The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  The brutality was not what led to Almouthanna’s ultimate disenchantment; what led him to flee the group was a bloody battle with Jabhat al-Nusra that made Almouthanna realize that he was no longer fighting Assad, but instead spending all his time fighting against his fellow jihadis. He made it out of the Islamic State’s domains successfully, but the stakes should he be recognized and captured are high: “The punishment for leaving is death.”169

  The Would-Be Rescuer

  For some, the risk is worth taking. A Muslim first-year medical student from Britain, Ahmad Rashidi, ventured into the Islamic State to try to find a friend’s daughters who had gone there to become jihadi brides. He succeeded in entering ISIS territory and finding one of the girls—whereupon her husband accused Rashidi of being “a spy and a journalist.”170 But then Rashidi struck on a stratagem that saved his life: he claimed that he was a doctor who had come to join the caliphate.

  The jihadis were convinced. An Islamic State court freed Rashidi on the condition that he stay within the caliphate and practice medicine. Eventually he was accorded so much trust that he was allowed to pass freely in and out of Islamic State government offices. At one point he was even given access to one of the Islamic State’s computers. On it he saw material that convinced him that “they want to be more better than al-Qaida. They want to do something more better than the World Trade Center.”

  Rashidi was eventually able to escape across the border into Turkey; he recalls his experience within the Islamic State as harrowing: “They are full of hate. You can see fire in their eye. If you smell like European, they are going to kill you.”171

  The same thing holds true of everyone who does not conform to their vision of Islam and the Islamic State, if they get the chance.

  The Secret of Their Success: Former Saddam Men

  The Islamic State is not just the gang of ruffians it is made out to be by the international media and Western leaders. Much of its senior leadership is made up of former military officers in Saddam Hussein’s army. A selection of the men who we know have made this transition is listed below, with the role of each in the Islamic State’s leadership followed by his former position in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

  The Islamic State even won over one of Saddam’s principal deputies, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri—the King of Clubs in the U.S. military’s card deck of wanted Saddam officials. The Americans never captured al-Douri; he became the leader of the Sufi Naqshbandi Army (that’s right, the “peaceful” Sufis), which allied with the Islamic State, and he was killed in April 2015 in fighting against the Baghdad government.179

  Much of the military success of the Islamic State is owed to the planning of former Saddam military and intelligence officials.180

  Coinage for the Caliphate

  In November 2014, the Islamic State announced plans to mint its own currency.181 The purpose of this currency would be to separate Muslims from “the tyrannical monetary system that was imposed on the Muslims and was a reason for their enslavement and impoverishment, and the wasting the fortunes [sic] of the Ummah (nation), making it easy prey in the hands of the Jews and Crusaders.” The currency, said the Islamic State in its announcement, “will be minted from gold, silver and copper, and further instruction will be provided by the Treasury Department”—which was an early indication that the Islamic State had a Treasury Department at all.

  Islamic State agents began buying up gold, silver, and copper in large quantities. One precious metals trader remarked, “They said it was for gifts for their wives, but now I know why, and all the traders say the same thing. We’ve been making trips to Baghdad to get more, and they buy all of it.” Another said, “We don’t ask why they’re buying so much. But even silver in small shops outside the city is sold out.”182

  Images for the proposed coins include a map of the world, in line with the Islamic State’s global pretensions, as well as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Minaret of Jesus in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and other images designed to remind the bearer of Qur’anic passages and Islam’s glory days.

  END THE FED!

  The statement announcing the new ISIS currency said, “We ask Allah to strengthen the [Islamic] nation with this step and releasing it from the Satanic and ‘interest-based’ international economic system.”183 Charging interest is prohibited under Islamic law.

  Since none of the nations of the world recognize the Islamic State, this currency, if it is indeed ever minted, will for the foreseeable future be for internal use only.184

  It is unclear what they plan to do with passports, since no border police in any country would accept a passport from the Islamic State, but ISIS has issued them anyway. Emblazoned with “State of the Islamic Caliphate” on the cover, each Islamic State passport also says: “The holder of the passport if harmed we will deploy armies for his service.”185 Given the trajectory of its history, that is a promise on which the Islamic State means to make good. And given the long journey of groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and even the Taliban to respectability, and the ongoing weakness and vacillation of the West, perhaps it is not unreasonable for the caliph and his minions to envision a day when these passports will be accepted everywhere.

  Not Exactly the AP Stylebook: Islamic State Rules for Journalists

  It is often difficult to get solid information out of the Islamic State, especially after the beheading of journalist James Foley. It became even tougher when the Islamic State issued rules for journalists in October 2014. Journalists must:

  •Declare their allegiance and loyalty to the caliph.

  •Submit all stories and photos to Islamic State media supervisors before sending them in to their employers.

  •Not work for any local or international satellite TV network or offer any exclusives.

  •Not work for Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, or other networks based in Muslim countries that have joined air or ground missions against the Islamic State.

  •Submit no anonymous pieces.

  •Publish nothing without the permission of the Islamic State media office.

  •Provide the Islamic State media offices with the names, addresses, and online handles of all those writing on blogs or social media about the Islamic State.

  •Abide by local regulations when taking photos.

  •Accept the supervision of Islamic State media offices, knowing that violation of these rules could lead to suspension and punishment.

  •Accept any new rules or changes in rules for journalists.

  •Submit a license request to the Islamic State media office and operate only with this license.186

  Chapter Six

  THE CALIPHATE: WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT MATTERS

  The Islamic State’s June 29, 2014, proclamation of itself as the caliphate is the key to its appeal to so many Muslims worldwide.

  The caliphate in Islamic theology is the Islamic nation, embodying the supranational unity of the Muslim community worldwide under a single leader, the caliph, or “successor”—that is, the successor of Muhammad as the spiritual, political, and military leader of the Muslims.

  Did you know?

  •The caliph, as the successor of Muhammad, is the only earthly authority to whom Muslims owe obedience

  •Western journalists betrayed their ignorance of Islamic theology when they assumed it was hypocritical for the new caliph to wear a luxury wristwatch

  •Jihadi groups from Nigeria to the Philippines have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State

  The claim couldn’t have possibly been more momentous. The concept of the caliphate is extraordinarily important for Muslims, deriving its power from the fact that the Qur’an repeatedly exhorts Muslims to obey not only Allah, but Muhammad as well (3:32; 3:132; 4:13; 4:59; 4:69; 4:80; 5:92; 8:1; 8:20; 8:46; 9:71; 24:47; 24:51; 24:52; 24:54; 24:56; 33:33; 47:33; 49:14; 58:13; 64:12).

  Muslims can read about Muhammad’s deeds and sayings in the hadith, obey his words, and emulate him, in accord with the Qur’an’s designation of Muhamma
d as the “excellent example” (33:21)—that is, the perfect model for Muslim behavior. But this obedience to Muhammad is also expressed in obedience to his successor. As the successor of Muhammad, the caliph does not hold the Prophet’s status as an exemplar, but he does command the obedience of all Muslims, and loyalty to him transcends all ethnic and national loyalties.

  The Significance of the Caliphate

  The caliph is the symbol and center of the unity of the Muslims worldwide. In traditional Islamic theology, Muslims worldwide constitute a single community (umma), and are rightfully citizens only of the Islamic caliphate. The caliph, as the successor of Muhammad, is the only earthly authority to whom Muslims owe obedience.

  Reliance of the Traveller, a manual of Islamic law that Cairo’s prestigious and influential Islamic Al-Azhar University (where Barack Obama delivered his outreach speech to the Islamic world in June 2009) certifies as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community,” explains more of why the caliphate is so pivotal for Muslims worldwide1 (or at least for Sunnis, who are 85 to 90 percent of the world’s Muslims; the Shi’ites have a very different idea of the authority within the Muslim community).

  The caliphate, this Sharia manual says, is “both obligatory in itself and the necessary precondition for hundreds of rulings . . . established by Allah Most High to govern and guide Islamic community life.” It quotes the Islamic scholar Abul Hasan Mawardi explaining that the caliph’s role is “preserving the religion and managing this-worldly affairs.”

  The caliphate is a “communal obligation,” according to Reliance of the Traveller, “because the Islamic community needs a ruler to uphold the religion, defend the sunna, succor the oppressed from oppressors, fulfill rights, and restore them to whom they belong.” The “sunna” is what is acceptable practice for Muslims, established by the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example.

  And only the caliph is authorized to declare “offensive” jihad. That’s the kind of jihad that Reliance of the Traveller is describing when it declares that the caliph “makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax.”2 “Offensive” jihad is an obligation upon the Muslim community as a whole—so that individual Muslims are excused from fighting if other Muslims are doing it.

  “Defensive” jihad, on the other hand, is an obligation for every Muslim and requires no caliph. In other words, when a Muslim land is attacked, it becomes the duty of every Muslim to defend it, even in the absence of a caliph to declare the jihad and lead the fight. Thus all jihads since 1924—including even the 9/11 attack—have been classified as “defensive,” by their perpetrators and defenders, who justify them with reference to a long list of grievances. But once a caliph is in power, no such justification is needed.

  The Ideal Caliph

  One might have thought it an obvious point, but Reliance of the Traveller specifies that the caliph must be Muslim, as it is “invalid to appoint a non-Muslim (kafir) to authority, even to rule non-Muslim.” And actually this point has important implications for those who have put their hopes upon the prospects of reform in Islam. For “if the caliph becomes a non-Muslim” or “alters the Sacred Law . . . or imposes reprehensible innovations while in office, then he loses his authority and need no longer be obeyed, and it is obligatory for Muslims to rise against him if possible, remove him from office, and install an upright leader in his place.”

  CAUTION: MORE JIHAD AHEAD

  Since the caliph is obligated to wage offensive jihad, we can expect that with the coming of the Islamic State caliphate there will be even more jihad in the world than there has been recently.

  No wonder Egyptian President Abdelfattah el-Sisi, who called for real Islamic reform in his New Year’s Day 2015 speech to the scholars of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, has since dialed back his position. On January 1, 2015, he called for a “religious revolution” pointing out that the “corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world.” It seemed that he might even be appealing over the head of the sacred texts of Islam to some more enlightened idea of Allah’s judgment of right and wrong:

  I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

  All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

  I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move . . . because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.3

  But just a few weeks later, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sisi backed away from this criticism, retreating to the same tired themes of Islamic terrorists as a “minority” who have “distorted” their religion.4 Obviously, even that less courageous language is not likely to pass muster with ISIS or the Muslim Brotherhood. But the original call for a real “religious revolution” in Islamic thought apparently risked turning even the more moderate Muslims against the Egyptian president. As even minor curriculum changes were introduced into Al Azhar, more traditional-minded students were incensed. One complained, “They want to change the curriculum. . . . They’ve turned it into ‘fiqh-lite.’”5 Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence.

  Besides being a Muslim, the caliph must also be free, male, and, if possible, a member of Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh of Mecca. (The new caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claims to be a descendant of Muhammad.) He must also be “capable of expert legal reasoning (ijtihad)”; “courageous”; “possessed of discernment”; and “upright,” although “if there are no upright leaders or rulers available, then the least corrupt is given precedence.”

  Reliance of the Traveller quotes scholar Mawardi stating that once the caliph is chosen, “the entire Islamic Community (Umma)” is “compelled to acknowledge fealty to him and submit in obedience to him.” Contrary to the Muslim spokesmen who aver that the Islamic State’s claim to the caliphate is not valid because al-Baghdadi was not chosen by the consent of the entire Muslim community worldwide, the manual asserts that “the caliphate of someone who seizes power is considered valid, even though his act of usurpation is disobedience, in view of the danger from the anarchy and strife that would otherwise ensue.”6

  And throughout Islamic history, there have been many who seized power—notably, the first caliphs of the great dynastic caliphates: Abu’l Abbas As-Saffah, the first Abbasid caliph, who supplanted the Umayyad caliph Marwan II ibn Muhammad in 750; the Ottoman sultan Murad I, who declared himself caliph in 1362 in defiance of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mustakfi I in Cairo; and others. The Islamic State is far from the first “self-appointed” caliphate. It is also far from the first whose claim has been disputed by other Muslims.

  Declaring the Caliphate

  As far as the Islamic State was concerned, restoring the caliphate was a divine imperative. ISIS made the case for it in a document entitled “This Is the Promise of Allah.”

  With nary a trace of irony, the Islamic State declaration asserts that without obedience to divine commands, “authority becomes nothing more than kingship, dominance and rule, accompanied with destruction, corruption, oppression, subjugation, fear, and the decadence of the human being and his descent to the level of animals.” By contrast, the caliphate frees human beings from this oppression and subjugation: it is meant “for the purpose of compelling the people to do what the Sharia (Allah’s law) requires of them concerning their interests in the hereafter and worldly life, which can only be achieved by carrying out the command of Allah, establishing His religion, and referring to His law for judgment.”7


  To us, the contrast between “oppression, subjugation, fear” and “compelling the people to do what the Sharia requires of them” may seem to be a distinction without a difference—especially considering that Sharia prescribes stoning, amputation, beheading, and even crucifixion for those who fail to do what Allah requires of them.

  But as far as the Islamic State is concerned, “oppression, subjugation, and fear” (not to mention widespread decadence and men’s “descent to the level of animals”) come from mankind’s obedience to manmade laws instead of the divinely ordained Sharia. How could what is mandated by the Supreme Being be oppressive? When the Islamic State carries out its beheadings and crucifixions, its jihadis do not consider themselves to be oppressing people, or ruling by fear. Where we see a reign of terror, they see the justice of Allah. And they are his instruments, the executors of his wrath, and the fulfillment of his promise to fight those who disbelieve by means of human beings who obey him: “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people and remove the fury in the believers’ hearts” (9:14–15).

  In “This Is the Promise of Allah,” ISIS says that to establish this caliphate and thereby compel people to obey the Sharia, was “the purpose for which Allah sent His messengers and revealed His scriptures, and for which the swords of jihad were unsheathed.”8 On that point all other jihad groups would agree with the Islamic State, even if they reject its claim to constitute the caliphate. All of them share the common goal of restoring the caliphate, and the ultimate purpose of their waging jihad is to establish the hegemony of Islamic law throughout the world.