Full Description
How should we understand ISIS today?
The most comprehensive study of ISIS to date, this book benefits from Arabic sources previously unavailable to an English-speaking audience. Renowned scholar and political philosopher, Azmi Bishara, stresses the need to place ISIS in its historical, social, and political context - shifting the focus from Salafi ideology - to understand its rise and expansion. This includes a discussion of how regional wars, the occupation of Iraq, sectarian politics, the outbreak of civil war in Iraq and Syria, and the decline of the central state contributed to both ISIS's formation and the unprecedented merger of Jihadism and Salafism.
The book counters a wide misconception in the West that ISIS's control of Syria and Iraq can be attributed to a Sunni environment, separating the rise of the organization from its exploitation of religious texts. It presents a rebuttal of arguments that hold Islamic civilization responsible for ISIS ideology by reviewing and deconstructing significant jihadi Salafi texts and demonstrating how they depart from Islamic thought and culture. Beyond ISIS, the book offers an original comparative analysis of the ideology of jihadism, as well as matters of governance, recruitment, and radicalisation.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: Literature Review and Critical Notes
ISIS as an Opportunity to Confirm Existing Prejudices
How Central was the Declaration of a Caliphate?
A Generational Revolt?
The War Perspective
Attempting a Psychological Explanation
Chapter Two: From Mujahidin to Jihadis, from Jihad to Jihadism
From a Religious Obligation to a Political Identity?
A Tension between Salafism and Jihadism in the Jihadi Salafism
Chapter Three: The Islamic State's Divergence from al-Qaeda
Leadership Dispute after Afghanistan and the Roots of Disagreement
Al-Zarqawi and the Conjugation of Sectarianism and Jihadi Salafism
A Debate Arises within the Jihadi Salafi Movement
Chapter Four: Expand or Perish
Background
Not Entirely Imported
The Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Phase
Chapter Five: Life under ISIS
Imposing Hudud: First Comes the Punishment
Economic Aspects
The Nightmare of ISIS's Daily Dictates
The Cultural Makeover and the Failed Attempt to Produce the "New Muslim"
Chapter Six: Ideologues
The Brutality Required to Manage Savagery
Abdullah Ibn Muhammad: How Strategic Thinking Prompted a Jihadi Salafi to Change His Mind
The Islamic State's Strategic Plan
From Informing Humanity to Pledging Allegiance to al-Baghdadi
Extending Hands of Allegiance to al-Baghdadi
Between Reality and Illusion, or Debates within the Jihadi Salafi Movement
An Addendum in Commentary on Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir's Issues in the Jurisprudence of Jihad
Bibliography
