The New Islamic State

Ideology, Religion and Violent Extremism in the 21st Century

Jack Covarrubias, Tom Lansford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781472465849
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317022770
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The rise of the Islamic State has dramatically forced a recalculation of political order and security in the Persian Gulf and broader Greater Middle East by the United States and its allies and adversaries, including, most notably, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Since the Arab Spring of 2011, the Islamic State has altered the military balance in the Syrian intra-state conflict and captured significant territory in Iraq. Its military successes has attracted foreign fighters from more than 100 countries, drawn in some cases by a sophisticated recruitment strategy that effectively combines a jihadist message with a social media outreach program targeting vulnerable Muslim populations in the region and the West. The Islamic State has prompted renewed American and allied military intervention in Iraq and Syria, and complicated the US relationship with its Iranian adversaries. The New Islamic State examines the rise of the religious extremist organization from the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq to its current efforts in Syria and Iraq and is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the Islamic State, its effects on the Persian Gulf and Greater Middle East, and the response of both regional and great powers. The book is suitable for academics, policymakers and the general public.

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Geography of the Islamic State

Tom Lansford and David Holt

The rise of the Islamic State (IS) has dramatically forced a recalculation of security in the Middle East and Persian Gulf by the United States, other Western nations, and regional powers such as Iran or Saudi Arabia. In spite of its initially small size, Western intelligence put its strength at 10–12,000 in 2013, the Islamic State was able to alter the military balance in the Syrian Civil War and launch an offensive that resulted in the capture of significant strategic areas within Iraq. By summer 2015, the organization controlled half of Syria, including all of the major border crossings with Iraq. The military success of the group attracted a growing number of foreign fighters, drawn in some cases by an increasingly sophisticated recruitment strategy that effectively combined a jihadist message with a social media outreach program targeting vulnerable populations in the region and Western nations. Estimates in fall 2014 affirm the growth of the organization with some analysts suggesting 30–40,000 fighters. The Islamic state has prompted renewed US and allied military intervention in Iraq and Syria, and brought the United States into an uneasy relationship with Iran. However, the legacy of the Iraq War has constrained policy options for the United States and other Western powers and resulted in a strategy of over-the-horizon strikes designed to prevent defeat and stabilize the region, as opposed to achieving victory and defeating the IS.

Politicians, security officials, scholars, and pundits have straggled to explain the rise of the Islamic State and develop coherent policy options to address the threat posed by the group. The New Islamic State seeks to contribute to efforts to understand the IS by exploring its origins, ideology, tactics, and the impact of the group on both the people and governments of the region. The introduction begins an examination of the Islamic State by analyzing the role of geography in the formation and rise of the organization.

What’s in a Name?

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS), the Islamic State (IS), and al-Dawla al-Islamiyya al-Iraq al-Sham (Daesh), the Islamic State has already carried many monikers, but it is not "entirely a creation of the United States' behavior in Iraq" as suggested by Angela Keaton from antiwar.com and other opponents of the US intervention in Iraq. The reality of the IS is that it developed, not as an Allah-ordained caliphate, but a politically-motivated organization desiring power and control that has managed to create a rhetoric suggesting it is an Allah-ordained caliphate. As Kahled Abou el-Fadl, Islamic scholar from UCLA suggests, they are largely political, originating in a region of conflict in Iraq and Syria, and are trying to make God a co-conspirator to genocide.¹ Sheikh Hamadah Nassar, a Salafi cleric, points out that the Islamic State adopted violence first and is now attempting to justify it though the Quran and Hadith.² The reality is that the IS wants attention, needs attention, and will do anything to broaden its reach using whatever means necessary. They have managed to get themselves on the Western media radar and seem desperate to remain in the spotlight. But where did they come from and how do they operate? We will examine that question and many others in the chapters to come.

The origins of the Islamic State can be traced to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda splinter group formed in Iraq in the early 2000s known as either al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) or the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Zarqawi, who was Sunni, ignited sectarian violence against the Shia in Iraq which ultimately led to his death in a US airstrike on June 7, 2006. Abu Ayyub al-Masri subsequently took control of AQI. In October 2006, Masri announced the first Islamic State with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as the leader. It is important to note that the organization adopted the now familiar black flag most associated with the Islamic State and Boko Haram. Almost four years later on April 18, 2010, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Masri were killed in an airstrike. In April 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the leader of IS after organizing smaller groups just north of Baghdad in the Salah-aldeen and Daila Provinces. Baghdadi, who reportedly earned a doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of Baghdad, remained in control of ISI for three years then on April 8, 2013 declared they were absorbing a Salafist, militant group founded in Syria back in 2012, al-Nusra Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra. The new grouping was group was tided ISIL. However, this merger was not universally accepted. The Al-Nusra Front's leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawalani rejected the merger and infighting ensued. Meanwhile, on February 3, 2014, al-Qaeda renounced its affiliation with ISIL. ISIL ultimately took control of the al-Nusra Front and changed its name again to the Islamic State. On June 29, 2014, Baghdadi announced the formation of the caliphate, the elimination of all state borders, and declared himself the "Commander of the Faithful" implying his authority over every Muslim in the world. By this time, the West has been forced to take a greater interest in the growth of IS, while people around the world have become quite curious about the real identity of the Islamic State. The group has a history of developing through military action and seizing control of territory which supports Sheikh Nassar's claims, but the culture and internal operations of the group remain convoluted, because the IS has focused heavily on information control.

Geographers like to evaluate cultures beyond placement on the map and try to understand human behavior and physical setting. Culture ultimately is a Latin term that translates roughly as "to care for" and culture can be divided into subgroups, cultural expression, cultural landscape, cultural area, cultural history, and cultural ecology. Cultural expression is a combination of place, the feelings of where you are (space), and behavior, how you associate with other humans (internal and external). Cultural landscape is the evidence of a culture as it manifests itself through artifacts. Cultural area is the spatial component the culture inhabits. Cultural history is the longevity and common experiences a culture shares. Cultural ecology is the manifestation of the culture's association with the environment where a group exists. To understand a group, it is necessary to evaluate each of the aspects of culture. Research on the Islamic State is problematic because they control information very well; however, even their propaganda provides clues to the identity of the group.

In terms of cultural expression, the Islamic State is a group, but how homogenous is this group from an ideological, even theological, standpoint? Cultural expression can be real or manufactured and internalized or manifested. Culture is evaluated through artifacts, things made or produced; sociofacts, ways people organize and relate to each other; and mentifacts, underlying ideas, beliefs, and values. Ultimately, a group of people will develop opinions of belonging or exile and either assimilate or become pariahs or any stage in between. The Islamic State has gone through great lengths to portray itself as a homogenous, perfect society through press releases, self-published journals, videos, and social media outlets, but, this façade is suspect without free exchange of information and evaluation.

Political power and influence are extremely important to the Islamic State. A boy was shown being flogged 40 times for using the pejorative term Daesh, instead of the approved term, Islamic State.³ Clearly, the lesson is that the Islamic State wants to be called a certain thing and any other terms are not allowed. Lieutenant-General James Terry, the US commander of Operation Inherent Resolve (the anti-IS operation in Iraq and Syria) likes the term Daesh because the use of ISIL is an attempt to justify the caliphate.⁴ Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, likes to use Daesh just because IS does not like it. So, what is in a name? Daesh is similar to a word, Daes, that means "one who crushes something underfoot," and another word, Dahes, which translates as "one who sows discord." Daesh is considered an abbreviation for al-Dawla al-Islamiyya al-Iraq al-Sham, but the Islamic State considers it the term as a false label used by their enemies so they disallow its use. Clearly, the establishment of rules and strict adherence is the message communicated. The restriction of the term, Daesh, is beyond Sharia law and only a construct of the leadership.

Two of the most prevalent artifacts presented to the West by the Islamic State as cultural indicators, are the black flag and the use of black masks. The black flag known as the Black Banner or Black Standard adopted by Islamic State is the same as several other radical-Islamic groups, Boko Haram before they swore allegiance for example. The text on the top of the flag is part of the mandatory profession of faith or the shadada for Islam, "there is no god, but God." The bottom circle is a probable representation of the Seal of Mohammad that translates, "Mohammad is the messenger of God." The literal translation is three words: "God," "Messenger," and "Mohammad." In both cases, the capitalization of the word "God" means "Allah," so the name of God is on the flag. Muslims are not allowed to destroy anything with the name of God on it, so if you damage or desecrate the flag, you are breaking tenants of Islam. Further, the Prophet Mohammad's name is on the flag with the same protection. The Black Banner had its origins in eighth century Islam and the flag used by the Islamic State is a replication that streamer even to the use of an ancient-looking, script font, unlike, for instance, the modern font of the Saudi Arabian flag with the same inscription. The flag symbolizes the effort of the group to associate itself with the earliest period of Islam in an attempt to establish legitimacy with the expectation that Muslims will respect the message of the flag even if they do not support the Islamic State. Appearances, respect, legitimacy, and pedigree are culturally important to groups, as evidenced by the Islamic State's use of the black flag to represent its self-declaration as a caliphate.

Masks

The use of masks, specifically the black ski mask, is another cultural indicator. Here we see a continuing tradition, as Professor Kevin McDonald of Middlesex University, described it, the grammar of violence.⁵ Mass killings have often been secret affairs, witness, for instance, the Holocaust or the purges of the Soviet Union under Stalin, or more recently, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the 1990s. But the Islamic State is interested in maximum visibility, especially utilizing social media, so why does the group wear masks? The mask represents unseen power and a separation from the normal.

The mask is a tool of fear, suggesting that the masked individual could be anyone. Conversely, the victim is never masked. In fact, if you examine the videos and photos, every effort is made to identify the victim and detail their experience. The focus of the Islamic State videos is to make the victim an individual. There is an intimacy with the victim generated in these macabre scenes while the masked individuals remaining mysterious. There is another interesting point with these executions: the victims do not resist. Evidence suggests that the victims are taken to multiple mock executions where the process is played out without a killing, numbing the victim into a false sense of hope. The effect is a created sense of power with the victims seeming to cooperate or agreeing with their own death, all on video. Power, authority, and control, along with an impression that the group is above the authority and scope of existing institutions, are all manifested through the Islamic State's use of the black mask.

The single most significant moniker of the IS from a cultural expression standpoint is the term Islamic. Is the Islamic State Islamic? How does one validate if a movement is "true" to the broader tenets of organized religion? Could the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, or the contemporary Westboro Baptist Church be considered "true" Christian organizations based on their use of Christian rhetoric and symbolism? At what point does society draw the line, or can it? The Islamic State tightly controls the information it disseminates, it is an easy inference to presume they control information internally, so what can we base our judgment on? The Islamic State is predominantly Arab Muslim, which does not fit the modern demographics of Islam, since four of five global adherents are non-Arabs. The Islamic State claims their interpretation of Islam is correct, yet, they only represent a small minority of even Arab Muslims. There is widespread condemnation of the Islamic State from Islamic leaders. Joas Wagemaker, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen says, "it would be a mistake to conclude ISIS's extremism is the "true" Islam that emerges from the Quran and Hadith."⁶ Caner K. Dagli calls the group's teachings, phony Islam.⁷ The Islamic State claims to be the only true caliphate. Quoting a translation of the prophet Mohammad, "if a man says to his brother, 'you are an infidel', then one of them is right."⁸ With various members of the Islamic community committing to judgment, the commitment game is now official. The IS has to stand by its claim, if they are incorrect, they join the infidels. Obviously, if the Islamic State is not true to Islam as critics assert, the entire foundation of the organization is undermined. Evidence is strong that the group is not a homogenous jihadist movement, let alone a successor to al-Qaeda, so how can it claim to be a true caliphate?⁹ Perhaps an examination of the cultural history of the organization can shed light.

Cultural History

Cultural history involves more than an exploration of the history of the Islamic State, it is the use of the past to define the group's modem behavior and explain its definition of contemporary culture. As aforementioned, the Islamic State clearly draws on the symbolism and traditions of the past to legitimize itself. Concurrent with this effort to attach itself to an early era, evidence about the Islamic theology suggests a medieval approach to the Quran, which speaks of itself as both muhkam, clear in meaning, and mulashabih, symbolic in meaning. Understanding the Qur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction: The Geography of the Islamic State
• PART I ORIGINS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE
• PART II IS AND THE MIDDLE EAST AND PERSIAN GULF
• PART III IS AND THE WEST
• Index