use of social media is highly professional. On its websites it
issues annual reports containing detailed accounts of its acquisitions and operations, including
breakdowns of the bombings, assassinations and suicide missions it has carried out.
Isis makes effective use of the internet to broadcast the brutal manner with which it deals with anyone
judged to be an enemy. Isis's savagery isn't impulsive. Everything suggests it's a strategy developed
over a number of years. When it posts videos of people being beheaded or shot, Isis advances several
of its goals - simultaneously inspiring dread in its enemies, teaching the communities it controls the
dire consequences of departing from an exceptionally extreme interpretation of Islam and sowing
chaos in the population as a whole. There's nothing mediaeval about this mix of ruthless business
enterprise, well-publicised savagery and transnational organised crime. Dedicated to building a new
society from scratch, Isis has more in common with modern revolutionary movements.
Though al-Baghdadi constantly invokes the early history of Islam, the society he envisions has no
precedent in history. It's much more like the impossible state of utopian harmony that western
revolutionaries have projected into the future. Some of the thinkers who developed radical Islamist
ideas are known to have been influenced by European anarchism and communism, especially by the
idea that society can be reshaped by a merciless revolutionary vanguard using systematic violence.
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The French Jacobins and Lenin's Bolsheviks, the Khmer Rouge and the Red Guards all used terror as a
way of cleansing humanity of what they regarded as moral corruption.
Isis shares more with this modern revolutionary tradition than any ancient form of Islamic rule. Though
they'd hate to hear it, these violent jihadists owe the way they organise themselves and their utopian
goals to the modern West. And it's not just ideas and methods that Isis has taken from the West.
Western military intervention gave Isis its chance of power. While Saddam was in charge, there were
no jihadist movements operating in Iraq - none at all. With all the crimes Saddam's dictatorship
committed, it was a regime that applied secular law and had made some steps towards emancipating
women.
In my view, toppling Saddam was bound to unravel this secular state and the Iraqi state itself. Even if
the American-led occupiers hadn't made the mistake of disbanding the army and dissolving the ruling
party, the country would eventually have broken up. Iraq was constructed from provinces of the
former Ottoman Empire by the British in the 1920s, with the Sunni minority being the ruling group.
The Sunnis had ruled since 1638, when the Ottomans took Baghdad from the Persians. The Kurds, who
were included in the new state because the British prized the oil resources in the north of the country,
were sure to take any opportunity to seize independence. Whatever the failings of the Maliki
government, the idea that a stable federal system could develop in these circumstances has always
been far-fetched. As some of those who opposed the war from the start foresaw, regime change
created many of the conditions for a failed state. These are the same conditions that have allowed Isis
to emerge and thrive.
It's sometimes suggested that ideology played no real part in the invasion of Iraq - grabbing the
country's oil was what it was all about. No doubt geopolitical calculation played a part, but I think an
idea of what it means to be modern was more important. The politicians and opinion-formers who
clamoured for the invasion believed that all modern societies are evolving towards a single form of
government - the type that exists in western countries. If only tyranny was swept away in Iraq, the
country would move towards democracy and the rest of the Middle East would follow. Until just a few
months ago, some were convinced that a similar process could take place in Syria.
As I see it, this has never been more than an ideological fantasy. The modern world isn't evolving in
any single direction. Liberal democracy is only one of several possible destinations. With its delusional
ambitions (which, if we are to believe recent statements, include reconquering Spain) Isis illustrates a
darker aspect of the modern world - the practice of using terror and violence in an attempt to achieve
impossible goals.
Isis may have already over-reached itself. It's facing determined opposition from many sides - not just
from Shia militias but also rival Sunni jihadists such as Al Qaeda, from which it's an offshoot. There are
conflicting interests among the disparate elements Isis has recently recruited, and it's not clear that it
can govern a state on any long-term basis. Moreover, Baghdadi's claim to speak for all Muslims is
dismissed by Islamic scholars and rejected as absurd by practically the entire Muslim world. Even so,
Isis poses a real danger - and not just in the Middle East.
It's hard for anyone to estimate in precise terms the scale of the threat Isis poses to countries such as
Britain. Its main targets are in the Middle East. Still, there must be a danger that Western citizens who
have gone to Syria and Iraq as Isis fighters will return battle-hardened and with new bomb-making
skills. Also, Isis has now declared war not only on the west but also on al-Qaeda. In these circumstances
there may be an increased risk that one or other of these groups will be tempted to stage a spectacular
act of terror in order to secure a position of leadership in the global jihadist struggle.
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Through their policies of regime change, Western governments have pursued an ideological vision
that leaves out the dark side of the modern world. In doing so, they've unwittingly let loose a
particularly nasty version of modern savagery. Whatever happens to the self-styled caliphate, the
forces it embodies aren't going to fade away. Isis is a part of the revolutionary turmoil of modern
times, and until we grasp that uncomfortable fact we won't be able to deal with the dangers we face.
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Religion Dispatches, 17th September 2014, Mark Juergensmeyer, Is ISIS Islamic? Is it a state?
http://religiondispatches.org/is-isis-islamic-is-it-a-state/
In his September 10th address, President Obama asserted that the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor
a state. And there is some truth to both assertions.
ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (sometimes known as ISIL since al Sham is the Arabic name
for Levant, which in turn is the old name for Greater Syria)—is a radical movement. Though in its
megalomaniacal way it has recently dubbed itself “the Islamic State” (as if there could be only one), it
remains a fragile coalition of groups and interests held together by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Despite his
name al Baghdadi comes from the city of Samarra and was previously a key figure in al Qaeda in Iraq
before it was quelled by the Awakening movement engineered by General David Petraeus during the
US occupation of Iraq in 2008.
Now the movement is back, center stage. Al Baghdadi merged the al Nusra jihad movement in Syria
with his Iraq group—over the protests of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The angered al Baghdadi
dropped the name al Qaeda and ISIS was born. In a blitzkrieg, the militant forces of ISIS spread out
from eastern Syria, where they were well entrenched, to the Sunni dominated areas of western Iraq,
even conquering Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, which it plundered for its wealth and military
armament.
It’s fair to describe ISIS as a terrorist regime, since it uses extreme acts of violence to intimidate both
its enemies and its own population. The savage beheadings of Western journalists and aid workers
that were posted on the Internet were matched by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of beheadings of
recalcitrant Sunnis under ISIS’ control who refused to go along with its demands or who dared to be
identified as Christians, Yazidis and other minorities—or even as modern people who liked to dress in
a Western style. For ISIS, terror has been an instrument of governance.
Yet it is governing. Though its state is not recognized by any other government, and is despicable in
its actions, the region under its control is administered as a state. According to some reports from
Mosul, the city is better managed than it was before, largely because old Baath party members and
officers in Saddam Hussein’s army who had been denied employment by the Shi’a dominated
government in Baghdad before now had the opportunity to return to work, and to run the city
efficiently. So despite our reluctance to honor it with the term “state,” ISIS actually is operating a kind
of state.
Much the same can be said about calling it Islamic. Muslims around the world have risen up to protest
against what they describe as the non-Muslim attitudes and actions of ISIS. Iyad Ameen Madani, the
Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a group that represents 57 countries
and 1.4 billion Muslims, said ISIS “has nothing to do with Islam and its principles.” Similar
denunciations have come from leading Muslim clergy in Egypt, Turkey, and around the world.
Still, the leaders of ISIS claim Muslim authority for their actions, strict Shari’a law as the basis of their
jurisprudence, and the promise of salvation for those recruited into its ranks. In a recent essay in The
New Republic, Graeme Wood described the core supporters of ISIS as an uneasy coalition of three
groups: psychopaths, believers and pragmatists.
The pragmatists are largely from Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq who have been disenfranchised by
the Shi’a regimes of Bashir Assad in Damascus and Nouri al Maliki in Baghdad. On the other hand, the
psychopaths and believers are often foreigners, including Muslim youth from Britain, the US, and
other Western countries, like the cruel executioner who appears in the YouTube videos of the
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beheadings of foreign journalists and aid workers who, according to some authorities is believed to
be a 23-year old former rapper from West London.
The young men who are lured to ISIS join for a variety of motives. Perhaps the strongest is the desire
to be involved in a great war, a cosmic struggle that allows them to play out all of their computer game
fantasies of warcraft, valor and gore. But some also come out of a sense of extreme piety, a conviction
that they are laying their lives on the line for their faith.
The religious credentials of al Baghdadi gives some credibility to this religious appeal. He’s received a
PhD in Islamic Studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad and knows the scriptures and the
tradition of Islam better than most jihadists. Osama bin Laden had no religious credentials, and though
he pretended to be an engineer, his college training was in business management; Ayman al Zawahiri
was a medical doctor; and al Baghdadi’s predecessor in leading al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi,
was a street thug from Jordan. By contrast, al Baghdadi looks fairly legit.
His credentials do not make the movement Islamic, however. Nor do the Islamic whitewashing of the
regime’s terrorist actions and cruel restrictions make them Muslim. The judgment is in the eye of the
beholder. And to most Muslims, ISIS represents the antipathy of the faith.
Of course, much the same can be said of extremist movements in every religious tradition. The actions
of Timothy McVeigh in bombing the Oklahoma City Federal Building and Andres Breivik in attacking
the Oslo youth camp were regarded by many Christians as alien to their faith, even though the
literature related to both McVeigh and Breivik were all about preserving Christendom from the rabble
of minorities and multiculturalism.
Likewise, most Jews decried the extreme anti-Arab rantings of Rabbi Meir Kahane as un-Jewish, and
many Japanese proclaimed that Shoko Asahara, the Buddhist master behind the release of deadly
sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subways, was not really a Buddhist. Muslims around the world were
convinced that 9/11 was not conducted by Muslims but by some conspiratorial cabal involving the CIA
and the Israeli secret police, since no Muslims could possibly do such a thing.
Yet some Muslims—and some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs—do bad things. And
sometimes they do them in the name of their religion. This is the dark side of all religious traditions,
and though it’s difficult to accept, it’s impossible to avoid.
Some years ago the popular televangelist Rev. Robert Schuller advocated positive thinking as the basis
of the Christian message. As part of his efforts, he designed a version of the Bible that excised all of
the bad parts—the wars, the fighting, the sex and the violence. Some might think there would not be
much left, and it’s true that it was a thinner book than before.
But it was also a thinner message. To accept the significance of the religious imagination is to accept
all aspects of it, the positive and negative, the peaceful and the violent. As much as we might despise
what ISIS is and what it stands for, ultimately we have to make sense of it within the tradition of faiths.
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