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| Islamic State flag flies near the Syrian town of Kobani. Photo: Getty Images |
“Pure Mohammadan Islam”: This is what ISIS, Daesh in Arabic, promises to deliver once the caliphate has defeated “Infidel” enemies and secured its position. The promise is at the core of its propaganda, including in cyberspace.
Its recent blitzkrieg victories and high-profile beheadings are not
the only reason ISIS has attracted universal attention. Perhaps more
interesting is Daesh’s ability to seduce large numbers of Muslims across
the globe, including in Europe and the United States.
It does so with an ideological “product” designed to replace other
brands of Islamism marketed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the
Taliban in Afghanistan and the Khomeinists in Iran. Daeshism, to coin a
phrase, also aimed to transcend the ideological hodgepodge marketed by
al Qaeda franchises.
The promised “Pure Mohammadan Islam” is based on three rejections,
explained by the late Islamist ideologue Youssef al-Ayyeri in a book
published more than a decade ago.
The first rejection is of traditional Islamic tolerance for
Christians and Jews — who, labeled “People of the Book,” could live in a
caliphate by paying protection money (jizyeh).
The idea is that the “protection” offered by Mohammad belonged to the
early phase of Islam when the “Last Prophet” wasn’t strong enough. Once
Mohammad had established his rule, the Daeshites note, he ordered the
massacre of Jews and the expulsion of Christians from the Arabian
Peninsula.
In this view, what is now needed is “cleansing” (tanzif) of other
religions from the world, starting with areas controlled by the
caliphate. To escape death, one can convert to Islam. The Druze of
northern Syria did so by sending a delegation to ISIS’ “Caliph” Abu-Bakr
al-Baghdadi to swear on the Koran and announce the community’s mass
conversion.
The Yazidis refused conversion and had to be massacred, driven out or
taken into slavery. Christian towns captured by Daesh also refused
conversion, “obliging” the caliph to order massacres and mass
expulsions.
In his book, Al-Ayyeri argues that Muslims can have only one goal:
converting all humanity to Islam and “effacing every trace of all other
religions, creeds and ideologies.”
The second rejection is aimed against “Infidel ideologies,”
especially democracy — government of men by men rather than by Allah.
Al-Ayyeri writes: “Various forms of unbelief attacked the world of Islam in the past century or so, to be defeated in one way or another.
The first form of unbelief to attack was “modernism” . . . which led
to the emergence in the lands of Islam of states based on ethnic
identities and territorial dimensions rather than religious faith. The
second was nationalism, which . . . divided Muslims into Arabs,
Persians, Turks and others. . . The third form of unbelief is socialism,
which includes communism. That, too, has been defeated and eliminated
from the Muslim world.”
All along, many Muslims have fallen for those “heathen ideologies,”
thus postponing the inevitable unification of mankind under the banner
of Islam.
Hilmi Hashem, regarded as chief theological adviser to the caliph,
believes that the decision by Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to take part
in democratic elections was “a sin rather than an error.”
Hashem is one of al-Ayyeri’s four disciples, all Egyptians, who’ve
provided ISIS with theological arguments and methods of applying Islamic
law (sharia). According to Mohammad al-Shafei, a leading authority on
radical Islam, Hashem is now acting as “grand mufti” (religious guide)
for Daesh.
Daesh’s third rejection is aimed against what is labeled “diluted”
(iltiqati) forms of Islam — for example, insisting that Islam is a
religion of peace.
In Daesh’s view, Islam will be a religion of peace only after it has
seized control of the entire world. Until then, the world will be
divided between the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War
(Dar al-Harb). There can never be peace between Islam and whatever that
is not Islam. At best, Muslims can make truce (solh) with non-Muslims
while continuing to prepare for the next war.
Daesh also rejects the “aping of Infidel institutions” such as a
presidential system, a parliament and the use of such terms as
“republic.” The only form of government in “Pure Mohammadan Islam” is
the caliphate; the only law is sharia.
According to British sources, the Daesh ideology was shaped over the
years in Egyptian mosques and then in prisons, where many of its
“thinkers” spent time. Several “Daesh thinkers” also had brief spells in
New York, London and Geneva before ending up with the caliphate.
Today, they are using contacts in Europe and North America to recruit
well-educated Muslims, notably to set up what they claim would be “the
first truly Islamic university” in history.
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