A Note On "ISIS"

Desiring to know more about the radical group known as ISIS and their self-understanding, this morning I read this article in Wikipedia, available free online. It is clearly a scholarly piece, perhaps by a political scientist who knows Arabic. If you are interested to know more about ISIL/ISIS/ the Islamic State, I recommend the piece. The group has frequently changed its name. It had ties with Al Qaeda especially in its early days. Like Al Qaeda, IS’s ideological roots are in Saudi Wahhabism (Salafi-Wahhabi), a fundamentalist sect of Islam with roots in Saudi Arabia. As you may know, the Saudis have funded schools through the west, including in the United States, to teach Wahhabism. It may not necessarily promote violence, but it does teach a very narrow, fundamentalistic view of Islam which treats non-Muslims as “unbelievers” and “infidels.” It is a dangerous teaching. ISIS/the Islamic State has roots going back to the Muslim Brotherhood that began in Egypt in the 1920’s. Once this particular movement began c. 1999, IS has had ties with Al Qaeda, another Islamic terrorist group, familiar to us from their acts of terror in our country. For one interested in a scholarly work on Islamic terrorism, including Al Qaeda, I highly recommend this book, New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism, written by Dr. Barry Cooper, a Canadian scholar. A few facts that I found most interesting in the Wikipedia article:  The 12 judges who decide cases of Sharia law in territory conquered by ISIS / IS are all Saudis. The 3 highest officials of IS are Turkmen, as were a number of leaders around Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And according to this article, a large portion of the political leadership of ISIS had been officials in Saddam’s regime. A few points: It is misleading and unjust simply to call members of this group “Islamic jihadi,” or “Islamic terrorists,” without qualification, as the vast majority of Muslims would by no means accept ISIS / ISIL / Islamic State. On the other hand, these terrorists surely are, by their self-understanding, a Muslim movement. They see themselves as the true Muslims, and they claim rightful political and religious rule over the whole world. To the end of world domination, and in fulfillment of Islamic history and so-called prophecy, they have established “the caliphate” to rule the world. Third, it is good to keep in mind that Islam began as a spiritual-political-military movement, as one sees abundantly in the Quran and in early Islamic history. Islam did not begin as a “peaceful religion,” as the Prophet himself led troops in battle to spread “the faith.” On the other hand, there have been centuries in which Islam lived in relative peace with non-Islamic neighbors. Some Islam groups, such as the mystical Sufis in Iran, and the groups influenced in the Middle Ages by Greek culture and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, tolerated non-Muslims. Islam lived in relative peace for centuries with Jews and Christians in the West, and with Hindus and Buddhists in the East. More fundamentalistic Muslim groups in recent decades have surely yielded to the temptation to spread their “truth” by force, even by the kinds of terrorist methods we have been witnessing in recent years. If you are interested in knowing more about ISIL/ IS, I recommend the Wikipedia article. To learn more about Islam, there are good scholarly works available, as well as editions of the Quran which ought to be consulted.