The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (38 page)
Read The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS Online
Authors: Robert Spencer
Tags: #Religion, #Islam, #History, #Political Science, #Terrorism, #Non-Fiction
And so the Islamic State announced, “The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared.” It made its case that ISIS could rightfully embody the caliphate because in its domains the Muslims were exalted and the infidels were humiliated, paying the Qur’anic tax (jizya) and submitting in humiliation to the Muslims, as specified in the Qur’an (9:29)—in the process sketching out a chilling picture of non-Muslims subjugated under the supremacy of Islam.
So ISIS would turn what they claimed was every Muslim’s dream into a reality and restore the caliphate. And “the khalifah [caliph] Ibrahim (may Allah preserve him) has fulfilled all the conditions for khilafah [caliphate] mentioned by the scholars.” And from that point on, all Muslims would owe allegiance to the Islamic State’s caliph: “We clarify to the Muslims that with this declaration of khilafah, it is incumbent upon all Muslims to pledge allegiance to the khalifah Ibrahim and support him (may Allah preserve him). The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah’s authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.”
Thus the Islamic State exhorted:
So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalifah, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war. . . . By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism,
nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.
Answering the Critics
What of those Muslims who doubted that the Islamic State’s claim to have restored the caliphate was really legitimate?
We—by Allah—do not find any shar’i (legal) excuse for you justifying your holding back from supporting this state. Take a stance on account of which Allah (the Exalted) will be pleased with you. The veil has been lifted and the truth has become clear. Indeed, it is the State. It is the state for the Muslims—the oppressed of them, the orphans, the widows, and the impoverished. If you support it, then you do so for your own good. . . . It is time for you to end this abhorrent partisanship, dispersion, and division, for this condition is not from the religion of Allah at all. And if you forsake the State or wage war against it, you will not harm it. You will only harm yourselves.
ISIS warned Muslims that “they will look for something to criticize and will attempt to raise misconceptions. So if they ask you, ‘How can you announce the khilafah when the ummah has not rallied behind you? For your authority is not accepted by the groups, factions, detachments, brigades, corps, banners, sects, parties, assemblies, councils, institutions, coordination teams, leagues, coalitions, armies, fronts, movements, and organizations.’”
The answer to all this dissension is a Qur’an verse: “But they will not cease to differ except whom your Lord has given mercy” (11:118–119). The
document added: “They have never united on a single issue, nor will they ever unite on any issue except for those whom Allah has mercy upon. Furthermore, the Islamic State will bring together those who want unity.”
NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM
In its declaration of the caliphate, the Islamic State asserted that when Muslims are obedient to Allah, they will be granted a successor of Muhammad to lead and unify them—and lose that successor when they are disobedient. This is a standard jihadist understanding of the disunity and weakness that they regard as besetting the Islamic world after the abolition of the caliphate in 1924.
Succession, establishment, and safety—a promise from Allah reserved for the Muslims, but with a condition. {They worship me [Allah] and do not associate anything with me} [An-Nur: 55 (
that is, Qur’an 24:55—ed
.)]. Having faith in Allah, keeping far from the gateways to shirk (polytheism) and its various shades, along with submitting to Allah’s command in everything big and small, and giving Him the level of obedience that makes your lusts, inclinations, and desires to be in compliance with what the Prophet (peace be upon him) came with—only after this condition is met will the promise be fulfilled. For by fulfilling this condition comes the ability to build, reform, remove oppression, spread justice, and bring about safety and tranquility. Only by meeting this condition, will there be the succession, which Allah informed the angels about.
13
The implication is that without total submission to the will of Allah, there can be no ability to build, or reform, or removal of oppression, or justice, safety, and tranquility. This makes the restoration of the caliphate all the more imperative.
The Islamic State anticipated a further question from skeptics: “If they tell you, ‘You have stepped over them and acted on your own judgment. Why did you not consult the other groups, pardon them, and tolerate them?’” Again ISIS supplied the answer: “Then say to them, ‘The issue is too urgent.’”
This argument was buttressed with another Qur’an quote: “And I hastened to You, my Lord, that You be pleased” (20:84), and then followed with criticism of other Muslim groups: “And say to them,
‘Whom would we consult? They never recognized the Islamic State to begin with, although America, Britain and France acknowledge its existence. Whom would we consult? Should we consult those who have abandoned us? Those who have betrayed us? Those who have disowned us and incited against us? Those who have become hostile towards us? Those who wage war against us? Whom would we consult, and whom did we step over?’”
And yet another objection was anticipated and dismissed: “And if they tell you, ‘We do not accept your authority’. Then say to them, ‘We had the ability to establish the khilafah, by the grace of Allah, so it became an obligation for us to do so. Therefore, we hastened in adherence to the command of Allah (the Exalted): ‘It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair’ [Al-Ahzab: 36 [
Qur’an 33:36
]].” In other words, they were able to restore the caliphate, and so they considered it their obligation to do so: if they hadn’t, they would have been shirking their responsibility before Allah.
Meet the New Caliph
Less than a week after declaring itself the caliphate, the Islamic State gave the world a look at the new caliphate, releasing a video on July 5, 2014, of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi speaking in the twelfth-century Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul.
14
Around the same time, the Islamic State published “A Message to the Mujahedin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan,” a statement from al-Baghdadi that appears to be the text of his inaugural speech as caliph.
Al-Baghdadi began with a pious effusion:
Truly all praise belongs to Allah. We praise Him, and seek His help and His forgiveness. We seek refuge with Allah from the evils of our souls and from the consequences of our deeds.
Whomever Allah guides can never be led astray, and whomever Allah leads astray can never be guided. I testify that there is no god except Allah—alone without any partners—and I testify that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is His slave and Messenger.
15
The new caliph followed that up with several quotations from the Qur’an, exhorting the believers to fear Allah (3:102; 4:1; 33:70–71; 2:183; 2:185). He then embarked upon an extended disquisition on the blessings of the month of Ramadan, which in 2014 began on June 28, the day before the declaration of the caliphate. The caliph’s point was to exhort the faithful to jihad:
And there is no deed in this virtuous month or in any other month better than jihad in the path of Allah, so take advantage of this opportunity and walk the path of your righteous predecessors. Support the religion of Allah through jihad in the path of Allah. Go forth, O mujahidin in the path of Allah. Terrify the enemies of Allah and seek death in the places where you expect to find it, for the dunya (worldly life) will come to an end, and the hereafter will last forever.
16
This, too, was buttressed with Qur’an quotes exhorting Muslims to wage war and not to prefer this life to the next, including: “So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior; and Allah is with you and will never deprive you of [the reward of] your deeds. This worldly life is only amusement and diversion” (47:35–36).
Al-Baghdadi exhorted jihadis to “be monks during the night and be knights during the day”—that is, to devote their nights to prayer and their days to warfare. For “by Allah, we will never be mujahidin as long as we are stingy with our lives and our wealth. By Allah, we will never be truthful
as long as we do not sacrifice our lives and wealth in order to raise high the word of Allah and bring victory to the religion of Allah.” He then quoted another Qur’an verse—the one that promises Paradise to those who “fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed” (9:111).
17
“So take up arms, take up arms, O soldiers of the Islamic State! And fight, fight!”
18
According to the new caliph, this warfare was necessary because Muslims are everywhere oppressed, being afflicted with “the worst kinds of torture. Their honor is being violated. Their blood is being spilled. Prisoners are moaning and crying for help. Orphans and widows are complaining of their plight. Women who have lost their children are weeping.” He added that mosques were being “desecrated and sanctities are violated.”
19
All this was happening worldwide: “Muslims’ rights are forcibly seized in China, India, Palestine, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, Sham (the Levant), Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Ahvaz, Iran [by the rafidah (shia)], Pakistan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, in the East and in the West.”
20
What to do in response? Fight: “So raise your ambitions, O soldiers of the Islamic State! For your brothers all over the world are waiting for your rescue, and are anticipating your brigades.”
21
OSTRICH ALERT
“Isil’s so-called caliphate has no moral legitimacy; it is a regime of torture, arbitrary punishment and murder that goes against the most basic beliefs of Islam.”
—British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond
22