Wellsprings of the Islamic State

A first-hand study of a range of IS supporters offers an insightful perspective of this organisation

The Way of the Strangers 

Encounters with the Islamic State

Author: Graeme Wood

Publisher: Allen Lane / Penguin Books 

Pages: 317

Special Indian price: Rs 699

Two years ago, Graeme Wood wrote an extended essay in The Atlantic titled: “What ISIS Really Wants”. Here, he made the assertion that the “Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” In this book, Wood has carried forward his investigation into the sources of the ideology and conduct of the Islamic State (IS).

Since he is unable to meet the main IS protagonists in Iraq and Syria, he has achieved the next best: he has interviewed the ideological supporters of the IS in different parts of the world. These include: an Egyptian tailor committed to Salafism; an Italian and an American convert to the IS cause, a Japanese convert to Islam with frequent interactions with IS leaders, and a Pakistani origin activist in the UK. He concludes his study with discussions with two prominent Muslim scholars in the US, one a Salafist and the other a Sufi.

Wood’s studies reveal several strands of affinity between the ideology and actions of the IS that its leaders have justified through references to Islamic sources and early ideologues.

Ideological moorings

Wood marvels at the allure of the IS that in 2014 attracted about 40,000 young jihadis to its ranks from different parts of the world, and despairs that for them “the killing was a source of profound fulfilment”. Wood also concludes that the “cause” of his various interlocutors who support the IS reflects “the emotions and convictions of tens of millions of others” who will continue to be inspired by the IS even when it loses its territory in Iraq and Syria. For these adherents, IS “is a way of thinking and living, of sharing joy and pity; it was a culture unto itself”.

Though Abu Bakr al Baghdadi remains a marginal figure in the book, Wood sheds considerable light on one who is at the centre of IS ideology, the young Bahraini scholar, Turki al Bin’ali, who is viewed as a “genius” by many commentators, and who projects “a fearsome lawyerly brilliance ... and an adolescent confidence in the rightness of his judgements”. Nurtured in jihad by the Jordanian intellectual, Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi, Bin’ali followed his mentor in pursuing the dream of an Islamic state, but rejected his counsel when Maqdisi advised against the establishment of the caliphate and questioned the right of the IS to speak for all Muslims. 

Wood notes that most mainstream Muslim scholars tend to dismiss IS’s basis in Islam, questioning the group’s scholarly credentials and linking its actions, instead, to “American foreign policy, neo-Baathist power politics, abnormal psychology, or secular grievance”. He contends that “religion matters deeply to the vast majority” of IS’s adherents, including such important matters of Islamic doctrine and practice as hijrah (migration to the land of believers), jihad and bayaah (loyalty pledge between the believer and the caliph).

Affinity with early Islamic groups

IS militants lead what are said to be Ethiopian Christians along a beach in Wilayat Barqa. Photo: Reuters 

Wood’s studies indicate the links of the IS with two marginal Islamic movements from early Islam, Dhahirism and Kharijism. Dhahirism goes back to the thinking of a 10th century scholar, Ibn Hazm, who insisted on a narrow and literal reading of Islam’s sacred texts and accepted only the consensus (ijma) of the Prophet’s companions, thus rejecting centuries of Muslim scholarship.

Present-day Muslim scholars have also seen links between the IS and the Kharijite group that emerged in the seventh century. Condemned in Muslim history for their betrayal of Hazrat Ali on the eve of battle and their mass killings of both Sunnis and Shias, they are universally despised by Muslims. Still, they have some important similarities with the IS: they reject mainstream Islamic authority; they promote revolt against unjust rulers and practise mass excommunication. Wood adds: “both groups are just really mean”. Bin’ali has rejected this conflation of IS with the Kharijites, and instead claims comparison with the Companions of the Prophet.

Wood paints an interesting portrait of the Pakistani-origin activist in the UK, Anjem Chaudary who, Wood says, has “presided over the reinvention of British jihadism as a scholarly, suave, intellectual pursuit as well as a terrorist one”. Chaudary is believed to have encouraged about half of the terrorist acts in the UK, including the London bombings of July 2005 and the killing of the soldier, Lee Rigby, in 2013. He has also influenced at least a hundred jihadis to join the IS.

Chaudary gives Wood the convoluted argument that the IS has a “sacred duty” to terrorise its enemies so that this terror, including beheadings, crucifixions and enslavement, “hastens victory and avoids prolonged conflict”. The caliphate, he contends, now obliges Muslims to wage “offensive jihad” against non-Muslim rulers, including Muslims declared apostate.

Wood’s discussions with mainstream Islamic scholars leaves both sides deeply dissatisfied. The Salafist and the Sufi are unable to deny that the IS is a “Muslim phenomenon”, even though it is wicked and very violent. Thus, it is in the same league as extremist groups in other mainstream faiths, but this does not negate its Muslim identity, given that it is backed by Muslims and consults the same texts as other Muslims do.

Looking at the future, Wood believes that defeat at Mosul and Raqqa will not mark the end of the IS: its leaders have already prepared bases in various spots across West Asia, places that are convulsed in “unrest and criminality”. As Wood points out, IS knows that “people who live in intolerably violent conditions will seek salvation from anyone who credibly offers it ... Wherever there is grievance, savagery can be sown ... [and] the nightmare can endure.”

With his first-hand investigations and detailed interviews with IS protagonists, Graeme Wood has made an excellent contribution to studies relating to the Islamic State. While there is little dispute today regarding IS’s roots in Islam, Wood has brought to the subject a personal touch and immediacy, embellished with witty colloquialisms that would attract the general reader.  
 

The reviewer is a former diplomat