Broadcasting brutal murder videos, enslaving religious minorities, training and deploying child soldiers, carrying out suicide bombings at crowded intersections – these are just some of the heinous crimes committed by the Islamic State (ISIS). To a certain extent, such acts mirror tactics employed by other violent extremist and paramilitary groups, but what separates ISIS from the pack is its ideological message and its means of promulgating its message. So the question emerges: what drives the Islamic State?
From a birds-eye view, ISIS’ ideology can be divided into three main components.
The first is the group’s Salafi interpretation of Islam. Salafism, which originates from the Arabic word salaf, meaning ancestor, refers to a version of Islam practiced by the Prophet Muhammad and the earliest generations of Muslims in the seventh century. Those who adhere to Salafism believe that it is their obligation to purify the Islamic faith by ensuring a return of “civilization to a seventh-century legal environment.”
“Salafis view themselves as the only true Muslims, considering those who practice so-called ‘major idolatry’ to be outside the bounds of the Islamic faith,” explains Cole Bunzel, an expert in ISIS’ theology.
ISIS subscribes to a brand of Salafism that licenses violence against all those, including fellow Muslims, who do not share the Salafi perspective.
“For violent Salafis, a failure to adopt their worldview is an expression of one’s deliberate rejection of Islam – a rejection that justifies a person’s excommunication from the fold of Islam (takfir) and permits violence to be carried out against them,” writes Jacob Olidort, a leading scholar on Salafism.
“In Islam, the practice of takfir, or excommunication, is theologically perilous,” says Graeme Wood in The Atlantic. “Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people,” he continues.
Devotion to takfiri doctrine is a distinguishing factor between ISIS and al Qaeda. Whereas ISIS aims to destroy or forcibly convert anyone who fails to adopt their version of Islam, al Qaeda seeks to lure in “non-believers” and convert them to their cause by providing basic services and demonstrating that life under their governance is preferable. “While ISIS is inciting a global jihad, al Qaeda is trying to grow one,” explains Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
The second pillar of ISIS’ ideology is an insistence that Islam play an essential role in the group’s political system. This is demonstrated by ISIS’ caliphate, where the political leader or Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is also ISIS’ religious authority.
ISIS “believes a politicized version of Islam must dominate all other forms of social order in a caliphate, which should become global. Their interpretation of Sharia controls all forms of human activity,” explains Cipher Brief expert Tom Quiggin. The convergence of religion and state in the form of a caliphate is fundamental to ISIS’ mantra and appeal.
Third, ISIS strongly advocates an apocalyptic vision of a global jihad in which the Muslim world battles the West to achieve global dominion. One element of global jihad is defensive jihad, a concept championed by al Qaeda, where it is a duty incumbent upon Muslims to protect Muslim controlled lands from Western crusaders and invaders. Defensive jihad – first formulated in the 1980s by the Afghan mujahideen who fought to repel the Soviet Union – is based on the perception that Muslim lands are under attack by secular Western rulers seeking to impose their will and that all Muslims must take up arms to defeat this threat.
ISIS takes its jihadi narrative a step further, calling for an offensive jihad aimed at eliminating all non-believers worldwide, even if they do not pose a threat to traditional Muslim lands. In a 2007 speech, the first leader of ISIS, Abu Umar al Baghdadi (not to be confused with current ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi) stated that the purpose of jihad is to ensure that no idolaters or non-believers remain in the world. It is critical to go “after the apostate unbelievers by attacking [them] in their home territory, in order to make God’s word most high and until there is no persecution,” Baghdadi declared.
Perhaps just as important as its philosophy is ISIS’ ability to disseminate its theology through social media and other technological tools. ISIS’ exploitation of technology to push its message has far exceeded al Qaeda's reach.
As ISIS continues to promote its radical views and carry out malicious attacks, combatting their ideology remains key to suppressing their campaign.
In an exclusive interview with The Cipher Brief, Michael Waltz, President of Metis Solutions and former Senior Advisor and Policy Director in the White House and Pentagon, put it best. “Today, you don’t see groups like the Shining Path in Peru or the Red Brigades in Italy effectively able to recruit anymore or even exist. Why? Because their ideology has been discredited. That’s the ultimate goal and that’s really what ultimate success will look like in this long war,” Waltz says.
Bennett Seftel is the Deputy Director of Editorial at The Cipher Brief.
